The paper, The Borderlands of Foldability: Lessons from Simplified Proteins, is a meta-analysis of six decades of protein research and reveals that ancient proteins may have been far more complicated and dynamic than previously thought.
Recently published in the journal Trends in Chemistry, the study includes Georgia Tech researchers Lynn Kamerlin, professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Georgia Research Alliance Vasser-Woolley Chair in Molecular Design, and Quantitative Biosciences Ph.D. candidate Alfie-Louise Brownless.
Co-authors also include Institute of Science Tokyo graduate student Koh Seya and Liam M. Longo, who serves as a specially appointed associate professor at Science Tokyo and as an affiliate research scientist at the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science.
The research has implications ranging from the origins of life and the search for life in the universe to cutting-edge medical innovation. “One of the biggest unanswered questions in science is how life first began,” says Kamerlin, who is a corresponding author of the study. “Understanding how the first protein-like molecules formed and what the earliest proteins may have been like is a key part of that puzzle.”
“Proteins power our bodies — and all life on Earth,” she adds. “Simply put, the evolution of proteins is the reason that we’re able to have this conversation at all.”
If proteins are the scaffolding of life, amino acids are the components that make up that scaffolding. “Today, an average protein is constructed from a chain of about 300 amino acids, involving 20 different types of amino acids,” Kamerlin shares. Proteins fold when these chains twist into a specific 3-dimensional shape, creating structures critical for biology.
However, while these folds are essential, exactly how a protein knows which way to fold remains a mystery. “We know that proteins didn’t just fold randomly,” Kamerlin shares, “because randomly trying all possible configurations would take a protein longer than the age of the universe.”
It’s a cornerstone problem in biological science called “Levinthal’s Paradox,” and highlights a fundamental mystery: Proteins fold incredibly quickly into very specific combinations — but like a sheet of paper spontaneously folding into an origami swan, researchers don’t know how proteins “choose” the folds they make.
“We can predict what a protein will look like, but can’t tell you how it got there,” Kamerlin adds. “That’s what we’re interested in exploring: how small early proteins developed into the complex proteins that support every living thing on today’s Earth.”
Early proteins likely had access to just half of today’s amino acids. “About 10-12 amino acids were likely available on early Earth,” Kamerlin says. Like writing a story with just the letters “A” through “L,” researchers assumed that the ‘vocabulary’ proteins could build from such a limited amino acid alphabet would also be constrained.
“There is a language to protein folding,” Kamerlin explains. “That language is hidden in their structures. Our research is in trying to understand the rules — the grammar and vocabulary that dictate a protein fold.”
The grammar they discovered was surprising: with a combination of creative techniques and environmental support, complex structures can arise from limited amino acid alphabets.
“We found that it is possible to develop complex folds with very simple tools — and certain environments, like salty ones, can help support that,” Kamerlin shares. “Early proteins could also cross-link and associate, interacting like LEGO blocks to create more complex structures.”
Now, the team is conducting research in environments that could mimic conditions on early Earth — aiming to discover more about how these regions could have given rise to today’s complex proteins. “This aspect of our research also ties into the amazing space research happening at Georgia Tech,” Kamerlin says. “While we’re interested in understanding early life on Earth, our work could help inform where best to look for evidence of life beyond our planet.”
Kamerlin specializes in creating computer models that simulate possible scenarios – creating an opportunity to quickly and efficiently test many theories. The most compelling of these can then be tested by her collaborator and co-author at Science Tokyo, Liam Longo, in lab experiments.
Protein folding is also at the forefront of medical innovation, ranging from diagnostic tools to cancer treatments and neurodegenerative diseases. “In the broader scope, we’re interested in discovering what we can design, what we can stress test, and what we can reconstruct with AI and other computational tools,” Kamerlin says. “Because if you can understand how proteins fold, you gain the ability to design them.”
Funding: NASA, the Human Frontier Science Program, and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trechm.2026.03.001
]]>Selena Langner
College of Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
To help find answers, researchers at the Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society (INNS) are using math, data, and AI to unlock the secrets of thought. Together they are helping turn the brain’s raw electrical “noise” into real insights about how people think, move, and perceive the world.
Fair warning: Prepare your neurons for the complexity of this brain research ahead.
What if artificial neurons in AI programs were arranged as they are in the brain?
AI programs would then help us understand why the brain is organized the way it is. This neuro-AI synthesis would also work faster, use less energy, and be easier to interpret. Creating such systems is the goal of Apurva Ratan Murty, an assistant professor of Psychology who is creating topographic AI models like the one above of three domains — vision, audition, and language inspired by the brain. In the near future, he predicts doctors might be able to use these patterns to predict the effects of brain lesions and other disorders. “We’re not there yet,” he says. “But our work brings us significantly closer to that future than ever before.”
How cats walk keeps Chethan Pandarinath on his toes. This biomedical engineer uses sensors to analyze how two sets of feline leg muscles — flexors and extensors — are controlled by the spinal cord. Understanding how that happens could help patients partially paralyzed from spinal cord injuries, strokes, or progressive neuro-degenerative diseases get back on their feet again. “My lab is using AI tools that allow us to turn complex spinal cord activity data into something we can interpret. It tells us there’s a simple underlying structure behind the complex activity patterns,” says the associate professor.
“The brain is like a symphony conductor,” says Simon Sponberg. “Individual instruments have some independent control, but most of the music comes from the brain’s precise coordination of notes among the different players in the body.” This physics professor studies the fantastically fast-beating wings of the hummingbird-sized hawk moth (Manduca sexta). Its agile flight movement comes as a result of spikes in electrical activity in 10 muscles. Sponberg found something that surprised him — the brain focuses less on creating the number of spikes than in orchestrating their precise patterns over time. To Sponberg, every millisecond matters. “We are just beginning to understand how the nervous system first acquires precisely timed spiking patterns during development,” he says.
Put a mouse in a maze with food far away, and it will learn to find it. But life for mice — and people — isn’t so simple. Sometimes they want to explore, only want water, or just want to go home. What’s more, animals make decisions based on their history, not just on how they feel at the moment. To dig deeper into the decision-making process, Anqi Wu, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering, is giving mice more options. By using a new computational framework called SWIRL (Switching Inverse Reinforcement Learning), her findings have outperformed models that fail to take historical behavior into account. “We’re seeking to understand not only animal behavior but also human behavior to gain insight into the human decision-making process over a long period of time,” she says.
Connectivity shapes cognition in the cerebral cortex, a layered structure in the brain. The visual cortex, in particular, processes visual data from the retina relayed through the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN) in the thalamus, and directs it to the correct cognitive domain in the brain. How it does this is the mystery that computational neuroscientist Hannah Choi wants to solve. “The big question I’m interested in is how network connectivity patterns in the architecture of the LGN are related to computations,” says this assistant math professor. To find answers, she shows mice repeated image patterns such as flower-cat-dog-house and then disrupts the pattern. The goal? To grasp how the thalamus’s nonlinear dynamical system works. If scientists and doctors better understand how brain regions are wired together, such knowledge could lead to better disease treatment.
This story was originally published through the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. Read the original publication here.
]]>News and Media Contact: Audra Davidson
]]>Artificial intelligence has been touted as the most transformative technology of our time. With only a few years of mainstream use, it’s changed how we work and communicate, generated billions of dollars in investments, and sparked global debate. But according to leading neuroethics expert Karen Rommelfanger, the race isn’t over yet.
“Can you think of a more transformative technology than one that intervenes with the fundamental organ that drives your experience in the world?”
That fundamental organ is the brain.
Technologies interfacing directly with the brain have been reserved for treating severe injury or disease for decades. Now, neurotechnology is expanding into brain-responsive wearables meant to enhance, augment, and monitor everyday life. As these technologies accelerate and AI is incorporated, the question is no longer if neurotechnology will transform society, but how — and who will shape the boundaries.
These are some of the questions on which Karen Rommelfanger has built her career. Trained as a biomedical researcher and neuroscientist, Rommelfanger went on to found the Institute for Neuroethics, the world’s first think and do tank devoted entirely to neuroethics, public engagement, and policy implementation.
“The brain is special; it’s central to who we are,” says Rommelfanger, who was also an inaugural recipient of the Dana Foundation Neuroscience and Society Award. “And that means when you intervene with the brain, there are unique responsibilities. The field of neuroethics addresses things like: How do you ensure mental privacy? How do you protect free will? How do you ensure that people have the power to be narrators of their own lives and their cognitive experience?”
Now, Rommelfanger is joining Georgia Tech’s Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society (INNS) as a professor of the practice, where she will work to further embed neuroethics into Georgia Tech’s research and technology development ecosystem.
“Georgia Tech is producing the next generation of neurotechnologists, and Karen’s expertise will help ensure we’re preparing them to think about societal impact as deeply as they think about the technical and scientific aspects of their work,” says Christopher Rozell, executive director of INNS. “Her leadership strengthens the Institute in exactly the way this moment in neurotechnology demands.”
“Georgia Tech has many, many ways that it leads in the technology ecosystem. But one of the powerful, unique ways it can lead is through neurotechnology,” says Rommelfanger. “I hope that the INNS, given its unique mandate for neuroscience, neurotechnology, and society, can be a lighthouse for these types of conversations.”
From institutional review boards to mandatory responsible research conduct training, ethics are a foundational part of scientific research. But designing neurotechnologies raises ethical challenges beyond the scope of typical training. What happens when discoveries leave the lab and enter people’s lives?
That question sits at the core of Rommelfanger’s work. She argues it’s a neurotechnologist’s responsibility to recognize and proactively address the need for unique safeguards for privacy, autonomy, and long-term responsibility. Her solution is to move neuroethics upstream, embedding it directly into the research, design, and deployment of neurotechnology through an approach she calls “neuroethics by design.”
“Neuroethics by design considers ethics as a core criterion where principles can drive innovation with more of a lens toward societal outcomes,” she says — an approach informed by years of advising national-level brain research initiatives and her experience at the intersection of clinical practice and ethics scholarship.
Rather than treating ethics as a compliance checklist or a post hoc review, neuroethics by design integrates ethical thinking throughout the entire innovation lifecycle, from early ideation and research questions to product requirements, governance strategies, and long-term sustainability. She has used the approach for years as an embedded partner for neurotechnology startups in her neuroethics consultancy, Ningen Co-Lab.
After decades as a traditional academic professor and then years advising companies and policymakers with this philosophy, Rommelfanger says Georgia Tech is the right place to scale this work. With its strength in neurotechnology and INNS’s rare focus on neuroscience and society, “I could not think of a better place to launch and pilot this neuroethics by design scaling effort.”
She will work with INNS to help equip researchers, students, and industry partners with practical tools for ethical decision-making. Her vision is not to create neuroethicists as a standalone profession, but to cultivate ethically engaged neurotechnologists and engineers.
Central to her plans at INNS are hands-on training programs that bring ethics out of the abstract and into practice. “I wanted to be a professor of the practice because, while the field does need more scholars, what it really needs most at this point are practitioners.”
Rommelfanger is exploring modular content that can be embedded into existing courses across disciplines, as well as immersive training — such as neuroethics boot camps and problem-solving hackathons — that bring together students, faculty, and professionals to tackle real-world challenges collaboratively.
“No one discipline can solve all the ethical challenges ahead,” says Rommelfanger. She is particularly interested in creating spaces where experts from across science and engineering, policy and law, design and the arts, and philosophy can work side by side with people with lived experience of neurological conditions. “The onus is not on scientists alone, but is a shared responsibility that benefits immensely from dialogue, accountability, and action across diverse communities.”
By situating neuroethics within Georgia Tech’s broader research ecosystem, Rommelfanger hopes INNS can help shift how the field evolves globally.
“It's really difficult to get your arms around something once it's out of the gate,” she says, citing the rapid adoption of AI without proper ethical or policy guidelines. “With neurotechnology, we still have a little bit of time, but not that much time. We are at that moment where we could change the course of global history.”
Amino acids also play a critical role commercially where they are manufactured and added to pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, cosmetics, animal feeds, and industrial chemicals — an energy-intensive process leading to greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption, and pollution.
A landmark new system developed at Georgia Tech could lead to an alternative: a commercially scalable, environmentally sustainable method for amino acid production that is carbon negative, using more carbon than it emits.
The breakthrough builds on a method that the team pioneered in 2024 and solves a key issue – increasing efficiency to an unprecedented 97% and reducing the bioprocess cost by over 40%. It’s the highest reported conversion of CO2 equivalents into amino acids using any synthetic biology system to date.
Published in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology, the study, “Cell-Free-Based Thermophilic Biocatalyst for the Synthesis of Amino Acids From One-Carbon Feedstocks,” was led by Bioengineering Ph.D. student Ray Westenberg and Professor Pamela Peralta-Yahya, who holds joint appointments in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. The team also included Shaafique Chowdhury (Ph.D. ChBE 25) and Kimberly Wennerholm (ChBE 23); alongside University of Washington collaborators Ryan Cardiff, then a Ph.D. student and now a Chain Reaction Innovations Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory, and Charles W. H. Matthaei Endowed Professor in Chemical Engineering James M. Carothers; in addition to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Synthetic Biology Team Leader Alexander S. Beliaev.
"This work shifts the narrative from simply reducing carbon emissions to actually consuming them to create value,” says Peralta-Yahya. “We are taking low-cost carbon sources and building essential ingredients in a truly carbon-negative process that is efficient, effective, and scalable.”
The work builds on the cell-free technology the team used in their earlier study. “Previously, we discovered that a system that uses the machinery of cells, without using actual living cells, could be used to create amino acids from carbon dioxide,” Peralta-Yahya explains. “But to create a commercially viable system, we needed to increase the system’s efficiency and reduce the cost.”
The team discovered that bits of leftover cells were consuming starting materials, and — like a machine with unnecessary gears or parts — this limited the system’s efficiency. To optimize their “machine,” the team would need to remove the extra background machinery.
"Leftover cell parts were using key resources without helping produce the amino acids we were looking for,” says Peralta-Yahya. “We knew that heating the system could be one way to purify it because heat can denature these components.”
The challenge was in how to protect the essential system components from the high temperatures, she adds. “We wondered if introducing enzymes produced by a heat-loving bacterium, Moorella thermoacetica, might protect our system, while still allowing us to denature and remove that inefficient background machinery.”
The results were astounding: after introducing the enzymes, heating and “cleaning” the system, and letting it cool to room temperature, synthesis of the amino acids serine and glycine leaped to 97% yield — nearly three times that of the team’s previous system.
To make the system viable for large-scale use, the team also needed to reduce costs. “One of the most costly components in this system is the cofactor tetrahydrofolate (THF),” Peralta-Yahya shares. “Reducing the amount of THF needed to start the process was one way to make the system more inexpensive and ultimately more commercially viable.”
By linking reaction steps so waste from one step fueled the next, the team devised a method to recycle THF within the system that reduces the amount of THF needed by five-fold — lowering bioprocessing costs by 42%.
“This decrease in cost and increase in yield is a critical step forward in creating a method with real potential for use in industry and manufacturing,” Peralta-Yahya says. “This system could pave the way for moving this carbon-negative technology out of the lab and onto the continuous, industrial scale."
Funding: The Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E); U.S. Department of Energy; and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research Program.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.5c00352
]]>Selena Langner
College of Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
If you’ve walked the aisles of a grocery store, scrolled through social media, watched television, or set foot in a fast-casual restaurant chain in recent months, you know that protein is having its moment.
So, why are brands pushing protein? An International Food Information Council study found that 70% of adults are looking to increase their protein intake. But as it makes its way into more products than ever before, is it too much of a good thing?
Lesley Baradel is a registered dietitian, nutritionist, and lecturer in the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech. She joined Generating Buzz to discuss the protein-packed trend, with implications ranging from health and wellness to marketing and how the rise of GLP-1s factors into the increased focus on the macronutrient.
"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 new initiative was sparked by ongoing research at Georgia Tech — and a Yellow Jacket connection: when Postdoctoral Research Fellow Hannah Youngblood’s work on exfoliation glaucoma (XFG) was featured by the BrightFocus Foundation, it caught the attention of Jennifer Rucker, an Alabama resident who was diagnosed with XFG several years ago.
Excited that the research could change outcomes for people like her — and proud that it’s happening at her husband Philip Rucker’s, EE 72, alma mater — Jennifer Rucker reached out to Youngblood and her advisor, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor and Kelly Sepcic Pfeil, Ph.D. Chair Raquel Lieberman.
“As the wife of a Georgia Tech graduate and an individual with pseudoexfoliation glaucoma, I was inspired to support the scientists whose efforts may help me and others,” Jennifer Rucker says. What followed was a meaningful dialogue and a shared sense of purpose — and the creation of the Georgia Tech Glaucoma Research Fund (Wreck Glaucoma! Fund).
“It meant so much that Jennifer took the initiative to reach out to learn more about our research,” says Lieberman. “Moments like this remind me how deeply meaningful it is to connect with people in the broader community who are navigating glaucoma. Opportunities for such personal connections are rare, but they inspire and further motivate us to achieve our lab’s mission to improve the lives of individuals suffering from blindness diseases.”
Youngblood’s interest in glaucoma research also stems from a personal connection: her father was diagnosed with glaucoma as a young adult. Now, Youngblood studies the genetic and molecular factors behind XFG in the Lieberman research lab.
“XFG is an aggressive form of the disease with no known cure,” Youngblood says. While scientists know that XFG is the result of abnormal accumulation of proteins in the eye, current treatments only address symptoms rather than treating the root cause of the disease.
“We know XFG is driven by protein buildup, but we still don’t know why it happens,” she explains. “My work studying specific genetic variants aims to uncover this.”
In particular, Youngblood is researching the role of LOXL1, a protein that plays a role in soft tissue throughout the body, including the eyes.
“Research has shown that people with variants in the genes responsible for this protein are more likely to have XFG,” she says. “That made me curious to see if the variants might be impacting the structure of the LOXL1 protein itself and how those variants might lead to disease.”
Youngblood is currently testing her theory in the lab. “My hope is that new insight into proteins like LOXL1 will bring us closer to treatments that address XFG at its source,” she says. “The new Georgia Tech Glaucoma Research Fund is a tremendous step forward in making that hope a reality.”
Please visit the Glaucoma Research Fund support page to give to this specific program. To discuss additional philanthropic opportunities, please contact the College of Sciences Development Team: development@cos.gatech.edu
Your investment ensures that these scholars and researchers have world-class resources, facilities, and mentors to excel in this critical work. Thank you for helping us shape the future.
]]>“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.”
]]>“It has been a pleasure for the Center for Programs to Increase Engagement in the Sciences (C-PIES) to collaborate with Google and the College of Sciences Advisory Board to bring this fellowship, which will positively impact our community and highlight how science can align with public good,” says Lewis A. Wheaton, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and director of C-PIES.
In the year ahead, the fellows will work with C-PIES and community partners on campus and in the metro Atlanta area to develop projects in one of three priority areas: civic and policy engagement, community-engaged research, and K-12 research outreach.
The fellowship was open to all graduate students in the College of Sciences, and four inaugural fellows — Aniruddh Bakshi, Katherine Slenker, Miriam Simma, and Nikolai Simonov — were named based on their exciting, yet feasible applications.
Ph.D. student Aniruddh Bakshi studies the problem of drug delivery at the intersections of organic chemistry, biochemistry, and immunology. As mRNA vaccines are closely related to his area of research, he sees the need for a grassroots outreach movement from young academics to help bolster public confidence in rigorous scientific methodology.
In collaboration with local hospitals and nonprofits, his proposed project is to start a social media content series, titled “A Day in the Life of a Ph.D. Student,” to show the realities of graduate school for those interested in this career path while connecting his research to broader public issues.
“Science has the power to solve urgent problems, but only if people understand and trust it,” says Bakshi. “Through this fellowship, I will use my research and outreach efforts to help strengthen that trust — showing how discoveries in drug delivery and vaccine design can make a real difference in people’s lives.”
Atlanta is often referred to as “the city in a forest,” but according to Ph.D. student Katherine Slenker, wildlife has a difficult time navigating across roads and housing developments, often resulting in human-wildlife conflict.
“Conservation ecologists have long recommended that the movement of wildlife could be eased through the creation of ‘ecological corridors,’ which connect greenspaces and wildlife populations,” she explains. “Determining the movement patterns of wildlife, and where such corridors may be best situated, requires that we first understand what species reside in the metro Atlanta area as well as how they are expected to disperse.”
As a fellow, Slenker plans to build a biodiversity data network by comparing wildlife monitoring at Davidson-Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve and Stone Mountain Park and increasing the coalition of metro Atlanta researchers. This data can be used in the development of ecological corridors to reduce clashing between humans and wildlife, notably animals struck by vehicles, and improve ecosystem health at these parks.
The study of crystallography is vital in academia, industry, and medicine because it enables researchers to decipher the atomic structures of proteins, but it is scarcely taught outside of graduate school. Ph.D. student Miriam Simma wants to change that.
Her proposed project is to introduce protein crystallography to K-12 students and teachers through hands-on activities in local high school classrooms and to the public during the Atlanta Science Festival at Georgia Tech.
“My vision is to make structural biology research accessible, so everyone can engage with cutting-edge scientific research — fostering curiosity and interest in STEM careers,” says Simma. “Long term, I will synthesize these activities into a chemical education article that introduces K-12 students to protein structure and function.”
Last year, Ph.D. student Nikolai Simonov became involved in the GoSTEM Club at Lilburn Middle School — leading student activities and recruiting other graduate student volunteers. In partnership with Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing, the club is a weekly afterschool program for students, many of whom come from underserved backgrounds, to grow their scientific curiosity.
“I assembled a team of 10 Tech graduate students who could explain complex scientific concepts in approachable ways for middle school students. Through this fellowship, we are excited to enrich the GoSTEM Club with an ongoing mentorship program and materials for more ambitious science fair projects,” shares Simonov.
As part of the program, club members can meet one-on-one with Georgia Tech mentors to discuss their educational and career goals. “By sharing their stories and connecting scientific ideas to real-world applications, our mentors aim to show students that STEM is not only accessible but a path toward a fulfilling life,” he adds.
]]>Writer: Annette Filliat
]]>The award will support the design of nature-based solutions including living shorelines and marsh restoration in flood-prone areas of Camden County, Georgia, adjacent to Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Cumberland Island National Seashore, and the city of St. Marys.
“Restoring wetlands in Camden County is not just an environmental priority — it’s a resilience strategy for the entire region,” says principal investigator (PI) Joel Kostka, Tom and Marie Patton Distinguished Professor, associate chair for Research in the School of Biological Sciences, and faculty director of Georgia Tech for Georgia’s Tomorrow. “Each acre of restored marshland protects coastal communities from natural hazards like storms and flooding, provides essential marine habitat, and has the potential to aid the Navy and the Army Corps of Engineers in developing management alternatives for dredged materials. When our wetlands flourish, our whole coastline does.”
In addition to Kostka, co-PI’s include University of Georgia (UGA) Skidaway Institute of Oceanography Director Clark Alexander, UGA Associate Professor Matt Bilskie and Professor Brian Bledsoe, The Nature Conservancy Coastal Climate Adaptation Director Ashby Worley, and Georgia Tech alumnus Nolan Williams of Robinson Design Engineers, a firm dedicated to the engineering of natural infrastructure in the Southeast that is owned and operated by Georgia Tech alumnus Joshua Robinson.
The new project, known as a “pipeline project” by NFWF, builds on multiple resilience plans and years of previous research conducted by the established team. “This is a testament to the value of the long-term collaborations and partnerships that enable coastal resilience work,” Kostka says. “We’re working closely with local communities and a range of city, state, and federal stakeholders to ensure these solutions align with local priorities and protect what matters most.”
It’s not the first time that the team has brought this type of collaboration to the coastline. Since 2019, Kostka has worked alongside the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the South Carolina Aquarium, and Robinson Design Engineers in a $2.6 million effort to restore degraded salt marshes in historic Charleston, also funded by NFWF. Now in the implementation phase, much of the marsh restoration in Charleston involves planting salt-tolerant grasses, restoring oyster reefs, and excavating new tidal creeks — work that is being spearheaded by local volunteers.
“Coastal resilience isn’t something one group can tackle alone,” Kostka adds. “That shared, community-driven vision is what makes these projects possible.”
]]>Despite their importance, most of what scientists know about proteins only comes from a small sample size. This stands in the way of fully understanding how most proteins work and unlocking their full potential.
Georgia Tech’s Yunan Luo believes artificial intelligence (AI) could fill this knowledge gap. The National Science Foundation agrees. Luo is the recipient of an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award.
“So much of biology depends on knowing what proteins do, but decades of research have concentrated on a relatively small set of well-studied proteins. This imbalance in scientific attention leads to a distorted view of the biological landscape that quietly shapes our data and our algorithms,” Luo said.
“My group’s goal is to build machine learning (ML) models that actively close this gap by generating trustworthy function predictions for the many proteins that remain understudied.”
[Related: Yunan Luo to use AI for Protein Design and Discovery with Support of $1.8 Million NIH Grant]
In his proposal to NSF, Luo coined this rich-get-richer effect “annotation inequality.”
One problem of annotation inequality is that it slows progress in disease prognosis, drug discovery, and other critical biomedical areas. It is challenging to innovate the few proteins that scientists already know so much about.
A cascading effect of annotation inequality is that it diminishes the effectiveness of studying proteins with AI.
AI methods learn from existing experimental data. Datasets skewed toward well-known proteins propagate and become entrenched in models. Over time, this makes it harder for computers to research understudied proteins.
“Protein annotation inequality creates an effect analogous to a vast library where 95% of patrons only read the top 5% popular books, leaving the rest of the collection to gather dust,” Luo said.
“This has resulted in knowledge disparities across proteins in current literature and databases, biasing our understanding of protein functions.”
The NSF CAREER award will fund Luo with over $770,000 for the next five years to tackle head-on the problem of protein annotation inequality.
Luo will use the grant to build an accurate, unbiased protein function prediction framework at scale. His project aims to:
More enduring than the ML framework, Luo will leverage the NSF award to support educational and outreach programs. His goal is to groom the next generation of researchers to study other challenges in computational biology, not just the annotation inequality problem.
Luo teaches graduate and undergraduate courses focused on computational biology and ML. Problems and methods developed through the CAREER project can be used as course material in his classes.
Luo also championed collaboration with Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) in his proposal.
Through this partnership, local high school teachers and students would gain access to his data and models. This promotes deeper learning of biology and data science through hands-on experience with real-world tools.
Luo sees reaching students and the community as a way of paying forward the support he received from Georgia Tech colleagues.
“I am incredibly grateful for this recognition from the NSF,” said Luo, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE).
“This would not have been possible without my students and collaborators, whose hard work laid the groundwork for this proposal.”
Luo praised CSE faculty members B. Aditya Prakash, Xiuwei Zhang, and Chao Zhang for their guidance. All three study machine learning and computational bioscience, two of CSE’s five core research areas.
Luo also thanked Haesun Park for her support and recommendation for the CAREER award. Park is a Regents’ Professor and the chair of the School of CSE.
]]>Despite their importance, most of what scientists know about proteins only comes from a small sample size. This stands in the way of fully understanding how most proteins work and unlocking their full potential.
Georgia Tech’s Yunan Luo believes artificial intelligence (AI) could fill this knowledge gap. The National Science Foundation agrees. Luo is the recipient of an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award.
]]>The award — named in recognition of Carl Gans’ contributions to animal morphology, biomechanics, and functional biology — is one of the highest honors from the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), and recognizes Manafzadeh’s “exceptional creativity and originality in comparative biomechanics research as well as her strong mentoring contributions.”
“I’m very fortunate to have done science with incredible mentors, collaborators, and students who’ve helped me develop this body of research,” she says. “I’m grateful to be recognized with the Carl Gans Award, and look forward to continuing to explore new ways to study biomechanics when I start my lab at Georgia Tech.”
The new Manafzadeh Lab at Georgia Tech will investigate how joints work and where they come from — both evolutionarily and developmentally. With powerful new technology, called X-Ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology (XROMM), Manafzadeh can look inside bodies with 4D “X-ray vision” — and can create animations of moving skeletons with sub-millimeter precision.
“This research has the potential to transform our understanding of animal motion,” she says, “and that can ultimately open doors to everything from personalized surgical treatments for people to new designs for bio-inspired robots.”
As part of the award, Manafzadeh will deliver a plenary speech on “Joints: Form, Function, and the Future of Comparative Biomechanics” this January at the annual SICB meeting in Portland, Oregon.
]]>]]>
Busy with her career and family, DeWitt tucked the idea away — until she stepped back from the professional world and knew it was time to pursue keeping bees. She enrolled in a one-day beekeeping class that was offered by the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association. From there, DeWitt learned the fundamentals, purchased her first honey bees, and began the fascinating — and sometimes mystifying — work of caring for them in her backyard.
Like many new beekeepers, she faced steep challenges: sick bees, failing colonies, secondary pests, and ensuring her hives had enough resources to survive winter. But DeWitt says that she also discovered how remarkably generous and supportive the beekeeping community is. She connected with mentors and attended local bee club meetings and state conferences where researchers shared their latest findings. Beekeeping became meaningful in ways she had never anticipated.
“I fell in love with honey bees and all things related. There is an innate spirituality in keeping bees,” she says. “Once I put the veil on, life slows to a standstill and becomes a walking meditation into a delicately complex and endlessly fascinating world.”
Her marketing background came full circle too. “Like any creative endeavor, beekeepers must be keenly observant,” DeWitt explains. “We have to think outside the box, pivot quickly, anticipate problems, and plan ahead.”
As her colony numbers grew, so did her reach. DeWitt established apiaries at several metro Atlanta schools and at sites in Chattahoochee Hills, Grant Park, Brookhaven, Arabia Mountain, and Brevard, North Carolina. Along the way, she earned her Master Beekeeper certification from Cornell University, served as the central regional director for the Georgia Beekeepers Association, taught beekeeping to incarcerated individuals through the Georgia Department of Corrections, and partnered with tree companies to rescue wild honey bee colonies living in trees slated for removal.
This breadth of experience prepared her for a unique opportunity: becoming Georgia Tech’s 2025 Beekeeper in Residence with the Urban Honey Bee Project. The one-year residency, DeWitt says, offered “a rare opportunity to be part of the Georgia Tech community,” allowing her to explore new ideas in beekeeping while tending to and expanding the rooftop hives at The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design.
The Urban Honey Bee Project, an interdisciplinary initiative of Georgia Tech’s College of Sciences and Office of Sustainability, established the Beekeeper in Residence program to maintain colonies at The Kendeda Building and in the EcoCommons, mentor student beekeepers, and enrich the program with diverse expertise.
“Deb did so much this year — working closely with the Beekeeping Club, keeping our hives healthy, and even rehoming a wild hive from a dead tree on campus,” says Jennifer Leavey, assistant dean for faculty mentoring in the College of Sciences and director of the Urban Honey Bee Project. “Most importantly, Deb showed our students how an expert beekeeper approaches hive care. She took every opportunity to include them, and it made a real impact.”
Georgia Tech undergraduate Alyssa Zhang agrees. “The Beekeeping Club loved working with Deb. She was always happy to teach us — whether it was managing Varroa mites last summer, when she helped reduce counts from 17% to below 1%, or preparing the hives for winter.”
The Varroa mite is one of many pressures beekeepers face. “The biggest challenges affecting honey bees — as well as native bees and other pollinators — are climate change, habitat loss, pesticide use, pests, and pathogens,” DeWitt explains. “These factors contributed to U.S. commercial beekeepers losing a devastating average of 62% of their colonies last year.”
Honey bees play a critical role in pollinating food crops and producing honey and beeswax. These threats fuel DeWitt’s passion for education, mentorship, and advocacy at the local, state, and national levels. Yet, the most meaningful rewards are personal.
“Honey bee colonies are superorganisms — tens of thousands of individuals working together for the good of the hive,” she adds. “Bees are intelligent, endlessly fascinating creatures, and I never stop learning from them. Beekeeping has made me a better gardener, horticulturist, ecologist, conservationist, carpenter, biologist, scientist, student, teacher, problem solver… you name it.”
Her passion for the craft is unmistakable. In 2025, DeWitt received one of the state’s highest honors: Georgia Beekeepers Association’s Beekeeper of the Year Award.
“I am profoundly grateful to the state’s beekeeping community for recognizing my efforts over the past eight years,” says DeWitt. “This award reflects the mentorship I’ve received from some truly exceptional beekeepers.”
]]>Writer: Annette Filliat
Editor: Selena Langner
]]>Imagine stepping into a space the size of multiple football fields — only instead of turf and goalposts, it’s filled with science. Every inch is alive with posters, equipment demos, and researchers sharing the latest breakthroughs.
Welcome to the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Conference, one of the largest scientific gatherings in the world, drawing more than 30,000 attendees to San Diego in November. According to Annabelle Singer, it is the place to be for neuroscientists. “If you want to know what is going on now in neuroscience, it is being talked about at SfN.”
Singer is a McCamish Foundation Early Career Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory University. A frequent SfN attendee, she describes the meeting as “Dragon Con for neuroscience, with thousands of talks and posters going on simultaneously.”
This year, Georgia Tech didn’t just show up — it made a statement with more than 60 presentations, a major outreach award, and a spotlight press conference.
“Seeing Georgia Tech and INNS represented so strongly at SfN is exciting,” says Chris Rozell, executive director of Tech’s Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society (INNS). “It reflects the incredible breadth of neuroscience and neurotechnology research happening across our campus and how our work is shaping conversations at the highest level.”
Many conferences center around structured lectures, but at SfN, posters are the heart. You might find a senior researcher presenting groundbreaking findings right next to a first-time attendee sharing early results. This diversity is what makes the experience so valuable, says Singer. “Trainees get to talk directly with the scientist doing the work to get their questions answered, from wondering about future implications to clarifying technical details.”
The scale of SfN can feel overwhelming, but for many, that’s part of the excitement. “There are so many different posters from so many different fields. It’s a lot to absorb, but it’s all very interesting,” said Benjamin Magondu, a biomedical engineering Ph.D. student presenting for the first time. “I’ve definitely learned at least 47 things by just walking 10 feet.”
For students like Magondu, the experience is critical, says Biological Sciences Assistant Professor Farzaneh Najafi. “SfN has such a big scope, all the way from molecular to cognitive and computational systems. Especially for those deciding which direction of neuroscience they want to go into, it’s invaluable.”
That breadth also fosters connections across disciplines. “Conferences are usually pretty niche,” noted Tina Franklin, a research scientist in BME. “You have your own field that you’re really good at, but it’s difficult to venture out and find new people who can help you figure out what comes next. This conference brings people from all different fields together with the common interest of neuroscience and brain research.”
Georgia Tech’s impact went beyond the conference floor. Ming-fai Fong, an assistant professor in BME, received the prestigious Next Generation Award, one of SfN’s education and outreach awards. The honor recognizes members who make outstanding contributions to public communication and education about neuroscience.
“I’m certainly very grateful to the Society for Neuroscience for recognizing these types of contributions,” says Fong, who was recognized for her work supporting blind and visually impaired youth in Atlanta. “Rewarding outreach efforts reinforces my core belief that scientists and engineers can make an immediate impact on communities we care about through outreach. It’s a great parallel avenue to making a positive impact through research.”
Building on this recognition, Georgia Tech was in the spotlight during one of SfN’s selective press conferences — a session on artificial intelligence in neuroscience moderated by Rozell, who is also the Julian T. Hightower Chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
During the SfN press event, Trisha Kesar, an associate professor in BME and adjunct faculty in the School of Biological Sciences, presented her research using AI to improve gait rehabilitation. Her work was among just 40 abstracts selected from more than 10,000 submissions for this honor, and one of five abstracts selected for the AI in neuroscience press conference. The project is a collaboration with Hyeok Kwon, a Georgia Tech computer science alumnus and an assistant professor in BME.
“It’s exciting to see Georgia Tech and Atlanta emerging as hubs for neuroscience innovation,” said Kesar. “Being part of a press conference on AI in neuroscience shows how much our community is contributing to the future of brain research, and how collaboration across institutions can accelerate progress.”
Presenter Dashboard:
Created by Joshua Preston, Communications Manager, College of Computing
Data collection by Audra Davidson, Hunter Ashcraft
“Georgia Tech and UGA's collective commitment to advancing science and technology exceeds the intensity of our athletic rivalry,” Fedorov said. “Together, we’re advancing cell and therapy biomanufacturing to develop lifesaving treatments for the most devastating diseases.”
Georgia Tech’s Francisco Robles and UGA’s Lohitash Karumbaiah are using manufactured T cells to target cancer. Robles, who leads the Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy Lab in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, developed quantitative Oblique Back-illumination Microscopy (qOBM) to monitor tumor growth in real time. The method allows scientists to visualize patient-derived glioblastoma cell clusters generated in the Karumbaiah Lab, tracking tumor structure and behavior at various stages.
“Assessing therapeutic potency is often complex, costly, and ineffective for solid tumors,” Karumbaiah said. “qOBM simplifies the process by providing real-time, label-free monitoring of therapeutic efficacy against 3D solid tumors.”
The work could help doctors personalize cancer treatments by providing early, detailed signs of whether a therapy is working.
“This technique is more compact and affordable and lets us watch T cells attack cell cultures in real time,” Robles said. “This breakthrough could transform how we study disease and screen new treatments.”
A Playbook for Local Healthcare
Created in 2007 by the National Institutes of Health, Georgia CTSA is one of several NIH-funded national partnerships advancing new health therapeutics and practices. Since 2017, it has comprised UGA, Georgia Tech, Emory, and the Morehouse School of Medicine. The alliance’s reach extends far beyond campus borders, bringing together researchers, clinicians, professional societies, and community and industry partners to identify local health challenges and translate research into practical solutions.
And out of this alliance have come many collaborative studies among CTSA’s members.
One, the Georgia Health Landscape Dashboard, is a tool to identify local health gaps and connect regional health professionals or policymakers with the researchers who can best address their community’s challenges. UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences Associate Professors Alison Berg and Dee Warmath, along with community health engagement coordinator Courtney Still Brown, are working with Georgia Tech’s Jon Duke, director of the Center for Health Analytics and Informatics at the Georgia Tech Research Institute and a principal research scientist in the School of Interactive Computing.
The dashboard has already helped match researchers with communities by combining epidemiological data with “community voice” insights through surveys of residents and local leaders.
For example, when examining diabetes data, the dashboard indicates Randolph County has the state’s highest prevalence, despite declining by about 8% between 2021-24. Meanwhile, Treutlen County’s rate increased 29.2% during the same period. Perhaps Treutlen’s need for diabetic care is a growing concern, while Randolph’s is being addressed. And perhaps Hancock County, which ranks diabetes its top priority in the community voice category, is in search of immediate solutions.
“The Landscape Dashboard is a fantastic example of how the unique expertise found at Georgia Tech and UGA can be brought together to create something truly valuable for all Georgia,” Duke said. “By bringing together a range of data sources and health analytics approaches, this collaboration has created a tool that delivers novel insights into health, community, and policy across the state.”
Supported by UGA Cooperative Extension and the Biomedical and Translational Sciences Institute, the project leverages a network of agents in every county across the state. Warmath said the project’s strength lies in its ability to connect research with real-world needs.
“To build a community-responsive ecosystem for biomedical research, scientists must recognize local needs, share progress with communities to foster trust and acceptance, recruit clinicians and industry partners, and strengthen the relationships between patient and caregiver,” Warmath said.
Teaming Up for Maternal Health
Warmath and a team of researchers at UGA, Georgia Tech, and Emory are also collaborating on an NIH-funded project uniting experts in maternal health, biostatistics, and consumer science to explore how wearable technologies could improve delivery-room care.
During childbirth, clinicians monitor countless maternal and fetal vitals — contractions, heart rates, oxygen levels, kidney function, and more. What new insights, the researchers asked, could advanced wearable technologies offer in the delivery room, and what barriers might prevent their use?
Using nationwide surveys and focus groups, the team gathered information from a representative sample of pregnant, postpartum, and reproductive-age women, as well as healthcare professionals, to examine acceptance of wearable health technologies during labor and delivery. In their analysis of this rich data source, the team is identifying key variables that reveal gaps in technology acceptance and the unique needs of diverse maternal populations.
Each partner institution brings unique expertise. At Emory, principal investigator Suchitra Chandrasekaran contributes clinical insights from direct patient care. At UGA, Warmath applies her knowledge in consumer science to analyze end-user motivation, attitudes, and behaviors. At Georgia Tech, experts like Sarah Farmer in the Center for Advanced Communications Policy’s Home Lab facilitate large-scale data collection.
With data collection now complete, the team is analyzing results to inform future design and deployment of wearable technologies.
“Each school has a different perspective,” Farmer said. “It’s not as simple as one school does this but doesn’t do that. Each has their expertise, but they offer different perspectives and different resources that, when pooled, can make our research that much more effective.”
Whether advancing maternal health, mapping Georgia’s health needs, or engineering next-generation therapies, UGA and Georgia Tech continue to prove that collaboration is Georgia’s strongest tradition. Further, the undergraduate and graduate students who work in these labs and others represent the state’s highly skilled workforce of tomorrow.
“When our institutions work together, Georgia wins,” Warmath said.
— By David Mitchell
Georgia Tech and UGA are teaming up to tackle big health challenges, from cancer and bone repair to maternal care and community health. By combining their strengths, these schools are turning research into real-world solutions that make life better for Georgians.
]]>Freeman, who grew up in Seattle, mainly studies the ecology of tropical birds — but the discovery of Waterhouse’s paper made him curious about research closer to home. The results were surprising: over the last three decades, most of the bird populations in the region were stable and had been increasing in abundance at higher elevations.
The study, “Pacific Northwest birds have shifted their abundances upslope in response to 30 years of warming temperatures” was published in the journal Ecology this fall. In addition to lead author Freeman, the team also included Harold Eyster (The Nature Conservancy), Julian Heavyside (University of British Columbia), Daniel Yip (Canadian Wildlife Service), Monica Mather (British Columbia Ministry of Water, Lands and Resource Stewardship), and Waterhouse (British Columbia Ministry of Forests, Coast Area Research).
“It is great news that most birds in the region are resilient, and by doing this work, we can focus on the species that do need help, like the Canada Jay, which is struggling in this region,” Freeman says. “Studies like this help us focus resources and effort.”
Conducting the fieldwork was a detective game, Freeman says. Each day, he would wake up at four in the morning to locate and visit the research areas — often navigating trails, open forest, and rough terrain on foot.
This area of the Pacific Northwest is punctuated with old-growth stands of trees — sections of forest that have never been logged or altered. “These areas feel like islands,” Freeman shares. “They feel ancient and untouched, but even in pristine habitats, birds are still responding to climate change.”
Most of the work was conducted during the birds’ breeding season, from late May into June. This is when the birds are most vocal, which is ideal for surveys, Freeman says. The downside? Even in June, there is often snow in the mountains. “I was out at dawn, hiking through snow in the freezing cold, wondering why I didn’t stay in bed,” he recalls. “But then I’d hear birds singing all around me and realize it was all worth it.”
By comparing the two “snapshots,” the team showed that while temperatures have increased over the last 30 years, most bird populations in the region haven’t declined — but they have become more abundant at higher elevations. “It’s encouraging,” Freeman says. “Thirty years of warming has led to changes, but for the most part, these bird populations are mostly stable or improving.”
One reason for this resilience could be the stability that old growth forests provide, and Freeman suggests that conserving wide swaths of mountain habitat might help birds thrive as they continue to adapt, while still supporting populations at lower elevations. The study also helps identify which bird species need additional support, like the Canada Jay — a gray and white bird known for following hikers in pursuit of dropped snacks.
It’s just one piece of Freeman’s larger research goal — he aims to do this type of snapshot research in many different places to identify general patterns, especially differences in temperate versus tropical environments.
“In the tropics, most bird species are vulnerable, with only a few resilient species. In the Pacific Northwest, we saw the opposite,” he says. “A pattern is emerging: temperate zones show more resilience, tropics more vulnerability.”
Freeman is also conducting research with a group of students in Northern Georgia. “We predict that these Appalachian birds will be resilient as well,” he says, “but we need to study and understand what’s happening in nature — not just make predictions.”
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.70193
Funding: Packard Foundation
]]>The event marks the culmination of the semester-long I2P course, where undergraduate students develop functional prototypes aimed at solving real-world problems. Prototypes this semester include a smart military drone, a gentler device for cervical cancer screening, a rotating espresso station, tools to keep AI safe, compact data centers, systems that simulate cyberattacks to help companies strengthen their defenses, and many more.
The showcase is free and open to students, faculty, staff, and members of the local community.
Winning teams will receive prizes and a “golden ticket” into CREATE-X’s Startup Launch, a summer accelerator that provides optional seed funding, accounting and legal service credits, mentorship, and more to help students turn their prototypes into viable startups.
This is a free event, and refreshments will be provided. Register for the Fall 2025 I2P Showcase today!
]]>Marketing Strategist
]]>A state-of-the-art anatomy and medical education system, the seven-foot-long Anatomage Table features life-size human — as well as several animal — bodies in digital formats, providing accurate representations of three-dimensional anatomy, physiology, and digital pathology.
“Cadaver dissection is still the gold standard,” explains Senior Academic Professional and Director of Anatomical Sciences Adam Decker, who has taught anatomy and other courses at Georgia Tech since 2010. “But the Anatomage Table lets students interact with living systems digitally — and that’s something we couldn’t offer before.”
Decker is a passionate advocate for using the best tools available to prepare students for medical careers. After leading efforts to bring prosections (pre-dissected specimens that students learn from) to Georgia Tech in 2021, he set his sights on acquiring the Anatomage Table.
“Providing the table was the logical next step,” says Decker. “It’s a way to bridge the tactile experience with dynamic visualization.”
The Anatomage Table was purchased with College of Sciences Technology Fee funds, designed to enhance students' experiences using modern instruments and techniques.
“It’s a great resource for our students, especially for those who are interested in pursuing any field of medicine,” says David Collard, senior associate dean in the College of Sciences. “It supports active learning that will enhance students' applications to medical programs, and gives them experiences with technologies they will encounter in post-graduate professional training.”
Anatomy in action
The Series 11 Anatomage Table is housed in the Gilbert Hillhouse Boggs Building and offers a one-to-one display of actual cadavers with five different bodies available for virtual dissection. Students can click on a structure and instantly access detailed information.
“It’s one thing to sit in a classroom and have a professor explain which body parts are which,” says Yusuf Abdalla, a second-year biology student with a pre-med focus. “But being able to independently manipulate the screen to view various parts of the body takes learning to the next level.”
The table offers a cleaner environment with less exposure to odors and chemicals than traditional cadaver dissection.
“Cadavers don’t come with labels. Using the table enables us to see how the body works as a system rather than just viewing individual parts,” adds Rayhan Quraishi, a fourth-year neuroscience major pursuing a career in medicine.
Decker emphasizes that while the Anatomage Table is a game changer, it doesn’t replace prosections. Students will continue to work with real hearts, lungs, and even full spinal cords, thanks to a partnership with Emory University’s Body Donation Program.
Combining cadaver dissection with the table enhances the overall learning experience, explains Decker:
“With prosections, they learn how the veins and arteries feel when you cut into them. With the Anatomage Table, students will see what it looks like when the heart beats or the lungs expand. They can virtually follow a drop of blood through the blood vessel, then use the touch screen to see what that same drop of blood would look like under a microscope. You can’t do that with a cadaver.”
From anatomy to imaging
One of the table’s most powerful features is its integration of diagnostic imaging. Students can compare anatomical structures side-by-side with CT and MRI scans and overlay images as they simulate physiological processes like heartbeats and brain activity.
Decker is currently designing a new course, Anatomy for Diagnostic Imaging, that will use the table to teach students how to interpret MRI, CT, and ultrasound scans. The Anatomage Table contains built-in datasets of MRIs of the spine, heart, and brain, so students can look at the diagnostic image and the actual structure at the same time.
“Some students enter medical school without once taking an anatomy course,” says Decker. “Georgia Tech students, on the other hand, will already have an introduction to imaging and pathology.”
Sameeha Lalani, a third-year biology major who works as an EMT praises the clinical features found in the table. “After one of my EMT shifts, I went back and recreated what happened to my patient using the table. It really made the clinical experience click, so I could better understand what happened.”
Expanding access
The table will soon be in use in BIOS 3754 (Anatomy Lab), which runs five lab sections each fall. Decker is also exploring ways to integrate the table into live lectures, transmitting demonstrations from the table directly into large lecture halls.
Plans are currently underway to use the table in the wellness requirement course, APPH 1040 (Scientific Foundations of Health). Students will be able to visualize cardiovascular anatomy and heart disease by rotating the heart, opening chambers, and simulating conditions, such as a stroke or heart attack.
Decker is eager to collaborate with other departments and make the table a campuswide resource. He sees opportunities in health-related subjects across campus, including biomedical and mechanical engineering, neuroscience, and physiology. Student clubs like the Student Neuroscience Association, Physician Assistant Club, and Pre-Dental Society are also expected to rotate through the lab.
“Anatomy is an ancient science, but it’s the foundation of all healthcare. There are going to be many students who benefit from this — all across campus,” Decker says. “We’ve barely scratched the surface of what it can do.”