{"690376":{"#nid":"690376","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Online Age Checks Create a Pointless Privacy Risk","body":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen a bartender checks an ID, they quickly verify a customer\u2019s date of birth and identity before serving them.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECompanies that employ online age verification claim their products function the same way on the web. That bartender analogy has, in part, justified laws passed in twenty-five US states \u2014 comprising more than 40% of Americans \u2014 mandating the use of digital age verification to gate access across social media and adult content online. Further regulation, targeting social media sites, is currently in process in a number of states.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/mikespecter.com\/assets\/pdf\/AgeVerification.pdf\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Enew research\u003C\/a\u003E from Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and the University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) reveals that the reality of online age verification is far from ideal.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study found that the vast majority of sites covered by these laws do not appear to enforce age verification at all. When sites \u003Cem\u003Edo \u003C\/em\u003Ecomply, they often route users through third party age verification services.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers found that one such third party, Yoti, a London-based company used by Meta, OnlyFans, Sony PlayStation, and TikTok, provides services for an estimated 60% of websites deploying age verification services.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDepending on the verification method, a verification attempt via Yoti may transmit a user\u2019s IP address and\/or OS and browser metadata sufficient to uniquely identify and track devices. Some of the IP, OS, and browser metadata may be sent to credit card companies and IP geolocation services, while ID information may be sent to a known \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/oag.ca.gov\/data-broker\/registration\/186885\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Edata broker\u003C\/a\u003E, or another verification service.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere have been laws passed and court cases settled on the promise that these companies are incentivized to keep users\u2019 data private,\u201d said Assistant Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/mikespecter.com\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMichael A. Specter\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E at Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy. \u201cWe found that reality is starkly different.\u201d\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAside from privacy concerns, researchers note that differing state policies could lead to what they call the \u201cBalkanization of the U.S. web.\u201d In other words, users may have access to different parts of the internet depending on the state they are in\u2014potentially limiting the free exchange of ideas and information.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Assistant Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/hoppenheimer\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHarry Oppenheimer\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/spp.gatech.edu\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EJimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy\u003C\/a\u003E, users are already accustomed to experiencing the internet differently across countries. However, this may signal the beginning of similar fragmentation within the United States.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe are going to start seeing comparable differences between U.S. states,\u201d said Oppenheimer. \u201cUsers in some states will now have to go through additional steps to access information. Close your laptop in New York before a flight to Dallas and try to load the same web page\u2014now you see two different results.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe also observed age verification deployed on websites accessed from New York, which has no law requiring verification,\u201d said Associate Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/pearce.prof\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPaul Pearce\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E \u003C\/strong\u003Eof UC Irvine\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cs.ics.uci.edu\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EDepartment of Computer Science\u003C\/a\u003E. \u201cWe don\u2019t know why these sites are deploying such verification\u2014it could be a move to limit liability or simplify operations. Regardless, it points to an emerging threat for the open Internet where restrictive laws from some states could impact the entire country and beyond.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study, \u003Cem\u003EPapers Please: A First Look at Age Verification on the Web,\u003C\/em\u003E was led by Georgia Tech Ph.D. student Shreyas Minocha, undergraduate Isaac Sheridan, and professors Oppenheimer, Pearce, and Specter. It is part of the proceedings of the 47th \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sp2026.ieee-security.org\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EIEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E and was presented in San Francisco on May 20th, and featured in \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Farstechnica.com%2Ftech-policy%2F2026%2F03%2Fafter-discord-fiasco-age-check-tech-promises-privacy-by-running-locally-does-it-work%2F\u0026amp;data=05%7C02%7Cjohn.popham%40cc.gatech.edu%7C9618dbf4c61140338f5508deb7673edd%7C482198bbae7b4b258b7a6d7f32faa083%7C1%7C0%7C639149851249813372%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C\u0026amp;sdata=WDS9aMmP8UCwjQdFIuZh73PMNG%2Be4Ks949IjaeUZv%2FI%3D\u0026amp;reserved=0\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EArs Technica\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003ECORRECTION: A previous version of this article, posted in error, included statements that were not part of the researchers\u2019 findings or intent. This version has been updated for clarity, and to reflect the research as published in IEEE S\u0026amp;P.\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ENew cybersecurity research indicates that one of the world\u2019s leading age verification providers collects and shares highly sensitive personal data with third parties.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research also reveals that most websites that require age verification don\u2019t enforce the policy.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"New cybersecurity research indicates that one of the world\u2019s leading age verification providers collects and shares highly sensitive personal data with third parties and in some cases don\u0027t even enforce the policy.."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-05-19 15:01:23","changed_gmt":"2026-07-16 18:35:39","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-19T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-19T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680309":{"id":"680309","type":"image","title":"Digital-ID.jpg","body":null,"created":"1779203176","gmt_created":"2026-05-19 15:06:16","changed":"1779203176","gmt_changed":"2026-05-19 15:06:16","alt":"A hand holds up a digital identification card. The card has the silhouette of a man wearing a suit and tie. ","file":{"fid":"264556","name":"Digital-ID.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/19\/Digital-ID.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/19\/Digital-ID.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1508599,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/05\/19\/Digital-ID.jpg?itok=M-WXTSUO"}}},"media_ids":["680309"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"365","name":"Research"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"182941","name":"cc-research; ic-cybersecurity; ic-hcc"},{"id":"1404","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jpopham3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommunications Officer\u003Cbr\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690809":{"#nid":"690809","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Research Gets to the Core of AI Drone Crashes","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA drone powered by artificial intelligence crashes in a remote field, destroying its onboard computer and leaving investigators without the data needed to determine whether a cyberattack caused the failure.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Georgia Tech say they have developed a system to help answer that question.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKnown as FIRA, the tool analyzes drone crashes to determine whether they were caused by tampered machine-learning (ML) models. The team will present its findings at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/conference\/usenixsecurity26\u0022\u003E35th USENIX Security Symposium\u003C\/a\u003E in August.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research addresses a growing safety challenge as drones are increasingly used for deliveries, infrastructure inspections, and agriculture.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs drones rely more on machine learning to navigate and make decisions, they also become vulnerable to model poisoning attacks. In these attacks, adversaries manipulate an AI system during its learning phase, embedding hidden triggers that can cause failures under specific conditions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMachine learning drones are making more decisions in flight, which makes ML a safety-critical component of these systems,\u201d said\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EYizhi Huang\u003C\/strong\u003E, Ph.D. student and lead researcher on the project.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen something goes wrong, investigators need a way to ask whether the model was responsible, but the model is the part of the system that no one can examine after a crash.\u0026nbsp;FIRA\u0026nbsp;gives investigators a way to investigate these cases by reconstructing what the model was doing during the crash. As more drones run with ML, this kind of forensic capability can help drones be used more effectively and safely.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen a drone crashes, investigators must determine whether the cause was malicious interference, weather, or mechanical failure. Without reliable forensic tools, accountability is difficult to establish, and safety standards are harder to enforce.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFIRA identifies how drone components interact with machine learning models and monitors those interactions in real time, even with limited bandwidth.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe system functions like a flight recorder, capturing key system activity and reconstructing a timeline after a crash. It then analyzes the model\u2019s behavior to determine whether a malicious trigger was introduced via poisoned ML training data.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn tests across multiple drone platforms and crash scenarios, FIRA identified failure causes and distinguished cyberattacks from environmental or mechanical issues.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe system does not require access to a drone\u2019s source code, making it practical for real-world investigations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs commercial drone use expands, tools like FIRA could help improve accountability and trust in AI-powered systems operating in public airspace,\u201d said\u0026nbsp;Huang.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/system\/files\/conference\/usenixsecurity26\/sec26_prepub_huang-yizhi.pdf\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EFIRA: Enabling Automatic Forensic Investigation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E was led by Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cyfi.ece.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECyber Forensics Innovation Lab\u003C\/a\u003E in cooperation with the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/capcpsec\/\u0022\u003ECyber-Physical Security Lab\u003C\/a\u003E. These labs reside in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E and the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ece.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Electrical and Computing Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA drone powered by artificial intelligence crashes in a remote field, destroying its onboard computer and leaving investigators without the data needed to determine whether a cyberattack caused the failure.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Georgia Tech say they have developed a system to help answer that question.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers at Georgia Tech say they have developed a system to determine whether a cyberattack caused drone crashes."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-06-18 17:56:23","changed_gmt":"2026-07-16 18:35:19","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"660599":{"id":"660599","type":"image","title":"CyFI Lab Sign","body":null,"created":"1661532564","gmt_created":"2022-08-26 16:49:24","changed":"1661532564","gmt_changed":"2022-08-26 16:49:24","alt":"Sign reading Cyber Forensics Innovation Laboratory The CyFI Lab","file":{"fid":"250302","name":"SCP August 2022-66.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/SCP%20August%202022-66.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/SCP%20August%202022-66.png","mime":"image\/png","size":9087261,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/SCP%20August%202022-66.png?itok=7KS9Gbz_"}}},"media_ids":["660599"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"660406","name":"School of Cybersecurity \u0026 Privacy"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jpopham3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommunications Officer\u003Cbr\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690918":{"#nid":"690918","#data":{"type":"news","title":"World Cup Demand Highlights Georgia Tech Startup\u2019s Ticketing Solution ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs fans around the world search for tickets to FIFA World Cup 2026 matches, a team of Georgia Tech students is working to make buying tickets to major events less stressful and more transparent.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDoorTix, a startup ticket-buying concierge founded by computer science major \u003Cstrong\u003EArayna Saxena\u003C\/strong\u003E, industrial engineering major \u003Cstrong\u003EShinhai Chen\u003C\/strong\u003E, and mechanical engineering major \u003Cstrong\u003EDhruv Narang\u003C\/strong\u003E, helps users navigate the increasingly complex world of event ticketing. Earlier this year, the startup earned \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/teams-cs-students-capture-2026-georgia-tech-inventure-prize-win-laurels-peoples-choice-award\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Ethe People\u2019s Choice Award at Georgia Tech\u2019s InVenture Prize competition\u003C\/a\u003E for its approach to combating dynamic pricing and improving access to live events.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe Problem\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhether fans are trying to attend a sporting event or a concert, the team says that securing tickets often means navigating fluctuating prices, limited inventory, hidden fees, and the risk of scams.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBuying tickets today can feel like entering a maze with a timer running,\u201d Saxena said.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cPrices change, listings disappear, fees show up late, and fans often feel like they need to be experts just to get into the event they care about.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHow DoorTix Works\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDoorTix was built from that frustration. Instead of requiring users to constantly monitor multiple ticket marketplaces, the platform tracks listings across sites and automatically purchases tickets when they meet a user\u2019s target price.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe system is designed to respond to dynamic pricing and automated purchasing bots that can cause ticket costs to shift rapidly across platforms.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat gives fans fair and predictable access without the guesswork,\u201d Saxena said.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe wanted to build something that brings the human side back into ticketing, something that feels less like fighting an algorithm and more like having someone in your corner.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe World Cup: A Global Test Case\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe World Cup tournament is a high-profile example of the problem DoorTix is designed to solve. With global demand and limited availability, the tournament reflects the same challenges seen across major live events.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen fans are trying to attend something as massive as the World Cup, the stakes are higher. The excitement is higher. The confusion is also higher,\u201d Saxena said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat is exactly where DoorTix can be useful. The World Cup gives us a real, high-pressure use case for what we are building.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFrom Idea to Startup\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe idea for DoorTix began with a simple observation: buying tickets often creates more stress than excitement.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs a computer science student, Saxena has helped translate that idea into a working product, balancing technical development with user experience design.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u201cA lot of the work is not just \u2018write code and ship it.\u2019 It\u2019s asking what the user needs, where they\u2019re confused, and how we can make a complex process feel simple.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThrough \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/create-x.gatech.edu\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech\u2019s CREATE-X Startup Launch program\u003C\/a\u003E, the team has tested assumptions, gathered customer feedback, and refined its business model as it develops the product.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey\u2019ve already seen real customer demand, and now the focus is on improving the experience and making it more scalable. Long-term, the founders envision DoorTix continuing to be a trusted ticket-buying concierge for high-demand events.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re not just helping someone buy a seat. We\u2019re helping them get to a once-in-a-lifetime memory.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs fans around the world search for tickets to FIFA World Cup 2026 matches, a team of Georgia Tech students is working to make buying tickets to major events less stressful and more transparent.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"As fans around the world search for tickets to FIFA World Cup 2026 matches, a team of Georgia Tech students is working to make buying tickets to major events less stressful and more transparent. "}],"uid":"36613","created_gmt":"2026-06-25 18:20:42","changed_gmt":"2026-07-16 18:34:53","author":"Emily Smith","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-06-25T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-06-25T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680519":{"id":"680519","type":"image","title":"doortix2.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1782487995","gmt_created":"2026-06-26 15:33:15","changed":"1782488019","gmt_changed":"2026-06-26 15:33:39","alt":"DoorTix","file":{"fid":"264792","name":"doortix2.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/26\/doortix2.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/26\/doortix2.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":373967,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/26\/doortix2.jpeg?itok=nrgX04gV"}},"680514":{"id":"680514","type":"image","title":"DoorTix-2026-InVenture-Prize-People-s-Choice.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003EThe founders of DoorTix won the People\u0027s Choice Award at the Inventure Prize Competition for their approach to combating dynamic pricing and improving access to live events.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1782411656","gmt_created":"2026-06-25 18:20:56","changed":"1782411656","gmt_changed":"2026-06-25 18:20:56","alt":"DoorTix","file":{"fid":"264787","name":"DoorTix-2026-InVenture-Prize-People-s-Choice.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/25\/DoorTix-2026-InVenture-Prize-People-s-Choice.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/25\/DoorTix-2026-InVenture-Prize-People-s-Choice.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":89696,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/25\/DoorTix-2026-InVenture-Prize-People-s-Choice.jpg?itok=5T_boJ3j"}},"680515":{"id":"680515","type":"image","title":"Image-6-24-26-at-3.55-PM.jpeg","body":"\u003Cp\u003EDoorTix founders attended the World Cup.\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1782412104","gmt_created":"2026-06-25 18:28:24","changed":"1782412104","gmt_changed":"2026-06-25 18:28:24","alt":"DoorTix founders attended the World Cup.","file":{"fid":"264788","name":"Image-6-24-26-at-3.55-PM.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/25\/Image-6-24-26-at-3.55-PM.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/25\/Image-6-24-26-at-3.55-PM.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":607566,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/25\/Image-6-24-26-at-3.55-PM.jpeg?itok=jrzRm356"}},"680516":{"id":"680516","type":"image","title":"IMG_2335.jpeg","body":"\u003Cp\u003EDoorTix founders attended the World Cup.\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1782412104","gmt_created":"2026-06-25 18:28:24","changed":"1782412104","gmt_changed":"2026-06-25 18:28:24","alt":"DoorTix founders attended the World Cup.","file":{"fid":"264789","name":"IMG_2335.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/25\/IMG_2335.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/25\/IMG_2335.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":187431,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/25\/IMG_2335.jpeg?itok=FxyXoQhp"}}},"media_ids":["680519","680514","680515","680516"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"660374","name":"School of Computing Instruction"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"193158","name":"Student Competition Winners (academic, innovation, and research)"},{"id":"193157","name":"Student Honors and Achievements"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"195155","name":"World Cup 2026"},{"id":"195177","name":"World Cup Atlanta"},{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"58331","name":"College of Engineering; school of mechanical engineering; engineering"},{"id":"1191","name":"industrial engineering"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:emily.smith@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EEmily Smith\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech College of Computing\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"691079":{"#nid":"691079","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Professor Receives Third Test of Time Honor in Three Years","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EProfessor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/moin.cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMoinuddin Qureshi\u003C\/a\u003E received the ACM SIGARCH\/IEEE-CS TCCA Influential ISCA Paper Award at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/iscaconf.org\/isca2026\/\u0022\u003EInternational Symposium on Computer Architecture\u003C\/a\u003E (ISCA 2026) on June 30.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPresented annually, the ISCA Influential Paper Award recognizes a standout paper from the ISCA Conference 18-22 years prior. Winning papers are those which have demonstrated \u201cthe most impact on the field (in terms of research, development, products or ideas) during the intervening years.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe awarded paper, \u003Cem\u003EAdaptive Insertion Policies for High-Performance Caching\u003C\/em\u003E, has been highly influential in cache replacement research. As a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin, Qureshi co-authored the paper with his advisor Yale Patt and collaborators from Intel, including Aamer Jaleel, Simon Steely, and Joel Emer.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019ve been working on memory systems for 20 years and if I had to pick one favorite paper, it would be this one,\u201d Qureshi said. \u201cBoth because of the simplicity of the solution and for the impact it had.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen the paper was published at ISCA 2007, on-chip cache sizes were growing but still managed almost exclusively by the\u0026nbsp;Least Recently Used (LRU) replacement policy.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe paper showed that more than half of the lines in cache were discarded before they could be used under LRU policy and that this happened because the workloads being run were larger than the cache size. The team came up with a simple solution of modifying the \u201cInsertion Policy\u201d, such that the incoming lines were inserted at the LRU position instead of the MRU position, thus protecting the cache from thrashing patterns. The problem was that some workloads benefited from this policy while others were hurt by it.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInstead of applying one policy across the whole cache, their solution dynamically tested two small segments against each other, each running a different policy. Whichever policy had fewer cache misses was applied to the entire cache. They named this technique Set Dueling.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EQureshi clearly remembers the moment he knew this paper would be important. He was up late working on the project when he ran the final simulation with the solution.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI was so excited that I just didn\u2019t sleep that night. I knew that the solution would get incorporated and it would change how people think about caching. I could not wait to share the results with my collaborators\u201d he said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESet Dueling has since become a common technique for choosing between two competing policies when neither wins on all workloads. With close to 1,000 citations, the paper has greatly influenced research on cache optimization.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis recognition is Qureshi\u2019s third test-of-time honor. In 2024, he received one at the IEEE\/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture, for his work on Multi-core Cache Partitioning and in 2025, at the IEEE\/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, for his work on DRAM Reliability.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EQureshi said that his goal in working in computer architecture is to have an industry impact.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s very gratifying to see that the ideas that we developed a decade or two decades ago are having an impact and being incorporated,\u201d Qureshi said. \u201cAs a researcher, these are the best awards you can have because it serves as a validation that the work you\u2019ve done is valuable to both industry and follow-up research.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EProfessor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/moin.cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMoinuddin Qureshi\u003C\/a\u003E received the ACM SIGARCH\/IEEE-CS TCCA Influential ISCA Paper Award at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/iscaconf.org\/isca2026\/\u0022\u003EInternational Symposium on Computer Architecture\u003C\/a\u003E (ISCA 2026) on June 30. The awarded paper, \u003Cem\u003EAdaptive Insertion Policies for High-Performance Caching\u003C\/em\u003E, has been highly influential in cache replacement research.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Professor Moinuddin Qureshi received the ACM SIGARCH\/IEEE-CS TCCA Influential ISCA Paper Award at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA 2026) on June 30. "}],"uid":"36532","created_gmt":"2026-07-10 14:44:32","changed_gmt":"2026-07-16 18:33:44","author":"Morgan Usry","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-07-10T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-07-10T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680590":{"id":"680590","type":"image","title":"moin_isca.jpg","body":null,"created":"1783701216","gmt_created":"2026-07-10 16:33:36","changed":"1783701216","gmt_changed":"2026-07-10 16:33:36","alt":"moin","file":{"fid":"264869","name":"moin_isca.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/10\/moin_isca.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/10\/moin_isca.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":163890,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/07\/10\/moin_isca.jpg?itok=hFw3xbfW"}}},"media_ids":["680590"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"182764","name":"microarchitecture"},{"id":"175184","name":"computer architecture"},{"id":"170453","name":"Test of Time Award"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:morgan.usry@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EMorgan Usry\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommunications Officer\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech College of Computing\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"691122":{"#nid":"691122","#data":{"type":"news","title":"DeMillo Recognized for Lasting Contributions to Software Engineering","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERichard DeMillo, professor, founding chair of Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP), and Charlotte B. and Roger C. Warren Chair of Computing, has been named to the inaugural class of the ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Academy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDeMillo was among 80 computer scientists worldwide selected for the Academy\u0027s founding class and was the only Georgia Tech faculty member recognized.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022I am honored to be included in the inaugural class of the ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Academy,\u0022 said DeMillo. \u0022This recognition reflects the work of outstanding students, collaborators, and colleagues over many years. Software engineering research has transformed the way society builds and depends upon software, and I hope our community will continue to advance the scientific foundations needed to make software more reliable, secure, and worthy of the trust people place in it.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEstablished by ACM SIGSOFT, the Software Engineering Academy is a standing body of honor that recognizes members of the software engineering community whose lasting technical contributions, leadership, and service have shaped the field. The Academy celebrates researchers whose cumulative work and influence have advanced software engineering as both a scientific discipline and professional practice.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Rich\u0027s research in software testing is recognized among the most influential contributions to the field of software engineering,\u0022 said SCP Interim Chair Mustaque Ahamad. \u0022His inclusion in the inaugural ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Academy demonstrates the lasting impact of his research on building more reliable software systems.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe inaugural class was selected from leaders whose contributions have already been widely recognized across the software engineering community, including ACM Fellows and recipients of ACM SIGSOFT\u0027s Outstanding Research Award. Beginning next year, new Academy members will be elected annually through a community nomination process.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDeMillo served as the founding chair of Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, the first school of its kind at a top research university. He previously served as the John P. Imlay Dean of the College of Computing and directed the Georgia Tech Information Security Center.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThroughout his career, DeMillo has held leadership positions across academia, industry, and government. He served as Hewlett-Packard\u0027s first chief technology officer, led computing research at Bell Communications Research, directed the Computer Research Division at the National Science Foundation, and led the Software Test and Evaluation Project in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHis research spans software engineering, cybersecurity, election security, and the societal impacts of digital technology. His 1979 paper, Social Processes and Proofs of Theorems and Programs, is widely regarded as a foundational work in software engineering and has been recognized as one of the 50 most influential papers in computer science.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to his research, DeMillo has helped shape higher education through the creation of Georgia Tech\u0027s Center for 21st Century Universities. He is a fellow of both the Association for Computing Machinery and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERichard DeMillo, professor, founding chair of Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP), and Charlotte B. and Roger C. Warren Chair of Computing, has been named to the inaugural class of the ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Academy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDeMillo was among 80 computer scientists worldwide selected for the Academy\u0027s founding class and was the only Georgia Tech faculty member recognized.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Richard DeMillo has been named to the inaugural class of the ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Academy."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-07-14 19:00:53","changed_gmt":"2026-07-16 18:31:34","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-07-14T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-07-14T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"673662":{"id":"673662","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech Cybersecurity and Privacy Professor Rich DeMillo","body":null,"created":"1712679629","gmt_created":"2024-04-09 16:20:29","changed":"1712679629","gmt_changed":"2024-04-09 16:20:29","alt":"Georgia Tech Cybersecurity and Privacy Professor Rich DeMillo","file":{"fid":"257084","name":"Rich_DeMillo_08.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/04\/09\/Rich_DeMillo_08.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/04\/09\/Rich_DeMillo_08.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":50395,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2024\/04\/09\/Rich_DeMillo_08.jpg?itok=qBhdaP00"}}},"media_ids":["673662"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"660406","name":"School of Cybersecurity \u0026 Privacy"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jpopham3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommunications Officer\u003Cbr\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"691044":{"#nid":"691044","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Researchers Use GeoGuessr Champion to Test Geolocation Accuracy in VLMs","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe house in the distance, with a red, hip-shaped roof and white walls, tells Radu Casapu that this place is probably somewhere in Spain or Portugal.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe surrounding trees resemble those of a eucalyptus forest, which could indicate northern Portugal or the Spanish region of Galicia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s the signposts on the road that give it away. They are flat and wide, which is common in Spain but not in Portugal.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECasapu, a master\u2019s student in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of City and Regional Planning, correctly reasons that the picture of a road he\u2019s looking at is in Galicia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGive Casapu a photo, and he will likely be able to tell you where it was taken.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI start with infrastructure clues that are specific to a country, region, state or province,\u201d Casapu said. \u201cThey include roads or electricity poles, which often remain consistent throughout a country. Once you narrow down the country, you can use more specific factors like vegetation, specific landscapes, or architecture, because these are very nuanced. It\u2019s a top-down approach.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis is why Casapu is the reigning\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/news.gatech.edu\/news\/2025\/09\/23\/georgia-tech-graduate-student-wins-geoguessr-world-championship\u0022\u003EGeoGussr World Champion\u003C\/a\u003E \u2014 and the ideal expert to test vision-language models (VLMs) on how good they are at geolocation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeoGuessr is a geography browser game launched in 2013 that invites players to guess the location of random Google Street View images. Casapu was already known as one of the top players in the world before he won the third annual GeoGussr World Championship in September.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt the beginning of the spring 2025 semester, School of Interactive Computing professor James Hays reached out to Casapu and invited him to collaborate on a new project. Hays was looking to create a dataset to evaluate VLMs\u0027 geolocation ability and reasoning.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cVLMs are surprisingly good at geolocation right out of the box, even when they\u2019re not trained to be good at it,\u201d Hays said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHays and his colleagues, associate professors Alan Ritter and Wei Xu, took issue with many AI companies claiming that the VLMs they were releasing were not good at geolocation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen Open AI released GPT 4 Vision, there were privacy concerns about the model\u2019s ability to geolocate someone based on photos they\u2019ve shared on the internet,\u201d Ritter said. \u201cOpen AI said this wasn\u2019t a concern and claimed the model wasn\u2019t good at geolocation beyond being able to recognize a city or famous monument. We found that wasn\u2019t the case. These VLMs are state-of-the-art at image geolocation tasks.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EShow Your Work\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHays and Ritter enlisted a team of some of the world\u2019s top geolocators. It consisted of Casapu, Joshua Diao, a master\u2019s student in computer science, and Tejas Santanam, a Ph.D. student in industrial engineering. They each received 500 images to geolocate.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETeam members recorded their reasons for each of their answers. The result was GeoRC, the first benchmark for VLM geolocation performance, consisting of 800 \u201cground truth\u201d reasoning chains.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHays and Ritter gave the same images to GPT 5, Gemini, Llama, and Qwen. The highest-performing model geolocated with 90% accuracy \u2014 not far off from the team\u2019s 96% score.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, a major distinction showed up in the reasoning chains. While Casapu and Diao provided clear explanations for how they deduce each location, the VLMs either couldn\u2019t provide reasoning for their guesses or were vague in their answers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe research community has been demanding explanations from these models,\u201d Hays said. \u201cFor example, how do they know the location is in Italy?\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHays has been researching this subject for almost 20 years. As a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University in 2008, he was the first researcher to take a machine learning approach to geolocation. He introduced a new algorithm that could estimate a geographic location from a single image.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen experts have audited these reasoning chains, we\u2019ve noted many suspicious or hallucinated attributes,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen they hallucinate a geographic property, why is it so often consistent with the correct guess?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI believe they\u2019re not revealing the true reasoning pathway that they used to determine the image was Italy. They\u2019re just implicitly recognizing that it was Italy for many reasons, then hunting for evidence to support that. Some of the things they say are true and supported by the image, and some are fabrications.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPractice Partner\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECasapu said there may be only a handful of GeoGuessr players who can currently outperform some top-tier VLMs in geolocation, and it may not be long before no one can.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI think it could be more difficult playing against these models than playing against another human because a human has the possibility of making mistakes at the top level,\u201d Casapu said. \u201cIf a well-trained model has that level of consistency, that is far beyond a normal person, and it would be much more difficult to beat.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe added that working with Hays and competing against a machine improved his skill level and provided valuable practice ahead of the world championship.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt helps to take a step back and see why you\u2019re making the guesses that you are,\u201d he said. \u201cSince then, I\u2019ve taken a more methodical approach to how I practice. Writing these things down is a great way to see what you know and see why you make the guesses that you do. It\u2019s been a great training tool.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECasapu will defend his title at the 2026 GeoGussr World Championship in September.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHays, Ritter, Xu, Casapu, Diao, and Santanm are all co-authors of a paper on GeoRC along with lead author Mohit Talrej and Ph.D. students Ethan Mendes and Jim Thannikary. The paper will be presented next week at the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) in San Diego.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers James Hays, Alan Ritter, and Wei Xu partnered with reigning GeoGuessr World Champion Radu Casapu and other top players to build GeoRC, the first benchmark evaluating how well vision-language models (VLMs) can geolocate images. They found LLMS are almost as good at geolocation as the world\u0027s best players, but they struggle to explain their reasoning.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers have developed what they believe is the strongest benchmark dataset on measuring the geolocation accuracy of LLMs."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-07-06 17:43:39","changed_gmt":"2026-07-16 18:30:54","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-07-06T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-07-06T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680557":{"id":"680557","type":"image","title":"_DSC7175.JPG","body":null,"created":"1783359838","gmt_created":"2026-07-06 17:43:58","changed":"1783359838","gmt_changed":"2026-07-06 17:43:58","alt":"Radu Casapu","file":{"fid":"264834","name":"_DSC7175.JPG","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/06\/_DSC7175.JPG","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/06\/_DSC7175.JPG","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":122620,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/07\/06\/_DSC7175.JPG?itok=vNYr-PmK"}}},"media_ids":["680557"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"193158","name":"Student Competition Winners (academic, innovation, and research)"}],"keywords":[{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"187812","name":"artificial intelligence (AI)"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"193556","name":"large language models"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ndeen6@gatech.edu\u0022\u003ENathan Deen\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECollege of Computing\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"691060":{"#nid":"691060","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Staffer Prioritizes Building School Culture","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAround a table at \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/studentcenter.gatech.edu\/paper-clay\u0022\u003EPaper and Clay\u003C\/a\u003E, Georgia Tech\u2019s on-campus pottery studio, the staff of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E (SCP) gathered for one of its regular team-building exercises.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe outing, organized by Director of Research Operations \u003Cstrong\u003EMary Helen Hayes\u003C\/strong\u003E, is one of a series of activities designed to bring the school\u2019s staff together to foster close relationships between peers. Developing staff culture has been a priority for Hayes since she started at SCP in \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\/external-news\/not-built-day-cybersecurity-and-privacy-school-increases-staff-five-fold\u0022\u003EJanuary 2024\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese types of events build trust and remove perceptions,\u201d she said. \u201cIt brings together leadership and employees to show that we are all rowing the boat together.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESoon after she was hired, Hayes attended a meeting to help shape SCP\u0027s culture. The fledgling school and its new staff had yet to develop a culture of their own, and Hayes saw an opportunity to draw on her experience planning staff outings to bring people together early on.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt started with a staff retreat over lunch in 2024. Hayes built a playlist based on the staff\u2019s favorite songs, and the group played icebreakers. From that point forward, SCP staff outings included ceramic pumpkin painting contests, holiday ornament decoration, and more.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe school also sponsors a welcome breakfast each fall for SCP students and, more recently, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/scp-food-drive\u0022\u003Ehosted a food drive\u003C\/a\u003E. Both organized by Hayes.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMary Helen has the rare talent to bring process improvements to life while bringing people together, creating lasting improvements that benefit SCP, the College of Computing, and the Institute,\u201d said School Administrative Officer \u003Cstrong\u003EJan Morian\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile staff culture has become one of Hayes\u0027 most visible contributions, it is only part of her impact on SCP. In her two and a half years at the school, she has launched training on research proposals, travel, and expenses. She has also established regular meetings among faculty, administrative, and finance staff and created methods to expedite undergraduate hiring and research proposal intake.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI have been at Georgia Tech for about 15 years now, and I looked back on my experience when coming up with new processes for the school,\u201d she said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore joining SCP, Hayes was a financial manager and administrator at several Georgia Tech departments. In 2024 she was hired by SCP as the assistant director for financial operations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENow as director of research operations, Hayes supports 26 school faculty and oversees a team of four research administrators. She oversees all financial operations for the school including proposal development, sponsor compliance, post-award administration, financial reporting, and award closeout activities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHayes runs a tight ship, a fact she will freely admit to. Her department is organized down to the filing system to keep everyone on the same page. Her team of four staff each bring their own strengths to the school\u2019s finances, and Hayes has made sure they are cross trained so there is coverage if someone is out.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI want to make sure my team can rely on each other,\u201d she said. \u201cI want them to be able to ask questions and admit if they don\u2019t know something.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJust as dedicated to the culture of her own team as she is with the overall, Hayes encourages her colleagues to engage in career development conferences and courses. She also was vocal\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003Ein the job families effort to ensure her staff receive job titles that reflect their day-to-day responsibilities.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo develop her own career further, Hayes is currently enrolled in the MBA program at Georgia Southern University through the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/benefits.usg.edu\/work-life\/tuition-assistance-program\u0022\u003ETuition Assistance Program\u003C\/a\u003E (TAP) offered to full-time employees by the University System of Georgia. She also received the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/cybersecurity-school-takes-home-multiple-awards\u0022\u003EOutstanding Staff Leadership Award\u003C\/a\u003E from the College of Computing.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERather than waiting for challenges to arise, Hayes looks for opportunities to improve workflows before they become obstacles. She regularly gathers feedback from colleagues, refines procedures, and documents best practices to ensure knowledge is shared across the school instead of remaining with a single person.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESince joining the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy in 2024, Mary Helen Hayes has helped shape the school\u0027s culture while strengthening its research operations. She has organized regular team-building events, student welcome activities, and service projects to foster collaboration and trust among staff. Beyond building community, Hayes has streamlined administrative processes by launching training programs, improving proposal and hiring workflows, and establishing regular coordination between faculty and staff. As director of research operations, she oversees the school\u0027s financial and research administration, leads a cross-trained team, and emphasizes continuous improvement, professional development, and knowledge sharing to support SCP\u0027s long-term success.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"One staff member at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy works overtime to ensure the culture at the school remains strong."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-07-07 17:25:55","changed_gmt":"2026-07-07 17:31:37","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-07-07T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-07-07T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680571":{"id":"680571","type":"image","title":"Mary-Helen-Hayes-2-web-copy.jpg","body":null,"created":"1783445192","gmt_created":"2026-07-07 17:26:32","changed":"1783445192","gmt_changed":"2026-07-07 17:26:32","alt":"A woman standing against a table with her arms folded on the table top. ","file":{"fid":"264849","name":"Mary-Helen-Hayes-2-web-copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/07\/Mary-Helen-Hayes-2-web-copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/07\/Mary-Helen-Hayes-2-web-copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1709579,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/07\/07\/Mary-Helen-Hayes-2-web-copy.jpg?itok=M6dwBn4y"}},"680570":{"id":"680570","type":"image","title":"CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0049.jpg","body":null,"created":"1783445192","gmt_created":"2026-07-07 17:26:32","changed":"1783445192","gmt_changed":"2026-07-07 17:26:32","alt":"A man shakes hands with a woman who is holding a certificate","file":{"fid":"264848","name":"CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0049.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/07\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0049.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/07\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0049.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":19616005,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/07\/07\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0049.jpg?itok=P_gtmU2i"}}},"media_ids":["680571","680570"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"660406","name":"School of Cybersecurity \u0026 Privacy"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer II at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690910":{"#nid":"690910","#data":{"type":"news","title":"What It Takes to Deliver a Tech\u2011Heavy World Cup","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWith an estimated 500,000 visitors coming to the eight games in Atlanta over the next two months, the 2026 World Cup will be one of the biggest sporting events to come to the city since the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFIFA President Gianni Infantino likened the scale of each game to that of a Super Bowl. The success of a tournament that large will rely heavily on technology, affecting everything from the players on the pitch, all the way to viewers at home.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOn top of the state-of-the-art technology used at many large events, this World Cup will also see the debut of new technology. At the center of much of it will be electrical and computer engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EExperts from the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) weigh in on how the field is enabling the technology behind the world\u2019s largest sporting event.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ece.gatech.edu\/news\/2026\/06\/what-it-takes-deliver-tech-heavy-world-cup\u0022\u003ERead Full Story on the ECE News Page\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EWith hundreds of thousands of people attending the 104 World Cup games over the next 39 days and billions more watching at home, an immense amount of technology will be needed to ensure a seamless, safe, and enjoyable experience. Experts from ECE explain how electrical and computer engineering are facilitating some of the tournament\u0027s newest and most crucial technology.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"With hundreds of thousands of people attending the 104 World Cup games, Georgia Tech experts explain  how electrical and computer engineering are facilitating some of the tournament\u0027s newest and most crucial technology."}],"uid":"36413","created_gmt":"2026-06-24 21:24:12","changed_gmt":"2026-06-24 21:28:36","author":"pdevarajan3","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-06-24T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-06-24T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680512":{"id":"680512","type":"image","title":"What-It-Takes-to-Deliver-a-Tech-Heavy-World-Cup.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1782336352","gmt_created":"2026-06-24 21:25:52","changed":"1782336420","gmt_changed":"2026-06-24 21:27:00","alt":"Stock image that shows a soccer stadium as the center of an AI chip design","file":{"fid":"264785","name":"What-It-Takes-to-Deliver-a-Tech-Heavy-World-Cup.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/24\/What-It-Takes-to-Deliver-a-Tech-Heavy-World-Cup.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/24\/What-It-Takes-to-Deliver-a-Tech-Heavy-World-Cup.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":272785,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/24\/What-It-Takes-to-Deliver-a-Tech-Heavy-World-Cup.jpeg?itok=EGonBxq9"}}},"media_ids":["680512"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/ece.gatech.edu\/news\/2026\/06\/what-it-takes-deliver-tech-heavy-world-cup","title":"Read Full Story on ECE News Page"}],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"367481","name":"SEI Energy"},{"id":"1280","name":"Strategic Energy Institute"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"151","name":"Policy, Social Sciences, and Liberal Arts"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"186858","name":"go-sei"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"},{"id":"39451","name":"Electronics and Nanotechnology"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"},{"id":"39511","name":"Public Service, Leadership, and Policy"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003EZachary Winiecki\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003EDan Watson, Georgia Tech ECE\u003C\/div\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690808":{"#nid":"690808","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Research Gets to the Core of AI Drone Crashes","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA drone powered by artificial intelligence crashes in a remote field, destroying its onboard computer and leaving investigators without the data needed to determine whether a cyberattack caused the failure.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Georgia Tech say they have developed a system to help answer that question.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKnown as FIRA, the tool analyzes drone crashes to determine whether they were caused by poisoned machine-learning (ML) models. The team will present its findings at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/conference\/usenixsecurity26\u0022\u003E35th USENIX Security Symposium\u003C\/a\u003E in August.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research addresses a growing safety challenge as drones are increasingly used for deliveries, infrastructure inspections, and agriculture.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs drones rely more on machine learning to navigate and make decisions, they also become vulnerable to model poisoning attacks. In these attacks, adversaries manipulate an AI system during its learning phase, embedding hidden triggers that can cause failures under specific conditions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMachine learning drones are making more decisions in flight, which makes ML a safety-critical component of these systems,\u201d said\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EYizhi Huang\u003C\/strong\u003E, Ph.D. student and lead researcher on the project.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen something goes wrong, investigators need a way to ask whether the model was responsible, but the model is the part of the system that no one can examine after a crash.\u0026nbsp;FIRA\u0026nbsp;gives investigators a way to investigate these cases by reconstructing what the model was doing during the crash. As more drones run with ML, this kind of forensic capability can help drones be used more effectively and safely.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen a drone crashes, investigators must determine whether the cause was malicious interference, weather, or mechanical failure. Without reliable forensic tools, accountability is difficult to establish, and safety standards are harder to enforce.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFIRA identifies how drone components interact with machine learning models and monitors those interactions in real time, even with limited bandwidth.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe system functions like a flight recorder, capturing key system activity and reconstructing a timeline after a crash. It then analyzes the model\u2019s behavior to determine whether a malicious trigger was introduced via poisoned ML training data.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn tests across multiple drone platforms and crash scenarios, FIRA identified failure causes and distinguished cyberattacks from environmental or mechanical issues.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe system does not require access to a drone\u2019s source code, making it practical for real-world investigations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs commercial drone use expands, tools like FIRA could help improve accountability and trust in AI-powered systems operating in public airspace,\u201d said\u0026nbsp;Huang.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/system\/files\/conference\/usenixsecurity26\/sec26_prepub_huang-yizhi.pdf\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EFIRA: Enabling Automatic Forensic Investigation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E was led by Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cyfi.ece.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECyber Forensics Innovation Lab\u003C\/a\u003E in cooperation with the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/capcpsec\/\u0022\u003ECyber-Physical Security Lab\u003C\/a\u003E. These labs reside in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E and the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ece.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Electrical and Computing Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA drone powered by artificial intelligence crashes in a remote field, destroying its onboard computer and leaving investigators without the data needed to determine whether a cyberattack caused the failure.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at Georgia Tech say they have developed a system to help answer that question.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers at Georgia Tech say they have developed a system to determine whether a cyberattack caused drone crashes."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-06-18 17:32:32","changed_gmt":"2026-06-24 20:39:30","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"660599":{"id":"660599","type":"image","title":"CyFI Lab Sign","body":null,"created":"1661532564","gmt_created":"2022-08-26 16:49:24","changed":"1661532564","gmt_changed":"2022-08-26 16:49:24","alt":"Sign reading Cyber Forensics Innovation Laboratory The CyFI Lab","file":{"fid":"250302","name":"SCP August 2022-66.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/SCP%20August%202022-66.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/SCP%20August%202022-66.png","mime":"image\/png","size":9087261,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/SCP%20August%202022-66.png?itok=7KS9Gbz_"}}},"media_ids":["660599"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer II at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690884":{"#nid":"690884","#data":{"type":"news","title":"ICSFlux: Using Physics to Uncover Cyberthreats ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe factories, water utilities, and power systems that keep daily life running rest on the assumption that as long as no one breaks into the computers that run the equipment, the equipment stays safe.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELogically 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EICSFlux 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBecause 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%.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sahinburak.github.io\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBurak Sahin\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech and the study\u0027s 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese systems are usually judged safe as long as nobody hacks into them,\u0027\u0027 Sahin said. \u201cWhat 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.\u0027\u0027\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMost 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERather than measuring how much of a controller\u0027s 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cTwo different sensor readings can run through the exact same code and still send a reactor in completely different directions,\u0027\u0027 Sahin said. \u201cLooking only at the software tells you nothing about whether the physical system is safe. We had to follow the physics, not the code.\u0027\u0027\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne of the study\u0027s 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAll of the team\u0027s experiments were carried out on secured, controlled test beds. The work was conducted with Georgia Tech\u0027s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/capcpsec\/\u0022\u003ECyber-Physical Systems Security Lab\u003C\/a\u003E, whose research spans the security of cyber-physical systems from industrial programmable logic controllers to marine, automotive, and drone platforms. Georgia Tech\u0027s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cyfi.ece.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECyber Forensics Innovation Laboratory\u003C\/a\u003E, 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe labs are a collaboration between the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E and the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ece.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Electrical and Computer Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EFuzzing the Physical Space: Physics-Aware Testing of Black-Box Industrial Control Systems\u003C\/em\u003E\u0027 was accepted to the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sp2026.ieee-security.org\/\u0022\u003E2026 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E. In addition to Sahin, the team includes Ph.D. students \u003Cstrong\u003EDavid Oygenblik\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003EMingxuan Yao\u003C\/strong\u003E, and \u003Cstrong\u003EYizhi Huang \u003C\/strong\u003Eas well as Associate Professors \u003Cstrong\u003EBrendan Saltaformaggio\u003C\/strong\u003E, and \u003Cstrong\u003ESaman Zonouz\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe factories, water utilities, and power systems that keep daily life running rest on the assumption that as long as no one breaks into the computers that run the equipment, the equipment stays safe.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELogically 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"To find hidden vulnerabilites before an attacker does, researchers built a testing tool called ICSFlux that leans on the physics used by the industrial process and maps out the system to find new threats once thought impossible. "}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-06-24 14:57:00","changed_gmt":"2026-06-24 15:10:58","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-06-24T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-06-24T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680500":{"id":"680500","type":"image","title":"utilities.jpg","body":null,"created":"1782313123","gmt_created":"2026-06-24 14:58:43","changed":"1782313123","gmt_changed":"2026-06-24 14:58:43","alt":"A collection of utilities like power plants, geothermal stations, solar farms, etc.","file":{"fid":"264773","name":"utilities.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/24\/utilities.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/24\/utilities.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":3540206,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/24\/utilities.jpg?itok=RC1Hy0vy"}},"680501":{"id":"680501","type":"image","title":"Burak-Sahin.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBurak Sahin\u003C\/strong\u003E, a Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/a\u003E, advised by \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/samanzonouz4n6\/saman-zonouz\u0022\u003ESaman Zonouz\u003C\/a\u003E (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/capcpsec\/\u0022\u003ECPSec Lab\u003C\/a\u003E) and co-advised by \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/saltaformaggio.ece.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EBrendan Saltaformaggio\u003C\/a\u003E (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cyfi.ece.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECyFI Lab\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1782313398","gmt_created":"2026-06-24 15:03:18","changed":"1782313398","gmt_changed":"2026-06-24 15:03:18","alt":"A side profile of a man\u0027s face. He has long hair and a beard","file":{"fid":"264774","name":"Burak-Sahin.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/24\/Burak-Sahin.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/24\/Burak-Sahin.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":75559,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/24\/Burak-Sahin.jpg?itok=3mVGJ9eI"}}},"media_ids":["680500","680501"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"660406","name":"School of Cybersecurity \u0026 Privacy"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"150","name":"Physics and Physical Sciences"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer II at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690843":{"#nid":"690843","#data":{"type":"news","title":"From Classroom to Manufacturing Floor: Teachers Build Real-World Manufacturing Skills at Georgia Tech","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor three days in June, a dozen middle and high school teachers from rural Georgia traded their classrooms for Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.me.gatech.edu\/montgomery-machining-mall\u0022\u003EMontgomery Machining Mall\u003C\/a\u003E, a machine shop where students and researchers design and build custom parts. Instead of grading papers, they cut metal on bandsaws, lathes, and milling machines while learning skills they\u2019ll take back to their students this fall.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe workshop is part of Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.gatech.edu\/feature\/advanced-manufacturing-program\u0022\u003EAdvanced Manufacturing Pathways (AMP) program\u003C\/a\u003E, a collaboration between the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gtmi.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech Manufacturing Institute\u003C\/a\u003E (GTMI) and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gtri.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech Research Institute\u003C\/a\u003E (GTRI), which connects rural educators with hands-on manufacturing training. This particular training was delivered through a partnership between GTMI, STEM@GTRI \u2014 GTRI\u2019s K-12 outreach program \u2014 and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, leveraging the facilities and expertise of the Montgomery Machining Mall to provide teachers with direct experience in modern manufacturing. Building on GTRI\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ceismc.gatech.edu\/rural-cs-initiative\u0022\u003ERural Computer Science Initiative\u003C\/a\u003E, the program expands access to high-skill, high-wage career pathways across rural communities. The initiative is supported through state funding.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe workshop comes at a time when demand for skilled manufacturing workers continues to grow nationwide, particularly in roles requiring precision, technical expertise, and problem-solving.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EInside the Machine Shop\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe training took place June 3 \u2013 5 in the Montgomery Machining Mall, where staff provided access to facilities, equipment, and technical expertise that made the immersive learning experience possible.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETeachers designed and manufactured a metal meat tenderizer and a metal coaster etched with both the Georgia Tech logo and their name. For many, this was their first exposure to advanced manufacturing tools and processes, and a glimpse into high-skill, high-wage careers within reach for their students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMany of these teachers have never been exposed to any advanced manufacturing,\u201d said Sean Mulvanity, a program manager for STEM@GTRI and project lead for this workshop. \u201cBy the time they walk out of here, they\u2019ve actually created and manufactured physical items they can take back to their students.\u201d Unlike traditional professional development, the workshop places teachers directly in the machine shop, working on heavy equipment.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor AMP program leaders, this pilot was a way to build momentum for school districts that may add advanced manufacturing courses and to make the machine shop feel less intimidating in the process.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOne of the biggest misconceptions about modern manufacturing is that it is inaccessible or limited to specialized factory environments,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gtmi.gatech.edu\/people\/steven-ferguson\u0022\u003EGTMI Deputy Director Steven Ferguson\u003C\/a\u003E. \u201cToday\u2019s manufacturing combines hands-on skills, digital technologies, AI, and problem-solving in ways that are relevant to students across many career pathways. By giving teachers direct experience in the machine shop, we help them bring that excitement back to their classrooms and show students that they can design, build, and innovate in their own communities.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EFrom the Shop Floor to the Classroom\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne of the workshop participants is James Beveridge, who teaches computer science for grades 6-12 in the Chattahoochee County School District, a small, rural district south of Columbus. He has participated in multiple Georgia Tech-led training programs, and he runs a full computer science pathway for 450 middle and high school students. This fall will mark his third year in the Rural Computer Science Initiative and teaching computer science after two decades in industry.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBeveridge had some informal experience with tools growing up \u2014 his father taught him basic carpentry and welding \u2014 but he had never done formal machining work before the AMP workshop.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWorking with metal is different than working with wood, obviously, but it\u2019s been really interesting to see the precision involved,\u201d he said. \u201cWith wood, you can be off by a sixteenth of an inch, and nobody cares. When you\u2019re machining metal parts, it has to be very, very precise. Learning to use the precision measuring tools has been eye-opening.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor Beveridge, one of the biggest benefits of his ongoing work with Georgia Tech through the Rural Computer Science Initiative and related programs is that he never leaves empty-handed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEvery time I come up here to learn something new, they send me home with the equipment to teach it with,\u201d he said. \u201cThe first time, I left with a classroom set of robots so my students could learn to program. Another time, it was a more advanced humanoid robot with artificial intelligence. Now, I\u2019m going back with new skills in machining and a physical project I can show my students.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnother participant, Juone Brown, teaches high school computer science and AI to students at Dooly County High School in Vienna, Georgia. This is her second year in the rural computer science partnership and her fourth year teaching at Dooly. Previously, Brown was a professor for 25 years at Fort Valley State University.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELike Beveridge, Brown has no formal machining background but said the way workshop instructors broke down each step \u2014 especially the math behind the cuts \u2014 made the work feel approachable.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt has been fantastic and really well-paced,\u201d she said. \u201cWe all come from different backgrounds, but the way they present the information makes it click. We know the math, but when you\u2019re on the machine, and they show you easier ways to get the cut you need, it\u2019s very encouraging.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe\u2019s already thinking about how to translate that feeling for her students, many of whom prefer building things to writing code. \u201cI\u2019m always telling them that skills pay the bills,\u201d Brown said. \u201cA lot of my students are hands-on. Now I can connect what we\u2019re doing in class to real parts and jobs.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EBringing Advanced Manufacturing to More Georgia Classrooms\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAfter the workshop, teachers are expected to integrate machining concepts into existing courses or help build new manufacturing pathways at their schools. \u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAMP program leaders intentionally kept this pilot cohort small. The team plans to repeat the workshop several times over the coming year, expanding to more schools and districts across Georgia, building local champions who can help launch advanced manufacturing programs in their communities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbout the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI)\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI) convenes industry leaders, government partners, and top researchers to collaborate on the grand challenges facing manufacturing today: accelerating technology development and deployment; creating, maintaining, and filling quality jobs; ensuring global competitiveness; and advancing economic and environmental stability.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003EOur vision is to ensure rapid innovation that secures U.S. dominance in advanced manufacturing. Through the design and development of artificial intelligence systems, secure digital manufacturing, additive and subtractive processes, and large-scale production enterprises, GTMI stands at the forefront of manufacturing innovation \u2014 leveraging state-of-the-art facilities, including the Advanced Manufacturing Pilot Facility, to turn research breakthroughs into market-ready solutions.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbout the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech).\u202fFounded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 3,000 employees, supporting eight laboratories across more than 20 locations nationwide and performing more than $919 million in problem-solving research annually for government and industry.\u202fGTRI\u0027s renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERural Georgia teachers gain practical machine shop training at Georgia Tech, bringing advanced manufacturing skills back to their classrooms.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Rural Georgia teachers gain practical machine shop training at Georgia Tech, bringing advanced manufacturing skills back to their classrooms."}],"uid":"35874","created_gmt":"2026-06-22 13:56:29","changed_gmt":"2026-06-22 14:28:20","author":"Anna Akins","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-06-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-06-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680485":{"id":"680485","type":"image","title":"2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_07.JPG","body":"\u003Cp\u003EJuone Brown (left), a teacher at Dooly County High School in Vienna, Georgia, called the bootcamp well-paced and plans to bring what she learned back to her students this fall, many of whom prefer hands-on learning.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1782132769","gmt_created":"2026-06-22 12:52:49","changed":"1782132769","gmt_changed":"2026-06-22 12:52:49","alt":"A participant at a Georgia Tech manufacturing workshop cuts metal on industrial equipment. ","file":{"fid":"264755","name":"2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_07.JPG","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_07.JPG","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_07.JPG","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":15053651,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_07.JPG?itok=DogDs26z"}},"680488":{"id":"680488","type":"image","title":"2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_28.JPG","body":"\u003Cp\u003ERural Georgia teachers pose with the metal meat tenderizers they made during a machining workshop hosted by the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI) and Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) at the Montgomery Machining Mall.\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1782132769","gmt_created":"2026-06-22 12:52:49","changed":"1782132769","gmt_changed":"2026-06-22 12:52:49","alt":"Participants in a Georgia Tech machining workshop pose for a group photo. ","file":{"fid":"264758","name":"2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_28.JPG","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_28.JPG","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_28.JPG","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":19978833,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_28.JPG?itok=6CoXkoFp"}},"680487":{"id":"680487","type":"image","title":"2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_23.JPG","body":"\u003Cp\u003EJames Beveridge, a computer science teacher in the Chattahoochee County School District, said he is excited to take back new machining skills and physical items back to share with his students.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1782132769","gmt_created":"2026-06-22 12:52:49","changed":"1782132769","gmt_changed":"2026-06-22 12:52:49","alt":"A participant at a Georgia Tech manufacturing workshop cuts metal on industrial equipment. ","file":{"fid":"264757","name":"2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_23.JPG","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_23.JPG","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_23.JPG","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":17227017,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_23.JPG?itok=G0dCSa97"}},"680486":{"id":"680486","type":"image","title":"2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_16.JPG","body":"\u003Cp\u003EA metal meat tenderizer created by participants during the workshop.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1782132769","gmt_created":"2026-06-22 12:52:49","changed":"1782132769","gmt_changed":"2026-06-22 12:52:49","alt":"A metal meat tenderizer with a textured striking surface created by participants at a Georgia Tech workshop. ","file":{"fid":"264756","name":"2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_16.JPG","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_16.JPG","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_16.JPG","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":20854471,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/22\/2026_0603_image_STEM-GTRI_machine-bootcamp_16.JPG?itok=hDoa2ebX"}}},"media_ids":["680485","680488","680487","680486"],"groups":[{"id":"1276","name":"Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"194685","name":"Manufacturing"},{"id":"194611","name":"State Impact"},{"id":"194612","name":"Workforce Development"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"94431","name":"Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI)"},{"id":"415","name":"Georgia Tech Research Institute"},{"id":"170709","name":"STEM@GTRI"},{"id":"185675","name":"Montgomery Machining Mall"},{"id":"1690","name":"rural economic development"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193653","name":"Georgia Tech Research Institute"},{"id":"39461","name":"Manufacturing, Trade, and Logistics"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter:\u003C\/strong\u003E Anna Akins\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Contact:\u003C\/strong\u003E Jennifer Martin | jennifer.martin@research.gatech.edu\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPhotos: \u003C\/strong\u003ESean McNeil\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECopyediting:\u003C\/strong\u003E Stacy Braukman\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690525":{"#nid":"690525","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Framework Enhances AR Experience by Predicting Where Users Will Look","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAugmented reality (AR) devices like smart glasses may soon be able to predict where a user will look and provide an enhanced interactive experience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/fkryan.github.io\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFiona Ryan\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, a Ph.D. student in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing, is pioneering research that tracks and predicts user gaze from a first-person perspective in 3D environments.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECurrently, most AR devices react to where users look, playing catch-up. Ryan\u2019s method could give these devices a heads-up and make the user experience more seamless.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt allows an AR system to anticipate what the person will interact with next and where they\u2019re going to look next so it can proactively render the experience,\u201d she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERyan is the lead author of the paper \u003Cem\u003EForecasting 3D Scanpaths in Egocentric Video,\u003C\/em\u003E which she will present next week at the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cvpr.thecvf.com\/\u0022\u003EIEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition\u003C\/a\u003E (CVPR) in Denver.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile there is existing research on predicting user gaze from 2D still images, her work is the first to address the issue through a 3D framework.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBecause we live in a 3D world and people are dynamically moving around from multiple points of view, we need to predict gaze in 3D rather than 2D,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is a path of the person\u2019s attention in 3D through space. Our paper is the first to attempt to model this.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERyan conducted most of the research while interning at Meta, where she used data from Meta\u2019s\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.projectaria.com\/datasets\/adt\/\u0022\u003EAria Digital Twin dataset\u003C\/a\u003E. The dataset contains first-person video footage of users interacting with objects in an apartment.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe chose that dataset because it has a high-fidelity 3D reconstruction of a full environment, which helps us get a ground-truth 3D gaze,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can trace eye movement and see how it intersects with the environment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA video demonstration of Ryan\u2019s work shows her software tracking a user\u2019s path toward a table with a cup on it. Once the user picks up the cup, the software correctly predicts the direction the user will turn next.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen we look at a scene, we don\u2019t take in everything in full detail all at once,\u201d she said. \u201cWe fixate on certain areas, and our gaze is a sequence of fixations, which might depend on what we\u2019re trying to do. If we want to pick up a cup, we might look toward that and then the next step would be looking at where we\u2019re going to put it down.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERyan said the software can predict, on average, up to three seconds into the future \u2014 and as far as 10 seconds in some cases. That\u2019s enough time for the AR system to proactively render a more enhanced environment.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re not looking that far into the future right now, but it would be interesting to explore longer forecasting windows,\u201d she said. \u201cI think potential futures would diverge pretty quickly, so we\u2019re trying to explore what can reasonably be predicted from a short segment of a person looking and moving through space.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERyan said her paper served as a proof-of-concept, and that there is still much future work to be done. She already has some ideas.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI think future models can include different scenarios to help narrow down possibilities. Sometimes a person\u2019s gaze stays on one thing for a long time. If we know what someone is trying to do, we\u2019ll have a better idea of the likely path their attention might go.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere could also be future implications for her work in robotics research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt could potentially be used for training algorithms for robots to emulate active human perception. If we can understand what a person looks at as they perform a task, we could use that to facilitate a robot learning to do that same task.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. student Fiona Ryan has created a new framework for tracking and predicting user gaze in Augmented Reality devices. If these devices know where a user will look next, it can proactively display information and interactive features more seamlessly.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Ph.D. student Fiona Ryan has created a new framework for tracking and predicting user gaze in Augmented Reality devices"}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-05-27 21:15:00","changed_gmt":"2026-05-27 21:16:17","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-27T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-27T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680364":{"id":"680364","type":"image","title":"IMG_2114.JPG","body":null,"created":"1779916518","gmt_created":"2026-05-27 21:15:18","changed":"1779916518","gmt_changed":"2026-05-27 21:15:18","alt":"Fiona Ryan","file":{"fid":"264620","name":"IMG_2114.JPG","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/27\/IMG_2114.JPG","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/27\/IMG_2114.JPG","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":100549,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/05\/27\/IMG_2114.JPG?itok=uM3cBtPX"}}},"media_ids":["680364"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"188776","name":"go-research"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"1597","name":"Augmented Reality"},{"id":"11506","name":"computer vision"},{"id":"183308","name":"smart glasses"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690524":{"#nid":"690524","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Framework Enhances AR Experience by Predicting Where Users Will Look","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAugmented reality (AR) devices like smart glasses may soon be able to predict where a user will look and provide an enhanced interactive experience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/fkryan.github.io\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFiona Ryan\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, a Ph.D. student in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing, is pioneering research that tracks and predicts user gaze from a first-person perspective in 3D environments.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECurrently, most AR devices react to where users look, playing catch-up. Ryan\u2019s method could give these devices a heads-up and make the user experience more seamless.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt allows an AR system to anticipate what the person will interact with next and where they\u2019re going to look next so it can proactively render the experience,\u201d she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERyan is the lead author of the paper \u003Cem\u003EForecasting 3D Scanpaths in Egocentric Video,\u003C\/em\u003E which she will present next week at the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cvpr.thecvf.com\/\u0022\u003EIEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition\u003C\/a\u003E (CVPR) in Denver.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile there is existing research on predicting user gaze from 2D still images, her work is the first to address the issue through a 3D framework.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBecause we live in a 3D world and people are dynamically moving around from multiple points of view, we need to predict gaze in 3D rather than 2D,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is a path of the person\u2019s attention in 3D through space. Our paper is the first to attempt to model this.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERyan conducted most of the research while interning at Meta, where she used data from Meta\u2019s\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.projectaria.com\/datasets\/adt\/\u0022\u003EAria Digital Twin dataset\u003C\/a\u003E. The dataset contains first-person video footage of users interacting with objects in an apartment.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe chose that dataset because it has a high-fidelity 3D reconstruction of a full environment, which helps us get a ground-truth 3D gaze,\u201d she said. \u201cWe can trace eye movement and see how it intersects with the environment.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA video demonstration of Ryan\u2019s work shows her software tracking a user\u2019s path toward a table with a cup on it. Once the user picks up the cup, the software correctly predicts the direction the user will turn next.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen we look at a scene, we don\u2019t take in everything in full detail all at once,\u201d she said. \u201cWe fixate on certain areas, and our gaze is a sequence of fixations, which might depend on what we\u2019re trying to do. If we want to pick up a cup, we might look toward that and then the next step would be looking at where we\u2019re going to put it down.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERyan said the software can predict, on average, up to three seconds into the future \u2014 and as far as 10 seconds in some cases. That\u2019s enough time for the AR system to proactively render a more enhanced environment.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re not looking that far into the future right now, but it would be interesting to explore longer forecasting windows,\u201d she said. \u201cI think potential futures would diverge pretty quickly, so we\u2019re trying to explore what can reasonably be predicted from a short segment of a person looking and moving through space.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERyan said her paper served as a proof-of-concept, and that there is still much future work to be done. She already has some ideas.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI think future models can include different scenarios to help narrow down possibilities. Sometimes a person\u2019s gaze stays on one thing for a long time. If we know what someone is trying to do, we\u2019ll have a better idea of the likely path their attention might go.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere could also be future implications for her work in robotics research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt could potentially be used for training algorithms for robots to emulate active human perception. If we can understand what a person looks at as they perform a task, we could use that to facilitate a robot learning to do that same task.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. student Fiona Ryan has created a new framework for tracking and predicting user gaze in Augmented Reality devices. If these devices know where a user will look next, it can proactively display information and interactive features more seamlessly.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Ph.D. student Fiona Ryan has created a new framework for tracking and predicting user gaze in Augmented Reality devices"}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-05-27 20:42:33","changed_gmt":"2026-05-27 20:42:33","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-27T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-27T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"188776","name":"go-research"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"1597","name":"Augmented Reality"},{"id":"11506","name":"computer vision"},{"id":"183308","name":"smart glasses"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690277":{"#nid":"690277","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Ph.D. Graduate Q\u0026A: Marina Vemmou","body":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech Class of 2026\u202fcelebrated\u202fone of its\u202fmost significant\u202faccomplishments\u202flast week.\u202fAmong those crossing the stage for the 2026 Spring Commencement is\u202f\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/marinavemmou\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EMarina Vemmou\u003C\/a\u003E, who\u202fwill be\u202freceiving\u202fher Ph.D. in computer science.\u202f\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDuring her time at Georgia Tech,\u202fVemmou\u202fwas heavily\u202finvolved\u202fwith the School of Computer Science Graduate\u202fStudent Association, where she served as\u202fthe student and faculty affairs chair for a term. In 2023,\u202fVemmou\u202freceived\u202fthe College of Computing\u202fOutstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award, an honor she is especially proud of.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore\u202ffinishing this chapter of her\u202facademic journey,\u202fVemmou\u202fshared\u202fabout her Ph.D. journey and what she\u2019s\u202ftaken from the experience.\u202f\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat did your research focus on?\u202f\u003C\/strong\u003E\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMy general area is computer architecture. I work a lot at the intersection of different components and how we can, instead of trying to optimize each component on its own,\u202fcoordinate among components so that we get the\u202fbest\u202fperformance out of\u202fa\u202fsystem without completely changing everything.\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat made you interested in\u202fstudying\u202fthat\u202ftopic?\u202f\u003C\/strong\u003E\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn my mind, it\u2019s kind of like Legos because you have a bunch of building blocks\u202fand you\u2019re trying to make something new with them. I find that fascinating. I also like that\u202fin computer architecture,\u202fthere\u2019s never a singlecorrect answer,\u202fand everything\u202fis a trade-off. I like that extra difficulty.\u202f\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhy did you choose to study at Georgia Tech?\u202f\u003C\/strong\u003E\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI think it was a combination of my advisor and the location. I had met with\u202fmy advisor, Alex Daglis, before and\u202fknew\u202fI wanted to work with him. I also preferred the urban environment of Georgia Tech.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAre there any specific people who helped you during your Ph.D. journey?\u202f\u003C\/strong\u003E\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/faculty.cc.gatech.edu\/~adaglis\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003EAlex\u202fDaglis\u003C\/a\u003E\u202fis the ideal advisor.\u202fHe\u2019s smart, a good researcher, and an excellent advisor. He truly cares about\u202fstudents,\u202fand\u202fhe\u2019s been involved in everything and has helped so many people, including me.\u202f\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI also want to\u202fshout out the School of Computer Science staff, specifically Tiffany Ntuli.\u202fWe appreciate the admins and all the work that you do.\u202f\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat advice\u202fwould you give someone interested in\u202fpursuing a Ph.D.?\u202f\u003C\/strong\u003E\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDon\u2019t forget that there\u2019s a life outside of your research.\u202fThe research is great, but it\u2019s not the most important thing. You can take\u202fthe\u202ftime to\u202fgo on a walk, call your family\u202f, or\u202fsee friends.\u202f\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat\u2019s the most important lesson you learned during your\u202ftime at Georgia Tech?\u202f\u003C\/strong\u003E\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPerfection is futile.\u202fA lot of students come in expecting\u202fthat we have to be perfect immediately, that they already\u202fknow how to write the perfect paper or do research on their own. But the point of a Ph.D. is to learn how to do those things.\u202fThat was important for me to work through.\u202f\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat are your plans after graduation?\u202f\u003C\/strong\u003E\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI want to stay in academia\u202fand am\u202fconsidering postdoc positions.\u202f\u202f\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ERecent Ph.D. graduate in computer science Marina Vemmou discusses her experience at Georgia Tech.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A Q\u0026A with recent Ph.D. graduate Marina Vemmou"}],"uid":"36532","created_gmt":"2026-05-13 21:18:52","changed_gmt":"2026-05-20 20:02:38","author":"Morgan Usry","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-12T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-12T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"195105","name":"2026 Spring Commencement"},{"id":"629","name":"graduation"},{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"166941","name":"School of Computer Science"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMorgan Usry, Communications Officer, morgan.usry@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["morgan.usry@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690314":{"#nid":"690314","#data":{"type":"news","title":"MSHCI Receives Board of Regents Award for Best Department or Program","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction (MSHCI) program has another reason to celebrate as it prepares to mark its 30th anniversary later this year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia awarded the program the 2026 Teaching Excellence Award for Department or Program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/mshci.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EMSHCI program\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/a\u003Edirector Dick Henneman and assistant director Carrie Bruce received the award on May 12 during a Board of Regents (BOR) meeting.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHenneman has served as director of the program since 2015, and Bruce has served as assistant director since 2014. The program began in 1996 and has since expanded to be offered by four Georgia Tech schools:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ic.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EInteractive Computing\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/id.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EIndustrial Design\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/lmc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ELiterature, Media, and Communications\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/psychology.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EPsychology\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs we put our award submission together, it was nice for us to reflect on all our hard work and to understand the impact this program has had on students,\u201d Bruce said. \u201cWe recently surveyed alums, and so many said they were thankful for the way this program shaped their careers.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUnder the leadership of Henneman and Bruce, the program has achieved a 99% graduation rate, with about 60 graduates per year, up from about 30 since 2015. Henneman said the program has become one of the most competitive of its kind in the world, with an admission rate under 10%.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe have some incredibly qualified students who are a part of the program,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a number of graduates move into design management positions, and some have started their own companies.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHenneman and Bruce said that one thing that distinguishes Tech\u2019s MSHCI program is its close partnerships and alignment with industry. The program has an industry advisory board that keeps students informed about the skills companies value.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe adapted our core classes quite a bit to ensure that they weren\u2019t just getting the academic version of HCI methods,\u201d Bruce said. \u201cOur program is practical and focuses on what they are going to do when they get into industry.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThough the program continues to grow, Henneman says it has maintained a sense of community among students, which he says is another thing that sets it apart. Many alumni keep in touch and return to offer industry advice, critique resumes, and conduct mock interviews with current students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cA lot of times graduate school can be all about the individual,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we prepare students to go work in industry, it\u2019s all about collaboration and the people you\u2019re working with and learning how to work on teams.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech had 21 faculty and researchers recognized in the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/news.gatech.edu\/news\/2026\/05\/13\/georgia-tech-faculty-and-researchers-recognized-2026-regents-awards?utm_source=newsletter\u0026amp;utm_medium=email\u0026amp;utm_content=Faculty%2C%20Researchers%20Recognized%20With%20Regents%E2%80%99%20Awards\u0026amp;utm_campaign=Daily%20Digest%20-%20May%2014%2C%202026\u0022\u003E2026 Regents Awards\u003C\/a\u003E. From the College of Computing, Santosh Vempala was named a Regents\u2019 Professor, while Srinivas Aluru and Ellen Zegura had their Regents\u2019 titles renewed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMSHCI program director Dick Henneman and assitant director Carrie Bruce reflect on 30 years of success after they received the 2026 Teaching Excellence Award for Department or Program from the USG Board of Regents.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech\u0027s MSHCI program received the 2026 Teaching Excellence Award for Department or Program from the University System of Georgia\u0027s Board of Regents."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-05-15 17:00:12","changed_gmt":"2026-05-18 18:36:27","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680288":{"id":"680288","type":"image","title":"USG-BoR-5-12-2026-018-copy.jpg","body":null,"created":"1778864433","gmt_created":"2026-05-15 17:00:33","changed":"1778864433","gmt_changed":"2026-05-15 17:00:33","alt":"Raheem Bayeh, Carrie Bruce, Sonny Perdue, Dick Henneman","file":{"fid":"264535","name":"USG-BoR-5-12-2026-018-copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/15\/USG-BoR-5-12-2026-018-copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/15\/USG-BoR-5-12-2026-018-copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":163281,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/05\/15\/USG-BoR-5-12-2026-018-copy.jpg?itok=DFT3DWbz"}}},"media_ids":["680288"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1278","name":"College of Sciences"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"443951","name":"School of Psychology"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"179356","name":"Industrial Design"}],"keywords":[{"id":"21151","name":"mshci"},{"id":"186678","name":"USG Board of Regents"},{"id":"172013","name":"Faculty Awards and Honors"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690067":{"#nid":"690067","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Hard Work Energizes Year of Achievement","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe mood was electric on April 20, as the College of Computing hosted its 35th Annual Awards Celebration. While individual success was on full display, the banquet also honored the community and perseverance that truly power achievement.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFrom my seat, I can feel the energy. I see the momentum. We\u0027re all about growth and change,\u201d said \u003Cstrong\u003EVivek Sarkar\u003C\/strong\u003E, dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair of the College of Computing.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBut those are just words. What\u0027s really behind the words is all the hard work put in by all of you.Today\u0027s celebration is for the entire College, all of you, and all your hard work.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudents, faculty, and staff from the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) were among those recognized at the celebration. Their accomplishments reflected a year dedicated to excellence in research, teaching, and service. School of CSE award recipients included:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGrace Kim\u003C\/strong\u003E, M.S. computer science (CS) student: Donald V. Jackson Fellowship\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESri Ranganathan Palaniappan\u003C\/strong\u003E, M.S. CS student: Donald V. Jackson Fellowship\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEthan Yang\u003C\/strong\u003E, M.S. CSE student: Marshall D. Williamson Fellowship\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EAlumnus \u003Cstrong\u003EAustin Wright\u003C\/strong\u003E (Ph.D. ML-CSE 2025): Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHuili Huang\u003C\/strong\u003E, Ph.D. CSE student: Outstanding Graduate Research Assistant Award\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EArlene Washington-Capers\u003C\/strong\u003E, school administrative officer: 25 Years of Service Acknowledgment\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETwo lecturers in the School of Computing Instruction with ties to the School of CSE received awards at the celebration.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMax Mahdi Roozbahani\u003C\/strong\u003E received a Dean\u2019s Award, which went to instructors who taught class sizes over 350 students this year. A Class of 2019 CSE alumnus, Roozbahani teaches \u003Cem\u003ECSE 6242: Data and Visual Analytics\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ENimisha Roy\u003C\/strong\u003E received the Monica Sweat Outstanding Lecturer in External Engagement Award. She earned her Ph.D. in CSE in 2021.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor \u003Cstrong\u003EPolo Chau\u003C\/strong\u003E advises Kim, Palaniappan, and Wright, and recommended them for their awards.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EChau is an associate director of Georgia Tech\u2019s M.S. Analytics program, which won the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.informs.org\/News-Room\/INFORMS-Releases\/Awards-Releases\/Georgia-Tech-Awarded-the-2026-INFORMS-UPS-George-D.-Smith-Prize\u0022\u003EUPS George D. Smith Prize\u003C\/a\u003E at the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). The award recognizes excellence in preparing students to become practitioners of operations research and analytics.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor Kim, the Jackson Fellowship was the latest achievement in a year decorated with accolades. She was one of two School of CSE students to receive the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program award (GRFP). Kim was also selected for a Fulbright U.S. Student Program Research award.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. student \u003Cstrong\u003EAbir Haque\u003C\/strong\u003E was CSE\u2019s second NSF GRFP awardee, receiving the grant to advance research in scientific computing. Advised by School of CSE Professor and Associate Chair \u003Cstrong\u003EEdmond Chow\u003C\/strong\u003E, Haque additionally received a Department of Energy (DOE) Computational Science Graduate Fellowship.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EChow was appointed to several leadership roles this year in the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). The organization selected Chow as vice president for programs. SIAM also named him as co-chair of next year\u2019s Conference on Computational Science and Engineering.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENSF presented the CAREER award to two CSE faculty. Assistant Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EYunan Luo\u003C\/strong\u003E \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/nsf-grant-funds-protein-research-drug-discovery-and-personalized-medicine\u0022\u003Ereceived a grant\u003C\/a\u003E to build artificial intelligence models to study understudied proteins in biology.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EElizabeth Qian\u003C\/strong\u003E is an assistant professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering with a joint appointment in the School of CSE. \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ae.gatech.edu\/news\/2025\/07\/elizabeth-qian-lands-nsfs-prestigious-early-career-award\u0022\u003EHer NSF CAREER award\u003C\/a\u003E will support research developing machine learning methods that learn from multi-fidelity data.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers from the School of CSE were \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/record-breaking-simulation-boosts-rocket-science-and-supercomputing-new-limits\u0022\u003Efinalists for the 2025 Gordon Bell Prize\u003C\/a\u003E. Assistant Professor \u003Cstrong\u003ESpencer Bryngelson\u003C\/strong\u003E led a team that included Ph.D. students \u003Cstrong\u003EBen Wilfong\u003C\/strong\u003E and \u003Cstrong\u003EAnand Radhakrishnan\u003C\/strong\u003E, Research Staff \u003Cstrong\u003Emember Dan Vickers\u003C\/strong\u003E, and alumnus \u003Cstrong\u003EHenry Le Berre\u003C\/strong\u003E (CS 2025).\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team achieved the largest computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to date, exceeding the current record by a factor of 20. The group simulated interacting plumes of 33 rocket thrusters inspired by the SpaceX Super Heavy booster.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBryngelson advises \u003Cstrong\u003EMelody Lee\u003C\/strong\u003E, an undergraduate student who was one of three Georgia Tech students to receive a \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/undergraduate.gatech.edu\/georgia-tech-celebrates-three-goldwater-scholars-for-2026\/\u0022\u003EBarry Goldwater Scholarship\u003C\/a\u003E this year. She received the award to continue research at the intersection of quantum computing and CFD.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssistant Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EQi Tang\u003C\/strong\u003E received the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/department-energy-award-power-nuclear-research-machine-learning\u0022\u003EDOE Early Career Research Award\u003C\/a\u003E. He is the first-ever faculty member from CSE and the College of Computing to receive the award.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe $875,000 award will support Tang for five years as he researches particle data processing and compression, with applications in fusion, accelerator, and nuclear physics.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETang was also selected as a Summer Early Career Scholar of Digital Futures at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBryngelson and Tang were selected as collaborators for three DOE Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.energy.gov\/nnsa\/articles\/nnsa-announces-selection-next-round-predictive-science-academic-alliance-program\u0022\u003EPSAAP IV\u003C\/a\u003E) Centers. The program leverages the academic community to advance science-based modeling and simulation.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne of Tang\u2019s students, \u003Cstrong\u003EAlex de Magalhaes\u003C\/strong\u003E, received a SPARK Award scholarship from the Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute. The award recognizes outstanding student engagement in energy research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded prestigious R01 grants to three CSE faculty, each valued at $1.2 million.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssistant Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EAnqi Wu\u003C\/strong\u003E is using the grant to study multi-animal social behavior using advanced representation learning and reinforcement learning.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENIH awarded a grant to Assistant Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EKai Wang\u003C\/strong\u003E and Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EB. Aditya Prakash\u003C\/strong\u003E to build an AI framework to efficiently treat patients diagnosed with diabetes and other chronic diseases.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPrakash advises M.S. student \u003Cstrong\u003ESudarshan Anand\u003C\/strong\u003E, who claimed two awards at the 2025 International Conference on Biomedical and Health Informatics. First, Anand was the champion of the conference\u2019s data challenge competition. Then, the conference selected him as a Young Professional NextGen Scholar.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPh.D. student \u003Cstrong\u003EYiqiao (Ahren) Jin\u003C\/strong\u003E was selected as a \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/mlcommons.org\/about-us\/programs\/\u0022\u003E2026 MLCommons ML and Systems Rising Star\u003C\/a\u003E. He was one of 39 total awardees and participated at the 2026 ML and Systems Rising Stars workshop is hosted by AMD.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssistant Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EVictor Fung\u003C\/strong\u003E won a \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.google\/programs-and-events\/research-scholar-program\/recipients\/\u0022\u003E2025 Google Scholar Program\u003C\/a\u003E award. He received the award in the Applied Science category for multi-modal scientific agents for in silico materials discovery and inverse design. The Research Scholar Program provided up to $60,000 to early-career professors to support advancement of their research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis year, the College of Computing selected School of CSE Professor \u003Cstrong\u003ERich Vuduc\u003C\/strong\u003E as \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/new-software-center-director-lead-next-wave-scientific-discovery\u0022\u003Edirector of Georgia Tech\u2019s Center for Scientific Software Engineering (CSSE)\u003C\/a\u003E. The center was formed in 2022 from an $11 million investment from Schmidt Sciences. Georgia Tech was one of four universities that Schmidt Sciences selected to host a center.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECSSE develops custom software tools and best practices to meet scientists\u0027 needs. Overall, this approach accelerates the pace and quality of scientific discovery.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVuduc advised alumnus\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EElizabeth Hong\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;(CS 2025), who received a Fulbright U.S.-Korea Presidential STEM Initiative Award. Designed to promote academic and cultural exchange, the award provided graduating college seniors and graduate students funding to pursue independent research projects in Korea on STEM topics of their choice.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVuduc advises Ph.D. student \u003Cstrong\u003EMax Hawkins\u003C\/strong\u003E, who was selected for the OMSCS Pre-Doctoral Fellowship program.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe program provided Hawkins support to design and teach a one-credit, pass\/fail\/audit seminar course. Hawkins taught \u003Cem\u003EComputing at Scale: The Design, Operation, and Societal Impacts of Data Centers\u003C\/em\u003E in Fall 2025 and a research course in Spring 2026.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHawkins also received a $3,000 scholarship through the 7X24 Exchange Atlanta Scholarship Program. He was one of three scholarship recipients awarded to students in the greater Atlanta area with research interests in the data center industry.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVuduc advises Team Phoenix, Georgia Tech\u2019s student cluster competition team. Team Phoenix placed first among USA participants and sixth internationally at \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/undergrads-team-phoenix-wins-top-us-honor-international-supercomputing-competition-0\u0022\u003ESC25\u2019s IndySCC competition\u003C\/a\u003E (30 total teams, 12 USA and 18 international). The team was graded on optimizing techniques and running industry standard benchmarks on supercomputers.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team included computer science undergraduate students \u003Cstrong\u003EAlexander Ichtovkin\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003EAlex Kim\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003EAiden Lambert\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003ESahil Samar\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003ESeth Yiming Shi\u003C\/strong\u003E, and \u003Cstrong\u003EVenkata Sai Aditya Reddy Devarapalli\u003C\/strong\u003E. Graduate students \u003Cstrong\u003ECharles Lindsey\u003C\/strong\u003E and \u003Cstrong\u003EJay Saraha\u003C\/strong\u003E mentored the team coached by Research Scientists \u003Cstrong\u003EJeff Valdez\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003EAaron Jezghani\u003C\/strong\u003E, and \u003Cstrong\u003EWill Powell\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlumni \u003Cstrong\u003EZiyi (Francis) Yin\u003C\/strong\u003E (Ph.D. CSE-CSE 2024), \u003Cstrong\u003ERafael Orozco\u003C\/strong\u003E (Ph.D. CSE-CSE 2024), \u003Cstrong\u003EMathias Louboutin\u003C\/strong\u003E (Ph.D. CS-CSE 2020), and Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EFelix Herrmann\u003C\/strong\u003E received an honorable mention for the Best Paper of 2024 from the journal \u003Cem\u003EGeophysics\u003C\/em\u003E. The award, presented in 2025, recognized the group\u2019s work on \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/pubs.geoscienceworld.org\/seg\/geophysics\/article-abstract\/89\/4\/A23\/644597\/WISE-Full-waveform-variational-inference-via?redirectedFrom=fulltext\u0022\u003EWISE\u003C\/a\u003E: a full-waveform variational inference via subsurface extensions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech approved both of CSE\u2019s promotion cases \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/institute-announcement-recognizes-faculty-achievement-and-excellence\u0022\u003Ethis year\u003C\/a\u003E. \u003Cstrong\u003EElizabeth Cherry\u003C\/strong\u003E will be promoted to full professor. \u003Cstrong\u003ESrijan Kumar\u003C\/strong\u003E will be promoted to associate professor with tenure.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe mood was electric on April 20, as the College of Computing hosted its 35th Annual Awards Celebration. While individual success was on full display, the banquet also honored the community and perseverance that truly power achievement.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFrom my seat, I can feel the energy. I see the momentum. We\u0027re all about growth and change,\u201d said \u003Cstrong\u003EVivek Sarkar\u003C\/strong\u003E, dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair of the College of Computing.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBut those are just words. What\u0027s really behind the words is all the hard work put in by all of you.Today\u0027s celebration is for the entire College, all of you, and all your hard work.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudents, faculty, and staff from the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) were among those recognized at the celebration. Their accomplishments reflected a year dedicated to excellence in research, teaching, and service.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Students, faculty, and staff from the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) were among those recognized at the College of Computing\u0027s 35th Annual Awards Celebration.."}],"uid":"36319","created_gmt":"2026-04-30 11:38:22","changed_gmt":"2026-05-15 18:55:24","author":"Bryant Wine","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680120":{"id":"680120","type":"image","title":"Grace-Kim-College-Awards.jpg","body":null,"created":"1777549195","gmt_created":"2026-04-30 11:39:55","changed":"1777549195","gmt_changed":"2026-04-30 11:39:55","alt":"College of Computing 35th Annual Awards Celebration","file":{"fid":"264360","name":"Grace-Kim-College-Awards.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/30\/Grace-Kim-College-Awards.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/30\/Grace-Kim-College-Awards.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":114660,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/30\/Grace-Kim-College-Awards.jpg?itok=lrTMnfa-"}}},"media_ids":["680120"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"193157","name":"Student Honors and Achievements"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"166983","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690249":{"#nid":"690249","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Class of 2026 Steps Forward to Tackle Global Challenges in Science and Research","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAt a time when medicine, energy, artificial intelligence, and national security increasingly depend on computing, the world looks to Georgia Tech\u2019s newest graduates for answers to life\u2019s most pressing challenges.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat sense of purpose shaped Spring 2026 Commencement, where School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) graduates celebrated years of research, collaboration, and discovery.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cToday, we celebrate you, your accomplishments, and your potential,\u201d said Georgia Tech President \u00c1ngel Cabrera in his commencement address to Ph.D. graduates.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI thank you for choosing a career of science and research when some question science and research. We need you to continue on this path. The world needs you.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to administering its flagship CSE Ph.D. and M.S. programs, the School of CSE offers doctoral degrees in computer science and machine learning. Ph.D. students who received their diplomas and doctoral hoods on May 7 at McCamish Pavilion were:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/mfbal.in\/\u0022\u003EMuhammed Balin\u003C\/a\u003E (Ph.D. CS-CSE 2026), advised by School of CSE Professor \u00dcmit \u00c7ataly\u00fcrek\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/dilab.gatech.edu\/andrew-hornback\/\u0022\u003EAndrew Hornback\u003C\/a\u003E (Ph.D. CS-CSE 2026), co-advised by School of CSE Assistant Professor Yunan Luo and Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering Professor May Wang\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/music-and-magic-inspire-new-phd-graduates-work-brain-science\u0022\u003EChengrui Li\u003C\/a\u003E (Ph.D. CSE-CSE 2026), advised by School of CSE Assistant Professor Anqi Wu\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/xinhai-pan-85b47817b\/\u0022\u003EXinhai Pan\u003C\/a\u003E (Ph.D. CSE-CSE 2026), advised by School of CSE Assistant Professor Anqi Wu\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.kaansancak.com\/\u0022\u003EKaan Sancak\u003C\/a\u003E (Ph.D. CSE-CSE 2026), advised by School of CSE Professor \u00dcmit \u00c7ataly\u00fcrek\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/new-graduate-builds-fintech-startup-using-leadership-mindset\u0022\u003EAgam Shah\u003C\/a\u003E (Ph.D. ML-CSE 2026), co-advised by Scheller College of Business Professor Sudheer Chava and School of CSE Associate Professor Chao Zhang\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ksartik.github.io\/\u0022\u003EKartik Sharma\u003C\/a\u003E (Ph.D. CS-CSE 2026), advised by School of CSE Assistant Professor Srijan Kumar\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis semester, 14 CSE doctoral students completed M.S. degrees and will continue their studies at Georgia Tech. They are:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/bin-bai-gt\/\u0022\u003EBin Bai\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. EAS-CSE), advised by School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Assistant Professor Pengfei Liu\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/afrouz-delshad\/\u0022\u003EAfrouz Delshad\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. CSE-CSE 2026), advised by College of Computing Associate Dean for Graduate Education and School of CSE Associate Professor Elizabeth Cherry\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/ece-prg\/roy-makkar-gabriel\/\u0022\u003ERoy Makkar Gabriel\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. ECE-CSE 2026), advised by School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Ali Adibi\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/alina-gorbunova\u0022\u003EAlina Maximovna Gorbunova\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. ISYE-CSE 2026), co-advised by H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering Professors Kamran Paynabar and Jianjun Shi\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/wenbo-hao-4575a3222\/\u0022\u003EWenbo Hao\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. MATH-CSE 2026), advised by School of CSE Assistant Professor Peng Chen\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.mse.gatech.edu\/people\/xueyu-hu\u0022\u003EXueyu Hu\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. MSE-CSE 2026), advised by School of Materials Science and Engineering Regents\u2019 Professor Meilin Liu\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/dkang339.github.io\/\u0022\u003EDayoung Kang\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. AE-CSE 2026), advised by Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and School of CSE joint Assistant Professor Elizabeth Qian\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/skim\/\u0022\u003ESoohwan Kim\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. ME-CSE 2026), advised by George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Professor David Hu\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/xuanang\/author\/xli944\/\u0022\u003EXuanang Li\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. MATH-CSE 2026), advised by School of Mathematics Assistant Professor Tom Kelly\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/nityamv\/\u0022\u003ENitya Maruthuvakudi Venkatram\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. AE-CSE 2026), advised by School of AE Regents\u2019 Professor Dimitri Mavris\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/bioinformatics.gatech.edu\/nilavrah-sensarma\u0022\u003ENilavrah Sensarma\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. BIO-CSE 2026), advised by School of Biological Sciences Professor John McDonald\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/benwilfong.com\/\u0022\u003EBenjamin Wilfong\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. CSE-CSE 2026), advised by School of CSE Assistant Professor Spencer Bryngelson\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/xiaofeng-wu-3053b6226\/\u0022\u003EXiaofeng (Alex) Wu\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. CEE-CSE 2026), advised by School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Regents\u2019 Entrepreneur David Frost\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/keyang-zhong-4a1727266\/\u0022\u003EKeyang (Alfred) Zhong\u003C\/a\u003E (M.S. ISYE-CSE 2026), advised by School of ISyE Professor Chelsea White\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u2019s CSE graduate program includes 12 schools and departments participating as home units. These home units represent the colleges of Computing, Engineering, and Sciences. This approach facilitates an immersive, interdisciplinary experience in which students study computational methods within their respective domains.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech celebrated master\u2019s graduates at a May 9 ceremony at Bobby Dodd Stadium. After the Institute celebration, graduates were recognized during ceremonies held by their respective colleges.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMohammed Wazir Adain (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAditi Agarwal (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESudarshan Anand (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EArjun Bansal (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShraddha Bharadwaj (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAarushi Biswas (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnurita Bose (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHao-Cheng Chang (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENai-Jen Cheng (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYida Cheng (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDenys Chernenko (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAarushi Vishal Dhanuka (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMacKenzie Taylor Starr Drury (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EChandra Sekhar Reddy Edula (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShiqi Fan (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYuanting Fan (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWen (Ava) Feng (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmrutha Praveen Ganapathiyat Othayoth (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAman Garg (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EXin Guan (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYunmei Guan (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESrihas Gunda (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYihui Han (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKeenan Wai-sean Hom (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShiqi Hu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWenxin Jiang (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHarneet Singh Khanuja (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHyunjeong Kim (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVijay Prabhas Kodamalla (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENeel Kothari (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZiji Li (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EQinye Liu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERuixin Liu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYibo Liu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShenyifan Lu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWenliya Lyu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAditya Akash Mavle (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESamuel Wesley Moss (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShruti Santosh Murarka (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKarthic Palaniappan (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShrey P. Patel (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETanish R. Patwa (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETim Minh Phan (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJing Qi (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWanrong Qi (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHui Qiao (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAditya Raghavan (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAraceli Rodriguez Vallejo (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EChlo\u00e9 Saleh (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EVanshika Shah (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKaichen Shen (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBohan Shu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKunhao Song (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAjeet Karthik Subramanian (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJingyun Sun (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYupeng Tang (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMichael Kenneth Thompson (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYu Chu Tsai (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EViren Dipin Varma (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAarushi Chetan Wagh (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYiling Wu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYitong Wu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJiayi Xu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShuyan Yang (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYiming Ye (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZhenghao You (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYijia Zeng (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJinkai Zhan (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYuehan Zhang (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EXinyu Zhao (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYuqian Zheng (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlexander Zhou de Magalhaes (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShizhuo Zhu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EXiaoai Zhu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EXinjie Zhu (M.S. CSE 2026)\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAt a time when medicine, energy, artificial intelligence, and national security increasingly depend on computing, the world looks to Georgia Tech\u2019s newest graduates for answers to life\u2019s most pressing challenges.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat sense of purpose shaped Spring 2026 Commencement, where School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) graduates celebrated years of research, collaboration, and discovery.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cToday, we celebrate you, your accomplishments, and your potential,\u201d said Georgia Tech President \u00c1ngel Cabrera in his commencement address to Ph.D. graduates.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI thank you for choosing a career of science and research when some question science and research. We need you to continue on this path. The world needs you.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) graduates celebrated years of research, collaboration, and discovery at Spring 2026 Commencement."}],"uid":"36319","created_gmt":"2026-05-13 12:37:12","changed_gmt":"2026-05-13 17:25:29","author":"Bryant Wine","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-13T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-13T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680271":{"id":"680271","type":"image","title":"Spring-2026-Commencement-16x9.jpg","body":null,"created":"1778693097","gmt_created":"2026-05-13 17:24:57","changed":"1778693097","gmt_changed":"2026-05-13 17:24:57","alt":"CSE Spring 2026 Commencement","file":{"fid":"264517","name":"Spring-2026-Commencement-16x9.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/13\/Spring-2026-Commencement-16x9.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/13\/Spring-2026-Commencement-16x9.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":243920,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/05\/13\/Spring-2026-Commencement-16x9.jpg?itok=ZeO3X6wS"}}},"media_ids":["680271"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"166983","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"id":"195105","name":"2026 Spring Commencement"},{"id":"629","name":"graduation"},{"id":"506","name":"alumni"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690166":{"#nid":"690166","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Music and Magic Inspire New Ph.D. Graduate\u2019s Work in Brain Science","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Chengrui Li walks across the stage this Thursday at Commencement, it will be his final, and perhaps easiest, performance at Georgia Tech.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBetween orchestra concerts, magic shows, and yo-yo exhibitions, Li thrives in the limelight. In fact, not much rattles his nerves considering the five years of pressure he endured studying computational neuroscience at Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore he returns to New York City to continue building brain-interface technologies at Meta, we caught up with Li to learn how he keeps such a cool head at Georgia Tech and beyond. \u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGraduate:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/jerrysoybean.github.io\/\u0022\u003EChengrui Li\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch Interests:\u003C\/strong\u003E Computational neuroscience, eye-tracking experiments and data analysis, statistical machine learning\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEducation:\u003C\/strong\u003E Ph.D. in\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cse.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EComputational Science and Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E (CSE)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFaculty Advisor\u003C\/strong\u003E: School of CSE Assistant Professor Anqi Wu\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat persuaded you to attend graduate school at Georgia Tech?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EMy undergraduate was at Sichuan University in China. We knew that the most cutting-edge technology and research were in the United States, so I participated in an undergraduate exchange program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, during my third year.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI wanted to pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience while also becoming very proficient in math and computer science (CS). This led me to apply to the CSE Ph.D. program over others. Georgia Tech\u2019s CS ranking is very high, and the CSE program is very interdisciplinary, which matched my expectations super well. I did attain a solid education in math and CS at Georgia Tech. I also advanced my interest in neuroscience and its application by studying mathematical models and algorithms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat research project from Georgia Tech are you most proud of?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMy \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/openreview.net\/forum?id=HD5Y7M8Xdk\u0022\u003Evariational importance sampling paper\u003C\/a\u003E is a favorite. That one was based heavily on statistical inference. I spent many hours working through complicated derivation calculations, often half-awake and half-asleep after several late nights.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis paper confirmed to me, though, that innovative research requires both hard work and inspiration, and that this endeavor can be rewarding. The paper was selected as a top 5% spotlight paper at ICLR 2024, a world-leading conference on artificial intelligence research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECould you share more about your role as a research scientist at Meta?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI have been working on\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.meta.com\/ai-glasses\/meta-ray-ban-display-glasses-and-neural-band\/?srsltid=AfmBOoopWx7e8KGmSJVD8ItoQBedev-lha3aSZpHPkknZxNC4voGwoqN\u0022\u003EMeta\u2019s electromyography (EMG) neural band\u003C\/a\u003E. This next-generation human-computer interaction device connects with and navigates Meta\u2019s AI glasses.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith the neural band, you can use finger gestures to control the display content you see through the glasses, like swiping your thumb to scroll the screen, or writing on your lap as if you had a pen in your hand to send WhatsApp messages.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHow did your Georgia Tech education prepare you for this role?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBy pursuing my Ph.D., I am more proficient in critical thinking, math, coding, and presentation. During my interview, I demonstrated these skills and provided my publication records. This helped me land an internship, enabled my success in that role, and led to a full-time position. Additionally, my background in computational neuroscience best matched the work on the EMG neural band team at a big tech company.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat advice would you give someone interested in graduate school?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFirst, be clear whether a bachelor\u2019s or master\u2019s degree meets your work needs, or if you are truly interested in a scientific research topic. This interest should be based on your own passion, not the current trends. Interest is an important factor in deciding to pursue a Ph.D. because you have to like the topic and like it for a long time. A Ph.D. will require you to dive deep into a subject you must be genuinely curious about.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESecond, we are in a new era with rapid advances in information technology. Time is an invaluable resource and is shaped by technology. You have to think more about your time, consider where and how you spend it, and embrace ways to use it more efficiently.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECan you tell us more about your hobbies and how you keep up with them?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI started learning violin when I was five years old, and magic tricks when I was 11. The brain is a supercomputer suitable for functional computation. Our brain is an interface between the objective and subjective, where computation plays a core role in integrating these exact mechanics into interpretations of the world. This realization was one of the important factors that inspired me to pursue my Ph.D. research in computational neuroscience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnother comparison I\u2019ve learned after playing violin for 23 years is that the cochlea in our inner ear is a fast Fourier Transformer that simultaneously computes the aesthetic of music for us. Performing magic tricks for 17 years taught me that all the occurrences of seemingly low-probability magic phenomena are achieved by either letting it be a certain event or exhausting all possibilities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI also have other hobbies, like yo-yo balls. I enjoy performing all these skills in front of audiences. Performing brings me satisfaction when I see excitement and happiness from the people I entertain. I am very grateful to my parents for their cultivation and encouragement in doing things that bring me fulfillment. They taught me to be curious and explore my interests, to enjoy pastimes, and instilled the habit to not give up my passions. These were not secondary things that distracted me from coursework or Ph.D. research, but rather complementary parts of my life that bring out the best in me.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat is your favorite Georgia Tech memory?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI have a lot. For my research, I debated frequently with\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.google.com\/view\/brainml\/pi?authuser=0\u0022\u003EAnqi Wu\u003C\/a\u003E, my advisor. These often went late into the night to defend my stances. These challenged my beliefs and made me a stronger scholar, for which I am grateful to Anqi for her time and patience. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI also enjoyed performing in the Georgia Tech symphony orchestra with our great conductor,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/music.gatech.edu\/people\/chaowen-ting\u0022\u003EChaowen Ting\u003C\/a\u003E. I was involved with the Georgia Tech Chinese Students and Scholars Association, where I showcased magic and yo-yo performances at organization events.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Chengrui Li walks across the stage this Thursday at Commencement, it will be his final, and perhaps easiest, performance at Georgia Tech.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBetween orchestra concerts, magic shows, and yo-yo exhibitions, Li thrives in the limelight. In fact, not much rattles his nerves considering the five years of pressure he endured studying computational neuroscience at Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore he returns to New York City to continue building brain-interface technologies at Meta, we caught up with Li to learn how he keeps such a cool head at Georgia Tech and beyond. \u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Before he returns to New York City to continue building brain-interface technologies at Meta, we caught up with Chengrui Li to learn how he keeps such a cool head at Georgia Tech and beyond.   "}],"uid":"36319","created_gmt":"2026-05-06 09:39:58","changed_gmt":"2026-05-13 12:36:58","author":"Bryant Wine","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-06T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-06T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680188":{"id":"680188","type":"image","title":"Meet_CSE_Chengrui_Li1.jpg","body":null,"created":"1778060414","gmt_created":"2026-05-06 09:40:14","changed":"1778060414","gmt_changed":"2026-05-06 09:40:14","alt":"Meet CSE Profile: Chengrui Li","file":{"fid":"264430","name":"Meet_CSE_Chengrui_Li1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/06\/Meet_CSE_Chengrui_Li1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/06\/Meet_CSE_Chengrui_Li1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":113848,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/05\/06\/Meet_CSE_Chengrui_Li1.jpg?itok=5fWD2dio"}}},"media_ids":["680188"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"194568","name":"Arts and Performance"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"195105","name":"2026 Spring Commencement"},{"id":"629","name":"graduation"},{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"166983","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"id":"193614","name":"gt-neuro"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"193656","name":"Neuro Next Initiative"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690167":{"#nid":"690167","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Graduate Builds Fintech Startup using Leadership Mindset","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EInvestment is the best word that summarizes Agam Shah\u2019s journey as a graduate student at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat is clearest on the surface, where Shah studied how public statements by businesses and financial institutions shape market behavior. At a deeper level, though, his success was buoyed by support from professors and his mentorship of younger students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShah\u2019s ability to connect and invest in others led him to partner with Georgia Tech colleagues and start a financial technology business. He returns to campus this week to officially graduate from Tech, giving us a chance to catch up about his grad school experience and life as an entrepreneur.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGraduate:\u003C\/strong\u003E Agam Shah\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch Interests:\u003C\/strong\u003E Quantitative and computational finance, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, large language models (LLMs)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEducation:\u003C\/strong\u003E Ph.D. in Machine Learning, home unit in the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cse.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Computational Science and Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E (CSE)\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFaculty Advisors\u003C\/strong\u003E: Scheller College of Business Professor \u003Cstrong\u003ESudheer Chava\u003C\/strong\u003E and School of CSE Associate Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EChao Zhang\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat persuaded you to attend graduate school at Georgia Tech?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u2019s dedicated College of Computing strongly appealed to me. I was particularly drawn to the interdisciplinary nature of its machine learning Ph.D. program and the School of Computational Science and Engineering, both of which align well with my research interests.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat research project(s) from Georgia Tech are you most proud of and why?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI am proud of all 20-plus research papers I have had the opportunity to contribute to at Georgia Tech. However, if I had to choose one, it would be my work on\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2305.07972\u0022\u003EFederal Open Market Committee (FOMC) text analysis\u003C\/a\u003E, which was also\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/dataset-committees-public-comms-yields-new-insights-federal-reserves-influence\u0022\u003Ehighlighted in the news\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis work is not only well-cited in academic literature, but the language model developed in the paper is also actively used by economists at many of the world\u2019s top central banks, including researchers at the FOMC and the Bank of England. It is also used by leading financial institutions such as BlackRock and Daiwa Securities. Since its release, the model has achieved over 100,000 downloads on Hugging Face.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat can you tell us more about your startup, ZettaQuant?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.zettaquant.ai\/\u0022\u003EZettaQuant\u003C\/a\u003E aims to solve one of the biggest challenges in using LLMs and agents: working effectively with massive underlying datasets. We serve as a layer between raw data and LLMs, helping distill billions of tokens into the relevant context that models can use.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs a deep-tech startup, we are actively engaging with industry practitioners to better understand how to design and engineer our system to integrate seamlessly with their evolving AI workflows. Given the complexity of the problem we are tackling, particularly in advancing document intelligence systems, we are currently very focused on research and foundational development.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHow did your Georgia Tech education prepare you for starting ZettaQuant?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENot just my education, but my entire experience at Georgia Tech, extending beyond the classroom, prepared me for this journey. I met my co-founders at Georgia Tech, and many of the initial use cases we are exploring at ZettaQuant are built on open-source research I conducted there.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to research, I mentored more than 300 students through the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/vip.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EVertically Integrated Project\u003C\/a\u003E \u201cNLP for Financial Markets.\u201d This experience taught me how to manage teams and think about building systems with a long-term vision.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat advice would you give someone interested in graduate school?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Most people pursue graduate school after already completing more than 15 years of education. Also, people who are admitted to a top school like Georgia Tech are often already well-positioned to secure strong job opportunities. So, graduate school should provide value beyond what you could learn outside the classroom.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBefore deciding, think carefully about what you hope to gain from graduate school that you cannot otherwise. Once you enroll, take full advantage of the faculty, research labs, networks, and seminars. Many students underutilize these opportunities during their undergraduate and graduate years.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI would also like to quote the epilogue of my Ph.D. thesis: \u2018Advice is abundant; conviction must be your own.\u2019 Build a strong conviction about what you want to achieve from graduate school before committing to it.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat did you do for fun and relaxation while attending Georgia Tech? Do you still keep up with these now?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;This may sound unconventional, but I spent a significant amount of time mentoring and teaching throughout my Ph.D. Many of my mentees went on to gain admission to top graduate programs. This included two students I mentored for all four years of their undergraduate studies who later joined the ML Ph.D. program at Georgia Tech. They are now teaching and mentoring students, completing a full-circle journey.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWorking with mentees and supporting their growth gives me a strong sense of fulfillment and serves as a form of relaxation. In addition, I enjoy listening to music, especially while coding, and I continue to do that today.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhat is your favorite Georgia Tech memory?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;If I had to choose one favorite memory, beyond the many exciting late nights in the lab, it would be proposing to my wife on Tech Green at Georgia Tech. She is also a Yellow Jacket, having completed her undergraduate degree here and currently pursuing her Ph.D. Our home truly is a hive of Yellow Jackets.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EInvestment is the best word that summarizes Agam Shah\u2019s journey as a graduate student at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat is clearest on the surface, where Shah studied how public statements by businesses and financial institutions shape market behavior. At a deeper level, though, his success was buoyed by support from professors and his mentorship of younger students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShah\u2019s ability to connect and invest in others led him to partner with Georgia Tech colleagues and start a financial technology business. He returns to campus this week to officially graduate from Tech, giving us a chance to catch up about his grad school experience and life as an entrepreneur.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Agam Shah returns to campus this week to officially graduate from Tech, giving us a chance to catch up about his grad school experience and life as an entrepreneur."}],"uid":"36319","created_gmt":"2026-05-06 09:47:39","changed_gmt":"2026-05-08 11:48:29","author":"Bryant Wine","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-06T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-06T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680189":{"id":"680189","type":"image","title":"Meet_CSE_Agam_Shah3.jpg","body":null,"created":"1778060870","gmt_created":"2026-05-06 09:47:50","changed":"1778060870","gmt_changed":"2026-05-06 09:47:50","alt":"Meet CSE Profile: Agam Shah","file":{"fid":"264431","name":"Meet_CSE_Agam_Shah3.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/06\/Meet_CSE_Agam_Shah3.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/06\/Meet_CSE_Agam_Shah3.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":714059,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/05\/06\/Meet_CSE_Agam_Shah3.jpg?itok=WrdlWHya"}}},"media_ids":["680189"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"131","name":"Economic Development and Policy"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"195105","name":"2026 Spring Commencement"},{"id":"629","name":"graduation"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690180":{"#nid":"690180","#data":{"type":"news","title":"From Industry to Impact: A Ph.D. Journey in Cybersecurity","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAfter earning a master\u2019s degree in 2016, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.cc.gatech.edu\/grads\/a\/abhaskar9\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbhishek Bhaskar\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u2019s plan was straightforward: build a career in industry and stay close to research without committing to a doctoral program.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat plan lasted about three years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI initially thought I\u2019d just continue in research without a Ph.D.,\u201d Bhaskar said. \u201cMy advisor encouraged me to stay, but I wanted to experience industry first.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to perspective, working outside academia offered Bhaskar clarity. Over time, he found himself drawn back to the kind of deeper, more impactful research he had glimpsed during his graduate studies. Watching colleagues with doctoral degrees tackle complex problems reinforced his decision.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI realized I missed research,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd seeing the kind of work Ph.D. graduates were doing motivated me to apply.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat decision led him to Georgia Tech, where the strength of its cybersecurity and network security research stood out. The program\u2019s interdisciplinary approach was a major draw.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSome schools are strong in one area,\u201d he said. \u201cHere, there\u2019s collaboration across domains. That was important to me.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen Bhaskar arrived, the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy had not yet fully taken shape. Research groups, including the Institute for Information Security and Privacy, were already active, but the school\u0027s formal structure emerged during his second year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWorking with his advisor, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/pearce.prof\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPaul Pearce\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, Bhaskar shifted his research focus from binary and static analysis to network security, a transition that required both adjustment and curiosity.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI wanted to move into something with more direct real-world impact,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis led him to work on censorship measurement, internet security and privacy, areas where technical findings can have global implications. With guidance from Pearce and support from other faculty working in similar areas, he quickly found his footing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHis favorite research project however, was in fact \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/conference\/usenixsecurity22\/presentation\/bhaskar\u0022\u003Ehis first\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn earlier research, unexplained anomalies had appeared in measurement data. At first, the assumption was that they stemmed from geolocation issues. However, after digging deeper, Bhaskar uncovered a different cause: routing changes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat discovery showed that routing can significantly affect measurement results,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhat began as a narrow investigation turned into a broader insight. One that reshaped how those measurements could be interpreted.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlong the way, other milestones followed, including his first paper accepted to a top conference.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat was a big moment,\u201d Bhaskar said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut beyond publications and research breakthroughs, it\u2019s the day-to-day experience of doctoral life that made the strongest impression.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe camaraderie stands out the most,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially during deadlines. Everyone is working hard, but you still take time to step away, talk, and support each other.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat sense of community extended beyond his own lab. Interactions with neighboring groups and researchers in fields like cryptography broadened his perspective and shaped his approach to problems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe way different groups think about problems is really valuable,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOutside the lab, Atlanta played its own role in the experience. From sporting events to concerts, the city offered a balance to the intensity of research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to do,\u201d Bhaskar said. \u201cI tried to take advantage of that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENow, as he prepares to graduate, the next chapter is already in motion. Bhaskar will move to the West Coast for a post-doctorate security research role at Stanford University, following a summer internship that offers time to reset before the transition.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAbhi\u0027s work is excellent,\u201d said Pearce. \u201cDuring the course of his Ph.D. he discovered important underlying phenomena that influence how we measure and understand internet censorship and end-to-end network behaviors broadly.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHe\u0027s an outstanding researcher and community leader, and while his contribution as a student to my group and SCP will be missed, we\u0027re excited about what he accomplished and his next steps!\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAbhishek Bhaskar, who earned his master\u2019s in 2016, returned to academia after several years in industry to pursue a Ph.D. in cybersecurity at Georgia Tech. Drawn by the program\u2019s collaborative research environment, he shifted his focus to network security and conducted impactful work on internet measurement and routing. Along the way, he built strong research collaborations and published widely, while valuing the community and experiences both inside and outside the lab. After graduating, Bhaskar will transition to a security research role at Stanford University, marking the next step in a journey shaped by curiosity, impact and collaboration.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Abhishek Bhaskar\u0027s story from industry to Ph.D."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-05-06 18:13:56","changed_gmt":"2026-05-08 11:41:45","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-06T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-06T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680201":{"id":"680201","type":"image","title":"Abhishek-Bhaskar-web-copy.jpg","body":null,"created":"1778091256","gmt_created":"2026-05-06 18:14:16","changed":"1778091256","gmt_changed":"2026-05-06 18:14:16","alt":"A man wearing glasses and a suit","file":{"fid":"264444","name":"Abhishek-Bhaskar-web-copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/06\/Abhishek-Bhaskar-web-copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/06\/Abhishek-Bhaskar-web-copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1765354,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/05\/06\/Abhishek-Bhaskar-web-copy.jpg?itok=Xr9IZ72D"}}},"media_ids":["680201"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"195105","name":"2026 Spring Commencement"},{"id":"629","name":"graduation"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer II for the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690187":{"#nid":"690187","#data":{"type":"news","title":"52-Year-Old Entrepreneur Has New Outlook After Completing Ph.D.","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E52-Year-Old Entrepreneur Has New Outlook After Completing Ph.D.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMizan Rahman knows there\u2019s much that academia and industry can learn from each other.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe\u2019s living proof of it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe 52-year-old entrepreneur will receive his Ph.D. in human-centered computing (HCC) as he walks across the stage on Thursday at Georgia Tech\u2019s Spring 2026 Ph.D. Commencement.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen Rahman was accepted into the HCC Ph.D. program, he\u2019d already founded three successful tech startups and was an angel investor in numerous others. He also earned a master\u2019s in computational science and engineering from Georgia Tech in 2013.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERahman took on the challenge of a Ph.D. because he\u2019s always been in pursuit of a holistic view of technology. One perspective he said he needed to understand was that of the end user.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019d already done computer science and computational science and engineering, so I wanted to look at the human dimension, the user\u2019s perspectives, and society,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to build technology that fits into our human dynamics.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERahman\u2019s journey began as an undergraduate in chemical engineering at Miami Dade College and Florida Atlantic University. He switched to computer science after his roommate, also a CS major, showed him some programming he had been working on.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI couldn\u2019t sleep after that,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cI was writing software all night. I loved solving problems through technology.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEarly Success\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERahman invented BayBuilder, a strategic sourcing automation technology, in 1999. The software was adopted by major Fortune 500 companies. Rahman estimates it has saved these companies $1 billion in procurement spending.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBaybuilder was acquired by a NASDAQ-listed firm in 2001, and he was ready to start his next company.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019ve been an entrepreneur as far back as I can remember,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cI was born with it. If I saw something that didn\u2019t exist, I created it.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAfter relocating to Atlanta, Rahman founded a new company, M2SYS Technology. Governments around the world used the company\u2019s innovative identity technology to automate processes and deliver efficient services to citizens. M2SYS also worked with the CDC to treat HIV in Haiti and Zambia, as well as many U.S. hospitals, including Grady Memorial in Atlanta, to protect patients from fraud and receiving the wrong treatment.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERahman\u2019s most recent startup, CloudApper AI, introduced a new system architecture that generates secure software requiring minimal ongoing maintenance. His non-biased algorithm, which he created during his Ph.D. for CloudApper, is now used by major companies to streamline automated resume analysis and candidate scoring.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELiving in Two Worlds\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERahman began his Ph.D. in 2021, but he kept his new venture to himself and his family. He didn\u2019t tell his employees he was pursuing a Ph.D., and he didn\u2019t disclose his industry background to his fellow doctoral students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI kept the other side of me far away,\u201d he said. \u201cThe people who knew, they knew, but I purposefully didn\u2019t discuss my outside activities and experience. I wanted to fit in, and I think I was able to do that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen Rahman was at his company, he was a CEO and entrepreneur, and when he was at Georgia Tech, he was a researcher. But what he was learning as a researcher began to change how he perceived his business.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI wanted to be a researcher and think like a researcher and not just always think about sales and marketing,\u201d he said. \u201cI started bringing in more ideas about how the user should be thought of in our products. I\u2019m sure they were wondering why I was emphasizing that so much, but it was because I was applying what I was learning in my Ph.D.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cNow I\u2019ve been on both sides, I want to be connected to both in the future, applying research principles and practices in product development and innovation.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBuilding Community Through Makerspaces\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen it came time for Rahman to choose a subject for his dissertation, he returned to his roots and looked for ways technology can support young entrepreneurs and their startups. That\u2019s when he began conducting research in makerspaces.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI wanted to find out how we can bring innovation to a scale where anybody can participate,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw this happening in makerspaces where regular people learn, collaborate, and build products and companies from scratch. I saw that the community at large is facing a sustainability crisis.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERahman argued in his dissertation that makerspaces can play a significant role in local innovation. When people struggle to survive, it disrupts communities in numerous ways.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERahman details four studies conducted over three-and-a-half years that show how socio-technical factors drive organizational sustainability in makerspaces and how AI tools can foster an innovative culture within them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe compelling thing about his research is that he shows that people come to makerspaces for the tools, but they stay for the people,\u201d said Rosa Arriaga, associate professor and Rahman\u2019s advisor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHe has plenty of work from his ethnographic research that shows that a makerspace can have all the tech and resources, but if there isn\u2019t cohesion among the people, there\u2019s a problem.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIt Takes a Village\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERahman is the first to admit that it\u2019s not possible for one man to run a company while pursuing a Ph.D. He needed a community. This starts with his family. His wife, Mohu Sultana, now serves as interim CEO of M2SYS and has supported Rahman throughout his Ph.D. research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech community has been part of Rahman\u2019s life in some way since he started his career.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESultana holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in computer science from Tech, and their daughter, Malisha Rahman, is graduating this week with a bachelor\u2019s in economics and international affairs. Malisha Rahman has also been accepted into the HCC program and will begin her Ph.D. in the fall.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERahman said that any student who wants to create a tech startup will have an advantage from access to Georgia Tech\u2019s network.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe Georgia Tech startup community is fantastic,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is a tremendous amount of knowledge here, and the research community can help shape the next big thing. We have CREATE-X, a place where you can find mentorship from faculty who started in industry. You\u2019ll learn things I wish I knew before I started.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMizan Rahman, a 52-year-old entrepreneur with three successful tech startups, is completing his Ph.D. in human-centered computing. Driven by a desire to understand the human dimension of technology, his dissertation focused on makerspaces as hubs for community-driven innovation, arguing that social cohesion \u2014 not just tools and resources \u2014 is key to their sustainability. Rahman credits his academic journey with transforming how he approaches product development, and he now aims to bridge industry and research going forward.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Mizan Rahman, a tech entrepreneur who has founded three companies, is having his Ph.D. in human centered computing conferred this week."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-05-07 12:31:35","changed_gmt":"2026-05-08 11:40:21","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-05-07T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-05-07T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680208":{"id":"680208","type":"image","title":"Mizan-Rahman_P9A6201.jpg","body":null,"created":"1778157109","gmt_created":"2026-05-07 12:31:49","changed":"1778157109","gmt_changed":"2026-05-07 12:31:49","alt":"Mizan Rahman","file":{"fid":"264450","name":"Mizan-Rahman_P9A6201.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/07\/Mizan-Rahman_P9A6201.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/05\/07\/Mizan-Rahman_P9A6201.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":145195,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/05\/07\/Mizan-Rahman_P9A6201.jpg?itok=u5fwQmtM"}}},"media_ids":["680208"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"194609","name":"Industry"}],"keywords":[{"id":"629","name":"graduation"},{"id":"195105","name":"2026 Spring Commencement"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690066":{"#nid":"690066","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Professor, Student to Design Collaborative AI Systems Through Microsoft Fellowships","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing professor and his Ph.D. student have been named to the 2026 list of Microsoft Research Fellows and Fellowship Advisors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssociate Professor Alan Ritter and Ph.D. student Ethan Mendes were awarded fellowships for their work on creating artificial intelligence (AI) agents that function as teammates.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMendes was named a fellow, while Ritter will serve as his fellowship advisor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Microsoft Research Fellowship is open to faculty, students, and postdocs. Ritter said that if Microsoft sees alignment in a project, it gives recipients the opportunity to work even closer with their collaborators by inviting them to join as additional fellows.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat turned out to be the case with Mendes after Ritter listed him as a collaborator in his fellowship proposal.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m delighted to serve as Ethan Mendes\u2019 fellowship advisor,\u201d Ritter said. \u201cHe is an exceptionally strong researcher, and I\u2019m excited to see his work recognized through the Microsoft Research Fellowship.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThrough the fellowship, Ritter and Mendes will design AI systems that better support collaboration and decision-making within organizations.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe goal is to move beyond AI as a tool for a single user and instead study how AI can help groups make more informed, transparent, and coordinated decisions,\u201d Ritter said. \u201cWe will focus on methods that bring together information from many different sources, help people reason under uncertainty, and generate analyses that support collective problem-solving in complex work settings.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EProfessor Named to Sustainability Cohort\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Purple Mai\u2019a Foundation has selected Associate Professor Josiah Hester to join its Eahou Global Immersion Cohort.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Purple Mai\u2019a Foundation is a technology education nonprofit headquartered in Aiea, Hawaii, that teaches coding and computer science to Native Hawaiian students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe 29 members of the Eahou Global Immersion Cohort from 15 countries are leaders from indigenous communities recognized for their contributions to sustainability.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHester is a Native Hawaiian whose research centers on sustainable and battery-free technology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe cohort will gather on O\u2019ahu May 1-3 for Eahou Fest, where they will share stories and solutions from research around the world.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m honored to be selected for the Eahou Global Immersion Cohort and to learn alongside such an inspiring group of resilience leaders who come from around the globe,\u201d Hester said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cParticipants are selected for their significant leadership over the past decade and their ability to bring what they learn back to their communities and integrate it into ongoing work and partnerships. I\u2019m excited to connect these experiences with my work and bring these lessons back into research and teaching at Georgia Tech.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJill Watson Creator Receives AAAI Lecture Award\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor Ashok Goel received one of the most distinguished awards from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGoel was selected as the 20th recipient of the AAAI Robert S. Engel Memorial Lecture Award. Established in 2003, the award is given to those who have demonstrated excellence in AI scholarship, outstanding applications of AI, and extraordinary service to AAAI and the AI community.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGoel received the award in January during the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Singapore. According to the awards program, Goel was recognized for contributions to biologically inspired design, case-based reasoning, and application of AI in virtual teaching.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGoel is the inventor of Jill Watson, one of the first AI virtual teaching assistants used in higher education classrooms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAAAI is also the publisher of AI Magazine, which Goel served as editor-in-chief from 2016 to 2021.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI am both honored and humbled to receive AAAI\u0027s Robert Engelmore Award,\u201d Goel said. \u201cBob was a long-time editor of AAAI\u0027s AI Magazine, and many years after he retired, I became the editor of the magazine. This makes the Engelmore Award special to me.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Associate Professor Alan Ritter and Ph.D. student Ethan Mendes were named as Microsoft Research Fellows and Fellowship Advisors. Associate Professor Josiah Hester has joined The Purple Mai\u0027a Foundation\u0027s Eahou Global Immersion Cohort. Professor Ashok Goel received the Robert S. Engle Memorial Lecture Award from AAAI.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"School of Interactive Computing faculty and students have recently received notable awards and honors, including Microsoft research fellowship awards."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-04-30 10:52:51","changed_gmt":"2026-04-30 20:08:06","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680119":{"id":"680119","type":"image","title":"2X6A9222.jpg","body":null,"created":"1777546387","gmt_created":"2026-04-30 10:53:07","changed":"1777546387","gmt_changed":"2026-04-30 10:53:07","alt":"Alan Ritter","file":{"fid":"264359","name":"2X6A9222.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/30\/2X6A9222.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/30\/2X6A9222.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":81758,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/30\/2X6A9222.jpg?itok=2h-1p1bj"}}},"media_ids":["680119"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"193157","name":"Student Honors and Achievements"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"187812","name":"artificial intelligence (AI)"},{"id":"335","name":"Microsoft"},{"id":"14597","name":"MIcrosoft Research"},{"id":"173384","name":"Microsoft Research fellowship"},{"id":"183739","name":"Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowship"},{"id":"84331","name":"and sustainability"},{"id":"98401","name":"AAAI"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689973":{"#nid":"689973","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Cybersecurity School Takes Home Multiple Awards ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESeven members of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E (SCP) community were recognized for their leadership and excellence on Monday afternoon at the 35th Annual College of Computing Awards Ceremony.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI am pleased to be able to recognize all of this hard work,\u201d said Dean \u003Cstrong\u003EVivek Sarkar\u003C\/strong\u003E during the ceremony.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne student, two staff members, and four faculty members were nominated by their SCP peers and received awards for their achievements over the past year.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EStudent Solves Real World Problems\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EYibin Yang\u003C\/strong\u003E (Ph.D. CS 2025) was awarded a 2025 Dissertation Award for his thesis on zero-knowledge proofs in real-world problems. SCP Professor and Senior Associate Chair \u003Cstrong\u003EVlad Kolesnikov\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003Eadvised Yang and acknowledged that Yang\u2019s work advances the field of cryptography.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYang contributed to the advancement of zero-knowledge proofs and multi-party computations, while also building toolchains that are faster and more usable than existing systems. His work earned a \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/cryptographic-research-receives-distinguished-paper-award-acm-ccs-23\u0022\u003Edistinguished paper award\u003C\/a\u003E at the 2023 ACM CCS, and he also served as an RSAC Security Scholar.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EStaff Lead the Way\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn the staff category, \u003Cstrong\u003EMary Helen Hayes\u003C\/strong\u003E was awarded the Outstanding Staff Leadership Award, and \u003Cstrong\u003EGina Anderson\u003C\/strong\u003E received the Ruthie Book Outstanding Staff Team Member Award.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Outstanding Staff Leadership Award is given to a full-time administrative staff member in recognition of an outstanding record of leadership that has resulted in a significant positive impact on the College of Computing, the Institute, or the computing community. Hayes was nominated by four faculty and staff members for this award for her steady presence in SCP since she began her role as director of research operations in 2024.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Ruthie Book Outstanding Staff Team Member Award is presented to a staff member in recognition of their outstanding performance in honor of Ruthie Book, who exemplified excellence in her work. Anderson was nominated by SCP faculty and staff for her outstanding leadership and mentorship as assistant director of business operations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBoth received praise for their hard work from the college as well as from their supervisor, Senior Academic Officer \u003Cstrong\u003EJan Morian\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI am so incredibly proud of our staff in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy who won awards this year at the College of Computing Annual Awards ceremony,\u201d she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMary Helen Hayes and Regina Anderson are truly outstanding staff members who exemplify Georgia Tech\u2019s values. Their leadership has contributed substantially to the success of the school.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003ECybersecurity Faculty Net Four Awards\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe College of Computing also recognized four SCP faculty members for excellence in teaching and research during the college\u2019s annual award ceremony.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssistant Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\/external-news\/new-faculty-wants-secure-ai-wild\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETeodora Baluta\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E received the Junior Faculty Teaching Award for developing a new graduate-level course that brought together generative artificial intelligence (AI) security, adversarial machine learning, cryptography, and differential privacy. Her nominator, SCP Associate Professor Vassilis Zikas, said the course bridged a critical gap in a rapidly evolving area of computing.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor his role in leading \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/team-atlanta.github.io\/\u0022\u003ETeam Atlanta\u003C\/a\u003E to victory in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/georgia-tech-makes-history-wins-darpa-challenge\u0022\u003EDARPA AI Cyber Challenge\u003C\/a\u003E, Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003ETaesoo Kim\u003C\/strong\u003E received the Outstanding Senior Faculty Research Award. His nominator, Regents Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EWenke Lee\u003C\/strong\u003E, praised the team\u2019s performance, which not only won the competition but also beat the combined score of all other competitors. The AI developed by Team Atlanta is now open sourced with the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/competition-community-how-team-atlantas-ai-cybersecurity-breakthrough-going-open-source\u0022\u003EOpen Source Security Foundation\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssociate Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EFrank Li\u003C\/strong\u003E received the Junior Faculty Research Award for establishing world-class research \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/faculty.cc.gatech.edu\/~frankli\/beeslab.html\u0022\u003EBEES Lab\u003C\/a\u003E at Georgia Tech. One of his nominators, Associate Professor \u003Cstrong\u003ESaman Zonouz\u003C\/strong\u003E, put Li\u2019s name forward for his work empirically evaluating and improving internet security and privacy from an operational standpoint.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFinally, Associate Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EBrendan Saltaformaggio\u003C\/strong\u003E received\u0026nbsp;the Mid-Career Faculty Research Award. Zikas nominated him for establishing internationally recognized research in cybersecurity forensics, malware analysis, AI security, and software supply chain security. Saltaformaggio\u2019s research highlights include the discovery of over \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/follow-money-2-billion-crypto-scams-found-ethereum\u0022\u003E$2 billion in stolen funds\u003C\/a\u003E on the Ethereum blockchain.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We know SCP faculty conduct highly impactful research that is of the highest quality,\u201d said SCP Interim Chair \u003Cstrong\u003EMustaque Ahamad\u003C\/strong\u003E. \u201cOur faculty receiving research awards at all levels recognizes this and shows how we are working to realize SCP\u2019s vision of creating security for everyone and everything.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ESeven members of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E (SCP) community were recognized for their leadership and excellence on Monday afternoon at the 35th Annual College of Computing Awards Ceremony.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Seven members of the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP) community were recognized for their leadership and excellence on Monday afternoon at the 35th Annual College of Computing Awards Ceremony."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-04-23 17:30:25","changed_gmt":"2026-04-29 18:12:25","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-23T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-23T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680111":{"id":"680111","type":"image","title":"Group-Photo-web-copy.jpg","body":null,"created":"1777486202","gmt_created":"2026-04-29 18:10:02","changed":"1777486202","gmt_changed":"2026-04-29 18:10:02","alt":"A group photo of people standing in front of a banner holding up certificates","file":{"fid":"264350","name":"Group-Photo-web-copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/29\/Group-Photo-web-copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/29\/Group-Photo-web-copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1644636,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/29\/Group-Photo-web-copy.jpg?itok=bSasTVNh"}},"680046":{"id":"680046","type":"image","title":"Teodora-CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_MG_0187.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EAssistant Professor Teodora Baluta receiving the Junior Faculty Teaching Award. Photos by Terence Rushin\/College of Computing\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1776965449","gmt_created":"2026-04-23 17:30:49","changed":"1777037484","gmt_changed":"2026-04-24 13:31:24","alt":"A woman accepting a certificate.","file":{"fid":"264280","name":"CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_MG_0187.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/23\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_MG_0187.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/23\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_MG_0187.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":8044523,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/23\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_MG_0187.jpg?itok=VOZBsEp8"}},"680057":{"id":"680057","type":"image","title":"Gina-CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0051-1-.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003ECollege of Computing Dean Vivek Sarkar\u0026nbsp;(left) stands with Assistant Director of Business Operations\u0026nbsp;Regina Anderson, recipient of the Ruthie Book Outstanding Staff Team Member Award. 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The woman is holding a certificate.","file":{"fid":"264288","name":"CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0051-1-.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/24\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0051-1-.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/24\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0051-1-.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":20979588,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/24\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0051-1-.jpg?itok=R6w555C4"}},"680056":{"id":"680056","type":"image","title":"Mary Helen-CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0049.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003ECollege of Computing Dean Vivek Sarkar\u0026nbsp;(left) stands with Director of Research Operations\u0026nbsp;Mary Helen Hayes, recipient of the Outstanding Staff Leadership Award. 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Photos by Terence Rushin\/College of Computing\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1777035510","gmt_created":"2026-04-24 12:58:30","changed":"1777035510","gmt_changed":"2026-04-24 12:58:30","alt":"Two men shaking hands. One is holding a certificate. They are standing in front of a step and repest banner.","file":{"fid":"264286","name":"CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0029.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/24\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0029.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/24\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0029.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":23848897,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/24\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0029.jpg?itok=DpdB8XRZ"}},"680054":{"id":"680054","type":"image","title":"Brendan-CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0027.jpg","body":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003ECollege of Computing Dean Vivek Sarkar\u0026nbsp;(left) stands with Associate Professor Brendan Saltaformaggio, recipient of the Mid-Career Faculty Research Award. Photos by Terence Rushin\/College of Computing\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1777035510","gmt_created":"2026-04-24 12:58:30","changed":"1777035510","gmt_changed":"2026-04-24 12:58:30","alt":"Two men shaking hands and holding a certificate.","file":{"fid":"264285","name":"CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0027.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/24\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0027.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/24\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0027.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":25351491,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/24\/CoC-Awards-Spring-2026_86A0027.jpg?itok=6ShvW-6v"}}},"media_ids":["680111","680046","680057","680056","680053","680055","680054"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer II at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689256":{"#nid":"689256","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Study Shows Explainability is a Must for Older Adults to Trust AI","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EVoice-activated, conversational artificial intelligence (AI) agents must provide clear explanations for their suggestions, or older adults aren\u2019t likely to trust them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat\u2019s one of the main findings from a study by AI Caring on what older adults expect from explainable AI (XAI).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ai-caring.org\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAI Caring\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E is one of three AI Institutions led by Georgia Tech and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The institution supports AI research that benefits older adults and their caregivers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENiharika Mathur, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Interactive Computing, was the lead author of a paper based on the study. The paper will be presented in April at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/chi2026.acm.org\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E2026 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Barcelona\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMathur worked with the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/empowerment.emory.edu\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECognitive Empowerment Program at Emory University\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E to interview 23 older adults who live alone and use voice-activated AI assistants like Amazon\u2019s Alexa and Google Home.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMany of them told her they feel excluded from the design of these products.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe assumption is that all people want interactions the same way and across all kinds of situations, but that isn\u2019t true,\u201d Mathur said. \u201cHow older people use AI and what they want from it are different from what younger people prefer.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne example she gave is that young people tend to be informal when talking with AI. Older people, on the other hand, talk to the agent like they would a person.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf Older adults are talking to their family members about Alexa, they usually refer to Alexa as \u2018she\u2019 instead of \u2018it,\u2019\u201d Mathur said. \u201cThey tend to humanize these systems a lot more than young people.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGood Explanations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe study evaluated AI explanations that drew information from four sources of data:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EUser history (past conversations with the agent)\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EEnvironmental data (indoor temperature or the weather forecast)\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EActivity data (how much time a user spends in different areas of the home)\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EInternal reasoning (mathematical probabilities and likely outcomes)\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMathur said older users trust the agent more when it bases its explanations on data from the first three sources. However, internal reasoning creates skepticism.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInternal reasoning means the AI doesn\u2019t have enough data from the other sources to give an explanation. It provides a percentage to reflect its confidence based on what it knows.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe overwhelming response was negative toward confidence scores,\u201d Mathur said. \u201cIf the AI says it\u2019s 92% confident, older adults want to know what that\u2019s based on.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis is another example that Mathur said points to generational preferences.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of explainable AI research that shows younger people like to see numbers in explanations, and they also tend to rely too much on explanations that contain numerical confidence. Older adults are the opposite. It makes them trust it less.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EKnowing the Context\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMathur said that AI agents interacting with older adults should serve a dual purpose. They should provide users with companionship and support independence while reducing the caretaking burden often placed on family members.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESome studies have shown that engineers have tended to favor caretakers in the design of these tools. They prioritize daily tasks and routines, leaving some older adults to feel like they are merely a box to be checked.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe discovered that in urgent situations, older users prefer the AI to be straightforward, while in casual settings, they desire more conversation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHow people interact with technological systems is grounded in what the stakes of the situation are,\u201d she said. \u201cIf it had anything to do with their immediate sense of safety, they did not want conversational elaboration. They want the AI to be very direct and factual.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ENot Just Checking Boxes\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMathur said AI agents that interact with older adults are ideally constructed with a dual purpose. They should provide companionship and autonomy for the users while alleviating the burden of caretaking that is often placed on their family members.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESome studies have shown that engineers have strayed toward favoring caretakers in the design of these tools. They prioritize daily tasks and routines, leaving some older adults to feel like they are a box to be checked.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThey\u2019re not being thought of as consumers,\u201d Mathur said. \u201cA lot of products are being made for them but not with them.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe also said psychological well-being is one of the most important outcomes these tools should produce.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShowing older adults that they are listened to can significantly help in gaining their trust. Some interviewees told Mathur they want agents who are deliberate about understanding their preferences and don\u2019t dismiss their questions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeeting these needs reduces the likelihood of protesting and creating conflict with family members.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt highlights just how important well-designed explanations are,\u201d she said. \u201cWe must go beyond a transparency checklist.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAn AI Caring study led by Georgia Tech researchers shows that older adults are more likely to trust conversational AI systems that provide them with clear explanations for their decision-making. The study also shows that including older adults more in the design process benefits their well-being and reduces the caretaking burden of family members\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A Georgia Tech study finds older adults are more likely to trust voice-activated AI systems when those systems clearly explain how and why they make decisions."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-03-31 14:01:07","changed_gmt":"2026-04-27 14:31:27","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-03-31T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-03-31T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679796":{"id":"679796","type":"image","title":"0A6A0355.jpg","body":null,"created":"1774965687","gmt_created":"2026-03-31 14:01:27","changed":"1774965687","gmt_changed":"2026-03-31 14:01:27","alt":"An older couple sitting on a couch as a man helps them use Amazon\u0027s Alexa","file":{"fid":"263999","name":"0A6A0355.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/31\/0A6A0355.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/31\/0A6A0355.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":171883,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/31\/0A6A0355.jpg?itok=t62aVqXD"}}},"media_ids":["679796"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"193860","name":"Artifical Intelligence"},{"id":"187812","name":"artificial intelligence (AI)"},{"id":"14342","name":"older adults"},{"id":"148721","name":"Amazon Alexa"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ndeen6@gatech.edu\u0022\u003ENathan Deen\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECollege of Computing\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689263":{"#nid":"689263","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Transformer Explainer Shows How AI is More Math Than Human","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhile people use search engines, chatbots, and generative artificial intelligence tools every day, most don\u2019t know how they work. This sets unrealistic expectations for AI and leads to misuse. It also slows progress toward building new AI applications.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers are making AI easier to understand through their work on Transformer Explainer. The free, online tool shows non-experts how ChatGPT, Claude, and other large language models (LLMs) process language.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/poloclub.github.io\/transformer-explainer\/\u0022\u003ETransformer Explainer\u003C\/a\u003E is easy to use and runs on any web browser. It quickly went viral after its debut, reaching 150,000 users in its first three months. More than 563,000 people worldwide have used the tool so far.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGlobal interest in Transformer Explainer continues when the team presents the tool at the 2026 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/chi2026.acm.org\/\u0022\u003ECHI 2026\u003C\/a\u003E). CHI, the world\u2019s most prestigious conference on human-computer interaction, will take place in Barcelona, April 13-17.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E[\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/research\/chi-2026\/\u0022\u003ERelated: GT @ CHI 2026\u003C\/a\u003E]\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere are moments when LLMs can seem almost like a person with their own will and personality, and that misperception has real consequences. For example, there have been cases where teenagers have made poor decisions based on conversations with LLMs,\u201d said Ph.D. student\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/aereeeee.github.io\/\u0022\u003EAeree Cho\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cUnderstanding that an LLM is fundamentally a model that predicts the probability distribution of the next token helps users avoid taking its outputs as absolute. What you put in shapes what comes out, and that understanding helps people engage with AI more carefully and critically.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA transformer is a neural network architecture that changes data input sequence into an output. Text, audio, and images are forms of processed data, which is why transformers are common in generative AI models. They do this by learning context and tracking mathematical relationships between sequence components.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETransformer Explainer demystifies how transformers work. The platform uses visualization and interaction to show, step by step, how text flows through a model and produces predictions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsing this approach, Transformer Explainer impacts the AI landscape in four main ways:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EIt counters hype and misconceptions surrounding AI by showing how transformers work.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EIt improves AI literacy among users by removing technical barriers and lowering the entry for learning about AI.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EIt expands AI education by helping instructors teach AI mechanisms without extensive setup or computing resources.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EIt influences future development of AI tools and educational techniques by providing a blueprint for interpretable AI systems.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen I first learned about transformers, I felt overwhelmed. A transformer model has many parts, each with its own complex math. Existing resources typically present all this information at once, making it difficult to see how everything fits together,\u201d said\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gracekimcy.github.io\/\u0022\u003EGrace Kim\u003C\/a\u003E, a dual B.S.\/M.S. computer science student.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBy leveraging interactive visualization, we use levels of abstraction to first show the big picture of the entire model. Then users click into individual parts to reveal the underlying details and math. This way, Transformer Explainer makes learning far less intimidating.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMany users don\u2019t know what transformers are or how they work. The Georgia Tech team found that people often misunderstand AI. Some label AI with human-like characteristics, such as creativity. Others even describe it as working like magic.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFurthermore, barriers make it hard for students interested in transformers to start learning. Tutorials tend to be too technical and overwhelm beginners with math and code. While visualization tools exist, these often target more advanced AI experts.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETransformer Explainer overcomes these obstacles through its interactive, user-focused platform. It runs a familiar GPT model directly in any web browser, requiring no installation or special hardware.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsers can enter their own text and watch the model predict the next word in real time. Sankey-style diagrams show how information moves through embeddings, attention heads, and transformer blocks.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe platform also lets users switch between high-level concepts and detailed math. By adjusting temperature settings, users can see how randomness affects predictions. This reveals how probabilities drive AI outputs, rather than creativity.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMillions of people around the world interact with transformer-driven AI. We believe that it is crucial to bridge the gap between day-to-day user experience and the models\u0027 technical reality, ensuring these tools are not misinterpreted as human-like or seen as sentient,\u201d said Ph.D. student\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.alexkarpekov.com\/\u0022\u003EAlex Karpekov\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cExplaining the architecture helps users recognize that language generated by models is a product of computation, leading to a more grounded engagement with the technology.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECho, Karpekov, and Kim led the development of Transformer Explainer. Ph.D. students\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/alechelbling.com\/\u0022\u003EAlec Helbling\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/seongmin.xyz\/\u0022\u003ESeongmin Lee\u003C\/a\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/bhoov.com\/\u0022\u003EBen Hoover\u003C\/a\u003E, and alumni\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/zijie.wang\/\u0022\u003EZijie (Jay) Wang\u003C\/a\u003E (Ph.D. ML-CSE 2024) and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/minsuk.com\/\u0022\u003EMinsuk Kahng\u003C\/a\u003E (Ph.D. CS-CSE 2019) assisted on the project.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/poloclub.github.io\/polochau\/\u0022\u003EPolo Chau\u003C\/a\u003E supervised the group and their work. His lab focuses on data science, human-centered AI, and visualization for social good.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAcceptance at CHI 2026 stems from the team winning the best poster award at the 2024 IEEE Visualization Conference. This recognition from one of the top venues in visualization research highlights Transformer Explainer\u2019s effectiveness in teaching how transformers work.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cTransformer Explainer has reached over half a million learners worldwide,\u201d said Chau, a faculty member in the School of Computational Science and Engineering.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u0027m thrilled to see it extend Georgia Tech\u0027s mission of expanding access to higher education, now to anyone with a web browser.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers are making AI easier to understand through their work on Transformer Explainer. The free, online tool shows non-experts how ChatGPT, Claude, and other large language models (LLMs) process language, improving AI literacy.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech researchers are making AI easier to understand through their work on Transformer Explainer. The free, online tool shows non-experts how ChatGPT, Claude, and other large language models (LLMs) process language, improving AI literacy."}],"uid":"36319","created_gmt":"2026-03-31 16:42:57","changed_gmt":"2026-04-27 14:30:50","author":"Bryant Wine","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-03-31T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-03-31T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679798":{"id":"679798","type":"image","title":"Transformer-Explainer-Head-Image.jpg","body":null,"created":"1774975392","gmt_created":"2026-03-31 16:43:12","changed":"1774975392","gmt_changed":"2026-03-31 16:43:12","alt":"CHI 2026 Transformer Explainer","file":{"fid":"264002","name":"Transformer-Explainer-Head-Image.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/31\/Transformer-Explainer-Head-Image.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/31\/Transformer-Explainer-Head-Image.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":120484,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/31\/Transformer-Explainer-Head-Image.jpg?itok=eryBAi-R"}},"679799":{"id":"679799","type":"image","title":"Transformer-Explainer-Text-Image.jpg","body":null,"created":"1774975428","gmt_created":"2026-03-31 16:43:48","changed":"1774975428","gmt_changed":"2026-03-31 16:43:48","alt":"CHI 2026 Transformer Explainer","file":{"fid":"264003","name":"Transformer-Explainer-Text-Image.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/31\/Transformer-Explainer-Text-Image.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/31\/Transformer-Explainer-Text-Image.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":69012,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/31\/Transformer-Explainer-Text-Image.jpg?itok=0B-WDInX"}}},"media_ids":["679798","679799"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/transformer-explainer-shows-how-ai-more-math-human","title":"Transformer Explainer Shows How AI is More Math than Human"}],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"134","name":"Student and Faculty"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"166983","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"10199","name":"Daily Digest"},{"id":"181991","name":"Georgia Tech News Center"},{"id":"170447","name":"Institute for Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"176858","name":"machine learning center"},{"id":"9167","name":"machine learning"},{"id":"187812","name":"artificial intelligence (AI)"},{"id":"14646","name":"human-computer interaction"},{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"194384","name":"Tech AI"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689931":{"#nid":"689931","#data":{"type":"news","title":"From Competition to Community: How Team Atlanta\u2019s AI Cybersecurity Breakthrough Is Going Open Source","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/team-atlanta.github.io\/\u0022\u003ETeam Atlanta\u003C\/a\u003E claimed first place in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/georgia-tech-makes-history-wins-darpa-challenge\u0022\u003EDARPA AI Cyber Challenge\u003C\/a\u003E last year, they weren\u2019t just celebrating a win\u2014they were demonstrating that artificial intelligence (AI) could autonomously detect and patch software vulnerabilities at a scale once considered impossible.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENow, the team is working with the Linux Foundation and the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/openssf.org\/\u0022\u003EOpen Source Security Foundation\u003C\/a\u003E (OpenSSF) to ensure that its breakthrough doesn\u2019t remain confined to a competition environment. The team\u2019s new initiative, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/openssf.org\/projects\/oss-crs\/\u0022\u003EOSS-CRS\u003C\/a\u003E, aims to standardize and operationalize cyber reasoning systems (CRSs) for real-world use.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe AI Cyber Challenge pushed the boundaries of autonomous software security, with seven teams developing systems capable of finding and remediating vulnerabilities at scale,\u201d said \u003Cstrong\u003EAndrew Chin\u003C\/strong\u003E, a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student and lead on the OSS-CRS program.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHowever, after the competition\u2019s conclusion, it has been difficult to apply these advancements to the open-source community due to infrastructure incompatibilities and the lack of long-term maintenance for the open-sourced CRS implementations.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo address this gap, Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gts3.org\/\u0022\u003ESystems Software Lab\u003C\/a\u003E (SSLab), directed by Professor \u003Cstrong\u003ETaesoo Kim\u003C\/strong\u003E, is leading the development of OSS-CRS, which provides both a common framework for CRS development and the infrastructure needed to deploy these systems seamlessly across open-source projects.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs part of this effort, the team has ported its competition-winning system, Atlantis, into the OSS-CRS framework. The move makes it compatible with laptops and other everyday machines with flexible resource and budget configurations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInteroperability is also central to the framework\u2019s design. Atlantis can be combined with other CRSs to improve performance, including systems developed by fellow AIxCC finalists and newer agentic, command-line-based tools. This modular approach reflects a key lesson the team learned from the competition: collaboration between systems can outperform any single solution.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOSS-CRS has been accepted as a \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/github.com\/ossf\/oss-crs\u0022\u003Esandbox project\u003C\/a\u003E within OpenSSF\u2019s AI\/ML Security Working Group, a milestone that brings added technical guidance and community support to the project. This includes:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EAccess to mentorship\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EDedicated working group meetings\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EBroader visibility through industry events, publications, and outreach efforts\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe collaboration will also foster stronger connections with open-source maintainers, helping streamline vulnerability disclosure and remediation workflows.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETeam Atlanta, winners of the DARPA AI Cyber Challenge, are turning their competition-winning AI cybersecurity system into a real-world tool for the open-source community. In partnership with the Linux Foundation and the Open Source Security Foundation, the team has launched OSS-CRS, a framework designed to standardize and deploy autonomous cyber reasoning systems at scale. By open sourcing their technology and enabling collaboration between multiple AI systems, the initiative aims to make it easier to detect and fix software vulnerabilities\u2014strengthening the security of critical open-source infrastructure worldwide.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Team Atlanta, winners of the DARPA AI Cyber Challenge, are turning their competition-winning AI cybersecurity system into a real-world tool for the open-source community."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-04-21 17:28:31","changed_gmt":"2026-04-27 14:30:30","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-21T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-21T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680033":{"id":"680033","type":"image","title":"AIxCC-2025-27-web-copy.jpg","body":null,"created":"1776880174","gmt_created":"2026-04-22 17:49:34","changed":"1776880174","gmt_changed":"2026-04-22 17:49:34","alt":"A group of people standing inside of a convention hall. ","file":{"fid":"264266","name":"AIxCC-2025-27-web-copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/AIxCC-2025-27-web-copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/AIxCC-2025-27-web-copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1078593,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/22\/AIxCC-2025-27-web-copy.jpg?itok=6t8OfTPC"}}},"media_ids":["680033"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"},{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jpopham3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689945":{"#nid":"689945","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Zoo Atlanta Elephants Embrace New GT-Designed Interactive Enrichment Wall","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETitan, Msholo, Kelly, and Tara are just like any other African elephants \u2014 intelligent creatures that require mental stimulation in their everyday lives.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey would normally get this in their natural habitats while foraging for food and staying alert to predators that might target calves.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/zooatlanta.org\/animal\/african-elephant\/\u0022\u003Ethe four elephants reside at Zoo Atlanta\u003C\/a\u003E, so they don\u2019t have to worry about these things.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat\u2019s why zoo caretakers are always on the lookout for better ways to help their elephants exercise their brains.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe caretakers at Zoo Atlanta found one when they met\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ariannamastali.org\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EArianna Mastali\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, a Ph.D. student in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing. Mastali designed an audio enrichment wall to help stimulate Zoo Atlanta\u2019s elephants.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMany zoos build concrete enrichment walls to foster elephant problem-solving and critical thinking. The walls usually have holes for the elephants to reach through with their trunks as they search for food, treats, or playful objects on the other side.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMastali enhanced Zoo Atlanta\u2019s enrichment wall by adding an interactive audio component. A nearby speaker system emits distinctive low-frequency tones when an elephant sticks its trunk into a hole.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThey\u2019re intelligent creatures that require a lot of complexity in their habitat,\u201d Mastali said. \u201cWe wanted to add to that complexity while giving them more control.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EExperimenting in the Wild\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMastali\u2019s system uses cameras and computer vision to detect when an elephant\u2019s trunk is inside a hole and then sends a signal to the speakers to play a sound.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMastali is a member of the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/animalab.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech Animal Lab\u003C\/a\u003E, directed by School of IC professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/people\/melody-jackson\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMelody Jackson\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E. The lab often uses sensing technology to enhance animal wellness.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMastali said she tried incorporating sensing devices into her project several times. She constructed an insert made of PVC pipe and attached a sensor to its base that used infrared beams to detect the elephant\u2019s trunk.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, she said it was difficult to account for the elephants\u2019 strength. Their trunks would break the insert after a day or two.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe pivoted toward computer vision to remove the risk of damage and keep the enrichment wall as close to natural as possible.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cA big lesson we learned was that using existing materials the elephants are already familiar with was the best way to do things, and it simplified our design process,\u201d she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EShane Rosse\u003C\/strong\u003E, a student in Georgia Tech\u2019s\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/omscs.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EOnline Master of Science in Computer Science\u003C\/a\u003E (OMSCS) program, assisted Mastali with the computer vision component.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEnhancing Environmental Enrichment\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMastali observed the elephants\u2019 behavior at the wall seven days before and seven days after the installation of the audio enrichment system.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe number of times the elephants approached the wall after installation increased by 176%, and time spent at the wall increased by 71%\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe weren\u2019t sure at first if they would care that much, so it was great to see how much time they spent at the wall, especially our less dominant females,\u201d said Kirby Miller, senior elephant caretaker at Zoo Atlanta. \u201cThey seem to like it the most.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMiller said the elephants used to only approach the wall when they knew there was food behind it. That started to change after the audio enrichment system was installed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe would be off somewhere else, and we\u2019d hear the speaker playing the sounds, and we knew there wasn\u2019t any food back there,\u201d Miller said. \u201cTara had her trunk in one of the holes, just listening to the sound. That let us know they do like it, and they\u2019re very curious about it.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMiller said because elephants have sharp memories and acute senses of hearing and smell, their habitats must be designed with that in mind.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZoo Atlanta\u2019s African Savanna elephant habitat was redesigned in 2019. In addition to the enrichment wall, it includes a bathing pond, two waterfalls, and swing boom devices that hold hay for elephants to eat as they would in the wild.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMiller said elephants sheltered at any zoo or conservation would benefit from enrichment devices enhanced by technology.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI think anything they can participate in that gives them choice and control is great for all zoo elephants,\u201d she said. \u201cIt depends on the elephants, but with our elephants, they can hear much higher frequencies than we can. That noise isn\u2019t that loud for us, but for them, they\u2019re feeling that noise, and they can hear much more, which makes it more stimulating for them.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech Ph.D. student Arianna Mastali designed an interactive audio enrichment wall for Zoo Atlanta\u0027s four African elephants. A speaker system plays low-frequency tones when an elephant inserts its trunk into one of the wall\u0027s holes, deteced by computer vision.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech is working with Zoo Atlanta to design an audio enrichment wall for African elephants."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-04-22 14:20:53","changed_gmt":"2026-04-27 14:29:54","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680026":{"id":"680026","type":"image","title":"DSC_2500.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1776867679","gmt_created":"2026-04-22 14:21:19","changed":"1776867679","gmt_changed":"2026-04-22 14:21:19","alt":"Arianna Mastali stands in front of an African elephant in the background at Zoo Atlanta.","file":{"fid":"264259","name":"DSC_2500.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_2500.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_2500.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":203094,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_2500.jpeg?itok=g1EF8go7"}},"680027":{"id":"680027","type":"image","title":"DSC_0455.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1776867787","gmt_created":"2026-04-22 14:23:07","changed":"1776867787","gmt_changed":"2026-04-22 14:23:07","alt":"Elephant at Zoo Atlanta sticks its trunk into a hole in the enrichment wall","file":{"fid":"264260","name":"DSC_0455.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_0455.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_0455.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":429358,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_0455.jpeg?itok=7sLBTWa8"}},"680028":{"id":"680028","type":"image","title":"DSC_0522.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1776867847","gmt_created":"2026-04-22 14:24:07","changed":"1776867847","gmt_changed":"2026-04-22 14:24:07","alt":"Elephant uses its trunk to grab hay that is suspended in the air","file":{"fid":"264261","name":"DSC_0522.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_0522.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_0522.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":455927,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_0522.jpeg?itok=7GaCnto5"}},"680029":{"id":"680029","type":"image","title":"DSC_0500.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1776867908","gmt_created":"2026-04-22 14:25:08","changed":"1776867908","gmt_changed":"2026-04-22 14:25:08","alt":"Zoo Atlanta visitor walk past the elephant exhibit with an elephant in the background","file":{"fid":"264262","name":"DSC_0500.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_0500.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_0500.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":235033,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/22\/DSC_0500.jpeg?itok=0F8wEbaE"}},"680030":{"id":"680030","type":"video","title":"Play That Trunk Music: Elephant Enrichment x Computer Science","body":"\u003Cp\u003EElephants require mental stimulation in their everyday lives, which is why Zoo Atlanta redesigned its African Savanna habitat that shelters four African elephants in 2019. The habitat includes an elephant enrichment wall that has numerous holes for elephants to stick their trunks into as they search for food on the other side.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe elephant enrichment wall at Zoo Atlanta recently received an upgrade thanks to a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student. Arianna Mastali designed an audio enrichment system that uses computer vision to detect when an elephant sticks its trunk into the enrichment wall as it searches for food. The system then sends a signal to play a unique tone from a nearby speaker that corresponds to each hole. So far, Mastali has found that elephant wall interactions have increased by 176%, and the elephants are visiting the wall even when there isn\u0027t food behind it.\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1776868980","gmt_created":"2026-04-22 14:43:00","changed":"1776868980","gmt_changed":"2026-04-22 14:43:00","video":{"youtube_id":"ANlIAhp4YTs","video_url":"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ANlIAhp4YTs"}}},"media_ids":["680026","680027","680028","680029","680030"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"42901","name":"Community"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"188776","name":"go-research"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"6765","name":"zoo atlanta"},{"id":"174264","name":"elephants"},{"id":"3237","name":"enrichment"},{"id":"104701","name":"animal computer interaction lab"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ndeen6@gatech.edu\u0022\u003ENathan Deen\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECollege of Computing\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689932":{"#nid":"689932","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Vision AI Models Improve Decision Making in Manufacturing, Energy, and Finance","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGenerative artificial intelligence (AI) is best known for creating images and text. Now, it is helping industries make better planning decisions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers have created a new AI model for decision-focused learning (DFL), called Diffusion-DFL. Recent tests showed it makes more accurate decisions than current approaches.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlong with optimizing industrial output, Diffusion-DFL lowers costs and reduces risk. Experiments also showed it performs across different fields.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2510.11590\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDiffusion-DFL\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E doesn\u2019t just surpass current methods; it also predicts more accurately as problem sizes grow. The model requires less computing power despite these high-performance marks, making it more accessible to smaller enterprises.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDiffusion-DFL runs on diffusion models, the same technology that powers DALL-E and other AI image generators. It is the first DFL framework based on diffusion models.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAnyone who makes high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, including supply chain managers, energy operators, and financial planners, benefits from Diffusion-DFL,\u201d said\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.zihaozhao.site\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EZihao Zhao\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student who led the project.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cInstead of optimizing around a single forecast, the model evaluates many possible scenarios, so decisions account for real-world risk and become more robust.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E[\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/sites.gatech.edu\/research\/iclr-2026\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERelated: GT @ ICLR 2026\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E]\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo test Diffusion-DFL, the team ran experiments based on real-world settings, including:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EFactory manufacturing to meet product demand\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPower grid scheduling to meet energy demand\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EStock market portfolio optimization\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn each case, Diffusion-DFL made more accurate decisions than current methods. It also performed better as problems became larger and more complex. These results confirm the model\u2019s ability to make important decisions in real-world scenarios with noisy data and uncertainty.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe experiments also show that Diffusion-DFL is practical, not just accurate. Training diffusion models is expensive, so the team developed a way to reduce memory use. This cut training costs by more than 99.7%. As a result, Diffusion-DFL can reach more researchers and practitioners.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur score-function estimator cuts GPU memory from over 60 gigabytes to 0.13 with almost no loss in decision quality, reducing the requirement for massive computing resources,\u201d Zhao said. \u201cI hope this expands Diffusion-DFL into other domains, like healthcare, where decisions must be made quickly under complex uncertainty.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBeyond decision-making applications, Diffusion-DFL marks a shift in DFL techniques and in the broader use of generative AI models.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn supply chain management, planners estimate future demand before deciding how much product to stock. In this DFL problem, engineers align ML models with predetermined decision objectives, like minimizing risk or reducing costs.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne flaw of DFL methods is that they optimize around a single, deterministic prediction in an uncertain future.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDiffusion-DFL takes a different approach. Instead of making a single guess, it determines a range of possible outcomes. This leads to decisions based on many likely scenarios, rather than on a single assumed future.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo do this, the framework uses diffusion models. These generative AI models create high-quality data from images, text, and audio.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe forward diffusion process involves adding noise to data until it becomes pure noise. Models trained via forward diffusion can reverse diffusion. This means they can start with noisy data and then produce meaningful insights from training examples.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EReal-world data is often noisy and uncertain. Traditional DFL methods struggle in these conditions, but diffusion models are designed to handle them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBecause of this, Diffusion-DFL can explore many possible outcomes and choose better actions. Like image-generation AI, the model works well with complex data from different sources. This enables its use across different industries.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDiffusion models have achieved significant success in generative AI and image synthesis, but our work shows their potential extends far beyond that,\u201d said\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/guaguakai.com\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EKai Wang\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, an assistant professor in the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cse.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESchool of Computational Science and Engineering\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E (CSE).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat makes Diffusion-DFL unique is that the specific downstream application guides how the model learns to handle uncertainty.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhether we are scheduling energy for power grids, balancing risk in financial portfolios, or developing early warning systems in healthcare, we can explicitly train these highly expressive models to navigate the unique complexities of each domain.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZhao and Wang collaborated with Caltech Ph.D. candidate\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/chrisyeh96.github.io\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EChristopher Yeh\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E and Harvard University postdoctoral fellow\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/alumnus-uses-ai-counter-african-poaching-improve-maternal-healthcare-access\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELingkai Kong\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E on Diffusion-DFL. Kong earned his Ph.D. in CSE from Georgia Tech in 2024.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWang will present Diffusion-DFL on behalf of the group at the upcoming International Conference on Learning Representations (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/iclr.cc\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EICLR 2026\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E). Occurring April 23-27 in Rio de Janeiro, ICLR is one of the world\u2019s most prestigious conferences dedicated to artificial intelligence research.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cICLR is the perfect stage for Diffusion-DFL because it brings together the exact community that needs to see the bridge between generative modeling and high-stakes decision-making for real-world applications,\u201d Wang said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cPresenting Diffusion-DFL allows us to challenge the traditional training framework of diffusion models. It\u2019s about sparking a broader conversation on how we can align the training objectives of generative AI directly with actual, downstream decision-making needs.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGenerative artificial intelligence (AI) is best known for creating images and text. Now, it is helping industries make better planning decisions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers have created a new AI model for decision-focused learning (DFL), called Diffusion-DFL. Recent tests showed it makes more accurate decisions than current approaches.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlong with optimizing industrial output, Diffusion-DFL lowers costs and reduces risk. Experiments also showed it performs across different fields.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2510.11590\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDiffusion-DFL\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E doesn\u2019t just surpass current methods; it also predicts more accurately as problem sizes grow. The model requires less computing power despite these high-performance marks, making it more accessible to smaller enterprises.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDiffusion-DFL runs on diffusion models, the same technology that powers DALL-E and other AI image generators. It is the first DFL framework based on diffusion models.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech researchers have developed Diffusion-DFL, the first decision-focused learning model built on diffusion AI technology. It uses the same engineering behind image generators to help industries make more accurate, lower-cost planning decisions."}],"uid":"36319","created_gmt":"2026-04-21 17:35:24","changed_gmt":"2026-04-21 17:40:39","author":"Bryant Wine","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-15T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-15T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680015":{"id":"680015","type":"image","title":"Diffusion-DFL-Head-Image.jpg","body":null,"created":"1776792936","gmt_created":"2026-04-21 17:35:36","changed":"1776792936","gmt_changed":"2026-04-21 17:35:36","alt":"ICLR 2026 Diffusion-DFL","file":{"fid":"264248","name":"Diffusion-DFL-Head-Image.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/21\/Diffusion-DFL-Head-Image.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/21\/Diffusion-DFL-Head-Image.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":117435,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/21\/Diffusion-DFL-Head-Image.jpg?itok=2myOXxFR"}}},"media_ids":["680015"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/vision-ai-models-improve-decision-making-manufacturing-energy-and-finance","title":"Vision AI Models Improve Decision Making in Manufacturing, Energy, and Finance"}],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"131","name":"Economic Development and Policy"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"194609","name":"Industry"},{"id":"194685","name":"Manufacturing"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187812","name":"artificial intelligence (AI)"},{"id":"10199","name":"Daily Digest"},{"id":"181991","name":"Georgia Tech News Center"},{"id":"9167","name":"machine learning"},{"id":"181689","name":"Institute for Data Science and Engineering"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"194384","name":"Tech AI"},{"id":"7850","name":"EVPR"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39461","name":"Manufacturing, Trade, and Logistics"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689636":{"#nid":"689636","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Bad Vibes: AI-Generated Code is Vulnerable, Researchers Warn","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EVibe coding programmers are releasing batches of vulnerable code, according to researchers at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP) at Georgia Tech, who have scanned over 43,000 security advisories across the web.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe programming style relies on using generative artificial intelligence (AI) to create software code using tools like Claude, Gemini, and GitHub Copilot. According to graduate research assistant \u003Cstrong\u003EHanqing Zhao\u003C\/strong\u003E of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gts3.org\/\u0022\u003ESystems Software \u0026amp; Security Lab\u003C\/a\u003E (SSLab), no one had been tracking these common vulnerabilities and exposures before the launch of their \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/vibe-radar-ten.vercel.app\/\u0022\u003EVibe Security Radar\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe vulnerabilities we found lead to breaches,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone is using these tools now. We need a feedback loop to identify which tools, which patterns, and which workflows create the most risk.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe radar extensively scans public vulnerability databases, finds the error for each vulnerability, and then examines the code\u2019s history to find who introduced the bug. If they discover an AI tool\u0027s signature, the radar flags it.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOf the 74 confirmed cases uncovered so far by the tool, 14 are critical risks, and 25 are high. These vulnerabilities include command injection, authentication bypass, and server-side request forgery. Zhao explained that since AI models tend to repeat the same mistakes, an attacker would need to find these bugs just once.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMillions of developers using the same models means the same bugs showing up across different projects,\u201d he said. \u201cFind one pattern in one AI codebase, you can scan for it across thousands of repositories.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDespite its success, the team has only scratched the surface of the problem. The radar can trace metadata like co-author tags, bot emails, and other known tool signatures, but it can\u0027t identify an issue if these markers have been removed.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe next step is behavioral detection. AI-written code has patterns in how it names variables, structures functions, and handles errors.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u0027re building models that can identify AI code from the code itself, no metadata needed,\u201d said Zhao. \u201cThat opens up a lot of cases we currently can\u0027t touch.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team is also improving its verification pipeline and expanding its sources to include more vulnerability databases. The goal is to get a more complete picture of AI-introduced vulnerabilities across open source, not just the ones that happen to leave signatures behind.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs more programmers rely on vibe coding, Zhao warns that it still needs to be reviewed as thoroughly as any other project.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe whole point of vibe coding is not reading it afterward, I know,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if you\u0027re shipping AI output to production, review it the way you\u0027d review a junior developer\u0027s pull request. Especially anything around input handling and authentication.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhen prompting AI, SSLab also recommends providing more detailed instructions to get it closer to production-ready. There are also tools to check the code for vulnerabilities after \u0026nbsp;code it has been generated. Not double-checking could lead to a catastrophe.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe attack surface keeps growing,\u201d said Zhao. \u201cMore people running AI agents locally means the attacker doesn\u0027t need to break into the company infrastructure. They just need one vulnerability in a model context protocol server that someone installed and never reviewed.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne reason the attack surfaces are expanding rapidly is AI\u2019s evolution. In the second half of 2025, the Vibe Security Radar found about 18 cases across seven months. Then, in the first three months of 2026, it identified 56. March 2026 alone had 35, more than all of 2025 combined.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMany tools, like Claude, are now more autonomous, allowing developers to write entire features, create files, and even make architecture decisions.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhen an agent builds something without authentication, that\u0027s not a typo,\u201d said Zhao. \u201cIt\u0027s a design flaw baked in from the start. Claude Code and Copilot together account for most of what we detect, but that\u0027s partly because they leave the clearest signatures.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at the Georgia Tech School of Cybersecurity and Privacy are uncovering a growing risk in modern software development: vulnerabilities introduced by AI-generated code.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsing the Vibe Security Radar, the team analyzed more than 43,000 security advisories and identified dozens of confirmed vulnerabilities tied to tools like GitHub Copilot, Claude, and Gemini\u2014including critical flaws such as authentication bypass and command injection.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers at the Georgia Tech School of Cybersecurity and Privacy are uncovering a growing risk in modern software development: vulnerabilities introduced by AI-generated code."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-04-13 14:32:02","changed_gmt":"2026-04-13 14:44:00","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-13T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-13T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679920":{"id":"679920","type":"image","title":"Vibe-Coding.jpg","body":null,"created":"1776090752","gmt_created":"2026-04-13 14:32:32","changed":"1776090752","gmt_changed":"2026-04-13 14:32:32","alt":"A man typing on a computer. There is a hovering screen hovering over his hands that says \u0022Vibe Coding\u0022","file":{"fid":"264142","name":"Vibe-Coding.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/13\/Vibe-Coding.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/13\/Vibe-Coding.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1783427,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/13\/Vibe-Coding.jpg?itok=jhk18PZE"}}},"media_ids":["679920"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2835","name":"ai"},{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"186861","name":"go-cyber"},{"id":"194393","name":"AI and Cybersecurity"},{"id":"1404","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer II at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689446":{"#nid":"689446","#data":{"type":"news","title":"GTRI Supports Initiative to Assess Quantum Computing Efforts","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EQuantum computers may one day enable revolutionary advances in fluid dynamics, drug discovery, development of better agricultural fertilizers, improved materials design and other technical areas that are beyond the capabilities of today\u2019s conventional computers. To reach those goals, companies from around the world are pursuing a variety of approaches aimed at developing large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe approaches of over a dozen quantum computing companies are now being evaluated through the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), a project of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). According to the agency, QBI \u201caims to rigorously verify and validate whether any quantum computing approach can achieve utility-scale operation \u2013 meaning its computational value exceeds its cost \u2013 by the year 2033.\u201d\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESupporting the effort, a 40-person interdisciplinary research team from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has joined the test and evaluation component of QBI, providing unbiased subject-matter experts to work with 13 other research organizations in evaluating the R\u0026amp;D plans of participating quantum computer companies. Through this collaboration, the GTRI team is working with more than 400 other third-party experts on the project.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gtri.gatech.edu\/newsroom\/gtri-supports-initiative-assess-quantum-computing-efforts\u0022\u003ERead the complete article on the GTRI news site\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe approaches of over a dozen quantum computing companies are now being evaluated through the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), a project of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). GTRI researchers are supporting the initiative.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers are supporting a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiative to evaluate different approaches to quantum computing."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2026-04-03 17:29:16","changed_gmt":"2026-04-03 17:35:58","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-03T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-03T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679845":{"id":"679845","type":"image","title":"Quantum computing could enable revolutionary advances in numerous technology areas","body":"\u003Cp\u003EQuantum computers may one day enable revolutionary advances in fluid dynamics, drug discovery, development of better agricultural fertilizers, improved materials design and other technical areas. (Credit: Tim Hynes)\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1775236418","gmt_created":"2026-04-03 17:13:38","changed":"1775236825","gmt_changed":"2026-04-03 17:20:25","alt":"Quantum research and potential benefits","file":{"fid":"264053","name":"Quantum_banner_03B_03-web.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/03\/Quantum_banner_03B_03-web.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/03\/Quantum_banner_03B_03-web.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":839777,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/03\/Quantum_banner_03B_03-web.jpg?itok=QRIkBs4z"}}},"media_ids":["679845"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193653","name":"Georgia Tech Research Institute"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["gtri.media@gtri.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689428":{"#nid":"689428","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Researchers Build AI Tutor Grounded in Course Materials","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAs students increasingly turn to artificial intelligence (AI) to help with coursework, some worry that their learning could be compromised. Georgia Tech researchers are working to counter this potential decline with an AI tool they hope will promote learning rather than hinder it.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETokenSmith is a citation-supported large language model (LLM) tutor that can be hosted locally on a user\u2019s personal computer. The tutor only provides answers based on course materials, such as the textbook or lecture slides.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssociate Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/faculty.cc.gatech.edu\/~jarulraj\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJoy Arulraj\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E began the project with support from the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.gatech.edu\/c21u-announces-inaugural-bill-kent-ai-higher-education-fellows\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBill Kent Family Foundation AI in Higher Education Faculty Fellowship\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E last year. The fellowship, led by Georgia Tech\u2019s Center for 21st Century Universities, supports faculty projects exploring innovative and ethical uses of AI in teaching.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EArulraj has enlisted assistant professors \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/kexinrong.github.io\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EKexin Rong\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/steve.mussmann.us\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESteve Mussmann\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E to help build TokenSmith.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMussmann said TokenSmith is a synergistic blend of a database system and a machine learning system. The model stores textbooks, textbook annotations by course staff, common questions and answers, a learning state of the student, and student feedback in a structured database system. However, machine learning plays a key role in the answer generation as well as adapting the system to the student, course staff guidance, and user feedback.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022What excites me most is demonstrating how data-driven ML and principled database systems design can reinforce each other \u2014 one providing adaptability and flexibility, the other providing structure and traceability \u2014 in a way that benefits students,\u0022 Mussmann said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKeeping the model local has been an important focus of the project. The team wanted to create an AI tutor that helps students learn from their class resources rather than just giving answers. With each response, TokenSmith cites the origin of the answer in the provided documents.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOne problem with LLMs is that they can hallucinate and provide wrong answers, but in this controlled environment, we can add these guardrails to make sure it\u2019s actually helpful in an educational setting,\u201d Rong said.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERong said she feels that students often undervalue textbooks, and she hopes TokenSmith can motivate students to make better use of them.\u202f\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cTextbooks can sometimes be daunting, but maybe if we combine them with the model, students might be more willing to read a paragraph or page in the textbook, and that could help clarify something for them,\u201d she said.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERunning the model locally is more cost-effective and helps preserve the user\u2019s privacy. But running the new tool locally comes with technical challenges.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne challenge with creating the model is speed. Since it is a locally based model, TokenSmith depends solely on the user\u2019s computer memory. \u0026nbsp;Tests have also shown that the tutor currently struggles to answer more complex questions.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe are interested in pushing the boundaries of these local models so that they give students good answers and also run fast enough to keep students engaged,\u201d Arulraj said.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETokenSmith is a citation-supported large language model (LLM) tutor that can be hosted locally on a user\u2019s personal computer. The tutor only provides answers based on course materials, such as the textbook or lecture slides.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssociate Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/faculty.cc.gatech.edu\/~jarulraj\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJoy Arulraj\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E began the project with support from the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.gatech.edu\/c21u-announces-inaugural-bill-kent-ai-higher-education-fellows\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBill Kent Family Foundation AI in Higher Education Faculty Fellowship\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E last year. The fellowship, led by Georgia Tech\u2019s Center for 21st Century Universities, supports faculty projects exploring innovative and ethical uses of AI in teaching.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"TokenSmith is a citation-supported large language model (LLM) tutor that can be hosted locally on a user\u2019s personal computer. The tutor only provides answers based on course materials, such as the textbook or lecture slides.  "}],"uid":"36532","created_gmt":"2026-04-02 20:25:02","changed_gmt":"2026-04-02 20:30:36","author":"Morgan Usry","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-04-02T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-04-02T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679842":{"id":"679842","type":"image","title":"AI-Tutor-Image.jpg.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1775161510","gmt_created":"2026-04-02 20:25:10","changed":"1775161510","gmt_changed":"2026-04-02 20:25:10","alt":"Graphic showing the researchers in front of a computer screen","file":{"fid":"264048","name":"AI-Tutor-Image.jpg.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/02\/AI-Tutor-Image.jpg.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/04\/02\/AI-Tutor-Image.jpg.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":321180,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/04\/02\/AI-Tutor-Image.jpg.jpeg?itok=yDJdQ838"}}},"media_ids":["679842"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"193860","name":"Artifical Intelligence"},{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"194701","name":"go-resarchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"10199","name":"Daily Digest"},{"id":"194394","name":"AI in Education"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMorgan Usry, Communications Officer\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["morgan.usry@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689250":{"#nid":"689250","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Researchers Look to Bolster Technology Support for Menopause","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWomen in need of supportive maternal and menstrual healthcare in patriarchal societies have increasingly found outlets for disclosure in online communities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat support, however, begins to disappear in these restrictive cultures once women reach menopause, according to new research from Georgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENaveena Karusala, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing, and master\u2019s student Umme Ammara are working toward improving existing technologies and designing new ones for a demographic they believe has been neglected.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKarusala and Ammara co-authored a paper based on a study they conducted with women in urban Pakistan experiencing menopause.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWomen\u2019s health is understudied in general, but menopause is more neglected than other women\u2019s health issues,\u201d Karusala said. \u201cOur choice to focus on menopause is motivated by expanding how we holistically think about women\u2019s well-being across their lifespan.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKarusala and Ammara will present their paper in April at the 2026 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Barcelona.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMasking Symptoms\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMenopause is diagnosed after 12 consecutive months without a period, vaginal bleeding, or spotting. The transition to menopause, called perimenopause, usually happens over two to eight years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHormone changes may cause symptoms such as irregular periods, vaginal dryness, hot flashes, night sweats, trouble sleeping, mood swings, and brain fog.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThese symptoms can be debilitating in some cases and affect daily life. However, Ammara said women are pressured to remain silent, maintain appearances, and regulate their emotions to meet social expectations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cUnderstanding menopause is important because a woman would be experiencing all these symptoms, and people will not understand those as actual symptoms,\u201d Ammara said. \u201cThere\u2019s been resistance to the idea of the medicalization of menopause. People don\u2019t view it as an illness, but as a life transition and something that happens naturally.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFeeling Isolated\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe women interviewed by Karusala and Ammara either stayed at home full-time or were part of the workforce.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers discovered that trusted family members might be the only sources women who stay at home and do not work turn to for disclosure.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWomen at home have the flexibility to take breaks or work at their own pace, so a lot of their experience is shaped by the emotional barriers they face,\u201d Ammara said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat could come from their husbands and family members. Some are supportive and some are not. They might weaponize it and use that term against them, or they might dismiss what they\u2019re going through.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmmara said it might be easier for women in the workforce to confide in their coworkers, but explaining to an employer that they need sick leave for menopause symptoms can be intimidating.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEven in online communities that have enabled women to anonymously share their health experiences, menopause is seldom discussed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERaising Awareness\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKarusala and Ammara argue in their paper that a public health approach could be the most effective way to spark conversation about menopause in a patriarchal culture in which technology use varies.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThey said the challenge in implementing technologies geared toward menopause support is that the condition isn\u2019t well understood in public. Improving maternal health, for example, is easier to promote within these societies because of the general understanding that motherhood is important.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere must be an existing infrastructure to build on,\u201d Karusala said. \u201cFor example, menstrual and maternal health are taught in schools and regularly discussed in primary care. Cultural and social meaning and importance are placed on motherhood.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cA lot of that doesn\u2019t exist for menopause. Primary care doctors are unprepared to talk about menopause compared to other health issues.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDesign Solutions\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmmara said that the most effective way for technologies to make an impact on women going through menopause is to directly address systemic power structures around women\u2019s health within Pakistani culture.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt can start with the husbands.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFraming the issue for husbands to understand menopause should be at the forefront of designing technology solutions,\u201d she said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn Islamic contexts, we suggest using faith-based framings. This has been proposed for maternal health in prior works that draw on Islamic principles to engage expectant fathers in providing care and support. Framing it around religious responsibility to involve men in the journey can also be done for menopause.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech assistant professor Naveena Karusala and master\u0027s student Umme Ammara are researching how to improve existing technologies and design new ones to better support women experiencing menopause. Their work is based on a study conducted with women in urban Pakistan, where patriarchal social norms pressure women to stay silent about menopause symptoms and limit their ability to seek support, even in online communities that have otherwise helped women discuss other health issues\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech researchers are looking at how technology can better support women experiencing menopause in urban Pakistan, where patriarchal norms leave them largely isolated and without resources for managing their symptoms."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-03-31 12:09:13","changed_gmt":"2026-03-31 13:18:07","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-03-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-03-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679788":{"id":"679788","type":"image","title":"Ammara-Umme_86A2210.jpg","body":null,"created":"1774958961","gmt_created":"2026-03-31 12:09:21","changed":"1774958961","gmt_changed":"2026-03-31 12:09:21","alt":"Umme Ammar sits in a booth with laptop in front of her","file":{"fid":"263990","name":"Ammara-Umme_86A2210.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/31\/Ammara-Umme_86A2210.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/31\/Ammara-Umme_86A2210.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":95810,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/31\/Ammara-Umme_86A2210.jpg?itok=7jqYXbcn"}}},"media_ids":["679788"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"8900","name":"women\u0027s history month"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"3543","name":"women\u0027s health"},{"id":"171911","name":"women of pakistan"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ndeen6@gatech.edu\u0022\u003ENathan Deen\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECollege of Computing\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689175":{"#nid":"689175","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Tech Swarms into Athens for Clean, Old-Fashioned Computing","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe in-state rivalry between the Yellow Jackets and the Bulldogs usually heats up when Georgia Tech visits the University of Georgia. However, one Saturday last month, the focus shifted from competition to collaboration.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium (GSCS) held its annual meeting on February 21 in Athens. Since 2009, the event has hosted researchers from across the Peach State to showcase homegrown advances in scientific computing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/haoningwu.github.io\/GSCS2026.html\u0022\u003EThe symposium\u003C\/a\u003E highlighted Georgia\u2019s reputation as a computing innovation hub. People from around the world come to Georgia universities to lead computing research. By advancing science, engineering, medicine, and technology, their work improves communities at home and abroad.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFaculty and students from Georgia Tech, UGA, Georgia State University, and Emory University presented at the symposium. Georgia Tech participants came from the colleges of Computing, Engineering, and Sciences.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis year\u2019s organizers agreed to meet in Atlanta for the 2027 symposium. Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cse.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE)\u003C\/a\u003E will host the 19th GSCS.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFrom healthcare to computer chip design, scientific computing underpins many of the technological advances we see in our lives,\u201d said Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/faculty.cc.gatech.edu\/~echow\/\u0022\u003EEdmond Chow\u003C\/a\u003E, associate chair of the School of CSE.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cScientific computing provides the mathematical models, simulations, and data\u2011driven tools that make modern innovation possible. It allows people to analyze complex systems, test ideas virtually before building them, and make faster, more accurate decisions across nearly every sector of society.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/hmzhou.math.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EHaomin Zhou\u003C\/a\u003E and Assistant Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/itshelenxu.github.io\/\u0022\u003EHelen Xu\u003C\/a\u003E delivered two of the symposium\u2019s five plenary talks.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZhou presented a new method for solving the Schr\u00f6dinger equation, a landmark equation in quantum mechanics. Drawing inspiration from the mathematics used in generative artificial intelligence models, his approach develops an algorithm that more effectively simulates waves, particle motion, and other physical systems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EXu focused on improving how computers move and organize data during complex calculations. Her work uses \u201ccache-friendly\u201d layouts that help computers access data more efficiently, boosting performance for scientific and engineering applications.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSpeaking at GSCS was a great opportunity,\u201d Xu said. \u201cThe symposium fostered connections within the scientific computing community and gave us a chance to share exciting research.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe symposium showcased student work through a poster blitz and a poster session. During the blitz, 36 students each had one minute to introduce their research to the full audience. They then shared more details about their research during the poster session.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe student projects showed the range of fields supported by scientific computing. The session also provided attendees with an opportunity to connect and expand their professional networks, helping grow the field\u2019s future impact.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs an aerospace engineer by training and aspiring computational scientist, GSCS gave me the platform to network with other researchers in the field while showcasing my own research,\u201d said M.S. student \u003Cstrong\u003EKashvi Mundra\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI was able to connect with scientists across different disciplines whose work intersects with my own in unexpected ways. Those conversations pushed my thinking beyond my own lab\u0027s perspective, helping me see my work on physics-informed machine learning for inverse problems in a broader scientific computing context.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech students who presented posters included:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAbir Haque\u003C\/strong\u003E (CSE), \u003Cem\u003EMassively Parallel Random Phase Approximation Correlation Energy via Lanczos Quadrature\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAntonio Varagnolo\u003C\/strong\u003E (CSE), \u003Cem\u003EPhysics-Enhanced Deep Surrogates for the Phonon Boltzmann Transport Equation\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBen Burns\u003C\/strong\u003E (CSE), \u003Cem\u003EInfinite-Dimensional Stein Variational Inference with Derivative-Informed Neural Operators\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBen Wilfong\u003C\/strong\u003E (CSE), \u003Cem\u003EShocks without Shock Capturing; Compressible Flow at 1 quadrillion Degrees of Freedom without Loss of Accuracy\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDaniel Vickers\u003C\/strong\u003E (CSE), \u003Cem\u003EHighly-Parallel Fluid-Solid Interactions for Compressible Flows\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEric Fowler\u003C\/strong\u003E (CSE), \u003Cem\u003EHigh-Performance Tensor Contractions in Computational Chemistry\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHaoran Yan\u003C\/strong\u003E (Math), \u003Cem\u003EUnderstanding Denoising Autoencoders through the Manifold Hypothesis: A Geometric Perspective\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EKashvi Mundra\u003C\/strong\u003E (CSE), \u003Cem\u003EAutoregressive Multifidelity Neural Surrogate Modeling under Scarce Data Regimes\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESebasti\u00e1n Guti\u00e9rrez Hern\u00e1ndez\u003C\/strong\u003E (Math\/CSE), \u003Cem\u003EPDPO: Parametric Density Path Optimization\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EVivian Zhang\u003C\/strong\u003E (AE), \u003Cem\u003EMultifidelity Operator Inference: Non-Intrusive Reduced Order Modeling from Scarce Data\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EXian Mae Hadia\u003C\/strong\u003E (CSE), \u003Cem\u003EData Efficiency of Surrogate Models: Learning Physics Data from Full Field Data vs. Inductive Bias from Approximate PDE Solvers\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EXiangming Huang\u003C\/strong\u003E (CSE), \u003Cem\u003ENeural Operator Accelerated Evolutionary Strategies for PDE-Constraint Optimization\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EZhaiming Shen\u003C\/strong\u003E (Math), \u003Cem\u003EUnderstanding In-Context Learning on Structured Manifolds: Bridging Attention to Kernel Methods\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EZhongjie Shi\u003C\/strong\u003E (Math), \u003Cem\u003ETowards Understanding Generalization in DP-GD: A Case Study in Training Two-Layer CNNs\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe in-state rivalry between the Yellow Jackets and the Bulldogs usually heats up when Georgia Tech visits the University of Georgia. However, one Saturday last month, the focus shifted from competition to collaboration.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium (GSCS) held its annual meeting on February 21 in Athens. Since 2009, the event has hosted researchers from across the Peach State to showcase homegrown advances in scientific computing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/haoningwu.github.io\/GSCS2026.html\u0022\u003EThe symposium\u003C\/a\u003E highlighted Georgia\u2019s reputation as a computing innovation hub. People from around the world come to Georgia universities to lead computing research. By advancing science, engineering, medicine, and technology, their work improves communities at home and abroad.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers from universities across Georgia, including Georgia Tech, set aside rivalry to collaborate at the 2026 Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium, highlighting the state\u2019s growing role as a hub for innovation in scientific computing."}],"uid":"36319","created_gmt":"2026-03-25 13:04:13","changed_gmt":"2026-03-25 19:41:06","author":"Bryant Wine","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-03-25T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-03-25T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679732":{"id":"679732","type":"image","title":"GSCS-2026-Head-Image.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1774443866","gmt_created":"2026-03-25 13:04:26","changed":"1774443866","gmt_changed":"2026-03-25 13:04:26","alt":"2026 Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium","file":{"fid":"263927","name":"GSCS-2026-Head-Image.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/25\/GSCS-2026-Head-Image.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/25\/GSCS-2026-Head-Image.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":217081,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/25\/GSCS-2026-Head-Image.jpeg?itok=2Vs3GesS"}},"679733":{"id":"679733","type":"image","title":"Kashvi-Mundra-Poster.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1774443901","gmt_created":"2026-03-25 13:05:01","changed":"1774443901","gmt_changed":"2026-03-25 13:05:01","alt":"2026 Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium","file":{"fid":"263928","name":"Kashvi-Mundra-Poster.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/25\/Kashvi-Mundra-Poster.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/25\/Kashvi-Mundra-Poster.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":84134,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/25\/Kashvi-Mundra-Poster.jpeg?itok=i7BjGyOA"}}},"media_ids":["679732","679733"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/tech-swarms-athens-clean-old-fashioned-computing","title":"Tech Swarms into Athens for Clean, Old-Fashioned Computing"}],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"194611","name":"State Impact"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"166983","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"181991","name":"Georgia Tech News Center"},{"id":"10199","name":"Daily Digest"},{"id":"168681","name":"scientific computing"},{"id":"194970","name":"2026 Georgia Scientific Computing Symposium"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39541","name":"Systems"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689185":{"#nid":"689185","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Researchers Find Training Gaps Impacting Maritime Cybersecurity Readiness","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhether it\u2019s a fire or a flood, a ship\u2019s crew can only rely on itself and its training in emergencies at sea. The same is true for crews facing digital threats on oil tankers, cargo ships, and other commercial vessels.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENew cybersecurity research from the Georgia Institute of Technology, however, revealed that crews aboard commercial vessels were often not adequately prepared to manage cyberattacks effectively due to systemic training gaps.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe findings are based on interviews conducted by researchers with more than 20 officer-level mariners to assess the maritime industry\u2019s readiness to handle cybersecurity attacks at sea.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Historically, cybersecurity research has focused heavily on cyber-physical systems like cars, factories, and industrial plants, but ships have largely been overlooked,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/annaraymaker.dad\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAnna Raymaker\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, Ph.D. student and lead researcher.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat gap is concerning when more than 90% of the world\u2019s goods travel by sea. Recent incidents, from GPS spoofing to ships linked to subsea cable disruptions, show that maritime systems are increasingly part of the global cyber threat landscape.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers proposed four practical strategies to strengthen maritime cyber defenses and close the training gaps. Their findings were presented recently at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.sigsac.org\/ccs\/CCS2025\/call-for-papers\/\u0022\u003EACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS).\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch6\u003E1. Make Cybersecurity Training Actually Maritime\u003C\/h6\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMany of those interviewed for the study described current cybersecurity training as \u201cboilerplate\u201d \u2014 generic modules that don\u2019t reflect real shipboard risks.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers recommend:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003ERole-specific instruction: Navigation officers should learn to detect and identify GPS spoofing. Engineers should focus on vulnerabilities in remotely monitored systems.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EBridging IT and Operational Technology: Crews need to understand how attacks on IT systems can trigger physical consequences in operational technology \u2014 including collisions, groundings, or explosions.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EHands-on delivery: Replace passive PowerPoints with drills and in-person exercises that build muscle memory.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EAccessible standards: Training must account for the wide range of educational backgrounds across crews and be standardized across ranks.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Ch6\u003E2. Move Beyond \u201cCall IT\u201d\u003C\/h6\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt sea, crews can\u2019t simply escalate a cyber incident to a shore-based IT department and wait. Operational resilience requires onboard readiness.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers recommend:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EVessel-specific response plans: Ships need clear, actionable protocols for threats such as AIS jamming or radar manipulation.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EMilitary-style drills: Adopting MCON (Emission Control) exercises \u2014 used by the U.S. Military Sealift Command \u2014 can train crews to operate safely without electronic systems.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EStronger connectivity controls: High-bandwidth satellite systems like Starlink introduce new risks. Clear policies and network segregation are essential to prevent new entry points for attackers.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Ch6\u003ERelated Article: \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/theconversation.com\/when-gps-lies-at-sea-how-electronic-warfare-is-threatening-ships-and-their-crews-278181\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhen GPS lies at sea: How electronic warfare is threatening ships and their\u0026nbsp;crews\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E by Anna Raymaker\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h6\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Ch6\u003E3. Create Unified, Ship-Specific Regulations\u003C\/h6\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMaritime cybersecurity regulations are often reactive and fragmented. Researchers argue the industry needs a cohesive, domain-specific framework.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKey recommendations include:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EA unified global model: Like the energy sector\u2019s NERC CIP standards, a maritime framework could mandate baseline controls such as encryption, network segmentation, and anonymous incident reporting.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ERules built for real crews: Regulations designed for large naval operations don\u2019t translate well to smaller merchant or research vessels. Standards must reflect actual shipboard conditions.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EFuture-proofing requirements: Autonomous ships and remotely operated vessels expand the cyber-physical attack surface. Regulations must proactively address these emerging technologies.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Ch6\u003E4. Invest in Maritime-Specific Cyber Research\u003C\/h6\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFinally, the researchers stress that long-term resilience requires deeper technical research focused on maritime systems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPriority areas include:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EReal-time intrusion detection systems tailored to shipboard protocols.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EProactive security risk assessments of interconnected onboard systems.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ECyber-physical modeling to better understand cascading failures in complex maritime environments.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Ch6\u003EThe Bottom Line\u003C\/h6\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECyber threats at sea are no longer hypothetical. Mariners report real-world incidents ranging from GPS spoofing to ransomware that disrupts global trade.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThrough our interviews with mariners, I saw firsthand how much dedication and pride they take in their work,\u201d said Raymaker. \u201cOur goal is for this research to serve as a call to action for researchers, policymakers, and industry to invest more attention in maritime cybersecurity and support the people who risk their lives every day to keep global trade, food, and energy moving.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3719027.3744816\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EA Sea of Cyber Threats: Maritime Cybersecurity from the Perspective of Mariners\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/em\u003Ewas presented at CCS 2025. It was written by Raymaker and her colleagues, Ph.D. students \u003Cstrong\u003EAkshaya Kumar\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003EMiuyin Yong Wong\u003C\/strong\u003E, and \u003Cstrong\u003ERyan Pickren\u003C\/strong\u003E; Research Scientist \u003Cstrong\u003EAnimesh Chhotaray\u003C\/strong\u003E, Associate Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EFrank Li,\u003C\/strong\u003E Associate Professor \u003Cstrong\u003ESaman Zonouz\u003C\/strong\u003E, and Georgia Tech Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs \u003Cstrong\u003ERaheem Beyah\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearch from the Georgia Institute of Technology shows that commercial ship crews are often unprepared for cyberattacks due to inadequate, generic training, despite rising threats like GPS spoofing and ransomware. Because ships must handle incidents independently at sea, researchers recommend more practical, maritime-specific training, stronger onboard response plans, unified global cybersecurity regulations, and increased investment in ship-focused cyber research. These steps are critical to protecting maritime operations, which carry over 90% of global trade.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology shows that commercial ship crews are often unprepared for cyberattacks due to inadequate, generic training, despite rising threats like GPS spoofing and ransomware."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-03-25 16:47:20","changed_gmt":"2026-03-25 18:01:30","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-03-25T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-03-25T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679738":{"id":"679738","type":"image","title":"Cyber Navy","body":null,"created":"1774461240","gmt_created":"2026-03-25 17:54:00","changed":"1774461240","gmt_changed":"2026-03-25 17:54:00","alt":"A graphic of a boat sailing across the globe with a cyber shield at its front. ","file":{"fid":"263933","name":"AdobeStock_1936842040.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/25\/AdobeStock_1936842040.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/25\/AdobeStock_1936842040.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":50518,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/25\/AdobeStock_1936842040.jpeg?itok=CQWC0YmI"}}},"media_ids":["679738"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"},{"id":"39461","name":"Manufacturing, Trade, and Logistics"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer II\u0026nbsp;School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689184":{"#nid":"689184","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Cybersecurity and Privacy Faculty Earns Promotion and Tenure","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Institute of Technology recently announced that \u003Cstrong\u003EFrankLi\u003C\/strong\u003E has been promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor and has been granted tenure.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELi, an accomplished computer security and privacy researcher, joined Georgia Tech in 2020 as the Institute was launching the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP). He holds a joint appointment with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhile tenure may be an individual\u0027s milestone, in reality, it reflects the help, support, and hard work of countless others,\u201d Li said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe credits his accomplishments to the ongoing mentorship and support he has received from faculty and staff at SCP, ECE, and Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u0027m also extremely thankful to work with such amazing students at Georgia Tech, especially the Ph.D. students in my research lab, and the BS and MS students in my classes, who help our research efforts. Georgia Tech has been an amazing place to start my faculty career,\u201d said Li.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELi advises five Ph.D. students at his Better Empirically Established Security (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/faculty.cc.gatech.edu\/~frankli\/beeslab.html\u0022\u003EBEES\u003C\/a\u003E) lab in SCP. They take a data-driven approach to understanding how security and privacy concerns manifest in practice, and use the insights gained to drive improvements in real-world security.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETheir research examines how users, security operators, and attackers behave in various security and privacy-sensitive situations, often using internet-wide measurements, network traffic analysis, user studies and experiments, and large-scale data mining.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe tenure and promotion to associate professor rank is in recognition of the outstanding research program Frank has developed at SCP,\u201d said \u003Cstrong\u003EMustaque\u003C\/strong\u003E \u003Cstrong\u003EAhamad\u003C\/strong\u003E, interim chair and Regents\u2019 Entrepreneur.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHe is an award-winning educator. We look forward to his continued leadership in the important areas of usable security and network security in the future.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELi was among nine College of Computing faculty members who received promotion and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/institute-announcement-recognizes-faculty-achievement-and-excellence\u0022\u003Etenure this year\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJohn P. Imlay Jr. Dean of Computing \u003Cstrong\u003EVivek\u003C\/strong\u003E \u003Cstrong\u003ESarkar\u003C\/strong\u003E emailed the College community with the good news.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe are truly thrilled to celebrate this moment with you, as we recognize your contributions to our students and to the advancement of our College and Institute in so many ways,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2025, Li received the prestigious \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/new-research-will-move-us-closer-passwordless-society\u0022\u003ECAREER Award\u003C\/a\u003E from the National Science Foundation (NSF). His CAREER project will investigate real-world uses of FIDO2\/passkeys and address security and usability issues that can arise. A goal of his research is to identify and resolve problems before they become widespread and more difficult to solve.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E promoted \u003Cstrong\u003EFrank Li\u003C\/strong\u003E to associate professor with tenure, recognizing his impactful research and teaching since joining in 2020 in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and ECE. Li leads the BEES Lab, where he and his students use data-driven methods to study real-world security and privacy challenges, including user behavior and network activity, to improve practical systems. Praised for his leadership in usable and network security, he was also among nine faculty honored this year and received a 2025 CAREER Award from the \u003Cstrong\u003ENational Science Foundation\u003C\/strong\u003E to study FIDO2\/passkeys and address emerging security and usability issues.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Institute of Technology promoted Frank Li to associate professor with tenure, recognizing his impactful research and teaching since joining in 2020 in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and ECE. Li leads the BEES Lab, where he and his student"}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-03-25 16:41:30","changed_gmt":"2026-03-25 16:42:42","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-03-25T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-03-25T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679737":{"id":"679737","type":"image","title":"Frank-Li-Story-Graphic-web-copy.jpg","body":null,"created":"1774456919","gmt_created":"2026-03-25 16:41:59","changed":"1774456919","gmt_changed":"2026-03-25 16:41:59","alt":"A graphic showing Frank Li\u0027s promotion to associate professor. ","file":{"fid":"263932","name":"Frank-Li-Story-Graphic-web-copy.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/25\/Frank-Li-Story-Graphic-web-copy.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/25\/Frank-Li-Story-Graphic-web-copy.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1860330,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/25\/Frank-Li-Story-Graphic-web-copy.jpg?itok=6PznWAGU"}}},"media_ids":["679737"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer II\u0026nbsp;School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"689007":{"#nid":"689007","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Mobile App Turns Phones into At-Home Fetal Heart Monitors","body":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA new mobile app will soon put the ability to monitor a baby\u2019s prenatal heartbeat in the hands of pregnant women who may worry about their baby\u2019s health in between doctor\u2019s visits.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudies show that one in five pregnant women experiences \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/theconversation.com\/perinatal-anxiety-one-in-five-women-experience-it-but-many-still-suffer-alone-before-or-after-childbirth-133667\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Eperinatal anxiety\u003C\/a\u003E, which is characterized by intense negative thoughts about their pregnancy.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDopFone turns any smartphone speaker into a Doppler radar by emitting a low-pitched ultrasound and detecting reflected signals of abdominal surface vibrations caused by a fetal heartbeat.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.alexandertadams.com\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAlex Adams\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing, said he came up with the idea for DopFone as he and his wife, Elise, experienced two miscarriages. At the time, she couldn\u2019t reliably measure the fetal heart rate with a standard fetal Doppler monitor.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThose experiences exposed gaps in the maternal healthcare process.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere are a lot of great devices in hospitals and clinics, but there\u2019s not much outside of those venues, even for high-risk pregnancies,\u201d Adams said. \u201cThis is about filling the gaps between checkups.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.poojitagarg.com\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPoojita Garg\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E joined Adams to work on DopFone while completing her master\u2019s degree at Georgia Tech. She is now pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Washington and is co-advised by Professor Swetak Patel, who earned his Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in 2008.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGarg is working with the University of Washington School of Medicine to conduct DopFone\u2019s first clinical trials.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGarg tested DopFone on 23 patients and achieved a plus-minus of 4.9 beats per minute, well within the clinical standard range of eight beats per minute for reliable fetal heart rate measurement.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAdams said it measured within two beats per minute in most cases, with an error rate of less than one percent.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAbout one million pregnancies in the U.S. end in miscarriage, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/medicine.yale.edu\/news-article\/dr-harvey-kliman-study-finds-the-placenta-holds-answers-to-many-unexplained-pregnancy-losses\/\u0022 rel=\u0022noreferrer noopener\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Eaccording to a study from the Yale School of Medicine\u003C\/a\u003E, and doctors know little about what causes them. Adams said that number is probably higher because many go unreported.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAdams and Garg said it\u2019s unclear whether the innovation could reduce the number of miscarriages. However, consistent fetal heart rate data collection outside of the doctor\u2019s office could provide a better idea of what happens leading up to a miscarriage.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFrom there, we can take preventative action,\u201d Adams said. \u201cIf nothing else, we can give a sense of comfort to those who may be worried.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EExpanding Access\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile couples can purchase portable fetal heart rate monitors, Adams and Garg see DopFone as a low-cost alternative for those who live in areas with limited or inaccessible healthcare systems.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of potential for using it in what doctors like to call maternity deserts,\u201d Garg said. \u201cThese are areas where a pregnant person, at the time of delivery, would have to travel long distances to reach a hospital. This technology will be useful globally in underdeveloped areas of the world.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers also mentioned that external add-ons and attachments aren\u2019t part of their design goals. They prefer to rely on the phone\u2019s built-in features to keep the technology accessible.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe real value is that 96% of America already has the technology in their pocket, along with 60% of the world\u2019s population,\u201d Adams said. \u201cHalf of the battle is having the right tools. The more we can get from what\u2019s already in the phone, the more we can guarantee people have access to it.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ENot a Substitute\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESome patients may feel a constant need to check their unborn child\u2019s heart rate, and Garg acknowledged that a tool like DopFone could increase that anxiety. She and Adams said a future version of the app will tell the parent if the heart rate is within a healthy range.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of tradeoffs between a tool that could provide reassurance or create anxiety,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want the use of this tool to be recommended by a doctor and for doctors and their care teams to be kept in the loop.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe also said DopFone is not meant to replace anything that is done in a clinic.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere are devices that make the whole process possible at home, but this is something that should be done in a clinic, so that\u2019s the line we want to draw,\u201d she said.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDopFone uses smartphone speakers to emit a low-pitched ultrasound that detects reflected signals of abdominal surface vibrations caused by fetal cardiac activity.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.alexandertadams.com\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAlex Adams\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing, said he came up with the idea for DopFone as he and his wife, Elise, suffered through two miscarriages.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.poojitagarg.com\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPoojita Garg\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E joined Adams to work on DopFone while completing her master\u2019s at Georgia Tech. She is now pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Washington and is co-advised by Professor Swetak Patel, who earned his Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in 2008.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGarg is working with the University of Washington School of Medicine to conduct DopFone\u2019s first clinical trials.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGarg tested DopFone on 23 patients and achieved a plus-minus of 4.9 beats per minute, well within the clinical standard for reliable fetal heart rate measurement of plus-minus 8 beats per minute.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A new app will allow pregnant women to conduct an ultrasound and receive an accurate fetal heart rate from their mobile phones."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-03-18 13:23:19","changed_gmt":"2026-03-23 13:16:06","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-03-18T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-03-18T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679666":{"id":"679666","type":"image","title":"DopFone-PR-Photo-with-blur.jpg","body":null,"created":"1773840209","gmt_created":"2026-03-18 13:23:29","changed":"1773840209","gmt_changed":"2026-03-18 13:23:29","alt":"Woman holds mobile phone to the belly of a pregnant woman","file":{"fid":"263850","name":"DopFone-PR-Photo-with-blur.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/18\/DopFone-PR-Photo-with-blur.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/18\/DopFone-PR-Photo-with-blur.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":113510,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/18\/DopFone-PR-Photo-with-blur.jpg?itok=A5qhfUr7"}}},"media_ids":["679666"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"181431","name":"maternal"},{"id":"7677","name":"ultrasound"},{"id":"34741","name":"mobile app"},{"id":"29561","name":"pregnancy"},{"id":"190383","name":"pregnant women"},{"id":"168908","name":"smartphone"},{"id":"188420","name":"babies"},{"id":"178046","name":"fetal monitoring"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"688391":{"#nid":"688391","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Robot Pollinator Could Produce More, Better Crops for Indoor Farms","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA new robot could solve one of the biggest challenges facing indoor farmers: manual pollination.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIndoor farms, also known as vertical farms, are popular among agricultural researchers and are expanding across the agricultural industry. Some benefits they have over outdoor farms include:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EYear-round production of food crops\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ELess water and land requirements\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ENot needing pesticides\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EReducing carbon emissions from shipping\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EReducing food waste\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAdditionally,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.agritecture.com\/blog\/2021\/7\/20\/5-ways-vertical-farming-is-improving-nutrition\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Esome studies\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E indicate that indoor farms produce more nutritious food for urban communities.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHowever, these farms are often inaccessible to birds, bees, and other natural pollinators, leaving the pollination process to humans. The tedious process must be completed by hand for each flower to ensure the indoor crop flourishes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.gatech.edu\/people\/ai-ping-hu\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAi-Ping Hu\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, a principal research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), has spent years exploring methods to efficiently pollinate flowering plants and food crops in indoor farms to find a way to efficiently pollinate flower plants and food crops in indoor farms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHu,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.gatech.edu\/people\/shreyas-kousik\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAssistant Professor Shreyas Kousik of the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, and a rotating group of student interns have developed a robot prototype that may be up to the task.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe robot can efficiently pollinate plants that have both male and female reproductive parts. These plants only require pollen to be transferred from one part to the other rather than externally from another flower.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENatural pollinators perform this task outdoors, but Hu said indoor farmers often use a paintbrush or electric tootbrush to ensure these flowers are pollinated.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EKnowing the Pose\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAn early challenge the research team addressed was teaching the robot to identify the \u201cpose\u201d of each flower. Pose refers to a flower\u2019s orientation, shape, and symmetry. Knowing these details ensures precise delivery of the pollen to maximize reproductive success.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s crucial to know exactly which way the flowers are facing,\u201d Hu said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cYou want to approach the flower from the front because that\u2019s where all the biological structures are. Knowing the pose tells you where the stem is. Our device grasps the stem and shakes it to dislodge the pollen.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEvery flower is going to have its own pose, and you need to know what that is within at least 10 degrees.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EComputer Vision Breakthrough\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EHarsh Muriki\u003C\/strong\u003E is a robotics master\u2019s student at Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing, who used computer vision to solve the pose problem while interning for Hu and GTRI.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMuriki attached a camera to a FarmBot to capture images of strawberry plants from dozens of angles in a small garden in front of Georgia Tech\u2019s Food Processing Technology Building. The\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/farm.bot\/?srsltid=AfmBOoqh1Z8vSs3WflZisgw5DsOUSo8shD4VtY0Y8_VmVpVyt0Iwalxo\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFarmBot\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E is an XYZ-axis robot that waters and sprays pesticides on outdoor gardens, though it is not capable of pollination.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe reconstruct the images of the flower into a 3D model and use a technique that converts the 3D model into multiple 2D images with depth information,\u201d Muriki said. \u201cThis enables us to send them to object detectors.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMuriki said he used a real-time object detection system called YOLO (You Only Look Once) to classify objects. YOLO is known for identifying and classifying objects in a single pass.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EVed Sengupta\u003C\/strong\u003E, a computer engineering major who interned with Muriki, fine-tuned the algorithms that converted 3D images into 2D.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis was a crucial part of making robot pollination possible,\u201d Sengupta said. \u201cThere is a big gap between 3D and 2D image processing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of data on the internet for 3D object detection, but there\u2019s a ton for 2D. We were able to get great results from the converted images, and I think any sector of technology can take advantage of that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESengupta, Muriki, and Hu co-authored a paper about their work that was accepted to the 2025 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Atlanta.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMeasuring Success\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe pollination robot, built in Kousik\u2019s Safe Robotics Lab, is now in the prototype phase.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHu said the robot can do more than pollinate. It can also analyze each flower to determine how well it was pollinated and whether the chances for reproduction are high.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt has an additional capability of microscopic inspection,\u201d Hu said. \u201cIt\u2019s the first device we know of that provides visual feedback on how well a flower was pollinated.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor more information about the robot, visit the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/saferoboticslab.me.gatech.edu\/research\/towards-robotic-pollination\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESafe Robotics Lab project page\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EManual pollination is one of the biggest challenges for indoor farmers. These farms are often inaccessible to birds, bees, and other natural pollinators, leaving the pollination process to humans. The tedious process must be completed by hand for each flower to ensure the indoor crop flourishes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA Georgia Tech research led by Ai-Ping Hu and Shreyas Kousik team is working to solve that. A robot they\u0027ve developed can efficiently pollinate plants that have both male and female reproductive parts. These plants only require pollen to be transferred from one part to the other rather than externally from another flower.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A research team that expands GTRI, the College of Engineering, and the College of Computing have developed a robot capable of pollinating flowers in indoor farms."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-02-19 18:58:12","changed_gmt":"2026-03-20 12:54:01","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-02-19T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-02-19T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679370":{"id":"679370","type":"image","title":"Harsh-Muriki_86A0006.jpg","body":null,"created":"1771527500","gmt_created":"2026-02-19 18:58:20","changed":"1771527500","gmt_changed":"2026-02-19 18:58:20","alt":"Harsh Muriki","file":{"fid":"263520","name":"Harsh-Muriki_86A0006.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/19\/Harsh-Muriki_86A0006.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/19\/Harsh-Muriki_86A0006.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":140654,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/02\/19\/Harsh-Muriki_86A0006.jpg?itok=rd0rv1Yt"}}},"media_ids":["679370"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"152","name":"Robotics"}],"keywords":[{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"187991","name":"go-robotics"},{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"11506","name":"computer vision"},{"id":"180840","name":"computer vision systems"},{"id":"669","name":"agriculture"},{"id":"194392","name":"AI in Agriculture"},{"id":"170254","name":"urban gardening"},{"id":"94111","name":"farming"},{"id":"14913","name":"urban farming"},{"id":"23911","name":"bees"},{"id":"6660","name":"flowers"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"193653","name":"Georgia Tech Research Institute"},{"id":"39521","name":"Robotics"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71911","name":"Earth and Environment"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:ndeen6@gatech.edu\u0022\u003ENathan Deen\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECollege of Computing\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"688478":{"#nid":"688478","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Student Getting Research Boost Through Google Ph.D. Fellowship","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA Georgia Tech Ph.D. candidate is getting a boost to his research into developing more efficient multi-tasking artificial intelligence (AI) models without fine-tuning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Stoica is one of 38 Ph.D. students worldwide researching machine learning who were named a\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.google\/programs-and-events\/phd-fellowship\/recipients\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E 2025 Google Ph.D. Fellow\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStoica is designing AI training methods that bypass fine-tuning, which is the process of adapting a large pre-trained model to perform new tasks. Fine-tuning is one of the most common ways engineers update large-language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to add new capabilities.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIf an AI company wants to give a model a new capability, it could create a new model from scratch for that specific purpose. However, if the model already has relevant training and knowledge of the new task, fine-tuning is cheaper.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStoica argues that fine-tuning still uses large amounts of data, and that other methods can help models learn more effectively and efficiently.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFull fine-tuning yields strong performance, but it can be costly, and it risks catastrophic forgetting,\u201d Stoica said. \u201cMy research asks if we can extend a model\u2019s capabilities by imbuing it with the expertise of others, without fine-tuning?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cReducing cost and improving efficiency is more important than ever. We have so many publicly available models that have been trained to solve a variety of tasks. It\u2019s redundant to train a new model from scratch. It\u2019s much more efficient to leverage the information that already exists to get a model up to speed.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStoica said the solution is a cost-effective method called model merging. This method combines two or more AI models into a single model, improving performance without fine-tuning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOn a basic level, Stoica said an example would be combining a model that is efficient at classifying cats with one that works well at dogs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMerging is cheap because you just take the parameters, the weights of your existing models, and combine them,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could take the average of the weights to create a new model, but that sometimes doesn\u2019t work. My work has aimed to rearrange the weights so they can communicate easily with each other.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThrough his Google fellowship, Stoica seeks to apply model merging to create a cutting-edge vision encoder. A vision encoder converts image or video data into numerical representations that computers can understand. This enables tasks such as image or facial recognition and generative image captioning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI want to be at the frontier of the field, and Google is clearly part of that,\u201d Stoica said. \u201cThe vision encoder is very large-scale, and Google has the infrastructure to accommodate it.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Stoica is one of 38 Ph.D. students worldwide researching machine learning who were named a\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.google\/programs-and-events\/phd-fellowship\/recipients\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E 2025 Google Ph.D. Fellow\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStoica is designing AI training methods that bypass fine-tuning, which is the process of adapting a large pre-trained model to perform new tasks. Fine-tuning is one of the most common ways engineers update large-language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude to add new capabilities.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Stoica is one of 38 Ph.D. students worldwide researching machine learning who were named a 2025 Google Ph.D. Fellow."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-02-23 17:43:54","changed_gmt":"2026-03-20 12:53:05","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-02-23T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-02-23T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679394":{"id":"679394","type":"image","title":"IMG_2942-copy-2.jpg","body":null,"created":"1771868657","gmt_created":"2026-02-23 17:44:17","changed":"1771868657","gmt_changed":"2026-02-23 17:44:17","alt":"George Stoica","file":{"fid":"263553","name":"IMG_2942-copy-2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/23\/IMG_2942-copy-2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/23\/IMG_2942-copy-2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":112361,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/02\/23\/IMG_2942-copy-2.jpg?itok=KCVheh-u"}}},"media_ids":["679394"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"3165","name":"google"},{"id":"9143","name":"Graduate Research Fellowship"},{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"688487":{"#nid":"688487","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Study Could Show How TikTok\u2019s Algorithm Affects Youth Mental Health","body":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeta CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2026-02-18\/mark-zuckerberg-tesimony-la-social-media-trial?utm_source=chatgpt.com\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Etook the witness stand\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court to defend his company from accusations that social media harms children.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA lawsuit filed by a 20-year-old plaintiff alleges Instagram and other social media apps are designed to make young users addicted to their platforms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeanwhile, social media experts believe the algorithms that drive content on these platforms play a role in hooking users and keeping them scrolling for extensive periods of time.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA new study led by Georgia Tech might confirm this suspicion.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUsing recently acquired data from more than 10,000 adolescent users,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.munmund.net\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMunmun De Choudhury\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E will audit TikTok\u2019s recommendation algorithm and study its impact on young people\u2019s behavior and mental health.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDe Choudhury is leading a multi-institutional research team on a four-year, $1.7 million grant from the Huo Family Foundation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe hope to learn the different types of negative exposures that young people experience when using TikTok,\u201d De Choudhury said. \u201cThis can help us characterize what they\u2019re watching and build computational methods to understand the consumption behaviors of these participants and how they\u2019re affected by the algorithm.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDe Choudhury, a professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing, is collaborating with Amy Orben, a professor at the University of Cambridge, and Homa Hosseinmardi, an assistant professor at UCLA, on the project.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESocial media platforms have become increasingly reluctant to share their data in recent years, posing a challenge for researchers like De Choudhury.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe can\u2019t do the type of studies we did 10 years ago with X (formerly Twitter) because the API is much more restrictive,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are limited ways to programmatically access people\u2019s data now.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe must go through a tedious, manual process to get around declining access to social media data. This data-gathering process is essential given the sensitive nature of mental health research. You want data that is shared with consent.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOrben collected TikTok data from more than 10,000 young people in the UK who consented to provide their personal data archives in accordance with the European Union\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe collected data includes watch histories, which De Choudhury said distinguishes this research from other social media studies that focus on what users post.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe don\u2019t understand passive social media consumption very well, so we hope to close that gap and learn what that looks like,\u201d she said. \u201cThat could complement or contrast what we know about people\u2019s active engagement on these platforms. Is what they\u2019re consuming directly related to what they\u2019re posting? How does passive consumption affect young people\u2019s mental health?\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA clearer picture of how algorithm-based content affects young people could result in design interventions to minimize negative effects. De Choudhury said studying data from young people is critical because it\u2019s not too late to steer them away from unhealthy behavioral patterns.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSome of the earliest signs or symptoms of mental health conditions appear in adolescence,\u201d she said. \u201cIf appropriate care and support are provided, maybe it\u2019s possible to prevent these symptoms from becoming full-blown in the future.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBeyond TikTok\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhat the research team learns about TikTok could also provide broader insight into other social media platforms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETikTok has been influential in how social media platforms display video content. Competitors like Instagram and X modeled their video presentation after TikTok\u2019s, which can easily lead to doomscrolling.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur hope is that our findings can be generalized, with the caveat the data we have is exclusively from TikTok,\u201d De Choudhury said. \u201cOther platforms have similar video-sharing and consumption features where the video automatically plays from one to the next. We hope what we learn from TikTok will be applicable to people\u2019s activities elsewhere, though it will require future work beyond this project to draw concrete conclusions.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESimulating Feeds with AI\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDe Choudhury said an additional part of the study will be using artificial intelligence (AI) to simulate video feeds.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2024, Hosseinmardi led a study at the University of Pennsylvania on YouTube\u2019s recommendation algorithm and used bots that either followed or ignored the recommendations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDe Choudhury said they will use a similar method for TikTok.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe feeds will be realistic but generated by AI to see the potential pathways to consumption rabbit holes,\u201d she said. \u201cThis should give us some insight into how algorithms influence the negative and positive exposures people might be having on TikTok.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EFoundation Expands Reach\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBased in the UK and established in 2009, the Huo Family Foundation supports community education initiatives in the UK, the U.S., and China.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe organization announced in January its launch of the Huo Family Foundation Science Programme.\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/huofamilyfoundation.org\/news\/updates\/huo-family-foundation-awards-17-6m-for-groundbreaking-research\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe new program is committing $17.6 million to fund 20 new multi-year research grants\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E that explore the impact of digital technology on the brain development, social behavior, and mental health of young people.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDigital technology is profoundly shaping childhood and young adulthood, yet there is limited causal evidence of its effects,\u201d\u0026nbsp;said Yan Huo, founder of the Huo Family Foundation, in a press release.\u0026nbsp;\u201cWe are proud to support exceptional researchers advancing vital scientific understanding.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv dir=\u0022ltr\u0022\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELed by Georgia Tech professor Munmun De Choudhury, a multi-institutional research team is launching a $1.7 million study to examine how TikTok\u2019s recommendation algorithm influences the mental health of adolescent users. The project focuses on passive consumption by analyzing the watch histories of over 10,000 young participants and using AI to simulate content \u0022rabbit holes.\u0022 By identifying patterns of negative exposure, the researchers aim to develop design interventions that can steer teenagers away from unhealthy behavioral patterns and support early mental health care.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A Georgia Tech-led research team is conducting a multi-year study using data from more than 10,000 adolescents to investigate how TikTok\u2019s recommendation algorithm and passive content consumption impact youth mental health."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-02-24 14:29:28","changed_gmt":"2026-03-20 12:52:52","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-02-24T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-02-24T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679406":{"id":"679406","type":"image","title":"208A9267-2.jpg","body":null,"created":"1771943377","gmt_created":"2026-02-24 14:29:37","changed":"1771943377","gmt_changed":"2026-02-24 14:29:37","alt":"Munmun De Choudhury","file":{"fid":"263567","name":"208A9267-2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/24\/208A9267-2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/24\/208A9267-2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":104533,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/02\/24\/208A9267-2.jpg?itok=3fEZjVVt"}}},"media_ids":["679406"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"143","name":"Digital Media and Entertainment"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"167543","name":"social media"},{"id":"190947","name":"tiktok"},{"id":"10343","name":"mental health"},{"id":"10824","name":"Children And Adolescents"},{"id":"5660","name":"algorithms"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"688516":{"#nid":"688516","#data":{"type":"news","title":" Is This Your AI? Researchers Crack AI Blackbox","body":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EArtificial intelligence (AI) systems power everything from chatbots to security cameras, yet many of the most advanced models operate as \u201cblack boxes.\u201d Companies can use them, but outsiders can\u2019t see how they were built, where they came from, or whether they contain hidden flaws.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis lack of transparency creates real risks. A model could contain security vulnerabilities or hidden backdoors. It could also be a lightly modified version of an open-source system \u2014 repackaged in violation of its license \u2014 with no easy way to prove it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new framework, ZEN, to help solve this problem. The tool can recover a model\u2019s unique \u201cfingerprint\u201d directly from its memory, allowing experts to trace its origins and reconstruct how it was assembled.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAnalyzing a proprietary AI model without identifying where it came from and how it is constructed is like trying to fix a car engine with the hood welded shut,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/davidoygenblik.github.io\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDavid Oygenblik\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech and the study\u2019s lead author.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cZEN not only X-rays the engine but also provides the complete wiring diagram.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZEN works by taking a snapshot of a running AI system and extracting information about both its mathematical structure and the code that defines it. It compares that fingerprint against a database of known open-source models to determine the system\u2019s origin.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIf it finds a match, ZEN identifies the exact changes and generates software patches that allow investigators to recreate a working replica of the proprietary model for testing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat capability has major implications for both security and intellectual property protection.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWith ZEN, a security analyst can finally test a black-box model for hidden backdoors, and a company can gather concrete evidence to prove its software license was infringed,\u201d Oygenblik said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo evaluate the system, the research team tested ZEN on 21 state-of-the-art AI models, including Llama 3, YOLOv10, and other well-known systems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EZEN correctly traced every customized model back to its original open-source foundation \u2014 achieving 100% attribution accuracy. Even when models had been heavily modified \u2014 differing by more than 83% from their original versions \u2014 ZEN successfully identified the changes and enabled full reconstruction for security testing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers will present their findings at the 2026 \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ndss-symposium.org\/\u0022\u003ENetwork and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium\u003C\/a\u003E. The paper, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ndss-symposium.org\/ndss-paper\/achieving-zen-combining-mathematical-and-programmatic-deep-learning-model-representations-for-attribution-and-reuse\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EAchieving Zen: Combining Mathematical and Programmatic Deep Learning Model Representations for Attribution and Reuse\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, was authored by Oygenblik, master\u2019s student \u003Cstrong\u003EDinko Dermendzhiev\u003C\/strong\u003E, Ph.D. students \u003Cstrong\u003EFilippos Sofias\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003EMingxuan Yao\u003C\/strong\u003E, \u003Cstrong\u003EHaichuan Xu\u003C\/strong\u003E, and \u003Cstrong\u003ERunze Zhang\u003C\/strong\u003E, post-doctorate scholars \u003Cstrong\u003EJeman Park\u003C\/strong\u003E, and \u003Cstrong\u003EAmit Kumar Sikder\u003C\/strong\u003E, as well as Associate Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EBrendan Saltaformaggio\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EResearchers have developed a technique to identify the origins of proprietary \u201cblack-box\u201d AI models, even when their internal structure and training data are hidden. Because many commercial AI systems cannot be externally inspected, it is difficult to detect security vulnerabilities, intellectual property theft, licensing violations, or trace a model\u2019s lineage. The new approach enables researchers to attribute models, determine whether one was derived from another, and identify potential misuse of protected data. By improving transparency and enabling verification of model provenance, the work strengthens accountability and trust in AI systems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers have developed a technique to identify the origins of proprietary \u201cblack-box\u201d AI models, even when their internal structure and training data are hidden."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-02-25 17:33:20","changed_gmt":"2026-03-20 12:52:42","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-02-25T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-02-25T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679429":{"id":"679429","type":"image","title":"Is-this-your-AI.jpg","body":null,"created":"1772040810","gmt_created":"2026-02-25 17:33:30","changed":"1772040810","gmt_changed":"2026-02-25 17:33:30","alt":"A graphic showing an AI model in an outstretched hand. ","file":{"fid":"263592","name":"Is-this-your-AI.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/25\/Is-this-your-AI.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/25\/Is-this-your-AI.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1346270,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/02\/25\/Is-this-your-AI.jpg?itok=ehbGALRW"}}},"media_ids":["679429"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.ndss-symposium.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026-s1628-paper.pdf","title":"Read the Paper"}],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2835","name":"ai"},{"id":"193860","name":"Artifical Intelligence"},{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"365","name":"Research"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer II\u0026nbsp;School of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpopham3@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"688223":{"#nid":"688223","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Department of Energy Award to Power Nuclear Research With Machine Learning","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe future of clean energy depends on algorithms as much as it does atoms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u2019s\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cse.gatech.edu\/people\/qi-tang\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EQi Tang\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E is building machine learning (ML) models to accelerate nuclear fusion research, making it more affordable and more accurate. Backed by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Tang\u2019s work brings clean, sustainable energy closer to reality.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETang has received an\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/science.osti.gov\/early-career\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEarly Career Research Program (ECRP) award\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E from the DOE Office of Science. The grant supports Tang with $875,000 disbursed over five years to craft ML and data processing tools that help scientists analyze massive datasets from nuclear experiments and simulations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETang is the first faculty member from Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Computing and School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) to receive the ECRP. He is the seventh Georgia Tech researcher to earn the award and the only GT awardee among this year\u2019s 99 recipients.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMore than a milestone, the award reflects a shift in how nuclear research is done. Today, progress depends on computing and data science as much as on physics and engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI am honored and excited to receive the ECRP award through DOE\u2019s Advanced Scientific Computing Research program, an organization I care about deeply,\u201d said Tang, an assistant professor in the School of CSE.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI am grateful to my former colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory and collaborators at other national laboratories, including Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Argonne. I am also thankful for my Ph.D. students at Georgia Tech, whose dedication and creativity make this award possible.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E[Related:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/new-faculty-applies-high-performance-computing-scientific-machine-learning-interests-studies\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ENew Faculty Applies High-Performance Computing, Scientific Machine Learning Interests to Studies in Plasma Physics\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E]\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA problem in nuclear research is that fusion simulations are challenging to understand and use. These simulations generate enormous datasets that are too large to store, move, and analyze efficiently.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/pamspublic.science.energy.gov\/WebPAMSExternal\/Interface\/Common\/ViewPublicAbstract.aspx?rv=a756f612-3409-44b8-89ea-7421bf0840e5\u0026amp;rtc=24\u0026amp;PRoleId=10\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIn his ECRP proposal to DOE\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, Tang introduced new ML methods to improve the analysis and storage of particle data.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETang\u2019s approach balances shrinking data so it is easier to store and transfer while preserving the most important scientific features. His multiscale ML models are informed by physics, so the reduced data still reflects how fusion systems really behave.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith Tang\u2019s research, scientists can run larger, more realistic fusion models and analyze results more quickly. This accelerates progress toward practical fusion energy.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn contrast to generic black-box-type compression tools, we aim at preserving the intrinsic structures of the particle dataset during the data reduction processes,\u201d Tang said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cTaking this approach, we can meet our goal of achieving high-fidelity preservation of critical physics with minimum loss of information.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EComputing is essential in modern research because of the amount of data produced and captured from experiments and simulations. In the era of exascale supercomputers, data movement is a greater bottleneck than actual computation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDOE operates three of the world\u2019s four exascale supercomputers. These machines can calculate one quintillion (a billion billion) operations per second.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe exascale era began in 2022 with the launch of Frontier at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Aurora followed in 2023 at Argonne National Laboratory. El Capitan arrived in 2024 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWith Tang\u2019s data reduction approaches, all of DOE\u2019s supercomputers spend more time on science and less time waiting for data transfers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cQi\u2019s work in computational plasma physics and nuclear fusion modeling has been groundbreaking,\u201d said \u003Cstrong\u003EHaesun Park\u003C\/strong\u003E, Regents\u2019 Professor and Chair of the School of CSE.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe are proud of Qi and what this award means for him, Georgia Tech, and the Department of Energy toward leveraging computation to solve challenges in science and engineering, such as sustainable energy.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch6\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPrevious Georgia Tech recipients of DOE Early Career Research Program awards include:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h6\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/news\/2024\/09\/26\/doe-recognizes-georgia-tech-researchers-prestigious-early-career-awards\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EItamar Kimchi\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, assistant professor, School of Physics\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/news\/2024\/09\/26\/doe-recognizes-georgia-tech-researchers-prestigious-early-career-awards\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESourabh Saha\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, assistant professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cos.gatech.edu\/news\/wenjing-liao-awarded-doe-early-career-award-model-simplification-deep-learning\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWenjing Lao\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, associate professor, School of Mathematics\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/chbe.gatech.edu\/news\/2018\/06\/professor-lively-receives-does-early-career-award\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERyan Lively\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, Thomas C. DeLoach Professor, School of Chemical \u0026amp; Biomolecular Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.mse.gatech.edu\/people\/josh-kacher\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJosh Kacher\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, associate professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/khabar.com\/community-newsmakers\/devesh-ranjan-receives-early-career-award-from-u-s-department-of-energy\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDevesh Ranjan\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, Eugene C. Gwaltney Jr. School Chair and professor, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u2019s\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cse.gatech.edu\/people\/qi-tang\u0022\u003EQi Tang\u003C\/a\u003E is building machine learning (ML) models to accelerate nuclear fusion research, making it more affordable and more accurate. Backed by a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Tang\u2019s work brings clean, sustainable energy closer to reality.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETang has received an\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/science.osti.gov\/early-career\u0022\u003EEarly Career Research Program (ECRP) award\u003C\/a\u003E from the DOE Office of Science. The grant supports Tang with $875,000 disbursed over five years to craft ML and data processing tools that help scientists analyze massive datasets from nuclear experiments and simulations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETang is the first faculty member from Georgia Tech\u2019s College of Computing and School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) to receive the ECRP. He is the seventh Georgia Tech researcher to earn the award and the only GT awardee among this year\u2019s 99 recipients.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech\u0027s Qi Tang has received an Early Career Research Program award from the Department of Energy\u0027s Office of Science. The $875,000 grant supports Tang for five years to craft ML tools that analyze data from nuclear experiments and simulations. "}],"uid":"36319","created_gmt":"2026-02-12 15:11:55","changed_gmt":"2026-03-20 12:52:31","author":"Bryant Wine","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-02-12T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-02-12T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679267":{"id":"679267","type":"image","title":"Qi-TangStory-Cover.jpg","body":null,"created":"1770909124","gmt_created":"2026-02-12 15:12:04","changed":"1770909124","gmt_changed":"2026-02-12 15:12:04","alt":"DOE ECRP Qi Tang","file":{"fid":"263400","name":"Qi-TangStory-Cover.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/12\/Qi-TangStory-Cover.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/12\/Qi-TangStory-Cover.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":125283,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/02\/12\/Qi-TangStory-Cover.jpg?itok=mPLUykJZ"}}},"media_ids":["679267"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/department-energy-award-power-nuclear-research-machine-learning","title":"Department of Energy Award to Power Nuclear Research with Machine Learning"}],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"166983","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"10199","name":"Daily Digest"},{"id":"181991","name":"Georgia Tech News Center"},{"id":"9167","name":"machine learning"},{"id":"2556","name":"artificial intelligence"},{"id":"187812","name":"artificial intelligence (AI)"},{"id":"663","name":"Department of Energy"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"688648":{"#nid":"688648","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New \u2018Touchable Sound\u2019 Museum Display Makes Data More Accessible","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBlind and low vision (BLV) people may soon have access to and more easily understand scientific data in museum exhibits through new \u201ctouchable sound\u201d displays.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAssociate Professor Jessica Roberts and Ph.D. student Emily Amspoker of Georgia Tech\u2019s School of Interactive Computing are working with the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gacoast.uga.edu\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EUniversity of Georgia\u2019s Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant in Savannah\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E. Together, they\u2019ve developed a prototype display that uses sonification and texture to convey sea floor habitat information from \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/graysreef.noaa.gov\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGray\u2019s Reef National Marine Sanctuary\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E off the coast of Georgia.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESonification is the process of translating data points into sound.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe display functions as a map that BLV users can follow to learn about each habitat. It is made from a wooden board with laser-cut patterns engraved into the surface. Each pattern represents information about the four types of habitats found in Gray\u2019s Reef. Each pattern has a distinct sound that corresponds to a legend on the board, which provides an audio description of each habitat.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe four habitats are:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EFlat sand \u2014 smooth sandy seafloor with little topographic variation that provides habitat for burrowing organisms such as worms, clams, and sand dollars.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ERippled sand \u2014 sandy bottom shaped into small wave-like ridges by currents and wave action; supports microhabitats of small invertebrates and attracts fish feeding on buried prey.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003ESparse live bottom \u2014 areas of exposed hard surfaces with scattered attached organisms like sponges, corals, and algae, offering structure and shelter for reef-associated fish and invertebrates.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EDense live bottom \u2014 hard-bottom reef areas with abundant attached marine life, providing high biodiversity and offering food, and breeding sites for numerous species.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBy allowing learners to explore these habitats, the team hopes to emphasize the importance of protecting diverse ocean habitats.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur job was to figure out how we can use sounds and touch to represent each of the four habitat types so our visitors can explore the ocean without being able to see it,\u201d she said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERoberts said the project is critical to advance understanding of how science and informal learning can be more inclusive to those who have difficulty processing visual data displays.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis was particularly exciting to figure out how we could broaden accessibility to data sets because just like so much other scientific data, it\u2019s out there and available, but when it\u2019s presented to the public, it\u2019s usually in visual form,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are many open questions about how to do this well within a museum with complex scientific data. We\u2019re moving the needle on that, but there\u2019s a long way to go.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERight Combination\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmspoker and Roberts created three different versions of the prototype. One was sound-only, one was texture-only, and the other was a combination of sound and texture.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe expected the multimodal version would work best,\u201d Amspoker said. \u201cWe found people used sound and texture in different ways when interacting with it. In cases where people relied on texture, it was still difficult to tell when they crossed the barrier from one texture to another. Sound was very useful in that case.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmspoker said computer vision and an app she designed allow the technology to be deployed on any surface, whether a mobile device, a wooden board, or even a classroom floor. A camera set up above the display tracks the user\u2019s hand movements.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt figures out where you are on the board, and then our code uses the location of your finger to decide what sound should play from the computer,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat\u2019s nice about our system is it only needs a computer and a webcam, and you can use whatever materials you have on hand for the map.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBuilding on a Legacy\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERoberts said she is building on the work of a previous NSF-funded collaboration with Dr. Amy Bower, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts who is blind.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBower lost her vision in graduate school, but because of her lifelong interest in oceanography, she set out to create ways to learn about ocean data through sound.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2021, she launched the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/accessibleoceans.whoi.edu\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAccessible Oceans\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E project through the National Science Foundation\u2019s Advancing Informal STEM Learning program. The interdisciplinary team, including Roberts and collaborators Leslie Smith of Your Ocean Consulting and Jon Bellona of the University of Oregon, created auditory displays of sonified data for museums.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn 2023, the team published \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/tos.org\/oceanography\/article\/expanding-access-to-ocean-science-through-inclusively-designed-data-sonifications\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003Ean article in \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EOceanography,\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/em\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E the official magazine of the Oeanography Society\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cInformal learning environments are increasingly recognizing the importance of employing multiple modalities to engage all learners and are leveraging sound to enhance visitor experience,\u201d the authors wrote.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhile sonic additions of music, soundscapes, and field recordings add qualitative value, there is a need to explore the potential of sound to facilitate engagement with quantitative information. Data sonification is a promising avenue for increasing accessibility to data within the museum context.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers have created a prototype \u201ctouchable sound\u201d museum exhibit that helps blind and low-vision visitors explore scientific data by combining tactile maps with sonification of seafloor habitats. The display translates information about different ocean environments into distinctive textures and sounds so users can follow a physical map of Gray\u2019s Reef National Marine Sanctuary and hear data-driven audio cues. The team hopes this multimodal approach will make complex visual data more inclusive and broaden access to informal science learning.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech researchers have developed a prototype \u201ctouchable sound\u201d museum display that uses sonification and tactile maps to make complex scientific data about ocean habitats more accessible to blind and low-vision visitors."}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-03-03 15:13:03","changed_gmt":"2026-03-20 12:52:09","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-03-03T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-03-03T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679503":{"id":"679503","type":"image","title":"2026-Jessica-Roberts-Reef-Data-Sonification-2.jpg","body":null,"created":"1772550793","gmt_created":"2026-03-03 15:13:13","changed":"1772550793","gmt_changed":"2026-03-03 15:13:13","alt":"Jessica Roberts","file":{"fid":"263675","name":"2026-Jessica-Roberts-Reef-Data-Sonification-2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/03\/2026-Jessica-Roberts-Reef-Data-Sonification-2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/03\/2026-Jessica-Roberts-Reef-Data-Sonification-2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":118705,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/03\/2026-Jessica-Roberts-Reef-Data-Sonification-2.jpg?itok=UaqIj7yh"}}},"media_ids":["679503"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"360","name":"accessibility"},{"id":"194701","name":"go-resarchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"9092","name":"museums"},{"id":"181370","name":"oceanography"},{"id":"176552","name":"data sonification"},{"id":"1102","name":"blind"},{"id":"2751","name":"visually impaired"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"688916":{"#nid":"688916","#data":{"type":"news","title":" Undergrads Earn National Recognition for Computing Research","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETwo Georgia Tech undergraduates are being recognized for their contributions to computing research.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERyan\u0026nbsp;Punamiya\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;(CS 2025)\u0026nbsp;and \u003Cstrong\u003ESummer Abramson\u003C\/strong\u003E, a third-year\u0026nbsp;computational\u0026nbsp;media student, have been honored by the Computing Research Association (CRA) through its 2025\u20132026 \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cra.org\/about\/awards\/outstanding-undergraduate-researcher-award\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EOutstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award (URA) program.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPunamiya\u0026nbsp;was named a runner-up for the prestigious award, while Abramson received an honorable mention among hundreds of applicants from universities across North America.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cra.org\/about\/awards\/outstanding-undergraduate-researcher-award\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award program\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;recognized eight awardees in 2026, along with eight runners-up, nine finalists, and over 200 honorable mentions from thousands of applications.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAdvancing\u0026nbsp;Robotics Research\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPunamiya\u0026nbsp;knew early on that he\u0026nbsp;didn\u2019t\u0026nbsp;want to wait until starting his Ph.D. to do meaningful and impactful robotics research.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPunamiya\u0026nbsp;joined the Robot Learning and Reasoning Lab (RL2) directed by Assistant Professor\u0026nbsp;Danfei\u0026nbsp;Xu. While there, he contributed to the lab\u2019s Meta-sponsored\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/new-algorithm-teaches-robots-through-human-perspective\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEgoMimic\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;project, which trains robots to perform human tasks using recordings captured by Meta\u2019s Project Aria research glasses.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPunamiya\u0026nbsp;is\u0026nbsp;also the first author of a paper accepted to the 2025 Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS),\u0026nbsp;one of the world\u2019s most prestigious artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning conferences.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cRyan is the strongest undergraduate I\u0027ve worked with,\u201d Xu said, \u201cincluding students who went on to Stanford, Berkeley, and leadership roles in major tech companies.\u0026nbsp;He\u2019s\u0026nbsp;already\u0026nbsp;operating\u0026nbsp;at the level of a strong\u0026nbsp;third-year Ph.D.\u0026nbsp;student.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPunamiya\u0026nbsp;said it was a challenge to balance his undergraduate coursework with his research in Xu\u2019s lab.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cYou get out how much you put in,\u201d\u0026nbsp;he\u0026nbsp;said.\u0026nbsp;\u201cI built my class schedule to give myself as much time to do research as possible. It also boils down to having the right research mentors.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201c(Xu) never saw me as an\u0026nbsp;undergrad\u0026nbsp;who\u2019s\u0026nbsp;just there to do grunt work. I was\u0026nbsp;fortunate\u0026nbsp;he saw my curiosity and cultivated me as a researcher.\u0026nbsp;That\u2019s\u0026nbsp;really how\u0026nbsp;you get more\u0026nbsp;undergrads\u0026nbsp;motivated to research \u2014 giving them the chance to be independent and explore ideas of their own.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPunamiya\u0026nbsp;said his work in Xu\u2019s lab has already helped him identify the research areas he wants to focus on as he considers his next steps. He will continue developing generalized training models for robots using human data so they can perform tasks instantly upon deployment.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The amount of data needed to train a robot is difficult to obtain even for top industry companies,\u0022 he said. \u0022We have embodied robot data available in billions of humans. With the advent of extended reality devices, we can get a scalable source of diverse interactions within environments.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPunamiya\u0026nbsp;graduated in December and recently started an internship at Nvidia. He mentioned he has been accepted into several Ph.D. programs, including Georgia Tech, and he is choosing where to continue his research.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s the first time my research has been\u0026nbsp;acknowledged\u0026nbsp;externally by the robotics community,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s\u0026nbsp;good to\u0026nbsp;know\u0026nbsp;the problem\u0026nbsp;I\u2019m\u0026nbsp;working on is important, and that motivates me. Robotics is an exciting field. We are doing things now that two years ago were difficult to do.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearching Inclusion in Computing Education\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAbramson conducts research in the People-Agents Research for Computing Education (PARCE) Laboratory under the mentorship of\u0026nbsp;Pedro Guillermo Feij\u00f3o-Garc\u00eda, a faculty member\u0026nbsp;in the School of Computing Instruction. He and the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, Olufisayo Omojokun, nominated her for the award.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHer work focuses on the intersection of computing education and human-AI interaction, where she\u2019s been exploring ways to create more equitable technology.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis is such a huge milestone, and I couldn\u0027t be prouder of Summer,\u201d Feij\u00f3o-Garc\u00eda said. \u201cMentoring her for almost two years has been an amazing experience.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAbramson has received the Georgia Tech President\u2019s Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) twice, which supports her research exploring how user-centered design curricula can help address attrition among women in computing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019ve had the amazing opportunity to pursue research at the intersection of student identity, community belonging, and how we can build tools that support our diverse student population,\u201d Abramson said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDr. Pedro and I have a goal to build community through a human-first approach, and I could not be more grateful for his support and guidance in my own journey. The CRA highlights the best of what the computing discipline has to offer, and I am incredibly honored for our work to be recognized.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAbramson will spend the summer researching how user-centered design curricula can help promote confidence, belonging, and retention for women in computing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENominees for the PURA program were recognized for contributing to multiple research projects, authoring or coauthoring papers, presenting at conferences, developing widely used software artifacts, and supporting their communities as teaching assistants, tutors, and mentors.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003ESchool of Computing Instruction Communications Officer Emily Smith contributed to this story.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EMain Photo: Ryan Punamiya works with a robot during the 2025 International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Atlanta. Photo by Terence Rushin\/College of Computing.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ERyan\u0026nbsp;Punamiya\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;(CS 2025)\u0026nbsp;and \u003Cstrong\u003ESummer Abramson\u003C\/strong\u003E, a third-year\u0026nbsp;computational\u0026nbsp;media student, have been honored by the Computing Research Association (CRA) through its 2025\u20132026 \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cra.org\/about\/awards\/outstanding-undergraduate-researcher-award\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EOutstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award (URA) program.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPunamiya\u0026nbsp;was named a runner-up for the prestigious award, while Abramson received an honorable mention among hundreds of applicants from universities across North America.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cra.org\/about\/awards\/outstanding-undergraduate-researcher-award\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award program\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;recognized eight awardees in 2026, along with eight runners-up, nine finalists, and over 200 honorable mentions from thousands of applications.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Ryan Punamiya (CS 2025) and Summer Abramson, a third-year computational media student, have been honored by the Computing Research Association (CRA) through its 2025\u20132026 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award (URA) program. "}],"uid":"36530","created_gmt":"2026-03-13 14:57:26","changed_gmt":"2026-03-20 12:51:21","author":"Nathan Deen","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-03-13T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-03-13T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679613":{"id":"679613","type":"image","title":"ICRA-2025_P9A0421-Enhanced-NR.jpg","body":null,"created":"1773413856","gmt_created":"2026-03-13 14:57:36","changed":"1773413856","gmt_changed":"2026-03-13 14:57:36","alt":"Ryan Punamiya","file":{"fid":"263795","name":"ICRA-2025_P9A0421-Enhanced-NR.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/13\/ICRA-2025_P9A0421-Enhanced-NR.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/13\/ICRA-2025_P9A0421-Enhanced-NR.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":133995,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/13\/ICRA-2025_P9A0421-Enhanced-NR.jpg?itok=r8p0C5IW"}}},"media_ids":["679613"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50876","name":"School of Interactive Computing"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"193158","name":"Student Competition Winners (academic, innovation, and research)"},{"id":"193157","name":"Student Honors and Achievements"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"101271","name":"Computing Research Association"},{"id":"22861","name":"undergraduate research awards"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"688716":{"#nid":"688716","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Research Priorities Chart Course Toward Impactful, Energy-Efficient Computing","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers applied their expertise to a national research program that will shape the future of computing. Their work may yield more energy-efficient computers and better predictions for environmental challenges like carbon storage, tsunamis, wildfires, and sustainable energy.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Department of Energy Office of Science recently released two reports through its Advanced Scientific Computing Research (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.energy.gov\/science\/ascr\/advanced-scientific-computing-research\u0022\u003EASCR\u003C\/a\u003E) program. The\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/science.osti.gov\/ascr\/Community-Resources\/Program-Documents\u0022\u003Ereports\u003C\/a\u003E were produced by workshops that brought together researchers from universities, national labs, government, and industry to set priorities for scientific computing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/slim.gatech.edu\/people\/felix-j-herrmann\u0022\u003EFelix Herrmann\u003C\/a\u003E served on the organizing committee for the Workshop on Inverse Methods for Complex Systems under Uncertainty. Assistant Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/faculty.cc.gatech.edu\/~pchen402\/group.html\u0022\u003EPeng Chen\u003C\/a\u003E joined Herrmann as a workshop participant, contributing expertise in data science and machine learning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EInverse 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.osti.gov\/biblio\/2583339\u0022\u003EASCR report\u003C\/a\u003E highlighted Herrmann\u2019s 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDigital 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.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe 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:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPRD 1: Discovering, exploiting, and preserving structure\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPRD 2: Identifying and overcoming model limitations\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPRD 3: Integrating disparate multimodal and\/or dynamic data\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPRD 4: Solving goal-oriented inverse problems for downstream tasks\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cA digital twin is a system you can control, like to optimize operations or to minimize risk,\u201d said Herrmann, who holds joint appointments in the Schools of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computational Science and Engineering.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDigital 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.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESupercomputers, 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.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EProfessors\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/vuduc.org\/v2\/\u0022\u003ERich Vuduc\u003C\/a\u003E and\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/hyesoon.github.io\/\u0022\u003EHyesoon Kim\u003C\/a\u003E co-authored\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.osti.gov\/biblio\/2476961\u0022\u003Ethe report\u003C\/a\u003E from the Workshop on Energy-Efficient Computing for Science. At the three-day ASCR workshop, participants identified five key research directions:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPRD 1: Co-design energy-efficient hardware devices and architectures for important workloads\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPRD 2: Define the algorithmic foundations of energy-efficient scientific computing\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPRD 3: Reconceptualize software ecosystems for energy efficiency\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPRD 4: Enable energy-efficient data management for data centers, instruments, and users\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli\u003EPRD 5: Develop integrated, scalable energy measurement and modeling capabilities for next-generation computing systems\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI\u2019m 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,\u201d said Vuduc.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe 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.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers applied their expertise to a national research program that will shape the future of computing. Their work may yield more energy-efficient computers and better predictions for environmental challenges like carbon storage, tsunamis, wildfires, and sustainable energy.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Department of Energy Office of Science recently released two reports through its Advanced Scientific Computing Research (\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.energy.gov\/science\/ascr\/advanced-scientific-computing-research\u0022\u003EASCR\u003C\/a\u003E) program. The\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/science.osti.gov\/ascr\/Community-Resources\/Program-Documents\u0022\u003Ereports\u003C\/a\u003E were produced by workshops that brought together researchers from universities, national labs, government, and industry to set priorities for scientific computing.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech faculty members contributed to two DOE Advanced Scientific Computing Research program workshops. 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Uncertainty","file":{"fid":"263686","name":"ASCR-Report-Inverse-methods.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/04\/ASCR-Report-Inverse-methods.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/04\/ASCR-Report-Inverse-methods.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":56325,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/04\/ASCR-Report-Inverse-methods.jpg?itok=rZGhJhnP"}},"679515":{"id":"679515","type":"image","title":"ASCR-Report-Energy-Efficient-Computing.jpg","body":null,"created":"1772631087","gmt_created":"2026-03-04 13:31:27","changed":"1772631087","gmt_changed":"2026-03-04 13:31:27","alt":"ASCR Workshop on Energy-Efficient Computing for Science","file":{"fid":"263687","name":"ASCR-Report-Energy-Efficient-Computing.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/04\/ASCR-Report-Energy-Efficient-Computing.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/03\/04\/ASCR-Report-Energy-Efficient-Computing.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":58857,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/03\/04\/ASCR-Report-Energy-Efficient-Computing.jpg?itok=-0arX_Rb"}}},"media_ids":["679513","679514","679515"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/new-research-priorities-chart-course-toward-impactful-energy-efficient-computing","title":"New Research Priorities Chart Course Toward Impactful, Energy-Efficient Computing"}],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"154","name":"Environment"},{"id":"150","name":"Physics and Physical Sciences"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"166983","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"10199","name":"Daily Digest"},{"id":"181991","name":"Georgia Tech News Center"},{"id":"663","name":"Department of Energy"},{"id":"179230","name":"digital twin"},{"id":"15030","name":"high-performance computing"},{"id":"9167","name":"machine learning"},{"id":"187812","name":"artificial intelligence (AI)"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"688502":{"#nid":"688502","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Understanding the Data Center Building Boom ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EWritten by: Anne Wainscott-Sargent\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs artificial intelligence (AI) drives explosive growth in data centers, communities across the U.S. are facing rising electricity costs, new industrial development, and mounting strain on an aging power grid.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt Georgia Tech, several faculty members are approaching these sustainability challenges from different but complementary angles: examining how data center policy affects local communities, modeling how AI-driven demand reshapes regional energy systems, and building tools that help the public understand the tradeoffs embedded in grid planning. Together, their work highlights how better data, thoughtful policy, and public engagement can guide more resilient and equitable decisions in an AI-powered future.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAI\u2019s Hidden Footprint: How Data Centers Reshape Communities\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAhmed Saeed studies the infrastructure most people never see. An assistant professor in the School of Computer Science and a Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Faculty Fellow, Saeed focuses on how data centers \u2014 the backbone of modern AI \u2014 are built, operated, and regulated, and what their growth means for host communities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cData centers are the infrastructure for our digital life, so more of them are necessary to keep doing what we\u2019re doing,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EData center energy consumption could double or triple by 2028, accounting for up to 12% of U.S. electricity use, according to a \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/escholarship.org\/uc\/item\/32d6m0d1\u0022\u003Ereport by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory\u003C\/a\u003E. U.S. spending on data center construction jumped nearly 70% between May 2023 and May 2024, according to the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/americanedgeproject.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Americas-AI-Surge-Powering-Growth-in-Every-State.pdf\u0022\u003EAmerican Edge Project\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia is an AI data center hub, ranked fourth globally, with $4.6 billion in AI-related venture capital invested across 368 deals, the American Edge Project reported. At a recent \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/sustainability-fellowship-supports-professors-data-center-research\u0022\u003Etown hall in DeKalb County, Georgia\u003C\/a\u003E, Saeed helped residents connect AI\u2019s promise to its local consequences. Training large AI models can require tens of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs) running for days or weeks, driving an unprecedented wave of data center construction. AI-focused chips, he noted, can consume 10 to 14 times more power than traditional processors.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat demand often shows up as pressure on local infrastructure. Communities are increasingly concerned about electricity and water use, grid upgrades, and who ultimately pays. In Virginia, Saeed pointed to a legal dispute in which consumer advocates warned that data centers could raise electricity bills by 5% in the short term and up to 50% over time, while utilities argued those investments were inevitable and could benefit customers in the long run.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEnvironmental concerns add another layer. Saeed cited controversies over water use and backup diesel generators in states, including Georgia and Tennessee, alongside a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling that tightened generator regulations. While diesel generators are clearly harmful, he cautioned that long-term, rigorous evidence linking data centers to regional health impacts remains limited.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESaeed\u2019s research aims to reduce those impacts directly. By optimizing how workloads are scheduled across large server fleets, his team has demonstrated power savings of 4 \u2013 12%, a meaningful gain if U.S. data centers approach projected levels of up to 12% of national electricity use by 2028.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor Saeed, data centers are akin to highways: essential to modern life, disruptive to nearby communities, and shaped by policy choices. The question, he argues, is not whether AI infrastructure should exist, but how transparently and fairly it is built.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEconomist Probes the Energy Costs of the AI Boom\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile headlines often frame AI as an energy crisis, Georgia Tech environmental and energy economist and BBISS Faculty Fellow Tony Harding is focused on measuring its real \u2014 and uneven \u2014 impacts. Harding, an assistant professor in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, uses economic modeling to examine how AI adoption affects energy use, emissions, and local communities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.1088\/1748-9326\/ae0e3b\u0022\u003Erecent work\u003C\/a\u003E published in \u003Cem\u003EEnvironmental Research Letters\u003C\/em\u003E, Harding and his co-author analyzed how productivity gains from AI could influence national energy demand. Their findings suggest that, at a macro level, AI-related activity may increase annual U.S. energy use by about 0.03% and CO\u2082 emissions by roughly 0.02%.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThose numbers are small in the context of the overall economy,\u201d Harding said. \u201cBut the impacts are highly uneven.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat unevenness is evident in where data centers are built. While Northern Virginia remains the country\u2019s top data center hub, with 343 operational data centers, states like Georgia, which currently has 94 operational data centers, are rapidly attracting facilities due to reliable power and favorable tax policies.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHarding\u2019s latest research focuses on local effects, asking why data centers cluster in urban areas, how they influence housing markets, what happens to electricity prices, and whether they exacerbate water stress. Early evidence suggests large facilities can increase local electricity rates, contributing to public backlash and regulatory response. In Georgia, the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/psc.ga.gov\/site\/assets\/files\/8617\/media_advisory_data_centers_rule_1-23-2025.pdf\u0022\u003EPublic Service Commission\u003C\/a\u003E has begun requiring new, high power draw customers (like data centers) to cover more of the costs associated with grid expansion.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHarding\u2019s goal is to give policymakers better evidence to design incentives and guardrails. \u201cTo manage these technologies responsibly,\u201d he said, \u201cwe need a clear picture of their intended and unintended consequences.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGamifying a Strained and Aging Power Grid\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDaniel Molzahn is tackling another side of the problem: how to modernize an aging power grid under growing demand. Electricity demand is expected to rise about 25% by 2030, driven by data centers, electric vehicles, and broadscale electrification. At the same time, much of the U.S. electricity grid is nearing the end of its lifespan, with many transformers being decades old.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo make these challenges tangible, Molzahn, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, developed a browser-based game with a group of students through Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/vip.gatech.edu\/frm_display\/team-listings\/entry\/1303\/\u0022\u003EVertically Integrated Projects\u003C\/a\u003E program called \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/currentcrisis.itch.io\/current-crisis\u0022\u003ECurrent Crisis\u003C\/a\u003E. Players take on the role of a utility decision-maker, balancing reliability, wildfire risk, renewable integration, and affordability.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe game grew out of Molzahn\u2019s National Science Foundation CAREER award and reflects his belief that complex systems are best understood experientially. Its initial focus is wildfire resilience, modeling how grid infrastructure can both spark and suffer damage from fires.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBut resilience comes at a cost. Burying power lines, for example, reduces wildfire risk but dramatically increases expenses. Players must confront the same tradeoffs utilities face: improve reliability or keep rates low.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMolzahn hopes the game will help students and the public grapple with the realities of planning future power systems. \u201cThese choices aren\u2019t abstract,\u201d he said. \u201cThey shape affordability, resilience, and our path toward a cleaner grid.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe project now involves nearly 40 students from across campus, supported by Sustainability NEXT funding and a collaboration with Jessica Roberts, former BBISS Faculty Fellow and director of the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/tiles.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ETechnology-Integrated Learning Environments (TILES) Lab\u003C\/a\u003E in the School of Interactive Computing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs a learning scientist, I look at how to engage people with science and scientific data and get people having conversations they might not otherwise have,\u201d says Roberts, who hopes the seed grant helps the team determine first that they are going in the right direction and, second, how to broaden the impact.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne student, Stella Quinto Lima, a graduate research assistant in Human-Centered Computing, has made the game the focus of her doctoral thesis. Through the game, she wants players to notice their misconceptions about the power grid, energy use, and AI, and to use critical thinking to identify, question, and possibly undo those misconceptions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u201cI hope that we can really engage adults and help them see it\u2019s not black and white. The game is not only about power grids, but how AI affects the grid, how it affects our lives, and how it will impact our future.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team plans to expand the game\u2019s features, use it in outreach programs, and analyze player decisions as a source of data to study energy-system decision-making.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe want to change the conversation about power and power grid stability, reliability, and sustainability, Roberts said, \u201cand find a way to get this message to a larger public.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAs artificial intelligence (AI) drives explosive growth in data centers, communities across the U.S. are facing rising electricity costs, new industrial development, and mounting strain on an aging power grid.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Explosive data center growth requires research to inform policies which manage the building of this critical infrastructure."}],"uid":"27338","created_gmt":"2026-02-24 20:29:10","changed_gmt":"2026-02-25 16:43:42","author":"Brent Verrill","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-02-24T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-02-24T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679428":{"id":"679428","type":"image","title":"Giarusso_Saeed_Molzhan_Headshots_Collage_Sized","body":null,"created":"1772037433","gmt_created":"2026-02-25 16:37:13","changed":"1772037615","gmt_changed":"2026-02-25 16:40:15","alt":"Three men\u0027s individual portrait-style photos are arranged side by side, each showing a person from the shoulders up. The individuals wear collared shirts and appear in different lighting settings, including a dark background, a neutral studio backdrop, and a bright white background.","file":{"fid":"263591","name":"Giarusso_Saeed_Molzhan_Headshots_Collage_Sized.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/25\/Giarusso_Saeed_Molzhan_Headshots_Collage_Sized.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/02\/25\/Giarusso_Saeed_Molzhan_Headshots_Collage_Sized.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":872348,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/02\/25\/Giarusso_Saeed_Molzhan_Headshots_Collage_Sized.jpg?itok=TPizgOZr"}}},"media_ids":["679428"],"groups":[{"id":"244191","name":"Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"660398","name":"Sustainability Hub"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"131","name":"Economic Development and Policy"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"154","name":"Environment"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"194611","name":"State Impact"},{"id":"194836","name":"Sustainability"}],"keywords":[{"id":"188360","name":"go-bbiss"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"194566","name":"Sustainable Systems"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brent.verrill@research.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EBrent Verrill\u003C\/a\u003E, Research Communications Program Manager, BBISS\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["brent.verrill@research.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"687708":{"#nid":"687708","#data":{"type":"news","title":" Researchers Warn AI \u2018Blind Spot\u2019 Could Allow Attackers to Hijack Self-Driving Vehicles","body":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA newly discovered vulnerability could allow cybercriminals to silently hijack the artificial intelligence (AI) systems in self-driving cars, raising concerns about the security of autonomous systems increasingly used on public roads.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Georgia Tech cybersecurity researchers discovered the vulnerability, dubbed VillainNet, and found it can remain dormant in a self-driving vehicle\u2019s AI system until triggered by specific conditions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnce triggered, VillainNet is almost certain to succeed, giving attackers control of the targeted vehicle.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research finds that attackers could program almost any action within a self-driving vehicle\u2019s AI super network to trigger VillainNet. In one possible scenario, it could be triggered when a self-driving taxi\u2019s AI responds to rainfall and changing road conditions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnce in control, hackers could hold the passengers hostage and threaten to crash the taxi.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers discovered this new backdoor attack threat in the AI super networks that power autonomous driving systems.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSuper networks are designed to be the Swiss Army knife of AI, swapping out tools, or in this case sub networks, as needed for the task at hand,\u0022 said \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/davidoygenblik.github.io\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDavid Oygenblik\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech and the lead researcher on the project.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022However, we found that an adversary can exploit this by attacking just one of those tiny tools. The attack remains completely dormant until that specific subnetwork is used, effectively hiding across billions of other benign configurations.\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis backdoor attack is nearly guaranteed to work, according to Oygenblik. This blind spot is nearly undetectable with current tools and can impact any autonomous vehicle that runs on AI. It can also be hidden at any stage of development and include billions of scenarios.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWith VillainNet, the attacker forces defenders to find a single needle in a haystack that can be as large as 10 quintillion straws,\u0022 said Oygenblik.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Our work is a call to action for the security community. As AI systems become more complex and adaptive, we must develop new defenses capable of addressing these novel, hyper-targeted threats.\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe hypothetical fix to the problem was to add security measures to the super networks. These networks contain billions of specialized subnetworks that can be activated on the fly, but Oygenblik wanted to see what would happen if he attacked a single subnetwork tool.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn experiments, the VillainNet attack proved highly effective. It achieved a 99% success rate when activated while remaining invisible throughout the AI system.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research also shows that detecting a VillainNet backdoor would require 66x more computing power and time to verify the AI system is safe. This challenge dramatically expands the search space for attack detection and is not feasible, according to the researchers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe project was \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=H1fyPD8vWDo\u0022\u003Epresented\u003C\/a\u003E at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) in October 2025. The paper, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/davidoygenblik.github.io\/pdfs\/VNET.pdf\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EVillainNet: Targeted Poisoning Attacks Against SuperNets Along the Accuracy-Latency Pareto Frontier\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, was co-authored by Oygenblik, master\u0027s students \u003Cstrong\u003EAbhinav Vemulapalli \u003C\/strong\u003Eand \u003Cstrong\u003EAnimesh Agrawal\u003C\/strong\u003E, Ph.D. student \u003Cstrong\u003EDebopam Sanyal\u003C\/strong\u003E, Associate Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EAlexey Tumanov\u003C\/strong\u003E, and Associate Professor \u003Cstrong\u003EBrendan Saltaformaggio\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EA newly discovered vulnerability could allow cybercriminals to silently hijack the artificial intelligence (AI) systems in self-driving cars, raising concerns about the security of autonomous systems increasingly used on public roads.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;Georgia Tech cybersecurity researchers discovered the vulnerability, dubbed VillainNet, and found it can remain dormant in a self-driving vehicle\u2019s AI system until triggered by specific conditions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnce triggered, VillainNet is almost certain to succeed, giving attackers control of the targeted vehicle.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"A newly discovered vulnerability could allow cybercriminals to silently hijack the artificial intelligence (AI) systems in self-driving cars, raising concerns about the security of autonomous systems increasingly used on public roads."}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-01-27 14:51:58","changed_gmt":"2026-02-19 17:34:58","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-01-27T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-01-27T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679102":{"id":"679102","type":"image","title":"Car-Blind-Spot.jpeg","body":null,"created":"1769525530","gmt_created":"2026-01-27 14:52:10","changed":"1769525530","gmt_changed":"2026-01-27 14:52:10","alt":"A car\u0027s side view mirror with a alert in the center of the mirror. ","file":{"fid":"263221","name":"Car-Blind-Spot.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/01\/27\/Car-Blind-Spot.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/01\/27\/Car-Blind-Spot.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":467609,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/01\/27\/Car-Blind-Spot.jpeg?itok=6bYsIEkx"}}},"media_ids":["679102"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"182941","name":"cc-research; ic-cybersecurity; ic-hcc"},{"id":"175307","name":"Brendan Saltaformaggio"},{"id":"365","name":"Research"},{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"188667","name":"go-"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jpopham3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommunications Officer II\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"687813":{"#nid":"687813","#data":{"type":"news","title":"From Fusion to Self-Driving Cars, High Performance Computing and AI are Everywhere in 2026","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhile not as highlight-reel worthy as the Winter Olympics and the World Cup, experts expect high-performance computing (HPC) to have an even bigger impact on daily life in 2026.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers say HPC and artificial intelligence (AI) advances this year are poised to improve how people power their homes, design safer buildings, and travel through cities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAccording to\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/tangqi.github.io\/\u0022\u003EQi Tang\u003C\/a\u003E, scientists will take progressive steps toward cleaner, sustainable energy through nuclear fusion in 2026.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI am very hopeful about the role of advanced computing and AI in making fusion a clean energy source,\u201d said Tang, an assistant professor in the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/cse.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE)\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFusion systems involve many interconnected processes happening across different scales. Modern simulations, combined with data-driven methods, allow us to bring these pieces together into a unified picture.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETang\u2019s research connects HPC and machine learning with fusion energy and plasma physics. This year, Tang is continuing work on large-scale nuclear fusion models.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOnly a few experimental fusion reactors exist worldwide compared to more than 400 nuclear fission reactors. Tang\u2019s work supports a broader effort to turn fusion from a promising idea into a practical energy source.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENuclear fusion occurs in plasma, the fourth state of matter, where gas is heated to millions of degrees. In this extreme state, electrons are stripped from atoms, creating a hot soup of fast-moving ions and free electrons. In plasma, hydrogen atoms overcome their natural electrical repulsion, collide, and fuse together. This releases energy that can power cities and homes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EComputers interpret extreme temperatures, densities, pressures, and plasma particle motion as massive datasets. Tang works to assimilate these data types from computer models and real-world experiments.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo do this, he and other researchers rely on machine learning approaches to analyze data across models and experiments more quickly and to produce more accurate predictions. Over time, this will allow scientists to test and improve fusion reactor designs toward commercial use.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBeyond energy and nuclear engineering,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/pk.linkedin.com\/in\/umarkhayaz\u0022\u003EUmar Khayaz\u003C\/a\u003E sees broader impacts for HPC in 2026.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHPC is the need of the day in every field of engineering sciences, physics, biology, and economics,\u201d said Khayaz, a CSE Ph.D. student in the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ce.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Civil and Environmental Engineering\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHPC is important enough to say that we need to employ resources to also solve social problems.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EKhayaz studies dynamic fracture and phase-field modeling. These areas explore how materials break under sudden, rapid loads.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELike nuclear fusion, Khayaz says dynamic fracture problems are complex and data-intensive. In 2026, he expects to see more computing resources and computational capabilities devoted to understanding these problems and other emerging civil engineering challenges.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECSE Ph.D. student\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ahren09.github.io\/\u0022\u003EYiqiao (Ahren) Jin\u003C\/a\u003E sees a similar relationship between infrastructure and self-driving vehicles. He believes AI will innovate this area in 2026.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt Georgia Tech, Jin develops efficient multimodal AI systems. An autonomous vehicle is a multimodal system that uses camera video, laser sensors, language instructions, and other inputs to navigate city streets under changing scenarios like traffic and weather patterns.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJin says multimodal research will move beyond performance benchmarks this year. This shift will lead to computer systems that can reason despite uncertainty and explain their decisions. In result, engineers will redefine how they evaluate and deploy autonomous systems in safety-critical settings.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMany foundational problems in perception, multimodal reasoning, and agent coordination are being actively addressed in 2026. These advances enable a transition from isolated autonomous systems to safer, coordinated autonomous vehicle fleets,\u201d Jin said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAs these systems scale, they have the potential to fundamentally improve transportation safety and efficiency.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhile not as highlight-reel worthy as the Winter Olympics and the World Cup, experts expect high-performance computing (HPC) to have an even bigger impact on daily life in 2026.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers say HPC and artificial intelligence (AI) advances this year are poised to improve how people power their homes, design safer buildings, and travel through cities.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech researchers say HPC and artificial intelligence (AI) advances this year are poised to improve how people power their homes, design safer buildings, and travel through cities."}],"uid":"36319","created_gmt":"2026-01-29 14:30:57","changed_gmt":"2026-02-19 15:53:29","author":"Bryant Wine","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-01-29T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-01-29T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679125":{"id":"679125","type":"image","title":"CSE-in-2026_2.jpg","body":null,"created":"1769704332","gmt_created":"2026-01-29 16:32:12","changed":"1769704332","gmt_changed":"2026-01-29 16:32:12","alt":"CSE in 2026","file":{"fid":"263246","name":"CSE-in-2026_2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/01\/29\/CSE-in-2026_2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/01\/29\/CSE-in-2026_2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":348721,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/01\/29\/CSE-in-2026_2.jpg?itok=JDq9Sr_p"}}},"media_ids":["679125"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/fusion-self-driving-cars-high-performance-computing-and-ai-are-everywhere-2026","title":"From Fusion to Self-Driving Cars, High Performance Computing and AI are Everywhere in 2026"}],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"194606","name":"Artificial Intelligence"},{"id":"142","name":"City Planning, Transportation, and Urban Growth"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"144","name":"Energy"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"},{"id":"8862","name":"Student Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"172288","name":"School of Computational Science Engineering"},{"id":"167864","name":"School of Civil and Environmental Engineering"},{"id":"594","name":"college of engineering"},{"id":"9153","name":"Research Horizons"},{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"},{"id":"10199","name":"Daily Digest"},{"id":"181991","name":"Georgia Tech News Center"},{"id":"15030","name":"high-performance computing"},{"id":"187812","name":"artificial intelligence (AI)"},{"id":"9167","name":"machine learning"},{"id":"192863","name":"go-ai"},{"id":"194384","name":"Tech AI"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193655","name":"Artificial Intelligence at Georgia Tech"},{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"},{"id":"39541","name":"Systems"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBryant Wine, Communications Officer\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"687824":{"#nid":"687824","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Cyber Risk is Business Risk: A Georgia Tech Alum on What Leaders Must Learn in 2026","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen \u003Cstrong\u003EChristopher Craig\u003C\/strong\u003E arrived at Georgia Tech as an undergraduate in 1995, the campus and the field of cybersecurity looked very different.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt was the era of look left and look right, and one of you will not be here at graduation,\u201d Craig said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig worked hard and graduated with his computer science (CS) bachelor\u2019s degree in 2000, just as the dot-com bubble burst. He returned to Georgia Tech about a year later and has been here ever since.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig is the enterprise cybersecurity architect in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.oit.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EOffice of Information Technology\u003C\/a\u003E and has spent nearly three decades at Tech as a student, employee, and instructor.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlong the way, he has earned three degrees from the Institute and helped shape how Georgia Tech approaches cybersecurity in an increasingly complex digital landscape.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig began his career at Tech supporting student registration and other core IT systems. He moved fully into cybersecurity about 15 years ago. His technical background was strong, but he saw a gap in his experience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI had a lot of technical background and work experience, but not much policy experience,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig enrolled in Georgia Tech\u2019s Master of Science in Information Security to fill in this gap. He said his decision to enroll in the policy track was intentional.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf you\u2019ve been doing the technical work for 10 years, a technical master\u2019s helps some,\u201d Craig said. \u201cBut it is much more useful to study the areas you do not already know well.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig moved into management as his GT career progressed. This path led him once again to the classroom. This time, he pursued an MBA from Georgia Tech\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.scheller.gatech.edu\/index.html\u0022\u003EScheller College of Business\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig believes the combination of cybersecurity and business education is increasingly important for leaders and others.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere is a big gap in the industry,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need people who understand cybersecurity and the business side, and people in business leadership who understand cybersecurity risk.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig is an instructor in the online Master of Science in Cybersecurity program. He teaches incident response and often sees this gap among his students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMany business professionals do not know how to respond to a cybersecurity incident,\u201d Craig said. \u201cThey are not trained in it. At the same time, many cybersecurity professionals are learning business impacts on the job.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig said business knowledge is essential for aspiring chief information security officers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAt that level, understanding how cybersecurity supports business goals is more important than deep technical detail,\u201d he said. \u201cYou still need the basics, but you also need to talk to the CFO.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt Georgia Tech, Craig focuses on cybersecurity architecture. His work centers on the design and protection of enterprise systems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFor example, student information systems have a design,\u201d he said. \u201cWe look at how firewalls and other controls fit into that design to protect the data.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHis role continues to evolve as the Institute\u2019s cybersecurity needs change. That evolution mirrors the field itself, especially with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAI has impacted cybersecurity for longer than people want to admit,\u201d Craig said. \u201cUnderstanding what is unusual is a big part of security, and AI can be very good at that. It can also be very good at avoiding detection.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig said AI introduces new architectural risks, particularly around data privacy. Tools that analyze student or employee data must be carefully designed to prevent sensitive information from leaking through training or outputs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cYou have to understand the inputs and outputs,\u201d he said. \u201cOtherwise, you can accidentally release data you really care about.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPrivacy has been a recurring theme throughout Craig\u2019s career. He credits courses such as the privacy policy class taught by Professor \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/peterswire.net\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPeter Swire\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, the J.Z. Liang Chair in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/scp.cc.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u003C\/a\u003E, with shaping his thinking.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSo much of security is about personal data,\u201d Craig said. \u201cUnderstanding what actually makes data anonymous or not is critical.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECraig believes that privacy protection depends on training and system design within an institution as large and decentralized as Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cTraining can only get you so far,\u201d Craig said. \u201cPeople make mistakes. Strong processes limit exposure even when human error happens.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELooking back, Craig describes his time at Georgia Tech as one of constant growth.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe industry has massively changed,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat you learn becomes outdated quickly. You have to keep growing.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFrom undergraduate student to cybersecurity leader, Craig\u2019s career reflects both the evolution of Georgia Tech and the fast-changing world of cybersecurity. For him, the learning never stops.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech alum Christopher Craig\u2019s nearly three-decade journey as a student, employee, and instructor shows how combining cybersecurity, policy, and business education is essential for leaders navigating evolving risks\u2014from incident response to AI and data privacy\u2014in an increasingly complex digital landscape.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech alum Christopher Craig\u2019s nearly three-decade journey as a student, employee, and instructor shows how combining cybersecurity, policy, and business education is essential for leaders navigating evolving risks\u2014from incident response to AI and "}],"uid":"36253","created_gmt":"2026-01-29 16:39:45","changed_gmt":"2026-02-19 15:53:07","author":"John Popham","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-01-28T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-01-28T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679126":{"id":"679126","type":"image","title":"Christopher-Craig_1.jpg","body":null,"created":"1769704813","gmt_created":"2026-01-29 16:40:13","changed":"1769704813","gmt_changed":"2026-01-29 16:40:13","alt":"A man looks up from his laptop computer and into a camera. There is a whiteboard with illegible writing on it behind him. ","file":{"fid":"263247","name":"Christopher-Craig_1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/01\/29\/Christopher-Craig_1.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/01\/29\/Christopher-Craig_1.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1938873,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/01\/29\/Christopher-Craig_1.jpg?itok=FFcaJWfX"}}},"media_ids":["679126"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"660367","name":"School of Cybersecurity and Privacy"}],"categories":[{"id":"130","name":"Alumni"},{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"145171","name":"Cybersecurity"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jpopham3@gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJohn Popham\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECommunications Officer II\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003ESchool of Cybersecurity and Privacy\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"687534":{"#nid":"687534","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Cryogenic Vacuum Chamber Cuts Noise for Quantum Ion Trapping","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEven very slight environmental noise, such as microscopic vibrations or magnetic field fluctuations a hundred times smaller than the Earth\u2019s magnetic field, can be catastrophic for quantum computing experiments with trapped ions.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo address that challenge, researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed an improved cryogenic vacuum chamber that helps reduce some common noise sources by isolating ions from vibrations and shielding them from magnetic field fluctuations. The new chamber also incorporates an improved imaging system and a radio frequency (RF) coil that can be used to drive ion transitions from within the chamber.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of excitement around quantum computing today, and trapped ions are just one of the research platforms available, each with their own benefits and drawbacks,\u201d explained Darian Hartsell, a GTRI research scientist who leads the project. \u201cWe are trying to mitigate multiple sources of noise in this chamber and make other improvements with one robust new design.\u201d\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe chamber design is described in a paper published January 20, 2026 in the journal \u003Cem\u003EApplied Physics Letters\u003C\/em\u003E. Some of the technical improvements developed for the project are already being applied at GTRI and collaborating organizations. This work was done in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe goal of the vibration isolation is to reduce the laser amplitude and phase noise when addressing the ions, increasing operation fidelity. The goal of the magnetic field noise reduction is to preserve the coherence of qubits for longer periods of time so researchers can use them for more complex algorithms.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gtri.gatech.edu\/newsroom\/new-cryogenic-vacuum-chamber-cuts-noise-quantum-ion-trapping\u0022\u003ESee the complete article on the GTRI news site\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Chamber also incorporates improved imaging"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EResearchers have developed an improved vacuum chamber that reduces noise for quantum ion trapping research.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Researchers have developed an improved vacuum chamber that reduces noise for quantum ion trapping research."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2026-01-21 15:56:39","changed_gmt":"2026-01-21 16:03:07","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-01-21T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2026-01-21T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"679046":{"id":"679046","type":"image","title":"Researcher tests improved vacuum chamber for ion trapping","body":"\u003Cp\u003EGTRI Research Scientist Darian Hartsell makes adjustments to an improved cryogenic vacuum chamber that helps reduce some common noise sources by isolating ions from vibrations and shielding them from magnetic field fluctuations. (Credit: Sean McNeil, GTRI)\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1769010196","gmt_created":"2026-01-21 15:43:16","changed":"1769010565","gmt_changed":"2026-01-21 15:49:25","alt":"Researcher tests improved vacuum chamber","file":{"fid":"263158","name":"Vacuum-Chamber_06.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/01\/21\/Vacuum-Chamber_06.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/01\/21\/Vacuum-Chamber_06.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2603620,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/01\/21\/Vacuum-Chamber_06.jpg?itok=ugZaqaeJ"}}},"media_ids":["679046"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"}],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"193653","name":"Georgia Tech Research Institute"},{"id":"193652","name":"Matter and Systems"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["gtri.media@gtri.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}