Trillions of microorganisms make their home in the human gastrointestinal tract, where they influence everything from digestion and vitamin synthesis to immune response. This microbial world is remarkably diverse — a complex ecosystem of bacteria, archaea, fungi, viruses, and single-celled organisms called protists. Yet research has largely focused on just one group: bacteria.

Now, new work from Georgia Tech School of Biological Sciences Assistant Professor Abigail Lind is looking beyond bacteria by investigating a common gut protist called Blastocystis.

In support of her research, Lind has received a prestigious Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The MIRA program provides investigators with five years of flexible funding, allowing them to pursue ambitious research in promising new directions.  

Protists have long been understudied, Lind says, because until recently, these organisms were considered possible pathogens. “Recently, studies have found that they are actually correlated with many different positive health markers, like reduced inflammation and positive cardiovascular outcomes,” she explains. “But we still know very little about these organisms.”

“With this research, we want to lay a foundation to accelerate future work,” Lind adds. “We want to understand what these protists do, how they interact with microbial partners, and how that might ultimately impact their human hosts.”

Understanding the Microbiome Community

The protists are notoriously tricky to work with. They swell up and “pop” if they’re exposed to oxygen, and nobody is quite sure what they eat. “We’ve developed new techniques to work with them in the lab, which is why we’re able to do this research now,” Lind says. 

While decades of work have gone into cultivating gut bacteria in the lab, cultivating Blastocystis is a different story. “Many of the techniques developed to cultivate bacteria kill this protist,” Lind says, “so we had to be creative.” 

Postdoctoral scholar Fredrick Leon tested combinations of nutrients ranging from store-bought protein powders to boiled wheatgrass solutions, eventually settling on the formula they use today. But it still is unclear what exactly the organism is eating — and how.

“We know the strategies that bacteria use to break down and utilize food, but these protists don't have the same genes,” she says. “Do they eat something completely different? Do they eat the same things but with a different strategy? And how does that impact the microbial community and human host? These are the questions that we're answering.” 

Building a Genetic Blueprint

Lind also aims to develop genetic tools for studying Blastocystis. Those tools could help researchers uncover which genes are responsible for specific functions, providing a clear map of what the protist does and how it does it. 

By establishing new ways to grow, manipulate, and study Blastocystis, Lind hopes the project will provide answers about this organism while creating new tools to advance protist research more broadly.

“Our goal is to make Blastocystis a system that researchers can really begin to understand,” Lind says. “What we learn from this one organism could give us a foundation for studying many other protists and, ultimately, a more complete picture of the human gut microbiome.”

What’s a lizard’s favorite tree? Where do monarch butterflies stop as they migrate through Atlanta? And how can urban areas make room for wildlife?

Soon, Georgia Tech students will be investigating these questions and more. A new initiative from the School of Biological Sciences is transforming Georgia Tech’s campus into a living laboratory for urban biodiversity research, with students at its center.

Using tiny Bluetooth-enabled trackers, students will tag and track butterflies, lizards, and birds. They’ll use the same groundbreaking new technology being employed by conservation biologists worldwide, including Benjamin Freeman and James Stroud, who are bringing their experience with large-scale wildlife tracking to the new campus initiative. Both Stroud and Freeman are Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Early Career Assistant Professors in the School of Biological Sciences and co-leads of the new project.

“Recording animal behavior in the wild is one of the final frontiers in ecology and evolution research,” says Stroud. “This new tracking technology will allow students to design and conduct research projects and learn data collection, spatial analysis, statistical modeling, and scientific communication — all while investigating real conservation questions about urban wildlife corridors, migration patterns, and habitat use.”

The program aims to involve more than 800 students each year across multiple programs and degree paths. “The big idea is to connect Georgia Tech undergraduates with cutting-edge science on campus, and to get them involved with all facets of this research,” Freeman says. Beyond ecology and biology, students will learn to engineer sensor technology, build data visualization tools using computer science, and analyze urban planning decisions through a public policy lens.

“Over the next year, undergraduates will begin deploying these tracking systems and conducting preliminary data analysis, but what’s really exciting is how this project can build on itself,” Freeman adds. “In five years, the Georgia Tech community will have built a dynamic campus biodiversity map — one that anyone can access to see hundreds of tagged birds, lizards, and butterflies moving across campus.”

Tracking Wildlife at New Scales

There’s no shortage of animals on Georgia Tech’s campus — the Stroud Lab recently surveyed a population of green anole lizards in the Kendeda Building EcoCommons area, counting about 50 individuals. That presents a unique opportunity to tag and track each individual, he says, allowing students to study behavioral and ecological questions at the population level.

Freeman will help students tag northern mockingbirds, northern cardinals, eastern bluebirds, and eastern towhees, in addition to migratory birds that pass through campus in the spring and fall. “We’ll also tag monarch butterflies and gulf fritillary butterflies as they migrate through the EcoCommons in fall,” he says. 

Both Freeman and Stroud have deep experience with the technology. For more than a decade, Stroud has pioneered one of the longest-running evolutionary studies of its kind: catching, documenting, and releasing each of the roughly 1,000 lizards living on “Lizard Island.” In 2025, he was awarded a Packard Fellowship to equip each lizard on the island with tiny sensor backpacks to document their behaviors and movements in real time.

In Ecuador, Freeman is building a similar project with support from a Packard Fellowship — a living laboratory spanning thousands of meters along the flanks of “Tech Mountain,” from lowland rainforest to cloud forest. Leveraging the same technology Georgia Tech students will use on campus, he is tagging and monitoring the daily movements of tropical birds and mapping their movements against microclimate sensors placed on the mountain’s slopes. It’s the first project of its kind.

“One of the most exciting things is how accessible this new technology is,” he says. “When it’s deployed on Georgia Tech’s campus, students will get to play a role in every single stage of the research.”

Connecting Campus and Community

At Georgia Tech, that research will build on the living laboratory already centered in the Kendeda Building EcoCommons, where environmental conditions like wind, temperature, humidity, and soil quality are monitored by a variety of sensors. Students are already monitoring environmental data through the popular Living Building Science Vertically Integrated Program (VIP) course. 

Considering climate information alongside animal movement patterns will offer a unique window into how animals respond to changing conditions, Stroud explains. “How do these environmental factors affect animals, and how can we use that information to support wildlife as our campus continues to develop?” he asks. “With this new data, students can lead projects to answer these questions and more.”

Freeman and Stroud also hope that the Kendeda Building’s accessible location will make the research a visible part of campus life, giving community members and visitors the opportunity to encounter the project firsthand.

“This work can have a meaningful impact far beyond the classroom,” Freeman says. “By understanding how wildlife uses the spaces around us, we can better support it in a changing world, all while training and empowering the next generation of scientists and leaders.”

Three College of Sciences faculty members have been recognized by NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising’s 2026 awards program for contributions to academic advising and student success in higher education. 

“We are thrilled to see the contributions of these three outstanding academic advisors acknowledged by the national academic advising community,” says David Collard, interim dean of the College of Sciences and professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “This is just one of many indicators of their contributions to the success of our students.”

For Carrie Shepler, assistant dean for teaching and learning in the College of Sciences, the recognition reflects the honorees’ commitment to students and the value of academic advising.

“Our academic advisors support our students in countless ways: from helping students make informed academic and career decisions and connecting them to campus resources to simply offering a sympathetic ear,” says Shepler. “They do all these things with professionalism, empathy, and respect, making an immeasurable impact on our students.”

Founded in 1979, NACADA is an international association dedicated to promoting academic advising that enhances student development in higher education. This year’s award recipients include faculty recognized at both the national and regional levels.

Honorees from the College of Sciences:

Katharine McCann
Outstanding New Faculty Advisor Award
Academic professional in the School of Psychological and Brain Sciences and director of undergraduate research in neuroscience

Haley Steele
Advising Excellence Award – Faculty Advisor, Region 4 – Southeast 
Academic professional in the School of Biological Sciences

Hui Zhu
Advising Excellence Award – Advising Administrator, Certificate of Merit, Region 4 –  Southeast
Senior academic professional in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Georgia Tech honorees also include Ellen Riley of the Office of Undergraduate Education and Student Success, who received the Joyce C. Jackson Service to Region 4 – Southeast Award.

One of the biggest breakthroughs in modern cancer treatment doesn’t attack cancer directly. Instead, immunotherapy harnesses the body’s immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells.

Now, Nick Housley is exploring whether another bodily system could be recruited in the fight against cancer: the nervous system.

“From first principles, the nervous system is involved in every aspect of normal development and bodily maintenance,” says Housley, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences and faculty director of Innovation for the Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society. “When these normal processes go awry, the nervous system is not just a bystander. It is actively driving changes and/or responding to disease.”

With a new five-year, $3 million Stephen I. Katz Award from the National Institutes of Health, Housley aims to uncover how cancer interacts with the body’s neural circuitry and whether those connections could ultimately reveal new ways to fight the disease.

The idea that cancer and the nervous system interact isn’t entirely new. Scientists have known for more than a century that many solid tumors are connected to nerves. More recently, studies of brain cancer have revealed that tumors can form circuits with neurons that affect cancer growth, invasion, and resistance to treatment. But exactly how cancers elsewhere in the body connect with and potentially exploit the nervous system is largely a mystery.

Housley is starting with the ovary, an organ especially reliant on cues from the nervous system for normal function. Ovarian cancer is also one of the leading causes of cancer death among women, making the need for new approaches especially urgent.

“Ovarian cancer is tricky because it disproportionately lacks clear early symptoms,” says Housley. Without reliable symptoms or an effective early screening method, the disease is often not detected until later stages, when it is more difficult to treat. “We are very interested in understanding how the tumor innervates and integrates into the host nervous system to modulate activity patterns and remain hidden.”

Yet even the baseline for understanding those connections is missing. Scientists don’t yet have a complete map of the neural circuitry of a healthy ovary, much less an understanding of how that circuitry changes when cancer develops.

That kind of knowledge gap is precisely what the National Institutes of Health’s Stephen I. Katz Award is designed to address. It empowers early-career scientists like Housley to make bold research pivots into new scientific fields without requiring preliminary data.

With the Katz Award, Housley will start by creating the missing neural map of the ovarian system, comparing neural connections in healthy and cancerous ovaries and tracing them from local networks to the spinal cord and brain.

“We’re trying to figure out who’s connected to whom and whether those structural connections are functional,” he said.

From there, his team will examine how ovarian cancer cells and neurons communicate and how those interactions affect both cell types. Finally, they will manipulate specific populations of neurons to test how neural activity affects tumor development, progression, and response to cancer treatments.

“Where we are right now with cancer neuroscience is very similar to where immunotherapy was several decades ago,” Housley said. “Our blue-sky goal is to develop enough foundational knowledge about how the nervous system interfaces with ovarian cancer that we can exploit it — suppressing pro-tumoral signals and enhancing tumor suppressors to improve patient outcomes.”
 

For the Georgia Tech community, homecoming week is more than just a celebration of Yellow Jacket pride – it's a tribute to the traditions, spirit, and unity that define the Tech experience. For five remarkable students, the week holds an even deeper significance. 

Ramblin’ Royalty, hosted by the Student Center Programs Council (SCPC) within Student and Campus Event Centers (SCEC), celebrates students who embody Georgia Tech’s motto, Progress and Service. Previously known as Mr. and Ms. Georgia Tech, the program has evolved into a more inclusive scholarship initiative to represent all students who are making a positive impact on campus. 

A College of Sciences student was among the five students selected for this recognition.

Giuli Capparelli Sanabria

Year: 4th year Biology major
Nominated by: Phi Mu Fraternity

Giuli has embraced Georgia Tech’s motto of Progress and Service through a commitment to expanding educational opportunity and building connections across diverse communities. As a recipient of the G. Wayne Clough Tech Promise Scholarship, she’s transforming gratitude into action as a passionate advocate for the initiatives that make a Georgia Tech education accessible to students from all backgrounds. She has represented the institute at various events including the Gold and White Gala and Scholarship Brunch, and in 2025 was honored to serve as the keynote student speaker at the USG Scholarships and Awards Gala, sharing the impact of scholarship support and promoting access to higher education. Her dedication to service and representation also extends to campus life. Through Phi Mu, she’s aware of the value of connecting across different perspectives and backgrounds. As Phorum Lead, she facilitated educational programming focused on topics like implicit bias and cultural awareness, helping foster meaningful dialogue within her community. Her Georgia Tech journey reflects gratitude, advocacy, and a belief in the transformative power of opportunity. Representing Georgia Tech as Ramblin’ Royalty would be a celebration of her commitment and the impact she hopes to continue making for future Yellow Jackets.

>> Meet all the students named 2026 Ramblin' Royalty.

David Collard, senior associate dean for the College of Sciences and professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has accepted an appointment to serve as the interim leader for the College of Sciences.

As interim dean, Collard will represent a college that is home to more than 3,000 students, 500 faculty members, and six internationally ranked schools.

Collard joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 1991. His research program has focused on understanding how interactions between molecules influence the properties of materials, ranging from electrical conductivity to biological responses. As an instructor he has received awards for teaching excellence and outstanding use of educational technology.

“David’s thoughtful approach and deep affinity for the college make him ideally suited to help steward this transition period,” said Raheem Beyah, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “We are grateful for his willingness to provide continuity of leadership for a college that has achieved tremendous growth in size and reputation over the past seven years.”

A national search for the College’s next dean will commence, led by College of Engineering Dean Mitchell Walker. Information regarding the search committee and key dates will be posted to provost.gatech.edu.

Georgia’s coastline stretches more than 100 miles, encompassing diverse wildlife, landscapes, and coastal communities. 

Georgia Tech alumnus and President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough was struck by the beauty and ecological significance of this region during a trip to Cumberland Island. 

The South Georgia native decided to transform his sense of wonder into a multiyear exploration of the coast’s natural history, flora, and fauna. Along the way, he met some of the people studying and working to protect its ecological and cultural heritage.

The result is his new book, The Ever-Changing Georgia Coast: A Natural History of Its Creation, Transformation, and Future. Described as “part travelogue, part natural history, and part nature guide,” the book examines the past, present, and future of Georgia’s coast and reflects on the forces, both human and natural, that continue to shape it. 

Oct. 23 Book Talk at Scheller Tower

Clough will share stories and inspiration from his latest book during a special conversation on Friday, Oct. 23, from 3 to 5 p.m. in the West Lobby of Scheller Tower. Susan Lozier, dean of the College of Sciences and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair, will moderate the conversation, which will be followed by an audience Q&A and a book signing reception. 

The event is free and open to the public. Copies of Clough’s new book will be available for purchase and signing.

RSVP to attend and be entered into a drawing for one of 14 signed copies of his book, one for each of Georgia’s major barrier islands.