Georgia Tech’s Office of Sustainability, in partnership with the Office of Research Operations, is launching Georgia Tech’s first Sustainable Lab Certification program, which will provide a framework for campus laboratories to implement practical, high-impact sustainability measures. Labs earn recognition for their efforts through tiered certification levels — bronze, silver, or gold — based on the number and results of practices implemented.
On average, labs use four times more water and 10 times more energy than office spaces. This disproportionate impact makes laboratories some of the best places for reducing institutional energy use. Small actions can have a big effect; for example, increasing the setpoint of ultra-low temperature freezers by 10 degrees Celsius can reduce the device’s energy use by 30% and save over $150 per year per freezer. (That figure is derived from https://mygreenlab.org/the-beaker-blog/8-ways-to-save-energy-in-the-lab/ and Georgia Power billing documents.)
Before Sustainable Lab Certification, some campus labs had begun exploring reduced energy, water, and materials consumption through My Green Lab certification, a pilot program also sponsored by the Office of Sustainability.
Shweta Biliya, a research scientist in the Molecular Evolution Core Lab, explained that while My Green Lab offered a helpful framework, translating certification requirements into actionable steps for her lab was difficult without local examples or tailored support. “Now that we have a resource on campus, it’s extremely helpful in that initial stage,” she said. “It helps you see how to approach everything, get support, and make it feel possible.”
Biliya hopes more laboratories across campus will participate in Sustainable Labs Certification, helping to create a shared culture of sustainable research at Georgia Tech. “It might feel like one lab doesn’t make a difference, but when every lab contributes in small ways, it really adds up,” she said.
A Sustainable Lab Certification information and celebration session will take place in September. To learn more about the program, visit the Sustainable Labs page at https://sustain.gatech.edu/sustainable-labs/.
Director of Sustainability Engagement
Office of Sustainability
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Dobromir Rahnev’s research in the Computations of Subjective Perception Lab focuses on metacognition. [Photo by Rob Felt]
]]>DeMillo was among 80 computer scientists worldwide selected for the Academy's founding class and was the only Georgia Tech faculty member recognized.
"I am honored to be included in the inaugural class of the ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Academy," said DeMillo. "This recognition reflects the work of outstanding students, collaborators, and colleagues over many years. Software engineering research has transformed the way society builds and depends upon software, and I hope our community will continue to advance the scientific foundations needed to make software more reliable, secure, and worthy of the trust people place in it."
Established by ACM SIGSOFT, the Software Engineering Academy is a standing body of honor that recognizes members of the software engineering community whose lasting technical contributions, leadership, and service have shaped the field. The Academy celebrates researchers whose cumulative work and influence have advanced software engineering as both a scientific discipline and professional practice.
"Rich's research in software testing is recognized among the most influential contributions to the field of software engineering," said SCP Interim Chair Mustaque Ahamad. "His inclusion in the inaugural ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Academy demonstrates the lasting impact of his research on building more reliable software systems."
The inaugural class was selected from leaders whose contributions have already been widely recognized across the software engineering community, including ACM Fellows and recipients of ACM SIGSOFT's Outstanding Research Award. Beginning next year, new Academy members will be elected annually through a community nomination process.
DeMillo served as the founding chair of Georgia Tech's School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, the first school of its kind at a top research university. He previously served as the John P. Imlay Dean of the College of Computing and directed the Georgia Tech Information Security Center.
Throughout his career, DeMillo has held leadership positions across academia, industry, and government. He served as Hewlett-Packard's first chief technology officer, led computing research at Bell Communications Research, directed the Computer Research Division at the National Science Foundation, and led the Software Test and Evaluation Project in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
His research spans software engineering, cybersecurity, election security, and the societal impacts of digital technology. His 1979 paper, Social Processes and Proofs of Theorems and Programs, is widely regarded as a foundational work in software engineering and has been recognized as one of the 50 most influential papers in computer science.
In addition to his research, DeMillo has helped shape higher education through the creation of Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities. He is a fellow of both the Association for Computing Machinery and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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DeMillo was among 80 computer scientists worldwide selected for the Academy's founding class and was the only Georgia Tech faculty member recognized.
]]>While this statement might cause anxiety for some, for one Georgia Tech research team, working with humanlike robots couldn’t be more exciting.
Bipedal — or two-legged — autonomous robots can be quite agile. This makes them useful for performing tasks on uneven terrain, such as carrying equipment through outdoor environments or performing maintenance on an ocean-going ship. However, unstable or unpredictable conditions also increase the possibility of a robot wipeout.
The researchers, led by Ye Zhao, director of the Georgia Tech Laboratory for Intelligent Decision and Autonomous Robots (LIDAR), and Zhaoyuan Gu, a robotics Ph.D. student, wanted to develop a real-time planning and control framework that guarantees a robot's safety and recovery when traversing difficult terrain. The autonomous nature of this framework means the robots can make their own decisions without direct assistance from a human. For example, if an unexpected obstacle appears in its path, a robot equipped with this new framework could catch itself instead of falling.
Until now, there’s been a significant lack of research into how a robot recovers when its direction shifts — for example, a robot losing balance when a truck makes a quick turn. The team aims to fix this research gap.
In an IEEE Transactions on Robotics paper, the researchers describe a first-of-its-kind strategy that gives robots a clear set of rules for reacting when something changes in its path. These rules help the robot make quicker decisions and take more confident steps. When the robot senses that its current plan might not keep it stable, it uses these rules to adjust its next few steps, so it can continue moving safely. In earlier experiments, which lacked this framework, two-legged robots struggled to identify a solution for stability and were prone to falling.
The researchers implemented the new framework with Cassie, a two-legged robot. Inside Tech’s 3,000-square-foot Human Augmentation Core Facility, the Cassie robot confidently walks on a Computer-Aided Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN) — a treadmill system that can be programmed to move in any direction at different times. When the team realized CAREN is limited in how much force it can inflict, they added a BumpEm system, which creates a stronger jerk to further stress-test Cassie’s gait.
Through these experiments, the researchers found that their new programming framework outperforms state-of-the-art methods with more certainty, faster decision-making, higher collision avoidance, and the ability to reliably walk on moving platforms and varying types of terrain.
Zhao said, “The results we got through this project are very impressive. They’re the most comprehensive and extensive hardware results we’ve published so far.”
Though significant, the real-world results weren’t perfect. The robot doesn’t perform as well when moving downhill, which requires it to take riskier steps and walk less efficiently. However, the only time Cassie completely failed to recover its gait was during a difficult scenario involving a very wide step and a cross-legged maneuver. Recovery simply wasn’t feasible given the spatial limits of the narrow treadmill.
Overall, the researchers’ framework increases by 81% Cassie’s ability to recover from instability. The team noted that bipedal stability in robotics needs further research. If these walking robots are to be fully integrated into our society, they must be reliable.
“This paper may serve as a foundation for continued work on walking robots,” said Zhao. “Our work may inspire further research that can imitate or learn from the framework we’ve created.”
Other ways of walking recovery are yet to be tested. For example, humans often hop to counteract instability or uneven footing; mirroring this with two-legged robots could be the next step in the team’s research.
They would like to eventually enable the use of autonomous two-legged robots in marine environments, where ship maintenance and operations require risky, strenuous labor. Ideally, these robots could reliably, safely, and efficiently perform these kinds of tasks.
The project will be tested at sea through the Office of Naval Research in Arlington, Virginia.
“Humanoid robots are coming to your homes, coming to the factories, coming to logistics. They're going to show up on the street. It’s exciting,” said Gu.
Robotics engineers should consider not only a robot’s mechanical design, but also its algorithms, intelligence, and brain. Being able to safely and regularly interact with these robots requires this foundational work.
— By Chloe Morris
“Robust-Locomotion-By-Logic: Perturbation-Resilient Bipedal Locomotion via Signal Temporal Logic Guided Model Predictive Control.” https://doi.org/10.1109/TRO.2025.3582820
Funding for this research is provided by the Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program and the National Science Foundation CAREER Program.
Researchers on this project include LIDAR Director Ye Zhao, Ph.D. student Zhaoyuan Gu, and master’s students Yuntian Zhao, Yipu Chen, and Rongming Guo. Other contributors from the Physiology of Wearable Robotics Lab include Gregory Sawicki, director, and Jennifer Leestma (Ph.D. ROBO, 2024).
This research is also supported by the Agile Locomotion and Manipulation team, part of Georgia Tech’s Vertically Integrated Projects program.
]]>Nick Housley’s latest advancement is a drug‑delivery system called SANGs, short for “self‑assembling nanohydrogels.” As these nanohydrogels move through the body, they keep the cancer‑fighting drug contained, passing through healthy tissue without releasing medicine. When they encounter the unique conditions created by a tumor, they remain in that environment and release the drug precisely where it’s needed.
Greptile, founded by three current and former Georgia Tech students, has quickly emerged as one of Silicon Valley’s most promising young technology companies. The startup, led by Daksh Gupta, CS 2023; Soohoon Choi, CS 2023, MTH 2023; and computer science major Vaishant Kameswaran, builds artificial intelligence tools that help engineering teams review, analyze, and improve their code.
Since its launch in 2023, the company has gained traction with more than 2,000 customers, including Brex, Whoop, and Substack. In 2025, Greptile raised $25 million in Series A funding from Benchmark, bringing its total capital raised to $30 million and valuing the company at $180 million. That same year, Greptile was also accepted into the winter 2024 cohort of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator that helped launch Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe.
For Gupta, the road to building Greptile began at Georgia Tech. The founders entered Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X Startup Launch program with an entirely different idea: an AI shopping assistant called Tabnam. But through the program’s customer-discovery process — an intensive cycle of testing, feedback, and rapid iteration — the team realized their technology had stronger potential when applied to software development. That pivot became the foundation for Greptile.
“CREATE-X did two things without which Greptile would not exist,” Gupta said. “It introduced me to my co-founder, Soohoon, and it gave us the confidence to consider starting a company as a real career path.”
The founders credit the program with shaping their entrepreneurial thinking, but they describe Y Combinator as the force that helped propel their company to the next stage. Gupta says Y Combinator’s value mirrors some of what they found at Georgia Tech. “Like Georgia Tech, a lot of Y Combinator’s value comes from three things: being surrounded by ambitious people, gaining credibility, and having smart, accomplished people believe in you before you fully believe in yourself,” he said. “That combination does wonders for your self-esteem, which in turn has enormous compounding effects.”
The company’s recent fundraising experience reflects this momentum. Gupta describes their investor pitches as “fast and painless,” noting that they entered the process with compelling metrics and a refined story. Today, the team is supported by an impressive roster of founders-turned-investors — including partners from Initialized Capital and Benchmark — who have helped the company hire talent and make key strategic decisions.
Looking back, Gupta says the lessons from CREATE-X continue to guide their approach to building technology and scaling a company. “Y Combinator helped us scale, but Georgia Tech is where it started,” he said.
Applications for the next CREATE-X Startup Launch cohort are now open, with limited spots available. Early applicants receive priority consideration and feedback.
Internal Contact:
Breanna Durham
Marketing Strategist
Georgia Tech is one of America’s best colleges, according to Money magazine.
The Institute is one of 17 public schools to receive a five-star ranking and the only institution in the state to receive the designation. To compile its list for 2026 and to “help families find schools that deliver strong value,” the publication evaluated more than 700 four-year colleges on 25 metrics, including graduation rates, costs, financial aid, student debt, and alumni salaries.
In its breakdown, Money declares, “Georgia Tech gets results.”
Cementing its status as a national leader in outcomes and value for all students remains a top priority in the Institute’s strategic plan. Since 2019, as in-state tuition has risen nationwide by an average of $2,200, Tech has reduced its in-state tuition and fees by nearly 25%. Georgia Tech students continue to outpace the national average with a 93% graduation rate, 75% of whom finish in four years or less.
Tech recently completed its most successful fundraising year in history, including the creation of a $100 million endowment for need-based scholarships, advancing opportunities for students of all socioeconomic backgrounds.
The recognition from Money is the latest accolade Tech has received for its value creation and return on investment. The Princeton Review has named Georgia Tech a best value public college for three consecutive years, and this year, Tech retained its place on Forbes’ list of New Ivies, receiving the highest C-suite rating of any university.
Fueled by the generosity of thousands of alumni, donors, corporations, foundations, and friends, this defining moment builds on the strongest two-year fundraising performance in Georgia Tech’s history and reflects extraordinary engagement across the Institute. Recent milestones underscore the breadth of support behind Transforming Tomorrow, including the 79th Roll Call, which raised $8.8 million, and Georgia Tech Athletics’ Full Steam Ahead initiative, which led to more than $100 million in gifts and commitments.
The collective support of donors, including gifts from first-time donors, is already making a difference across campus — in the experiences of students, the work of faculty, and the spaces that shape learning and discovery.
Donor support has fueled major projects such as the Thomas A. Fanning Student-Athlete Performance Center, which opened in May, and George Tower | Scheller Tower, which will open in September. Scheller Tower will house MBA and executive education programs for the Ernest Scheller Jr. College of Business, while George Tower will become the new home of the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. These facilities are designed to foster collaboration, innovation, and student success.
This momentum continues as Georgia Tech advances new capital projects, including the Aerospace Engineering Building, Medical Innovation Building, Creative Quarter, and Alumni Welcome Center — each critical to the Institute’s future growth.
At the same time, philanthropy is transforming access to education. Donors have contributed more than $513 million to expand scholarship and fellowship support, opening doors for talented students and ensuring that financial barriers do not limit opportunity.
Support for students extends from undergraduate access to graduate-level research and discovery. Graduate fellowships funded through the campaign are enabling students to pursue advanced study, contribute to research labs, and play a central role in Georgia Tech’s academic mission.
At the faculty level, donor investment continues to strengthen Georgia Tech’s ability to attract and retain world-class educators and researchers. A landmark example is the $100 million bequest from the estate of alumnus John W. Durstine, the largest gift in the Institute’s history, supporting faculty excellence in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.
In health research, a significant commitment has established the Parker H. Petit Center for AI-Driven Health Innovation, a new research hub focused on using artificial intelligence to model diseases, identify treatment paths, and move discoveries closer to patient care.
Philanthropy is also fueling new interdisciplinary initiatives that reflect Georgia Tech’s collaborative, forward-looking approach. The Tony Kepano Joint Center for Real Estate brings together the Ernest Scheller Jr. College of Business and the College of Design to create a multidisciplinary platform for education, research, and industry engagement.
Corporate and foundation partnerships are accelerating progress in key areas. The Delta Air Lines Foundation’s $5 million commitment is helping fund the new Aerospace Engineering Building. This facility will elevate one of the nation’s top-ranked aerospace programs, fuel the state’s economy, and accelerate innovation across the aviation industry.
Georgia Tech’s multidecade partnership with Hyundai Motor Company is advancing research and education in sustainable mobility, hydrogen technologies, and workforce development, while strengthening the Institute’s role in driving innovation and economic growth.
The campaign’s success reflects the collective efforts of alumni, donors, volunteers, faculty, staff, students, and partners who have advanced Georgia Tech's mission and strengthened its impact. The momentum created through their generosity will help shape the Institute’s future for years to come.
“Behind every gift is someone who believes in Georgia Tech’s mission and wants to help us amplify our impact,” said Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera. “Their generous support has expanded access to education, strengthened research and innovation, and strengthened our Institute to make sure it keeps creating value for generations to come. I am profoundly grateful to each of our donors for investing in Georgia Tech.
I’m equally grateful to our deans, faculty, Campaign Steering Committee volunteers, and every member of our Development team for opening doors, carrying our message everywhere, and persuading others to participate in this campaign. Congratulations to all of them on reaching the most ambitious philanthropic goals in Institute history.”
]]>Ayana Isles
Senior Media Relations Representative
Institute Communications
School of City and Regional Planning Assistant Professor Rounaq Basu knows it, too. So he and his students (supported by the Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics) created the Cool Routes app to help people in Atlanta find the most shaded — and most importantly, the coolest — paths if they have to walk or bike outside.
Describing Atlanta’s latest heatwave, “This is great for research, but not so great for residents,” Basu said. “I like to walk and bike everywhere, and it’s too hot. I need to know where the shaded paths are!”
The Cool Routes app currently covers 10 cities in the U.S., including Atlanta. Users choose a city from a dropdown menu, provide a trip start and destination, tell the app whether they’re walking or biking, and select route preferences. The app then generates up to three routes to the user’s destination, allowing them to compare how much cooler one route is from another. Further refinement of routes is offered after that.
]]>Artificial intelligence is changing cybersecurity on both sides of the battlefield. The technology helping organizations improve efficiency also enables cybercriminals to identify vulnerabilities, develop exploits, and launch attacks at unprecedented speed.
Researchers in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP) say the greatest concern is not that AI is creating entirely new forms of cyberattacks. Instead, it is accelerating activities that attackers already perform, making existing threats quicker, cheaper, and harder to stop.
"AI is dramatically speeding up cyberattacks," said Brendan Saltaformaggio, associate professor in the SCP and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). "AI can identify vulnerabilities far faster than humans and often in places humans wouldn't think to look."
Most cyberattacks include several stages: finding vulnerabilities, developing ways to exploit them, gaining access to systems, and pursuing a goal such as stealing information or disrupting operations. According to Frank Li, associate professor in the SCP and ECE, AI is having its biggest impact on the early phases of that process.
"AI can help attackers explore potential decisions and implement attacks faster than in the past, whether it's identifying software bugs or constructing social engineering hooks," Li said.
The pace of attacks has already changed dramatically. Peter Swire, J.Z. Liang Chair in the SCP and professor of law and ethics in the Scheller College of Business, says attackers are moving from vulnerability discovery to exploitation much faster than in the past.
"The average time until an exploit is detected even a couple of years ago was measured in months," Swire said. "Now it is measured in hours."
That compressed timeline is forcing organizations to rethink how quickly they identify, prioritize, and patch vulnerabilities.
Healthcare systems, critical infrastructure providers, government agencies, and small businesses remain attractive targets because they often manage sensitive information or essential services while relying on legacy technology. But experts emphasize that no organization is immune.
"Unfortunately, everyone is at risk," Saltaformaggio said. "AI is not creating new victims; AI is making attackers faster and more effective at targeting the same organizations they have always pursued."
Organizations with outdated systems or limited cybersecurity resources face particular challenges because AI allows attackers to identify weaknesses in less time and at lower cost than ever before.
Cybersecurity defenders also have access to the same technology.
Experts say AI can strengthen defenses before, during, and after a cyberattack. Defenders can use AI to identify and patch vulnerabilities more quickly, reducing opportunities for attackers to gain access. AI can also detect subtle signs of intrusion by correlating activity across networks and recognizing patterns that would be difficult for humans to spot in real time.
Once an attack occurs, AI can support rapid investigation and response by analyzing how the compromise happened, identifying root causes, and helping deploy targeted protections.
"AI can help defenders in every step of stopping a cyberattack," Saltaformaggio said.
Researchers at Georgia Tech are already demonstrating AI's defensive potential. Saltaformaggio pointed to Georgia Tech's recent success in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge, which highlighted how AI systems can autonomously discover and reason about software vulnerabilities at large scale. Swire also noted that a Georgia Tech team led by Professor Taesoo Kim won a $4 million DARPA prize for developing advanced AI-based cybersecurity defenses.
Despite the promise of AI-powered security, significant challenges remain. Security teams need AI tools they can trust, ones that explain how they reached conclusions and provide evidence that analysts can verify. Attackers may also attempt to manipulate AI systems, creating new risks for organizations that rely heavily on automated tools.
Li says organizations cannot rely on traditional, human-paced security processes to keep up.
"AI's primary impact on cyberattacks is enhancing speed and scale," Li said. "Organizations need to adapt to more agile defenses and processes that account for this, in many cases relying on AI as well to help speed up defensive actions."
Organizations also need to rethink how they respond to vulnerabilities. Swire argues that traditional patch management is no longer fast enough in a world where exploits can emerge within hours.
"The entire process for patching systems will have to be re-engineered," he said.
The cybersecurity landscape has always been an arms race between attackers and defenders. AI hasn't changed that reality. It has simply accelerated it. The organizations that will be best positioned are those that adopt AI as quickly as the adversaries they are trying to stop.
]]>Artificial intelligence is reshaping cybersecurity by accelerating how quickly cybercriminals can identify vulnerabilities, develop exploits, and launch attacks. Georgia Tech cybersecurity experts warn that AI is not creating entirely new threats but making existing cyberattacks faster, cheaper, and more difficult to stop. At the same time, AI-powered cybersecurity tools can help organizations detect vulnerabilities, strengthen defenses, and respond to incidents in real time. As AI-driven cyber threats continue to evolve, organizations that adopt AI-based security strategies will be better positioned to protect critical systems, data, and infrastructure.