Tens of millions of brackets have been filled out ahead of the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. Some fans will choose winners based on the higher seed, others will try to predict shocking upsets, and some may choose who advances based on which mascot would win a fight, but a Georgia Tech professor has his bracket down to a (data) science.   

Thinking about polymers in that way has led Georgia Tech materials scientists to create new generative artificial intelligence tools that are like Claude or ChatGPT for new materials. 

These are the first foundational models for generative polymer design that have also been validated through physical experiments: users specify the properties they need in a polymer and the model will suggest a chemical structure.

Led by Regents’ Entrepreneur Rampi Ramprasad, the researchers described their latest model this month in the Nature journal npj Artificial Intelligence — including a test material they created and validated in the lab to prove the models work.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

“Four minutes is too long.”

That’s the note undergraduate Chris Zuo sent me along with photos of countless mosquito bites on his bare skin. This full-body massacre wasn’t the result of a camping trip gone awry. He’d spent that limited amount of time in a room with 100 hungry mosquitoes while wearing nothing but a mesh suit we thought would have protected him.

Thus began our three-year journey trying to understand the behavior of a deceivingly simple insect, the mosquito. It may sound like a professor’s sadistic plan, but, really, we did everything by the book. Our university’s institutional review board approved our procedures, making sure Chris was safe and not coerced in any way. The mosquitoes were disease-free and native to our home state of Georgia. And this session resulted in the first and last bites anyone received during the study.

Besides my role as torturer of students, I am an author and professor at Georgia Tech with over 20 years of experience studying the movement of animals.

Mosquitoes are the world’s most dangerous animal. The diseases they carry, from malaria to dengue, cause over 700,000 deaths per year. More people have died from mosquitoes than wars.

The world spends US$22 billion per year on billions of liters of insecticides, millions of pounds of larvicides, and millions of insecticide-treated bed nets – all to fight a tiny insect that weighs 10 times less than a grain of rice and has only 200,000 neurons.

Yet, people are losing the war on mosquitoes. These insects are evolving to thrive in cities and spreading disease more rapidly with climate change. How can such simple animals find us so easily?

Scientists know mosquitoes have terrible eyesight and depend on chemical cues to make up for it. Knowing what attracts a mosquito, though, isn’t enough to predict its behavior. You can know a heat-seeking missile is drawn to heat, but you still won’t know how a missile works.

Enter Chris and his self-sacrifice in the mosquito room. By tracking the flight of many mosquitoes around him, we hoped to determine how they made decisions in response to his presence. Understanding how mosquitoes respond to humans is a first step to controlling them.

How Mosquitoes Zero In On Their Meal

Out of 3,500 species of mosquitoes, over 100 species are classified as anthropophilic, meaning they prefer humans for lunch. Certain species of mosquitoes will find the one person among a whole herd of cattle in order to suck human blood.

This is quite a feat considering mosquitoes are weak flyers. They stop flying in a slight 2-3 mph breeze, the same air speed generated by a horse’s swinging tail. In calmer conditions, mosquitoes use their minuscule brains to follow human heat, moisture and odors that are carried downwind.

Carbon dioxide, the byproduct of respiration of all living animals, is particularly attractive. Mosquitoes notice carbon dioxide as well as you notice the stink of a full dumpster, detecting it up to 30 feet (9 meters) away from a host, where concentrations dip to a few parts per million, like a few cups of dye in an Olympic-size pool.

Mosquitoes’ vision isn’t much help as they hunt for their next blood meal. Their two compound eyes have several hundred individual lenses called ommatidia, each about the width of a human hair. They produce a somewhat blurry mosaic or pixelated image. Due to the laws of optics, mosquitoes can discern an adult-size human only at a few meters away. With their vision alone, they cannot distinguish a human from a small tree. They inspect every dark object.

Gathering the Flight-Path Data

The challenge with studying mosquito flight is that, like trash-talking teenagers, most of what they do is meaningless noise. Mosquitoes flying in an empty room are largely making random changes in flight speed and direction. We needed many flight trajectories to cut through the noise.

One of our collaborators, University of California, Riverside, biologist Ring Cardé, told us that back in the 1980s, scientists conducted “bite studies” by stripping down to their underwear and slapping the mosquitoes that landed on their naked bodies. He said nudity prevented confounding variables, such as the color of a shirt’s fabric.

Chris and I looked at each other. Sit naked and wait to become mosquito prey? Instead, we designed the mesh suit that Chris originally wore into the mosquito room. But after seeing Chris’ bites, we needed a better way.

Instead, Chris washed long-sleeved clothes in unscented detergent and wore gloves and a face mask. Fully protected, Chris only had to stand and wait, while a cloud of mosquitoes swarmed him.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention introduced us to the Photonic Sentry, a camera that simultaneously tracks hundreds of flying insects in a room. It records 100 frames per second at 5 mm resolution for a space like a large studio apartment. In just a few hours, Chris and another graduate student, Soohwan Kim, generated more mosquito flight data than had previously been measured in human history.

Jörn Dunkel, Chenyi Fei and Alex Cohen, our mathematician collaborators at MIT, told us that the geometry of Chris’ body was still too complicated to study the mosquitoes’ reactions. Mathematicians excel at simplifying complex problems to their essence. Chenyi suggested we go easy on Chris – why not replace him with a simple dummy: a black Styrofoam ball on a stick combined with a canister of carbon dioxide.

Over the next two years, Chris filmed the mosquitoes circling the Styrofoam dummies mercilessly. Then he vacuumed up the mosquitoes, trying not to get bitten.

Deciphering the Trajectories

A mosquito flies like you would an airplane: it turns left or right, accelerates or hits the brakes. We determined a mosquito’s flight behavior as a function of its speed, location and direction with respect to the target as the first step in creating our model of their behavior.

Our confidence in our behavioral rules increased as we read more trajectories, ultimately using 20 million mosquito positions and speeds. This idea of incorporating observations to support a mathematical hypothesis is a 200-year-old idea called Bayesian inference. We illustrated the mosquito behavior we’d observed in a web application.

Using our model, we showed how different targets cause mosquitoes to fly differently. Visual targets cause fly-bys, where mosquitoes fly past the target. Carbon dioxide causes double takes, where mosquitoes slow down near the target. The combination of a visual cue and carbon dioxide creates high-speed orbiting patterns.

Up until now, we had used only experiments with Styrofoam spheres to train our model. The true test was whether it could predict mosquito flights around a human. Chris returned to the chamber, this time wearing all white clothes and a black hat, turning himself into a bull’s-eye. Our model successfully predicted the distribution of mosquitoes around him. We identified zones of danger, where there was a high chance of a mosquito circling around him.

Predicting mosquito behavior is a first step toward outsmarting them. In mosquito-prone areas, people design houses with features to prevent mosquitoes from following human cues and entering. Similarly, mosquito traps suck in mosquitoes when they get too close but still allow between 50% and 90% of mosquitoes to escape. Many of these designs are based on trial and error. We hope that our study provides a more precise tool for designing methods for mosquito capture or deterrence.

When Chris’ mother attended his master’s degree defense, I asked her how she felt about her son using himself as bait for mosquitoes. She said she was very proud. So am I – and not just because I’m relieved Chris didn’t ask me to take his place in the mosquito chamber.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Jie Wu, an engineering graduate student, was studying a type of striking white beetle found in Southeast Asia and attempting to figure out how to mimic its brilliant color when an unexpected discovery upended the experiment.

Jie and I had been hoping to identify naturally occurring whitening pigments that could be used in paper and paints. The beetle’s white exoskeleton is made from a compound called chitin, which is a type of carbohydrate – one that is also commonly found in crab and lobster shells.

First, Jie extracted chitin nanofibers from crab shells obtained from food waste that are chemically the same as those found in the white beetles. But instead of creating a white material as intended, Jie produced dense, transparent films. The nanofibers more readily assembled in tightly packed films than in the porous structures Jie desired.

On a whim, Jie measured the rate at which oxygen passed through the film. The result was astonishing: The barrier allowed less oxygen through than many existing packaging plastics.

That serendipitous finding in 2014 shifted my team of engineering students’ focus from color to packaging. We asked whether natural materials could rival the performance of common plastics. In the years since, our team has used this discovery to create biodegradable films that offer a more sustainable and effective alternative to plastic packaging.

Challenges of Plastic Packaging

Plastic packaging is commonly used to protect food, pharmaceuticals and personal care products. These plastics keep out moisture and oxygen from the air, so products stay fresh and safe.

Most packaging has several layers that work together to keep air out, but these layers hinder reuse and recycling efforts. As a result, most of this plastic barrier packaging is discarded to landfills as single-use materials.

Many researchers have sought alternatives that are renewable, biodegradable or recyclable, yet just as effective. At Georgia Tech, my team of students and post-docs has spent more than a decade tackling this problem. This journey began with that beetle.

Building a Better Barrier

Chitin is widely available in food waste and mushrooms, and it is used in products such as water filters and wound dressing. However, our early attempts to scale up the film technology based on the beetle-inspired experiment failed.

In 2018, the team made an important leap forward by using spray coating to create layers of chitin and cellulose nanomaterials. Cellulose, like chitin, is a carbohydrate polymer – a chain of repeating carbohydrate units – and it is obtained from plants. These abundant natural materials have opposite electric charges, which led to better barrier performance when we combined them than either material alone.

In this approach, the team sprayed down a layer of chitin, followed by a layer of cellulose. The opposite charges between the chitin and cellulose created a long-range attraction between them that binds the layers to create a dense interface.

Later, in collaboration with Meisha Shofner, a materials scientist, and Tequila Harris, a mechanical engineer, other students showed these coatings could be applied with scalable, roll-to-roll techniques. Roll-to-roll coating methods are preferred in industry because the coatings are applied continuously to large rolls of a substrate material, such as paper or other biodegradable plastics.

Still, humidity posed a major challenge, limiting any real-world applications. Moisture swelled the film, allowing more oxygen to sneak through.

Then came another breakthrough. In 2024, another collaborator, Natalie Stingelin, and I discovered that two common food components resisted water vapor when combined: carboxymethylcellulose – which is found in ice cream, for example – and citric acid.

The result was a film that hindered the transmission of moisture. The citric acid reacted with the cellulose to form cross-links, which are chemical junctions that bind the cellulose molecules. Once bound, they reduced the film’s moisture uptake.

We integrated this new discovery with the prior work by combining the citric acid and cellulose, and then casting this mixture as a freestanding film by coating it onto a substrate, such as chitin.

However, that formulation did not have strong oxygen barrier properties because it did not contain the highly crystalline cellulose nanomaterials from our first film. Our team’s most recent achievement, from October 2025, combines the above innovations. As a result, we’ve created a bio-based film that is an excellent barrier to both oxygen and moisture.

Scaling Up Production

When cast into thin films, these components self-organize into a dense structure that resists swelling with water vapor. Tests showed that even at 80% humidity the film matched or outperformed common packaging plastics.

The materials are renewable, biodegradable and compostable. Our team has filed several patent applications, and we are working with industry partners to develop specific packaging uses.

One challenge that applications face is a limited supply of the bio-based components compared to the high volume of conventional plastics. Like any new material, it would take time for manufacturers to develop supply chains as the films begin to be used.

For example, the market demand for purified chitin is small right now, as it is used in niche applications, such as wound dressings and water filtration. Due to its variety of uses, packaging could increase that market demand.

The next challenge is scaling up from experimental films to industrial production, which would likely take several years. The team is exploring roll-to-roll coating techniques and working with industry partners to integrate these materials into existing packaging lines.

Policy and consumer demand will also play a role. As governments push for bans on single-use plastics and companies set sustainability targets, bio-based films could become part of the solution.

The story of this breakthrough reminds me that science often advances through unexpected results. From a failed attempt to mimic a beetle’s color to a promising alternative to plastic, this research shows how curiosity can lead to solutions for some of our biggest challenges.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The war in Iran has dominated headlines with reports of airstrikes and escalating military activity. But beyond the immediate devastation, the conflict has also illuminated a quieter and rapidly growing danger: the vulnerability of ships, and the people who operate them, to disruption of their navigation systems.

Modern shipping depends heavily on GPS satellite navigation. When those signals are disrupted or manipulated, ships can suddenly appear to their navigators and to other ships to be somewhere they are not. In some cases, vessels have been shown jumping across maps, drifting miles inland or appearing to circle in impossible patterns. The risk is even higher in war zones, where ships could be misdirected into harm’s way.

As a cybersecurity researcher studying critical infrastructure and maritime systems, I investigate how digital threats affect ships and the people who operate them.

To understand the threat from GPS disruptions, it helps to first understand how GPS works. GPS systems determine location using signals from satellites orbiting Earth. A receiver calculates its position by measuring how long those signals take to arrive. Because those signals are extremely weak by the time they reach Earth, they are relatively easy to disrupt.

GPS Jamming and Spoofing

In GPS jamming, an attacker blocks the real satellite signals by overwhelming them with electromagnetic noise so receivers cannot detect them. When this happens, navigation systems lose their position. On a phone, it might look like the map freezing or jumping erratically.

GPS spoofing is more sophisticated. Instead of blocking signals, an attacker transmits fake satellite signals designed to mimic the real ones. The receiver accepts these signals and gives a false location. Imagine driving north while your navigation system suddenly insists you are traveling south. The receiver is not malfunctioning; it has simply been tricked.

For mariners at sea, spoofing can have serious consequences. In the open ocean, there are few landmarks to verify a ship’s position if GPS behaves strangely. Nearshore, the margin for error disappears: Water depths change quickly and hazards are everywhere, especially in narrow routes like the Strait of Hormuz near Iran, where reports indicate that GPS spoofing has been happening since the outbreak of the war. Because ships are large and slow to maneuver, even small navigation errors can lead to groundings or collisions.

Red Sea Grounding

One example came in May 2025. While transiting the Red Sea, the container ship MSC Antonia began showing positions far from its true location. To navigators onboard, this looked like they had jumped hundreds of miles south on the map and started moving in a new direction. This caused the crew to become disoriented, and the ship eventually ran aground. The grounding caused millions of dollars in damage and required a salvage operation that lasted over five weeks.

Incidents like the MSC Antonia are not isolated. Vessel-tracking data has revealed clusters of ships suddenly appearing in impossible locations, sometimes far inland or moving in perfect circles. These anomalies are increasingly linked to GPS spoofing in regions experiencing geopolitical conflict.

But GPS interference is only one type of cyber threat facing ships. Industry reports have documented ransomware attacks on shipping companies, supply chain compromises and increasing concern about the security of onboard control systems, including engines, propulsion and navigation equipment. As ships become more connected through satellite internet systems and remote monitoring tools, the number of potential entry points for cyberattacks is growing.

Military vessels often address these risks through stricter network segregation and regular training exercises such as “mission control” drills, which simulate operating with compromised communications or navigation systems. Some cybersecurity experts argue that similar practices could help commercial shipping improve its resilience, although smaller crews and limited resources make adopting military-style procedures more difficult.

Mariners’ Experiences

Much of the public discussion around maritime cybersecurity focuses on technical vulnerabilities in ship systems. But an equally important piece of the puzzle is the people who must interpret and respond to these technologies when something goes wrong.

In recent research, my colleagues and I interviewed professional mariners about their experiences with cyber incidents and their preparedness to respond to them. The interviews included navigation officers, engineers and other crew members responsible for ship systems. What emerged was a consistent picture: Cyber threats are increasingly occurring at sea, but crews are not well prepared to deal with them.

Many mariners told us that their cybersecurity training focused almost entirely on email phishing and USB drives. That kind of training may make sense in an office, but it does little to prepare crews for cyber incidents on a ship, where navigation and control systems can be the primary targets. As a result, many mariners lack clear guidance on how cyberattacks might affect the equipment they rely on every day.

This becomes a problem when ship systems begin behaving strangely. Mariners described GPS showing incorrect positions or temporarily losing signal. It can be difficult to tell whether these incidents are equipment failures or signs of cyber interference.

Even when mariners suspect something may be wrong, many ships lack clear procedures for responding to cyber incidents. Participants frequently described situations where they would have to improvise if navigation or other digital systems behaved unexpectedly. Unlike equipment failures, which have established checklists and procedures, cyber incidents often fall into a gray area where responsibility and response plans are unclear.

Another challenge is the gradual disappearance of traditional navigation practices. For centuries, mariners relied on paper charts and celestial navigation to determine their position. Today, most commercial vessels rely almost entirely on electronic systems.

Many mariners noted that paper charts are not available onboard, and celestial navigation is rarely practiced. If GPS or electronic navigation systems fail, crews have limited ways to independently verify their position. One mariner bluntly described the risk to us: “If you don’t have charts and you’re being spoofed, you’re a little screwed.”

Increasing Connectivity, Increasing Risk

At the same time, ships are becoming more connected. Modern vessels increasingly rely on satellite internet systems like Starlink and remote monitoring tools to manage operations and communicate with shore.

While these technologies improve efficiency, they also expand the vulnerability of ship systems. Connectivity that allows crews to send emails or access the internet can also provide pathways for cyber threats to reach onboard systems.

As GPS spoofing becomes more common in regions experiencing geopolitical conflict, the challenges mariners described in our research are becoming harder to ignore. The oceans may seem vast and empty, but the digital signals that guide modern ships travel through crowded and contested space.

When those signals are manipulated, the consequences do not stay confined to military systems. They reach the commercial vessels that carry most of the world’s goods and the crews responsible for navigating them safely.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Imagine you’re a copper miner in southeastern Europe in the year 3900 B.C.E. Day after day you haul copper ore through the mine’s sweltering tunnels.

You’ve resigned yourself to the grueling monotony of mining life. Then one afternoon, you witness a fellow worker doing something remarkable.

With an odd-looking contraption, he casually transports the equivalent of three times his body weight on a single trip. As he returns to the mine to fetch another load, it suddenly dawns on you that your chosen profession is about to get far less taxing and much more lucrative.

What you don’t realize: You’re witnessing something that will change the course of history – not just for your tiny mining community, but for all of humanity.

An illustration of what the original mine carts used in the Carpathian mountains may have looked like in 3900 B.C.E. Kai James via DALL·E

Despite the wheel’s immeasurable impact, no one is certain as to who invented it, or when and where it was first conceived. The hypothetical scenario described above is based on a 2015 theory that miners in the Carpathian Mountains – in present-day Hungary – first invented the wheel nearly 6,000 years ago as a means to transport copper ore.

The theory is supported by the discovery of more than 150 miniaturized wagons by archaeologists working in the region. These pint-sized, four-wheeled models were made from clay, and their outer surfaces were engraved with a wickerwork pattern reminiscent of the basketry used by mining communities at the time. Carbon dating later revealed that these wagons are the earliest known depictions of wheeled transport to date.

This theory also raises a question of particular interest to me, an aerospace engineer who studies the science of engineering design. How did an obscure, scientifically naive mining society discover the wheel, when highly advanced civilizations, such as the ancient Egyptians, did not?

A controversial idea

It has long been assumed that wheels evolved from simple wooden rollers. But until recently no one could explain how or why this transformation took place. What’s more, beginning in the 1960s, some researchers started to express strong doubts about the roller-to-wheel theory.

After all, for rollers to be useful, they require flat, firm terrain and a path free of inclines and sharp curves. Furthermore, once the cart passes them, used rollers need to be continually brought around to the front of the line to keep the cargo moving. For all these reasons, the ancient world used rollers sparingly. According to the skeptics, rollers were too rare and too impractical to have been the starting point for the evolution of the wheel.

But a mine – with its enclosed, human-made passageways – would have provided favorable conditions for rollers. This factor, among others, compelled my team to revisit the roller hypothesis.

A turning point

The transition from rollers to wheels requires two key innovations. The first is a modification of the cart that carries the cargo. The cart’s base must be outfitted with semicircular sockets, which hold the rollers in place. This way, as the operator pulls the cart, the rollers are pulled along with it.

This innovation may have been motivated by the confined nature of the mine environment, where having to periodically carry used rollers back around to the front of the cart would have been especially onerous.

The discovery of socketed rollers represented a turning point in the evolution of the wheel and paved the way for the second and most important innovation. This next step involved a change to the rollers themselves. To understand how and why this change occurred, we turned to physics and computer-aided engineering.

Simulating the wheel’s evolution

To begin our investigation, we created a computer program designed to simulate the evolution from a roller to a wheel. Our hypothesis was that this transformation was driven by a phenomenon called “mechanical advantage.” This same principle allows pliers to amplify a user’s grip strength by providing added leverage. Similarly, if we could modify the shape of the roller to generate mechanical advantage, this would amplify the user’s pushing force, making it easier to advance the cart.

Our algorithm worked by modeling hundreds of potential roller shapes and evaluating how each one performed, both in terms of mechanical advantage and structural strength. The latter was used to determine whether a given roller would break under the weight of the cargo. As predicted, the algorithm ultimately converged upon the familiar wheel-and-axle shape, which it determined to be optimal.

A computer simulation of the evolution from a roller to a wheel-and-axle structure. Each image represents a design evaluated by the algorithm. The search ultimately converges upon the familiar wheel-and-axle design. Kai James

During the execution of the algorithm, each new design performed slightly better than its predecessor. We believe a similar evolutionary process played out with the miners 6,000 years ago.

It is unclear what initially prompted the miners to explore alternative roller shapes. One possibility is that friction at the roller-socket interface caused the surrounding wood to wear away, leading to a slight narrowing of the roller at the point of contact. Another theory is that the miners began thinning out the rollers so that their carts could pass over small obstructions on the ground.

Either way, thanks to mechanical advantage, this narrowing of the axle region made the carts easier to push. As time passed, better-performing designs were repeatedly favored over the others, and new rollers were crafted to mimic these top performers.

Consequently, the rollers became more and more narrow, until all that remained was a slender bar capped on both ends by large discs. This rudimentary structure marks the birth of what we now refer to as “the wheel.”

According to our theory, there was no precise moment at which the wheel was invented. Rather, just like the evolution of species, the wheel emerged gradually from an accumulation of small improvements.

This is just one of the many chapters in the wheel’s long and ongoing evolution. More than 5,000 years after the contributions of the Carpathian miners, a Parisian bicycle mechanic invented radial ball bearings, which once again revolutionized wheeled transportation.

Ironically, ball bearings are conceptually identical to rollers, the wheel’s evolutionary precursor. Ball bearings form a ring around the axle, creating a rolling interface between the axle and the wheel hub, thereby circumventing friction. With this innovation, the evolution of the wheel came full circle.

This example also shows how the wheel’s evolution, much like its iconic shape, traces a circuitous path – one with no clear beginning, no end, and countless quiet revolutions along the way.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The human body constantly generates a variety of signals that can be measured from outside the body with wearable devices. These bio-signals – ranging from heart rate to sleep state and blood oxygen levels – can indicate whether someone is having mood swings or can be used to diagnose a variety of body or brain disorders.

It can be relatively cheap to gather a lot of bio-signal data. Researchers can organize a study and ask participants to use a wearable device akin to a smartwatch for a few days. However, to teach a machine learning algorithm to find a relationship between a specific bio-signal and a health disorder, you first need to teach the algorithm to recognize that disorder. That’s where computer engineers like myself come in.

Many commercial smartwatches, such as ones by Apple, AliveCor, Google and Samsung, currently support atrial fibrillation detection. Atrial fibrillation is a common type of irregular heart rhythm, and leaving it untreated can lead to a stroke. One way to automatically detect atrial fibrillation is to train a machine learning algorithm to recognize what atrial fibrillation looks like in the data.

This machine learning approach requires large bio-signal datasets in which instances of atrial fibrillation are labeled. The algorithm can use the labeled instances to learn to recognize a relationship between the bio-signal and atrial fibrillation.

The labeling process can be quite expensive because it requires experts, such as cardiologists, to go through millions of data points and label each instance of atrial fibrillation. The same problem extends to many other bio-signals and disorders.

To resolve this issue, researchers have been developing new ways to train machine learning algorithms with fewer labels. By first training a machine learning model to fill in the blanks of large-scale unlabeled bio-signal data, the machine learning model is primed to learn the relationship between a bio-signal and a disorder with fewer labels. This is called pretraining. Pretraining even helps a machine learning model learn a relationship between a bio-signal and a disorder when it is pretrained on a completely unrelated bio-signal.

Challenges of Working With Bio-Signals

Finding relationships between bio-signals and disorders can be difficult because of noise, or irrelevant data, differences between people’s bio-signals, and because the relationship between a bio-signal and disorder may not be clear.

First, bio-signals contain a lot of noise. For example, when you’re wearing a smartwatch while running, the watch will move around. This causes the sensor for the bio-signal to record at different locations during the run. Since the locations vary across the run, swings in the bio-signal value may now be due to variations in the recording location instead of due to physiological processes.

Second, everyone’s bio-signals are unique. The location of veins, for example, often differ between people. This means that even if smartwatches are worn at exactly the same place on everyone’s wrists, the bio-signal related to those veins is recorded differently from one person to the next. The same underlying signal, such as someone’s heart rate, will lead to different bio-signal values.

The underlying signal itself can also be unique for people or groups of people. The resting heart rate of an average person is around 60-80 beats per minute, but athletes can have resting heart rates as low as 30-40 beats per minute.

Lastly, the relationship between a bio-signal and a disorder is often complex. This means that the disorder is not immediately obvious from looking at the bio-signal.

Machine learning algorithms allow researchers to learn from data and account for the complexity, noise and variability of people. By using large bio-signal datasets, machine learning algorithms are able to find clear relationships that apply to everyone.

Learning to Fill in the Blanks

Researchers can use unlabeled bio-signal data as a warmup for the machine learning algorithm. This warmup, or pre-training, primes the machine learning algorithm to find a relationship between the bio-signal and a disorder. This is a bit like walking around a park to get the lay of the land before working out a route to go running.

There are many ways to pretrain a machine learning algorithm. In my research with Dolby Laboratories researcher Lie Lu and previous research, the machine learning algorithm is taught to fill in the blanks.

To do this, we take a bio-signal and artificially create gaps of a certain length – for example, one second. We then teach the machine learning algorithm to fill in the missing piece of bio-signal. This is possible because the machine learning algorithm sees what the bio-signal looks like before and after the gap.

If the heart rate of a person is around 60 beats per minute before the gap, there will likely be a heartbeat in the one-second gap. In this case, we’re training the machine learning algorithm to predict when that heartbeat will occur.

Once we have trained the machine learning algorithm to do this, it will have found a relationship between someone’s heart rate and when the next beat should occur. We can now train the machine learning algorithm with this relationship between a normal heart rate and bio-signal already learned. This makes it easier for the algorithm to learn the relationship between heart rate and atrial fibrillation. Since atrial fibrillation is characterized by fast and irregular heartbeats, and the algorithm is now good at predicting when a heartbeat will happen, it can quickly learn to detect these irregularities.

The idea of filling in the blanks can be generalized to other bio-signals as well. Previous research has shown, and our work reconfirmed, that pretraining a model on one bio-signal without any labels allows it to learn clinically useful relationships from other bio-signals with few labels. This shortcut means that researchers can pretrain on bio-signals that are easy to gather and use the machine learning model on ones that are hard to gather and label.

Faster Disorder Detection Development

By improving pretraining, researchers can make machine learning algorithms better and more efficient at detecting diseases and disorders. Pretraining improvements reduce cost and time spent by experts labeling.

A recent example of machine learning algorithms used for early detection is Google’s Loss of Pulse smartwatch feature. The emerging field of bio-signal pretraining can help enable faster development of similar features using a wider range of bio-signals and for a wider range of disorders.

With increasing types of bio-signals and more data, researchers may be able to discover relationships that dramatically improve early detection of disease and disorders. The earlier many diseases and disorders are found, the better a treatment plan works for patients.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why does a rocket have to go 25,000 mph (about 40,000 kilometers per hour) to escape Earth? – Bo H., age 10, Durham, New Hampshire

There’s a reason why a rocket has to go so fast to escape Earth. It’s about gravity – something all of us experience every moment of every day.

Gravity is the force that pulls you toward the ground. And that’s a good thing. Gravity keeps you on Earth; otherwise, you would float away into space.

But gravity also makes it difficult to leave Earth if you’re a rocket heading for space. Escaping our planet’s gravitational pull is hard – not only is gravity strong, but it also extends far away from Earth.

Like a Balloon

As a rocket scientist, one of the things I do is teach students how rockets overcome gravity. Here’s how it works:

Essentially, the rocket has to make thrust – that is, create force – by burning propellant to make hot gases. Then it shoots those hot gases out of a nozzle. It’s sort of like blowing up a balloon, letting go of it and watching it fly away as the air rushes out.

More specifically, the rocket propellant consists of both fuel and oxidizer. The fuel is typically something flammable, usually hydrogen, methane or kerosene. The oxidizer is usually liquid oxygen, which reacts with the fuel and allows it to burn.

When going into space and escaping from Earth, rockets need lots of force, so they consume propellant very quickly. That’s a problem, because the rocket can’t carry enough propellant to keep thrusting forever; the amount of propellant needed would make the rocket too heavy to get off the ground.

So what happens when the propellant runs out? The thrust stops, and gravity slows the rocket down until it gradually begins to fall back to Earth.

Fortunately, scientists can launch the rocket with some sideways momentum so that it misses the Earth when it returns. They can even do this so it continuously falls around the Earth forever. In other words, it goes into orbit, and begins to circle the planet.

Many launches intentionally don’t completely leave Earth behind. Thousands of satellites are orbiting our planet right now, and they help phones and TVs work, display weather patterns for meteorologists, and even let you use a credit card to pay for things at the store or gas at the pump. You can sometimes see these satellites in the night sky, including the International Space Station.

Escaping Earth

But suppose the goal is to let the rocket escape from Earth’s gravity forever so it can fly off into the depths of space. That’s when scientists do a neat trick called staging. They launch with a big rocket, and then, once in space, discard it to use a smaller rocket. That way, the journey can continue without the weight of the bigger rocket, and less propellant is needed.

But even staging is not enough; eventually the rocket will run out of propellant. But if the rocket goes fast enough, it can run out of propellant and still continue to coast away from Earth forever, without gravity pulling it back. It’s like riding a bike: build up enough speed and eventually you can coast up a hill without pedaling.

And just like there’s a minimum speed required to coast the bike, there’s a minimum speed a rocket needs to coast away into space: 25,020 mph (about 40,000 kilometers per hour).

Scientists call that speed the escape velocity. A rocket needs to go that fast so that the momentum propelling it away from Earth is stronger than the force of gravity pulling it back. Any slower, and you’ll go into an orbit of Earth.

Escaping Jupiter

Bigger, or more massive, objects have stronger gravitational pull. A rocket launching from a planet bigger than Earth would need to achieve a higher escape speed.

For example, Jupiter is the most massive planet in our solar system. It’s so big, it could swallow 1,000 Earths. So it requires a very high escape speed: 133,100 mph (about 214,000 kilometers per hour), more than five times the escape speed of Earth.

But the extreme example is a black hole, an object so massive that its escape speed is extraordinarily high. So high, in fact, that even light – which has a speed of about 670 million mph (over a billion kilometers per hour) – is not fast enough to escape. That’s why it’s called a black hole.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Imagine walking into your doctor’s office feeling sick – and rather than flipping through pages of your medical history or running tests that take days, your doctor instantly pulls together data from your health records, genetic profile and wearable devices to help decipher what’s wrong.

This kind of rapid diagnosis is one of the big promises of artificial intelligence for use in health care. Proponents of the technology say that over the coming decades, AI has the potential to save hundreds of thousands, even millions of lives.

What’s more, a 2023 study found that if the health care industry significantly increased its use of AI, up to US$360 billion annually could be saved.

But though artificial intelligence has become nearly ubiquitous, from smartphones to chatbots to self-driving cars, its impact on health care so far has been relatively low.

A 2024 American Medical Association survey found that 66% of U.S. physicians had used AI tools in some capacity, up from 38% in 2023. But most of it was for administrative or low-risk support. And although 43% of U.S. health care organizations had added or expanded AI use in 2024, many implementations are still exploratory, particularly when it comes to medical decisions and diagnoses.

I’m a professor and researcher who studies AI and health care analytics. I’ll try to explain why AI’s growth will be gradual, and how technical limitations and ethical concerns stand in the way of AI’s widespread adoption by the medical industry.

Inaccurate Diagnoses, Racial Bias

Artificial intelligence excels at finding patterns in large sets of data. In medicine, these patterns could signal early signs of disease that a human physician might overlook – or indicate the best treatment option, based on how other patients with similar symptoms and backgrounds responded. Ultimately, this will lead to faster, more accurate diagnoses and more personalized care.

AI can also help hospitals run more efficiently by analyzing workflows, predicting staffing needs and scheduling surgeries so that precious resources, such as operating rooms, are used most effectively. By streamlining tasks that take hours of human effort, AI can let health care professionals focus more on direct patient care.

But for all its power, AI can make mistakes. Although these systems are trained on data from real patients, they can struggle when encountering something unusual, or when data doesn’t perfectly match the patient in front of them.

As a result, AI doesn’t always give an accurate diagnosis. This problem is called algorithmic drift – when AI systems perform well in controlled settings but lose accuracy in real-world situations.

Racial and ethnic bias is another issue. If data includes bias because it doesn’t include enough patients of certain racial or ethnic groups, then AI might give inaccurate recommendations for them, leading to misdiagnoses. Some evidence suggests this has already happened.

Data-Sharing Concerns, Unrealistic Expectations

Health care systems are labyrinthian in their complexity. The prospect of integrating artificial intelligence into existing workflows is daunting; introducing a new technology like AI disrupts daily routines. Staff will need extra training to use AI tools effectively. Many hospitals, clinics and doctor’s offices simply don’t have the time, personnel, money or will to implement AI.

Also, many cutting-edge AI systems operate as opaque “black boxes.” They churn out recommendations, but even its developers might struggle to fully explain how. This opacity clashes with the needs of medicine, where decisions demand justification.

But developers are often reluctant to disclose their proprietary algorithms or data sources, both to protect intellectual property and because the complexity can be hard to distill. The lack of transparency feeds skepticism among practitioners, which then slows regulatory approval and erodes trust in AI outputs. Many experts argue that transparency is not just an ethical nicety but a practical necessity for adoption in health care settings.

There are also privacy concerns; data sharing could threaten patient confidentiality. To train algorithms or make predictions, medical AI systems often require huge amounts of patient data. If not handled properly, AI could expose sensitive health information, whether through data breaches or unintended use of patient records.

For instance, a clinician using a cloud-based AI assistant to draft a note must ensure no unauthorized party can access that patient’s data. U.S. regulations such as the HIPAA law impose strict rules on health data sharing, which means AI developers need robust safeguards.

Privacy concerns also extend to patients’ trust: If people fear their medical data might be misused by an algorithm, they may be less forthcoming or even refuse AI-guided care.

The grand promise of AI is a formidable barrier in itself. Expectations are tremendous. AI is often portrayed as a magical solution that can diagnose any disease and revolutionize the health care industry overnight. Unrealistic assumptions like that often lead to disappointment. AI may not immediately deliver on its promises.

Finally, developing an AI system that works well involves a lot of trial and error. AI systems must go through rigorous testing to make certain they’re safe and effective. This takes years, and even after a system is approved, adjustments may be needed as it encounters new types of data and real-world situations.

Incremental Change

Today, hospitals are rapidly adopting AI scribes that listen during patient visits and automatically draft clinical notes, reducing paperwork and letting physicians spend more time with patients. Surveys show over 20% of physicians now use AI for writing progress notes or discharge summaries. AI is also becoming a quiet force in administrative work. Hospitals deploy AI chatbots to handle appointment scheduling, triage common patient questions and translate languages in real time.

Clinical uses of AI exist but are more limited. At some hospitals, AI is a second eye for radiologists looking for early signs of disease. But physicians are still reluctant to hand decisions over to machines; only about 12% of them currently rely on AI for diagnostic help.

Suffice to say that health care’s transition to AI will be incremental. Emerging technologies need time to mature, and the short-term needs of health care still outweigh long-term gains. In the meantime, AI’s potential to treat millions and save trillions awaits.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The new Aerospace Engineering Building will expand research capabilities in areas such as advanced aircraft design, propulsion, materials, cybersecurity, autonomy, and emerging technologies like hydrogen and eVTOL concepts. These efforts will help drive innovation benefiting the aerospace ecosystem.

“I am deeply grateful to The Delta Air Lines Foundation for their support of this new world-class facility that will house one of the best aerospace engineering programs in the world,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “Their help and participation will be key to the development of the talent, research, and innovation that will secure our state’s position as a global hub for aerospace technology.”

The new building will serve as the home for Georgia Tech’s Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, which is ranked No. 1 among public institutions and No. 2 overall by U.S. News & World Report. Enrolling more than 2,300 students and leading $54.5 million in annual aerospace related research activity, the School is one of the largest and most influential aerospace engineering programs in the country.

“At The Delta Air Lines Foundation, we are committed to supporting education to advance the future of aviation. Our collaboration with Georgia Tech reflects our belief in the impact of innovation and sustainable technologies. This investment will help equip students to explore new ideas, develop more efficient solutions, and contribute to a stronger, forward‑looking aerospace industry,” said John Laughter, trustee of The Delta Air Lines Foundation and Georgia Tech graduate.

The Delta Air Lines Foundation’s commitment aligns with Georgia Tech’s goals to expand the aerospace engineering program, bolster the talent pipeline, and drive economic impact for Georgia and the Southeast. 

Mitchell Walker, William R.T. Oakes Jr. School Chair in the Guggenheim School, said, “This commitment from The Delta Air Lines Foundation strengthens our ability to deliver a rigorous, hands-on aerospace engineering education through modern spaces for research, instruction, and collaboration. It will also convene leaders in aerospace technology to accelerate our work in sustainable aviation and the workforce development needed to achieve cleaner and more efficient flight.”

This investment builds on the longstanding collaboration between The Delta Air Lines Foundation, Delta Air Lines, and Georgia Tech, supporting research, innovation, and workforce development that strengthens Georgia’s economy and contributes to progress across the global aviation industry. Aligned with Georgia Tech’s mission to develop leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition, this significant commitment is included in Transforming Tomorrow: The Campaign for Georgia Tech and propelling its success. By supporting Georgia Tech’s leadership in aerospace education and research, The Delta Air Lines Foundation is helping catalyze the ideas, technologies, and talent that will shape the future of aviation in Georgia and beyond.
 

The Delta Air Lines Foundation

The Delta Air Lines Foundation is a nonprofit corporation formed in 1968 to enhance Delta’s charitable giving. The Foundation is focused on the key areas of environment, equity, education, and entire wellness. In the past decade, the Foundation has awarded more than $150 million in grants to nonprofit organizations across the United States.

McDowell is one 130 new members and 28 international members in the 2026 class. Election to the NAE is among the highest professional recognitions for engineers and an honor bestowed on just 2,900 professionals worldwide. New members are nominated and voted on by the Academy’s existing membership.

McDowell is Georgia Tech’s 50th NAE member. He is Regents’ Professor Emeritus in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

Read the full story about McDowell on the College of Engineering website.

Growing up, Sophia says her father’s academic career gave her early exposure to the world of engineering, but she never felt pressured to follow in his footsteps. 

“I was always around it,” said Sophia, who earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering in 2020 and her master’s degree in biomedical engineering in 2024. “But I was allowed to pave my own pathway. We were both engineers at Georgia Tech, but we were in two separate domains.”

For Dimitri, whose arrival at Georgia Tech began almost by chance, the Institute quickly became a defining force in his life. Nearly 45 years ago, he left his native Greece — where aerospace engineering wasn’t offered — after his sister married a Tech graduate research assistant who encouraged him to attend the Institute. 

What he found was a rigorous curriculum, outstanding faculty, and peers who shared his passion. 

“In the last four decades, Georgia Tech has evolved quite a bit,” he says. “It is one of the premier institutions — in terms of excellence, the caliber of students we attract, and the reputation we have. I thought that this was the best place for me.”

As did Sophia.

Her academic journey began with a love of math and science in high school. Combined with an early introduction to Tech’s chemical and biomedical engineering programs through her father’s  colleague, her decision to pursue that journey was easy. 

“Georgia Tech is the best in the state and the Southeast for STEM,” she says. “It was a no-brainer.”

While they shared a campus, the two enjoyed their own “bubbles,” as Sophia describes them. With biomedical engineering on one side of campus and aerospace on the other, they built their identities independently, but Sophia found comfort in knowing support was never far.

“If I ever had a bad day or needed advice, he was just a walk away,” she says. 

For Dimitri, his presence on campus positioned him to offer mentorship and counsel to Sophia as she navigated her Tech path, including the timing of internships and progress through research milestones. “By knowing the system,” he says, “sometimes you can avoid wrong moves.”

Both recall fond Tech memories — from family trips; to volleyball, football, and basketball games; to Dimitri’s experience during the 1996 Olympics, when the Institute helped the city prepare its hosting bid by creating virtual representations of possible venues. This ultimately led to Atlanta hosting the 1996 Games and Georgia Tech hosting Olympic athletes. 

As Sophia reflects on her years at the Institute, she acknowledges the rigor that defines the Georgia Tech experience.

“The coursework is very challenging — it’s a badge of honor to say you made it,” she says. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” 

And at this year’s Fall Commencement, Dimitri will be at the finish line, once again donning his regalia to hood his Ph.D. graduates for almost the 70th time. Gesturing to the rows of bound dissertations on his bookshelves, he says, “I hold the record, with 310 Ph.D.s graduated. So having one for my daughter is very special.” 

Even when engineers have a working device and brain, called a controller, changes and improvements to the exoskeleton system typically mean data collection and training start all over again. The process is expensive and makes bringing fully functional exoskeletons or robotic limbs into the real world largely impractical.

Not anymore, thanks to Georgia Tech engineers and computer scientists.

They’ve created an artificial intelligence tool that can turn huge amounts of existing data on how people move into functional exoskeleton controllers. No data collection, retraining, and hours upon hours of additional lab time required for each specific device.

Their approach has produced an exoskeleton brain capable of offering meaningful assistance across a huge range of hip and knee movements that works as well as the best controllers currently available. Their worked was published Nov. 19 in Science Robotics.

Full details on the College of Engineering website.

Major airports across the United States were subject to a 4% reduction in flights on Nov. 7, 2025, as the government shutdown began to affect travelers.

The move by the Federal Aviation Administration is intended to ease pressure on air traffic controllers, many of whom have been working for weeks without pay after the government shut down on Oct. 1. While nonessential employees were furloughed, workers deemed essential, such as air traffic controllers, have continued to do their jobs.

But what does that mean for the many Americans who take to the skies every day? To find out, The Conversation U.S. spoke with Laurie A. Garrow, a civil aviation expert at Georgia Tech.

What Do We Know About the FAA’s Plans So Far?

The first thing to note is that things can change fast. But as of this morning, 4% of flights are being canceled across 40 “high-volume” airports. The list is publicly available, but it includes most of the big hubs across the United States, such as Atlanta, New York’s airports, Chicago O'Hare, Los Angeles International and Dallas/Fort Worth.

The plan is to ramp this up to 10% by Nov. 14 should the shutdown extend that long.

The FAA, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the airlines are working together on the details of which flights and routes are affected – and this will no doubt be monitored as the days go on.

But they are trying to make the cancellations in a way that cause the least disruption to customers.

So we are looking at cuts to domestic, not international, flights – flights across the Atlantic, Pacific and to Latin America are not, for now at least, subject to cuts.

The 4% of cancellations we are seeing are really targeting the high-frequency routes. This should help mitigate the impact. For example, typically American Airlines flies nine flights a day from Miami to Orlando, but they are planning to fly eight this weekend.

And carriers are looking at reducing regional flights. For example, my mom lives near Erie, Pennsylvania, where American Airlines flies three daily flights to their hub in Charlotte – I would expect that to go down to two, or one.

But the FAA was clear that it wasn’t going to cut flights to markets entirely, just reduce them.

What Will This Mean for Existing Flights?

For starters, you are going to see more passengers on them. It is fortunate that we are in the lull before Thanksgiving. This isn’t like the summer. There is more slack in the system – so there are extra seats available. If one flight gets canceled on a busy route, it will at this stage be fairly easy to accommodate on another flight.

And I expect customers will be asked to get to airports a little earlier than they would normally.

But people should expect more delays on existing flights. This is because of the way we maintain safety in the air transportation system. Air traffic control can only safely watch a certain number of flights. So when you have someone not at work, or a reduction in number of controllers, you will need to reduce the number of airplanes in the sky. You can’t ask a controller to watch, say, 20 flights when they usually watch 10. So what you do is put in more ground delay programs to limit the number of aircraft coming into or out of an airport. This causes delays but is necessary in peak periods.

What Impact Will This Have on Airlines?

At 4%, probably not too much of an impact. When you look at the list of airports affected, it is balanced from the point of view that many are large hubs and the pain is being shared across all U.S. carriers.

As for the impact on other types of businesses, at the moment it is mainly the industries that air transportation supports. According to the International Air Transport Association, the air transport sector in the U.S. – covering airlines, airports and tourism enabled by aviation –contributes about US$1.3 trillion, or about 4.7%, to GDP and supports about 7.6 million jobs. If these wider sectors are severely affected, it could create a longer-term impact on the economy.

And if This Continues Into the Holiday Season?

That is when it will get painful for the carriers. If we are looking at reduction of 10% going into the holiday season with additional delays, then that is when the real pain will be felt.

Will This Affect How Americans Choose to Travel?

Air travel is what I call an emotional mode of transport – we use it for the events that are most significant in our life, such as big family meet-ups, holidays and major face-to-face business deals. So this may affect how people choose to travel going into the holiday season if it is more difficult to get people back to their families in time.

Robert Isom, CEO of American Airlines, said on Nov. 7 that they are seeing an impact on bookings, with people postponing and rescheduling travel.

I certainly think for people looking at a 500- to 600-mile trip, the option of traveling by car is looking more appealing right now.

Will Passengers be Compensated for Canceled Flights?

Typically, compensation depends on whether the delay or cancellation was within the airline’s control. The U.S. Department of Transportation has created a dashboard showing “what services U.S. airlines provide to mitigate passenger inconveniences when the cause of a cancellation or delay was due to circumstances within the airline’s control.”

However, delays and cancellations caused by ATC staffing shortages are not considered to be within the airline’s control, and it is up to each airline to decide if and how they will compensate passengers.

As of Nov. 7, many airlines had announced they were allowing customers to change their flights or request a refund without penalty, including nonrefundable fares such as basic economy.

After all, it is in their interest, too, that people continue to fly.

Typically, major carriers offer more services for delayed and canceled flights within their control than low-cost carriers.

Is There any Precedent for This? What Happened Then?

There is no real precedent for what we are seeing: a 4% to 10% reduction across the board due to a government shutdown. But we have seen major disruptions, such as after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and during the pandemic, when COVID-19 ran through flight attendants and pilots before the holidays – that caused flight cancellations and delays.

Historically, when we have seen something like this, we have seen consumer behavior change for a short period. After 9/11, when U.S. travelers had the hassle of increased security, there was a shift to more automobile travel for those 500- to 600-mile journeys.

What Advice Would You Give Would-Be Flyers Now?

First off, download the app for the airport and airline carrier so you get up-to-date, reliable information. And if you can book for a day earlier than you normally would for a major event, do so – it provides a buffer in case your flight is delayed or canceled.

And try to avoid connections at all costs. The fewer legs, the fewer things can go wrong.

Also, don’t check bags if you can. There is nothing worse than getting to an airport, finding your flight is canceled, and then having to wait for your luggage to get returned.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

• Undergraduate need-based student scholarships.
• Program support to enhance the student experience.
• A new philanthropy challenge aimed at teaching the next generation of philanthropists.

“Georgia Tech’s commitment to excellence and its unwavering support for students align perfectly with the Clark Foundation’s mission,” said Courtney Clark Pastrick, board chair of the Clark Foundation. “This investment will allow Georgia Tech to reach even more talented engineering students, enrich their educational journey, and instill in them the values of service and philanthropy that were so important to my father.”

The Clark Foundation’s initial investments in 2018 included endowed funding that covers the unmet need for 10 new students each year. Each Clark Scholars Program cohort is supported through their undergraduate career, resulting in 40 to 50 actively supported students at any given time. This latest investment will elevate the number of supported students to upwards of 100, once the additional funding is fully deployed.

As part of the Clark Scholars Program, students meet with Georgia Tech leadership and alumni mentors, receive tutoring, participate in career planning, and volunteer for community service projects.

“This support allows our students to have hands-on learning experiences, obtain career development skills, and support for mental health and well-being,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College of Engineering and Southern Company Chair. “I’m grateful for the countless ways the Clark Foundation has changed the lives of our engineers. This investment is a testament to the meaningful partnership between Georgia Tech and the Clark Foundation and perpetuates the Foundation’s lasting impact.”

As part of its Invest in the Best Scholarship Challenge, Georgia Tech is committed to removing financial barriers and enriching the educational experience for bright, qualified students. Through this initiative, the Georgia Tech Foundation matched the scholarship portion of the Clark Foundation’s recent funding dollar-for-dollar, increasing the total number of students the Clark Scholars Program will support.

These collective funds will double the number of scholarships for highly deserving engineering students with low and limited income, allowing them to have the resources necessary to attend Georgia Tech. The funds will also cover academic fees and expenses in addition to learning opportunities such as research, study abroad, and summer courses.

Additionally, the Clark Foundation’s recent investment will support programmatic elements of the Clark Scholars Program, ensuring that Scholars are successful on campus and equipped with the skills and life experiences to graduate as well-rounded, highly skilled engineers. 

“Georgia Tech demands an enormous amount from its students. In addition to funding their education, a gift like this ensures that our Scholars can focus on their coursework because they know that mental health support and professional development curricula are in place to promote their success,” said David Torello, Clark Scholars program director at Georgia Tech. “It also gives us the resources to provide life skills to our students, such as financial advising and career coaching. The Foundation’s support is radically changing our students’ life trajectories.”

Finally, the Clark Foundation is funding a new initiative — the Clark Scholars Philanthropy Challenge. The Challenge will help educate Scholars on the work of nonprofit organizations and the impact individual giving can have on their local communities.

Students will evaluate local nonprofits by studying financial filings, reviewing impact reports, and interviewing leadership. The Scholars will then donate to one of the organizations using funds from the Philanthropy Challenge Endowment. The hands-on experience will allow students to learn about philanthropy and philanthropic grantmaking, cultivate a charitable spirit, and create and strengthen the connection between the Scholars and their local communities.

“The Clark Foundation’s vision and generosity continue to have a lasting impact on the College of Engineering and Georgia Tech,” Beyah said. “Mr. and Mrs. Clark’s enduring legacy allows our students to gain the skills and experiences they’ll use to make the world a better place as service-minded leaders in their fields.”

To make a gift to the College of Engineering, contact Dave Zaksheske, executive director of Development for the College of Engineering, at davez@coe.gatech.edu.

“John Durstine’s historic generosity is deeply inspiring to all of us working to carry out the Institute’s mission,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “John could have left his estate to many good causes, and he chose to invest in Georgia Tech’s faculty because he knew firsthand the transformative impact that our outstanding faculty have in the lives and careers of our students. This gift will have an enduring impact and will ensure that Georgia Tech faculty have the resources to push the boundaries of mechanical engineering, inspire our students, and help improve the human condition. His legacy will live on in every discovery, every innovation, and every student who learns from the faculty his gift supports.”

The Woodruff School offers one of the nation’s largest and most influential mechanical and nuclear engineering programs, with more than 110 faculty and 3,000 students. Faculty lead groundbreaking work in advanced manufacturing, bioengineering, robotics, nuclear technology, and artificial intelligence in engineering design. Durstine’s gift will allow Georgia Tech to attract both early-career rising stars and internationally recognized pioneers of academia, keeping the School at the forefront of innovation. 

Read the full story.

The structures they created greatly reduced the variability of mechanical properties typically found in recycled plastic. Their product also maintained the performance of the original plastic materials.

The researchers said their bio-inspired design could help cut manufacturing costs of virgin packaging materials by nearly 50% and offer potential savings of hundreds of millions of dollars. And, because less than 10% of the 350 million tons of plastics produced each year is effectively recycled, the Georgia Tech approach could keep more plastic out of landfills.

Aerospace engineering assistant professor Christos Athanasiou led the study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 

Read the Q&A of the findings, and see a video of the testing, on the College of Engineering website. 

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of Course:

Art and Generative AI

What Prompted the Idea for the Course?

I see many students viewing artificial intelligence as humanlike simply because it can write essays, do complex math or answer questions. AI can mimic human behavior but lacks meaningful engagement with the world. This disconnect inspired the course and was shaped by the ideas of 20th-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger. His work highlights how we are deeply connected and present in the world. We find meaning through action, care and relationships. Human creativity and mastery come from this intuitive connection with the world. Modern AI, by contrast, simulates intelligence by processing symbols and patterns without understanding or care.

In this course, we reject the illusion that machines fully master everything and put student expression first. In doing so, we value uncertainty, mistakes and imperfection as essential to the creative process.

This vision expands beyond the classroom. In the 2025-26 academic year, the course will include a new community-based learning collaboration with Atlanta’s art communities. Local artists will co-teach with me to integrate artistic practice and AI.

The course builds on my 2018 class, Art and Geometry, which I co-taught with local artists. The course explored Picasso’s cubism, which depicted reality as fractured from multiple perspectives; it also looked at Einstein’s relativity, the idea that time and space are not absolute and distinct but part of the same fabric.

What Does the Course Explore?

We begin with exploring the first mathematical model of a neuron, the perceptron. Then, we study the Hopfield network, which mimics how our brain can remember a song from just listening to a few notes by filling in the rest. Next, we look at Hinton’s Boltzmann Machine, a generative model that can also imagine and create new, similar songs. Finally, we study today’s deep neural networks and transformers, AI models that mimic how the brain learns to recognize images, speech or text. Transformers are especially well suited for understanding sentences and conversations, and they power technologies such as ChatGPT.

In addition to AI, we integrate artistic practice into the coursework. This approach broadens students’ perspectives on science and engineering through the lens of an artist. The first offering of the course in spring 2025 was co-taught with Mark Leibert, an artist and professor of the practice at Georgia Tech. His expertise is in art, AI and digital technologies. He taught students fundamentals of various artistic media, including charcoal drawing and oil painting. Students used these principles to create art using AI ethically and creatively. They critically examined the source of training data and ensured that their work respects authorship and originality.

Students also learn to record brain activity using electroencephalography – EEG – headsets. Through AI models, they then learn to transform neural signals into music, images and storytelling. This work inspired performances where dancers improvised in response to AI-generated music.

Why is This Course Relevant Now?

AI entered our lives so rapidly that many people don’t fully grasp how it works, why it works, when it fails or what its mission is.

In creating this course, the aim is to empower students by filling that gap. Whether they are new to AI or not, the goal is to make its inner algorithms clear, approachable and honest. We focus on what these tools actually do and how they can go wrong.

We place students and their creativity first. We reject the illusion of a perfect machine, but we provoke the AI algorithm to confuse and hallucinate, when it generates inaccurate or nonsensical responses. To do so, we deliberately use a small dataset, reduce the model size or limit training. It’s in these flawed states of AI that students step in as conscious co-creators. The students are the missing algorithm that takes back control of the creative process. Their creations do not obey AI but reimagine it by the human hand. The artwork is rescued from automation.

What’s a Critical Lesson From the Course?

Students learn to recognize AI’s limitations and harness its failures to reclaim creative authorship. The artwork isn’t generated by AI, but it’s reimagined by students.

Students learn chatbot queries have an environmental cost because large AI models use a lot of power. They avoid unnecessary iterations when designing prompts or using AI. This helps reducing carbon emissions.

What Will the Course Prepare Students to Do?

The course prepares students to think like artists. Through abstraction and imagination they gain the confidence to tackle the engineering challenges of the 21st century. These include protecting the environment, building resilient cities and improving health.

Students also realize that while AI has vast engineering and scientific applications, ethical implementation is crucial. Understanding the type and quality of training data that AI uses is essential. Without it, AI systems risk producing biased or flawed predictions.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The research offers one of the deepest looks at publications and gender dynamics in climate science. The field is unique because it blends male-dominated areas of study — geosciences and engineering — with those that are majority-women, including sociology, public health, and life sciences. 

The study examined more than 400,000 publications between 1903 and 2018. The findings don’t include topics such as salaries, number of women in the field, or tenure rates. 

Read the entire story on the College of Engineering news page. 

Right now, about 70 million miles away, a Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech streaks through the cosmos. It’s a briefcase-sized spacecraft called Lunar Flashlight that was assembled in a Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) cleanroom in 2021, then launched aboard a SpaceX rocket in 2022. 

The plan was to send Lunar Flashlight to the moon, where the spacecraft would shoot lasers at its south pole in a search for frozen water. Mission control for the flight was on Georgia Tech’s campus, where students in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering (AE) sat in the figurative driver’s seat. They worked for several months in 2023 to coax the craft toward its intended orbit in coordination with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL). 

A faulty propulsion system kept the CubeSat from reaching its goal. Disappointing, to be sure, but it opened a new series of opportunities for the student controllers. When it was clear Lunar Flashlight wouldn’t reach the moon and instead settle into an orbit of the sun, JPL turned over ownership to Georgia Tech. It’s now the only higher education institution that has controlled an interplanetary spacecraft. 

Lunar Flashlight’s initial orbit, planned destination, and current whereabouts mirrors much of the College of Engineering’s research in space technology. Some faculty are focused on projects in low earth orbit (LEO). Others have an eye on the moon. A third group is looking well beyond our small area of the solar system. 

No matter the distance, though, each of these Georgia Tech engineers is working toward a new era of exploration and scientific discovery.

Meet them in the latest issue of Helluva Engineer magazine.

A charcoal-like material made from leaves and branches that collect on forest floors could be a cheap, sustainable way to keep pollution from washing off roadways and into Georgia’s lakes and rivers.

Engineers at Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern University have found that this biological charcoal, or biochar, can be mixed with soil and used along roadways to catch grimy rainwater and filter it naturally before it pollutes surface water.

Their tests found the biochar effectively cleans contaminants from the rainwater and works just as well in the sandy soils of the coastal plain as in the clays of north Georgia. Their biochar-soil mixture can be easily substituted for expensive material mined from the earth that’s typically used on roads. 

Though they focused on Georgia, the researchers said the findings could easily apply across the U.S., providing a simple, natural way to keep road pollutants out of water sources. They published their approach in the Journal of Environmental Management.

Learn about their system on the College of Engineering website.

Karen Feigh and the 13-person committee found that the FAA hired only about two-thirds of the controllers it projected from 2013 to 2023. Due to attrition during that time — and because hiring didn’t accelerate until 2024 — 19 of the FAA’s largest facilities have 15% fewer people managing airspace than they need. 

For example, the report shows the tower at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest, is 17% below full staff. 

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report provides guidance to the FAA about establishing appropriate staffing levels. It also suggests specific improvements in hiring, training, scheduling, and fatigue management for the FAA’s 313 facilities.

Read a Q&A with Feigh about the report on the College of Engineering website. 

Imagine you’re driving to the Atlanta airport to pick up a friend. They call to say they’re in the terminal — but they’re not sure which one. North, maybe? You head that direction through the maze of roads around the airport.

Then they call back. They’re actually in the South Terminal. So you make a quick mental adjustment and switch your route to arrive at the correct side of the airport.

You had a plan. You received new information. You quickly changed your destination. 
The question Prince has studied is this: How does that process happen in the brain?

A new research paper in Nature Communications is offering insights into that decision-making. And it could help scientists as they work to better understand when brain disorders such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s impair those processes.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Georgia Tech researchers have been meeting with the choreographer, Troy Schumacher, and the ballet company for the last year and a half to shape the concept, which explores ideas at the forefront of mechanical interventions into the human body and mind.

“I think the arts can be a really powerful way to bring people from all backgrounds into a conversation about science and technology,” said Chris Rozell, a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who has worked on the project since its genesis. “My goal is to facilitate that conversation by helping to translate between the scientists doing amazing work and the artists who are approaching these ideas from the perspective of making something beautiful.”  

Georgia Tech Arts and TMBT have dubbed the project the “Grand Neuroethics Challenge.”

“A lot of the concepts, technologies, research, and ethics we've been discussing in this work are extremely complicated, but what's come through for me is that a lot of their work is going to have profound implications for the future of humanity,” said Schumacher. “So, for this ballet, I've decided to focus on the emotional relationship to brain-machine interfaces, while touching on what I've learned so far. I've spent most of my career collaborating with artists with little to no relationship to dance, but nothing quite as complex and fascinating as this.”

Aaron Shackelford, director of Georgia Tech Arts, said the project is a worthwhile endeavor because it offers a case study as to the importance of collaboration between artists and researchers, while demonstrating the importance of the arts in the mission and strategic plan of Georgia Tech.

“We recognize that the arts are critical to championing innovation and creativity at Georgia Tech,” said Shackelford. “Our mission is to develop leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The arts — and artists — provide a vital avenue for pursuing this work. This project illuminates the impact of artists and researchers coming together to mutually inspire and learn from each other, while inviting audiences to participate in the discussions about their discoveries.”

“As a director coming from an arts/dance background and facilitator to this project, I have become fascinated with the work of the scientists during the conceiving/creation process and how this gets interwoven into the choreography and dancers’ bodies,” said John Welker, TMBT’s artistic director. “In any collaboration, there are surprises that are part of my joy for discovery, but this particular process has made me so much more aware and appreciative of the intimate connection between our minds' intention and how that is carried out through the movement of our bodies.”

This Friday will be more than a dance performance. It will also include talks from the researchers involved in the project and opportunities for audience to ask questions. Rozell will discuss his work on AI and its applications in treating depression. Chethan Pandarinath, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Tech, will talk about his AI research and how the brain controls movement. They’ll be joined by Karen Rommelfanger, director of Emory’s Neuroethics Program.

Rommelfanger knows the field of neuroscience can introduce complex words and concepts. When mixed with dance, however, she sees the project as a powerful opportunity for audiences to engage with multiple modalities of sensation and comprehension.

“I believe neuroscience brings great hope and promise for humanity. But my fear is that the promise of the field will be undermined by a deterioration of trust related to a real and hyped threats of unconsidered ways neuroscience might interface with individuals and society,” said Rommelfanger.” My hope is that this project will invite audiences, including myself, to challenge and surface our unspoken values and assumptions about the brain and technologies that interface with it.”

Friday’s event starts at 8pm at the Ferst Center for the Arts. Tickets are just $10. The full work, which is made possible in part through a grant from the Charles Loridans Foundation, will premiere on campus next fall.

“I’m excited to see how something as abstract as the concepts in neuroscience, neurotechnology, and neuroethics can be translated into dance,” Rozell said. “As a researcher, we can get really caught up in the technical details. I can’t wait to see how those details turn into an overall impression that is both beautiful and gives us a new way to think about what we do.”

Their experimental approach worked against those kinds of cancers in lab tests and didn’t damage healthy tissues. Importantly, it also stopped cancer from returning.

While the therapy is still in early stages of development, it builds on well established, safe technologies, giving the treatment a clearer, quicker path to clinical trials and patient care.

Reported in May in the journal Nature Cancer, their technique is a one-two punch that flags tumor cells so they can be recognized and then eliminated by specially enhanced T cells from the patient’s own immune system.

Get all the details on the College of Engineering website.

“Popping the Manu” will make you a winner. 

Georgia Tech researchers studied dives by the Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, who have made Manu jumping a cultural tradition. By hitting the water in a “V” shape, then quickly extending their bodies underwater, they’ve perfected the art of huge splashes. 

See a video on how to make the splash and read the entire story on the College of Engineering homepage. 

At the heart of this family connection is a beautiful academic journey shared between three generations of Yellow Jackets: ISyE Associate Professor, Gunter Sharp (IE ’65, IE PhD ’73), his son Alexander Sharp (B.S. in Applied Biology ‘89, and M.S. in Environmental Engineering ‘99), and his granddaughter, Melina Sharp (IE ‘25). 

This story by Janette Neuwahl Tannen is shared jointly with the University of Miami newsroom. 

Today, most of us carry a fairly powerful computer in our hand — a smartphone.

But computers weren’t always so portable. Since the 1980s, they have become smaller, lighter, and better equipped to store and process vast troves of data.

Yet the silicon chips that power computers can only get so small.

“Over the past 50 years, the number of transistors we can put on a chip has doubled every two years,” says Kun Wang, assistant professor of physics at the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences. “But we are rapidly reaching the physical limits for silicon-based electronics, and it’s more challenging to miniaturize electronic components using the technologies we have been using for half a century.”

It’s a problem that Wang and many in his field of molecular electronics are hoping to solve. Specifically, they are looking for a way to conduct electricity without using silicon or metal, which are used to create computer chips today. Using tiny molecular materials for functional components, like transistors, sensors, and interconnects in electronic chips offers several advantages, especially as traditional silicon-based technologies approach their physical and performance limits.

But finding the ideal chemical makeup for this molecule has stumped scientists. Recently, Wang, along with his graduate students, Mehrdad Shiri and Shaocheng Shen, and collaborators Jason Azoulay, associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia Research Alliance Vasser-Woolley Distinguished Investigator; and Ignacio Franco, professor at the University of Rochester, uncovered a promising solution.

This week, the team shared what they believe is the world’s most electrically conductive organic molecule. Their discovery, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, opens up new possibilities for constructing smaller, more powerful computing devices at the molecular scale. Even better, the molecule is composed of chemical elements found in nature — mostly carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen.

“So far, there is no molecular material that allows electrons to go across it without significant loss of conductivity,” Wang says. “This work is the first demonstration that organic molecules can allow electrons to migrate across it without any energy loss over several tens of nanometers.”

The testing and validation of their unique new molecule took more than two years.

However, the work of this team reveals that their molecules are stable under everyday ambient conditions and offer the highest possible electrical conductance at unparalleled lengths. Therefore, it could pave the way for classical computing devices to become smaller, more energy-efficient, as well as cost-efficient, Wang adds.

Currently, the ability of a molecule to conduct electrons decreases exponentially as the molecular size increases. These newly developed molecular “wires” are needed highways for information to be transferred, processed, and stored in future computing, Wang says.

“What’s unique in our molecular system is that electrons travel across the molecule like a bullet without energy loss, so it is theoretically the most efficient way of electron transport in any material system,” Wang notes. “Not only can it downsize future electronic devices, but its structure could also enable functions that were not even possible with silicon-based materials.”

Wang means that the molecule’s abilities might create new opportunities to revolutionize molecule-based quantum information science.

“The ultra-high electrical conductance observed in our molecules is a result of an intriguing interaction of electron spins at the two ends of the molecule,” he adds. “In the future, one could use this molecular system as a qubit, which is a fundamental unit for quantum computing.”

The team was able to notice these abilities by studying their new molecule under a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Using a technique called STM break-junction, the team was able to capture a single molecule and measure its conductance.

Shiri, the graduate student, adds: “In terms of application, this molecule is a big leap toward real-world applications. Since it is chemically robust and air-stable, it could even be integrated with existing nanoelectronic components in a chip and work as an electronic wire or interconnects between chips.”

Beyond that, the materials needed to compose the molecule are inexpensive, and it can be created in a lab.

“This molecular system functions in a way that is not possible with current, conventional materials,” Wang says. “These are new properties that would not add to the cost but could make (computing devices) more powerful and energy efficient.” 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c18150

Funding: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy
Sciences; National Science Foundation (NSF); Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under support provided by the Organic Materials
Chemistry Program; Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) Graduate
Student Researcher Fellowship Program (GSFP). Computational resources were provided by the Center for Integrated Research Computing (CIRC) at the
University of Rochester.

Along with Jason Azoulay, Georgia Tech co-authors also include Paramasivam Mahalingam, Tyler Bills, Alexander J. Bushnell, and Tanya A. Balandin.

The updated list, out April 8, also placed each of the College’s individual disciplines ninth or higher. It’s the 14th straight year with every program in the top 10.

See the full rankings on the College of Engineering website.

A team of biomedical engineering students represented Georgia Tech at the ACC InVenture Prize Competition in South Bend, Indiana, pitching an invention that could improve wound care for chronic patients and efficiency in healthcare systems.  

Over three grueling days, Beldick swam 6.2 miles, biked 261.4 miles, and ran a double marathon (52.4 miles) in the Ultraman Florida event — while managing nutrition, fatigue, and the mental battle that accompanies ultra-endurance racing. He’s now one of the youngest competitors to finish this extreme 320-mile triathlon.

“For me, it’s about pushing myself to the limits of my potential and seeing the kind of person I become as a result,” Beldick said. “I also love being around other people striving to be the best versions of themselves, and Ultraman provided the perfect blend of both. I met so many incredible people while facing a challenge that shaped me into a stronger, more capable version of myself.”

More about Beldick's journey on the College of Engineering website.

Their work could unlock a new wave of at-home testing options and provide new diagnostic capabilities in parts of the world where medical resources are scarce.

The testing platform fills a gap in using cell-free synthetic biology for disease detection. Existing cell-free tools have proven effective at measuring DNA, RNA, and other small molecules, but not proteins. That’s an important advance because proteins in viruses or bacteria tend to change less than the DNA or RNA sequences that encode those proteins. They’re also easier to detect since they can be found on the outside of cell walls or free-floating in biofluids. 

“Diagnosing disease and democratizing medical care by putting it into the public's hands has great potential. You can have a big impact on a lot of people,” said Mark Styczynski, William R. McLain Endowed Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

“I think about that a lot in terms of the developing world, but also there's a lot of healthcare inequality even in the United States. Studies have shown your ZIP code can determine your life expectancy. You can think about people in sub-Saharan Africa or people in rural Appalachia all benefiting. They’re among those who need more access to low-cost tools.”

Styczynski and a group of researchers led by former Ph.D. student Megan McSweeney presented their test in late February in the journal Science Advances.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Making the switch could slash the impact of one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions: Buildings account for roughly 1/5 of emissions globally. By some estimates, using hemp-based products would reduce the environmental impact of insulation by 90% or more. 

The Georgia Tech researchers’ work, reported this month in the Journal of Cleaner Production, is one of the first studies to evaluate the potential for scaling up U.S. production and availability of hemp-based insulation products.

Read about their findings on the College of Engineering website.

Georgia Tech’s Space Exploration and Analysis Laboratory (SEAL) has developed new algorithms that are headed to the Moon, as part of the Intuitive Machine’s IM-2 mission. The mission is sending a Nova-C class lunar lander named Athena to the Moon’s south pole region to test technologies and collect data that aim to enable future exploration. The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

The Academy announced his election Feb. 11 as part of a 2025 class that included 127 other U.S. members and 22 international members. Election to the NAE is among the highest professional recognitions for engineers and an honor bestowed on just 2,800 professionals worldwide.

New members are nominated and voted on by NAE’s existing membership. Facchetti is Georgia Tech’s 49th member.

“I was quite shocked and honored when I received the news. NAE includes some of the greatest minds in the engineering field, and to be named among them is truly humbling,” said Facchetti, professor and Hightower Chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. “I’m inspired to continue contributing to the future of unconventional electronic materials.”

Read more about Facchetti's work on the College of Engineering website.

Bleaching happens when ocean waters heat up, causing corals to expel the colorful algae that live in their tissues. It can lead to disease and death for coral, wiping out critical and complex marine ecosystems.

Four Georgia Tech Ocean Science and Engineering (OSE) Ph.D. students have spent the last few months working on creative ways to prevent bleaching by cooling the water around coral reefs. They presented their ideas in late October to marine biologists and conservations in the Florida Keys as part of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s Coral Reef Thermal Stress Design Thinking Challenge & Workshop.

Read about the team's coral-cooling solution on the College of Engineering website.

The Academy announced his election Oct. 21 alongside 99 others. Membership in NAM is considered one of the highest recognitions in health and medicine, reserved for those who’ve made major contributions to healthcare, medical sciences, and public health. The roster is small: only 2,400 or so individuals have been honored.

“It’s an honor to be elected to the National Academy of Medicine and have the work of our team at Georgia Tech recognized in this way,” said Prausnitz, Regents’ Professor and J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

The Academy cited Prausnitz for innovating microneedle and other advanced drug delivery technologies. He also was honored for translating those methods and devices into clinical trials and products and founding companies to bring the advances to patients. NAM praised Prausnitz for “inspiring students to be creative and impactful engineers.”

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Maybe it’s stubbornness, a refusal to let the degenerative neurological condition that has paralyzed much of her body control what she does.

Maybe it’s the fact that, despite three trips to the Paralympic Games going back to London in 2012 and despite medaling in 2016 and 2021, she still doesn’t have an elusive gold medal.

Maybe it’s simply that she’s been an athlete her entire life and thrives by pushing herself.

Whatever the motivation, Mitchell has qualified for her fourth straight Paralympic Games and will compete in the discus throw in Paris when the events get underway Aug. 28 – Sept. 8.

“My goal has been to be on the top of the podium, to see the flag come up, to hear the national anthem at a Paralympic Games. I have been blessed to get that at World Championships and some other events, but not at a Paralympic Games,” said Mitchell, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “That just keeps me coming back. It’s like this sign I keep on my shelf: ‘Never, never, never give up.’ As long as I am able to go out, be competitive, and have a chance, then I want to keep going.”

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

But researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have overcome these limitations through the development of an inexpensive, easy-to-assemble, modular, autonomous tracking microscope.

Costing $400 in parts with DIY assembly instructions available, Trackoscope is a frugal-science innovation accessible to a wide range of users, from high school laboratories to resource-constrained research environments.

Read the full story on the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering website.

The honor is annually awarded to European scholars and engineers for their research and contributing to the development of advanced technologies. Members also demonstrate a strong commitment to promoting science and technology in Europe.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

The river has been closed to swimmers for the past 100 years because of pollution, but Olympic organizers hope to stage the triathlon and marathon swimming events in the water flowing in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. 

Katherine Graham has followed the saga in Paris. She’s an assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering who studies the fate and transport of pathogens and their indicators in water, including E. coli. She said several factors are at play in the Seine.

“Paris, like most large cities, has a lot of concrete and not much dirt and grass for water to soak into." 

Read the entire story on the College of Engineering website. 

What makes a swimming pool fast? It’s not just the fit, strong, and elite athletes competing at the Summer Olympics in Paris. The speed of swimming is also created by the structural engineering and materials used at the venue.

In the United States, there’s no greater example than Georgia Tech’s McAuley Aquatic Center, which hosted the Olympics in Atlanta 28 years ago. The pool continues to be one of the fastest in the world and will host the NCAA Division I men’s and women’s national championships this coming March.  

Everything — air flow, depth, and more — are in place with speed in mind.

“There are three primary reasons why the Georgia Tech pool is still among the fastest, even after a quarter century,” said Jud Ready, an adjunct professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering who teaches a class about the materials and engineering concepts of sports. “Two are at the bottom of the pool and the other is at the sides.”

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

After putting the stress of the test behind him, Fitch returned to his fraternity house for a much-needed nap.

The difference for Fitch was that instead of waking up refreshed, he woke up in the hospital. 

Fitch has Type 1 diabetes, and he’d had a seizure because his blood sugar dropped without warning.

Fitch’s diabetes is considered well-controlled. Yet a combination of factors conspired against him that day: not enough rest and recovery, high stress levels that made the insulin in his system less effective, and then that nap. While Fitch rested, all the insulin that had been delivered by his insulin pump finally started to kick in. He got an alert that he was in trouble, but it was less than a minute before the seizure. It was simply too late.

In typical Georgia Tech engineer fashion, Fitch decided he could do something to prevent similar situations — for himself and millions of people with diabetes.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

This story was featured in the spring 2024 issue of Helluva Engineer magazine, produced biannually by the College of Engineering.

For a dozen metro Atlanta high school students, a recent Tuesday found them Zooming with a representative from NASCAR’s Hendrick Motorsports and sliding into a simulator at Georgia Tech’s Student Competition Center to test their own driving skills. Later, they designed miniature solar-powered cars to race against each other and talked to an engineer from General Motors.

Welcome to the College of Engineering Summer Engineering Institute (SEI), a series of two weeklong camps for students to get excited about all things engineering and help them craft a compelling college application.

In week one, motorsports was the portal to almost every facet of engineering the group explored — aerospace and materials science for designing light, sleek vehicles; electrical and computer for the sensors and electronic systems in those vehicles; mechanical for the engines and chassis. For high schoolers in the camp’s second week, aerodynamics served as the focal point, including indoor skydiving.

“Summer camps are a great way to build our pipeline and get students excited about engineering while preparing them to successfully apply to college,” said Joy Harris, director of Women in Engineering (WIE) and a Georgia Tech graduate herself. “I did summer camps in junior high school and high school, and it changed my trajectory for college.”

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

The approach capitalizes on the natural antibacterial properties of copper and creates incredibly small needle-like structures on the surface of stainless steel to kill harmful bacteria like E. coli and Staphylococcus. It’s convenient and inexpensive, and it could reduce the need for chemicals and antibiotics in hospitals, kitchens, and other settings where surface contamination can lead to serious illness.

It also could save lives: A global study of drug-resistant infections found they directly killed 1.27 million people in 2019 and contributed to nearly 5 million other deaths — making these infections one of the leading causes of death for every age group.

Researchers described the copper-stainless steel and its effectiveness May 20 in the journal Small.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

The approach capitalizes on the natural antibacterial properties of copper and creates incredibly small needle-like structures on the surface of stainless steel to kill harmful bacteria like E. coli and Staphylococcus. It’s convenient and inexpensive, and it could reduce the need for chemicals and antibiotics in hospitals, kitchens, and other settings where surface contamination can lead to serious illness.

It also could save lives: A global study of drug-resistant infections found they directly killed 1.27 million people in 2019 and contributed to nearly 5 million other deaths — making these infections one of the leading causes of death for every age group.

Researchers described the copper-stainless steel and its effectiveness May 20 in the journal Small.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

“Given the year-long life-cycle of the disease, mathematical modeling is a valuable tool for fine-tuning interventions and evaluating resource allocation decisions,” said Pinar Keskinocak, professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) and the director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems.

Read the full story here.

“Potential Impact of a Diagnostic Test for Detecting Prepatent Guinea Worm Infections in Dogs,” Hannah Smalley, Pinar Keskinocak, Julie Swann, Christopher Hanna, and Adam Weiss, The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 2024, DOI: https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.23-0534

Vandiver kept working. Kept putting himself out there. Kept overcoming obstacles. 

After high school, Vandiver said he seemed to find trouble around every corner. He spiraled into substance abuse and had several run-ins with the law. For a while, he bounced around what he called dead-end jobs.

“I always kind of floated along through life thinking that I was going to make it big one day,” Vandiver said. “Something or somebody was going to come out of the blue and say, ‘Hey, we’ve been looking for you.’ Thinking I was going to stumble on to something great.”

At 27, Vandiver decided something needed to change.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Their approach dramatically reduces the cost and energy required for these direct air capture (DAC) systems, helping improve the economics of a process the researchers said will be critical to addressing climate change.

The key is a new kind of catalyst and electrochemical reactor design that can be easily integrated into existing DAC systems to produce useful carbon monoxide (CO) gas. It’s one of the most efficient such design ever described in scientific literature, according to lead researcher Marta Hatzell and her team. They published details April 16 in Energy and Environmental Science, a top journal for energy-related research.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Researchers are working on real-life robotic assistance that could protect workers from painful injuries and help stroke patients regain their mobility. So far, they have required extensive calibration and context-specific tuning, which keeps them largely limited to research labs.

Mechanical engineers at Georgia Tech may be on the verge of changing that, allowing exoskeleton technology to be deployed in homes, workplaces, and more.

A team of researchers in Aaron Young’s lab have developed a universal approach to controlling robotic exoskeletons that requires no training, no calibration, and no adjustments to complicated algorithms. Instead, users can don the “exo” and go.

Their system uses a kind of artificial intelligence called deep learning to autonomously adjust how the exoskeleton provides assistance, and they’ve shown it works seamlessly to support walking, standing, and climbing stairs or ramps. They described their “unified control framework” March 20 in Science Robotics.

“The goal was not just to provide control across different activities, but to create a single unified system. You don't have to press buttons to switch between modes or have some classifier algorithm that tries to predict that you're climbing stairs or walking,” said Young, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Initially focusing on undergraduate students, the AI Makerspace aims to democratize access to computing resources typically reserved for researchers or technology companies. Students will access the cluster online as part of their coursework, deepening their AI skills through hands-on experience. The Makerspace will also better position students after graduation as they work with AI professionals and help shape the technology’s future applications.

“The launch of the AI Makerspace represents another milestone in Georgia Tech’s legacy of innovation and leadership in education,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College and Southern Company Chair. “Thanks to NVIDIA’s advanced technology and expertise, our students at all levels have a path to make significant contributions and lead in the rapidly evolving field of AI.”

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Not in the sense of strapping into a capsule atop a rocket, but rather how their passions and careers led them to be NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

After all, it’s not every day you can gather a little bit of career advice from an actual space traveler.

“Find out what you really enjoy doing and pursue that thing,” said Tracy Dyson, who arrived this week for her second stint aboard the space station. “I think about my own upbringing, and my parents never told me or my sister that there was anything we couldn't do or that girls didn't normally do. My parents just let us do the things that we enjoyed doing. So I think what I would say more is to the parents than to the kids: If they show an interest in something, help open the door and pave the way. And let's see what they can do.”

Truthfully, the audience also asked about the physical journey to space along with the metaphorical one. They wanted to know about the food and life in orbit. And they asked about the science that’s keeping the 10 astronauts currently aboard the space station busy.

The conversation with Dyson and crewmate Jeannette Epps was just part of a day-long celebration of women in aerospace hosted by the Women in Engineering (WIE) program and the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering (AE).

The March 28 event gathered Georgia Tech students and approximately 50 Atlanta-area elementary school students to celebrate and explore the journey of women in AE research, education, and industry.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

The project involves collaboration between principal investigators Vicki Hertzberg from Emory University, W. Hong Yeo from Georgia Tech, and Li Xiong from Emory University. Their expertise spans statistics, mechanical and biomedical engineering, and computer science, respectively. Roxana Chicas of the Emory School of Nursing and Jeff Sands of the Emory School of Medicine, along with members of the Farmworker Association of Florida, are also part of the team. This video shows the device and data collection during a key component of testing during the summer.

In its 30 years of existence, the program has contributed to boosting the number of women in the College to 35% of undergraduates. And in some Schools, female students now outnumber males. WIE also has been awarding more than $150,000 in scholarships every year and hosting a robust program of corporate engagement opportunities for students.

That meant it was time for the next chapter, and Harris had some ideas.

“WIE is a women-led office that serves the entire College,” said Harris, who herself studied electrical and computer engineering at Tech as an undergrad. “Our vision is for 100% of the College of Engineering to be positively impacted by a WIE program or initiative. Men, women, faculty, staff, grads, postdocs, undergrads — 100% of the College.”

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

That’s right: Two teams tied for the best overall project award this semester at the showcase of senior projects by engineering, industrial design, and computer science students.

They were among 129 devices and ideas on display at McCamish Pavilion that included everything from a portable sterilizer for surgical instruments to a redesigned logistics system for UPS Healthcare. The teams designed rovers to hunt for water on the moon, revamped recycling processes for Georgia Tech Dining, and simplified placing stakes for specialty crop farmers.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Their idea, a simple menstrual pad add-on to collect blood for lab screening, has earned them one of five finalist spots in the national Collegiate Inventors Competition Oct. 24-25. They’ll compete against other undergraduate teams for $10,000, mentoring from experienced inventors, and a patent acceleration certificate from the U.S. Patent and Trade Office.

The team also is competing for a People’s Choice Award that’s based on online voting.

“We are trying to end the stigma against periods — that's one of our biggest missions behind the product — and we want to increase access to healthcare. Nearly all cervical cancers are preventable with earlier screening and testing for HPV,” said team member Rhea Prem, referring to the human papilloma virus that causes cervical cancer. “We want healthcare to be on your own terms so that you feel in control of your health, and you feel control over what you're doing with your body.”

Read about the team's FADpad kit on the College of Engineering website.

The 2024 class of fellows comprises 47 students, including Nina Otebele and Ellen Wang in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering (AE) and Emily Winters in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (ME). The Brooke Owens Fellowship Program selected just one in 10 applicants for this year’s group.

As fellows, the three Tech students will intern this summer for leading aerospace engineering companies and be matched with an executive-level mentor to support and guide them as they launch their careers.

Read more about this year’s “Brookies” on the College of Engineering website.

Georgia Tech researchers have found a way to hijack the computers that control these physical systems. Called programmable logic controllers (PLCs), they increasingly have embedded webservers and are accessed on site via web browsers. Attackers can exploit this approach and gain full access to the system.

That means they could spin motors out of control, shut off power relays or water pumps, disrupt internet or telephone communication, or steal critical information. They could even launch weapons — or stop the launch of weapons.

“We think there is an entirely new class of PLC malware that's just waiting to happen. We're calling it web-based PLC malware. And it gives you full device and physical process control,” said Ryan Pickren, a Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the lead author of a new study describing the malware and its implications.

The research team will present their findings Feb. 29 at the 2024 Network and Distributed Systems Security Symposium.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

The fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation are intended to recognize and support exceptional researchers “whose creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next generation of leaders,” according to the foundation.

Correa-Baena is an assistant professor and Goizueta Early Career Faculty Chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). His research focuses on understanding and controlling nanoscale chemical structures in low-cost semiconductors used for optical and electronic applications. His team also works on advanced techniques for characterizing these very small materials and interactions. The Sloan Fellowship will help him study chemical interactions in solar energy harvesting, particularly how hydrogen bonding stabilizes crystalline structures.

Correa-Baena called his selection an important career milestone and credited his students as a driving force behind the honor.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Chris Gaffney joins as the Managing Director of the SCL and will hold a dual appointment as Academic Program Director in Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE) - Edenfield Executive-in-Residence and a Professor of the Practice.

Gaffney joins the SCL team with Dr. Benoit Montreuil, Coca-Cola Material Handling & Distribution Chair and Professor and Director, Supply Chain and Logistics Institute, and Dr. Alejandro Toriello, Scientific Director for SCL and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE).

Dr. Alejandro Toriello was appointed Scientific Director of the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute (SCL), on December 1, 2023. As a professor in ISyE, Dr. Toriello brings expertise in the theory and applications of supply chain management, logistics, and transportation, as well as a deep understanding of optimization methodologies.

Dr. Toriello is a two-time ISyE alum (BS ‘03, Ph.D. ‘10), and was the 2023 President of the INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society and is on the editorial boards of Transportation Science and Transportation Research Part B, two leading journals in the SCL space.

Dr. Benoit Montreuil joined Georgia Tech in 2015 and has played a leadership role in SCL since that time. He also serves as Director of the Physical Internet Center and Executive Director of SCL. Dr. Montreuil leads the International Physical Internet Initiative, engaging academic, industry, and government leaders worldwide in research and innovation projects on smart, hyperconnected sustainable logistics, supply chains, transportation, and more.

Gaffney will be managing the execution of the team, nurturing and developing the business ecosystem, and being accountable for SCL training, education curriculum, and delivery.

Toriello will lead in nurturing and developing faculty membership, interdisciplinary competency, and engagement in line with strategic orientation. He will also lead strategic planning, and action relative to scientific programming, and steering the development and realization of major scientific/academic research projects led by SCL.

Benoit will continue to drive the SCL strategic planning and action with Gaffney and Toriello. He will also guide the development and growth of research and innovation partnerships, as well as major projects and consortiums with industry partners.

As we tap into the new year, Chris Gaffney’s return to Georgia Tech welcomes fresh methods and inspiration to enhance the program's supply chain operations. Having earned both his degrees from the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), Gaffney's journey intertwines deeply with the institution’s growth and impact.

Throughout the years, Gaffney was involved in the community serving on the ISyE Advisory Board, Supply Chain and Logistics Industry Advisory Board, and the MentIEs Program at Georgia Tech.

In his new role, Chris wants to continue driving cross-collaboration with SCL partnerships, “Georgia Tech is on the leading edge of the advancements in supply chain and logistics, so I'm hopeful that part of what we could do more of in SCL is help companies access more of that, faster.”

Additionally, Gaffney believes there’s an increasing urgency to advancing and “bringing people the type of learning in a way that they can grow their own professional capabilities [and become more multidisciplinary].”

Gaffney's professional journey began at Frito-Lay, where he navigated operational intricacies as a logistics analyst, later advancing to operations manager. Subsequently, he honed his expertise in international logistics and strategic supply chain management at AJC International and the Coca-Cola Company.

Gaffney's tenure at Coca-Cola, spanning over two decades as the Director of National Distribution, and then VP of Transportation for US Coke, epitomizes his commitment to collaboration and innovation. He also served in positions as President of Coca-Cola Supply, and as the President of the National Product Supplied Group, for the US Bottlers.

Chris met his wife Ellen while attending Georgia Tech and has been married for over 30 years; with four adult children, including one being a GT graduate in the field of Supply Chain.

Even in hardship, Gaffney’s family is passionate about doing all they can, including relentlessly supporting one of their own as a childhood cancer survivor. They’re heavily involved

philanthropically, specifically in raising money for research on childhood cancer, “we believe that we have a responsibility to do what we can.”

As Gaffney shared his final thoughts, he leaves us with a hopeful view, channeling the moments where it all first started – on Georgia Tech campus.

Patricia Mokhtarian and David Sholl are part of a 2024 class that includes 114 new members and 21 international members. Election to the NAE is among the highest professional recognitions for engineers and an honor bestowed on just 2,600 professionals worldwide.

New members are nominated and voted on by the Academy’s existing membership. With Mokhtarian and Sholl, Georgia Tech now has 48 NAE members.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

In one paper, researchers have unraveled how nitrogen, water, carbon, and light can interact with a catalyst to produce ammonia at ambient temperature and pressure, a much less energy-intensive approach than current practice. The second paper describes a stable catalyst able to convert waste fertilizer back into nonpolluting nitrogen that could one day be used to make new fertilizer.

Significant work remains on both processes, but the senior author on the papers, Marta Hatzell, said they’re a step toward a more sustainable cycle that still meets the needs of a growing worldwide population.

“We often think it would be nice not to have to use synthetic fertilizers for agriculture, but that’s not realistic in the near term considering how much plant growth is dependent on synthetic fertilizers and how much food the world’s population needs,” said Hatzell, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. “The idea is that maybe one day you could manufacture, capture, and recycle fertilizer on site."

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Their findings are the first step in solving one of the key limitations of metal halide perovskites, which are already as efficient as the best silicon-based solar cells at capturing light and converting it into electricity. They reported their work in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

“Perovskites have the potential of not only transforming how we produce solar energy, but also how we make semiconductors for other types of applications like LEDs or phototransistors. We can think about them for applications in quantum information technology, such as light emission for quantum communication,” said Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, assistant professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and the study’s senior author. “These materials have impressive properties that are very promising.”

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He grew up in Columbia, Maryland, and spent a lot of time working for his father’s construction business around Washington, D.C. It was there he learned the difference between design and labor in construction and found the path he wanted to pursue in life.

“I didn’t plan on shoveling rocks for the rest of my life; I wanted to look at the other side of construction, so that’s what got me into engineering,” said Foster, who will graduate with his civil engineering bachelor’s this fall. “My dad also guided me toward civil engineering because his construction practice focuses on concrete and masonry — things in the civil engineering realm. He gave me a little nudge and created that exposure, which was super important for me.”

Foster didn’t come to Georgia Tech immediately. In Fall 2018, he enrolled in Morehouse College’s Dual-Degree Engineering Program, which allows students to get two degrees over five years. Students spend three years at Morehouse before transferring to a partner institution to finish their engineering studies.

Foster quickly realized Atlanta was where he wanted to be, so Georgia Tech — with one of the best civil engineering programs in the country — became his clear first choice. He couldn’t wait to tap into the opportunities that awaited him.

Yet, like virtually all of his fellow graduates, the Covid-19 pandemic threw a wrench in his plans.

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Proudfoot is from Costa Rica, and she and a friend had been thinking about the prosthetic devices available in the country for children missing portions of their arms. They were clunky, with limited function — often just a pinching mechanism to grasp objects.

The pair wondered, could they use 3D printing to create an affordable and more dynamic alternative for the kids. Around that time, they found out about an entrepreneurship competition for high schools, and they set out to develop designs.

“My school taught us about designing and engineering and had just bought a 3D printer. We started working with kids that had upper limb amputations and started producing designs,” Proudfoot said. “I think that’s what definitely made me want to go into biomedical engineering and explore the robotic side, because it tied in with prosthetics.”

A high school counselor pointed her to Georgia Tech, where another student from her school had thrived. And Proudfoot used her 3D-printed prostheses, which won the entrepreneurship competition, as the basis for her application essay.

There was just one problem: When Proudfoot got to Tech, she realized biomolecules and physiology were far less interesting to her than biomedical robotics. Suddenly, she felt lost.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Check. Check. And check.

Zarbaf admits he didn’t necessarily keep track of those goals and intentionally set out to achieve them. It just turns out he knew pretty well what he wanted to accomplish in college when he was just 18 years old.

Four years later, Zarbaf is going even further. He’s headed back to his home state of Florida in the new year to work at SpaceX, where he’ll play a key role in the launches that send satellites, cargo, and astronauts to space.

As usual, Zarbaf is right where the action is.

“I always want to be where it’s booming,” said Zarbaf, a College of Engineering Clark Scholar who is finishing his aerospace engineering degree this fall. “It’s kind of stressful, but I like the commotion.”

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Lu begins her new role on Dec. 1.

“In her roles as a leader within ChBE and as the director of BioE, Hang has effectively collaborated with and guided researchers both on campus and nationwide across diverse fields and initiatives,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of the College and Southern Company Chair. “Her wealth of experience will prove invaluable to our leadership team as we continue to innovate and forge research partnerships that expand the goals and impact of the College.”

Lu has been a Georgia Tech faculty member since 2005 and holds the C.J. “Pete” Silas Chair of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. Her research focuses on microfluidics, data science, automation, and quantitative imaging, with applications in neurobiology, cell biology, cancer, and biotechnology.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

A team of scientists at Georgia Tech, Brown University, Nanyang Technological University, and MIT have measured the mechanical stresses that develop in dendrites – solving a long-standing hypothesis that high stresses can be developed around dendrites. Dendrites pierce through solid electrolytes, eventually crossing from one electrode to the other and shorting out the solid-state battery cell.

Georgia Tech Professor Christos Athanasiou and the multidisciplinary team used photoelasticity to measure the stress on batteries caused during the battery cycle. In their paper, Operando Measurements of Dendrite-Induced Stresses in Ceramic Electrolytes using Photoelasticity, they managed to overcome challenges associated with measurements of easy to break, very tiny solid electrolyte samples. The samples thickness was about 10 times smaller than the average diameter of human hair.

The team used an old - and almost forgotten - principle of photoelasticity to directly measure the stress fields during cell operation. Photoelasticity’s contactless nature also allows for the stresses to be directly measured and visualized at the dendrite tips. By shining light through the material under a special photoelastic microscope, it revealed intricate stress fields. In this case, the stress revealed from passing light through the electrolyte appeared at the tip of the propagation dendrite.

This advanced experimental setup has set the stage for profound exploration of stresses developed during battery operation across various electrolytes and conditions, revealing critical data on loading conditions and the dynamics of lithium metal penetration events.

This is just one example where creative, yet simple experimentation, can lead to fundamental discoveries. The Daedalus Lab at Georgia Tech, inspired by the ingenuity of its namesake, the mythical Greek inventor, is dedicated to decarbonizing the future through the development and promotion of sustainable materials and structures, utilizing innovative experimental approaches and artificial intelligence.

The difference between him and his peers was that Johnson wasn’t at the beginning of his career. Rather, he’s developing the third, or maybe fourth, chapter of his story after serving three decades in the U.S. Army and helping the NBA spin up its referee operations department.

For the last 10 years, he’s been at Georgia Tech, where he earned a master’s degree in operations research in 1985. Johnson is a professor of the practice in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and also was managing director of the Tennenbaum Institute for Enterprise Transformation. He teaches Statistics and Applications for engineering and computer science students, advises student groups like the Sports Business Club, and works with the Georgia Tech ROTC.

You can read more about his story here.

The high schoolers from across Georgia and the Southeast participated in a series of half-hour sessions with representatives from each academic program. The conference format was highly interactive, allowing high schoolers to view demonstrations, ask questions of undergraduate panelists, meet engineering graduate students, and participate in interactive design challenges.

Sessions were led by chairs, associate chairs, outreach directors, graduate students, undergraduates, and others. By the end of the conference, CoE schools presented a total of 64 well-crafted information sessions about their units. Because of the overwhelming support WIE received from each school, the number of students accepted to ECC more than tripled to 260 participants in 2023.

Parents also provided overwhelmingly positive feedback:

“The difference I notice at Tech 30 years after I started, is a much more supportive and inclusive environment for female engineers,” said parent Elizabeth Smith. “Thank you for helping to foster and grow that environment.” 

Another parent, Steven Hattier, brought his daughter to Georgia Tech from New Orleans to explore the College’s programs.

“As a father of a daughter very passionate about aerospace engineering, … it is amazing to have the support and encouragement provided to her by the event. Keep up the great work.”

WIE Director Joy Harris said her team was grateful for the support from staff and faculty members across the College and for the care they showed to the students who attended the conference.

“The Women in Engineering Office looks forward to introducing even more high school students to engineering in the years to come,” she said.

It was an ambitious plan for a first grader, and her life journey has been more challenging than she might have imagined. But now she’s laying the foundation for that childhood dream in her second year of Georgia Tech’s bioengineering doctorate program.

Along the way, she’s making a point to help others see paths and opportunities she didn’t — whether they’re fellow Hispanic students interested in engineering, first-generation college students, or especially community or technical college students.

Her efforts to build community — as an undergraduate student at two colleges and now among her fellow grad students in Todd Sulchek’s lab — are among the many reasons the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) has recognized Colón with its national STAR Role Model Award.

The award is the highest honor for a SHPE graduate student member, reserved to recognize “unselfish and outstanding contributions of an honoree to their SHPE student chapter and the Hispanic community while maintaining academic excellence.”

Colón said she doesn’t really see herself as a role model — except, hopefully, for her 14-year-old sister. She’s a gamer, so instead she drew comparisons to nonplayable characters in video games, like those who might give the player a side quest.

“I will be the friend there for you to hold your hand or even help you beat people up if you need to, but I’m a go-with-the-flow type of person in that regard,” Colón said. “I will be there as a friend, if you want me to. I'll be there as a mentor, if you want me to. I will be the person to clear the path, if you want me to. I don’t view it as the term ‘role model.’ I view it more as like somebody who’s going through the same circumstances that’s willing to lend a helping hand.”

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

The College moved up one spot on the 2024 Best Colleges list. It’s the highest ranking since 1996.

Two of the College’s programs are the best in the nation: the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) and the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE).

ISyE continues a run at No. 1 that started in 2002. Coulter BME rose one spot and now is ranked first by U.S. News among both undergraduate and graduate programs (graduate rankings are released each spring).

Read the full details on the College of Engineering website.