The event marks the culmination of the semester-long I2P course, where undergraduate students develop functional prototypes aimed at solving real-world problems. Prototypes this semester include a smart military drone, a gentler device for cervical cancer screening, a rotating espresso station, tools to keep AI safe, compact data centers, systems that simulate cyberattacks to help companies strengthen their defenses, and many more.
The showcase is free and open to students, faculty, staff, and members of the local community.
Winning teams will receive prizes and a “golden ticket” into CREATE-X’s Startup Launch, a summer accelerator that provides optional seed funding, accounting and legal service credits, mentorship, and more to help students turn their prototypes into viable startups.
This is a free event, and refreshments will be provided. Register for the Fall 2025 I2P Showcase today!
]]>Marketing Strategist
]]>Aleksandra is a master’s student in Music Technology at Georgia Tech, but “student” barely scratches the surface. This summer, she’s been everywhere—physically in Massachusetts and intellectually somewhere between a Pride performance and a human-AI jam session at MIT.
“I’m always with my microphone and MIDI keyboard,” she says, like it’s just second nature. “I love singing and coming up with tunes.”
Live from MIT — It’s Human + AI Jamming
Forget dusty textbooks and silent labs—Aleksandra’s research life is about real-time musical interactions between humans and AI. As a visiting researcher at MIT this summer, she’s digging into what it looks like when musicians "jam" with intelligent systems. Think futuristic band practice, but with algorithms joining in.
“It’s giving me a lot of exposure to co-design methodologies,” she explains, “and letting me observe how musicians respond to each other—and to AI.”
It’s not just code and theory, either. The insights come alive when she brings them to the stage. This summer, Aleksandra’s band performed at The Music Porch in Reading, MA for Pride Month. Their cover of Pink Pony Club turned into a moment she won’t forget.
“It was so fun seeing people—especially teenagers—singing and dancing together,” she says. “That’s one of those moments where I just thought, yep, this is why I picked music tech.”
From Winehouse Covers to Ableton Experiments
Despite her research chops, Aleksandra hasn’t lost touch with the joy of just making music. She sings and plays keyboard in a band, covers Amy Winehouse songs, and occasionally writes music just for fun. (Her dream studio partner? You guessed it: Amy herself.)
She’s also been expanding her technical toolkit this summer, diving deeper into sound design with Ableton and Serum.
“Still learning,” she says, “but I’m using them for sound design in songs—and loving it.”
And then there are the unexpected “whoa” moments. Like when she built a vocal patch for the Pixies’ Where Is My Mind? to use live during a performance.
“It was haunting,” she says. “And it worked so well live.”
Dream Tech and Georgia Tech
Ask Aleksandra what she’d invent if she could mash up two instruments, and she already has an idea:
“Automatic vocal effects through a microphone with a built-in amplifier,” she says, laughing. “Honestly, someone probably already made this, but I want it anyway.”
That kind of thinking is exactly what her time at Georgia Tech has sparked. Before the program, she saw music mostly through the lens of conventional instruments. Now? She’s all about how software and hardware can expand what music even is.
Her Summer, in Sound
If Aleksandra’s summer had a vibe, it’d be:
Not exactly your typical lab soundtrack—but that’s the beauty of it.
This fall, she’s heading back to Georgia Tech after a gap year at Bose, ready to jump into research on multimodal music source separation (AKA teaching machines to pick apart and understand layers in music the way humans do).
And yes, she’ll still be singing.
Hits with Aleksandra
Aleksandra Ma doesn’t just study music tech—she lives it. Whether she’s tweaking reverb patches, performing under porch lights, or teaching AI how to groove, she’s showing what it really means to be a 21st-century musician.
]]>Wang is a recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI). The award recognizes Wang for his lifelong work on democratizing human-centered AI.
“Throughout my Ph.D. and industry internships, I observed a gap in existing research: there is a strong need for practical tools for applying human-centered approaches when designing AI systems,” said Wang, now a safety researcher at OpenAI.
“My work not only helps people understand AI and guide its behavior but also provides user-friendly tools that fit into existing workflows.”
[Related: Georgia Tech College of Computing Swarms to Yokohama, Japan, for CHI 2025]
Wang’s dissertation presented techniques in visual explanation and interactive guidance to align AI models with user knowledge and values. The work culminated from years of research, fellowship support, and internships.
Wang’s most influential projects formed the core of his dissertation. These included:
“I feel extremely honored and lucky to receive this award, and I am deeply grateful to many who have supported me along the way, including Polo, mentors, collaborators, and friends,” said Wang, who was advised by School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) Professor Polo Chau.
“This recognition also inspired me to continue striving to design and develop easy-to-use tools that help everyone to easily interact with AI systems.”
Like Wang, Chau advised Georgia Tech alumnus Fred Hohman (Ph.D. CSE 2020). Hohman won the ACM SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award in 2022.
Chau’s group synthesizes machine learning (ML) and visualization techniques into scalable, interactive, and trustworthy tools. These tools increase understanding and interaction with large-scale data and ML models.
Chau is the associate director of corporate relations for the Machine Learning Center at Georgia Tech. Wang called the School of CSE his home unit while a student in the ML program under Chau.
Wang is one of five recipients of this year’s award to be presented at the 2025 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2025). The conference occurs April 25-May 1 in Yokohama, Japan.
SIGCHI is the world’s largest association of human-computer interaction professionals and practitioners. The group sponsors or co-sponsors 26 conferences, including CHI.
Wang’s outstanding dissertation award is the latest recognition of a career decorated with achievement.
Months after graduating from Georgia Tech, Forbes named Wang to its 30 Under 30 in Science for 2025 for his dissertation. Wang was one of 15 Yellow Jackets included in nine different 30 Under 30 lists and the only Georgia Tech-affiliated individual on the 30 Under 30 in Science list.
While a Georgia Tech student, Wang earned recognition from big names in business and technology. He received the Apple Scholars in AI/ML Ph.D. Fellowship in 2023 and was in the 2022 cohort of the J.P. Morgan AI Ph.D. Fellowships Program.
Along with the CHI award, Wang’s dissertation earned him awards this year at banquets across campus. The Georgia Tech chapter of Sigma Xi presented Wang with the Best Ph.D. Thesis Award. He also received the College of Computing’s Outstanding Dissertation Award.
“Georgia Tech attracts many great minds, and I’m glad that some, like Jay, chose to join our group,” Chau said. “It has been a joy to work alongside them and witness the many wonderful things they have accomplished, and with many more to come in their careers.”
]]>Wang is a recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI). The award recognizes Wang for his lifelong work on democratizing human-centered AI.
]]>Deep Startups is a series that brings together knowledgeable entrepreneurs and Startup Launch alumni from various business sectors to discuss their experiences forming companies that address significant, contemporary challenges. Attendees spend an informative evening discovering the intersection of technology and entrepreneurship.
From 2016 until recently, S.K. Sharma led a global team of Ph.D. data scientists, engineers, and strategists at Universal Music Group (UMG) to develop innovative and scalable solutions that drive real-time market insights and audience engagement. His leadership has been instrumental in creating differentiated intellectual property and market-leading capabilities in AI, machine learning, and prescriptive analytics, earning him multiple patents in marketing analytics.
Sharma's academic background includes a Ph.D. in chemical physics and physical chemistry from Caltech. His research has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, and he has held concurrent roles in academia and industry, including senior research scientist at Caltech's Beckman Institute. His corporate career includes significant positions such as vice president at Lehman Brothers, executive director at UBS, and vice president and partner at Mitchell Madison Group, where he advised global private equity funds and venture capital managers.
In addition to his role at UMG, Sharma is an entrepreneur in residence at UC San Diego's Office of Innovation and Commercialization, where he supports pioneering advancements in science and engineering. He is also an investor at Provisio Medical, a company revolutionizing endovascular procedures with its Sonic Lumen Tomography technology.
Sharma's contributions to the field of AI and analytics have been widely recognized. He was awarded Billboard magazine's 40 Under 40 and has been a commencement speaker at UC San Diego's Jacobs School of Engineering. His work in developing AI-driven marketing technologies has set new standards in the industry, ensuring compliance with global privacy regulations while driving significant improvements in marketing efficiency.
Attendees of Deep Startups will hear practical knowledge and actionable advice on entrepreneurship from Sharma. Each CREATE-X event is an opportunity to network, build ideas, and prepare for the Startup Launch program, which provides $5,000 in optional seed funding, $150,000 in in-kind services, mentorship, entrepreneurial workshops, networking events, and resources to help build and scale startups. Students, faculty, researchers, and alumni interested in developing their own startups are encouraged to apply. The deadline to apply for Startup Launch is March 17, 2025. Spots are limited. Apply now for a higher chance of acceptance and early feedback. If you have any questions about getting started, email us at create-x@groups.gatech.edu.
]]>Marketing Strategist
]]>Ph.D. students Yasmine Belghith and Atefeh Mahdavi co-led a study in a museum setting that observed how middle schoolers interact with the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT.
“It’s important for museums, especially science museums, to start incorporating these kinds of exhibits about AI and about using AI so the general population can have that avenue to interact with it and transfer that knowledge to everyday tools,” Belghith said.
Belghith and Mahdavi conducted their study with nine focus groups of 24 students at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The team used the findings to inform their design of AI exhibits that the museum could display as early as 2025.
Belghith is a Ph.D. student in human-centered computing. Her advisor is Assistant Professor Jessica Roberts in the School of Interactive Computing. Magerko advises Mahdavi, a Ph.D. student in digital media in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication.
Belghith and Mahdavi presented a paper about their study in May at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2024 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Their work is part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant dedicated to fostering AI literacy among middle schoolers in informal environments.
While there are existing efforts to reach students in the classroom, the researchers believe AI education is most accessible in informal learning environments like museums.
“There’s a need today for everybody to have some sort of AI literacy,” Belghith said. “Many middle schoolers will not be taking computer science courses or pursuing computer science careers, so there needs to be interventions to teach them what they should know about AI.”
The researchers found that most of the middle schoolers interacted with ChatGPT to either test its knowledge by prompting it to answer questions or socialize with it by having human-like conversations.
Others fit the mold of “content explorers.” They did not engage with the AI aspect of ChatGPT and focused more on the content it produced.
Mahdavi said regardless of their approach, students would get “tunnel vision” in their interactions instead of exploring more of the AI’s capabilities.
“If they go in a certain direction, they will continue to explore that,” Mahdavi said. “One thing we can learn from this is to nudge kids and show them there are other things you can do with AI tools or get them to think about it another way.”
The researchers also paid attention to what was missing in the students’ responses, which Mahdavi said was just as important as what they did talk about.
“None of them mentioned anything about ethics or what could be problematic about AI,” she said. “That told us there’s something they aren’t thinking about but should be. We take that into account as we think about future exhibits.”
The researchers visited the Museum of Science and Industry June 1-2 to conduct the first trial run of three AI-based exhibits they’ve created. One of them is LuminAI, which was developed in Magerko’s Expressive Machinery Lab.
LuminAI is an interactive art installation that allows people to engage in collaborative movement with an AI dance partner. Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State recently held the first performance of AI avatars dancing with human partners in front of a live audience.
Duri Long, a former Georgia Tech Ph.D. student who is now an assistant professor at Northwestern University, designed the second exhibit. KnowledgeNet is an interactive tabletop exhibit in which visitors build semantic networks by adding different characteristics to characters that interact together.
The third exhibit, Data Bites, prompts users to build datasets of pizzas and sandwiches. Their selections train a machine-learning classifier in real time.
Belghith said the exhibits fostered conversations about AI between parents and children.
“The exhibit prototypes successfully engaged children in creative activities,” she said. “Many parents had to pull their kids away to continue their museum tour because the kids wanted more time to try different creations or dance moves.”
]]>Ph.D. students Yasmine Belghith and Atefeh Mahdavi co-led a study in a museum setting that observed how middle schoolers interact with the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT.
Belghith and Mahdavi conducted their study with nine focus groups of 24 students at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The team used the findings to inform their design of AI exhibits that the museum could display as early as 2025.
]]>Communications Officer I
School of Interactive Computing
]]>Jin Liu, an associate professor of Chinese in the School of Modern Languages, created an algorithm to analyze tone use in Chinese rap songs. She also worked with students in the College of Computing to integrate linguistics and cultural studies with computer science and statistics.
"Technology provides empirical and quantitative evidence or data to verify human intuitive perceptions of art," Liu explained. "This is an interdisciplinary project that extends beyond the range of any single researcher's knowledge and expertise,"
Her co-authors on the paper included Amanda She (CS 2023), Haosong Ma (MS CS 2022), Jiahong Yuan, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, and Hongyuan Dong, an associate professor of Chinese language and linguistics at George Washington University.
"My field is linguistics and cultural studies, and we needed to collaborate with people in computer science to develop an algorithm and write a program to compute the Tonal Congruence Index," Liu said. "People in computer science need our expertise in linguistics and computational phonetics to develop different rules and criteria to distinguish the tones and learn the related pitch software."
Unlike English, Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, meaning using the same word with different pitches can change the meaning of the words.
In Liu's study, she found that while Chinese rappers used standard tones in the earlier rap styles, artists following more recent trends — such as trap music and mumble rap — are more likely to change or ignore Chinese tones to better fit the hip hop style in their work.
Liu and her co-authors also report that Chinese rappers now use more English words in their work to achieve musical flow.
"As hip-hop music continues to diversify, the correlation between tone and rap gradually decreases," Liu said.
The researcher's next step is to develop an open-source tool to further automate the audio-processing pipeline.
Liu's work also has educational applications. For example, she recently presented "AI and Tones in Chinese Songs" at a symposium on education in the age of artificial intelligence.
"Language instructors should teach songs with a high score on the Tonal Congruence Index because tonal shapes and contrasts are better accommodated in them," she said.
This research is partially supported by the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Small Grants for Research funding at Georgia Tech. "Linguistic Tone in Chinese Rap: An Interdisciplinary Approach" was published in the Journal of New Music in March 2024. It is available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09298215.2024.2329075