Meghna Iyer (Biology 2026) came to Georgia Tech trying to understand her mother’s illness. What she discovered is changing how scientists connect three neurodegenerative diseases.
]]>As fans around the world search for tickets to FIFA World Cup 2026 matches, a team of Georgia Tech students is working to make buying tickets to major events less stressful and more transparent.
DoorTix, a startup ticket-buying concierge founded by computer science major Arayna Saxena, industrial engineering major Shinhai Chen, and mechanical engineering major Dhruv Narang, helps users navigate the increasingly complex world of event ticketing. Earlier this year, the startup earned the People’s Choice Award at Georgia Tech’s InVenture Prize competition for its approach to combating dynamic pricing and improving access to live events.
The Problem
Whether fans are trying to attend a sporting event or a concert, the team says that securing tickets often means navigating fluctuating prices, limited inventory, hidden fees, and the risk of scams.
“Buying tickets today can feel like entering a maze with a timer running,” Saxena said.
“Prices change, listings disappear, fees show up late, and fans often feel like they need to be experts just to get into the event they care about.”
How DoorTix Works
DoorTix was built from that frustration. Instead of requiring users to constantly monitor multiple ticket marketplaces, the platform tracks listings across sites and automatically purchases tickets when they meet a user’s target price.
The system is designed to respond to dynamic pricing and automated purchasing bots that can cause ticket costs to shift rapidly across platforms.
“That gives fans fair and predictable access without the guesswork,” Saxena said.
“We wanted to build something that brings the human side back into ticketing, something that feels less like fighting an algorithm and more like having someone in your corner.”
The World Cup: A Global Test Case
The World Cup tournament is a high-profile example of the problem DoorTix is designed to solve. With global demand and limited availability, the tournament reflects the same challenges seen across major live events.
“When fans are trying to attend something as massive as the World Cup, the stakes are higher. The excitement is higher. The confusion is also higher,” Saxena said.
“That is exactly where DoorTix can be useful. The World Cup gives us a real, high-pressure use case for what we are building.”
From Idea to Startup
The idea for DoorTix began with a simple observation: buying tickets often creates more stress than excitement.
As a computer science student, Saxena has helped translate that idea into a working product, balancing technical development with user experience design.
“A lot of the work is not just ‘write code and ship it.’ It’s asking what the user needs, where they’re confused, and how we can make a complex process feel simple.”
Through Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X Startup Launch program, the team has tested assumptions, gathered customer feedback, and refined its business model as it develops the product.
They’ve already seen real customer demand, and now the focus is on improving the experience and making it more scalable. Long-term, the founders envision DoorTix continuing to be a trusted ticket-buying concierge for high-demand events.
“We’re not just helping someone buy a seat. We’re helping them get to a once-in-a-lifetime memory.”
As fans around the world search for tickets to FIFA World Cup 2026 matches, a team of Georgia Tech students is working to make buying tickets to major events less stressful and more transparent.
]]>“I am very honored and excited to receive the NSF CAREER Award,” says Zhu. “This award will support research by my fantastic team of students and post-doctoral researchers and give me the opportunity to carry out education and outreach programs that expand our impact.”
Since joining Georgia Tech in 2024, Zhu’s research has focused on the mathematical foundations of machine learning and their applications in science and engineering.
With support from the CAREER Award, Zhu and his team will explore the two-way relationship between data and structure in machine learning. They aim to understand how known structures in scientific and engineering problems (e.g., symmetries or physical constraints) can help machine learning models learn more accurately and efficiently from limited data. They will also study how machine learning can uncover hidden structures directly from data, revealing patterns or principles that may not be known in advance.
The project focuses on settings where large amounts of high-quality data are difficult or expensive to obtain, as is often the case in science and engineering. Using mathematical analysis, Zhu and his team will examine how much data is required to accurately learn a model, how structural information can reduce this data requirement, and how much data is needed to reliably identify a model’s underlying structure.
According to Zhu, this approach could reduce the amount of data and time needed to build and test accurate models, leading to more reliable, interpretable, and efficient AI for scientific discovery.
“Such advances align with national AI priorities and help strengthen the mathematical foundations needed for future scientific and engineering applications of AI,” he says.
Zhu believes it is important to help students understand AI, noting that they must learn how to interpret and evaluate its outputs rather than accept them uncritically.
“AI has increasingly become incorporated into many fields of study,” he says. “Institutions must determine how to best integrate it into education while also teaching students how it works. The AI education and outreach components of my project aim to help prepare students for careers at the intersection of mathematics, computing, and science.”
Zhu’s CAREER Award will support educational initiatives at multiple levels, including new graduate and undergraduate courses on machine learning. It will also support a machine learning boot camp for high school students, organized by the School of Mathematics in collaboration with Emory University’s Department of Mathematics. The boot camp seeks to introduce students to foundational ideas in AI and machine learning, with an emphasis on the mathematical principles needed to understand and responsibly use these tools.
]]>Logically this makes sense and has been backed up by past security research. However, researchers at Georgia Tech have found hidden paths in cyber-physical systems that attackers can use to disrupt or even destroy them.
To find these hidden paths before an attacker does, the researchers built a testing tool called ICSFlux. This new tool leans on the physics used by the industrial process and maps out the system to find new threats that were once thought impossible.
ICSFlux was deployed across 11 different programmable logic controllers in six industrial sectors, including chemical manufacturing, water treatment, power grids, aircraft, desalination, and waste processing. The process uncovered twenty genuine safety violations.
In one case drawn from a chemical-plant simulation, an attack path uncovered by the tool drove a reactor past its safe pressure limit and into a simulated explosion. By using nothing but valid operator commands, the team took the reactor from a completely normal and stable state to critical territory.
Because the method relies only on the physics of a process and not on the details of any one controller, the same tool worked across all six sectors without being rebuilt, and it reduced the search space by roughly 50%.
Burak Sahin, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech and the study's lead author, found that by sending a series of perfectly normal, fully authorized commands, intruders can slowly nudge a physical process toward a dangerous state.
“These systems are usually judged safe as long as nobody hacks into them,'' Sahin said. “What we found is that an attacker who can send everyday commands, the same ones a normal operator sends, can patiently steer the process toward a failure. No single command looks wrong, which is exactly why the usual defenses miss it.''
Most existing tools assume an attacker can rewire the controller or change the software inside it. In the real world, those controllers are locked down and cannot be touched. ICSFlux takes the opposite and more realistic view. It treats the controller as a sealed box that cannot be opened and works only with the commands an operator is normally allowed to send.
Rather than measuring how much of a controller's software it has exercised, the usual yardstick for this kind of testing, ICSFlux measures how close the physical system is getting to an unsafe limit and steers its testing in that direction.
“Two different sensor readings can run through the exact same code and still send a reactor in completely different directions,'' Sahin said. “Looking only at the software tells you nothing about whether the physical system is safe. We had to follow the physics, not the code.''
One of the study's most important takeaways emerged when the researchers tightened the safety margins to see whether caution alone would help. Even when every command stayed within approved limits, the way the controller reacted to a steady stream of small adjustments could still cause pressure to overshoot and the reactor to fail. In other words, staying inside the rules was not always enough.
All of the team's experiments were carried out on secured, controlled test beds. The work was conducted with Georgia Tech's Cyber-Physical Systems Security Lab, whose research spans the security of cyber-physical systems from industrial programmable logic controllers to marine, automotive, and drone platforms. Georgia Tech's Cyber Forensics Innovation Laboratory, a team of researchers who work together to further the investigation of advanced cyber crimes and the analysis and prevention of next-generation malware attacks, also contributed to the paper.
The labs are a collaboration between the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Fuzzing the Physical Space: Physics-Aware Testing of Black-Box Industrial Control Systems' was accepted to the 2026 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy. In addition to Sahin, the team includes Ph.D. students David Oygenblik, Mingxuan Yao, and Yizhi Huang as well as Associate Professors Brendan Saltaformaggio, and Saman Zonouz.
]]>Logically this makes sense and has been backed up by past security research. However, researchers at Georgia Tech have found hidden paths in cyber-physical systems that attackers can use to disrupt or even destroy them.
To find these hidden paths before an attacker does, the researchers built a testing tool called ICSFlux. This new tool leans on the physics used by the industrial process and maps out the system to find new threats that were once thought impossible.
]]>Communications Officer II at the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy
]]>“It’s a tremendous honor to be recognized alongside such an inspiring group of scientists,” Manafzadeh says. “I’ve always been motivated by big, fundamental questions, and it’s exciting to see that kind of curiosity-driven research celebrated.”
Manafzadeh will join Georgia Tech in August 2026 as an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences. Her research investigates how joints function and how they evolved, using advanced technology to create animations of moving skeletons with sub-millimeter precision.
“My research is aimed at understanding how joints work and where they come from,” she explains. “Physicians can repair ACL injuries and perform hip replacements, but we still don’t fully understand joint mechanics at a fundamental level.” Because joints are a shared feature of virtually all vertebrates, she adds, nearly all movement — from slithering to sprinting to soaring — depends on them.
Manafzadeh first applied these methods to pterodactyls, “reanimating” the extinct animals to study how they flew. Now, her research could also open doors to personalized surgical treatments for people and new designs for bio-inspired robots.
]]>Technical Research Writer / Editor
Georgia Tech College of Sciences
]]>Over the past four years, these grants have supported the transformation of more than 100 courses reaching thousands of Tech students across six colleges and 26 schools. These awards advance the Institute’s commitment to transformative teaching and learning, preparing students to be globally engaged leaders who improve the human condition.
“Beyond all the transformations in individual classrooms, the program has developed a community of scholars who are thinking deeply about how to make sustainability education relevant and valuable for every Tech student,” said Marc Weissburg, upcoming chair of the Sustainability Education and Curriculum Committee. “The range of innovative ideas and the cleverness and thoughtfulness with which they are deployed says a lot about Tech faculty.”
Names: Pamela Pollet and Eric Shen
Department: School of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Project: Organic and Sustainable Chemistry: An Open-Source Textbook
Discover the full list of 2026-27 Undergraduate Sustainability Education Innovation Grant Recipients.
Scientists have captured the most detailed structural images to date of a specific type of protein’s DNA repair process. The research could reveal ways to inhibit the effects of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations that heighten the risk for breast, ovarian, and other cancers.
“This work lets us see, step by step, one mechanism by which cancer cells could manage to repair their DNA when BRCA genes mutate and fail,” says study co-author Vicki Wysocki, who is chair of the Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “By capturing this process in detail, this study opens the door to understanding how those cancerous cells survive and how treatments might disrupt that mechanism.”
Designated as a Breakthrough Article, the study Mechanism of single-strand annealing from native mass spectrometry and cryo-EM structures of RAD52 homolog Mgm101 was recently published in Nucleic Acids Research.
In addition to Wysocki, who is a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and a professor emerita at Ohio State University, the Georgia Tech research team included co-first author Zihao Qi, a Ph.D. candidate in the Wysocki Lab.
They were joined by Ohio State researchers co-first author Carter Wheat and senior author Charles Bell, who is a professor of biological chemistry and pharmacology in the College of Medicine. Additional authors include Metro High School student Miqdad Hussain and CAS researcher Katerina Zakharova.
Normally, BRCA genes help prevent cancer by acting as tumor suppressors — producing proteins that help repair broken DNA. When cancer cells lack the tumor-suppression function of normal BRCA genes, research has shown that a protein called RAD52 performs DNA repair.
Since RAD52 allows cancer cells to survive and replicate without tumor suppression, researchers have wondered if blocking it would kill the cancerous cells. Blocking RAD52, however, requires fully understanding its repair activities, which have been difficult to capture with even the most sophisticated techniques.
DNA strands break every day in cells, which is why proteins exist to fix the breaks and keep cellular processes running smoothly, the team says. But because repairs must happen quickly and human proteins are often more complex than their ancestral counterparts, even the most advanced imaging equipment can’t capture every step in the process.
In order to understand RAD52 better, the research team turned to its ancestral protein, Mgm101, to observe several key steps in its DNA repair process.
The team decided to leverage multiple types of imaging. Wysocki’s lab at Georgia Tech conducted native mass spectrometry and mass photometry, using light to measure masses of protein-DNA complexes. The results showed that the ancestral protein Mgm101 assembled from a single copy of itself into a large multi-unit ring composed of 19 copies of the protein.
“This ring is essentially a template,” Wysocki explains. “The first strand of DNA can come down, and then the second strand comes on and starts being annealed to the first strand.” Annealing occurs when two single strands of DNA come together to form the characteristic double helix structure.
The findings were supported by what Bell’s lab determined using cryogenic electron microscopy, observing structures floating in solution and frozen in a thin layer of ice.
“RAD52 high-resolution structures have been determined with single-stranded DNA, but not with the two DNAs that it’s trying to anneal,” Bell says. “Its job is to bind single-stranded DNA and anneal it to its complement sequence. It’s been captured structurally, but only in a few states relevant to the reaction.”
“Here, we have more of the states along the full pathway from substrate, to intermediate and product. And the duplex intermediate is a conformation that’s never been seen before.”
Previously, researchers were unsure if this DNA repair process used one protein ring or two rings working together, the team says. Their findings show that just one ring is used — and that this is likely consistent across different species.
Next, the team plans to try capturing the same phases of the DNA repair process with RAD52 from humans. A clearer understanding of how this family of proteins binds to DNA strands and coaxes them back together after a break provides insights for drug targets that could halt the process in cancer cells empowered by mutated BRCA genes, they say.
“It’s still a proposed mechanism: Just because we see these snapshots of the process doesn’t mean we know all the details, but we do have the best snapshots for any protein that does this single-strand annealing,” says Bell. “This focuses our strategies for drug development.”
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkag320
Funding: This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The cryo-EM data were collected at Ohio State’s Center for Electron Microscopy and Analysis and processed using the Ohio Supercomputer Center.
]]>Research Writer / Editor
Georgia Tech College of Sciences
]]>Georgia Tech’s competitive programming team placed seventh at the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) North America Championship (NAC), earning a bronze medal and further cementing its standing among the continent’s elite collegiate teams.
The NAC is the highest level of regional competition in the ICPC.
For the team, the achievement was the product of months of deliberate preparation and a carefully balanced roster.
“We’ve been practicing consistently since September,” said Kevin Shan, a third-year computer science (CS) student and three-year team member. “As a result, we’ve developed pretty strong team chemistry as well as a good understanding of what each person’s strengths are.”
That chemistry proved critical in a contest format that demands technical mastery and coordination under pressure. ICPC competitions require teams to collaboratively solve complex algorithmic problems within a fixed time limit, often forcing quick decisions about strategy, debugging, and division of labor.
The team reflects a blend of experience across multiple levels of competitive programming. Shan earned his second NAC medal this year, while first-year CS student Zachary Chao entered with adistinguished background, including a bronze medal at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) representing Taiwan. Zejia Chen, a PhD student, added further depth as a former ICPC World Finals competitor.
Despite differences in format, Chao said the transition from individual to team competition was natural.
“Although IOI and ICPC have very different contest formats, the skills required to excel in both competitions are very similar,” he said. “I had to adapt to the team environment, but in terms of problem solving, my experience definitely translated.”
He also emphasized that success in competitive programming is less about seniority and more about skill and practice.
“I feel like grade level isn’t too relevant to ICPC,” he said. “As long as a contestant is able to compete at a certain level, it doesn’t really matter what grade they are.”
For Shan, competing at multiple levels over three years has sharpened his understanding of how each stage differs. “The contests at different levels—regionals, NAC, and World Finals—all have unique characteristics,” he said. “It’s important not only to practice on different sets for these contests but also to approach them differently.”
The emotional turning point came at the very end of the competition. After struggling to debug the final solution, the team members were unsure of how they had performed. “We were all pretty bummed,” Shan said. “So the best part was definitely finding out at the award ceremony that we were awarded a medal.”
Beyond the results, Georgia Tech’s reputation was evident throughout the competition. According to School of Computing Instruction faculty member and ICPC advisor Abrahim Ladha, competitors from other universities recognized the team.
“Walking around with them, they were treated like celebrities. Competitors from other schools knew of them, the way people talk about Haynes King or something,” Ladha said.
“Getting a bronze at NAC is a huge deal, and they all will have jobs lined up because of this.”
Chen, who has competed internationally, noted that the NAC stands out not just for its difficulty but also for the broader experience it offers. Compared to the competitions he attended during his undergraduate years, he described NAC as “much richer and more engaging,” with opportunities to connect with peers, attend talks, and explore career pathways alongside the contest.
At the same time, the team remains focused on continued growth. “Winning a bronze medal gives us encouragement,” Chen said, noting that the experience will help guide their preparation for future competitions.
Georgia Tech’s competitive programming team placed seventh at the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) North America Championship (NAC), earning a bronze medal and further cementing its standing among the continent’s elite collegiate teams.
]]>The highly competitive Laboratory Placement program is a paid opportunity offered through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships. It provides students from a wide range of disciplines an opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge research at leading facilities, including Argonne National Laboratory, Ames National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Laboratory of the Rockies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and Savannah River National Laboratory.
The program’s 2026 cohort includes 16 Georgia Tech students from disciplines such as artificial intelligence, materials science, aerospace engineering, nuclear engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, and physics. Their research placements reflect the interdisciplinary nature of today’s scientific challenges, with projects covering bioinformatics, high-energy and condensed matter physics, accelerator science, environmental management, and advanced materials.
Many of the internships are closely aligned with national energy priorities, with students working in research areas including nuclear energy, hydrogen and chemical systems, materials for energy applications, plasma and fusion sciences, and complex engineered systems.
“Georgia Tech’s deep engagement with the national laboratory system creates unparalleled opportunities for our students to contribute to the future of energy,” said Yuanzhi Tang, executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute. “By connecting interdisciplinary talent with world-class research environments, we are not only advancing discovery but also shaping the next generation of leaders who will drive secure, sustainable, and resilient energy systems.”
Working alongside national lab scientists, students will not only gain access to world-class facilities but benefit from mentorship and professional networks, while contributing to research critical to national security, economic competitiveness, and a more sustainable energy future.
“These internships demonstrate the strength of Georgia Tech’s relationships across the federal research ecosystem,” said Robert Knotts, executive director of Federal Relations in the Office of Institute Relations. “They provide a direct pathway for students to engage in public service through mission-driven research at national laboratories — while strengthening connections that are vital to advancing national priorities in energy, security, and innovation.”
]]>The highly competitive Laboratory Placement program is a paid opportunity offered through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internships. It provides students from a wide range of disciplines an opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge research at leading facilities, including Argonne National Laboratory, Ames National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, National Laboratory of the Rockies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, and Savannah River National Laboratory.
]]>Omar Garcia Urdiales, CREATE‑X’s associate director of Learn, brings a global entrepreneurial experience to Georgia Tech: founder and CEO of a startup operating in the AWS Accelerator Loft, longtime startup coach in Europe’s major innovation hubs, lecturer across multiple universities, and an external doctoral researcher in entrepreneurship and digitalization. He brings this background to his teaching of Startup Lab’s latest iteration – a significant redesign developed by VentureLab’s Director Keith McGreggor. McGreggor created the course and has evolved it over many years, building on its initial success.
“This new iteration of Startup Lab allows us to meet students exactly where they are,” said McGreggor. “By doing this, we give them the strongest foundation possible, providing them with the tools to grapple with uncertainty and build their confidence.”
Startup Lab has long anchored the Institute’s entrepreneurial pathway with clearer structure, a unified language, and a deeper focus on reflective growth, so more Georgia Tech students can discover (and trust) their own entrepreneurial judgment.
Startup Lab is expanding responsibly, with six sections in Atlanta and additional global sections in France and Asia-Pacific taught by faculty trained in the curriculum. Students here benefit from a program that’s learning across borders and bringing that learning back to campus.
“Startup Lab is not about becoming an entrepreneur, but about engaging in the unknown and adopting entrepreneurial behavior, which can be applied to all career paths,” Urdiales said. “Students become better equipped to identify problem spaces and solve them through evidence-based building.”
Urdiales emphasized that Startup Lab is built for students who are still exploring, uncertain, or are simply curious.
“Many students tell us they’re curious about entrepreneurship but feel not ready,” he said. “They worry they’re too introverted for customer interviews or assume Startup Lab is only for people with fully formed ideas. In fact, those are the most common misconceptions.”
The course’s first few weeks focus on training students to see struggles and patterns in the world. Then, they apply those skills on a team, exploring, designing, and testing a concept with real people. The nonnegotiable outcome isn’t the best idea; it’s a more confident, evidence-driven version of you.
“Startup Lab is strengthening that self-awareness. All of us who are entrepreneurs, we don’t grow linearly. We have various iterations of how we see things,” Urdiales said. “This ability to see patterns or to see problems with customer discovery, it’s a learning process and a growth process.”
Urdiales said that students won’t have a passive experience in the lab.
“To become an entrepreneur, you need to do it. You need to engage with customers. You need to get out of the building,” he said. “It gives you the ability to incorporate theoretical frameworks into practical solutions and then understand these more practical outcomes.”
Aligning with CREATE-X’s culture of continuous iteration, Startup Lab is tightening the hands-on core of the course around four simple, repeatable tools so that entrepreneurial thinking becomes muscle memory, not a one-off assignment. The new iteration of the curriculum, developed by McGreggor, helps students learn to:
“What we have is a frontier model in entrepreneurial education,” said McGreggor. “The result is a course that teaches sound decision making and builds entrepreneurial confidence that rewards authentic discovery and iteration over performative polish. It creates a more solid foundation for entrepreneurial thinking and sets students up to engage more deeply with everything that follows in their CREATE-X pathway.”
As a part of Startup Lab, instructors integrate reflection throughout the semester, which helps students notice patterns of work, make small experiments, and adjust based on what’s learned. Students often worry they’re not the founder type or that their introversion will hold them back; Startup Lab reframes those worries as raw material for growth, including communication skill building and one-on-one interactions you won’t always get in higher-level courses.
Startup Lab integrates HaradaLite — McGreggor's adaptation of the Japanese Harada Method — as a weekly reflection practice in which students keep a reflection log, helping them notice patterns of work, run small experiments, and adjust based on what's learned. With this approach, educators are able to measure the growth of entrepreneurial confidence by self-report, leading to a more quantitative approach to teaching.
There’s no mandated order for CREATE-X courses. Startup Lab simply makes the next steps clearer by providing a shared language and milestone structure across sections and instructors, so whatever comes next (I2P, Capstone, Launch, or an internship), you can carry forward a coherent, evidence- aware story of your work.
“All CREATE‑X Learn sections will work with the same milestone objectives,” Urdiales said. “Students trained in Startup Lab are already trained in the muscles of entrepreneurship. They’re more equipped to go into Make and Launch or be a leader within their industry.”
Startup Lab is about becoming the kind of person who can see opportunities, reason from evidence, and make better decisions when the path isn’t obvious.
“Startup Lab helps students see the world’s problems and fill the gaps with fresh ideas, teaching them to see and understand the important difference between evidence and inference,” said McGreggor. “This lays the foundation that leads to good founders, and builds the entrepreneurial confidence needed to succeed.”
Students in Startup Lab can expect a workshop-heavy, conversation-rich semester with weekly artifacts, scenario-based decision prompts, startup reports, and quizzes that keep you honest about what you’re learning. You’ll assemble a Continuity Pack near the end: a compact bundle of your best discovery evidence, decisions, MVEs, economics, and final story slides so your future self (or your I2P/Launch application) can pick up right where you left off.
The course also sets norms for modern tool use. AI is welcomed as a coach and organizer, after your own baseline thinking and research, and as an enhancement of the real conversations you have. That matters because Startup Lab’s promise is that you build solid judgment under the test of uncertainty, critical to the world of today and the future that is being built.
You don’t have to have it all figured out. If you’re a first-year student still exploring, a junior craving real-world projects, or a senior looking to stand out in interviews, Startup Lab is for you.
Seats fill quickly across all sections — and for good reason.
This course gives you the clearest, most supportive on‑ramp into CREATE‑X, with a global methodology, a unified curriculum, and instructors who believe deeply in your potential to grow. Learn how to think entrepreneurially. See the world differently. Build the confidence that will follow you long after the semester ends.
Register for Startup Lab for Fall 2026.
Marketing Strategist
]]>Jain is one of 15 scientists selected this year for “their promise to change their fields by solving nature’s puzzles in a broad range of fields and develop next-generation technologies that can reveal biological function,” according to a Searle Scholars Program press release.
“We are honored to be part of the Searle Scholars Program,” Jain says. “For a young lab with ambitious goals, this kind of recognition means everything. It gives us the confidence and resources to pursue high-risk, high-reward questions that could one day make a real difference for people affected by neurodevelopmental disorders.”
Jain received his Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Arizona and completed his postdoctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles. He joined Georgia Tech in 2024.
]]>From AI-powered tools that support dementia care to platforms that translate natural language into data insights, computing students showcased a wide range of software solutions at the Spring 2026 College of Computing Capstone Expo.
Held on April 27 in the Exhibition Hall, the event highlighted the technical skills and creativity of third- and fourth-year students in the School of Computing Instruction (SCI).
The Expo marks the culmination of a semester-long course in which computer science and computational media majors design products that address real-world needs. In the program, students either collaborate with external clients to deliver real-world solutions or develop startup-driven prototypes under the mentorship of industry professionals.
Volunteers from industry and the campus community judge teams on functionality, aesthetics, and presentation.
Winning Teams:
TimeSlips AI Integrated Mobile App
This project is a mobile app with questions and image prompts to support facilitators in meaningfully engaging people with dementia. AI integration transcribes sessions and lets facilitators review them, get feedback, and develop them into stories.
DataChat: Natural Language Analytics for Non-Technical Teams
This project is a ChatGPT-like app where users can upload CSV files (usually sports-related). The app will analyze the CSV file and provide detailed results, including why the results turned out the way they did.
Healthy Actions
This project focuses on preventing weight gain. The web app allows users to assess their health and behaviors at the beginning, midpoint, and end of a 12-week program to track progress and support healthier outcomes.
Georgia Tech alumna Christine Ling (BS Industrial Engineering 2025) mentored two of the winning teams, TimeSlips and Healthy Actions.
“These teams have been a joy to work with from start to finish. They consistently approached their project with thoughtfulness, realism, and a clear sense of purpose,” Ling said.
“What stood out most was their motivation and collaborative spirit. They were proactive in seeking clarification, eager to refine their ideas, and genuinely invested in producing a polished, high‑quality final product. Their steady work ethic and willingness to iterate made them an absolute pleasure to support.”
Entrepreneurial Capstone Winning Teams:
Optimis
This project attributes cloud billing changes to specific runtime behaviors in a developer’s Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline, helping teams avoid unexpected billing surprises.
PulseAPI
This project converts real application programming interface (API) traffic into an OpenAPI contract and detects deviations from it, helping teams catch breaking changes before they affect production systems.
More photos from the expo are available here.
From AI-powered tools that support dementia care to platforms that translate natural language into data insights, computing students showcased a wide range of software solutions at the Spring 2026 College of Computing Capstone Expo.
]]>For Kathy Tran, choosing to major in computer science (CS) at Georgia Tech was never about narrowing her interests. Drawn to both computing and film, she sought flexibility to explore technical problem-solving alongside creative storytelling.
Through her work as a teaching assistant (TA), a software engineering internship, and independent film projects, Tran learned that her interests didn’t have to fit neatly into a single role. Instead, she built a path that lets both sides grow, sometimes together, sometimes separately.
What drew you to computer science and Georgia Tech?
I’ve always been the type of person who wants to do a million things, so it was difficult for me to decide on one subject to study in college. I was drawn to CS because it is extremely versatile, and I enjoyed Advanced Placement Computer Science A (AP CSA) at Woodland High School in Stockbridge. I could go the practical route and work at a big tech company, or I could take a more creative route and pursue game development or animation. Since computers are ubiquitous in all industries, the possibilities seem endless.
However, another subject I really wanted to study in college is film, as it is my first love. I had to find a school that would give me a balance between an amazing CS education and a film education. I ended up choosing Georgia Tech because not only do we have a top-ranked CS program, but we’re also in the heart of Atlanta, where there are countless film opportunities. This semester, I’ll be graduating with a bachelor’s in computer science with a minor in film and media studies.
How has your experience as a teaching assistant shaped you?
I have been a TA for CS 1332: Data Structures and Algorithms for seven semesters. At first, I just wanted to have an on-campus job and retain fundamental information about CS. However, over the semesters, I ended up really loving the TA community.
Being surrounded by a highly motivated group of people forces you to try to be the best version of yourself. I’ve met people who achieve great things. Seeing them achieve their goals makes it seem like mine aren’t out of reach and only makes me work harder to achieve them.
How have you approached your interests in tech and media?
When I first entered college, I assumed that I needed to perfectly combine the two fields, which led me to restrict myself to the role of a tech artist. I worked as a tech artist for clubs like VGDev and Animation Club, creating 3D models and rigs that can be animated. I also did a VIP in Art and AI, where I created a stop-motion film using 3D models and generative AI.
However, I feel like I thrived when I allowed myself to explore these fields separately. On the technical side, I worked as a software engineering intern at AWS and enjoyed applying my technical design knowledge and problem-solving skills to complete my project. On the media side, I have directed two short films, with In Universe 907 winning an award at Georgia Tech’s Literature, Media, and Communications (LMC) Film Festival.
While these two paths don’t perfectly combine tech and media 50/50, they require both technical and creative skills that satisfy my need to combine my passions.
What are your plans after graduation?
After graduation, I’ll be working as a software engineer at Amazon Web Services and will be moving to Santa Clara, California.
Who has influenced your journey at Georgia Tech?
I have to thank Mary Hudachek-Buswell and Frederic Faulkner for allowing me to serve as their TA for the past three years and for giving me and the other TAs many opportunities to grow both academically and professionally.
What advice would you give to students interested in combining technical and creative fields?
To any student interested in combining technical and creative fields, keep your options open and don’t pigeonhole yourself into one role or industry. Innovations in both fields are constantly being created, and new roles can emerge in the blink of an eye.
Allow yourself to explore all forms of technical and creative fields, and your calling will come about naturally.
Jack Hayley’s path through Georgia Tech’s computational media program centers on exploring how sound and software work together across film, games, and interactive media.
Before arriving in Atlanta, Hayley attended Yew Chung International School in Chongqing, China, where he completed the Cambridge IGCSE (International General Certificate of Secondary Education) program, before returning to the United States to earn an International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma from the Utica Academy for International Studies.
With longstanding interests in computer science (CS) and digital music, he sought a program that would allow him to develop both simultaneously.
“I wanted a program that had a strong technical foundation but with creative applications in music,” he said.
Georgia Tech’s computational media program stood out for its connection between the College of Computing and the School of Music. By choosing threads in Intelligence and music technology, Hayley explored the intersection of the two disciplines.
Creating Through Code and Sound
At Tech, Hayley explored computing and creativity through programs such as the Robotic Musicianship VIP. He credits Center for Music Technology Professor Gil Weinberg and Ph.D. student Amit Rogel with pushing him to do his best work and for strengthening his confidence in blending technical and artistic approaches.
That blend of mentorship and experimentation carried into his broader creative practice. As technical director of Baja Badlands Productions, a film and multimedia studio he co-founded, he composes music, designs sound, and manages technical production, including the studio’s website.
One of the studio’s recent short films, Myopia, was showcased at several film festivals and received recognition for its original score and cinematography.
He has also collaborated with Georgia Tech’s student organization VGDev and indie developers to create audio for video games.
“I find this to be a great avenue for my combined interests, as creative control of audio often requires software implementation to achieve immersive sound,” he said.
Among his favorite projects is Sleighers, a game he co-led. The project integrated networking systems, 3D modeling, level design, and immersive audio, and was later exhibited at DreamHack Atlanta, where the team gathered feedback from players and developers.
Learning and Leadership
Beyond creative production, Hayley developed technical and leadership skills as a teaching assistant for CS 1332: Data Structures & Algorithms, eventually becoming a head TA.
The role challenged him to communicate complex ideas, support students one-on-one, and coordinate with large instructional teams, thereby deepening his understanding of core CS principles.
“Being a TA reinforced my understanding of CS concepts as I designed assignments and explained material clearly,” he said.
He also contributed to course development by helping design assignments and synchronous assessments that emphasized application-based learning. His work was recognized by Georgia Tech’s Center for Teaching and Learning with the Online TA of the Year award.
He credits faculty mentors, including School of Computing Instruction (SCI) faculty member Frederic Faulkner and Interim Chair Mary Hudachek-Buswell, for shaping his growth as an educator.
“They’ve both been instrumental in my development as a leader, and I admire their determination to strengthen the quality of CS undergraduate education at Tech,” he said.
Looking Ahead
During his time at Tech, Hayley interned as a software development engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Atlanta, where he worked on an infrastructure-based solution. The experience reinforced the importance of adaptability in the field.
“What I’ve found from this experience is that software development is not a skill that is solidified once; instead, it necessitates continual lifelong learning,” he said.
After graduation, Hayley will return to AWS as a full-time software development engineer while continuing his creative work in film and game development.
He encourages other students to take full advantage of interdisciplinary opportunities.
“Take advantage of the opportunities Tech has to offer with respect to technology and creativity,” he said.
“I found tailoring these components towards a blend of CS and music allowed me to get the most out of my time here.”
Jack Hayley’s path through Georgia Tech’s computational media program centers on exploring how sound and software work together across film, games, and interactive media.
]]>“I’m honored to receive the 2026 Odum Award,” says Weigel, who is a senior academic professional in the School of Biological Sciences. “Georgia Tech is widely recognized for its research excellence, but teaching is mission-critical to the ways we serve the public good. This award reflects the incredible work happening in our classes and communities that drives science, and science education, forward.”
Weigel is among 10 individuals selected nationwide for annual ESA awards. “This year’s award recipients have each contributed something important to ecology, often in very different ways,” says ESA President Peter Groffman. “These are ecologists whose efforts have shaped the field, supported colleagues and created opportunities for others. I’m glad to see that kind of work acknowledged.”
Weigel’s work focuses on improving biology education by examining how student backgrounds, values, and instructional practices shape learning outcomes. Her impact spans K–12 students, undergraduates, graduates, and members of the Atlanta community.
Known for her teaching innovations, she has pioneered new courses in biology, ecology, and statistics, and is also a leader in the Vertically Integrated Projects program at Georgia Tech.
From studying the dynamics of flu, to using drone aerial footage to monitor Georgia Tech’s changing landscape, to a long-term project monitoring the trees of the Campus Arboretum, Weigel shares that “students thrive when they develop skills through real-world experiences."
Weigel has also creatively infused the traditional “nature” topics and fieldwork found in ecology curricula with modern technology and programming skills used in research. “Effectively introducing professional skills, like programming in the language R, is innovative nationally,” she says. By making R, an open-source programming language, more accessible, “we’re preparing undergraduates for success in graduate school and their careers, and empowering them to learn other programming languages in the future.”
In addition to teaching, Weigel plays a central role in mentoring and supporting students across the Institute. She serves as the undergraduate academic advisor for around one-sixth of Georgia Tech’s Biology majors, mentors graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants, and is an instructor for the “Tech to Teaching” capstone course in the Center for Teaching and Learning.
]]>Selena Langner
College of Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
One the oldest existing biological societies in the world, the Linnean Society of London is renowned as the venue where, in July 1858, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace first publicly announced the theory of evolution by natural selection — more than a year before Darwin published On the Origin of Species. The annual Bicentenary Medal is considered one of the most prestigious awards for researchers studying natural history.
“This honor is profoundly meaningful to me — both as an evolutionary biologist and a Londoner,” says Stroud. “To be recognized here, at the very heart of evolutionary biology’s history, is deeply personal, incredibly exciting, and very special.”
Stroud is one of 10 exemplary researchers to be recognized by the Linnean Society this year with a medal or award.
“We are thrilled to celebrate the 2026 Linnean Society medal and award recipients, whose work advances our vision of a world where nature is understood, valued and protected,” says Mark Watson, who serves as president of the Linnean Society. “At a time when the importance of biodiversity and conservation has never been clearer, their achievements show the power of curiosity, dedication and scientific endeavor.”
At Georgia Tech, Stroud investigates the ecological and evolutionary processes of lizards in order to understand patterns of biological diversity at a larger scale. “Studying lizards in their natural habitats allows us to directly investigate how species adapt and evolve in real time,” he explains, “and this helps us understand how ecological and evolutionary processes shape life on Earth."
For over 10 years, he has run one of the longest-running evolutionary studies of its kind: catching, documenting, and releasing each of the 1,000 lizards who reside on “Lizard Island,” Stroud’s living lab in Florida.
In 2025, he was awarded a Packard Fellowship to further develop the project by equipping each lizard with a tiny sensor backpack to document their behaviors and movements in real time — with the goal of creating evolution’s first high-definition map.
In 2014, Stroud also founded a community science project called “Lizards on the Loose” to introduce middle school students to ecological science. A collaboration with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, the program now reaches students from over 100 schools across South Florida.
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