David Frakes, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, has a brand-new biomedical engineering lab, and it might currently be sitting empty, but he has big plans for it.

Soon it will be filled with computers, flow loops, 3D printers, students and fresh ideas. Frakes, who has four degrees from the Georgia Tech College of Engineering – an undergrad in electrical, a master’s in mechanical, another master’s in electrical and then a PhD in biomedical engineering – has returned to Tech. He intends to focus on medical devices and computer vision and work with other researchers at Tech to create a more interdisciplinary lab that runs like a startup.

Read all about Frakes' remarkable journey right here.