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Undergraduate enrollment growth reflects inclusive excellence

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Over the past five years, Georgia Tech has strengthened its commitment to inclusive excellence by enrolling record numbers of undergraduate students from around the state, nation, and world.

Undergraduate enrollment has increased by almost 2,000 students in that time, expanding access to students from all backgrounds.  This includes rural Georgia, as well as students in the Black and Hispanic communities.  Incoming first-generation students (those who come from families where neither parent graduated from college) also increased by 80%.  And for the first time in Institute history, women comprise 40% of the total undergraduate population.  While we like to talk numbers, our real pride is in our students, many of whom have overcome formidable obstacles to make their dreams of a Georgia Tech degree come true.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech delivers $4 billion in economic impact to the State of Georgia

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Roughly 275.  That’s how many jobs the company Stord has brought to the state of Georgia since it opened its doors in 2016.  The startup was one of the first to go through Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X incubator, offering cloud-based software that has since revolutionized the supply chain sector.  And as the company continues to grow, it has no plans to leave Atlanta.

“One of the best things we’ve done to give back to Georgia is the way Stord has accelerated the overall technology ecosystem, mostly as it pertains to venture, and beyond that, just bringing more capital to the market,” said Sean Henry, CEO and co-founder of Stord.

It’s not just Stord that’s giving back to the state. Georgia Tech’s economic impact on the state of Georgia was $4 billion in fiscal year 2020, according to data recently released by the University System of Georgia.

Companies like SalesLoft, Greenlight, and Pindrop all graduated from Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) — the state’s oldest technology incubator — and have stayed headquartered in Atlanta, infusing millions in capital and thousands of jobs into the state economy.  Other startup programs on campus include VentureLab, ENGAGE, and the Global Center for Medical Innovation, to name a few, helping students and faculty set up companies based on creative ideas and technological innovation.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech awards first round of seed grants to support team-based research

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On August 5, the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research at Georgia Tech awarded a first round of grants meant to assist in the formation and advancement of cross-disciplinary research teams.

The grants come in response to shifting trends in national research and funding priorities.  Major funding agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF) are increasing their support for large-scale, team-based projects, according to Georgia Tech faculty members Robert Butera and Devesh Ranjan.  Successful proposals for these projects often rely on integrating expertise from across disparate areas, including engineering, science, liberal arts, design, and business.

“A lot of cutting-edge science requires a team approach,” said Butera, who is also vice president for research development and operations.

Academic research faculty have historically worked within a narrower scope, according to Butera.  In particular, newer research programs have tended to be focused within one single discipline, with no more than one or two different faculty members involved.

Far larger projects are becoming more common.  One example is a $21.9 million DARPA-funded effort led by Phil Santangelo, professor of biomedical engineering, which seeks to develop gene-based therapeutics for flu and other viruses, including Covid-19.  That project directly involves vaccine manufacturers and a broad range of other collaborators.

“That’s a really huge research project,” said Butera.  “That’s a level of project management complexity and proposal development that faculty are [traditionally] not prepared for.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech Research Horizons

Georgia Tech announces inaugural Associate Vice President of Corporate Engagement

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The Georgia Institute of Technology has named J. Mark Nolan as associate vice president of corporate engagement, effective Jan. 1, 2022.

Nolan is currently the associate vice president of business engagement and strategy at Carnegie Mellon University.  His appointment follows a national search and is part of a larger Institute effort for more strategic and complementary initiatives between its corporate relations and industry collaboration units.  Under this structure, Nolan will jointly report to the executive vice president for Research and the vice president for Development.

As associate vice president, Nolan will lead a newly created office that will serve as the nexus for the Institute’s entire partner relationship and activity portfolios.  The office is also tasked with facilitating collaboration efforts across various partner units within Georgia Tech, including the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Technology Licensing, Economic Development, Institute Relations, and Corporate Contracting, among others.

“Under Mark’s leadership, this new office will enhance our engagement with industry and corporate partners, showcasing the comprehensive breadth and scope of our capabilities and the various ways we connect with industry,” said Chaouki T. Abdallah, executive vice president for Research at Georgia Tech.  “We are thrilled for him to come on board as we begin to set a new standard for managing and maintaining our existing relationships while expanding upon new partnerships.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech Research Website

DoD funds Georgia Tech to enhance U.S. hypersonics capabilities

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Vastly different than conventional military weapons and aircraft, hypersonics systems are game-changing for national security, providing unprecedented speed and maneuverability.  Operating at more than five times the speed of sound, these systems can alter course after takeoff, making them hard to intercept.  The U.S. government’s proposed fiscal year 2022 budget for hypersonics research and development is $3.8 billion, representing a nearly 20% increase from the previous year.

Developing vehicles capable of traveling at over a mile per second — speeds that cause vehicle surface temperatures to heat up to 2,200 degrees Celsius — presents daunting engineering challenges for hypersonics materials and systems.

To address these hurdles and enhance U.S. hypersonics capabilities, the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics (UCAH) has tapped the Georgia Institute of Technology and key academic partners for four grants valued at $6 million over the next three years.  The awards draw on Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) expertise across advanced, high-temperature materials science and aerospace and mechanical engineering research — areas critical for future advances of these vehicles.

“Hypersonics research is a big area of focus for Georgia Tech.  It’s an area where the College of Engineering and GTRI can really collaborate and build upon GTRI’s strong foundation to be a real force in hypersonics,” said Devesh Ranjan, Ring Family Chair and associate chair for Research in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, who also serves as co-director of UCAH.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech and partners to help NASA advance deep space exploration

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Every few years, NASA creates Space Technology Research Institutes (STRI) in areas it believes are going to be strategic for future technology and space missions.  Today, that area is electric propulsion – the use of electrical energy to accelerate propellant to create thrust.  The technology yields extremely efficient thrusters to power space flight for gateway launches to the moon or even shuttling massive loads of cargo to Mars.

The Georgia Institute of Technology, along with 11 partner universities and 17 researchers, will receive $15 million over five years to fund the Joint Advanced Propulsion Institute (JANUS) – a new STRI to develop strategies and methodologies to surmount limitations in ground testing of high-power electric propulsion systems.

Continue reading at:  EurekAlert!

Georgia Tech structure certified as ‘living building’

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It’s not too often that tours of new buildings start with the toilets.  But they’re a big part of a different kind of building in Atlanta.

And so, Shan Arora, who oversees Georgia Tech’s Kendeda Building, troops visitors pretty quickly to a ground floor bathroom where the toilet begins to hum, and then foam.  There’s no conventional flushing, with the toilets consuming only a teaspoon of water per use.  And the waste is composted in digesters in the basement instead of being piped to a treatment plant.

“We say there’s a lot of potty talk in the Kendeda Building,” Arora said.

Georgia Tech is announcing on Thursday — Earth Day — that the building has won certification as the 28th “living building” worldwide.  That means the building has proved over a year of operation that it meets the standards of the International Living Future Institute that it does more good for the natural environment than harm.

Continue reading at:  AP News

Collective worm and robot “blobs” protect individuals, swarm together

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Individually, California blackworms live an unremarkable life eating microorganisms in ponds and serving as tropical fish food for aquarium enthusiasts.  But together, tens, hundreds, or thousands of the centimeter-long creatures can collaborate to form a “worm blob,” a shape-shifting living liquid that collectively protects its members from drying out and helps them escape threats such as excessive heat.

While other organisms form collective flocks, schools, or swarms for such purposes as mating, predation, and protection, the Lumbriculus variegatus worms are unusual in their ability to braid themselves together to accomplish tasks that unconnected individuals cannot.  A new study reported by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology describes how the worms self-organize to act as entangled “active matter,” creating surprising collective behaviors whose principles have been applied to help blobs of simple robots evolve their own locomotion.

The research, supported by the National Science Foundation and the Army Research Office, was reported Feb. 5 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Findings from the work could help developers of swarm robots understand how emergent behavior of entangled active matter can produce unexpected, complex, and potentially useful mechanically driven behaviors.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech will help manage DOE’s Savannah River National Laboratory

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The Battelle Savannah River Alliance (BRSA) – which includes Georgia Tech – has been selected by the Department of Energy to manage one of the country’s premier environmental, energy, and national security research facilities—the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL).

Employing approximately 1,000 staff, SRNL conducts research and development for diverse federal agencies, providing practical, cost-effective solutions for the nation’s environmental, nuclear security, energy, and manufacturing challenges.  As the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Environmental Management Laboratory, SRNL provides strategic scientific and technological support for the nation’s $6 billion per year waste clean-up program.

As part of the BRSA, Georgia Tech will help manage the SRNL and guide the future growth of the lab’s core competencies while expanding collaboration with Tech’s $1 billion-per-year research program.  The laboratory is located near Aiken, S.C., across the Savannah River from Augusta and Richmond County.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Dr. Abdallah testifies on U.S. competitiveness, research, STEM pipeline at Congressional hearing

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On Jan. 29, Chaouki Abdallah, Georgia Tech’s executive vice president for Research, testified before a U.S. House of Representatives committee about the cooperative United States research and development (R&D) enterprise, including the threat of falling behind other nations in critical technologies, investment in the nation’s institutions of higher education, and the future of the STEM talent pipeline.

Along with Abdallah, the hearing brought together expert testimony from representatives from federal and industry perspectives, including Diane Souvaine, chair of the National Science Board, and Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and founder of Schmidt Futures.

In his testimony to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Abdallah stressed the importance of maintaining the U.S. position of leadership in R&D, and the importance of the collaboration between the federal government, higher education, and the private sector.

“The mission, alignment, and cooperation of these three actors have historically made the U.S. research landscape the most productive and admired in the world … and made the U.S. safer, healthier, and wealthier.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

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