Organized by the undergraduate Student Government Association in collaboration with Greek Week, Tech Beautification Day returns in full force this Saturday, April 1. The event was scaled back in recent years due to the pandemic, but this year, plans are on track to offer a full slate of projects focused on improving the campus landscape — and the campus community is invited to participate.
Georgia Tech’s Landscape Services collaborates with student leaders to develop projects that have a big impact yet are easily completed in a few hours. This year’s opportunities range from planting wildflowers, shrubs, and trees to laying sod, pulling weeds, and spreading pine straw.
The event begins with breakfast and a welcome by student leaders. Groups of eight to 10 volunteers are then given tools and gloves and directed to the various worksites across campus. One ambitious goal this year is to plant 200 native azaleas.
“Our department enjoys working with the students not only because we are able to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time, but it also gives students a small window into the hard work our teams do daily,” says Interim Associate Director of Landscape Services Neil Fuller. “Students also gain a sense of pride when they can look at a completed job and say they did it. And it gives the students a chance to make their mark on campus and be able to come back and point out a specific plant or tree and tell their family how they planted it years ago.”
Tech Beautification Day has a long history of engaging students, faculty, staff, and family members on a spring Saturday. Campus archives reveal that during one event more than 1,000 volunteers worked together to beautify campus. Additionally, photographs from 2012 show the entire football team, along with coaches and families, participating. Organizers are working toward increasing participation to pre-pandemic numbers, and this year is just the beginning. Sign up now to spend a morning making the Georgia Tech campus even more beautiful than it already is.
April 1, 2023 Schedule:
8:30 a.m. – Breakfast, check in, and welcome at The Kendeda Building
9 a.m. – noon: Volunteer projects
12:30 p.m. – Clean up, return tools, closing remarks
Organized by the undergraduate Student Government Association in collaboration with Greek Week, Tech Beautification Day returns in full force this Saturday, April 1. The event was scaled back in recent years due to the pandemic, but this year, plans are on track to offer a full slate of projects focused on improving the campus landscape — and the campus community is invited to participate.
Georgia Tech’s Landscape Services collaborates with student leaders to develop projects that have a big impact yet are easily completed in a few hours. This year’s opportunities range from planting wildflowers, shrubs, and trees to laying sod, pulling weeds, and spreading pine straw.
The event begins with breakfast and a welcome by student leaders. Groups of eight to 10 volunteers are then given tools and gloves and directed to the various worksites across campus. One ambitious goal this year is to plant 200 native azaleas.
“Our department enjoys working with the students not only because we are able to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time, but it also gives students a small window into the hard work our teams do daily,” says Interim Associate Director of Landscape Services Neil Fuller. “Students also gain a sense of pride when they can look at a completed job and say they did it. And it gives the students a chance to make their mark on campus and be able to come back and point out a specific plant or tree and tell their family how they planted it years ago.”
Tech Beautification Day has a long history of engaging students, faculty, staff, and family members on a spring Saturday. Campus archives reveal that during one event more than 1,000 volunteers worked together to beautify campus. Additionally, photographs from 2012 show the entire football team, along with coaches and families, participating. Organizers are working toward increasing participation to pre-pandemic numbers, and this year is just the beginning. Sign up now to spend a morning making the Georgia Tech campus even more beautiful than it already is.
April 1, 2023 Schedule:
8:30 a.m. – Breakfast, check in, and welcome at The Kendeda Building
9 a.m. – noon: Volunteer projects
12:30 p.m. – Clean up, return tools, closing remarks
Across the planet, many people are living better and longer, as humans continue to experience a substantial overall decrease in mortality. Unfortunately, that happy trend is not evenly distributed across communities.
Despite the progress in healthcare over the last century, resulting in longer life expectancy and better disease survival outcomes, significant disparities between various population groups remain a major global health issue.
A new study by Georgia Institute of Technology researchers in the open-access journal PLOS Global Health probes ethnic health disparities and mortality risk factors in the United Kingdom. Their work points to mortality risk factors that are group-specific, but modifiable, supporting the notion of targeted interventions that could lead to greater health equity.
“Different ethnic groups show very different levels of disease-specific mortality along with distinct mortality risk factors,” said I. King Jordan, professor in the School of Biological Sciences, and principal investigator on the study. “Unfortunately, when it comes to health, ethnicity still matters.”
Both environmental and genetic factors, and the interaction between them over time, have been cited as main contributors of health disparities. Closing the gap will require a long-term, complex series of solutions.
“Taking a one-size fits all approach to healthcare will only exacerbate the very health disparities that already disproportionately burden ethnic minorities,” said Jordan, whose collaborators on the study were lead author Kara Keun Lee, as well as Emily Norris, Lavanya Rishishwar, Andrew Conley, and John McDonald, emeritus professor in the School of Biological Sciences and founding director of Georgia Tech’s Integrated Cancer Research Center.
The work was done in collaboration with, and with support from, the NIH’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) and Leonardo Mariño-Ramírez, a researcher working on epidemiology and genetics research at NIMHD’s Division of Intramural Research (DIR).
The UK Example
The research team analyzed data on 490,610 Asian, Black, and White participants from the UK Biobank, a study that enrolled 500,000 people in the UK aged 40 to 69 between 2006 and 2010. The UK Biobank includes data spanning physical measures, lifestyle, blood and urine biomarkers, imaging, genetic, and linked medical and death registry records.
Certain causes of mortality were more common among the different ethnic groups: Asian individuals had the highest mortality from ischemic heart disease, while individuals in the Black community had the highest mortality from COVID-19, and White individuals had the highest mortality from cancers of respiratory/intrathoracic organs.
In addition, some preexisting medical conditions and biomarkers showed specific associations with ethnicity and mortality. Mental health diagnoses, for instance, were a major risk factor for mortality in the Asian group, whereas parasitic diseases and C-reactive protein (CRP) serum levels were associated with higher mortality in the Black group.
“These results underscore the importance of population-specific studies that can help decompose health disparities and inform targeted interventions towards, shrinking the health disparity gap,” said Jordan, who praised Lee’s approach to the study, “which highlights the importance of considering individuals’ self-reported identity as it relates to their health outcomes, disease risks, and exposures.”
For future work, the team plans to look at racial and ethnic health disparities in the US, in collaboration with the NIMHD.
CITATION: Kara Keun Lee, Emily T. Norris, Lavanya Rishishwar, Andrew B. Conley, Leonardo Mariño-Ramírez, John F. McDonald, and I. King Jordan. “Ethnic disparities in mortality and group-specific risk factors in the UK Biobank.” doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001560
Across the planet, many people are living better and longer, as humans continue to experience a substantial overall decrease in mortality. Unfortunately, that happy trend is not evenly distributed across communities.
Despite the progress in healthcare over the last century, resulting in longer life expectancy and better disease survival outcomes, significant disparities between various population groups remain a major global health issue.
A new study by Georgia Institute of Technology researchers in the open-access journal PLOS Global Health probes ethnic health disparities and mortality risk factors in the United Kingdom. Their work points to mortality risk factors that are group-specific, but modifiable, supporting the notion of targeted interventions that could lead to greater health equity.
“Different ethnic groups show very different levels of disease-specific mortality along with distinct mortality risk factors,” said I. King Jordan, professor in the School of Biological Sciences, and principal investigator on the study. “Unfortunately, when it comes to health, ethnicity still matters.”
Both environmental and genetic factors, and the interaction between them over time, have been cited as main contributors of health disparities. Closing the gap will require a long-term, complex series of solutions.
“Taking a one-size fits all approach to healthcare will only exacerbate the very health disparities that already disproportionately burden ethnic minorities,” said Jordan, whose collaborators on the study were lead author Kara Keun Lee, as well as Emily Norris, Lavanya Rishishwar, Andrew Conley, and John McDonald, emeritus professor in the School of Biological Sciences and founding director of Georgia Tech’s Integrated Cancer Research Center.
The work was done in collaboration with, and with support from, the NIH’s National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) and Leonardo Mariño-Ramírez, a researcher working on epidemiology and genetics research at NIMHD’s Division of Intramural Research (DIR).
The UK Example
The research team analyzed data on 490,610 Asian, Black, and White participants from the UK Biobank, a study that enrolled 500,000 people in the UK aged 40 to 69 between 2006 and 2010. The UK Biobank includes data spanning physical measures, lifestyle, blood and urine biomarkers, imaging, genetic, and linked medical and death registry records.
Certain causes of mortality were more common among the different ethnic groups: Asian individuals had the highest mortality from ischemic heart disease, while individuals in the Black community had the highest mortality from COVID-19, and White individuals had the highest mortality from cancers of respiratory/intrathoracic organs.
In addition, some preexisting medical conditions and biomarkers showed specific associations with ethnicity and mortality. Mental health diagnoses, for instance, were a major risk factor for mortality in the Asian group, whereas parasitic diseases and C-reactive protein (CRP) serum levels were associated with higher mortality in the Black group.
“These results underscore the importance of population-specific studies that can help decompose health disparities and inform targeted interventions towards, shrinking the health disparity gap,” said Jordan, who praised Lee’s approach to the study, “which highlights the importance of considering individuals’ self-reported identity as it relates to their health outcomes, disease risks, and exposures.”
For future work, the team plans to look at racial and ethnic health disparities in the US, in collaboration with the NIMHD.
CITATION: Kara Keun Lee, Emily T. Norris, Lavanya Rishishwar, Andrew B. Conley, Leonardo Mariño-Ramírez, John F. McDonald, and I. King Jordan. “Ethnic disparities in mortality and group-specific risk factors in the UK Biobank.” doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001560
For STEAM enthusiasts across Atlanta, the month of March is a highlight of the year for one big reason: the Atlanta Science Festival.
Occurring annually since in 2014, the Atlanta Science Festival is a "celebration of the world-class learning and STEM career opportunities in metro Atlanta, featuring 150 engaging events for curious kids and adults at venues all across the region." As a founding sponsor, Georgia Tech has been an intricate part of the Festival since its inception. Now in its tenth iteration, this year's festival will host events from March 10 – 24, culminating in the Exploration Expo — a large, interactive event in Piedmont Park — on March 25.
For STEAM enthusiasts across Atlanta, the month of March is a highlight of the year for one big reason: the Atlanta Science Festival. Learn more about all Georgia Tech-organized Festival events here.
Scientists and engineers study animal movements for clues on ways to improve lives for humans, such as designing better prosthetics or terrain-conquering robots. But that doesn’t mean fun can’t be a part of the research as well — as in asking kids to see how long they can stand on one leg a la flamingos.
That was the energy on display Saturday, March 11, for Animals in Motion: Biomechanics Day at Zoo Atlanta, part of the 2023 Atlanta Science Festival. With help from biomechanics researchers from Georgia Tech, Clemson University, and the University of Akron, visitors gathered at several demonstration booths around the Zoo to learn more about wildlife and work exploring animal biomechanics.
Joe Mendelson, adjunct professor in the School of Biological Sciences, is also director of Research for Zoo Atlanta. Mendelson says a Biomechanics Day was first scheduled for 2020 but ran headlong into the beginnings of the pandemic.
“Finally, we get to assemble our colleagues and highlight their fun and innovative projects,” he said, adding that the Atlanta Science Festival is the perfect place to attract researchers studying biomechanics of creatures as different as snakes, elephants, centipedes, and humans, as well.
There are many benefits to knowing more about animal locomotion. “Allowing people to see and understand familiar animals through a different light and comparing, for example, their locomotion to your own can be an effective way to generate interest and caring about animals by people,” Mendelson said.
Zoo Atlanta frequently collaborates with biomechanics researchers across Georgia's Tech's College of Sciences and College of Engineering. Animals in Motion: Biomechanics Day highlighted those labs and their various projects, as well as other labs from around the country that are doing similar research.
One of those researchers, Greg Sawicki, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Biological Sciences, used ultrasound imaging to give Zoo Atlanta visitors an “under the skin” look at how animal and human muscles work together with tendons to move the body.
“We will look at, and compare, calf muscles and the Achilles tendon in the leg with the biceps and biceps tendon in the arm,” Sawicki said. “Zoo visitors will be able to see for themselves the wide variety of structural features of muscle-tendon systems, ranging from short muscles and long compliant tendons for the calf to long muscles and short stiff tendons.”
Sawicki hoped his audience learned that different structural features of muscle-tendon systems “may have unique functional benefits in the wild — and an animal’s limb design may be specifically adapted for their environmental niche.”
Simon Sponberg, Dunn Family Associate Professor in the Schools of Physics and Biological Sciences, wasn't able to bring the live animals he works with — hawk moths — to the Animal Biomechanics Day. “It’s for a variety of reasons, but mostly that they don’t fly much during the day,” Sponberg said. But visitors to Sponberg’s booth explored different insect wing shapes to see how they help moths and other insects move.
“What we want students to get out of it is that there are many different forms and functions a ‘wing’ can take,” he added. “So we want people to learn how we can use experiments to understand the link between structure, function, and performance, especially in flight.”
At another section of Zoo Atlanta, adults and kids spent their time trying to balance on just one leg. It’s unclear if any of the nearby flamingos were impressed with the results, but Young-Hui Chang, professor and associate chair for Faculty Development in the School of Biological Sciences, says the balancing act is much easier for flamingos.
“They have to deal with the same physical challenges to stand in a stable way,” Chang said. “Biology tells us that, as vertebrates, flamingos are starting with many of the same muscles and bones of the leg that humans have. But, flamingos have evolved a way to use their limbs such that they can sleep standing on one leg with minimal involvement of the muscles, which would be impossible for us humans to do.”
Chang studies flamingo biomechanics for the sheer sake of gaining knowledge about how nature works. But he adds that there are practical applications to the research. “One that has already been used by roboticists is the development of a ‘flamingo bot’ that uses the principles we’ve discovered in the flamingo leg to help the robot conserve energy,” Chang said.
Ryan Lawler realized early on in her academic career that a scientist with a great idea can potentially change the world.
“But I didn’t realize the role that real estate can play in that,” said Lawler, general manager of BioSpark Labs – the collaborative, shared laboratory environment taking shape at Science Square at Georgia Tech.
Sitting adjacent to the Tech campus and formerly known as Technology Enterprise Park, Science Square is being reactivated and positioned as a life sciences research destination. The 18-acre site is abuzz with new construction, as an urban mixed-use development rises from the property.
Meanwhile, positioned literally on the ground floor of all this activity is BioSpark Labs, located in a former warehouse, fortuitously adjacent to the Global Center for Medical Innovation. It’s one of the newer best-kept secrets in the Georgia Tech research community.
BioSpark exists because the Georgia Tech Real Estate Office, led by Associate Vice President Tony Zivalich, recognized the need of this kind of lab space. Zivalich and his team have overseen the ideation, design, and funding of the facility, partnering with Georgia Advanced Technology Ventures, as well as the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and the core facilities of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.
“We are in the middle of a growing life sciences ecosystem, part of a larger vision in biotech research,” said Lawler, who was hired on to manage the space, bringing to the job a wealth of experience as a former research scientist and lab manager with a background in molecular and synthetic biology.
Researchers’ Advocate
BioSpark was designed to be a launch pad for high-potential entrepreneurs. It provides a fully equipped and professionally operated wet lab, in addition to a clean room, meeting and office space, to its current roster of clients, five life sciences and biotech startup, a number certain to increase – because BioSpark is undergoing a dramatic expansion that will include 11 more labs (shared and private space), an autoclave room, equipment and storage rooms.
“We want to provide the necessary services and support that an early-stage company needs to begin lab operations on day one,” said Lawler, who has put together a facility with $1.7 million in lab equipment. “I understand our clients’ perspective, I understand researchers and their experiments, and their needs, because I have first-hand proficiency in that world. So, I can advocate on their behalf.”
CO2 incubators, a spectrophotometer, a biosafety cabinet, a fume hood, a -80° freezer, an inverted microscope, and the autoclave are among the wide range of apparatus. Plus, a virtual treasure trove of equipment is available to BioSpark clients off-site through the Core Facilities of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience on the Georgia Tech campus.
“One of the unique things about us is, we’re agnostic,” Lawler said. “That is, our startups can come from anywhere. We have companies that have grown out of labs at Georgia State, Alabama State, Emory, and Georgia Tech. And we have interest from entrepreneurs from San Diego, who are considering relocating people from mature biotech markets to our space.”
Ground Floor Companies
Marvin Whiteley wants to help humans win the war against bacteria, and he has a plan, something he’s been cooking up for about 10 years, which has now manifested in his start-up company, SynthBiome, one of the five startups based at BioSpark Labs.
“We can discover a lot of antibiotics in the lab but translating them into the clinic has been a major challenge – antibiotic resistance is the main reason,” said Whiteley, professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech. “Something might work in a test tube easily enough and it might work in a mouse. But the thing is, bacteria know that mice are different - and and so bacteria act differently in mice than in humans.”
SynthBiome was built to help accelerate drug discovery. With that goal in mind, Whiteley and has team set out to develop a better, more effective preclinical model. “We basically learned to let the bacteria tell us what it’s like to be in a human,” Whiteley said. “So, we created a human environment in a test tube.”
Whiteley has said a desire to help people is foundational to his research. He wants to change how successful therapies are made. The same can be said for Dr. Pooja Tiwari, who launched her company, Arnav Biotech, to develop mRNA-based therapeutics and vaccines. Arnav Biotech also serves as a contract researcher and manufacturer, helping other researchers and companies interested in exploring mRNA in their work.
“There are only a handful of people who have deep knowledge of working in mRNA research, and this limits the access to it” said Tiwari, a former postdoctoral researcher at Georgia Tech and Emory. “We’d like to democratize access to mRNA-based therapeutics and vaccines by developing accessible and cost-effective mRNA therapeutics for global needs”.
Arnav – which has RNA right there in the name – in Sanskrit means ‘ocean.’ An ocean has no discernible borders, and Tiwari is working to build a biotech company that eliminates borders in equitable access to mRNA-based therapeutics and vaccines.
With this mission in mind, Arnav is developing mRNA-based, broad-spectrum antivirals as well as vaccines against pandemic potential viruses before the next pandemic hits. Arnav has recently entered in a collaboration with Sartorius BIA Separations, a company based on Slovenia, to advance their mRNA pipeline. While building its own mRNA therapeutics pipeline, Arnav is also helping other scientists explore mRNA as an alternative therapeutic and vaccine platform through its contract services.
“I think of the vaccine scientist who makes his medicine using proteins, but would like to explore the mRNA option,” Tiwari posits. “Maybe he doesn’t want to make the full jump into it. That’s where we come in, helping to drive interest in this field and help that scientist compare his traditional vaccines to see what mRNA vaccines looks like.”
She has all the equipment and instruments that she needs at BioSpark Labs and was one of the first start-ups to put down roots there. So far, it’s been the perfect partnership, Tiwari said, adding, “It kind of feels like BioSpark and Arnav are growing up together.”
Sustainable Development Goals Action and Awareness Week 2023 is March 6 – 10. The campus community is invited to participate in a variety of events that increase awareness of and encourage actions that advance the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SDGs were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They address the world’s most monumental challenges, including poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, and peace and justice. Some of the objectives are improved industry, innovation, and infrastructure; affordable and clean energy; and sustainable cities and communities. The SDGs appear by name in the Institute’s strategic plan as long-term goals that should guide teaching, research, and operations.
SDG Action and Awareness Week 2023 will focus primarily on SDG13: Climate Action and intersecting SDGs. Georgia Tech strives to be a leader in climate action across the Institute in operations, education, research, and economic development, and the development of a comprehensive Climate Action Plan is underway. President Ángel Cabrera encourages the Tech community to participate in virtual and in-person climate action events throughout the week.
On Thursday, March 9, at 8:30 a.m., Cabrera will convene a panel of faculty to discuss climate action. Joining him will be: Marilyn Brown, Regents’ Professor and the Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy; Andrea Calmon, assistant professor in the Scheller College of Business and faculty fellow in the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems; Tim Liewen, Regents’ Professor, David S. Lewis Chair, and executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute; and Brian Stone, professor in the School of City and Regional Planning and director of the Urban Climate Lab.
The panel is a hybrid event, with remote or in-person participation (at the Scholars Event Network Theater in Price Gilbert Library). RSVP here.
Other events during the week include a Green Cleaning DIY Workshop through the Office of Sustainability, a Social Impact Careers Alumni Panel through the Alumni Association, a Community Market through Auxiliary Services, a session on How to Afford Study Abroad and SDG Interactive Art Hours through the Office of International Education, a Seminar on Race and Gender through the Black Feminist Think Tank and the School of History and Sociology, two micro-workshops on aligning course objectives with the SDGs through the Center for Teaching and Learning and Serve-Learn-Sustain, a Corporate Carbon Accounting panel through Scheller College of Business, an information session and ice cream social through the EcoCar Vertically Integrated Project team, and a Climate Action Plan Stakeholder Engagement Session through the Office of Sustainability. View a listing of the week’s events for details and registration.
SDG Action and Awareness Week is part of a larger global effort through the University Global Coalition (UGC), which Cabrera chairs and helped found. The UGC is comprised of higher education leaders from around the world who work to advance the SDGs through education, research, service, and campus operations.
SDG Action and Awareness Week is an annual event occurring in early March. To collaborate next year, contact Drew Cutright, Office of Strategic Consulting.
Most biological research is grounded in DNA sequencing, a way to determine the order of organic molecules in DNA. The process is typically conducted by large-scale biotech companies, but the drawbacks can be time, cost, and environmental impact.
Georgia Tech’s Molecular Evolution Core (MEC) has solved that problem for Tech researchers through its Sanger Sequencing Initiative (SSI), which offers the same service conveniently on campus.
“What makes a researcher or a lab want to switch over to us? We provide the same if not superior-quality data to them,” says Nicole Diaz, SSI’s founder and manager, and a fourth-year student in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “We use an optimized process that is less industrialized. And the service we offer is more personal, so if researchers have any issues, we are able to be a lot more flexible than the big companies.”
Launched in 2020, SSI has evolved into a full-fledged, student-run program to collect and process samples for research labs.
Researchers can submit samples in drop boxes at one of six locations in the BioQuad – Krone Engineered Biosystems Building, Molecular Sciences And Engineering, Ford Environmental Science & Technology Building, Marcus Nanotechnology Research Center, Cherry L. Emerson Building, and the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences at Georgia Tech.
Samples are charged at $5 per tube for less than 20 samples. That price is reduced to $4 per tube with more than 20 samples. After 96 samples are processed, the price goes down to $3.50 per tube.
And with just three billing cycles based on the academic calendar—fall, spring, and summer—labs can easily reach the lowest discounted price for all samples by the end of the semester regardless of how many samples are submitted at a time, Diaz says.
Turnaround time is within three days.
The added benefit of working directly with SSI is its commitment to providing a sustainable sampling process.
“The carbon footprint is lowered by keeping samples local instead of shipping them across the country to have them sequenced,” Diaz says. “So, researchers have access to dropboxes just outside the door of their lab in the buildings here in the BioQuad.”
Lab technicians are culled from federal work study, student assistants, student volunteers, or those seeking internship credit.
“It’s great to have a foundation and building blocks where I won’t be nervous when I encounter this down the road,” says, Aaron Kent, a first-year chemical engineering student.
SSI not only services labs at Georgia Tech, but it can also support labs for institutions in the Georgia Research Alliance, a consortium of public and private universities in Georgia including Emory University, Morehouse School of Medicine and the University of Georgia.
A Novel Idea During Covid-19
Sanger sequencing has been conducted in the Molecular Evolution Core (MEC) since 2018 under the direction of research technologist Naima Djeddar. Anton Bryskin, Regents researcher and MEC technical director, wanted to expand the mission of the MEC and tap into an undervalued resource on campus—undergraduate students.
“I knew that undergraduate students at Georgia Tech are very special,” Bryskin says. “It was never thought that undergraduate students might do a part of the work typically done by researchers or technicians.”
With support from M.G. Finn, professor and chair in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and chief advisor of the MEC, the Sanger Sequencing Initiative (SSI) was launched in 2020. The height of COVID-19 proved to be a valuable time for the program. Between sample processing sessions for Tech’s COVID-19 surveillance testing program, student workers were pulled to process sequencing samples for SSI.
“It was great because these students had already been trained on clinical practices,” Diaz says. “So, we didn't have to go back and train them on what it would be like in the lab because they already had the maximum training that was necessary.”
Diaz joined the Initiative in its inception as a federal work study student. Since then, she’s led the growth and development of SSI, from processing samples to marketing to hiring to building out a lab management system for operations alongside operations manager of the MEC TipCycling program and fourth-year biomedical engineering student Helya Taghian.
Not only have undergraduate students gained valuable lab experience, Diaz said, but SSI has become a multidisciplinary effort. The staff is composed of students from biomedical, industrial, and chemical and biomolecular engineering, as well as computer science and design majors.
“We have a stacked team,” she says.
Diaz says the team is working to incorporate more automation into the process, including tracking metrics for sample processing and developing a bioinformatics solution to optimize workflow and data quality. Third-party app integration to centralize the SSI workflow was tackled by the MEC web development team—comprised of computer science (CS) undergraduates led by fourth-year CS student Bakr Redwan—whom devised a custom Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). This LIMS system will serve as SSI’s hub for all operations including processing, billing, inventory, and communications.
SSI currently process samples for several labs across campus, including for Finn, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Mark Styczynski, and newly elected National Academy of Engineering Professor Mark Prausnitz, and hopes to expand to more labs in the future.
“We want to be an example program for other universities to use, implement in different capacities, and offer the same opportunities to their undergraduate students,” Diaz says.
To learn more about the Sanger Sequencing Initiative, including how to submit samples or join the program, visit their website.
Four faculty in the College of Sciences have received new funding to help foster student belonging at Georgia Tech. The team’s six-year grant is part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Inclusive Excellence 3 initiative, and is one of 104 new grants funded through an overall initiative that’s allocating $60 million over six years and several phases.
“HHMI’s challenge to us addresses a critical need in U.S. higher education, and it is aligned with Georgia Tech’s strategic plan,” says David Collard, senior associate dean in the College and lead researcher for effort at Tech. “The grant to Georgia Tech will support a team effort in pursuing a number of complementary projects.”
Collard is joined by College of Sciences co-investigators Jennifer Leavey, assistant dean for Faculty Mentoring; Carrie Shepler, assistant dean for Teaching Effectiveness; and Professor Lewis Wheaton, inaugural director of the Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences at Georgia Tech. Collard and Shepler also serve as faculty members in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Leavey and Wheaton in the School of Biological Sciences.
Inclusive Excellence 3
As the third phase of the HHMI program, Inclusive Excellence 3, known as IE3, challenges U.S. colleges and universities to “substantially and sustainably build their capacity for student belonging, especially for those who have been historically excluded from the sciences.”
IE3 is also distinct from previous HHMI science education initiatives because it begins with a learning phase and, during that phase, learning communities envision how to move cooperatively into an implementation phase.
The grant uniquely challenges groups to work collaboratively to address one of three broad efforts. At Georgia Tech, the College of Sciences will work with institutions across the country to help empower colleges and universities to develop and support systems that cultivate teaching and learning in tandem with key concepts in inclusion and equity.
At Georgia Tech, each IE3 team member will concentrate on a distinct area of work.
Inclusive teaching
Leavey will focus on “working with collaborators from other institutions to share faculty development strategies focused on inclusive teaching, such as the Inclusive STEM Teaching Fellows program ,” she shares, “which the College of Sciences piloted last spring along with the Center for Teaching Learning, the College of Engineering, the College of Computing, and the Office of Institute Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.”
Leavey adds that, a semester after its launch, the Fellows program is already generating interest across campus and at collaborating institutions.
Inclusive impact
Shepler will help faculty assess the impact of their inclusive teaching efforts, working with collaborators to develop an iterative process to help institutions create formative assessment methodologies for teaching and learning that both facilitate and prioritize inclusion and equity in a manner that is consistent with institutional values and missions.
“Throughout the project, our aim is to make sure that students have a voice in defining what it means for them to experience teaching that centers” on these concepts, Shepler says.
The work coincides with a goal of the College of Sciences’ new Teaching Effectiveness, Advocacy, and Mentoring (TEAM) committee, which Shepler leads, to “develop and adapt new processes for the evaluation of teaching that are inclusive and equitable for all faculty.”
C-PIES
Meanwhile, Wheaton’s work as the director of the Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences — C-PIES, for short — will inform and supplement Leavey and Shepler’s goals for the grant.
Wheaton will also lead a competitive C-PIES Faculty Fellows program that focuses on innovative teaching and research ideas that can transform student learning using key principles.
“The Center will sponsor approximately five C-PIES Inclusive Excellence Faculty Fellows in this effort,” he says. “This is an exciting direction that will provide the tools to develop assessments in our curriculum, leading to a culture that emphasizes and facilitates a growth mindset of continued development.”
Transforming tomorrow
Ultimately, the researchers hope to leverage the Inclusive Excellence Grant to transform teaching and learning for faculty and students of today — and of tomorrow.
“Though much of the HHMI work will focus on faculty, particularly those in instructional roles, the potential impact of these efforts is on the learning experiences of future generations of students,” adds Collard, the grant lead. “I look forward to seeing how the project develops — and how it fosters changes that support student, and faculty, success.”
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