A key member of Georgia Tech’s Covid-19 response team will continue his research on viruses in the fall of 2021, but will be conducting those studies from Paris, France, thanks to receiving a prestigious award designed to foster more collaboration among international scientists.
Joshua Weitz, professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Biological Sciences, and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences, is one of four 2021 recipients of the Blaise Pascal International Chair of Excellence. Weitz will be based at the Institute of Biology at the École Normale Supérieure (IBENS) in Paris. Previous winners of the Pascal Chair of Excellence include several Nobel Prize recipients.
Weitz’s work in Paris, which will last one year, will involve research and educational components that will bring attention to Georgia Tech in the global science community.
“Altogether, this integrative research and educational program will help connect initiatives developed in the College of Sciences with a broad, international community,” Weitz says.
“The central aim of my project is to deepen understanding of the entangled fates of viruses and their hosts. In doing so, my research program spans viral ecology, evolution, and epidemiology. It will also be shaped by necessity, as a significant amount of my time — and that of my group — remains directed towards developing mathematical models, real-time dashboards, and public health-centered intervention tools to understand and mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2.“
Background on rapid testing, Covid-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool
Weitz came up with the concept for the Covid-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, which measures the risk that one or more individuals infected with COVID-19 are present in an event of various sizes. Weitz, along with Clio Andris, assistant professor in the College of Design, and researchers from the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory, Duke University, and Stanford University developed the Tool’s website and dashboard. Weitz says the tool has helped more than 8 million visitors make tens of millions of risk estimates since its July 2020 launch.
Weitz is also part of the team that developed a rapid saliva-based asymptomatic surveillace testing program for the Georgia Tech community — a program credited with keeping infection levels low on campus.
“I am proud of having served, along with Greg Gibson, and many faculty and staff colleagues, as part of an interdisciplinary team to implement an asymptomatic testing program in the 2020-21 academic year in support of the Institute’s response efforts to protect the safety of our community – and support ongoing efforts to ensure that science and public health evidence shapes response policy at Georgia Tech and throughout the University System of Georgia,” Weitz says. Gibson is also a Georgia Tech School of Biological Sciences professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair, and was recently named a Regents’ Professor for his service in research and teaching.
“Moving ahead, the ongoing spread of the Delta variant, and potential spread of variants to come, necessitates a sustained response, bridging fundamental models with public-facing interventions,” Weitz adds. “To this end, I look forward to continuing to work with a network of colleagues to advance a rigorous, data-driven, and open approach to pandemic response, mitigation, and prevention. This will be a long-term effort and I have already begun the process to engage with international colleagues to share approaches and lessons learned.”
Joining international scientists in researching viruses — and how to beat them
The Blaise Pascal Research Chair award will aid in that effort. According to its website, the program “is intended to bring international researchers to French institutions in the Ile de France region (Paris and nearby) for year-long research stays, to facilitate research collaboration with French-based teams, and to support the training of the next generation of France-based junior researchers.”
Weitz was selected as part of the 2019 cohort, which includes scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Glasgow. The 2020 cohort was postponed due to the pandemic.
Weitz will work with his colleagues at the Institute of Biology at the École Normale Supérieure to advance foundational understanding of viral infections of single cell microbes, including the study of infections that don’t necessarily lead to the death of the infected cell. “Latent (or chronic) infections of single-celled microbes can paradoxically provide benefits to both viruses and infected cells, yet the relationship can be tenuous,” Weitz says. “Understanding virus-microbe interactions on a continuum from antagonistic to mutualistic has implications for improving human health and the health of the environment.”
On the human health side, Weitz will be collaborating with Laurent Debarbieux of the Institut Pasteur in Paris to advance the use of bacteriophage for therapeutic treatment of antibiotic resistant bacterial infections. Bacteriophages (also called phages) are viruses that exclusively infect and eliminate bacteria, and they are increasingly being used in therapeutic contexts given the potential for elimination of targeted pathogens. “I am currently the principal investigator, along with Professor Debarbieux, of a National Institutes of Health R01 grant on phage treatment of acute respiratory infections caused by bacterial pathogens. In the coming year, I intend to explore the potential to utilize phage to target pathogens that persist in chronic infections as part of complex microbiomes.”
Environment and education round out Weitz’s work in France
The environmental aspect of Weitz’s work in France will see him build on his group’s existing relationship with a global network of researchers to advance understanding of viral impacts on surface ocean ecosystems. This work, supported by the National Science Foundation and the Simons Foundation, aims to understand how viral infections of key bacteria in surface ocean ecosystems modulates the fate of microbes and ecosystem functioning, including global carbon and biogeochemical cycles.
“Collaborations with researchers in Israel and in France will help expand study sites for our ongoing work to integrate mathematical models of viral dynamics, along with time-series observations collected in ocean-going research expeditions,” he says.
The educational component revolves around two major initiatives, one of which could end up on Georgia Tech’s campus. In the fall, Weitz will be co-teaching a short course on quantitative viral dynamics “as part of an effort to characterize how viral infections at cellular scales transform the fate of cells, organisms, and populations. I hope to bring this course back to Georgia Tech as part of an effort to introduce short-form summer courses affiliated with the Quantitative Biosciences Ph.D. Program, and the Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection.”
Weitz is also in the process of developing a larger winter school and workshop for spring 2022, part of a joint project with the Q-Life Institute of Paris Sciences et Lettres University (PSL). “In many ways, the Q-Life Institute shares some of the same guiding principles of the Quantitative Biology Ph.D. program at Georgia Tech, and I look forward to learning more of their approach to integrate mechanisms, models, and data analytics into the principled study of living systems across scale.” The planned theme for the winter school/workshop will be viral dynamics, with more information to come later this fall.
This story is an update to the July 2021 announcement of this program: InQuBATE Training Program Integrates Modeling and Data Science for Bioscience Ph.D. Students
Three Ph.D. students — two from the College of Sciences — have been announced as the inaugural cohort for a new Georgia Tech training program designed to give biomedical researchers a deeper dive into quantitative, data-intensive studies.
The trainees for the 2021 class of the Integrative and Quantitative Biosciences Accelerated Training Environment (InQuBATE) program, areas of study, and their advisors are:
- Kathryn (Katie) Wendorf MacGillivray, Quantitative Biosciences Interdisciplinary Graduate Program (advised by Will Ratcliff)
- Gabriella Chebli, Biological Sciences (advised by Julia Kubanek)
- Maxfield (Max) Comstock, Computational Science and Engineering (advised by Elizabeth Cherry)
As noted in the summer announcement of the program, the three students are part of a new five-year, $1.27 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that creates the InQuBATE program to help transform the study of quantitative- and data-intensive biosciences at Georgia Tech. InQuBATE is designed to train a new generation of biomedical researchers and thought leaders to harness the data revolution.
“We want to improve and enhance the training of students to focus on biological questions while leveraging modern tools, and in some cases developing new tools, to address foundational challenges at scales from molecules to systems,” noted Joshua Weitz, professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Biological Sciences, in that announcement. Weitz is co-leading the program with Peng Qiu, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.
Biology is undergoing a transformation, added Weitz and Qiu, requiring a new educational paradigm that integrates quantitative approaches like computational modeling and data analytics into the experimental study of living systems.
“Our intention is to develop a training environment that instills a quantitative, data-driven mindset, integrating quantitative and data science methods into all aspects of the life science training pipeline,” added Weitz, founding director of Tech’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences (QBioS).
Meet the inaugural InQuBATE cohort
Kathryn (Katie) Wendorf MacGillivray
Quantitative Biosciences Interdisciplinary Graduate Program (advised by Will Ratcliff)
Katie Wendorf MacGillivray received a Master’s in Biology from New York University where she worked on phenotypic heterogeneity of antibiotic susceptibility in the lab of Edo Kussell. She is now a Ph.D. student in the Quantitative Biosciences program at Georgia Tech. In the Ratcliff Lab, she is interested in engineering yeast that can switch between life cycles – unicellular, clonal, and aggregative. Outside of the lab, she likes to knit, garden, and take road trips with her husband Ian. "I have a biology and chemistry background, and believe strongly that all biosciences research could benefit from the addition of computational modeling and/or data science approaches. That's why I chose QBioS for my PhD program in the first place," she says.
Gabriella Chebli
Biological Sciences (advised by Julia Kubanek)
Gabriella Chebli graduated from Agnes Scott College with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Chemistry. While an undergraduate, she conducted research under the direction of Chemistry professor Thomas Morgan to revise the structure of a class of natural products called “hyloins” that are found in the frog species Boana punctata. Chebli also worked in the lab of Biology professor, Iris Levin, studying telomere length in adult barn swallows. Chebli first joined the Kubanek Lab as an REU participant, working on a metabolomics-based project on harmful algal blooms. After graduating from Agnes Scott, she took a gap year, where she volunteered with ecotourism kayak tours with Seaside Adventure in Kachemak Bay, Alaska and interned at the Lammi Biological Station in Lammi, Finland. In the Kubanek Lab, Chebli is researching chemical ecology and assisting with an algal biofuel ponds project and maintenance of phytoplankton cultures.
Maxfield (Max) Comstock
Computational Science and Engineering (advised by Elizabeth Cherry)
Comstock, originally from Seattle, Washington, received his undergraduate degrees in Math and Computer Science from Harvey Mudd College. “I'm honored to be part of the inaugural InQuBATE cohort, and am looking forward to working with all the amazing people involved with the program," he says. "I hope to gain experience collaborating with researchers from different backgrounds who may approach problems from a different perspective, and to learn new ways to apply computational techniques to important biomedical problems. I intend to continue tackling medical problems using these skills throughout the rest of my career.”
Georgia Tech continues to take a multipronged approach to preventing and mitigating the risk of coronavirus as more students, faculty, and staff return to campus this fall. Without question, the vaccine offers the best defense against the pandemic, and, if you have not done so, we urge you to consult with a medical professional and consider getting vaccinated now. Doing so at Tech is easy and free.
Additionally, all students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to participate each week in our free asymptomatic surveillance testing program, even if you have been fully vaccinated. We especially urge those who have not yet been vaccinated to get tested weekly. Find campus testing sites and locations.
Beginning today, Georgia Tech is introducing new rewards to encourage individuals to get vaccinated and test weekly:
- All students, faculty, and staff who get vaccinated at Stamps Health Services or participate in our campus surveillance testing program between now and end of day September 30, 2021, will be entered into a drawing to receive a $50 Barnes & Noble at Georgia Tech gift card. 350 individuals will be randomly selected the following week to each receive a gift card.
- Additionally, all students, faculty, and staff vaccinated on campus between now and end of day September 10, 2021, will also receive a $20 Barnes & Noble at Georgia Tech gift card.
- Through September 10, more than 1,000 $5 coupons for local restaurants, 350 limited edition Georgia Tech Athletics t-shirts, and several helmets and footballs signed by Coach Geoff Collins will also be distributed at random to campus test sites and vaccine clinics.
- Cookie drops continue at test sites, along with stickers at test sites and vaccine clinics.
If you are unvaccinated, you are at risk of contracting Covid-19 and infecting others, with potentially severe consequences for you or someone else. Please seek medical advice from your healthcare provider or a member of our Stamps Health Services team, led by Dr. Ben Holton, if you have doubts or concerns about getting vaccinated.
Like you, we want this academic year to be as safe as possible. The best way to achieve that outcome is for every member of the campus community to get vaccinated and continue to test weekly.
New research led by Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering finds that honey bees have developed a way to transform pollen particles into a viscoelastic pellet, allowing them to transport pollen efficiently, quickly, and reliably to their hive. The study also suggests the insects remove pollen from their bodies at speeds 2-10 times slower than their typical grooming speeds.
To collect and transport pollen, honey bees mix pollen particles with regurgitated nectar and form it into a pellet, which clings to each of their hind legs. The honey bees then deposit the pellets into a cell within the hive by carefully scraping them off using their other legs.
The study, from the lab of George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Professor David Hu, sought to better understand the mechanics of this process which could inspire new ways to manufacture and manipulate soft materials. Hu holds a joint appointment in the School of Biological Sciences.
The paper, “Biomechanics of Pollen Removal By the Honey Bee,” is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
“We measured the viscoelastic material properties of a pollen pellet,” said Marguerite Matherne, a recent Georgia Tech mechanical engineering Ph.D. graduate who now teaches at Northeastern University. “We found that the pellets have a really long relaxation time, which means they remain mostly in a solid form during the transport process. This is good because it keeps the pellet from melting or falling apart from vibration during flight.”
Matherne and the Georgia Tech research team also tried to replicate how honey bees remove the pellets from their hind legs in the lab. They built a device that scraped adhered pollen pellets from bee legs. The invention produced two discoveries. The first was that the honey bees were much more efficient in removing the pellet than the scraping device they built (the device left much more pollen residue on the leg). They also found that slower removal speeds reduce the force and work required to remove pellets under shear stress.
“If you remove it slowly, you can avoid applying the excessive force required to remove it quickly,” said Hu, Matherne’s former Georgia Tech advisor. “Removing a pollen pellet is like the opposite of ripping off a Band-Aid.”
Matherne said that there are two key components to the efficiency of the honey bees transporting these pellets. First, the pellets are gooey, allowing them to stick to the hind legs. But, she said, the bees also have a special structure on their legs called the corbicula. It’s fringed with long, curved hairs and becomes embedded into the pellet, allowing for adhesion.
In addition, honey bees can collect pollen particles in various shapes and sizes, while also developing a way to transport them. This is different from other species of bees, which only collect and carry specific types of pollen that are similar in size. They also use different transport techniques.
“Honey bees collect from flowers miles and miles away,” said Hu. “The pollen can change in size by a factor of 10. They must collect all these individual particles and bring it back to one place. And they must do a dozen foraging trips each day, all while keeping their bodies clean. They solve it all by this special method they created to exploit the pellet’s soft material properties.”
The research team believes further studies could lead to new developments in medical patches or fastener applications for soft materials.
“It’s kind of like smart gooey Velcro for soft materials,” said Hu. “It could be a fastener and it knows when you’re trying to remove it so that you don’t have to use an excessive amount of force.”
Matherne suggests that it’s also important to understand the pollinating process since 35% of the world’s crop production depends on pollinators.
“Honey bees are really important pollinators,” said Matherne. “If we want to create a world where we can keep up our pollinators, I think it’s important to understand exactly what they’re doing.”
CITATION: Matherne, M., et.al., "Biomechanics of pollen pellet removal by the honey bee." (Journal of the Royal Society Interface) https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0549
With large swaths of the country engulfed in flames, battered by winds, steeped in floodwaters, or parched by drought – tragic and costly conditions that a recent United Nations report links to global warming – Georgia Tech is looking forward to hosting the third annual Global Climate Action Symposium, Sept. 27 – 29.
Bringing together a wide range of local and global experts to showcase climate change solutions, the event will be held in a fully virtual, online format for the second year due to the pandemic.
The online format has truly put the “global” in Global Climate Action Symposium, says Selena Langner, communications director for Georgia Tech’s Global Change Program, which spearheads the event in partnership with Tech’s Serve-Learn-Sustain, the Atlanta Global Studies Center, and six European consulates in Atlanta (France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the U.K., and Belgium).
“One thing we learned during Covid,” Langner says, “was the benefit of having something virtual, beyond the sustainability aspect. The first year, we featured a mix of global and local experts, but our audience was inherently limited to the Tech community. When we went virtual last year, we reached attendees from 20 different countries.”
Free and open to all, each day of the symposium will run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and focus on a specific aspect of the climate challenges ahead (see inset). Each session features a keynote speaker, a panel discussion, “Lightning Talks” by students and organizations, and a Masterclass. Experts include engineers, scientists, business and policy leaders, students, and artists.
“We have an amazing lineup of speakers, including five student speakers,” Langner says. “We’ve also just added a Lightning Talk from 9-year-old activist Faatiha Aayat, from Bangladesh, who has spoken about climate on the international stage.” Other highlights include a smoothie tutorial from Concrete Jungle and the student art contest, which this year features submissions from Nigeria, the U.S., Switzerland, and South Africa.
“There’s never been a more important time to talk about climate solutions, and our faculty, students, and staff want to be a part of the conversation,” says Kim Cobb, Georgia Power Chair and ADVANCE Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and director of the Global Change Program. “We’re thrilled to showcase some of the many partners that make Georgia Tech the research and education hub that it is.”
Symposium content will be made available to the general public on YouTube after the fact for those who aren’t able to watch the proceedings in real time as they unfold, Langner says, but she strongly encourages preregistration at bit.ly/GCAS2021.
“Registering in advance makes it really easy for anyone who’s interested,” she notes. “We have additional resources our panelists will be sharing early, we can send all the links by email, and we can share all of the Q&A and chat transcripts – we’ll even be sending out smoothie recipes.”
Held outdoors at Harrison Square this week, the inaugural September Sciences Celebration highlighted excellence in research and teaching across the College of Sciences, while also giving guests a chance to welcome new faculty and meet the donors and alumni who support the awards program.
The honors for seven faculty members and a student in the School of Mathematics were originally to be presented in fall 2020, but the recognition event was postponed due to the pandemic. The annual awards for faculty development and a scholarship are funded through the generosity of College of Sciences alumni and friends.
Here are the 2020-2021 College of Sciences awards and recipients, as shared by the College of Sciences Office of Development:
Cullen-Peck Fellowship Awards
This gift from alumni couple Frank Cullen (’73 Math, MS ’76, ISyE, PhD ’84 ISyE) and Elizabeth Peck (Math ’75, MS ’76 ISyE) is meant to encourage the development of promising mid-career faculty.
- Jennifer Curtis, associate professor, School of Physics. Curtis, who has a joint appointment in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences, is the primary investigator for the Curtis Lab, which researches the physics of cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix interactions, in particular within the context of glycobiology and immunobiology.
- Steve Diggle, associate professor, School of Biological Sciences. Diggle, also a member of Georgia Tech’s Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection, was recently selected to be a 2021 American Society of Microbiologists Distinguished Lecturer. Diggle researches cooperation and communication in microbes and how these are related to virulence, biofilms and antimicrobial resistance.
- Chris Reinhard, associate professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Reinhard’s research explores the ways in which Earth's biosphere and planetary boundary conditions act to reshape ocean/atmosphere chemistry and climate, how these interactions have evolved over time, and how they might be engineered moving forward. Reinhard has also been active in the Georgia Tech Astrobiology community.
Gretzinger Moving Forward Award
This award, named for Ralph Gretzinger (’70 Math) and his late wife Jewel, recognizes the leadership of a school chair or senior faculty member who has played a pivotal role in diversifying the composition of tenure-track faculty, creating a family-friendly work environment, and providing a supportive environment for early career faculty.
- Raquel Lieberman, professor, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Lieberman, principal investigator in the Lieberman Lab, researches protein folding and misfolding, particularly when it comes to proteins that are linked to early-onset, inherited forms of glaucoma. A second major project involves the study of membrane-spanning proteolytic enzymes that are related to those involved in producing amyloid-beta associated with Alzheimer disease.
Frances O. Hite Memorial Scholarship
This scholarship is established in memory of Frances Orr “Fran” Hite (1950-2019), B.S. Mathematics, Vanderbilt University, by Bruce Hite (’72 Building Construction.) The endowment fund provides scholarships to women studying mathematics at Georgia Tech.
- Esther Gallmeier, 4th year student, School of Mathematics. Gallmeier is the first recipient of the Hite Memorial Scholarship. Gallmeier attended Oak Ridge High School in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and decided to attend Georgia Tech based on the experiences of a friend who attended the School of Mathematics. "He loved it here," she says. "Also, Georgia Tech is incredible at providing opportunities for undergraduates in research and internships. We are definitely well-connected with companies from all over."
Eric R. Immel Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching
The Immel Memorial Award, supported by an endowment fund given by Charles Crawford (’71 Math), recognizes exemplary instruction of lower division foundational courses.
- Chris Jankowski, Director of Graduate Advising and Assessment and Assistant Director of Teaching Effectiveness, School of Mathematics.
Jankowski mentors postdoctoral faculty in teaching during their first year, and participates in organizing and running professional development events for them. He also provides a broad range of administrative duties for the graduate program, including serving on the Graduate Committee, writing annual student evaluations, and handling comprehensive exams.
Leddy Family Dean’s Faculty Excellence Award
This award was established by Jeff Leddy (’78 Physics) and Pam Leddy to support a faculty member at the associate professor level with proven accomplishments in research and teaching.
- Stefan France, associate professor, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
France is the principal investigator for the France Laboratory, which researches synthetic organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, natural products chemistry, and methodology development. That research is primarily motivated by the interest in developing new synthetic methodologies that can be applied toward the construction of complex natural products and pharmaceutically-interesting compounds. France also led efforts for Georgia Tech to join the American Chemical Society’s Bridge Program, which works to bring more underrepresented minorities into higher education chemistry and biochemistry graduate courses.
Faculty Mentor Award
The annual College of Sciences Award for Faculty Mentorship, supported by Georgia Tech’s ADVANCE Program, is presented to exemplary senior faculty who provide crucial services by helping new faculty advance in their careers, as they learn to balance their roles as researchers, teachers, and advisors to their own graduate students and post-docs.
- David Sherrill, Regents’ Professor, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Sherrill, who was chosen as a 2014 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researches computational chemistry and is the new Director of Georgia Tech’s Center for High Performance Computing. Sherrill has developed new models in quantum chemistry, with a particular focus on biophysics, drug docking, and molecular crystals.
New College of Sciences Faculty
(Joined in 2020 and 2021)
School of Mathematics:
Cheng Mao
Rebecca George
Anton Bernshteyn
Benjamin Jaye
Hannah Choi
School of Chemistry and Biochemistry:
Anh Le
William Howitz
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences:
Wing (Winnie) Chu
Pengfei Liu
Samer Naif
Karl Lang
Frances Rivera-Hernández
Shelby Ellis
School of Physics:
Itamar Kimchi
Emily Alicea-Muñoz
School of Psychology:
Hsiao-Wen Liao
School of Biological Sciences; Neuroscience:
Christina Ragan
Eight members of the College of Sciences were honored for their work on expanding representation at Georgia Tech during the 2021 Diversity Symposium on Sept. 15th, sponsored by Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Lewis Wheaton, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and co-chair of the College of Sciences’ Task Force on Racial Equity, is the 2021 Diversity Champion Faculty Award winner. The 2021 Diversity Champion Awards recognize members of the faculty, staff, and student body, and a unit (office, department, school, or lab) who are advancing the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Georgia Tech community.
Wheaton is a lead principal investigator for a $16 million National Institutes of Health-FIRST proposal, a collaborative project across several institutions that includes the aim of hiring 10 new underrepresented minority faculty in the College of Sciences and College of Engineering joint neuroscience program at Georgia Tech. He is also co-principal investigator on an NSF-funded Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates program in human neuroscience, which focuses on increasing participation by women and underrepresented minorities from limited-resource undergraduate institutions.
During the Sept. 15th event, seven College of Sciences faculty and staff were named Faces of Inclusive Excellence:
Juan Archila, Director of Facilities and Capital Planning, College of Sciences
Serves as the principal empowerment officer for the HOLA (Hispanics Or Latinos and Allies) Employee Resource Group. Led the steering committee to create the College of Sciences Staff Advisory Council. Served on the team that won the 2020 Process Improvement Excellence Award from Georgia Tech Human Resources.
Ruth Kanfer, Professor, School of Psychology:
Co-author of 2021 book Ageless Talent, on managing workforce age diversity. Founding director of the Work Science Center initiative.
Wenjing Liao, Assistant Professor, School of Mathematics:
Won a National Science Foundation (NSF) award in deep neural networks for structured data as a principal investigator in 2020, representing the third NSF award and fourth award overall she has won since becoming an assistant professor at Tech in 2017.
Stephanie Reikes, Lecturer, School of Mathematics:
Received the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) Undergraduate Educator Award in 2021 for contributions supporting at-risk students. Actively fosters classroom environments in which diversity and inclusion are respected by all.
Kathy Sims, Development Assistant, College of Sciences:
Serves as chair of the College of Sciences’ Staff Advisory Council. Served on the Task Force for Racial Equity. Member of the Employee Engagement Leadership Council and a recipient of the Women of Georgia Tech ERG Safeguard Freedom of Inquiry and Expression Award.
Emily Weigel, Senior Academic Professional, School of Biological Sciences:
Received the Ecological Society of America’s Education Scholar award for the creation of environmental justice materials on Atlanta’s water quality using open-source coding software readable by screen readers (Inclusive Pedagogy, Data Access Faculty).
Mayya Zhilova, Assistant Professor, School of Mathematics:
Recipient of the 2021 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program Award for research in statistical analysis, outreach, and mentorship plans for students and high schoolers from underrepresented communities.
“All honorees featured in Faces of Inclusive Excellence share one thing in common: They epitomize excellence in their research, teaching, leadership, and service, or have been honored and otherwise recognized by their peers within their respective fields of endeavor,” says IDEI Vice President Archie Ervin. “When you dive deeper to explore the source of Georgia Tech’s greatness, you discover that this diverse group of faculty, staff, and students reveals the true faces of inclusive excellence.”
For many stroke victims with upper limb motor function impairment, previously simple tasks like reaching for that pen or grabbing that glass of water feel impossible. But the power of imagination and intention may help: If you can think it, eventually you can grab it.
Mental practice – such as motor imagery and action observation – is an effective intervention in restoring upper limb functionality. The challenge is that the performance quality and efficacy of mental practice can vary significantly between individuals.
A team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, led by principal investigator Minoru “Shino” Shinohara, is addressing that challenge, developing what he calls, “a new paradigm of motor imagery” – integrating proven methods of neuromotor facilitation with robotic prostheses. The researchers want to help stroke survivors turn thoughts and intentions into useful actions.
Shinohara, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, is collaborating with co-investigators Frank Hammond, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering, and Woo-Hong Yeo, associate professor of mechanical engineering. And the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is supporting their work with a $275,000, 18-month R21 grant for the project titled: “Robotically Augmented Mental Practice for Neuromotor Facilitation.”
“The idea here is that people who have had a stroke often have a kind of contracted posture, like this,” said Shinohara, who illustrated his point by contorting his upper body accordingly.
“And when they try to reach for something, or to extend the reach of their arm, they use their trunk, because they don’t have good, fluid arm motion,” Shinohara added, hiking up his right shoulder and thrusting it forward, as an example.
This kind of intentional synergistic movement is common in people with motor impairment caused by stroke or other neurological impairments. Lacking the fine motor skills to activate their arms or hands, this broad movement often is the best that they can do, particularly in the early stages of recovery. The movement is a sign that the brain can’t correctly send signals to affected muscles. But it is also a sign that the brain is trying to relearn how, and that’s what Shinohara and his team want to build upon.
“It’s possible that this motion can increase neural excitability of the hand muscles for opening – that it is related to a more coordinated motion, like grabbing the glass,” Shinohara said. “We want to utilize this trunk motion for actually opening and closing a robotic prosthesis.”
The researchers hypothesize that control and observation of robotic grasp and release actions via this shoulder and trunk motion – synergistic proximal muscle activation – will increase hand excitability, due to the cognitive engagement with an externally present and visible robotic prosthesis. That is, the individual thinks about grabbing the object and makes the corresponding shoulder and trunk motion, activating a robotic hand.
Shinohara believes this robotically augmented mental practice can help the brain efficiently relearn how to produce and send the right signals at the right time to the affected hand muscles.
“You may not be able to use your own hands, but you’ll see the corresponding action of the prosthetic reacting, as if it’s your grip and you are opening and closing,” he said. “That’s action observation. So, if you see the robot and you’re engaged in controlling the action, we expect to see an increase in the ability of the brain to control the hand. That’s the basic idea.”
To test the idea, Shinohara, director of the Human Neuromuscular Physiology Lab and a member of both the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (all at Georgia Tech), is partnering with the labs of Yeo and Hammond.
Yeo has developed cutting edge motor imagery-based brain-machine interface (BMI) systems – rehabilitation technology that analyzes a person’s brain signals, then translates that neural activity into commands enabled by flexible scalp electronics and deep-learning algorithms.
A member of several Georgia Tech research institutes, Yeo is principal investigator of the Bio-Interfaced Translational Nanoengineering Group and director of the Center for Human-Centric Interfaces and Engineering. Currently. He is developing an algorithm for detecting trunk motion in this project.
As principal investigator of the Adaptive Robotic Manipulation (ARM) Laboratory, Hammond’s research is focused on a variety of topics in robotics, including sensory feedback enabled human augmentation devices.
For this project, Hammond’s lab is developing a robotic arm that could potentially restore some neuromotor functionality to patients in the future, he said, “and provide greater degrees of motor imagery. The data we generate will be helpful in creating a robotic device that will be a lot more effective in treatment and maybe more versatile, allowing us to accommodate a broader population of patients undergoing rehabilitation.”
The NIH’s R21 grants are intended to encourage developmental or exploratory research at the early stages of project development, with the hope that the work can lead to further advances in the research. Shinohara believes he and his collaborators are moving in that direction.
“Development of this new paradigm and its integration with able-bodied and post-stroke disabled individuals will open new scientific and clinical concepts and studies on augmented motor imagery,” Shinohara said. “And that can lead to effective treatment strategies for people with neuromotor impairment.”
College of Sciences Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair Susan Lozier is also the President of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) — yet she shares that while studying in graduate school, she never would have predicted that she would end up serving in these roles.
“I definitely experienced the imposter syndrome in my early career,” she shares. “I remember going through graduate school thinking that once I took my final exams — then they’d figure out that I don't know anything.”
It turns out she knew much more than she gave herself credit for. At the University of Washington, she received a master's degree in chemical engineering before becoming the first woman to graduate from the University’s physical oceanography doctoral program.
“I was a couple of weeks away from my first child’s birth when I defended my Ph.D. After my exam, a member of my committee said to me, ‘So sorry to see you're pregnant, because I was hoping you would have a career in science.’ Though taken aback, I said, ‘Well, I certainly plan to have that career.’ At that time it was still rare for women in academia to have children."
Following graduation, Lozier began her postdoctoral studies at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she met her close friend and research partner, Amy Bower. Together, the pair supported each other on research endeavors and learned how to navigate a male-dominated field with few female mentors and colleagues.
While at Woods Hole, Bower was the first person that Lozier wrote a proposal with, and the two were in the first generation of women to complete postdocs at Woods Hole.
“When I started my postdoc, most of the women who worked on the technical side were data analysts, referred to as ‘data dollies’,” remembers Lozier. “For more than a century before my generation started careers in science, women entered science more or less through the side or back door, meaning that they worked in labs as assistants to the head of the research lab and then worked their way up from there. My generation, or actually the generation before me, was the first generation of women that were coming in the front door, leading their own research from the start.”
Lozier also highlights the fact that even though women were often restricted in the roles they could hold in the scientific endeavor, they were nonetheless able to make some remarkable discoveries. She recommends the non-fiction book “The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars” by Dava Sobel for anyone interested in learning more about the history of women in science during the early 20th century.
As detailed in the book, Lozier explains, “women working at the Harvard Observatory at the time were considered too fragile to be outside at night looking through the telescope. So, their job was to analyze the data in the daylight hours and, in time, the patterns revealed by the data led these women to some remarkable discoveries.”
Reflecting on the opportunities that helped with her personal success and achievement, Lozier shares that the support of mentors and friends was paramount. This reflection struck her while serving on a National Science Foundation panel to review proposals from early career researchers.
“I was looking at all the proposals that were coming in from early career scientists, and of those that were coming in, women were not faring very well, compared to those coming in from male scientists,” she says. “And I realized that while the proposals from early career male scientists — in this case oceanographers — were mostly written in collaboration with a more senior scientist, the proposals from the female early career scientists were not. These young women were the sole investigators on their proposals.”
This realization became the impetus for Lozier to create the Mentoring Physical Oceanography to Increase Retention (MPOWIR) program, which established a mentoring network of physical oceanographers across the country to support and advance the careers of young women in the field. She received funding from five separate federal agencies to launch and maintain the program.
“From my own experience it was obvious that young women entering the field did not have a network of mentors. And then I read studies at the time confirming my own experience, namely that there was an asymmetry in the collaboration and mentoring network for men and women. It was at the time just much harder for junior women to establish networks because they did not arise organically.”
Though Lozier has since passed the leadership of MPOWIR onto other individuals, she shares that she is incredibly proud of the program’s success in advancing the careers of women in oceanography.
Carrying the tradition of mentorship — at Georgia Tech and beyond
As dean of the College of Sciences, Lozier’s work is focused on leading, guiding, and mentoring students, staff, and faculty members — along with leading AGU and the NSF-funded OSNAP: Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program. Her passion for removing barriers to success translates to her goal of fostering an inclusive and equitable culture at Georgia Tech — and beyond.
“One of the things that attracted me to Georgia Tech, and one that I remain very committed to today, is attracting a more diverse student body,” she says. Lozier came to Georgia Tech in September 2019 from Duke University, where she served in various leadership roles including department chair, faculty senate chair, vice provost for strategic planning, co-chair of Duke’s effort to reimagine graduate education, and as the Ronie-Richele Garcia-Johnson Distinguished Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences in the Nicholas School of the Environment.
With this goal of increasing representative enrollments in mind, Lozier recognized the importance of first cultivating a community with a strong focus on diversity and inclusivity at Tech. “Before you are able to attract a more diverse student body, you have to make sure that the community they're coming into is one that is attractive. Otherwise, you can’t retain people.”
Lozier created the College of Sciences Task Force on Racial Equity in June 2020 and charged the committee members to propose actionable and sustainable steps to identify and overcome racial inequity in the College of Sciences (CoS).
“The Task Force on Racial Equality was given two charges. The first one was: how do we build a community where everyone — staff, students and faculty — feels as though they belong? And the second charge was: how do we attract more people of color to this community? I truly believe a more diverse community leads to excellence in teaching and research.”
Lozier has also placed a strong emphasis on ways that scientific discoveries can apply to modern challenges through invention and innovation.
“I'm focused on providing faculty the support they need to work collaboratively on pathways that lead from discovery to solution,” she says.
Lozier also highlights the impact that the pandemic has had on all members of the CoS community and the unique challenges it’s presented to the College and our campus community.
She compares the early, rapid shift to online work to her experience of climbing, one of her passions during graduate school. "At the start of the pandemic, it felt as though I was with a climbing team headed up a mountain and then we somehow lost the map. But adventure in the face of hardship is where strong and trusting relationships are formed — people come together when times are tough to figure out the next steps.”
And back in spring 2020, at the beginning of teleworking and remote teaching and learning, she immediately saw a need to increase communication and create channels for conversation and community support.
“I realized early on that it was better to over communicate than under communicate,” she says. In March, she began writing weekly letters to the College of Sciences staff to share news updates and personal reflections. “I attached a photo of whatever was blooming in my garden and shared news of celebrations in my own life, such as when my mother was vaccinated. And I also started weekly (virtual) drop-ins. These drop-ins are now twice a month for staff and monthly for faculty. I didn’t have these communication pathways on my radar screen before the pandemic, but once we all started sheltering in place, I realized the importance of communication and understood that it needed to be more often — and needed to be more personal.”
Lozier also focuses on the importance of forming one-on-one connections with staff, students, and faculty. She adds that, ultimately, elevating members of the community is her primary passion and the most fulfilling part of her role as dean.
“The most important thing about the College is that at its heart, it is all about people, their ideas and their contributions. Elevating those ideas, and helping people realize their potential — that brings me immense professional and personal satisfaction.”
And in connection with those goals of advancing the representation, stories, and voices of others, Lozier sees International Day of the Girl, marked by the UN each October 11, as an opportunity to share her own story in STEM — and to amplify and advocate for women and girls in STEM around the globe.
As leader of OSNAP (NSF-funded subpolar North Atlantic observing system), Lozier adds that she is proud that the consortium has women from seven different countries representing half of the project’s overall members.
“When I started as a graduate student, it was very rare to have even a female chief scientist. So, it's remarkably different when I go to conferences now, where half of the speakers are women. Over the course of my career, I've seen quite a change — from when women data analysts were called 'data dollies’ to now, where women are chief scientists, leaders of their organizations, and heading up ocean observing systems. It is amazing to me that my field of physical oceanography now has such a strong representation of women. I know though that there is work to do to bring more underrepresented groups into oceanography. In order for our field to thrive, we must be more fully diverse.”
And finally, Lozier encourages people to use October 11th to learn more about global and local opportunities to advance women and girls.
“I encourage everyone to take this opportunity to think about they can do individually and collectively to advance the education of women and girls across the globe. We all have a responsibility to make sure that doors of opportunity are open to everyone.”
Celebrating Hispanic and Latinx Heritage:
September 15 to October 15 is also National Hispanic Heritage Month, which celebrates the contributions and influence of Hispanic and Latinx individuals in all aspects of American life – history, culture, and achievements. Learn more and get involved with Georgia Tech’s Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month celebrations here.
We recently asked several Hispanic and Latinx faculty in the College of Sciences — and one alumnus, who now serves as our Institute’s President — to share some of their early school day stories, the reasons they chose to study science, and their thoughts on the importance of representation in STEM classes and leadership in higher education.
Read Q&As with Ángel Cabrera, Frances Rivera-Hernández, Facundo Fernández and Carlos Silva-Acuña about early school days, why they chose to study science, and their perspectives on the importance of representation in classrooms, labs, and leadership in higher education here.
Related reading:
The School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech is now an official member of the American Chemical Society’s Bridge Program, which aims to boost the number of underrepresented minority M.S. and Ph.D. students in the discipline. Learn more about that program here; get involved with the College of Sciences Racial Equity Taskforce, Faculty Diversity Council, Graduate Student Diversity Council, and campus organizations for math and science students; and read more community stories on heritage and representation here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera isn’t just the first native of Spain to lead an American university. He’s also just one of a handful of Hispanic and Latinx leaders to serve as presidents of major U.S. institutions of higher education.
“It’s not a big group,” he says. “The President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is from Venezuela. The President of the University of Miami is Mexican, and actually served in the Mexican government as Minister of Health. Then there are a few others. It’s not many of us, but there is a small group.”
That story echoes in historical Hispanic and Latinx faculty representation in higher education in the U.S., and in teaching STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) courses in K-12.
And although the number of Hispanic and Latinx students enrolled in colleges and universities has also steadily increased over the past several generations, national representation for this cohort also remains below their share in the U.S. population. “It’s far less in science and engineering majors,” Cabrera adds. “That’s the key. We tend to be under-indexed in engineering and computing, and most of the scientific disciplines.”
That’s why Cabrera values the importance of having Hispanic and Latinx faculty spend time in the community, showing students in grade school that people like them — with similar surnames, backgrounds, and stories — can be scientists, engineers, even university presidents.
And at Georgia Tech, the overall number of Hispanic and Latinx students is on the rise, thanks in large part to sustained initiatives across campus, along with a number of mentoring and outreach efforts led by faculty, staff, students, and alumni advocates. Hispanic and Latinx enrollment recently topped 3,500 at Tech — 500 more than the 2020-21 school year — making up nearly 14% of the undergraduate student body.
Cabrera’s parents weren’t able to go college, but he found a mentor in his uncle as he was growing up in Madrid. “We always looked up to him. He was a great uncle, but also super smart. He was the guy we would call when we had a tough math problem in school. And as I realized that, hey, I’m good at this math stuff, he was always my role model. That’s why I decided to become an engineer.”
Cabrera received a telecommunications engineering degree (equivalent to an B.S. and M.S. in Electrical and Computing Engineering) from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He then received a Fulbright Scholarship to attend graduate school at Georgia Tech. That’s when he decided to switch to Cognitive Psychology, and received a Ph.D. in that discipline from the School of Psychology in the College of Sciences.
What did Hispanic representation look like at Georgia Tech when you were here from 1991-95?
Not great. I don't recall a single Hispanic professor in Psychology nor any another graduate student. There were a few graduate students in the College of Computing and one faculty member, Norberto Ezquerra, with whom I did some work at the Graphics Visualization and Usability center. But yeah, there was not great representation. I think Georgia Tech had always had a reasonable number of Puerto Rican students and international students from Latin American countries. There was a good community for that, but on the faculty side, very rare.
Given your experience, what can and should be done to get more Hispanic and Latinx students in STEM classes in higher education?
Well, first of all, why it is important that we do that? We have a clear mission to educate leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. And that requires that people of all backgrounds be included. We simply cannot respond to the issues of our society if different perspectives are not represented at Georgia Tech. We have a responsibility to make sure that everybody's at the table.
And right now, not just at Georgia Tech but in general — maybe less so in biology — but in physics, math, and definitely computing and most engineering fields — women are underrepresented, Black students are underrepresented, and Hispanic students are underrepresented. And clearly, what the consequences for that will be is technologies and products that don't necessarily respond to every one’s needs. There are plenty of examples of that. Take for example face recognition software, which is notorious for failing with people with dark skins, or machine learning applications that have managed to incorporate many of our society’s stereotypes and prejudices.
I think, because we are one of the leading technological universities in the country, and because we're large, we not only have the opportunity, but we have the responsibility to lead and to figure out ways to change that reality. It's a complex problem with a complex set of causes and solutions. Clearly, we need to improve the number of faculty from different backgrounds. If you don't see it, you can't be it, you can't become it.
There is a piece of that which has to do with training Latino teachers in K-12, increasing representation in our faculty. We know it works — giving students early experiences, bringing them to Georgia Tech, like in Project Engages, for example. And also, all the work that CEISMIC (Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing) does. CEISMIC, by the way, started off in the College of Sciences, then became institute-wide.
That’s the kind of work that we know has an impact — showing up in high schools, training teachers, providing students with a very direct experience. If you haven't been exposed at home — in most cases, it’s having an opportunity to see someone like yourself. Those are the things that can make a difference.
Same question, but let’s make it about faculty. What can and should be done to increase Hispanic and Latinx faculty in higher education?
We have experience with similar programs. We have a program called Focus. Its goal is to bring college students from underrepresented communities, and engage them in a conversation with minority faculty, people like them who have done it, who are succeeding in engineering. And again, we know those interventions work. You just have to be intentional about that, but anything we can do to bring people to a place like Georgia Tech, to engage with peers to look at mentors, faculty members who've done it before you. We know those things work.
Is there anything else you would want faculty and students to know about Hispanic Heritage Month and how it relates to Georgia Tech’s mission?
We're very proud of the many contributions of Hispanic and Latino faculty members in the history of Georgia Tech. We now have a small but incredibly influential group of faculty members at Georgia Tech who are making a difference. And I'm really, really proud of what they're doing. Not only that, but how many of them are doubling their efforts, no matter how busy they are with their own careers. They're finding time to reach out to connect with students, to motivate others to follow suit.
I would also highlight the obvious, which is that we are at an institute that values diversity, that values different backgrounds to the point that they hired a guy like me to be president. I think that honestly goes beyond words — this is walking the talk. This is a university that values the contributions of people regardless of their background.
In fact, the last thing I'll say is that some people sometimes think about efforts of diversity as somehow, in a way, having a negative impact on the quality of Georgia Tech. And what I've always told people is that the more diverse Georgia Tech has become throughout the decades, the more prestigious Georgia Tech has become.
It’s up to you to decide whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship there. But we've never been more diverse than we are today. We've never had the same level of brand recognition and reputation, the same level of applications, the same level of research productivity. We are the living proof that a leading university can benefit tremendously from increased diversity.
September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month, which celebrates the contributions and influence of Hispanic and Latinx individuals in all aspects of American life – history, culture, and achievements.
This month, we’re asking Hispanic and Latinx faculty in the College of Sciences to share some of their early school day stories, the reasons they chose to study science, and their thoughts on the importance of representation in STEM classes and leadership in higher education.
Read Q&As with Frances Rivera-Hernández, Facundo Fernández and Carlos Silva-Acuña about early school days, why they chose to study science, and their perspectives on the importance of representation in classrooms, labs, and leadership in higher education.
Learn more and get involved with Georgia Tech’s Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month celebrations.
Related reading:
The School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech is now an official member of the American Chemical Society’s Bridge Program, which aims to boost the number of underrepresented minority M.S. and Ph.D. students in the discipline. Learn more about that program here; get involved with the College of Sciences Racial Equity Taskforce, Faculty Diversity Council, Graduate Student Diversity Council, and campus organizations for math and science students; and read more community stories on heritage and representation here, here, here, here, here, and here.
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