Join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab each week for Fossil Fridays.
Become a fossil hunter and help discover how ecosystems have changed over time. Experience what it is like to be a paleontologist, finding and identifying new specimens.
Participants will sort through rock matrix collected from Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming to recover fossil specimens that are approximately 35,000 years old. These specimens support research projects examining how the community of species living around Natural Trap Cave has changed since the extinction of the cheetahs, lions, dire wolves, mammoths, camels, horses, and other megafauna that once lived in North America.
Drop in whenever it is convenient. No commitment is required. All are welcome, so bring your friends.
For more information, contact Katie Slenker at kslenker3@gatech.edu or visit mcguire.gatech.edu.
*Note: Data collected during Fossil Fridays may be included in research publications.
Event Details
Join the Spatial Ecology and Paleontology Lab each week for Fossil Fridays.
Become a fossil hunter and help discover how ecosystems have changed over time. Experience what it is like to be a paleontologist, finding and identifying new specimens.
Participants will sort through rock matrix collected from Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming to recover fossil specimens that are approximately 35,000 years old. These specimens support research projects examining how the community of species living around Natural Trap Cave has changed since the extinction of the cheetahs, lions, dire wolves, mammoths, camels, horses, and other megafauna that once lived in North America.
Drop in whenever it is convenient. No commitment is required. All are welcome, so bring your friends.
For more information, contact Katie Slenker at kslenker3@gatech.edu or visit mcguire.gatech.edu.
*Note: Data collected during Fossil Fridays may be included in research publications.
Event Details
Few neuroscientists would dispute that the brain relies on prediction. From houseflies evading swatters to humans catching baseballs, living things are constantly anticipating what comes next. Understanding how the brain generates those predictions could help explain one of neuroscience's most enduring questions: how the brain builds internal models of the world that allow us to learn, adapt, and anticipate what comes next.
“Without actively predicting the world, we cannot survive,” says Farzaneh Najafi, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences and a faculty affiliate of Georgia Tech's Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society. “There is quite some sensory-motor delay in the processing. We can’t just sit there, wait for the brain to process our environment, and then react.”
Part of the puzzle may lie in signals known as neural ramps. Almost like a drumroll leading up to a big reveal, neurons in some areas of the brain have shown gradual increases in activity immediately before a stimulus appears. For decades, researchers have interpreted this ramping activity as a neural signature of prediction, reflecting anticipation of an upcoming event.
Recently published in Science Advances, a new study from Najafi’s lab reveals these signals may not be “predictions” at all, but instead a way neurons track elapsed time.
“Surprisingly,” says Najafi, “the very first study from my lab called the Predictive Processing Lab showed that no, these are not prediction signals.”
The finding challenges a long-standing interpretation of one of neuroscience's most studied signals and reveals that the search for predictive neurons may lead to different circuits — or require different experiments to uncover.
The Problem with Prediction
There is a challenge in separating simple time tracking from active prediction. Just because numbers on a stopwatch are increasing doesn’t mean it’s counting up to a specific event.
To tease the problem apart, the team designed a series of experiments that progressively stripped prediction out of the equation.
Working with mice, the researchers presented audio and visual cues at carefully controlled intervals. Some appeared at regular, hence predictable, times, while others arrived unpredictably. If neurons are making predictions, their activity should look different when events are predictable versus when they are not.
But that’s not what they found. Even when the researchers introduced errors into those predictable patterns, activity remained largely the same.
“It was in the first year of collecting data in my newly established lab that my student, Yicong Huang, started showing me the data and I was shocked: how come we are not seeing a difference between the expected case and the unexpected case?” Najafi recalls. “Because the entire theory is that there is a difference.”
The team found even more definitive evidence by monitoring “naive” mice that had never seen the stimuli before. The brain must learn a pattern before it can anticipate it, yet they found that these neural ramps were present even in the first few trials.
Drumroll, Please
If these signals aren’t predictions, then what’s happening?
“What we are seeing are pure sensory signals,” she says. “They are not about predicting the timing of the upcoming stimulus. They're about encoding the time that is elapsed.”
Najafi thinks that what neuroscientists have long interpreted as an anticipatory “buildup” to a future event is actually a “relaxation” from the past. Rather than a drummer rolling up to a specific event, imagine one who is always rolling. Each stimulus briefly interrupts the performance before the rhythm gradually returns.
But they found that not every neuron behaves like a drummer. While “drummers” recover their interrupted rhythm after a stimulus, other neurons operate more like a reverberating gong, firing strongly after a stimulus before gradually quieting down.
“The beautiful part of this story is that neurons don't all do the same thing,” Najafi says. “One neuron ramps up quickly, another more slowly, another with a completely different time course. When you put that heterogeneous population together, you get a very robust readout of time.”
The finding may also have implications for how neuroscientists think the brain represents time itself.
“Our findings support the theory that time representation in the brain is an intrinsic property of neurons,” says Najafi. Because the signals appeared even in naïve mice and in sensory brain regions, the results suggest that timing may emerge from the properties of neurons themselves, rather than from a specialized timing system elsewhere in the brain.
For Najafi, the study doesn't close the case on predictive processing. Time, after all, is an important variable to track if you want to make predictions. Instead, it opens more questions about when and where those signals emerge.
“Maybe we didn't find them because this was a passive perception task, meaning mice just passively received stimuli without being instructed to attend to them. Maybe we need active perception or an active movement task, and that's when we can extract these predictive signals from the brain. Alternatively, we may need to search other brain areas to find neural signatures of temporal predictions.”
“Do I believe now that the brain is not doing predictive processing? Absolutely not,” Najafi says. “But before we say we've found evidence for a theory, we really need to do multiple carefully designed experiments. We need to attack this from many different angles.”
Funding: This research was supported by the Whitehall Foundation, the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aed6417
The Georgia Institute of Technology's Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society (INNS) has appointed Simon Sponberg as associate director for Interdisciplinary Research, where he will help foster collaborations, support emerging research initiatives, and advance interdisciplinary neuroscience research across campus.
Launched in 2025, INNS serves as a hub for neuroscience and neurotechnology research, connecting researchers across disciplines to advance discovery, innovation, and societal impact.
“A core part of INNS's mission is helping people find one another, connect around shared interests, and build something bigger than they could accomplish alone,” says Executive Director Christopher Rozell. “Simon has spent his career bringing together people, perspectives, and disciplines to tackle complex challenges. I can't think of a better person to help lead our interdisciplinary research efforts and support the next generation of collaborative neuroscience research.”
A longtime leader in Georgia Tech's neuroscience community, Sponberg helped shape the institute's early foundations through the Neuro Next Initiative, which evolved into INNS. As associate director, he will help guide research strategy, foster new collaborations, and support interdisciplinary work across the neuroscience ecosystem.
“Neuro-related research touches so many fields that we inevitably have a problem of finding all the potential right people and opportunities to tap into,” he said. “A core responsibility of this role is helping catalyze the ideas of new teams of talented researchers, educators, and trainees from inception to realization.”
Sponberg is the Glen Robinson Professor in Complex Systems with appointments in the School of Physics and the School of Biological Sciences, where he directs the Agile Systems Lab. His work also connects him to the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB) and the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM), underscoring the cross-disciplinary approach that defines both his research and leadership.
Since joining Georgia Tech in 2014, he has built a highly collaborative research program spanning neuroscience, biology, physics, engineering, and robotics while helping foster interdisciplinary connections across campus. He currently leads a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) that brings together neuroscientists and engineers from five universities to understand how brains achieve fast, flexible perception and decision-making in complex sensory environments. He also co-leads the Integrative Movement Sciences Institute, an NSF Biological Integration Institute focused on understanding movement and muscle function across scales.
His contributions have been recognized through numerous honors, including a Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Neuroethology, a Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship in the Neurosciences, and the Leddy Family Dean’s Faculty Excellence Award.
As associate director, Sponberg will focus on helping researchers identify new opportunities for connection and collaboration. In addition to overseeing seed funding programs, he hopes to create pathways for researchers to build teams, access support resources, pursue ambitious interdisciplinary research ideas, and team with Georgia Tech’s undergraduate and graduate neuroscience degree programs.
“I look forward to being a resource for our community when people are looking for help in building teams or finding opportunities to support their ideas,” he said. “Bring your best ideas and please reach out if you want to talk about ideas in the interdisciplinary neuro space that you want to see realized.”
AI Symposium Programming
Date/Time: Monday, September 28, 2026 / 9:45 a.m. – Noon
Location: Exhibition Hall - Centennial Room (sign-in begins at 9:00 a.m. in the second-floor lobby of the Exhibition Hall)
The Tech AI Symposium held, Monday, September 28, 2026, will feature panel discussions, presentations, and conversations exploring applied artificial intelligence, industry collaboration, emerging technologies, and the future of the AI workforce. The program is designed to bring together students, researchers, faculty, industry leaders, and partners to share insights, foster connections, and highlight opportunities for collaboration.
Student Poster Session
Time: 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Location: Exhibition Hall - Lobby
The Student Poster Session will showcase innovative student research and applied AI projects from across Georgia Tech. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage directly with student researchers, learn about emerging work in artificial intelligence, and discuss real-world applications and future research directions.
AI Career Fair
Interested in connecting with employers, exploring internships and career opportunities, or recruiting Georgia Tech AI talent? The Career Fair will run concurrently with symposium programming and provide opportunities for students, alumni, employers, startups, and industry partners to engage throughout the day. For registration details and additional information, visit the Career Fair page.
Why Companies Should Attend
The Tech AI Symposium and Career Fair provides organizations with direct access to Georgia Tech students, alumni, researchers, and campus partners engaged in artificial intelligence and applied research.
Participating organizations can:
- Connect with students and alumni pursuing AI-related careers and internships
- Engage with researchers working on applied AI projects and emerging technologies
- Increase visibility with highly skilled technical talent
- Build relationships with Georgia Tech faculty, staff, and research units
- Participate in conversations that extend beyond traditional recruiting through integrated symposium programming
Sponsor Tech AI
Sponsors benefit from:
- Visibility with students, alumni, faculty, researchers, staff, and industry leaders across Georgia Tech
- Association with Tech AI’s mission to connect research with real-world impact
- Alignment with programming focused on AI innovation, collaboration, and workforce adaptation
- Exposure to applied AI projects and emerging research across multiple disciplines
For sponsorship opportunities, please contact Ajay Upadhyaya (ajay.upadhyaya@gatech.edu).
Exhibition Hall & Pavilion Parking & Directions
Exhibition Hall & Pavilion Parking
To accommodate institute visitors, there are parking zones and meters situated across campus for visitors’ use. Please note that all visitor parking on first come/first serve basis. Please visit the Visitor’s Parking Website to view more information about locations and hourly rates.
Many parking meters can be paid for using the ParkMobile app, which allows institute visitors to pay for Georgia Tech parking meters using their cell phone. Visitors may also opt to receive text message alerts and reminders prior to the meter’s expiration. Once you download the app on your phone and register an account, you can use the zone number that corresponds with each lot to pay for parking. Zone numbers for participating visitor areas are indicated below.
Exhibition Hall & Pavilion Visitor Parking
Visitor parking closest to the Exhibition Hall and Pavilion is located in the following areas:
- Area 3: Student Center Deck | ParkMobile Zone 8631
- Area 9: Student Center ADA Parking Lot | ParkMobile Zone 8631
Exhibition Hall & Pavilion Directions
From I-75/85 North
- Take Exit # 249D (Spring Street, North Avenue).
- At the top of the exit ramp, go through the first intersection (Spring Street).
- At the next intersection (West Peachtree Street), turn left.
- Continue to West Peachtree Street for approximately one block and turn left onto North Avenue.
- Cross over the interstate and Techwood Drive.
- Turn right on Techwood Parkway and continue to the top of the hill.
- Turn right on Regents Drive, followed by an immediate right onto Ferst Drive.
- Once you are on Ferst Drive, an entrance to the W02 Parking Deck will be on the left. Note that the deck entry has two lanes.
From I-75/85 South
- Take Exit # 249D (North Avenue).
- At the top of the exit ramp, turn right onto North Ave.
- Continue on North Ave. approximately 3 blocks until you reach the intersection at Techwoord Parkway.
- Turn right on Techwood Parkway and continue to the top of the hill.
- Turn right on Regents Drive, followed by an immediate right onto Ferst Drive.
- Once you are on Ferst Drive, an entrance to the W02 Parking Deck will be on the left. Note that the deck entry has two lanes.
GPS Address
The physical location for the Exhibition Hall is 460 Fourth Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30332. Please note this is not a valid mailing address for the U.S. Postal Service nor will this get you to Visitor Parking. This address is best used as GPS walking directions. The W02 Parking Deck address is 355 Ferst Drive NW, Atlanta, GA.
Event Details
Saumya Jain, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, has received a $300,000 grant from the Whitehall Foundation to support research examining how genes influence the brain’s wiring and how these neural connections shape behavior.
As the brain develops, billions of neurons form precise networks that enable perception, movement, and cognition. Disruptions in this process can contribute to neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and schizophrenia. To better understand how such disorders arise, Jain’s lab will use molecular and genetic tools to trace the pathway from gene expression to neural connectivity to behavior.
“I am honored and excited to receive support from the Whitehall Foundation,” Jain says. “It will help us pursue research questions at a stage when our findings can still shape our lab’s long-term direction.”
Jain joined Georgia Tech in 2024. He earned a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Arizona and completed postdoctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles.
A microscopic predator may offer a new way to protect some of the Caribbean’s most endangered corals. Georgia Tech researchers found that tiny predatory bacteria can halt the spread of a destructive coral disease by hunting and consuming pathogens responsible for the infection.
Caused by the Vibrio coralliilyticus pathogen, the infection is one of the most notorious causes of tissue loss and death in stony corals. In the study, all untreated corals bleached within 48 hours. But corals exposed to the predatory bacteria fared much better: more than half showed no signs of bleaching beyond the infection site — and disease progression was effectively halted.
“Disease is a major driver of death for these corals, and with sea surface temperatures continuing to rise globally, we anticipate that rates of disease will only increase. It’s part of a deadly synergy profoundly threatening Caribbean coral reefs,” says lead author Lauren Speare, assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences. “Predatory bacteria function like a living probiotic, fighting coral disease without harsh side effects. This could be a targeted way to protect and treat our most vulnerable coral reefs."
The study, “Halobacteriovorax Halts Disease Progression in Endangered Caribbean Corals,” was published in The ISME Journal. In addition to Speare, the research team included Georgia Tech master's student Chloe Manley and postdoctoral scholar Macey Coppinger; University of California, Santa Barbara graduate students Sunni Patton and Eddie Fuques, and Professor Rebecca Vega Thurber, director of the UCSB Marine Science Institute.
Natural Defenders
Speare became interested in the research while completing her postdoctoral training with Thurber. “Dr. Thurber discovered that predatory bacteria are present in many coral microbiomes,” Speare recalls. “We theorized that they might be contributing to what keeps the ecosystem healthy, balancing it through predation.”
At the time, the theory was hard to test. Marine predatory bacteria are difficult to preserve long-term, making experiments challenging. The bacteria are also extremely scarce, with populations increasing during a coral infection and rapidly declining after. Catching them while their populations are high is a matter of timing, Speare says.
"It's a bit like trying to catch a mountain lion in the act of hunting a deer. If we aren’t looking at the right time, we might miss it entirely,” Speare says. “I knew that if I wanted to study these bacteria in more detail, I would need to carefully design my experiments and timing.”
Testing the Treatment
To test their theory, the team spent six weeks conducting experiments at the Mote’s Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research and Restoration (IC2R3) in Summerland Key, Florida, a facility that maintains lab-grown living corals in seawater aquariums.
“First, we had to make our corals sick,” Speare says. “But there wasn’t an established way to reliably create these infections in this species in a laboratory setting.”
After weeks of experimenting, Speare developed a “pathogen-sticker,” a small agar patch containing the disease-causing pathogens. When placed at the coral’s base, it mimics how infections spread in the wild.
Then, at the first sign of infection, the team treated the coral with the Halobacteriovorax predatory bacteria. “Surprisingly, the most effective method was to pour the bacteria directly into the sick coral’s tank,” Speare says. “The bacteria are tiny, so we were able to create a concentrated liquid of them by using a filter small enough that only they can pass through.”
Halobacteriovorax are among the fastest-known predatory bacteria, and quickly navigate to their food source – presumably the pathogen causing the infection.
From Aquariums to Oceans
Because of the straightforward delivery method, Speare believes the team’s methods could be readily adapted for coral restoration efforts, offering a simple way to deliver treatment on natural reefs.
“There are several approaches to treating corals and mitigating stress, but these techniques don’t work for all situations and all species,” she explains. “Corals are complex, and there is no single cure-all, so we need as many tools as possible to help corals survive.”
For Speare, the next step will be to move from lab-based work to reef environments. She’s particularly curious as to why the predatory bacteria aren’t already moderating illness on natural reefs. “If this is such an effective way to control pathogens, why isn’t this system preventing disease outbreaks on reefs already?" she says. "We need to understand what's limiting this natural defense system – and that’s what we’re digging into next."
Funding: Lauren Speare was supported as a Simons Foundation Awardee of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. The Vega Thurber Lab was funded by the National Science Foundation.
Georgia Tech’s Office of Sustainability, in partnership with the Office of Research Operations, is launching Georgia Tech’s first Sustainable Lab Certification program, which will provide a framework for campus laboratories to implement practical, high-impact sustainability measures. Labs earn recognition for their efforts through tiered certification levels — bronze, silver, or gold — based on the number and results of practices implemented.
On average, labs use four times more water and 10 times more energy than office spaces. This disproportionate impact makes laboratories some of the best places for reducing institutional energy use. Small actions can have a big effect; for example, increasing the setpoint of ultra-low temperature freezers by 10 degrees Celsius can reduce the device’s energy use by 30% and save over $150 per year per freezer. (That figure is derived from https://mygreenlab.org/the-beaker-blog/8-ways-to-save-energy-in-the-lab/ and Georgia Power billing documents.)
Before Sustainable Lab Certification, some campus labs had begun exploring reduced energy, water, and materials consumption through My Green Lab certification, a pilot program also sponsored by the Office of Sustainability.
Shweta Biliya, a research scientist in the Molecular Evolution Core Lab, explained that while My Green Lab offered a helpful framework, translating certification requirements into actionable steps for her lab was difficult without local examples or tailored support. “Now that we have a resource on campus, it’s extremely helpful in that initial stage,” she said. “It helps you see how to approach everything, get support, and make it feel possible.”
Biliya hopes more laboratories across campus will participate in Sustainable Labs Certification, helping to create a shared culture of sustainable research at Georgia Tech. “It might feel like one lab doesn’t make a difference, but when every lab contributes in small ways, it really adds up,” she said.
A Sustainable Lab Certification information and celebration session will take place in September. To learn more about the program, visit the Sustainable Labs page at https://sustain.gatech.edu/sustainable-labs/.
Meghna Iyer (Biology 2026) came to Georgia Tech determined to understand the disease that was slowly taking her mother's life. Working with researchers in the Georgia Tech Laboratory for Pathology Dynamics, she helped use AI to analyze 36 million biomedical research papers, uncovering biological connections among ALS, Alzheimer's disease, and frontotemporal dementia. After losing her mother, Meghna returned to the lab with an even stronger resolve to continue the work, earning first-author publication on the study and helping create a tool that could accelerate future research for families facing these devastating diseases.
Meghna Iyer came to Georgia Tech determined to understand the disease that was slowly taking her mother's life. Working with researchers in the Georgia Tech Laboratory for Pathology Dynamics, she helped use AI to analyze 36 million biomedical research papers, uncovering biological connections among ALS, Alzheimer's disease, and frontotemporal dementia. After losing her mother, Meghna returned to the lab with an even stronger resolve to continue the work, earning first-author publication on the study and helping create a tool that could accelerate future research for families facing these devastating diseases.
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