Logically this makes sense and has been backed up by past security research. However, researchers at Georgia Tech have found hidden paths in cyber-physical systems that attackers can use to disrupt or even destroy them.
To find these hidden paths before an attacker does, the researchers built a testing tool called ICSFlux. This new tool leans on the physics used by the industrial process and maps out the system to find new threats that were once thought impossible.
ICSFlux was deployed across 11 different programmable logic controllers in six industrial sectors, including chemical manufacturing, water treatment, power grids, aircraft, desalination, and waste processing. The process uncovered twenty genuine safety violations.
In one case drawn from a chemical-plant simulation, an attack path uncovered by the tool drove a reactor past its safe pressure limit and into a simulated explosion. By using nothing but valid operator commands, the team took the reactor from a completely normal and stable state to critical territory.
Because the method relies only on the physics of a process and not on the details of any one controller, the same tool worked across all six sectors without being rebuilt, and it reduced the search space by roughly 50%.
Burak Sahin, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech and the study's lead author, found that by sending a series of perfectly normal, fully authorized commands, intruders can slowly nudge a physical process toward a dangerous state.
“These systems are usually judged safe as long as nobody hacks into them,'' Sahin said. “What we found is that an attacker who can send everyday commands, the same ones a normal operator sends, can patiently steer the process toward a failure. No single command looks wrong, which is exactly why the usual defenses miss it.''
Most existing tools assume an attacker can rewire the controller or change the software inside it. In the real world, those controllers are locked down and cannot be touched. ICSFlux takes the opposite and more realistic view. It treats the controller as a sealed box that cannot be opened and works only with the commands an operator is normally allowed to send.
Rather than measuring how much of a controller's software it has exercised, the usual yardstick for this kind of testing, ICSFlux measures how close the physical system is getting to an unsafe limit and steers its testing in that direction.
“Two different sensor readings can run through the exact same code and still send a reactor in completely different directions,'' Sahin said. “Looking only at the software tells you nothing about whether the physical system is safe. We had to follow the physics, not the code.''
One of the study's most important takeaways emerged when the researchers tightened the safety margins to see whether caution alone would help. Even when every command stayed within approved limits, the way the controller reacted to a steady stream of small adjustments could still cause pressure to overshoot and the reactor to fail. In other words, staying inside the rules was not always enough.
All of the team's experiments were carried out on secured, controlled test beds. The work was conducted with Georgia Tech's Cyber-Physical Systems Security Lab, whose research spans the security of cyber-physical systems from industrial programmable logic controllers to marine, automotive, and drone platforms. Georgia Tech's Cyber Forensics Innovation Laboratory, a team of researchers who work together to further the investigation of advanced cyber crimes and the analysis and prevention of next-generation malware attacks, also contributed to the paper.
The labs are a collaboration between the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Fuzzing the Physical Space: Physics-Aware Testing of Black-Box Industrial Control Systems' was accepted to the 2026 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. In addition to Sahin, the team includes Ph.D. students David Oygenblik, Mingxuan Yao, and Yizhi Huang as well as Associate Professors Brendan Saltaformaggio, and Saman Zonouz.
]]>Logically this makes sense and has been backed up by past security research. However, researchers at Georgia Tech have found hidden paths in cyber-physical systems that attackers can use to disrupt or even destroy them.
To find these hidden paths before an attacker does, the researchers built a testing tool called ICSFlux. This new tool leans on the physics used by the industrial process and maps out the system to find new threats that were once thought impossible.
]]>Communications Officer II at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy
]]>This concept of “lab tool as lab assistant” is the premise of a recent paper in npj | Computational Materials titled “Thinking Microscopes: Agentic AI and the Future of Electron Microscopy,” by Vida Jamali, assistant professor the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Amirali Aghazadeh, assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Josh Kacher, associate professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering.
In the paper, the team introduces the concept of “thinking electron microscopes,” in which agentic AI systems are directly integrated with the instrument. This allows microscopes to move beyond their conventional role as characterization tools and toward functioning as co-scientists for human users.
Drawing on advances in specialized large language models, or LLMs, that demonstrate their ability to collaborate, reason over data, and integrate prior knowledge, the team envisions specialized LLM-based agents assigned to specific roles and areas of knowledge expertise. By explicitly incorporating domain knowledge into specialized agents and distributing information across multiple agents with focused expertise, the approach enables parallel evaluation of competing hypotheses, clearer separation of roles — such as planning, simulation, and critique — and more transparent and robust reasoning.
Within the experimental pipeline, these agents can analyze materials’ properties, physical data, chemical processes, and other relevant parameters. They could also collaborate with an agent that specializes in experimental design, refining iterative closed-loop experimentation, and real-time scientific discovery.
Although the research focuses on AI collaboration, the team notes that human researchers must retain accountability for the accuracy and integrity of both the experimental process and the results reported. This oversight begins with advocating for greater open access to research materials in all formats, building community-driven data repositories, and adopting standardization in how experimental parameters and metadata are reported. Equally important, researchers should be willing to report data from failed experiments as well as successful outcomes. Finally, organizations should work together to standardize secure APIs that enable shared, remote access to infrastructure across distances.
We see this as a step toward scientific instruments that do more than acquire data; systems that can reason over experiments, adapt measurements, and participate in the scientific discovery process alongside researchers. - Vida Jamali, assistant professor the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
The team is already developing these systems by connecting cloud-based, agentic infrastructures to microscopes at the Institute for Matter and Systems at Georgia Tech. With the addition of agentic AI, the goal is to accelerate discovery and engineering of new nanoscale materials for energy and quantum applications, as well as advance capabilities in cryo-electron microscopy and structural biology. These tools can optimize data collection, link real-time microscope observations with structural models of proteins, and dynamically adjust and prioritize experiments. The team sees this work as the first step toward the next generation of “thinking” electron microscopes, as well as an advancement in scientific discovery across domains.
- Christa M. Ernst
This research is supported by the Institute for Data Engineering and Science and the Institute for Matter and Systems
Original Publication
Jamali, V., Aghazadeh, A. & Kacher, J. Thinking microscopes: agentic AI and the future of electron microscopy. npj Computational Materials 12, 149 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41524-026-02077-y
“Attending the 75th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting is both an honor and a responsibility: a chance to represent my academic community which focuses on the study of elusive particles called neutrinos while learning from those who have shaped the field,” says Papadopoulou, who will join Georgia Tech as a School of Physics assistant professor in August 2026. “I hope to come away with a deeper understanding of how transformative ideas emerge and how to cultivate the kind of leadership and vision needed to guide future large-scale scientific efforts that will unravel some of the mysteries of the universe.”
Papadopoulou obtained her Ph.D. in experimental physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As part of her research, she analyzed neutrino data collected by the MicroBooNE detector at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois and electron scattering data from the Jefferson Lab in Virginia.
In 2022, she joined Argonne National Laboratory as a Maria Goeppert Mayer Fellow, continuing her research as a member of the MicroBooNE, Short-Baseline Near Detector, Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, and Jefferson Lab’s Electrons-For-Neutrinos collaborations. Her work focuses on testing the performance of simulation predictions against existing and new neutrino and electron data sets.
Papadopoulou currently serves as a J. Robert Oppenheimer Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory where she is working to better understand neutrino interactions.
]]>Published today in the journal Nature Communications, the paper “Trivalent Titanium in High-Titanium Lunar Ilmenite” confirms titanium in a reduced, trivalent state in a black, metal-rich lunar mineral called ilmenite. It’s a state only possible in low-oxygen environments, conditions researchers refer to as “reducing.”
“Models have suggested that these reducing conditions may have varied at different locations and times across the surface of the Moon,” says lead author Advik Vira, a graduate student in the School of Physics who recently earned his doctoral degree. “We hope our microscopy technique can be a valuable step in mapping and understanding the Moon’s 4.5-billion-year history.”
The team anticipates that their technique could be used on many of the lunar samples collected more than 50 years ago by the Apollo missions in addition to the Apollo Next Generation Samples — a group of lunar samples that have been stored under pristine conditions — and new samples from the planned Artemis missions, with Artemis II slated for launch this spring. The technique might also be applicable to samples collected from the far side of the Moon and returned in 2024 by the Chang’e-6 mission.
“The Moon holds clues not only to its own past, but also to the earliest eras of Earth’s evolution — history that has long since been erased from our planet,” Vira says. “This study is a step toward understanding the history of both and a reminder that there is still so much left to learn from the lunar rocks we’ve brought back to Earth.”
The School of Physics research team included corresponding authors Vira and Professor Phillip First; in addition to graduate student Roshan Trivedi; undergraduate students Gabriella Dotson, Keyes Eames, Dean Kim, and Emma Livernois; and Professor Zhigang Jiang, along with Institute for Matter and Systems Materials Characterization Facility Senior Research Scientist Mengkun Tian; School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Senior Research Scientist Brant Jones and Thom Orlando, Regents' Professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry with a joint appointment in the School of Physics.
The Georgia Tech team was joined by Addis Energy Senior Geochemist Katherine Burgess; Macalester College Assistant Professor of Geology Emily First; along with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Research Scientist Harrison Lisabeth, Senior Scientist Nobumichi Tamura, and Postdoctoral Fellow Tyler Farr, who recently earned a Ph.D. from Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.
The investigation began with a dark gray rock called a lunar basalt. Formed when ancient magma erupted on the Moon’s surface, minerals crystallized as it cooled — preserving key information in their structures. Billions of years later, the rock was brought to Earth by the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, where a small piece is now stored at Georgia Tech’s Center for Lunar Environment and Volatile Exploration Research (CLEVER), a NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) center led by Orlando.
As a NASA virtual institute, CLEVER supports researchers exploring lunar conditions and developing tools for the upcoming crewed Artemis missions, and provided the lunar samples for this research. The SSERVI also plays a critical role in training the next generation of planetary researchers: both Vira and Farr earned their Ph.D.s while on the CLEVER team.
“At CLEVER, we are very interested in understanding the impacts of space weathering,” Vira says. “We implemented modern sample preparation and advanced microscopy techniques to image samples at the atomic level, and were curious to apply it more broadly to the collection of Apollo rocks in the Orlando Lab. This sample caught our attention.”
“When we imaged an ilmenite crystal from the lunar basalt, what struck us first was how uniform and perfect the crystal structure was,” he recalls. “We found no defects from space weathering and instead saw an undamaged, pristine crystal — undisturbed for 3.8 billion years.”
To investigate further, the team analyzed small chips of the rock with Burgess, a member of the RISE2 SSERVI team and then a geologist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Using state-of-the-art electron microscopy and spectroscopy techniques, Vira determined the oxidation state of the elements in the ilmenite present.
In spectroscopy measurements, each element leaves a distinct ‘signature,’ Vira explains. “When we brought our results back to Georgia Tech’s Materials Characterization Facility, Mengkun (Tian) noticed something unusual: the signature showed titanium might be present in the trivalent state.”
The presence of trivalent titanium had long been suspected in this lunar mineral. The team was intrigued.
With funding from Georgia Tech’s Center for Space Technology and Research (CSTAR), Vira returned to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to analyze additional samples. The results confirmed that more titanium was present than the mineral’s formula (FeTiO₃) predicts — indicating a portion of the titanium present was trivalent.
“That led me to place our measurements in terms of the broader geological context,” Vira shares. Working with First, Vira explored how ilmenite with trivalent titanium could help reconstruct the nature of ancient magmas from the Moon, especially the chemical availability of oxygen.
“Because its location on the Moon was noted during the Apollo mission, we know exactly where this rock is from, and we can determine how old the rock is,” he explains. “When coupled with our trivalent titanium measurements, we can use that information to estimate the reducing conditions for this specific region at the specific time our rock formed.”
If the upcoming Artemis missions return samples suitable for the team’s technique, these rocks could provide a new window into ancient lunar geology. The research also highlights that many lunar samples already on Earth could be reexamined to look for trivalent titanium.
“There is still so much to learn from the lunar samples we have already brought to Earth,” Vira says. “It’s a testament to the long-term value of each sample return mission. As technology continues to advance, this type of work will continue to give us critical insights into our planet and our place in the universe for years to come.”
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-69770-w
Funding: This work was directly supported by the NASA SSERVI under CLEVER. Researchers were also supported by the NASA RISE2 SSERVI and the Heising-Simons Foundation. Funding for collaborations between the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Georgia Tech for the investigation of lunar minerals was provided by the Georgia Tech Center for Space Technology and Research. Sample preparation was performed at the Georgia Tech Institute for Matter and Systems, which is supported by the National Science Foundation. This work utilized the resources of the Advanced Light Source, a user facility supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and was supported in part by previous breakthroughs obtained through the Laboratory Direct.
]]>Selena Langner
College of Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
Applying the Scheimpflug technique, the researchers are developing inexpensive rangefinder camera technology, advanced sensors and computational techniques to both complement and provide an alternative to established light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technology in certain applications. The technique works best in short- and medium-distance metrology, and can be used passively or in collaboration with laser-based techniques.
“The Scheimpflug technique is a complete alternative to time-of-flight (ToF) LiDAR, and we’re looking for everything we can do with it,” said Nathan Meraz, a GTRI senior research scientist who has been refining the new applications for several years. “It measures things differently, and since it’s a camera sensor, there’s a lot more information to process compared to a LiDAR signal. And there are also data fusion aspects.”
A paper on the technique and its potential remote sensing applications was presented during 2025 at the SPIE Defense + Commercial Systems (DCS) Conference. The research was supported by GTRI’s Independent Research and Development (IRAD) program and also has been advanced by teams of student researchers from the GTRI Research Internship Program (GRIP).
See the complete article on the GTRI news site
“Since I was a student, APS has been my professional home — hosting my first conference talk and networking opportunity, publishing my first paper, and offering me mentoring over the years,” says Cadonati, who is a member of Georgia Tech’s Center for Relativistic Astrophysics. “Serving on the APS Board of Directors now is a privilege and an opportunity to amplify the voices of physicists at every career stage.”
Cadonati’s primary research interests include gravitational wave and particle astrophysics. Since 2002, she has been a member of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration. Cadonati has held several leadership roles with LIGO, including heading its data analysis and astrophysics division during the discovery of gravitational waves — a breakthrough which led to the project's founders receiving the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Previously, she was a member of the Borexino Collaboration, focused on solar neutrino detection, and the DarkSide Collaboration, centered on the direct detection of dark matter.
Cadonati earned her Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University and completed postdoctoral research at Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before joining Georgia Tech in 2015, she was an associate professor of physics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her honors include an APS Fellowship, National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Consortium Distinguished Lecturer Award, Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Faculty Research Author Award, and the Technische Universität München Institute for Advanced Study Hans Fischer Senior Fellowship, which was awarded in 2025.
]]>The Department of Energy Office of Science recently released two reports through its Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program. The reports were produced by workshops that brought together researchers from universities, national labs, government, and industry to set priorities for scientific computing.
Professor Felix Herrmann served on the organizing committee for the Workshop on Inverse Methods for Complex Systems under Uncertainty. Assistant Professor Peng Chen joined Herrmann as a workshop participant, contributing expertise in data science and machine learning.
Inverse methods work backward from outcomes to find their causes. Scientists use these tools to study complex systems, like designing new materials with targeted properties and using past wildfires to map vulnerable areas and behavior of future fires.
The ASCR report highlighted Herrmann’s work on seismic exploration and monitoring through digital twins. Founded on inverse methods, digital twins upgrade from static models to virtual systems that accurately mirror their physical counterparts.
Digital twins integrate real-time data sources, including fluid flows, monitoring and control systems, risk assessments, and human decisions. These models also account for uncertainty and address data gaps or limitations.
The DOE organized the workshop to support the growing role of inverse modeling. The group identified four priority research directions (PRDs) to guide future work. The PRDs are:
“A digital twin is a system you can control, like to optimize operations or to minimize risk,” said Herrmann, who holds joint appointments in the Schools of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computational Science and Engineering.
“Digital twins give you a principled way to consider uncertainties, which there are a lot in subsurface monitoring. If you inject carbon dioxide too fast, you will will increase the pressure and may fracture the rock. If you inject too slow, then the process may become too costly. Digital twins help us make balanced decisions under uncertainty.”
Supercomputers, algorithms, and artificial intelligence now power modern science. However, these tools consume enormous amounts of energy. This raises concerns about how to sustain computing and scientific research as we know them in the decades ahead.
Professors Rich Vuduc and Hyesoon Kim co-authored the report from the Workshop on Energy-Efficient Computing for Science. At the three-day ASCR workshop, participants identified five key research directions:
“I’m cautiously optimistic about the future of energy-efficient computing. The ASCR report says, from a technological point of view, there are things we can do,” said Vuduc.
“The report lays out paths for how we might design better apps, hardware systems, and algorithms that will use less energy. This is recognition that we should think about how architectures and software work together to drive down energy usage for systems.”
]]>The Department of Energy Office of Science recently released two reports through its Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program. The reports were produced by workshops that brought together researchers from universities, national labs, government, and industry to set priorities for scientific computing.
]]>“This year’s class is a truly impressive cohort,” said Paul R. Sanberg, FNAI, president of NAI. “I commend them on their incredible pursuits, and I’m honored to welcome them to the Academy.”
Raman is a physicist, inventor, and technology entrepreneur whose work is helping shape the future of quantum sensing. As the Dunn Family Professor of Physics, he studies how atoms behave at extremely low temperatures and uses that knowledge to build new kinds of ultra-precise measurement devices.
Best known for the co-invention of chip‑scale atomic beam technology — a breakthrough that makes it possible to build tiny quantum sensors for navigation and timing — Raman and his team’s patented devices can operate where GPS fails. These inventions form the foundation for a new generation of manufactured quantum hardware, offering new capabilities for autonomous vehicles, aerospace systems, and national security.
To bring these technologies from the lab to real-world use, he founded 8Seven8, Inc.:
“By launching 8Seven8 as the first quantum hardware company in Georgia, we are creating high-tech jobs, building a skilled workforce pipeline, and seeding a quantum ecosystem in the Southeast that will see lasting economic benefits,” explains Raman. “We seek to establish the region as a player in the rapidly expanding quantum technology economy.”
He is the principal investigator for the Raman Lab, a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a frequent invited speaker at international conferences, and an advisor to national and space-based quantum initiatives. Raman holds six patents, including three issued U.S. patents and two licensed patents. Through his research, mentorship, and entrepreneurial leadership, he is working to advance scientific discovery and the development of practical technologies with lasting impact.
“This award is the culmination of years of effort in developing innovative approaches to bringing quantum sensing out of the lab,” says Raman. “The NAI is chock-full of wonderful inventors, and I am privileged to be among them. Through this award, I hope to bring useful inventions out of the lab and promote Georgia as a great place to be an entrepreneur.”
Azoulay is the Georgia Research Alliance Vasser-Woolley Distinguished Investigator in Optoelectronics and the principal investigator for the Azoulay Group. His research has pioneered the development of new classes of functional materials and made field-leading advancements in core areas spanning:
· Homogeneous catalysis applied to polymer synthesis
· Electronic, photonic, spin, magnetic, and quantum materials
· Device fabrication and engineering
· Chemical sensing for environmental monitoring
· Synthesis, application, and engineering of high-performance polymers across multiple technology platforms.
Azoulay has demonstrated new classes of organic semiconductors with infrared functionality by exploiting new light-matter interactions, analyzing emergent transport phenomena, and understanding device physics, functionality, and engineering considerations. His work has resulted in nine issued patents and many additional applications.
Additionally, he is the principal investigator for two multi-million-dollar National Science Foundation (NSF) grants. The first grant harnesses an underused part of the electromagnetic spectrum for energy sensing, manufacturing, and more. His team creates organic polymers that can efficiently convert infrared radiation into electrical signals and develop the materials into functional devices. The initiative is the NSF’s principal vehicle to continue the momentum of the decade-long Materials Genome Initiative and takes advantage of the power of machine learning and chemical synthesis to develop new functional materials.
The second NSF-funded program develops CP-based optical and electrical sensing platforms that operate in complex aqueous environments and enable the detection and discrimination of challenging analytes known to negatively impact human, biota, and ecosystem health.
Azoulay holds a joint appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and leads Georgia Tech’s Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE). COPE-affiliated faculty create flexible organic photonic and electronic materials and devices that serve the information technology, telecommunications, energy, and defense sectors.
]]>Historically, most engineers believed the former, using heterogeneities, or differences, in materials to make materials stronger and more resilient. However, research from Georgia Tech is showing that, in some cases, heterogeneities make materials weaker and can even accelerate cracks.
Led by School of Physics Assistant Professor Itamar Kolvin, the study, “Dual Role for Heterogeneity in Dynamic Fracture,” was published in Physical Review Letters this fall.
While Kolvin’s work is theoretical, the results of the research are widely applicable. “Predicting this type of toughening effect helps engineers decide how much reinforcement to add to a material, and the best way to do so,” he says. “Cracks are complex — they interact with the material, change shape, and respond dynamically. All of this affects the overall toughness, which impacts safety.”
The study found that the key to crack behavior starts at the microscopic level where the material’s microscopic structure influences how it resists cracks running at different speeds.
“Cracks propagate by breaking bonds, and that costs energy,” he explains. “On top of this, materials experience extreme deformations close to where the crack runs, which costs additional energy. In some materials, the amount of this energy cost can depend on the crack’s speed because of microscopic friction between molecules.”
Other materials, like window glass, are mostly indifferent to the crack speed. These materials are made of simple molecules, allowing a crack to propagate slowly or quickly using the same amount of energy. The researchers found that including heterogeneities can help strengthen these materials.
Materials made of more complex molecules, like polymer plastics and gels, on the other hand, are velocity dependent: it takes more energy for a crack to propagate faster. In these materials, heterogeneities are less effective at toughening, and if the crack is fast enough, heterogeneities could help it advance. “That’s something we didn’t expect when we started,” Kolvin says.
After discovering which types of materials can benefit from heterogeneities, Kolvin wanted to investigate the best way to add them. “Natural materials like rocks are usually very messy and disordered,” he explains, “but in engineering, heterogenous materials tend to be patterned.” For example, imagine a manufactured material: heterogeneities may be added in a grid-like or other patterned way. Now, contrast that with the irregular freckles and inclusions you might see in a rock found in a streambed.
Kolvin’s question was simple: which material was stronger? The results, again, were surprising. The disordered case — similar to what is found in nature — created the toughest material.
Among the patterned materials the team tested, only one was as tough as the disordered case — and every other pattern tested made the material weaker.
At Georgia Tech, Kolvin’s lab focuses on the mechanics of materials — both solid and fluid. “We are using our expertise in physics to explore questions across different fields,” he says. “A common concept is treating materials as continua — zooming out from molecular detail to look at how materials deform and flow at the large scale.”
This current research follows suit with applications ranging from investigating the smallest material microstructures to predicting earthquake fractures. “Earthquake faults are highly disordered, and simulating these ruptures is a major challenge, usually requiring supercomputers to solve crack propagation in three dimensions,” Kolvin says. “But with the tools our study has developed, we can simulate similar conditions and large systems using just a desktop computer.”
“This opens the doors for scientists, engineers, physicists, and geologists to explore problems right from their own computer, allowing more researchers access to more tools,” he adds. “And new tools often lead to new discoveries.”
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/j4vb-y1ng
]]>"The IOP has a long and distinguished history as the primary learned society and professional body for physicists in the U.K., Ireland, and beyond,” says Kamerlin, who completed both a Master of Natural Sciences and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Organic Chemistry from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. “As a society, it plays an important role in building community, promoting science, advancing advocacy for our discipline, and supporting the next generation of physicists.”
Kamerlin joins a list of distinguished Fellows that includes legendary physicists such as Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a preeminent astrophysicist responsible for the discovery of pulsars (a previously unknown type of star) and the first female president of the IOP.
“It is a great honor to be awarded Fellowship of the IOP, particularly as women more broadly remain vastly underrepresented in physics,” Kamerlin says. “I look forward to giving back to the physics community, supporting the mission of the society, and working to remind the next generation that physics is for everyone."
Kamerlin’s research in computational biophysics is at the intersection of chemistry and biology, where she focuses on investigating fundamental physical chemistry and using computational tools to understand complex biomolecular problems. Currently, she is interested in leveraging machine learning tools to design new enzymes and in predicting protein structures and behaviors using large language models.
In addition to her roles at Georgia Tech, Kamerlin is a senior editor of Protein Science, the editor-in-chief of Electronic Structure, and was named a 2025-27 visiting professor at Lund University. She was also named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, received the 2026 Inspiration and Resilience Award from the Biochemical Society, and was the 2023 Biophysical Society Theory & Computation Subgroup Mid-Career Award Winner.
]]>“The Sloan Research Fellows are among the most promising early-career researchers in the U.S. and Canada, already driving meaningful progress in their respective disciplines,” says Stacie Bloom, president and chief executive officer of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “We look forward to seeing how these exceptional scholars continue to unlock new scientific advancements, redefine their fields, and foster the wellbeing and knowledge of all.”
"This is a wonderful and welcome surprise that will support my ongoing research on mountains across the globe,” says Freeman. “It's a vote of confidence and will let me get out there and get to work."
Freeman is one of 126 scientists selected this year for the honor and will receive a two-year $75,000 grant of flexible funding to support his research.
He joins the ranks of nearly 50 faculty from Georgia Tech who have received Sloan Research Fellowships, including School of Mathematics’ Alex Blumenthal in 2024, Hannah Choi in 2022, Yao Yao in 2020, Konstantin Tikhomirov in 2019, Lutz Warnke in 2018, Zaher Hani in 2016, Jen Hom in 2015, and Greg Blekherman in 2012; School of Chemistry and Biochemistry's Vinayak Agarwal in 2018; School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences' Christopher Reinhard in 2015; and School of Physics’ Chunhui (Rita) Du in 2024 and Tamara Bogdanović in 2013.
Freeman joined the Institute in 2023 and was also recently named a 2024 Packard Fellow by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and 2025 Early Career Fellow by the Ecological Society of America.
Known for his groundbreaking research in climate change and bird ecology, Freeman studies birds worldwide from Appalachia to Ecuador. He specializes in tropical populations where his work is centered on understanding how mountain species respond to a changing climate — and how to facilitate their survival.
“Tropical mountains are some of Earth’s largest biodiversity hotspots; they harbor an extraordinary number of species,” shares Freeman. “Additionally, tropical mountain birds are particularly sensitive to environmental change, so they can serve as an early warning system for global conservation efforts.”
Previously, his research has shown that some species are on an ‘escalator to extinction’ with vulnerable groups moving to higher elevations to escape warming temperatures. At the top of the escalator, some summit-dwelling species are disappearing.
“We know that many species are on this escalator,” Freeman says. “The next step is to figure out which species are most vulnerable and why. In order to direct conservation efforts, we need to know who is vulnerable, why small increases in temperature have dramatic effects, and what can be done to help.”
To uncover those answers, Freeman is taking two approaches: mapping global patterns with big picture data and conducting on-the-ground research in the tropics.
To target the former, he created the Mountain Bird Network, which supports community scientists in conducting bird surveys on their local mountains. The goal is to create a system that allows researchers to diagnose vulnerable species before they are too sparse to save.
“When a species is in trouble, we need to know as soon as possible,” Freeman says. “Once a population is small enough to be at risk of extinction, it’s very hard to reverse that process. The Mountain Bird Network collects data on mountain bird abundances and distributions across the globe, which, when used with data from a global citizen science program called eBird, can be leveraged to build models to identify which species might be vulnerable before those populations become critically small.”
Freeman’s other avenue of research involves building an ambitious living laboratory in Pinchincha, Ecuador. The research site will span thousands of meters along the flanks of a local mountain, spanning lowland rainforest, foothill rainforest, and cloud forest ecosystems.
“The mountain is home to thousands of birds from hundreds of species,” Freeman says. “My goal is to track and understand their daily lives — and how climate changes impact them.”
Using cutting-edge tracking technology, he will tag and monitor their daily movements, mapping those against microclimate sensors placed at different elevations along the mountain’s slopes. The challenge of placing and maintaining thousands of tiny sensors in rugged conditions means that it has never been done before.
“We’ll track these birds for at least five years –- but hopefully for decades,” Freeman says. “The data we gather at Tech Mountain will be the first of its kind, and my hope is that it makes a real difference in conservation efforts worldwide.”
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