Attendees should register through the Genius LMS, using the "GT Login" button. Click on "View Course Catalog", then enter "RCR" in the search bar to view the current RCR workshop sessions. You can view information about each class (including class times) by clicking on "more info".  To register for a class, click on "Register", then "Proceed to Checkout" (there is no cost for the sessions). Then click on "Confirm". You will receive a confirmation email with a calendar file. You will need to follow instructions given to you during the session in order to receive RCR in-person contact hour credit for attending.

Research Misconduct
📅 Thursday, July 16
🕚 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
📍 Molecular Science and Engineering Building, Room 1224

For more information about the RCR Workshop Series, including additional dates/sessions offered, refer to RCR Workshops and Events and Workshop FAQs.

REGISTER HERE for virtual participation link.

Blue Sky Groups are unstructured meetings that provide a unique opportunity for attendees to drive the agenda and catalyze future collaborations and research opportunities.

The discussion will be opened by a panel discussion featuring five researchers from across the CTSA in this field: Thom Orlando, William Dynan, Binu Tharakan, Chunhui Xu, and Phillip Stancil.

Discussion topics may include, but are not limited to:

• What are the burning research questions in this area?
• What are the known funding opportunities?
• What are the cross-institutional collaborative research opportunities
  in this field?

Share your experience, learn from others, enjoy opportunities for interdisciplinary networking and find potential collaborators!

Join us for the next event in the Presenting Science series with Chris Reinhard, Georgia Power Chair and Associate Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Reinhard will explore how basalt rock dust can capture atmospheric CO₂, improve soil health and crop yields through enhanced weathering, and serve as a potential alternative to agricultural lime based on findings from long-term field trials and practical implementation considerations.

Date: Wednesday, July 29, 2026

Time: 6:00p.m. – 8:00p.m.

Location: Rafael Bras Rm, John Lewis Student Center

Biography: Sahika Inal is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudia Arabia, with affiliated appointments in Electrical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering. Since 2016, she has led the Organic Bioelectronics Lab, where her group develops organic mixed ionic-electronic materials and bioelectronic devices for biosensing, biosignal recording, stimulation, and neuromorphic applications.

Trained as a polymer scientist and engineer, Inal earned her Ph.D. in Experimental Physics from the University of Potsdam, Germany, and completed postdoctoral research in microelectronics for bioelectronic applications in France. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and has received several international honors, including the 2026 Humboldt Professorship, for which she was nominated by TU Dresden and the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, the ACS Kavli Lectureship Award, the Beilby Medal and Prize, and the Journal of Materials Chemistry Lectureship. She has authored more than 150 publications, which have received approximately 20,000 citations.

Learn About Software, Open Source, and Copyright 

Enjoy coffee, networking, and education as you learn how the Office of Technology Licensing can move your research through the patenting and licensing process.

Patent attorney Dustin Weeks will help you understand: 

• Software patenting 
• How open source works related to patents 
• The copyright process 

There will be a Q&A session at the end of the presentation. This is a great opportunity to get all your patent questions answered. 

Register HERE to participate virtually

Ashish Ranjan is an Endowed Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology. He also serves as Vice Chair for Comparative Oncology and Research Innovation and Director of the Veterinary Research and Oncology Clinic. He earned his B.V.Sc. degree (DVM equivalent) from Madras Veterinary College, in Chennai, India, followed by a Ph.D. in biomedical and veterinary sciences from Virginia Tech. Ranjan was then a visiting fellow at the Center for Interventional Oncology, Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Ranjan's research interests are in the application of device-directed nanoparticles for solid tumor chemo-immunotherapy. His lab is actively engaged in preclinical and bench-to-bedside veterinary clinical trials and has received funding from several federal, state, and private sources. Ranjan has received several distinguished awards, including the NIH Merit Award. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Focused Ultrasound Foundation, UK's Humanimal Trust, and NIH panels.

Faculty host: Yue Chen

 

Register HERE to participate virtually

Bianxiao Cui is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor of Chemistry and a fellow of the Wu Tsai Stanford Neuroscience Institute at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of Chicago and a BS degree from the University of Science and Technology of China. Cui develops new tools to study the nano-bio interface, membrane curvature, electrophysiology, and signal transduction in cells at normal and disease conditions. As a scientist and a teacher, she enjoys working with young scholars to explore the natural world with scientific innovations. Research in her group spans the disciplines of biophysics, cell biology, chemistry, material science, nanotechnology, and neurobiology. Her awards and distinctions include Ono Pharma Breakthrough Science Initiative award, Barany Award from the Biophysical Society, NIH New Innovator Award, NSF CAREER award, NSF Inspire award, Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering, Hellman Scholar, Searle Scholar Award and Dreyfus New Faculty Award.

Faculty host: Cheng Zhu

 

Attendees should register through the Genius LMS, using the "GT Login" button. Click on "View Course Catalog", then enter "RCR" in the search bar to view the current RCR workshop sessions. You can view information about each class (including class times) by clicking on "more info".  To register for a class, click on "Register", then "Proceed to Checkout" (there is no cost for the sessions). Then click on "Confirm". You will receive a confirmation email with a calendar file. You will need to follow instructions given to you during the session in order to receive RCR in-person contact hour credit for attending.

SESSIONS OFFERED ON THIS DATE:

Thursday, July 7  (Location - Ford ES&T, Room L1205)

Science & Engineering in Society 10-:00 - 11:00 AM

Peer Review 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

For more information about the RCR Workshop Series, including additional dates/sessions offered, refer to RCR Workshops and Events and Workshop FAQs.

Interested in presenting? Submit your abstract by July 30.

Learn more about events and programming here.

Interested in presenting? Submit your abstract by July 30.

Learn more about events and programming here.

Interested in presenting? Submit your abstract by July 30.

Learn more about events and programming here.

Interested in presenting? Submit your abstract by July 30.

Learn more about events and programming here.

CISTP Ambassador-in-Residence John Kelly will present "America's Role in the World: National Security in Obama in Year One" in a Lunch & Lecture sponsored by the Colonel Leslie Callahan Memorial Endowment.

**PLEASE SEE FLYER to RSVP**

John Kelly has served as Ambassador-in-Residence at CISTP of The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech since 1999. Upon leaving government service in 1994, Ambassador Kelly founded his own consulting firm to assist firms with overseas strategies and marketing. Kelly was U.S. Ambassador in Beirut from 1986 to 1988 during the war years.

He was Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East and South Asia from 1989 to 1991, during the Gulf War and up to the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference. He served as American Ambassador in Helsinki, Finland, from 1991 to 1994.

A career diplomat, Kelly was four times a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and also served in the Department of Defense as well as on overseas assignments in Turkey, Thailand, France, Lebanon, and Finland. He writes and lectures widely.

Leslie Callahan, for whom the memorial endowment is named, enjoyed a long and distinguished military career, serving in both the Philippines and Korea. Before his retirement from the US Army as a Colonel with 25 years of service, he had completed overseas and academic tours and held command and staff assignments related to technological development of air defense, guided missiles, avionics, and telecommunication systems.

A 1944 graduate of the US Military Academy, he earned his master’s degree (1951) and Ph.D. (1961) in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

He joined the GT faculty in 1969 and taught many undergraduate and graduate Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE) courses for the next 16 years. He also played a major role in developing graduate Military Operations Research programs for DoD personnel. He established the Callahan Endowment in 1993.

Calling all incoming recently acquired Tech students (RATS): Join the Georgia Tech Library for RATS Night 2026 Thursday, Aug. 20 from 6-9 p.m.

Take over the Library for a night of fun filled with entertainment, snacks, video games, trivia, arts and crafts, and free giveaways.

• A live DJ from WREK 91.1
• Private room karaoke
• Movies
• Team trivia (with prizes!)
• Board and video games
• Personalized posters in the Multimedia Scholarship Commons
• Hands-on papermaking activities with the Robert C. Williams Papermaking Museum

Calling all incoming recently acquired Tech students (RATS): Join the Georgia Tech Library for RATS Night 2025 Thursday, Aug. 14 from 6-9 p.m.

Take over the Library for a night of fun filled with entertainment, snacks, video games, trivia, arts and crafts, and free giveaways.

• A live DJ from WREK 91.1
• Private room karaoke
• Movies
• Team trivia (with prizes!)
• Board and video games
• Personalized posters in the Multimedia Scholarship Commons
• Hands-on papermaking activities with the Robert C. Williams Papermaking Museum

Thank you to our partners:

• Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking
• Office of International Education

We can’t wait to see you there!

The conference features presentations from leading researchers, educators, and practitioners on topics including differential privacy, equitable school redistricting, AI for higher education, supply chain optimization, federated learning, trustworthy AI, electric vehicle infrastructure, power systems, and workforce development.

Featured speakers include Ashok Goel, Nagi Gebraeel, Pascal Van Hentenryck, Wenting Li, Juba Ziani, Hongzhao Guan, Harshal Kaushik, and others who are advancing the frontiers of AI and optimization.

The AI4OPT Faculty Training Program Conference provides an opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research, connect with peers, and explore how AI and optimization can be applied to real-world challenges.

As the AI4OPT Faculty Training Program concludes after five years, this conference also serves as a celebration of its impact. The program has helped equip educators with the knowledge, tools, and resources needed to bring AI and optimization into their classrooms, expanding opportunities for students and strengthening the future workforce. The conference offers a chance to reflect on the program's achievements, recognize the faculty and partners who contributed to its success, and consider the lasting influence of AI4OPT's educational efforts on teaching, research, and innovation.

RSVP, here: https://www.justrsvp.me/AI4OPT_FTP_Conference

For agenda, please visit: https://www.ai4opt.org/news-events/ai4opt-faculty-training-program-conference

Qi Wang
Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Columbia University

This is a hybrid event. To join virtually, click here.

Abstract: The locus coeruleus is a critical brain structure and the primary source of norepinephrine to the forebrain. Through widespread projections and actions on diverse adrenergic receptors, the locus coeruleus modulates a broad range of brain functions, and dysfunction of the LC-NE system has been implicated in several major brain disorders. In Alzheimer’s disease, for example, the locus coeruleus is the first brain structure to exhibit characteristic pathology, decades before the onset of clinical symptoms. In this seminar, Dr. Wang will discuss neurotechnologies designed to enhance and restore brain function through targeted control of the LC-NE system. He will present findings showing how direct stimulation of this system improves information processing in the sensory thalamus and enhances perceptual behavior in rodents, then describe translational work testing vagus nerve stimulation as a substitute for direct locus coeruleus stimulation. He will also share results demonstrating that non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation improves auditory acuity and speech-in-noise performance in humans, and conclude with recent work on how noradrenergic and cholinergic signaling interact in the prefrontal cortex to mediate inhibitory control of impulsive actions. Taken together, these studies suggest that neural stimulation targeting the LC-NE system may offer a promising strategy for enhancing and restoring brain function in both health and disease.

Bio: Dr. Qi Wang received his first Ph.D. in Robotics from Harbin Institute of Technology, China, and his second Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from McGill University, Canada, in 1998 and 2007, respectively. He completed postdoctoral training in Neuroscience at Harvard University from 2006 to 2008. Before joining Columbia University in January 2013, he held a research faculty position in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. His research interests include neuromodulation, neural coding, brain-machine interfaces, and biomedical instrumentation. He has received numerous honors, including the NSF CAREER Award, the IEEE EMBS Early Career Achievement Award, the Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Foundation, and Best Paper Awards at the 14th IEEE Haptics Symposium.

Host: Dr. Surabhi Sachdev

Title: Searching for the unexpected: gravitational waves, ringdown, and the origins of black hole binaries 

Abstract:
We are a decade into the era of gravitational wave astronomy, which has revealed an otherwise invisible side of the Universe. To date we have detected bursts of gravitational waves from hundreds of merging binaries containing black holes and neutron stars. Gravitational waves provide avenues to search for new physics and to reveal the unknown formation channels of the binaries that produce them. I will first review the latest results from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaborations. I will then briefly discuss three avenues to search for the unexpected using gravitational waves: direct searches for exotic objects, targeted searches new physics using black hole ring down, and evidence that a subset of massive binary black holes are rapidly spinning. 

Zoom Meeting Link

If link fails or joining by phone:
Meeting ID: 924 6882 4956
Passcode: 239290
Dial: +1 507 473 4847

Title: Developing Computational Judgment in the Age of AI

Abstract: AI is changing not only how computational work is learned and produced, but also how competence in that work can be evaluated. As AI-supported tools and agentic workflows increasingly shape coding, analysis, modeling, simulation, and explanation, computational education faces an important question: What does it mean to demonstrate competence when final outputs no longer fully reveal the reasoning, verification, and decisions behind the work?

In this talk, Dr. Gaeun (Gwenn) Seo introduces computational judgment as a working construct for studying learners’ ability to evaluate, verify, adapt, and communicate computational outputs and decisions in AI-mediated environments. Drawing on her research in learning systems, competency development, and professional formation in STEM and computational contexts, she connects this construct to broader questions about how students develop and demonstrate computational competence as work changes. The talk outlines a human-centered research agenda for making computational competence more visible, assessable, and responsive to emerging forms of AI-mediated computational learning and work.

Bio: Gaeun (Gwenn) Seo studies how students and professionals develop competence, judgment, and professional direction as AI and computational tools reshape learning and work. Her current research focuses on AI-mediated computational learning and work, computational judgment, STEM doctoral education, and competency development and assessment. She is currently an Academic Professional and Director of Graduate Career Development at Georgia Tech, with promotion to Senior Academic Professional effective August 2026, and serves as Co-PI and research lead on a five-year NSF Innovation in Graduate Education grant studying flexible funding models, industry engagement, internships, and STEM Ph.D. training. Dr. Seo has taught, designed, and evaluated graduate and professional learning experiences across Georgia Tech, Princeton University, Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medicine, and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Her teaching has been recognized through “Teacher Ranked as Excellent by Students” honors at both UIUC and Weill Cornell Medicine, and her scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Career Development, International Journal of Doctoral Studies, and Journal of Further and Higher Education. Her teaching, leadership, and service have received major recognition, including the Georgia Tech Graduate Student Government Association’s Faculty of the Year Award and the Career Services Excellence Award from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where her dissertation research received the College of Education’s Hardie Dissertation Award.

For scheduling information, please contact Sophie McGivern at smcgivern3@gatech.edu.
For Zoom meeting and recording information, please contact Bryant Wine at bwine3@gatech.edu.

"Efficient Multiagent Trajectory Optimization via Model-Algorithm Co-Design"

Yue Yu
Assistant Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

About the Seminar: Jointly optimizing the trajectories of multiple agents is essential for the coordination and integration of complementary capabilities. However, multiagent trajectory optimization poses unique challenges. In addition to the increased dimensionality relative to single-agent problems, it introduces nonconvex inter-agent constraints arising from shared space and resources. These constraints fundamentally limit the efficiency in multiagent trajectory optimization. To address these limitations, we propose a model-algorithm co-design approach where we use novel problem formulation to improve algorithmic efficiency. In particular, by leveraging the duality between optimal control models and optimal estimation models, we simultaneously accelerate convergence and improve solution quality in optimizing multiagent trajectories within shared spaces. In addition, by leveraging the equivalence between disjunctive constraints and nonsmooth constraints, we improve the efficiency in optimizing the trajectories of UAV-UGV systems with energy-sharing constraints. Together, these results demonstrate how aligning modeling choices with algorithm development can significantly improve the efficiency and scalability of multiagent trajectory optimization.

About the Speaker: Yue Yu is an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He obtained his PhD in Aeronautics & Astronautics from University of Washington in 2021. His research interests include optimal control, numerical optimization, and multiagent systems.

"Efficient Multiagent Trajectory Optimization via Model-Algorithm Co-Design"

Yue Yu
Assistant Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

About the Seminar: Jointly optimizing the trajectories of multiple agents is essential for the coordination and integration of complementary capabilities. However, multiagent trajectory optimization poses unique challenges. In addition to the increased dimensionality relative to single-agent problems, it introduces nonconvex inter-agent constraints arising from shared space and resources. These constraints fundamentally limit the efficiency in multiagent trajectory optimization. To address these limitations, we propose a model-algorithm co-design approach where we use novel problem formulation to improve algorithmic efficiency. In particular, by leveraging the duality between optimal control models and optimal estimation models, we simultaneously accelerate convergence and improve solution quality in optimizing multiagent trajectories within shared spaces. In addition, by leveraging the equivalence between disjunctive constraints and nonsmooth constraints, we improve the efficiency in optimizing the trajectories of UAV-UGV systems with energy-sharing constraints. Together, these results demonstrate how aligning modeling choices with algorithm development can significantly improve the efficiency and scalability of multiagent trajectory optimization.

About the Speaker: Yue Yu is an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics at University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He obtained his PhD in Aeronautics & Astronautics from University of Washington in 2021. His research interests include optimal control, numerical optimization, and multiagent systems.

Meetings are open to Members, Guests, Sponsors, Partners, and presenting Entrepreneurs from any of our Keiretsu Forum Global chapters and regions.

Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend our meetings.

Host: Prof. Nepomuk Otte

Title: UHE Neutrinos: Windows into the Extreme Universe

Abstract:

Ultra-high-energy (UHE) neutrinos (Eν ≥ 10^17 eV) uniquely probe extreme astrophysical environments and fundamental physics, accessing energies beyond terrestrial accelerators. A recent candidate event reported by KM3NeT exemplified the growing potential of neutrinos in this regime.

The Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) searches for UHE neutrinos via impulsive radio emission from particle cascades in Antarctic ice, enabling large instrumented volumes with a sparse array. In this talk, I will present the first array-wide diffuse flux search with ARA using over a decade of data (2013–2023), incorporating extensive data-driven detector modeling and a full treatment of neutrino-induced lepton propagation, which enhances the detector acceptance at the highest energies. It also combines data of independently operating ARA detectors within a unified framework for signal processing and background rejection. This search will either identify the first UHE neutrino candidates observed by an in-ice radio detector or set the most stringent limits around O(10 EeV).

I will then discuss progress toward future precision astrophysics through polarization-based directional reconstruction, including the impact of birefringence in Antarctic ice. These advances will improve source identification, enable measurements of neutrino–nucleon cross sections, and allow tests of physics beyond the Standard Model, while laying the groundwork for next-generation arrays such as the under-construction RNO-G and planned IceCube-Gen2 Radio.

Attendees should register through the Genius LMS, using the "GT Login" button. Click on "View Course Catalog", then enter "RCR" in the search bar to view the current RCR workshop sessions. You can view information about each class (including class times) by clicking on "more info".  To register for a class, click on "Register", then "Proceed to Checkout" (there is no cost for the sessions). Then click on "Confirm". You will receive a confirmation email with a calendar file. You will need to follow instructions given to you during the session in order to receive RCR in-person contact hour credit for attending.

SESSIONS OFFERED ON THIS DATE:

Thursday, June 18  (Location - Ford ES&T, Room L1205)

Research Misconduct 10-:00 - 11:00 AM

Authorship 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

For more information about the RCR Workshop Series, including additional dates/sessions offered, refer to RCR Workshops and Events and Workshop FAQs.

Program:

09:30-09:55 Coffee and Snacks Marcus Nano Atrium

09:55-10:00 Welcome: Correa-Baena, Azoulay Marcus Nano # 1116

10:00-10:30 Kenan Gundogdu, NC State Marcus Nano # 1116

10:30-11:00 Flash Talks: Azoulay, Sfeir, GT Marcus Nano # 1116

11:00-11:30 Ajay Ram Srimath Kandada, Wake Forest Marcus Nano # 1116

11:30-12:00 Flash Talks: Correa-Baena, Stingelin, GT Marcus Nano # 1116

12:00-13:15 Lunch (Pizza will be served) Marcus Nano Atrium

13:15-13:45 Pierre Darancet, Argonne National Laboratory Marcus Nano # 1116

13:45-14:00 Flash Talk: Hu, GT Marcus Nano # 1116

14:00-14:30 Sergei Tretiak, Los Alamos National Laboratory Marcus Nano # 1116

14:30-15:00 Coffee Break

15:00-16:00 Pritchett Lecture: Jeffrey Neaton Marcus Nano # 1116

Senior Faculty Scientist and Director of the Molecular Foundry at LBNL

Professor of Physics at University of California, Berkeley

16:00-18:00 Poster Session + Happy Hour Marcus Nano Atrium

With more than nine years of experience in early-stage venture investing, including prior roles in the Bay Area and at Toyota Ventures’ frontier tech fund, Erin brings a seasoned investor’s perspective to innovation, commercialization, and startup growth. In this conversation, she will share insights into venture investing, Georgia Tech’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, and the role GTF Ventures plays in supporting innovation emerging from campus. 

Attendees will gain a better understanding of fund operations, capital raising, and what investors look for in early-stage opportunities. This session will be especially valuable for innovators, founders, and anyone interested in the intersection of research, entrepreneurship, and investment at Georgia Tech.

About Erin Keller

Erin Keller is Venture Fund Lead at the Georgia Tech Foundation, where she leads diligence, investment recommendations, and post-deal support. She previously spent more than six years in the Bay Area investing in early-stage companies, most recently at Toyota Ventures’ frontier tech fund. Erin began her career at a Medtech Venture Studio in Atlanta and holds a degree in Biomedical Engineering from Georgia Tech.

Attendees should register through the Genius LMS, using the "GT Login" button. Click on "View Course Catalog", then enter "RCR" in the search bar to view the current RCR workshop sessions. You can view information about each class (including class times) by clicking on "more info".  To register for a class, click on "Register", then "Proceed to Checkout" (there is no cost for the sessions). Then click on "Confirm". You will receive a confirmation email with a calendar file. You will need to follow instructions given to you during the session in order to receive RCR in-person contact hour credit for attending.

SESSIONS OFFERED ON THIS DATE:

Wednesday, May 20  (Location - Coon Building, Room 150)

Human Subjects Research 10-:00 - 11:00 AM

For more information about the RCR Workshop Series, including additional dates/sessions offered, refer to RCR Workshops and Events and Workshop FAQs.

Bench2Market (B2M) Talks
This free educational series is hosted to provide commercialization guidance to the innovation community. Each session features lectures, panel discussions, or workshops led by content experts on topics critical for technology translation success. 

 

Host: Prof. Nepomuk Otte

Title: Search for Neutrino Emission from Promising Sources 

Abstract:
The source of most high-energy astrophysical neutrinos remains unknown. These neutrinos are expected to be produced in hadronic interactions within cosmic accelerators, which also generate high-energy gamma rays. However, no clear association has been established between neutrinos and gamma-ray–bright sources yet.

Instead, environments that are opaque to gamma rays, where high-energy photons are absorbed and reprocessed, are the most likely source. Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), particularly those with obscured cores, are among the most promising candidates in this class. In such systems, gamma rays undergo further interactions and decay into MeV gamma rays or hard X-rays, which is supported by the observed excess of neutrinos from hard X-ray detected AGN such as NGC 1068 and NGC 4151. 

In this talk, I will present recent IceCube searches for neutrino emission from promising AGN populations, including Seyfert galaxies and hard X-ray–selected AGN. I will also discuss the ongoing search focusing on highly obscured sources and the implications for identifying the dominant sources of the astrophysical neutrino flux.

 "Learning Multicellular Rules From Spatial Perturbation Data to Construct Computational Non-Animal Models"

Peng Qiu
Professor, Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Faculty Fellow
Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering
Georgia Tech and Emory University

To attend via Zoom - register here.
Attend in-person at the Krone Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB), CHOA Seminar Room.

Digital technologies are reshaping our work and our lives at unprecedented speed. This presentation examines three forces driving this Fourth Industrial Revolution: exponentiality, convergence, and ubiquity, and their implications for higher education and adult learning. Dr. Schatz explores critical questions: How do we leverage AI-enabled personalization to support careers when 40% of worker skills become obsolete every five years? How do we design learning ecosystems that scale adaptive support across institutional boundaries? How do we use data to inform lifelong learning while respecting individuals’ data sovereignty? Drawing on cognitive science and learning engineering research, this presentation offers actionable strategies for implementing AI-augmented adult learning systems that move from pilot projects to institutional practice.

Biosketch

Sae (pronounced like “say”) Schatz works at the intersection of cognition, technology, and data. She specializes in bridging the gap between scientific principles and human-centered practice, and her unique approach to “strategic storytelling” (translating complex topics into memorable messages) has garnered professional awards and seen her work translated into multiple languages. 

In 2023, Sae launched the Knowledge Forge LLC, a boutique consultancy offering keynotes, professional development workshops, and strategic services. Her clients include government agencies, academic institutions, and businesses. Recently, for example, she delivered keynotes at the UK Special Forces Club (Knightsbridge), Prometric board meeting, and Innovations in Testing annual conference. She’s published works in TD Magazine, Defense Dossier, and the Journal of Military Learning, and she helped to produce the Learning Engineering Toolkit (2022), authored Engines of Engagement: A Curious Book About Generative AI (2023), and contributed to the U.S. National Academies’ report on Adult Learning in the Military Context (2024). 

From 2015 to 2022, Sae served as the director of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative, a U.S. Department of Defense program for research, development, and policy stewardship. She also co-chaired the NATO Training Group (NTG) Individual Training and Educational Developments task group. Under her leadership, the U.S. ADL Initiative sparked the international community’s pursuit of the lifelong “digital learning ecosystem,” in part with her popular book Modernizing Learning: Building the Future Learning Ecosystem. Her efforts were also formally recognized as “a pathfinder for enterprise data services” by then–DoD Chief Data Officer David L. Spirk. 

Before joining the civil service, Sae worked as an applied human-systems scientist in both business and academia. From 2011 to 2014, she was the chief scientist at MESH Solutions (a defense contractor), where she led the U.S. Marine Corps’ Making Good Instructors Great project and the U.S. Joint Staff’s award-winning Blended Learning–Training effort. Prior to that, she held an assistant professorship with the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Simulation and Training. Sae is a prolific writer and professional presenter as well as a graphic designer who often uses those skills to enhance books, presentations, and infographics. 

She holds a doctorate in Modeling and Simulation (M&S), with an emphasis on human systems.

Probing Charge Carriers in Mixed Ionic-Electronic Conducting Polymers

Abstract:

Conjugated polymers continue to emerge as next-generation electronic materials for mixed ionic-electronic conduction applications, ranging from biomedical sensing to energy storage. However, their development is hampered by a lack of rational design principles due to missing fundamental knowledge about how ion-charge interactions and dynamic polymer nanostructure influence charge transport and storage along polymer chains. In this talk, I will first discuss how we are exploiting the ultrafast dynamics of photoexcited charge carriers to provide details on their nanoscale environment and trapping behavior. Then I will show how in situ electronic and vibrational spectroscopy of polymer electrodes can be used to track their complex nanoscale dynamics during charging, revealing insights into nanostructures that support the formation of mobile carriers.

Bio:

Dr. Chris Grieco is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Auburn University, where his research group develops laser spectroscopy methods to probe charge carriers in conducting polymers used in electrochemical applications ranging from bioelectronics to batteries. Prior to Auburn, Chris earned a PhD in Chemistry at Penn State University where he worked with Prof. John Asbury studying how to improve exciton and charge carrier dynamics in organic molecules and polymers for solar cells. Chris then worked with Prof. Bern Kohler as a postdoctoral scholar at the Ohio State University, where he developed ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy methods for probing the elusive structure and photochemistry of the eumelanin biopigment.

Recent Awards:

• NSF CAREER Award, 2025
• Norman Edmund Inspiration Award, Edmund Optics, 2024
• Ultrafast Education Award - Bronze, Edmund Optics, 2024
• Gerhard Closs Postdoctoral Award, Inter-American Photochemical Society, 2023

The Bench2Market Talks series is created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. 
For more details on the series, visit our website at https://biolocity.gatech.edu/news-and-events/b2m-talks/.

Meetings are open to Members, Guests, Sponsors, Partners, and presenting Entrepreneurs from any of our Keiretsu Forum Global chapters and regions.

Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend our meetings.

Meetings are open to Members, Guests, Sponsors, Partners, and presenting Entrepreneurs from any of our Keiretsu Forum Global chapters and regions.

Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend our meetings.

Meetings are open to Members, Guests, Sponsors, Partners, and presenting Entrepreneurs from any of our Keiretsu Forum Global chapters and regions.

Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend our meetings.

Meetings are open to Members, Guests, Sponsors, Partners, and presenting Entrepreneurs from any of our Keiretsu Forum Global chapters and regions.

Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend our meetings.

Meetings are open to Members, Guests, Sponsors, Partners, and presenting Entrepreneurs from any of our Keiretsu Forum Global chapters and regions.

Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend our meetings.

Meetings are open to Members, Guests, Sponsors, Partners, and presenting Entrepreneurs from any of our Keiretsu Forum Global chapters and regions.

Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend our meetings.

Meetings are open to Members, Guests, Sponsors, Partners, and presenting Entrepreneurs from any of our Keiretsu Forum Global chapters and regions.

Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend our meetings.

Meetings are open to Members, Guests, Sponsors, Partners, and presenting Entrepreneurs from any of our Keiretsu Forum Global chapters and regions.

Due to SEC 506(c) regulations guests MUST pre-register to attend our meetings.

BIO
Marcela Maus grew up in New York, NY and attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for her undergraduate degree in Biology and Literature. She then earned her MD, PhD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where she studied the biology of human T cell activation under the direction of her PhD mentor, Dr. Carl June. After completing her doctorate degrees, Marcela did a one-year postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Kathy High at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia studying patient immune responses to liver-directed AAV-mediate gene transfer as a treatment for hemophilia. She then completed her clinical training in internal medicine, hematology, and oncology as a resident at the University of Pennsylvania Health System and a fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. While at Memorial Sloan Kettering, she worked in Michel Sadelain’s lab to engineer new genetically modified T cells to target the cancer-testis antigen NY-ESO-1 and received specialized training in Phase I developmental therapeutics. She was also awarded a K08 grant by the NIH to facilitate her transition to a faculty position.

Following her extensive training (11 years), Marcela returned to the University of Pennsylvania in 2012, where she was recruited by her former PhD mentor, to expand their research efforts in the development of CAR T cells for lymphoma, myeloma, and other cancers. While there, Marcela continued her efforts on preclinical development of CAR T cells and correlative studies of CAR T cell-related toxicities and resistance to therapies. They discovered and reported on the first cases of anaphylaxis to CAR T cells and off target cross-reactivity. She also led an entire arc of translational research, from preclinical testing to a first-in-human clinical trial of EGFRvIII CAR T cells for treatment of recurrent glioblastoma. Correlative data collected from this trial led to an understanding of CAR T resistant mechanisms that have led further refinement of these CAR T cells, which is one current area of focus in her current laboratory and has led to the development of another Phase I clinical trial for GBM patients.

Now, Dr. Maus is a Professor of Hematology and Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she runs a laboratory focused on developing and improving CAR T cell therapy for cancer patients while also periodically attending for the bone marrow transplant service. Marcela is the Paula O-Keeffe Endowed Chair of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and the Director of the Cellular Immunotherapy Program. She has won numerous awards for her transformative research and is achieving her goal of using science to determine the best way to treat patients by harnessing the power of the immune system to solve intractable problems like cancer. She also enjoys training clinicians and scientists and watching her mentees succeed and become independent scientists and collaborators.

This seminar presents a synthesis of research focused on leveraging these data sources for infectious disease prediction, spanning from classical statistical approaches to modern AI architectures.

Key Areas of Discussion:

• Statistical Methodologies: The presentation covers a family of models that combine autoregressive time series structure with penalized regression on Google search data. This includes extensions to spatial-temporal modeling, multi-disease settings, and COVID-19 adaptation.
• AI Architectures: Recent work on attention-based transformer architectures for time series forecasting will be discussed, highlighting methods for multivariate dependency modeling, in-context learning, and efficient linear attention.
• Practical Application: Drawing from ongoing participation in the CDC FluSight forecasting initiative, the session compares the strengths and limitations of both paradigms and shares practical lessons learned from real-time deployment.

The talk aims to offer perspective on when and how statistical rigor and deep learning flexibility each contribute to reliable disease forecasting.

About the Speaker

Dr. Shihao Yang is a Harold E. Smalley Early Career Professor and Assistant Professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He completed his PhD in statistics and post-doc in Biomedical Informatics at Harvard University. Dr. Yang’s research focuses on data science, with special interest in time series, dynamical systems, and applications in infectious disease transmission forecasting.

To attend, please register online via Zoom.

Speaker: Jun Ding
Professor of Neurosurgery, and Neurology & Neurological Sciences
Stanford University School of Medicine
 

Friday, May 8, 2026
12:00 pm (lunch will be provided)
CNR 1000, 1st floor
Claudia Nance Rollins Building, Rollins School of Public Health

Paid parking available:

Michael Street Parking Deck
550 Houston Mill Road, Atlanta 30322

1525 Parking Deck
1525 Clifton Road, Atlanta, 30322
 

Hui Zou
Department of Statistics
Stanford University

In the practice of statistical modeling, it is often desirable to have an accurate predictive model with a sparse representation. The lasso is a promising model building technique, performing continuous shrinkage and variable selection simultaneously. Although the lasso has shown success in many situations, it may produce unsatisfactory results in some scenarios: (1) the number of predictors (greatly) exceeds the number of observations; (2) the predictors are highly correlated and form

Explore how expertise is evolving in the age of AI. Dr. Gichoya will share insights from four years of the HITI Lab Datathon, highlighting lessons on data science, training, and real-world applications of AI in healthcare.

BIO
Dr. Gichoya is the William and Kay Casarella Professor of Radiology at Emory University and leads the HITI (Healthcare AI Innovation and Translational Informatics) lab. Her work is centered around using data science to study health equity. Her group works in 4 areas - building diverse datasets for machine learning (for example the Emory Breast dataset); evaluating AI for bias and fairness; validating AI in the real world setting and training the next generation of data scientists (both clinical and technical students) through hive learning and village mentoring. She serves as the program director for radiology: AI trainee editorial board and the Emory University medical students machine learning elective. She has mentored over 60 students across the world (now successful faculty, post doc, PHD, and industry employees) from several institutions around the world. She has received several awards including the most influential radiology researcher in 2022 and is a 2023 Emerging Scholar at the National Academy of Medicine.

• What makes hearing fundamentally different from vision?
• What computations allow the brain to infer space from sound?
• How does early blindness reorganize these computations, and what does that reveal about brain plasticity? 

He is Professor of Bioengineering and Materials Science at UC Berkeley and Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the Materials Research Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In addition to his research, he mentors and teaches students in the fields of biomaterials design, materials science, polymer science, and nanomedicine.

Faculty host: Felipe Quiroz

 

Special emphasis is given to Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine and particular applications and more details are described on the lab web page.

Faculty host: Alexander Vlahos

 

BIO
Jeffrey Hubbell is a pioneer in the field of immuno-modulatory materials whose research spans biology, chemistry, and engineering to generate novel solutions to common health problems. His work focuses on using biomaterials and engineered proteins to enhance the body’s own immune system to fight inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, allergies, and disease states like cancers. With more than 400 papers and 100 issued US patents, Hubbell uses biomaterials and protein engineering approaches to investigate topics in regenerative medicine and immunotherapeutics. In regenerative medicine, he develops both materials and protein therapeutics to address issues such as chronic wound healing in diabetes and bone repair after trauma. In immunotherapeutics, he pursues nanomaterials in vaccination for infectious disease and cancer as well as targeted therapy with RNA, protein-material conjugates for inverse vaccines to induce antigen-specific tolerance in autoimmunity and allergy, and in protein therapy to tip immune balances toward aggression in immuno-oncology and toward tolerance in inflammatory disease. His interests are both basic and translational, having founded or co-founded six biomedical companies based on his technology.

Before moving to New York University, Hubbell was at the University of Chicago in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, where he helped build its strength in immunoengineering. Prior to that, he was on the faculty of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL, where he served as founding Director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Dean of the School of Life Sciences), the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and University of Zurich, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas in Austin. He was elected to the US National Academy of Engineering in 2010, the National Academy of Medicine in 2019, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021, and the National Academy of Sciences in 2023.

Join President Cabrera with Rodney Adkins, former Senior Vice President at IBM, to discuss leadership in technology. 

Date: Wednesday, April 29, 2026, at 12:00 p.m.

Location: Coda, Room 114 (Google Maps link)

Lunch provided!

Title: Safety Alignment of Generative Foundation Models

Abstract: Modern LLMs are safety-aligned through supervised finetuning (SFT) and reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) to mitigate harmful, undesirable, or disallowed outputs. Despite ongoing progress, LLMs still exhibit critical safety gaps: models can be jailbroken into revealing harmful content, often overrefuse benign queries, and fail to maintain safety under adversarial scenarios. My dissertation research advances the safety alignment of generative foundation models by developing principled tools, architectures, and training methods that strengthen their robustness and reliability at scale. Specifically, this thesis focuses on three complementary thrusts: a) Understanding and shaping the safety landscape of LLMs, b) Internalizing safety in agentic reasoning intelligence, and c) Grounding safety and robustness in multimodal perception.

Bio: Anthony is a CS Ph.D. candidate at Georgia Tech working with Polo Chau. His thesis research has elevated foundational AI efforts at Nvidia, Meta, IBM, Intel, and ADP via internships and collaborations, and has resulted in several first-author publications and awards at NeurIPS, ACL, ICCV, EMNLP, CVPR, and BMVC. His research has contributed to the AI foundation of multiple funded industry research grants totaling over $1.4M. Learn more about him at shengyun-peng.github.io.

About HotCSE

HotCSE is an academic seminar series to bring Ph.D. students in Computational Science and Engineering together to discuss interesting topics. The topics consist of high-performance computing, machine learning, data analysis, simulation, computational sustainability, medical informatics, etc.

The talks have always been enjoyable and have ranged from quite informal to formal conference style talks. Either chalks or slides can be used to help people understand your talk. It is also a great forum to practice conference talks and bounce around new ideas.

Currently the talks are sponsored by the School of Computational Science and Engineering. The goal of CSE is slightly broader than that of these talks - we want to bring more people outside CSE to discuss their related work here.

Host: Prof. John Wise

Title: Cataclysmic variables as radio sources

Abstract

Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are a common type of binary star, consisting of an Earth-sized white dwarf accreting matter from a small, cold red dwarf companion. While CVs have been known of for over a century and well-studied across the electromagnetic spectrum by hobbyists and professionals alike, we still lack a comprehensive picture for how they produce radio emission. In this talk, I will introduce the major hypothesis for where and how radio emission is produced in these binary stars: astrophysical jets from the white dwarf and coherent flaring from the companion star. In particular, I will focus on the latter scenario. Some of my recent work has revealed a wide variety of behavior that reinforces CVs as dynamic and interesting laboratories for astrophysics. The study of these coherent mechanisms is broadly applicable to stellar magnetic activity, opening up new pathways for observing stellar coronal mass ejections and exospace weather, which has direct consequences for exoplanet habitability.

Developing a community-based perspective on data center development

The Sound of Motion: Transforming Artistic Body Movement into Music for Motor Therapy

Designing Ethical Robot Behaviors for Unforeseen Human-Robot Interactions Using LLMs

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IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series

PLEASE NOTE SEMINAR IS TUESDAY THE 21st!

Abstract: How should we act under incomplete information? We must integrate over missing values to assess the risk of a downstream decision, or the expected risk reduction from gathering further information.  Applications include NLP annotation, LLM workflows, clinical medicine, experimental design, and many others.  The classical approach to predicting missing values involves fitting some generative model to the incomplete data.  Alas, classical methods are slow and often inaccurate due to local optima, poor mixing, or model misspecification.  We propose a low-fuss, efficient alternative with fewer assumptions: given incomplete data, train a neural network to directly predict masked values. Our generic network architecture resembles BERT: it constructs a representation for each random variable's posterior marginal distribution and iteratively refines it through attention on other random variables and entities.  We find that this posterior marginal Transformer ("Marformer") works much better than EM and almost as well as MCMC even when those methods know the true data generating model, and it outperforms them on naturally occurring data. We outline future methods for adaptive masking and a future design for managing data collection efforts.

Bio: Jason Eisner is Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University and a Fellow of the Association for Computational Linguistics. At Johns Hopkins, he is also affiliated with the Center for Language and Speech Processing, the Mathematical Institute for Data Science, the Cognitive Science Department, and the Data Science and AI Institute. His goal is to develop the probabilistic modeling, inference, and learning techniques needed for a unified model of all kinds of linguistic structure, and to connect existing models (such as LLMs) to commonsense reasoning, formal reasoning, and downstream applications. His 180+ papers have presented various algorithms for parsing, machine translation, and weighted finite-state machines; formalizations, algorithms, theorems, and empirical results in computational phonology; unsupervised or semi-supervised learning methods for syntax, morphology, and word-sense disambiguation; and principled methods for conversational AI, including neural language modeling and semantic parsing. From 2019-2024 he was Director of Research at Microsoft Semantic Machines, which developed new approaches to conversational AI. He is also the lead designer of Dyna, a declarative programming language that provides an infrastructure for AI algorithms. He has received 3 school-wide awards for excellence in teaching, most recently in 2025, as well as recent 

 Zoom Link

Meeting ID: 977 5500 1285  | Passcode: 247306 

For more information, or for CODA guest access, please contact shatcher8@gatech.edu at least 2 business days prior to the event.

Abstract

Civil society organizations (CSOs) operate at the frontline of civic engagement, often navigating complex political, social, and economic environments. In East Africa, CSOs face several challenges, ranging from a shrinking civic space, to increasingly disengaged populations to shrinking funding. CSO programming has also been ineffective in many cases leading to wasted resources, poor feedback loops and sub-par outcomes. This talk draws on practical experience working with CSOs in the region to unpack the behavioral barriers that limit civic participation as well as effective CSO programming. It explores how behavioral science has been applied through experimentation, co-design and communications to redesign engagement strategies, influence policy, improve public service delivery and improve government responsiveness to citizens' voices. This talk will also highlight key lessons on what works, what doesn’t, and why, offering a grounded perspective on how to design more effective, context-sensitive civic engagement programs.

Abstract

The internet has fundamentally changed small businesses in the United States. Social media and e-commerce platforms have enabled new business models, many of which can be operated from home offices and basements. Entrepreneurs are less dependent on brick-and-mortar presences than ever. We argue that this shift has dramatic effects on small business owners’ political behaviors and identity. The small-business-owner-as-civic-leader archetype that features so heavily in American civic and political life is not inherent to entrepreneurial activity, but is rather the product of interactions that are specific to brick-and-mortar businesses, especially when co-located with other brick-and-mortar businesses. Brick-and-mortarness, we argue, exposes business owners to a plethora of routine interactions with the government (via parking, construction, building permits, etc.) that catalyzes (sometimes collective) political actions. These mundane political actions teach small business owners how local politics works, but also socialize them to see themselves as political beings, with long term and broad impacts on how they relate to local politics and civic life. We test this using data from a statewide survey on Minnesota small business owners and through a new dataset of small business owners’ participation in the January 23, 2026 anti-ICE strike in Minnesota. We find consistent support for our theory. An implication of this is that the technological innovations of the  internet suppresses the political socialization of business owners into individual and collective political actors.

Sponsored by The Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS).
Supported by the School of Computer Science.

Abstract: Generative AI systems are no longer just tools — they are becoming active participants in how people make sense of themselves, seek support, and navigate moments of vulnerability. Nowhere is this shift more consequential than in mental health, where large language models (LLMs) are increasingly mediating help-seeking, shaping perceptions of care, and producing guidance at scale. This talk positions digital mental health as a critical testbed for interrogating the foundations of generative AI, where questions of reliability, alignment, and human impact are especially salient.

Drawing on empirical research, I describe how LLMs participate in mental health discourse: as conversational agents, sources of guidance, and mediators of support. While these systems demonstrate remarkable fluency and scalability, they also exhibit important limitations: variability in correctness and consistency, cultural and therapeutic misalignment, and challenges in capturing the nuance of lived experience. I further discuss emerging risks associated with generative systems in this context, including over-reliance, sycophantic responses, and the potential erosion of human agency and social connection. These findings underscore a broader tension in generative AI: systems optimized for engagement and responsiveness may not align with the goals of care, safety, and long-term wellbeing. I conclude by outlining a human-centered foundation for generative AI — one that foregrounds identity, agency, and institutional context, and advances toward systems that are not only capable of generating language, but are accountable to the human conditions they shape.

Bio: Munmun De Choudhury is J. Z. Liang Professor at the School of Interactive Computing and Co-Lead of Patient-Centered Care Delivery at the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta-Pediatric Technology Center in Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. De Choudhury is known for her contributions to the fields of computational social science, human-computer interaction, and digital mental health. Through fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, Dr. De Choudhury and her collaborators have contributed significantly to advancing the development of computational techniques for early detection and intervention in mental health, as well as in unpacking how social media use benefits or harms mental well-being.

De Choudhury's contributions have been recognized through awards like the 2023 SIGCHI Societal Impact Award, the 2023 ICWSM and the 2022 Web Science Trust Test-of-Time Awards, the 2021 ACM-W Rising Star Award, as well as nearly two dozen paper awards. In 2024, she was inducted into the SIGCHI Academy and in 2025 was named an ACM Distinguished Member. Beyond her academic contributions, Dr. De Choudhury is a persistent contributor to policy-framing and advocacy initiatives, and is frequently sought for expert advice to governments and media. Notably, Dr. De Choudhury was an invited contributor to the Office of U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 Advisory on The Healing Effects of Social Connection. Currently, she serves as a member of the Technical Advisory Group of the Commission for Social Connection at the World Health Organization and also advises the World Bank.