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Conversations@TechSquare is a dynamic space for new ideas, not an environment for established concepts. We gather creators and innovators from across Georgia Tech, the broader Tech Square community, and beyond, to engage in open dialogue around some of today’s biggest challenges and opportunities. These gatherings are organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and will occur several times during a semester at the Tech Square Clubhouse. The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.).

Tech Square Clubhouse

PARKING:
Parking is available at the Centergy One parking deck, located right next door. You can also find additional street parking via Park Mobile on Spring and 5th Street. Centergy One parking deck daily rates: Half Hour: $3.00 | One Hour: $6.00 | Two Hours: $12.00 | Daily Max: $20.00

GT CAMPUS BUS: Take the Gold route bus which stops at Tech Square.

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Conversations@TechSquare is a dynamic space for new ideas, not an environment for established concepts. We gather creators and innovators from across Georgia Tech, the broader Tech Square community, and beyond, to engage in open dialogue around some of today’s biggest challenges and opportunities. These gatherings are organized and hosted by the Georgia Tech Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and will occur several times during a semester at the Tech Square Clubhouse. The Clubhouse address is 848 Spring Street NW, Atlanta, Georgia, 30308 (street level, behind the Centergy One Bldg.).

Tech Square Clubhouse

PARKING:
Parking is available at the Centergy One parking deck, located right next door. You can also find additional street parking via Park Mobile on Spring and 5th Street. Centergy One parking deck daily rates: Half Hour: $3.00 | One Hour: $6.00 | Two Hours: $12.00 | Daily Max: $20.00

GT CAMPUS BUS: Take the Gold route bus which stops at Tech Square.

Contributors Val Barnhart, Matthew Frizzell, Ed Hall, and Dedren Snead will join Yaszek to explore John P. Moore's rediscovered contributions to science fiction. Through the conversation, attendees will learn more about the thriving Black science-fiction community of the 1930s, the role of historical research and contemporary literary scholarship, and how Georgia Tech students worked to recover and reexamine the lost worlds of Moore's The Martian Trilogy.

Abstract: Two-sided matching platforms, including labor markets, dating apps, accommodation services, and ridesharing systems, must make matching decisions in the presence of choice congestion and strategic platform design challenges. When agents have correlated preferences, popular options can attract too much demand, reduce overall efficiency, and lead to poor market outcomes. In this talk, I will present a framework for two-sided assortment optimization that studies how a platform should decide which options to display to agents and in what order, with the goal of improving matching performance. The main focus will be on maximizing the expected number of matches under general choice models. I will describe several natural classes of platform policies, ranging from static simultaneous displays to fully adaptive sequential policies, and compare their power through adaptivity gap results. I will also discuss polynomial-time approximation algorithms for computing near-optimal policies, and then briefly discuss the revenue-maximization version of the problem, where matches generate pair-dependent rewards. This talk is based on joint works with Alfredo Torrico, Ulysse Hennebelle, and Mohammadreza Ahmadnejadsaein.
 

Bio: Omar El Housni is an Assistant Professor in the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell Tech and Cornell University. He is a Field Member of the Center of Applied Mathematics at Cornell. He is also an Amazon Scholar. His research focuses on decision-making under uncertainty where he aims to develop optimization models and design robust and efficient algorithms to address a wide range of operational problems, including revenue management problems such as assortment optimization and online matchings. Omar has spent time as a research scientist at Amazon and Uber where he contributed to the design and implementation of data-driven optimization models for matching and retailing platforms. Omar holds a PhD in Operations Research from Columbia University and an MS and BS in Applied Mathematics from Ecole Polytechnique (Paris). His work has been recognized by INFORMS George Nicholson award and his current research is supported by NSF. 

Abstract: Recent advances in neuroimaging have produced massive and heterogeneous datasets, ranging from fMRI with high spatial resolution to EEG with high temporal resolution, characterized by complex spatiotemporal correlations and substantial inter-subject variability. Traditional regression models and Gaussian process (GP) approaches with fixed parametric kernels often fail to model such complex data effectively while maintaining scalability and interpretability. This talk introduces a family of modern Bayesian GP frameworks that integrate deep kernel learning, neural network priors, and geometric modeling for large-scale neuroimaging analysis. An example is the Deep Kernel Learning Process (DKLP), which embeds deep neural networks within GP priors to learn data-adaptive covariance structures directly from imaging data. DKLP provides a unified modeling foundation for image-on-scalar, scalar-on-image, and image-on-image regression, supported by theoretical guarantees and efficient posterior computation. Applications to fMRI data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study reveal reproducible cortical activation patterns associated with cognitive ability, while analyses of EEG-based brain–computer interface data demonstrate robust neural decoding under high noise. I will also discuss scalable heat-kernel GPs on manifolds and thresholded GP–based spatially varying neural network priors, which together expand the scope of Bayesian inference for complex neuroimaging data.
 

Bio: Dr. Jian Kang is Professor and Associate Chair for Research in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Michigan. His research lies at the intersection of Bayesian statistics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, with applications in neuroimaging, brain–computer interfaces, omics, and precision medicine. He has published more than 175 papers in leading statistics, machine learning, and biomedical journals. Dr. Kang has served as an Associate Editor for several premier statistical journals, including the Journal of the American Statistical Association (JASA), The Annals of Applied Statistics (AOAS) and Biometrics. He is a Fellow of both the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) and the American Statistical Association (ASA). He currently serves as Chair of the ASA Section on Statistics in Imaging.

Abstract: Modern manufacturing generates increasingly rich in-situ sensing data, creating new opportunities for AI to enable automated and intelligent quality control decisions. However, conventional quality control using supervised learning relies on abundant labeled data and assumes that future product defects or process faults resemble those known during training. In practice, new defect types emerge, while abnormal conditions may be rarely observed or completely unknown. These challenges are particularly important for in-situ quality control, where defects must be detected or correctly classified for real-time decision-making, including newly emerging defects with limited or unavailable labels. Moreover, for latent defects that cannot be directly inspected online, defects must instead be predicted from indirect process-sensing signals. This requires mapping process-signal changes to possible defects despite scarce or unavailable defect training samples. This talk explores how advances in AI can address these challenges and enable more adaptive and intelligent in-situ quality control and decision-making for smart manufacturing.
 

Bio: Dr. Judy Jin is the A. Galip Ulsoy Collegiate Professor of Engineering and Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. Her research lies at the intersection of data science and quality engineering, with a focus on synergistically integrating engineering models, AI, and advanced quality control methods to improve system design and operational performance. She has served as PI/Co-PI on more than $20 million in federally and industry-funded research. Her work has received numerous honors, including 18 Best Paper Awards, the S.M. Wu Research Implementation Award from SME, the Forging Achievement Award from FIERF, the NSF CAREER Award, and the NSF PECASE Award.

Dr. Jin currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of IISE Transactions. She has also served as Vice President of INFORMS, Chair of the INFORMS Quality, Statistics and Reliability Section, and President of the IISE Quality Control and Reliability Engineering Division. She is a Fellow of ASME, IISE, and INFORMS.

Malcolm MacIver
Professor, McCormick School of Engineering
Northwestern University

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines

Faculty Host: Nabil Imam

Trainees: Sign up to meet with the speaker.

Join virtually here.

Marlene Behrmann
Professor of Ophthalmology
John and Clelia Sheppard Chair in Ophthalmology
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Co-sponsored by the Center of Excellence in Computational Cognition (CoCo)

Faculty Host: Doby Rahnev

Trainees: Sign up to meet with the speaker here.

Join virtually here.

From Insight to Impact

Antonis Iliopoulos
Visiting Assistant Professor
Emory University

Join virtually here

Gordon Smith
Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience
University of Minnesota

Co-sponsored by the School of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Faculty Host: Audrey Sederberg

Trainees: Sign up to meet with the speaker here

Join virtually here

Zachary Johnson
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Emory University School of Medicine

Join virtually here

This seminar is taking place at Marcus Nanotechnology Bldg, Room 1117-1118, 345 Ferst Dr NW, Atlanta, GA 30332.

Laura Colgin
Professor, Department of Neuroscience
University of Texas at Austin

Co-sponsored by the Center for Research and Education in Navigation

Faculty Host: Annabelle Singer

Trainees: Sign up to meet with the speaker here

Join virtually here

Tammy Tran
Assistant Professor, School of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology

Join virtually here.

Aryn Gittis
Dr. Frederick A. Schwertz Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University

Co-sponsored by the McCamish Parkinson’s Disease Innovation Program

Faculty Host: Garrett Stanley

Trainees: Sign up to meet with the speaker here

Join virtually here

Get the day's full agenda here.

Get the day's full agenda here.

Get the day's full agenda.

Get the day's full agenda here.

"The Constitution and America’s Civic Fracture" will feature a panel discussion including:

• Paul Carrese, Director of the Center for American Civics and Professor, School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, Arizona State University
• Moderated by Amanda Murdie, Dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

"Intellectual Property in the Age of AI" will feature a panel discussion including:

• Andrew Toole, Associate Professor, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy
• Nicole Morris, Professor of the Practice, Emory University School of Law
• Toby Tatum, Counsel at Smith, Gambrell and Russell, LLP 

“What Stops Menstrual Bleeding? From Spiral Arteriole Hemodynamics to Heavy Menstrual Bleeding” - Raphaelle Dodart, Ph.D. Student, David Ku, Advisor

Abstract

Heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) is common, but the mechanisms that control blood loss during menstruation remain poorly understood. Computational analysis of menstrual blood loss and uterine vascular anatomy suggests that spiral arterioles are a plausible major source of menstrual bleeding. The high shear rates generated within these small vessels may also favor shear-induced platelet aggregation (SIPA), providing a potential mechanism for rapid hemostasis following endometrial shedding. An ongoing clinical study at Georgia Tech examines whether dysfunction in SIPA and primary hemostasis is present in a subset of women with HMB. This work connects spiral arteriole hemodynamics with clinical measurements of hemostatic function to better understand why menstrual bleeding becomes excessive in some women.

“Synthetic Notch Circuits Enable In Vivo Measurement of Endogenous Forces on Immune Cell Receptors” - Menglan Li, Research Scientist, Georgia Tech 

Abstract

Understanding how mechanical forces influence the signaling pathways of immunoreceptors is essential for advancing research in immunology and immunotherapy. Despite in vitro evidence of endogenous forces exerted by immune cells on immunoreceptors, in vivo measurement has been challenging due to technological limitations. Here, we present a novel technology platform based on synthetic Notch (SynNotch) circuits, enabling in vivo reporting of cell-generated forces on specific receptors. Our platform utilizes the mechano-sensitive properties of the Notch receptor, re-engineering it by replacing its ligand-binding domain with a single-chain variable fragment (scFv) of an antibody targeting the receptor of interest. The SynNotch receptor's activation induces the expression of a reporter gene. By adoptively transferring receiver cells expressing SynNotch into animals, we can measure the forces exerted by sender cells on the target receptor in vivo. We validated this platform using T cells as receiver cells and B cells as sender cells, with CD40 as the target receptor. Our results showed that B cells exert forces on CD40-SynNotch bonds, leading to the activation of SynNotch at forces around 2.4 pN per bond, increasing to a plateau at approximately 6.4 pN per bond. This mechanotransduction significantly influenced B cell signaling. This technology provides a powerful tool for investigating receptor-mediated mechanosensing and mechanotransduction in various biological contexts.

The Immunoengineering Training Seminar Series is supported by the NIH T32 Research Training Program in Immunoengineering and housed within the Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech. 

Avant South 2026

Oct. 12 - 13

Atlanta, GA

Register Now

Avant South is back, bringing together the builders, thinkers, and leaders shaping the future of technology and innovation in the South.

As Atlanta’s premier tech and innovation event, Avant South continues to advance the city’s position as a leading hub for innovation, convening founders, executives, investors, policymakers, researchers, and students for two days of big ideas, sharp insights, and meaningful connections.

This year, we’re diving into our theme: AI in Action.

From logistics and fintech to healthcare and media, we’ll explore how AI is actively transforming the industries that define Atlanta’s growth, and how leaders across sectors are putting AI to work in real, practical ways.

Join us for a forward-looking conversation on what’s next and what’s already happening in Atlanta.

Register Now

Bio: Lars Ruthotto is a Professor in the Departments of Mathematics and Computer Science at Emory University, where he is a member of the Scientific Computing Group and directs the Emory REU/RET Site for Computational Mathematics for Data Science. He earned his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Muenster in 2012 and was a postdoc at the University of British Columbia before joining Emory. His research develops computational methods at the interface of scientific computing, optimization, machine learning, and inverse problems, with recent emphasis on generative modeling, high-dimensional partial differential equations, and stochastic optimal control. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and serves as a Section Editor for the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing.

Access Via Zoom: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/93198655277?pwd=R49ghn4Eacaqbc0YIBa68NdmgbPYYO.1

Meeting ID: 931 9865 5277
Passcode: 938967

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

The H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology is pleased to welcome you to Atlanta, Georgia for Georgia Statistics Day 2026.

Georgia Statistics Day is an annual event that promotes interdisciplinary statistics research across the University of Georgia, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Emory University, with the venue rotating among the participating institutions. The 2026 event will feature a keynote lecture, two semi-plenary lectures, parallel research sessions, a student poster session, and ample opportunity for exchange between academia and industry.

We are honored to have Prof. Jianqing Fan, Frederick L. Moore ’18 Professor of Finance and Professor of Statistics, Machine Learning, and Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University, as our keynote speaker. The semi-plenary speakers are Prof. Sivaraman Balakrishnan from Carnegie Mellon University and Prof. Mladen Kolar from the University of Southern California.

This one-day workshop brings together faculty, students, and industry researchers from across Georgia and the Southeast for invited talks, interdisciplinary exchange, mentoring, and networking. Registration and poster submissions are open through September 28, 2026.
 

Georgia Statistics Day 2026 website

What does creativity mean when machines can generate images, music, writing, and other forms of creative work? Explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping creative industries, changing the relationship between technology and human expression, and raising new questions around authorship, originality, labor, and the future of creative work.

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable of conversation, companionship, and emotional responsiveness, what happens to our understanding of human connection? Unpack AI, empathy, intimacy, and relationships while considering what it means to form meaningful connections in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

How is artificial intelligence changing the way knowledge is created? Examine AI's growing role in academic research, including how researchers use emerging tools to accelerate discovery, approach complex questions, and navigate the ethical and practical implications of AI-assisted scholarship.

Host: Dr. Meg Millhouse

Title: Growing the RIFT: an update on features and applications for the gravitational wave inference code RIFT

Abstract:
As the sensitivity of the gravitational wave (GW) detectors improve, the number of detections for future observing runs are expected to dramatically increase. Due to this, the need for fast, accurate, and increasingly automated parameter inference code becomes ever more relevant. The GW parameter inference code RIFT is a grid-based code that takes advantage of the parameter-dependencies of terms within the likelihood to efficiently marginalize the extrinsic parameters. This piecewise approach to the construction of the likelihood allows for highly parallelizable calculations and computational speed compared to standard Markov-Chain Monte Carlo methods. In this talk, I will present some recent improvements to RIFT as well as some recent applications where RIFT was used to produce novel results. This includes analyses with initially unbound, eccentric-precessing, and eccentric-matter waveforms. Fast and accurate inference of these more exotic sources will be essential as we approach design sensitivity of LIGO/Virgo and look forward to 3G detectors.

The conversation will be moderated by Rachel Whitlark, associate professor at the Nunn School and associate director of CRISP.

Presented by: 
Roman Zantl, ibidi CEO
Jenna Rogalinski, Sr. Technical Sales Representative

This workshop co-hosted by the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Institute for Matter and Systems will introduce researchers to ibidi technologies supporting cell-based research, microfluidics, hydrogel modeling, microscopy, and perfusion-based applications. Activities will include:

• Presentation by Roman Zantl, ibidi CEO.
• Introduction to the new ibidi Micro Illumination System
• Hands-on demonstrations using hydrogel materials.
• Integration of the Micro Illumination System with the ibidi Pump System.
• Opportunities to discuss individual research applications and perfusion system needs.
• Networking with ibidi representatives and members of the Georgia Tech research community.
• Food will be provided and photos will be taken.

Pre-Event Webinar | Tuesday Oct. 13 from 1-1:30 p.m.
This webinar will introduce the ibidi and the Micro Illumination System and will act as a pre-requisite for people who are not familiar with the technology. Registration is required for this webinar

 Agenda
10 – 10:30 a.m. - Check-in
10:30 – 11 a.m. - Opening Remarks (Roman Zantl)
11 a.m. – 12 p.m. - Seminar and Demonstration
12 – 1 p.m. - Lunch and Networking
1 – 2 p.m. - Demo in IBB 1120

*Attendees are welcome to register for and attend only Roman Zantl's presentation.

The program will feature presentations from leading researchers, including Ali Sarhadi, Suhas Jain, and Iris Tien, followed by an interactive panel discussion where attendees can engage with the speakers and gain insights from diverse perspectives across climate science, engineering, risk analysis, and sustainability research.

Registration is required. Please complete the registration form to reserve your spot. Breakfast will be provided.

Abstract:

Fungal metabolites are well known for providing humanity with medical benefits, with penicillin and the antibiotics revolution that it stimulated probably the greatest example from the 20th century. Our team has been studying fungi for drug leads effective in the fight against cancer, with an emphasis on ovarian cancer, and this presentation will peer into two different chapters of that ongoing story. The verticillins are potent, cytotoxic leads, first discovered over 50 years ago. Our emphasis has been on amplifying their supply, generating semisynthetic analogues, understanding their mechanism of action, and optimizing their delivery. In contrast, wheldone is a molecule that we first described recently. Interestingly, it is only biosynthesized via the antagonism of two fungi fighting for limited resources in co-culture. We’ve spent considerable effort developing ways to supply this compound on a larger scale, as the scale up of fungal co-cultures is not discussed in the literature. We’ve also probed its mode of action and are starting to generate semisynthetic analogues. In sum total, this presentation will provide a glimpse into how natural products drug discovery from fungi is carried out in the modern research setting.

Bio: 

Nicholas Oberlies received his B.S. in Chemistry from Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in 1992 and his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy from Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana) in 1997, where he studied under Professor Jerry L. McLaughlin. He then spent a year as a postdoctoral chemist at American Cyanamid (Princeton, New Jersey), where he investigated leads with insecticidal, herbicidal, and fungicidal properties from natural sources. In 1998, he joined the Natural Products Laboratory at Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in North Carolina, specifically to be mentored by the late Dr. Mansukh C. Wani and the late Dr. Monroe E. Wall, who are most well known as the co-discoverers of taxol and camptothecin. He rose progressively through the ranks of RTI and eventually directed the Natural Products Laboratory. In 2009, he moved his research group to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. 

He has received several awards that speak to his accomplishments, including the Matt Suffness Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Pharmacognosy, the 40 under 40 Leadership Award from the Triangle Business Journal, and the North Carolina Distinguished Speaker Award from the NC Section of the American Chemical Society. 

He is a Fellow and Past President of the American Society of Pharmacognosy.

Abstract:

The development of controlled polymerization methods has broadly expanded the chemical space accessible for polymerization and enabled the production of well-defined synthetic materials targeting numerous applications, including polyolefin thermoplastics and styrenebutadiene- styrene (SBS) rubber. These achievements represent decades of advancements in polymer technology; however, our ability to prepare materials with backbones comprised of functional groups beyond alkyl or ester chains remains limited. Well-defined materials featuring unique molecular structures, and by extension exhibiting unique properties, will be required to meet the demand for high-performance materials that address contemporary challenges. This presentation will discuss our recent eForts in post-polymerization modification, monomer design, and methods development towards achieving this goal.

Bio: 

Aaron earned a B.S. degree in Chemistry in 2012 from the University of Nevada, Reno prior to attending the University of Texas at Austin, where he completed a PhD in Chemistry in 2016. His dissertation work with Prof. Christopher Bielawski focused on the design and development of photoswitchable N-heterocyclic carbenes for enhanced control over organocatalyzed and transition metal catalyzed transformations. Aaron subsequently joined the lab of Prof. Frank Leibfarth at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a postdoctoral fellow. His work at UNC focused on the development of new stereoselective ionic polymerizations and subsequent exploration of the resulting polar thermoplastics. Aaron joined the faculty at the University of Kansas as an Assistant Professor in 2021, where his group is focused on the design and synthesis of new, functional synthetic macromolecules.

Abstract:

The Kretchmer group develops simulation methods at the intersection of electronic structure theory and quantum dynamics. We apply our methods to examine electron and spin dynamics, non-adiabatic processes, and charge transport in complex molecular and material systems including weakly-bound molecular clusters, chiral and helical molecules, and perovskites. In this talk, I will highlight our recent development of a new methodology to unravel the competing electronic relaxation pathways following inner-shell ionization in weakly bound systems. When an inner-shell electron is removed, another electron relaxes to fill the vacancy, which can transfer energy to a nearby entity, generating a low-energy secondary ionized electron. Critically, the location of the electron that relaxes and the secondary ionized electron can originate from either the original molecule or a neighboring molecule. The relaxation can also compete with electron, hole, and even proton transfer. Our work combines real-time DFT with a complex absorbing potential to simulate the explicit dynamics of this complex array of processes. We have additionally introduced coupled electron-nuclear dynamics through Ehrenfest dynamics, which enabled an in-depth investigation of the fragmentation pathways in the water dimer following inner-valence ionization. Our simulations identified a previously unknown relaxation channel essential to reproducing the experimentally observed fragmentation products of our collaborators, prompting a reinterpretation of the origin of low-energy electrons in hydrogen-bonded systems such as water.

Abstract:

Our research aims to understand how experiences and interactions with the world shape the brain. We investigate how sensory representations and microcircuits in the cerebral cortex evolve over time and how they are influenced by experience of the world. Since hearing is a crucial sense for communication in both humans and animals, we focus on the auditory system. We utilize a variety of approaches from vivo 2-photon imaging to in vitro electrophysiology. Recent studies from our lab have uncovered insights into the early development and experience-driven plasticity of the auditory cortex pointing to a joint role of sensory experience and self-generated actions in early development.

The classical view is that the brain’s ability to process sounds is established during early development, refined through experience during a postnatal “critical period,” and further shaped by lifelong learning. Our findings reveal that the early developing cortex contains specialized circuits formed by subplate neurons. Functionally, we find that subplate neurons contain an early protomap of cortical organization and that these neurons provide an early substrate for experience-dependent changes, even before the traditional “critical period.” Moreover, our recent work indicate that self-generated actions contribute to the cortical neuronal activity in early development.

Thus, our results paint a more nuanced picture, suggesting that both sensory experiences and self-generated actions during early development, before the critical period, can have influences on brain function. Our current research focuses on unraveling the complex nature of these early life experiences and their long-term impact on auditory processing.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Patrick Kanold is a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland at College Park. He completed his MSc in Electrical Engineering at Technische Universität Berlin, his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and his postdoctoral training in Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kanold has won numerous awards including the NARSAD Junior Investigator Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and the Burt Evans Award from the National Organization for Hearing Research. His work focuses on how information is encoded in the mammalian brain, and his lab uses advanced imaging and electrophysiological approaches to dissect how cortical and thalamic circuits are altered by development, aging, and sensory experience. Through his research, Dr. Kanold has made significant advances to current understanding of cortical development, auditory coding, and cross-modal plasticity, and his work has important implications for the treatment of hearing disorders.

This informal faculty mixer is designed to spark new connections, conversations, and collaborations around a timely theme: Education Beyond the Traditional Classroom.

There is no formal program or presentations. Instead, participants will have the opportunity to:

• Connect with colleagues from across campus.
• Expand their professional networks.
• Discuss emerging ideas and challenges.
• Explore potential research and teaching collaborations.

Faculty whose work includes experiential learning, community engagement, lifelong learning, global partnerships, informal education, outreach, or innovative approaches to teaching and scholarship are encouraged to attend.

The event is hosted by Leslie Sharp, dean of Libraries, and William "Bill" Gaudelli, dean of the College of Lifetime Learning.

The Georgia Tech Library will provide the space, snacks, and refreshments. Attendees are encouraged to bring their ideas, curiosity, and energy.

Come connect, converse, and discover what bubbles up.

The Bubbling Up series is hosted by the Georgia Tech Library in partnership with the Office of the Provost, the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research, and the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty.

ABSTRACT
Using patients’ own T cells, engineered and redirected to target cancer, have now been established as a standard of care in certain blood cancers such as lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Dr. Maus will discuss novel designs of chimeric antigen receptors and modifications to enhance T cells and the main challenges and future prospects for the development and use of this powerful form of immunotherapy.

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.

What sets Sybeco apart is that the presentations are conducted by the authors of the research papers themselves!

Additionally, Sybeco is open to anyone interested in systems neuroscience, regardless of their geographical location!

To receive calendar invitations, suggest a speaker or present a paper, please contact the organizer: Dr. Farzaneh Najafi: fnajafi3@gatech.edu

This week's paper

"A corticostriatal circuit updates subjective beliefs about latent task states"

Discussion lead: Margaret DeMaegd, Lab: Christine Constantinople
 

What sets Sybeco apart is that the presentations are conducted by the authors of the research papers themselves!

Additionally, Sybeco is open to anyone interested in systems neuroscience, regardless of their geographical location!

To receive calendar invitations, suggest a speaker or present a paper, please contact the organizer: Dr. Farzaneh Najafi: fnajafi3@gatech.edu

This week's paper

"Neural dynamics outside task-coding dimensions drive decision trajectories through transient amplification"

Discussion lead: Ulises Pereira-Oblinovic, Allen Institute
 

What sets Sybeco apart is that the presentations are conducted by the authors of the research papers themselves!

Additionally, Sybeco is open to anyone interested in systems neuroscience, regardless of their geographical location!

To receive calendar invitations, suggest a speaker or present a paper, please contact the organizer: Dr. Farzaneh Najafi: fnajafi3@gatech.edu

This week's paper

"State-Dependent Organization of Microscale Functional Circuitry in Visual Cortex"

Discussion lead: Rahul Biswas, Lab: Reza Abbasi-Asl
 

What sets Sybeco apart is that the presentations are conducted by the authors of the research papers themselves!

Additionally, Sybeco is open to anyone interested in systems neuroscience, regardless of their geographical location!

To receive calendar invitations, suggest a speaker or present a paper, please contact the organizer: Dr. Farzaneh Najafi: fnajafi3@gatech.edu

This week's paper

"Tuft dendrites in frontal motor cortex enable flexible learning"

Discussion lead: Eduardo Maristany, Lab: Matthew Larkum
 

Infinite-State Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes with Applications to Inventory Control

Abstract:  

This talk describes the progress in analysis and optimization of Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) and Partially Observable MDPs (POMDPs) with infinite state spaces and possibly noncompact action sets.  We shall also discuss applications to inventory control and to controlled linear Gaussian systems.      

Bio:

Eugene A. Feinberg received MS in Applied Mathematics and Computer Engineering from Moscow University of Transportation, Russia, in 1976 and Ph.D. in Probability and Statistics from Vilnius University, Lithuania, in 1979.  Currently he is Distinguished Professor at the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics of Stony Brook University.

His research interests include stochastic models of operations research, probability theory, real analysis, Markov Decision Processes, and applications of operations research and statistics to engineering, biology, and medicine.  He has published more than 100 papers and edited the Handbook on Markov Decision Processes.  His research has been partially supported by the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, National Institute of Health, New York Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research, and private industry.  He has served as a Council Member of the INFORMS Applied Probability Society and on several editorial boards. He is a fellow of INFORMS.

Learning What Matters: Scalable Offline and Online Calibration of Digital Twins

Abstract:

Digital twins promise continuous, high-fidelity representations of physical systems, yet their practical deployment is often constrained by the computational cost of simulation and calibration. This talk presents a unified perspective on making digital twin calibration more efficient, adaptive, and scalable by learning where computational effort matters most.

The first part addresses offline calibration of block-structured models. I introduce a doubly importance-driven calibration method that learns which parameter blocks and which observations are most informative, and directs simulation effort toward the parts of the problem that contribute most to the optimization. This targeted allocation substantially reduces computational cost while preserving calibration accuracy.

The second part turns to online calibration, where model parameters evolve over time and computational resources are limited. The proposed framework combines fast, edge-side surrogate filtering with periodic, cloud-side discrepancy correction based on high-fidelity simulations. This two-tier architecture enables real-time parameter adaptation while maintaining consistency with the underlying digital twin.

Together, these methods show how learning what matters—in parameters, observations, and computation—can support digital twins that remain accurate, scalable, and continuously adaptive in practice.

Bio:

Dr. Eunshin Byon is a Professor in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she also serves as Director of the Master's Program. She received her Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2010. Her research spans data science, digital twin modeling and analysis, and quality and reliability engineering, with applications in energy, healthcare, and manufacturing systems. She served as Chair of the Quality, Statistics, and Reliability (QSR) Section of INFORMS in 2019–2020, and her research group has received multiple research and teaching awards from INFORMS, IISE, and IEEE. Dr. Byon is currently a Senior Editor for the INFORMS Journal on Data Science (2024–present) and a Department Editor for IISE Transactions (2021–present). She previously served as an Associate Editor for IISE Transactions (2019–2021), the INFORMS Journal on Data Science (2020–2024), and IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (2019–2021).

Abstract: As robots increasingly enter homes, workplaces, and assistive settings, they must understand how people naturally communicate and interact in order to collaborate effectively with diverse users. This talk presents a program of research on multimodal and social human-robot interaction that investigates how humans and robots establish shared understanding and adapt their communication to one another. First, I describe our work on multimodal human-to-robot communication through speech, gaze, gesture, and embodied behavior. We show that people often rely on nonverbal cues, particularly gaze, to clarify underspecified verbal instructions. Building on these findings, we develop a gaze-aware multimodal instruction-understanding model to improve target-object grounding and intent understanding. Second, I present a set of studies on robot-to-human communication. These studies examine how robots can establish shared context, align task goals with diverse users, and adapt communication strategies to users' states and interaction contexts. I conclude with implications and open directions for building human-aware robots to support natural, effective, and inclusive human-robot collaboration.

Bio: Na Du is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics and Networked Systems, School of Computing and Information at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include human factors in intelligent systems, human-agent teaming, and interaction design, with applications spanning robotics, transportation, healthcare, and other intelligent systems. She is a recipient of several prestigious awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, HFE Women Rising Star Award, and Best Paper Awards from HRI and HFES international conferences. She earned her Ph.D. in Industrial & Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2021.  

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IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series

Bayesian Pooling of Self- and Peer-Reports to Improve Measurement of Sensitive Behaviors

Abstract: 

Prior literature shows that self-reports, especially those of sensitive behaviors, tend to be biased. For example, respondents may over-report their family origin and volunteering experiences while under-reporting their drinking and smoking behaviors. In this study I examine a social network-based approach to addressing self-reporting bias, which is to ask peers (e.g. classmates or co-workers) to provide alternative reports that can be used to cross-validate and supplement self-reports. I first formalize the data generation process statistically by proposing a model containing two sub-models, one for the self-reports and the other for the peer-reports. In each of the sub-models, I treat the observed report as a probabilistic realization of a truthful report and a false report. The model can incorporate both self- and peer-characteristics and also dyadic characteristics. A Bayesian approach helps make the model self-containing by imposing a prior on the unknown ego's behavior. Then the Bayesian approach simulates self- and peer-reports according to the data generation process iteratively until the simulated reports emulate the observed reports. Through a case study on self- and peer-reports of smoking among adolescents, I demonstrate that the Bayesian approach can not only reveal how multiple characteristics are related to reporting biases but also incorporate these characteristics effectively into the imputation of the true behavior.

Keywords: Self-reporting Bias; Peer Reports; Multiple Reports; Informant Accuracy

Bio: 

Dr. Weihua An is Professor and Chair of Sociology and Professor of Data and Decision Sciences at Emory University. He is also an affiliated faculty member of the East Asian Studies Program, the Goizueta Business School, and the Rollins School of Public Health. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology and A.M. in Statistics from Harvard University. Dr. An's research advances theories and methods in network analysis and causal inference. He has published widely in both methodological and substantive journals and also authored multiple statistical packages, which have received 200K downloads in total. He currently serves as the Editor of Sociological Methodology and the Chair-Elect of the Methodology section of the American Sociological Association. He is a recipient of the Faculty Teaching Award from Emory Sociology and the Clifford Clogg Award and the Leo Goodman Award from the American Sociological Association. He has advised 28 PhD dissertations and ten undergraduate honors theses.

Hosted by the Institute for Matter and Systems, the event will highlight multi-disciplinary innovation across key areas, including: 

• Semiconductor Devices
• Advanced Packaging
• Heterogeneous Integration
• Materials
• Bioelectronics
• Extreme-environment Electronics
• Fabrication, Characterization and Shared Research Tools
• Emerging Electronic Systems

Whether you are looking to explore cutting-edge faculty research, learn about shared-user facilities, or identify new opportunities for industry collaboration, Microelectronics Day is a hub that showcases Georgia Tech's microelectronics ecosystem.

The Bench2Market Talks series is created to provide commercialization guidance to the university research community. For more details on the series, visit our website.

Advances in AI are reshaping cybersecurity, accelerating the discovery and exploitation of software vulnerabilities, and altering the balance between attackers and defenders. Governments increasingly depend on technological advances developed in the private sector, raising questions about security, procurement, data management, privacy, and oversight. At the same time, competition over AI has become an important dimension of the broader strategic rivalry between the United States and China.   

AI can automate parts of the intelligence process and help analysts work through volumes of data, but human judgment remains a cornerstone of analytic tradecraft. Finding the right division of labor between machines and intelligence professionals will be an enduring challenge.   

These issues will be the focus of a fireside conversation with Israel Soong, director of the CIA’s Office of Artificial Intelligence. 

Brian O’Neill, Professor of the Practice at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and Jon Lindsay, associate professor in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, will moderate.

Faculty interested in scheduling tours/demos for classes may contact Tim Trent for openings from 8/31 - 9/1.

Talk: 12:30 p.m.
Location: TSQ ATL Clubhouse | 848 Spring Street NW

Demos: 2-4 p.m. in TSRB, room s27 (basement)
TSRB | 85 5th Street NW | RM S27
Directional signage will guide you to the lab.

Abstract: This year, one of MINIWIZ's decentralized upcycling systems lands at Georgia Tech, live, running on waste generated right here. That's not a future vision or a distant case study, it's down the hall. For 21 years we've been finding ways to turn trash into products, work that today spans 18 countries. It taught us something we didn't expect starting out: the hard part was never turning waste into a product. It was turning waste into a product people actually want. Simple, well made, good looking, priced right, at the scale of real architectural or medical grade products. Nail the engineering and skip the design, and you get a demo nobody buys. Nail the design and skip the engineering, and you get a prototype that never reaches the people who need it. Solve both and something changes at a level bigger than any one product: waste stops being a liability and becomes a domestic resource, hiding in plain sight. Come see what that actually looks like, not the pitch version, the one running on this campus.

Bio: Arthur Huang is a structural engineer, architect, and circular economy innovator who serves as the CEO and Co-founder of MINIWIZ, a global leader in transforming post-consumer waste into retail interiors, architectural structures, and consumer goods. Educated at Harvard University (MArch II) and Cornell University (BArch), Huang has also shared his expertise through teaching positions in architecture at Cornell, NCTU, Tung Hai, and NCKU. For over a decade, he has focused on accelerating the shift to a closed-loop circular economy, earning his company prestigious accolades such as the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Technology Pioneer Award, the Financial Times' Earth Award, and the Wall Street Journal's Asian Innovation Award. A National Geographic Explorer since 2016, Huang was recognized as the runner-up for the 2019 WEF Circular Leadership Award, while MINIWIZ was concurrently named by the WEF as one of the top 11 companies leading the global transition to a circular economy.

Trash Lab Grand Opening Tour
After the lecture, join IPaT and Miniwiz for a demonstration of our new makerspace and campus plastic recycling resource, the miniTrashpresso powered by Miniwiz, in the new Georgia Tech Trash Lab during 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. in TSRB, room S27 (basement level). You can ask the TSRB front desk for directions to go to the basement. Directional signs will also be in place in the building. In addition, faculty interested in scheduling tours/demos for classes may contact Tim Trent at tim.trent@gatech.edu for touring the lab from Aug. 31 - Sept. 1.
 

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IPaT: GVU Lunch Lecture Series

Abstract:

For over forty years, conjugated polymers (CPs) have been a source of enormous fundamental breakthroughs, enabling foundational insight into the nature of π-bonding and electron pairing, the creation of novel optoelectronic functionalities, and the development of numerous transformative technologies. Despite revolutionizing the functional electronic materials landscape, the complex structural and energetic heterogeneities that define these materials limit the development of critical emerging technologies by complicating molecular design and engineering approaches for bandgap control at low energies, tailored interactions with long-wavelength electromagnetic radiation, and the exploitation of spin, magnetic, and quantum properties. To address these modern challenges, we developed precision synthetic methods that provide control of the many chemical, electronic, and structural features that affect electronic coherence within π-conjugated materials, enabling unprecedented levels of bandgap and electronic structure control. The utility of these materials for understanding emergent light-matter interactions has enabled optical to electrical transduction of infrared (IR) light, a new capability for organic materials. This has enabled our development of high-performance, low SWaP-C, and even radiation-hardened IR optoelectronics that overcome critical manufacturing, cost, supply chain, and operational limitations associated with current semiconductor technologies. We subsequently discovered that narrow bandgaps and strong electronic correlations offer a fundamentally new and broadly applicable approach to control spin, magnetic, and quantum properties within conjugated organic materials. Through articulating new mechanisms of spin alignment, topology control, and exchange, we enabled the synthesis of molecules and macromolecules with varying degrees of intramolecular spin-pairing (i.e., diradical character), the first examples of robust, high-spin CPs, and tunable quantum materials. These transformational design paradigms critically overcome the synthetic inaccessibility, lack of tunability, and intrinsic instability of open-shell electronic configurations in light-element materials. Stronger electronic correlations than previous generations of organic paramagnetic materials impart robust stability suitable for practical applications and  enable novel optical, photonic, transport, thermal, spin, magnetic, and quantum properties not previously measured in soft-matter systems. These novel attributes are enabling the design of new optoelectronic and device functionalities that cannot be realized with current semiconductor technologies and provide a remarkable platform to study new phenomena at the interface of various fields such as chemistry, condensed matter physics, materials science, engineering, spintronics, and quantum matter.

Bio: 

Dr. Jason Azoulay is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is the Georgia Research Alliance Vasser-Woolley Distinguished Investigator in Optoelectronics and director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE). Prior to joining GT, he was an Associate Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering at The University of Southern Mississippi. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California Santa Barbara and performed post-doctoral studies at Sandia National Laboratories. Prof. Azoulay’s research group unites strong synthetic foundations with physics, materials science, and engineering to synthesize and apply next-generation functional materials. Research efforts within the group encompass homogeneous catalysis applied to polymer synthesis; electronic, photonic, magnetic, and quantum materials; device fabrication and engineering; chemical sensing in complex aqueous environments for environmental monitoring and biomedicine; and the synthesis, application, and engineering of high-performance polymers across multiple technology platforms. Azoulay has directed large interdisciplinary and center-level efforts in conjugated polymers, optoelectronics, and chemical sensing. He has also received multiple awards and honors, including a prestigious research prize from Nokia Bell Labs, a DoE Early Career Research Program award, and recognition as a Fellow of Royal Society of Chemistry and a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors.

Bio: Edelle (Edee) Field-Fote, PT, PhD, FAPTA, FASIA holds the positions of Director, Shepherd Center Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Research Program & Hulse Laboratory; Professor, Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine; and Professor of the Practice, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Biological Sciences. With a clinical background as a physical therapist, PhD training in a pre-clinical model of SCI, and post-doctoral training in neurophysiology, Dr. Field-Fote’s 25+ years of SCI research has spanned the breadth from basic/pre-clinical to clinical/translational research related to SCI. She leads a research team dedicated to improving motor function in persons with SCI through the development of clinically accessible neuromodulation and neurorehabilitation approaches informed by the latest neuroscience research and guided by outcomes that have meaning for persons with SCI. Dr. Field-Fote has conducted randomized clinical trials with continuous funding from the NIH since 1997, with other trials in her lab funded by the Department of Defense, the National Institute on Independent Living Disability and Rehabilitation Research, and numerous foundations. She currently serves as Chair of the Spinal Cord Injury Model Systems Project Directors consortium, as lead-PI of the NIH R25-funded program Training in Grantsmanship in Rehabilitation Research, and as Chair of the Paralyzed Veterans of America Clinical Practice Guideline Development Panel for the guidelines Outcomes After Spinal Cord Injury. Dr. Field-Fote is a past Chair of the NIH National Advisory Board on Medical Rehabilitation Research, past President of the Foundation for Physical Therapy Research, and the 54th McMillan Lecture Award honoree of the American Physical Therapy Association.

The Georgia Tech Library's Gaming Collection offers access to the latest titles for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox, providing a fun and engaging outlet in the Library.

Games will be available on multiple screens throughout the space, including the large, curved screen that spans the IMZ.

Details forthcoming.

Peptide hydrogels formed by self-assembly are increasingly used in medical applications ranging from drug delivery to wound care. The chemical composition and stereochemistry of the peptides, the mechanisms by which they assemble to form a given material, and the structures of the mesoscopic assemblies underlying material formation all influence the mechanical and biological properties of these materials. Dr. Schneider will explore these factors in molecular detail to develop materials for clinical applications, including antibacterial wound dressings, delivery of miRNA nanoparticles for mesothelioma treatment, and modulation of the immune system.

Bio:

Dr. Schneider received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Texas A&M University with Jeffery Kelly and then went on to the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics where he was a George W. Raiziss Fellow with William DeGrado studying protein design. In 1999, he began his independent career at the University of Delaware as an assistant professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and was promoted to associate and then full professor in 2009 with a secondary appointment in Materials Science and Engineering. He joined the NCI in 2010 as lab Chief of the newly established Chemical Biology Laboratory and was later appointed Deputy Director in 2015. He currently serves as the president of the American Peptide Society and Executive Editor of Biopolymers-Peptide Science.

The gastrointestinal (GI) tract houses diverse intestinal enzymes from the human host and gut microbiome that play critical roles in mucosal immunity, host-microbiome interactions, drug metabolism, and digestion. Dysregulated intestinal enzyme activities give rise to a broad range of GI pathologies and can therefore serve as functional biomarkers of disease. However, current strategies for enzyme activity measurements often rely on invasive endoscopy to biopsy intestinal tissue samples for activity measurements in the clinical lab. As an alternative to endscopy, we have developed a new Volatile-releasing Activity-based Probe (VAPR) platform that enables remote sensing of pathology-causing intestinal enzyme activities via breath testing. The platform comprises ingestible sugar-based probes that sense and produce breath signals for specific intestinal glycosidase activities. In this talk, Leslie Chan will discuss the design and application of the probes for inflammatory bowel disease and for detecting harmful drug-metabolizing enzyme activity from the gut microbiome.

Bio:

Leslie Chan’s lab focuses on the development of bioresponsive nanomaterials that are delivered in vivo to harness biochemical cues in diseased tissue as triggers for disease readouts or site-specific therapeutic activity. They are especially interested in developing these tools to study, detect, and treat microbe-driven disease states (e.g. infections, microbiome dysbiosis, inflammation). Their goal is to develop solutions that can be readily translated at the point of care, for at-home use, or deployed for infectious disease surveillance to promote public health. To achieve this, they integrate nanomaterial design, chemical biology, and medicine and leverage collaborations with clinicians, immunologists, microbiologists, and other engineers.

• Attend in-person at the Petit Biotechnology Building (IBB) - Lunch provided, while supplies last
• Virtual link coming soon!

• Attend in-person at the Petit Biotechnology Building (IBB) - Lunch provided, while supplies last
• Register Here to participate virtually

Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how we design, operate, and sustain critical infrastructure systems. In this BBISS Insights Series, Daniel Molzahn and Dr. Clint Loe (Trinnex) will draw from both academic research and industry practice to discuss AI-enabled approaches to enhance infrastructure resilience in response to evolving resource demands and climate impacts. This session will provide attendees with a timely perspective on the role of AI in building more adaptive, reliable, and sustainable infrastructure systems.

9 - 9:30 AM Breakfast Networking
9:30 - 10:30 AM Presentations
10:30 - 11 AM Panel Discussion

RSVP Here for BBISS Insights Series #1!

Upcoming BBISS Insights Series Events

Insight Series #2: AI for Climate Resilience
Wednesday, October 14th, 9 AM - 11 AM
Location TBD
RSVP Here to Stay Informed

Insight Series #3: Environmental Monitoring and Sensing
Date TBD
Location TBD
RSVP Here To Stay Informed

In this talk, Matthew E. Poehner, professor of applied linguistics and education and director of the Center for Language Acquisition at Pennsylvania State University, will introduce key ideas related to the ZPD and explore their implications for language teaching and learning.  

Drawing on research in sociocultural theory and dynamic assessment, Poehner will discuss how teachers can better understand learners’ abilities and provide appropriate support to promote language development, offering an accessible introduction to these concepts and considering their relevance to supporting diverse language learners in educational settings.  

The talk will be followed by discussion and an opportunity for students to engage with questions about language teaching, learning, and assessment.

Join researchers and clinicians from across the Georgia CTSA for a session on Space Research.

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!

Design and Techno-Economic Analysis of PV Powered Irrigation System: Case Study in
Rwanda

Abstract: 

The agriculture sector is a major economic driver for Africa. However, climatic change is driving severe disruption across Africa, causing prolonged dry seasons and erratic rainfall. As a result, farmers are facing lower farming yield. To mitigate this serious challenge, farmers must adopt modern and green technologies, like solar irrigation. To show the potential of solar irrigation system to mitigate this critical problem, a research project has been developed with the collaboration of Georgia Tech, University of Rwanda and Adama Science and Technology University. The project aims at developing a PV irrigation system that integrates IoT and controllers for real-time monitoring of the performance of the PV-irrigation system and for optimizing water conservation. This project is envisioned to be a prototype model for further scaling up the deployment of PV-irrigation systems in Africa to enhance sustainable agricultural. 
As part of the whole project, this seminar focuses more on the design and economic assessment of the system for a particular village in Rwanda.

Bio: 

Getachew Biru Worku obtained his MSC and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Dresden University of 
Technology, Germany. He has more than 30 years of academic and research experience in academic institutions and industry. He has extensive experience in teaching a broad range of electrical engineering courses with excellent feedback and acknowledgements from faculties and students. He has been lecturing courses such as Power Quality and Reliability, Power System Operation and Control, High Voltage Engineering, Power System Analysis, Power Transmission and Distribution Engineering, Electrical Machines Design, Smart Grid and Traction Power System in various Ethiopian Universities and University of Rwanda. He is currently employed as an associate professor at the University of Rwanda giving lectures and advising postgraduate students. He is a dedicated researcher in renewable energy deployment focusing on reliability of off-grid and microgrids to bring sustainable electrical power to the underserved areas. His research areas are electrical power and renewable energy and has authored and co-authored more than 45 papers in peer-reviewed journals. 

Join faculty from across the Georgia CTSA for an energetic and dynamic virtual networking session!

Title: Generative Artificial Intelligence for Uncertainty Quantification

Abstract: Generative artificial intelligence models—including variational autoencoders, normalizing flows, generative adversarial networks, and diffusion models—have dramatically advanced the realism and quality of generated images, text, and audio. Beyond these tasks, generative models hold great promise as powerful tools for probability density estimation and high-dimensional sampling, which are central to uncertainty quantification (UQ) tasks such as amortized Bayesian inference and data assimilation. However, while research on image synthesis emphasizes producing high-quality individual samples, UQ applications require accurate approximation of statistical quantities of interest rather than visually realistic samples. As a result, direct application of existing generative models to UQ problems can lead to biased approximations or unstable training. In this talk, we will introduce several new generative approaches tailored to UQ. These include training-free diffusion models for density estimation, a score-based nonlinear filter for data assimilation, and training-free conditional diffusion models for amortized Bayesian inference. We will demonstrate their effectiveness across a range of tasks, including density estimation for unimodal and multimodal distributions, learning stochastic dynamical systems, parameter estimation via amortized inference, and scalable data assimilation for atmospheric models.

Bio: Dr. Guannan Zhang is a Distinguished Staff Scientist in Computer Science and Mathematics Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He earned my Ph.D. in applied mathematics at Florida State University in 2012. He joined ORNL in 2012 as the Householder fellow. He received the DOE Early Career Award in 2022. Guannan's research interests include high-dimensional approximation, uncertainty quantification, machine learning and artificial intelligence, stochastic methods for scientific inverse problems. 

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.

The event celebrates the artists participating in Chalk the Walk, taking place Oct. 21 – 23. Artists will transform 9-by-9-foot sections of sidewalk leading to the Library into a vibrant outdoor gallery celebrating literature and art.

Participants will select a favorite book and create either an artistic rendition of its cover or a reimagined interpretation using sidewalk chalk.

Registration is open through Oct. 8. To submit a book cover concept and sketch, click here. Approved participants will receive space assignments Oct. 17.

Artists will create their work Oct. 21 – 23, transforming a highly visible campus pathway into a temporary public art installation that celebrates creativity, reading, visual storytelling, and Georgia Tech spirit.

Finished works will remain on display throughout Homecoming Week, weather permitting.

Chalk the Walk is a collaboration between the Georgia Tech Library and Georgia Tech Arts.

Bio: Ferdous Alam is an Assistant Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and an affiliated faculty member of ML@GT. He is also a core faculty member at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM). He leads the Inference Lab, where his research focuses on the computational foundations of AI-driven engineering design and robotic manufacturing, including generative modeling of mechanical systems, representation learning for 3D geometry, and robot learning for manufacturing tasks. Before joining Georgia Tech, Dr. Alam was a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, and he previously received his PhD from The Ohio State University. His research has been recognized with several Best Paper Awards at leading ASME conferences, as well as the Google Research Scholar Award in Applied Science.

Zoom Link: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/99778983822?pwd=O0YsaiaJp6ipUrlfIYSHa9ChwbLwXJ.1
Meeting ID: 997 7898 3822 
Passcode: 524773

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