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Georgia Tech aerospace engineering graduate James McConville sworn in as Army’s top officer

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Gen. James C. McConville, 36th Vice Chief of Staff of the Army (U.S. Army photo by Monica King/Released)

A Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech is the new chief of staff of the U.S. Army.

Gen. James C. McConville took over as the Army’s top officer August 9.  He replaces Gen. Mark A. Milley, who was confirmed in July as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

McConville earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech in 1990.  A decorated helicopter pilot, McConville is the first aviator to serve as the Army’s chief.

“Armed with a master’s in engineering to go with decades of flying and maintaining helicopters, he brings a unique understanding of how to operate and support complex weapons and equipment,” said Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.  “In this respect, no senior officer is better prepared to lead the Army as we undertake what will be a massive and, yes, risky and costly transformation towards more advanced weapons and war-fighting approaches.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech: A driver of economic development

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A crowd of entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and political leaders gathered at The Biltmore Wednesday afternoon for an economic development forum, looking at the role Technology Square has played in the state’s economic growth and what it will take to continue expanding.

Geoff Duncan, lieutenant governor of Georgia, welcomed guests to “Georgia Tech: A Driver of Economic Development.”

“Being an entrepreneur is unscripted. It’s just in you,” Duncan said.  “As lieutenant governor I want to look for ways to harness and cultivate that potential here in Georgia.”

He acknowledged the role of education and thanked Georgia Tech’s leaders for striving to make Georgia the technology capital of the East Coast.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech Research Institute develops and teaches tactics to defend transport aircraft

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Air Force Capt. Courtney Vidt had already spent more than a week in a classroom studying the nuances of aircraft physics, radar theory, and the numerous dangers posed to military transport aircraft like hers.

Now, the C-17 pilot was presented with a new challenge: Craft a mission plan for a mock exercise that would achieve the mission objective and get herself and her crew back home safely.

“We fly in a lot of areas where threats can reach out and touch us, and this course helps us be aware of what tools and tactics we have to prevent them from doing that,” Vidt said, “whether it’s flying around it, flying over it, flying under it, or other methods — so they can’t touch us.”

Vidt was one of about a dozen pilots and aircrew from multiple branches of the U.S. military who in March 2019 descended on Rosecrans Air National Guard Base, located about 60 miles north of Kansas City.  They came for an advanced training course designed for the mobility air force — service members who fly the large military aircraft that carry people and supplies.

The course was taught at the Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center (AATTC), which provides the highest level of training in defensive maneuvers, countermeasures, and tactics for mobility forces with the ultimate goal of keeping them safe while flying through potentially hostile skies.

But it’s not just military instructors in uniforms teaching those courses.  Working alongside them is a team of experts from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), which for decades has partnered with mobility forces to develop technology to counter the threats that confront the military’s transport aircraft.

The GTRI team plays a pivotal role at the training center, helping students understand the science behind threats such as heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles as well as providing foundational knowledge of onboard aircraft systems and the measures used to defeat the threats.

“The goal of these courses is to save lives in the combat environment,” said Bobby Oates, a senior research scientist and GTRI’s site lead for the program at Rosecrans.  “GTRI’s role here is to provide subject matter expertise.  We’re all prior military aviators, and all of us have been on some sort of C-130 platform.  That gives us a unique understanding of the needs of the mobility air force.”

Continue reading at:  GTRI Newsroom

GTRI wins $245M Air Force contract for engineering, advanced technology support

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The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has received a $245.5 million, five-year contract from the U.S. Air Force to support national defense and mature advanced technology.

The award, announced July 9, is renewable for an additional five years for a total potential investment of $491 million.

“This award affirms GTRI’s growing value to our nation’s defense,” said Lora Weiss, interim senior vice president and director of GTRI.  “As the U.S. faces increasingly more sophisticated technological threats from innovative and unconventional adversaries, this contract will expand GTRI’s ability to quickly apply its breadth of emerging and advanced technologies and leverage the creativity and expertise of a major university to solve critical national problems.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech and Morehouse announce collaborative effort

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The Georgia Institute of Technology and Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) today announced the launch of a new initiative that will support MSM’s commercialization efforts to create health technology (HealthTech) startups.

The effort brings the Institute’s globally recognized technology incubator — the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) — to the MSM campus, ranked the No. 1 medical school in the nation in fulfilling its social mission and the top ranking historically black college or university for producing patents (2009-2019).

“We’re excited to forge this effort between our two schools that will help translate ideas that may start in the lab to real-world solutions for minority and rural populations in healthcare,” said James W. Lillard, Ph.D., MSM’s associate dean for research and director of the Office of Translational Technologies.  “This initiative leverages the research rigor and innovations developing at Morehouse School of Medicine with Georgia Tech’s proven ATDC model of helping technology entrepreneurs create viable, scalable companies.”

The collaboration with MSM, the eighth for ATDC through its ATDC @program, continues the incubator’s mission of working with technology startups across Georgia.  The catalyst for this initiative was an i6 Challenge grant the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded to Georgia Tech in 2015.

That $500,000 grant, secured by Tech’s Innovation Ecosystems group, supported wide-ranging innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives across the state.  In Atlanta, it called for the Institute to collaborate with Georgia State and Clark Atlanta universities, Morehouse College, the Morehouse School of Medicine, and Spelman College to develop entrepreneurship programs that supported their unique visions.

The ATDC @ MSM will provide the medical school with a full suite of services and educational programming to support entrepreneurship in the HealthTech arena among faculty, staff, and students on the MSM campus.  The core goal is to help entrepreneurs gain insight into successful HealthTech commercialization, through the program, which includes curriculum, connections, and coaching.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Karen Fite to lead Enterprise Innovation Institute as Interim Vice President

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The Georgia Institute of Technology has named Karen Fite interim vice president of its economic development unit, the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2).

Fite, who is EI²’s associate vice president, will lead the 12-program organization while Georgia Tech conducts a national search for a permanent vice president to succeed Chris Downing, who retired in June after 31 years of service.

EI2 is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive university-based program of business and industry assistance, technology commercialization, and economic development.

Fite, who also is director of EI2’s Business & Industry Services group of programs, has more than 26 years of economic development experience at Tech.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech names Director for Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)

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The Georgia Institute of Technology has named James J. Hudgens to be the new director of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), Georgia Tech’s applied research division.  Currently director of the Threat Intelligence Center (TIC) at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Hudgens will become a Georgia Tech senior vice president and GTRI’s director effective September 2, 2019.

Hudgens holds a Ph.D. in ceramic engineering from Iowa State University.  He has led research and development programs in national security, cybersecurity, quantum information science, and photonic microsystems.  He also led programs in data analytics, synthetic aperture radar, and airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems before becoming director of the $265 million-per-year TIC, which has a staff of 550 professionals working in six states and 136 different laboratories. 

A senior technology executive with 23 years of experience in national security research, Hudgens has also held positions at optical networking firm Mahi Networks, defense contractor Raytheon Electronic Systems, and semiconductor company Texas Instruments.  In 2013, he won the Department of Energy Secretary’s Honor Award for Achievement for leading the Copperhead counter-IED program.

“Jim Hudgens has extensive experience building and leading federally sponsored programs that are at the center of GTRI’s core research areas,” said Chaouki Abdallah, Georgia Tech’s Executive Vice President for Research.  “His experience developing and managing programs at Sandia National Laboratories and major private-sector defense contractors will support GTRI’s continued growth in service to our nation’s defense agencies and other important state and federal sponsors.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia smart communities challenge selects four new community projects

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After a successful launch in 2018, Georgia Tech’s Georgia Smart Communities Challenge named four new grant recipients at a special event at the government center in Macon June 18.

The 2019 winning proposals are Columbus Smart Uptown, Macon Smart Neighborhoods, Milton Smarter Safer Routes to School, and Woodstock Smart Master Plan and Corridor Study.

This is the second round of Georgia Smart Communities Challenge, a funding and technical assistance program for local governments in the state of Georgia.  Recipients are to develop a pilot project around mobility and equity and smart resilience with assistance from a Georgia Tech researcher.  The projects utilize smart technology such as intelligent infrastructures, information, and communication technologies; Internet-of-Things devices; and other computational or digital technologies such as data centers and portals, web and smartphone applications, and automated digital services.

“Georgia Tech is very proud to have played a leadership role in the Georgia Smart program, which we believe will improve the quality of life in the participating communities and also provide models for other communities throughout Georgia to consider as they strive to make life better for their citizens,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Cabrera named President of the Georgia Institute of Technology

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The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia (USG) recently named Dr. Ángel Cabrera president of the Georgia Institute of Technology.  He will assume the position before September 15, 2019.

“Georgia Tech will continue to excel under the leadership of Dr. Cabrera,” said USG Chancellor Steve Wrigley.  “His experience, skillset and deep ties to his alma mater will serve the campus community well, and his vision for the future will help lead Georgia Tech to new heights.  I am grateful to the Board of Regents and the search committee for their time and effort in this selection process, and I congratulate Dr. Cabrera on his new role.”

Cabrera has served as president of George Mason University (GMU), a top-tier research institution and the largest public university in Virginia, since 2012.

“Dr. Cabrera is an excellent choice to lead Georgia Tech as its next president,” said Board of Regents Chairman Don Waters.  “I am confident that he will work diligently on behalf of students while advancing Georgia Tech’s growth, priorities and world-class reputation.  On behalf of the Board of Regents, I welcome Dr. Cabrera back to Georgia Tech and look forward to working with him.”

Continue Reading at:  University System of Georgia website

Georgia Tech marks $42 million expanded research presence in Cobb County

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A Cobb County facility expanded to the tune of $42 million is expected to play a larger role in the state’s aerospace industry and the country’s defense efforts.

Officials with Georgia Tech Research Institute — a nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology — cut the ribbon Wednesday, May 8th on its expanded Cobb County Research Facility off Atlanta Road and adjacent to both Dobbins Air Reserve Base and Lockheed Martin.

Wednesday’s ceremony unveiled the redeveloped 350,000 square feet of space, which came to GTRI after it purchased for $21 million four buildings on an unused, 52-acre Lockheed Martin site in December 2017, the MDJ previously reported.  The additional space will give the university entity more room to support its research goals, which its interim director, Lora Weiss, said is of “incredible importance” to national security.

Continue reading at:  Marietta Daily Journal

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