School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Ph.D. Thesis Defense Announcement

Advancing the State of the Art for Affordable Flow Imaging Microscopy with ARTiMiS

By 
Benjamin Gincley

Advisor:
Dr. Ameet Pinto

Committee Members: 
Dr. Xing Xie (CEE)
Dr. Yongsheng Chen (CEE)
Dr. Katy Graham (CEE)
Dr. Ian Bradley (CEE / University at Buffalo)
Dr. Jeremy Guest (CEE / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)

Date and Time: Friday, June 13th, 2025, 10:00 AM EDT

Location: SEB 122
Virtual Attendance: Live Link 
Zoom Meeting ID: 311 736 4521

ABSTRACT
Microalgae are a diverse collection of microorganisms important in both engineered and natural 
systems. They can be challenging to characterize and monitor with techniques that are 
high-throughput, high-resolution, highly affordable, and easy to use. Ethnographic research to 
assess the current state of the art for microalgae quantification, identification, 
characterization, and monitoring indicated that currently available solutions achieve one or a few 
of these attributes; there remains a significant need for an instrument that meets all 
aforementioned
requirements.

Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0355 U.S.A. Phone: 404.894.9044
A Unit of the University System of Georgia • An Equal Education and Employment Opportunity 
Institution
This research reports the development, testing, and validation of the Autonomous Real-Time 
Microbial Scope (ARTiMiS) for microalgal monitoring to address this important scientific need. 
Combining the high-throughput operation of flow imaging systems with state-of-the-art machine 
learning image processing methods and low-cost hardware component design criteria, ARTiMiS offers a 
novel solution to long-standing challenges associated with characterization of microalgae and 
similar microscopic organisms. This work details the design methodology behind the ARTiMiS device, 
validation of its technical capabilities and limits, and benchmarked  comparisons  against  
existing  gold-standard  instruments  and methods. ARTiMiS’ utility and versatility enabled a novel 
long-term study of a full- scale microalgal wastewater treatment system, providing new insights 
into the interactions between process performance and microalgal community structure in terms of 
taxonomy and morphology. The accessibility offered by ARTiMiS was then extended to evaluate its 
ability to predict industrially-relevant phenotypes without fluorescent labeling, demonstrating its 
potential to dramatically reduce costs and barriers to entry for biological product manufacturing, 
such as the cultivation and harvesting of microalgae for biofuels and high-value bioproducts. The 
principal objective of this work was to develop a new solution to a significant long-standing 
problem, and these results suggest ARTiMiS is well-positioned to provide a commercially viable, 
sustainable technological solution for users across several
industries.