Corals are the foundation species of tropical reefs worldwide, but stresses ranging from overfishing to pollution to warming oceans are killing corals and degrading the critical ecosystem services they provide. Because corals build structures that make living space for many other species, scientists have known that losses of corals result in losses of other reef species. But the importance of coral species diversity for corals themselves was less understood.

A new study from two researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology provides both hope and a potentially grim future for damaged coral reefs. In their research paper, "Biodiversity has a positive but saturating effect on imperiled coral reefs," published October 13 in Science Advances, Cody Clements and Mark Hay found that increasing coral richness by ‘outplanting’ a diverse group of coral species together improves coral growth and survivorship. This finding may be especially important in the early stages of reef recovery following large-scale coral loss — and in supporting healthy reefs that in turn support fisheries, tourism, and coastal protection from storm surges.

The scientists also call for additional research to better understand and harness the mechanisms producing these positive species interactions, with dual aims to improve reef conservation and promote more rapid and efficient recovery of degraded reefs.

But the ecological pendulum swings the other way, too. If more coral species are lost, the synergistic effects could threaten other species in what Clements and Hay term a “biodiversity meltdown.”

“Yes, corals are the foundation species of these ecosystems — providing habitat and food for numerous other reef species,” says Clements, a Teasley Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences. “Negative effects on corals often have cascading impacts on other species that call coral reefs home. If biodiversity is important for coral performance and resilience, then a ‘biodiversity meltdown’ could exacerbate the decline of reef ecosystems that we’re observing worldwide.”

Clements and Hay traveled to Mo'orea, French Polynesia, in the tropical Pacific Ocean, where they planted coral gardens differing in coral species diversity to evaluate the relative importance of mutualistic versus competitive interactions among corals as they grew and interacted through time.

“We’ve done the manipulations, and the corals should be competing with each other, but in fact they do better together than they do on their own,” says Hay, Regents Professor and Teasley Chair in the School of Biological Sciences. Hay is also co-director of the Ocean Science and Engineering graduate program at Georgia Tech. “We are still investigating the mechanisms causing this surprising result, but our experiments consistently demonstrate that the positive interactions are overwhelming negative interactions in the reef settings where we conduct these experiments. That means when you take species out of the system, you’re taking out some of those positive interactions, and if you take out critical ones, it may make a big difference.”

Under the sea, in a coral-growing garden, in the shade

Coral reefs are under threat worldwide. Hay notes that according to the EPA, the Caribbean has lost 80 to 90 percent of its coral cover. The Indo-Pacific region has lost half of all its corals over the last 30 years. During the bleaching event of 2015-2016 alone, nearly half of the remaining corals along the Great Barrier Reef bleached and died.

“The frequency of these big bleaching and heating events that are killing off corals has increased fairly dramatically over the last 20 to 30 years,” he says. “There are hot spots here and there where coral reefs are still good, but they’re small and isolated in general.”

In their coral gardens in French Polynesia, Hay and Clements manipulated the diversity of the coral species that they planted on platforms resembling underwater chess tables, to try and see if species richness and density affected coral productivity and survival.

Hay notes that many previous, similar experiments involved bringing corals into a lab to “pit species against each other.” But he points out, “We do all of our experiments in the real world. We’re not as interested in whether it can happen, but whether it does happen.”

An experimental setup suggested by Clements involving Coke bottles helped the scientists arrange their garden. The end tables “have Coca-Cola bottlecaps embedded in the top of them,” Hay says. “We can then cut off the necks of Coke bottles, glue corals into the upside-down necks of these things, and then screw them in and out of these plots.  This allows us to not only arrange what species we want where, but every couple of months we can unscrew and weigh them so we can get accurate growth rates.”

The researchers found that corals benefitted from increased biodiversity, “but only up to a point,” Clements notes. “Corals planted in gardens with an intermediate number of species — three to six species in most cases — performed better than gardens with low, or one, species, or high, as in nine, species. However, we still do not fully understand the processes that contributed to these observations.”

Clements says their research demands more investigation. Why do corals perform better in mixed species communities than single-species communities? Why does this biodiversity effect diminish — rather than continue increasing — at the highest level of coral diversity?
“We need a better mechanistic understanding of how diversity influences these processes to predict how biodiversity loss will impact corals, as well as how we may be able to harness biodiversity’s positive influence to protect corals,” says Clements.

Financial support for the study came from the U.S. National Science Foundation (grant no. OCE 1947522), the National Geographic Society (grant no. NGS-57078R-19), the Teasley Endowment to the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Anna and Harry Teasley Gift Fund. This work represents a contribution of the Mo’orea Coral Reef (MCR) LTER Site supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (grant no. OCE 16-37396). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abi8592

About Georgia Tech

The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a top 10 public research university developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its nearly 40,000 students, representing 50 states and 149 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

After a year and a half unlike any other, the Georgia Tech community continues to navigate the pandemic with a hopeful eye toward the future. We gave four students the chance to document their lives on campus with 27 exposures on a disposable camera. It’s a new look at the Tech campus through an old-school lens.

See the complete feature here.

Bryan Gomez

Fourth-year student, Biochemistry and Neuroscience

1 The Wreck drives down Yellow Jacket Alley before the start of Tech's first football game of the 2021 season.

2 Students from the Zbar and Maulding residence halls participate in a block party, which included pizza, chalk art, music, and lawn games.

3 Bryan Gomez documents Georgia Tech's first football game of the 2021 season.

4 Students participate in the Georgia Audubon birdwatching tour near The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design.

Rebecca Hammond

Master's student, Media and Cultural Studies

1 Rebecca Hammond studies outside of the Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons.

2 Members of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity pose for a photograph at the National Pan-Hellenic Council convocation.

3 Members of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity and Zeta Phi Beta sorority pose for a photograph at the National Pan-Hellenic Council convocation.

4 Inside Clough Commons.

Vanesa Vargas

Third-year student, Neuroscience

1 Students use Ferst Drive to walk around campus in Fall 2021.

2 Tech Square at night.

3 Jesús Gomez stands in front of a green screen at the Teaching Studio in the Price Gilbert Library.

4 The Progress Pride Staircase at the Klaus Advanced Computing Building.

5 Vanesa Vargas photographs a Georgia Tech classroom during the Fall 2021 semester.

Karam Jivani

First-year student, Computer Science

1 Students practice juggling near the Einstein statue.

2 The Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket Marching Band lines up near the Koan sculpture.

3 A portrait of the activities going on around the Bunger-Henry Building.

4 Students participate in a fencing orientation at the CRC.

5 Tailgaters enjoy a live band at a fraternity house before Tech's first football game of the 2021 season.

The symptoms and side effects of Covid-19 are scattered across a diagnostic spectrum. Some patients are asymptomatic or experience a mild immune response, while others report significant long-term illnesses, lasting complications, or suffer fatal outcomes.

Three researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and one from Emory University are trying to help clinicians sort through these factors and spectrum of patient outcomes by equipping healthcare professionals with a new “decision prioritization tool.”

The team’s new artificial intelligence-based tool helps clinicians understand and better predict which adverse effects their Covid-19 patients could experience, based on comorbidities and current side effects — and, in turn, also helps suggest specific Food and Drug Administration-approved (FDA) drugs that could help treat the disease and improve patient health outcomes. The researcher's latest findings are the focus of a new study published October 21 in Nature Scientific Reports.

Artificial intelligence, protein drivers, and ‘24 out of 26 clinical manifestations’ of Covid-19

The team’s new methodology, or tool, is called MOATAI-VIR (Mode Of Action proteins & Targeted therapeutic discovery driven by Artificial Intelligence for VIRuses. Researchers report it predicts 24 out of 26 major clinical manifestations of Covid-19 and their underlying disease-protein-pathway relationships.

Those clinical manifestations cover a range of issues including acute respiratory distress, blood clotting issues, cytokine storms, low blood oxygen and white blood cell counts, and even bone marrow failure. The commonly reported loss of smell or taste, along with unusual neurological symptoms such as “brain fog” have received widespread attention — as have considerations for patients who have previous health problems, or comorbidities, that could place them in higher risk categories related to Covid-19.

“It’s still the question of, what’s causing the side effects?” says Jeffrey Skolnick, professor and Mary and Maisie Gibson Chair in the School of Biological Sciences, and corresponding author for the study. “So, you lost sense of smell and got brain fog — and another (patient) had respiratory distress, and another can’t remember the day of the week. What we’ve identified are the possible mode of action drivers for these various conditions, which is now setting the stage for who’s getting what side effects.”

Skolnick, also Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology, notes that it makes sense to predict the side effects based on protein interactions.

“Humans are molecular machines, and presumably there are biological and physical rules to dictate our responses,” Skolnick says . “We basically built an AI-based approach which was designed given the interactive set of proteins in humans which interact with the [novel] coronavirus,” he adds. “We then asked ourselves, ‘Could we predict, based on biochemical pathways, which interactive proteins are associated with side effects?’”

Joining Skolnick from the School of Biological Sciences are Ph.D. student Courtney Astore and senior research scientist Hongyi Zhou, both from the Center for the Study of Systems Biology. Joshy Jacob of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the Emory Vaccine Center at the Emory School of Medicine also worked on the study.

MOATAI-VIR methodology

Skolnick explains that most known diseases are due to the “malfunction and interaction of many proteins,” and notes that it’s a collective effect — a “many-targeted protein effect.” His team’s new AI methodology is identifying as many targets as possible of an interacting nature to predict a complex response from a complex set of interactions.

It’s also well-understood in the medical community that comorbidities — existing and chronic health factors such as diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disorders, and other conditions that affect the immune system — can play an outsized a role in risk factors related to Covid-19. Skolnick says those comorbidities can be plugged into the team’s algorithm, too.

 “Alzheimer’s and hyperthyroidism are strongly correlated — as is diabetes. There are six to eight (Covid-19) comorbidities with a patient that has Alzheimer’s,” Skolnick explains. “It’s not just old age — it’s much more complicated.”

The MOATAI-VIR methodology helps identify the common proteins of the comorbidities in relation to the parent disease. A clinician can then target the diseases with drugs. Researchers report that this specific methodology had 72% success in 123,146 drug-indication pair predictions found by Skolnick’s team.

“For a given disease, we prioritize them by the proteins that are most in common with the comorbid diseases to the given disease, giving rise to the particular complication, such as respiratory failure. This identifies the putative (assumed) driver proteins for the given complication,” he says. “Then we select repurposed drugs in two ways — we screen the most common comorbid proteins for their most frequent binding to repurposed drugs. For the set of comorbid diseases to a given complication, choose the drugs that treat the most complications.”

It’s critical to find the right drugs for those complications and side effects — and using the new “decision tool” can help do that, Skolnick says.

He cautions that researchers and clinicians must approach this objectively because “there are deep reasons why you have these ‘off-target’ interactions, where a drug binds to another protein that is not its original intended target — and that’s what these algorithms take in to counter them. It’s not magic” to run this methodology, Skolnick explains. “It’s fractional assistance in a decision-making process — which comes with probabilities [that] it might work. If there’s an 80 percent probability, you probably ought to try it.”

The MOATAI-VIR methodology algorithms (decision prioritization tool) can be downloaded at: https://sites.gatech.edu/cssb/moatai-vir/

This project was funded by R35GM118039 of the Division of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. DOI: www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00368-6

Related News

Skolnick and Team Win Next Stage of NCATS Competition

Jeffrey Skolnick is also part of an award-winning National Institutes of Health effort to create innovative, AI-powered platforms for discovering new pain management drugs, and for identifying immediate solutions. The competition staged by NIH’s NCATS (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences) addresses the national opioid public health crisis.

In September, a team with Skolnick, Hongyi Zhou, senior research scientist in the School of Biological Sciences, Andre Ghetti with ANABIOS Corporation, and Nicole Jung with Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, was one of four winning the 2020 (NCATS) ASPIRE (A Specialized Platform for Innovative Research Exploration) Challenge, Stage 2, Milestone 1 Award. Skolnick and Zhou won the previous stage in May.

Their platform, Development of a Comprehensive Integrated Platform for Translational Innovation in Pain, Opioid Abuse Disorder and Overdose, will face the final stage, Prototype Delivery, Independent Validation and Testing in 2022.

Read this story in the fall 2021 edition of the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine

Movement science at Georgia Tech has evolved through four transformations over the past half century. No original unit on campus has experienced a more radical reconfiguration — from physical training courses in athletics to state-of-the-art research in the School of Biological Sciences. Phillip B. Sparling, professor emeritus in the School who spent his entire career at Georgia Tech, pens this mini-course on how movement sciences at the Institute came to be.

Read more

Georgia Tech’s College of Sciences is pleased to announce that Jennifer Curtis, professor in the School of Physics, has been appointed the new ADVANCE Professor for the College. 

Curtis will serve as one of six ADVANCE Professors, one for each college at Georgia Tech. Her appointment is effective July 1, 2023.

“It is an honor,” Curtis says. “Having personally benefited from ADVANCE initiatives, I am grateful for the opportunity to build on my predecessors' work and to contribute to the well-being of all faculty at Georgia Tech. I look forward to partnering with the current ADVANCE professors, the College’s Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences (C-PIES), and Georgia Tech leadership. 

“Jennifer has been a strong advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion for many years, and I am confident she will bring that advocacy to this new role,” says Susan Lozier, Dean of the College of Sciences, Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair and Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “In this role, Jennifer will work with ADVANCE professors from the other five colleges to advance Georgia Tech’s mission and will play an integral role in the College of Sciences Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences. For my part, I look forward to a close partnership with her in the months and years ahead.”

"Jennifer has been a true champion of diversity and inclusion at Georgia Tech,” adds Feryal Özel, professor and chair in the School of Physics. “She has been working tirelessly toward providing education and career opportunities as well as a welcoming environment for everyone who is interested in physics and the sciences. I am looking forward to seeing all the exciting things she will do with her ADVANCE professorship."

Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, has served as the College’s ADVANCE Professor since 2022. Lynch-Stieglitz is among nine Jefferson Science Fellows selected this year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to build STEM expertise in the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

“This announcement also gives me the opportunity to thank Jean for her service as our ADVANCE professor over the past year,” added Lozier. “As a reminder, Jean’s term in this role was limited since she accepted a prestigious Jefferson Fellowship that will take her to the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. next year.” 

Lynch-Stieglitz will be joined in that fellowship by Olga Shemyakina, associate professor in the School of Economics at Georgia Tech. 

“As the College of Sciences ADVANCE professor, there are three areas where I will focus my attention,” Curtis says. “The first area is the continued support for College women and minority faculty, including non-tenure track faculty members. A second area unique to my interests — and an extension of my ongoing work —  is to collaborate closely with C-PIES to identify accelerated solutions to increase the diversity of our faculty at Georgia Tech.”

Curtis adds, “The third area that I will pursue is at the Institute level in coordination and collaboration with the other Georgia Tech ADVANCE professors: I will leverage the experience and wisdom of my colleagues to guide my efforts in the College of Sciences and to support and lead Institute-wide ADVANCE initiatives.”

About ADVANCE

Supported by Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Georgia Tech’s ADVANCE Program builds and sustains an inter-college network of professors who are world-class researchers and role models to support the community and advancement of women and minorities in academia by “advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion, advising campus leadership on policy and structure, increasing awareness and reducing the impact of implicit bias, and making data-driven recommendations for faculty retention, advancement, and satisfaction.”

About Jennifer Curtis

Since 2016, Curtis has served as director or co-director of the School of Physics’ Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, funded by the National Science Foundation, which focuses on broadening participation in physics and strengthening ties with the Atlanta University Consortium (AUC), which includes Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University. At least 10 REU students have since entered graduate programs at Georgia Tech.

Working with Morehouse leadership, Curtis has arranged for College of Sciences faculty to present once a month in Morehouse’s weekly research seminar series. Curtis and School of Physics undergraduate Julianne Tijani are a Georgia Tech chapter of the National Society of Black Physicists.

Curtis’ research is primarily focused on the physics of cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix interactions, in particular within the context of glycobiology (the study of sugar chains in nature) and immunobiology. 

Her lab’s newest projects focus on questions of collective and single cell migration in vitro and in vivo; immunophage therapy — an immunoengineering approach — that uses combined defense of immune cells plus viruses (phage) to overcome bacterial infections; and the study of the molecular biophysics and biomaterials applications of hyaluronan synthase, an enzyme. Learn more.

People with weakened immune systems are at constant risk of infection. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common environmental bacterium, can colonize different body parts, such as the lungs, leading to persistent, chronic infections that can last a lifetime – a common occurrence for people with cystic fibrosis.

But the bacteria can sometimes change their behavior and enter the bloodstream, causing chronic localized infections to become acute and potentially fatal. Despite decades of studying the transition in lab environments, how and why the switch happens in humans has remained unknown.

Read the rest of the story here. 

Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, will take her climate research experience to Washington D.C. as a recipient of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Jefferson Science Fellowship. Lynch-Stieglitz is one of nine fellows selected this year, and she will be joined by Olga Shemyakina, associate professor in the School of Economics. 

The Jefferson Science Fellowship Program engages American science, technology, engineering, and medical faculty in critical service to U.S. foreign policy and international development through a one-year agency assignment with the Department of State or U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Fellows return to their academic careers after a year of service, but remain available to the U.S. government as experienced consultants for short-term projects. 

Lynch-Stieglitz researches the behavior of the Earth’s oceans and climate over the last 100,000 years. Work in this area has helped in understanding the full range of behavior possible for the ocean/climate system, and which parts of this system may be vulnerable to change in the future. 

“I was very pleased to be named a Jefferson Fellow, and am particularly excited that I was matched to the Office of Global Change, which is responsible for implementing and managing U.S. international policy on climate change,” Lynch-Stieglitz says. “I hope to be able to use some of my expertise in the oceanic carbon cycle and the role of the ocean in climate change to the work of the office.

“The Jefferson Fellowship is also a unique opportunity for me to learn something new and do something completely different from my normal duties as a faculty member.  I hope to enjoy the fast-paced environment at State, and learn a lot about U.S. and international climate policy and climate diplomacy.”

“Lynch-Stieglitz’s selection as a Jefferson Science Fellow is certainly an honor that recognizes her expertise in climate science,” says Greg Huey, professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “However, more importantly she will bring her knowledge and experience to the State Department to address key climate-related challenges and promote sustainable solutions. I do regret losing her from campus for a year as we will miss her leadership.”

Over the past year, Lynch-Stieglitz has also served as ADVANCE Professor for the College of Sciences, one of six representing each Georgia Tech college. Supported by Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the ADVANCE Program builds and sustains an inter-college network of professors who are world-class researchers and role models to support the community and advancement of women and minorities in academia. 

"She has left an indelible stamp in many areas, including reform of our hiring procedures and our curriculum," Huey adds.

Jennifer Curtis, professor in the School of Physics, will step into that role on July 1, 2023 as Lynch-Stieglitz travels to Washington, D.C. for the fellowship. 

“It is bittersweet in that I have to relinquish the College of Sciences ADVANCE Professorship in order to take on this full-time position in Washington,” Lynch-Stieglitz says. “I really enjoyed getting to know more of the women faculty across the college, and representing their interests to the Institute. But I can’t imagine a better person to take this role forward than Jennifer Curtis. She will do wonderful things.”

Applying for a Jefferson Science Fellowship

The Jefferson Science Fellowships are open to tenured, or similarly ranked, faculty from U.S. institutions of higher learning who are U.S. citizens. After successfully obtaining a security clearance, selected Fellows spend one year on assignment at the U.S. Department of State or USAID serving as advisers on issues of foreign policy and international development. Assignments are tailored to the needs of the hosting office, while taking into account the Fellows’ interests and areas of expertise.

Learn more and apply here.

People with weakened immune systems are at constant risk of infection. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a common environmental bacterium, can colonize different body parts, such as the lungs, leading to persistent, chronic infections that can last a lifetime – a common occurrence for people with cystic fibrosis.

But the bacteria can sometimes change their behavior and enter the bloodstream, causing chronic localized infections to become acute and potentially fatal. Despite decades of studying the transition in lab environments, how and why the switch happens in humans has remained unknown.

Read the rest of the story here. 

Georgia Tech’s College of Sciences is pleased to announce that Jennifer Curtis, professor in the School of Physics, has been appointed the new ADVANCE Professor for the College. 

Curtis will serve as one of six ADVANCE Professors, one for each college at Georgia Tech. Her appointment is effective July 1, 2023.

“It is an honor,” Curtis says. “Having personally benefited from ADVANCE initiatives, I am grateful for the opportunity to build on my predecessors' work and to contribute to the well-being of all faculty at Georgia Tech. I look forward to partnering with the current ADVANCE professors, the College’s Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences (C-PIES), and Georgia Tech leadership. 

“Jennifer has been a strong advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion for many years, and I am confident she will bring that advocacy to this new role,” says Susan Lozier, Dean of the College of Sciences, Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair and Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “In this role, Jennifer will work with ADVANCE professors from the other five colleges to advance Georgia Tech’s mission and will play an integral role in the College of Sciences Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences. For my part, I look forward to a close partnership with her in the months and years ahead.”

"Jennifer has been a true champion of diversity and inclusion at Georgia Tech,” adds Feryal Özel, professor and chair in the School of Physics. “She has been working tirelessly toward providing education and career opportunities as well as a welcoming environment for everyone who is interested in physics and the sciences. I am looking forward to seeing all the exciting things she will do with her ADVANCE professorship."

Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, has served as the College’s ADVANCE Professor since 2022. Lynch-Stieglitz is among nine Jefferson Science Fellows selected this year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to build STEM expertise in the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. 

“This announcement also gives me the opportunity to thank Jean for her service as our ADVANCE professor over the past year,” added Lozier. “As a reminder, Jean’s term in this role was limited since she accepted a prestigious Jefferson Fellowship that will take her to the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. next year.” 

Lynch-Stieglitz will be joined in that fellowship by Olga Shemyakina, associate professor in the School of Economics at Georgia Tech. 

“As the College of Sciences ADVANCE professor, there are three areas where I will focus my attention,” Curtis says. “The first area is the continued support for College women and minority faculty, including non-tenure track faculty members. A second area unique to my interests — and an extension of my ongoing work —  is to collaborate closely with C-PIES to identify accelerated solutions to increase the diversity of our faculty at Georgia Tech.”

Curtis adds, “The third area that I will pursue is at the Institute level in coordination and collaboration with the other Georgia Tech ADVANCE professors: I will leverage the experience and wisdom of my colleagues to guide my efforts in the College of Sciences and to support and lead Institute-wide ADVANCE initiatives.”

About ADVANCE

Supported by Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Georgia Tech’s ADVANCE Program builds and sustains an inter-college network of professors who are world-class researchers and role models to support the community and advancement of women and minorities in academia by “advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion, advising campus leadership on policy and structure, increasing awareness and reducing the impact of implicit bias, and making data-driven recommendations for faculty retention, advancement, and satisfaction.”

About Jennifer Curtis

Since 2016, Curtis has served as director or co-director of the School of Physics’ Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program, funded by the National Science Foundation, which focuses on broadening participation in physics and strengthening ties with the Atlanta University Consortium (AUC), which includes Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University. At least 10 REU students have since entered graduate programs at Georgia Tech.

Working with Morehouse leadership, Curtis has arranged for College of Sciences faculty to present once a month in Morehouse’s weekly research seminar series. Curtis and School of Physics undergraduate Julianne Tijani are a Georgia Tech chapter of the National Society of Black Physicists.

Curtis’ research is primarily focused on the physics of cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix interactions, in particular within the context of glycobiology (the study of sugar chains in nature) and immunobiology. 

Her lab’s newest projects focus on questions of collective and single cell migration in vitro and in vivo; immunophage therapy — an immunoengineering approach — that uses combined defense of immune cells plus viruses (phage) to overcome bacterial infections; and the study of the molecular biophysics and biomaterials applications of hyaluronan synthase, an enzyme. Learn more.

Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, will take her climate research experience to Washington D.C. as a recipient of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Jefferson Science Fellowship. Lynch-Stieglitz is one of nine fellows selected this year, and she will be joined by Olga Shemyakina, associate professor in the School of Economics. 

The Jefferson Science Fellowship Program engages American science, technology, engineering, and medical faculty in critical service to U.S. foreign policy and international development through a one-year agency assignment with the Department of State or U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Fellows return to their academic careers after a year of service, but remain available to the U.S. government as experienced consultants for short-term projects. 

Lynch-Stieglitz researches the behavior of the Earth’s oceans and climate over the last 100,000 years. Work in this area has helped in understanding the full range of behavior possible for the ocean/climate system, and which parts of this system may be vulnerable to change in the future. 

“I was very pleased to be named a Jefferson Fellow, and am particularly excited that I was matched to the Office of Global Change, which is responsible for implementing and managing U.S. international policy on climate change,” Lynch-Stieglitz says. “I hope to be able to use some of my expertise in the oceanic carbon cycle and the role of the ocean in climate change to the work of the office.

“The Jefferson Fellowship is also a unique opportunity for me to learn something new and do something completely different from my normal duties as a faculty member.  I hope to enjoy the fast-paced environment at State, and learn a lot about U.S. and international climate policy and climate diplomacy.”

“Lynch-Stieglitz’s selection as a Jefferson Science Fellow is certainly an honor that recognizes her expertise in climate science,” says Greg Huey, professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “However, more importantly she will bring her knowledge and experience to the State Department to address key climate-related challenges and promote sustainable solutions. I do regret losing her from campus for a year as we will miss her leadership.”

Over the past year, Lynch-Stieglitz has also served as ADVANCE Professor for the College of Sciences, one of six representing each Georgia Tech college. Supported by Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the ADVANCE Program builds and sustains an inter-college network of professors who are world-class researchers and role models to support the community and advancement of women and minorities in academia. 

"She has left an indelible stamp in many areas, including reform of our hiring procedures and our curriculum," Huey adds.

Jennifer Curtis, professor in the School of Physics, will step into that role on July 1, 2023 as Lynch-Stieglitz travels to Washington, D.C. for the fellowship. 

“It is bittersweet in that I have to relinquish the College of Sciences ADVANCE Professorship in order to take on this full-time position in Washington,” Lynch-Stieglitz says. “I really enjoyed getting to know more of the women faculty across the college, and representing their interests to the Institute. But I can’t imagine a better person to take this role forward than Jennifer Curtis. She will do wonderful things.”

Applying for a Jefferson Science Fellowship

The Jefferson Science Fellowships are open to tenured, or similarly ranked, faculty from U.S. institutions of higher learning who are U.S. citizens. After successfully obtaining a security clearance, selected Fellows spend one year on assignment at the U.S. Department of State or USAID serving as advisers on issues of foreign policy and international development. Assignments are tailored to the needs of the hosting office, while taking into account the Fellows’ interests and areas of expertise.

Learn more and apply here.