James Stroud has been named a 2025 Packard Fellow for his pioneering research in evolutionary biology. Stroud, Elizabeth Smithgall-Watts Early Career Assistant Professor in the School of Biological Sciences, will receive $875,000 over five years to fund his work on “Lizard Island” in South Florida. His goal? To create evolution’s first high-definition map — with the help of 1,000 backpack-wearing lizards.

Awarded annually to just 20 individuals by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering support researchers pursuing cutting-edge research and ambitious goals. “These visionary Packard Fellows are pushing the boundaries of knowledge, and their bold ideas will become tomorrow’s real-world solutions,” says Nancy Lindborg, president and CEO of the Packard Foundation in a recent press release.

The flexible funding allows researchers to maximize their creativity and ingenuity. Stroud will spend the next five years transforming Lizard Island into the world’s premier evolutionary observatory, merging groundbreaking technology with long-term field research.

On Lizard Island, that means equipping every lizard with an ultra-lightweight sensor “backpack.” Although the sensors weigh just six-hundredths of a gram each — the same as two grains of rice — when combined with innovations in mapping technology, they will help Stroud investigate the role that behavior plays in driving evolution in the wild.

“I’m incredibly honored to be named a 2025 Packard Fellow,” says Stroud. “This support allows me to pursue a question that has fascinated evolutionary biologists for centuries: how does behavior shape evolution? It’s a transformative opportunity, and I’m deeply grateful to the Packard Foundation for believing in the potential of this work.”

Tiny sensors, big questions

Begun in 2015, Stroud’s work on Lizard Island is one of the longest-running evolutionary studies of its kind: for the last 10 years, he has carefully caught and released every lizard on the island, measuring evolution through documenting their body characteristics, habitat use, and survival.

Through his studies, he has captured evolution in action, but monitoring and measuring behavior in evolutionary studies has historically been an extremely difficult and elusive task. The problem? While smaller animals tend to have higher population densities and reproduce more quickly (making them ideal candidates for evolutionary field studies), it has been difficult to find durable and long-lasting sensors small enough for these animals to carry.

“This has been a missing link because behavior is a critical component of evolution,” Stroud says. “Behavior can both expose individuals to — or shield them from — natural selection. For example, an animal with a less favorable trait, like bad eyesight, could change its behavior to avoid situations where it is disadvantaged. 

“These decisions can ultimately determine whether they survive and reproduce in the wild, directly influencing the outcome of natural selection. However, until now, we just haven’t had the technology to measure these types of extremely intricate behaviors across many individuals before.”

Mapping the future

Stroud won’t just know exactly where each lizard is — he’ll also create a detailed three-dimensional map of the entire island using remote sensing technology called LiDAR, updating it each year. “By shooting millions of laser beams, we can create a highly detailed three-dimensional map of Lizard Island, capturing the shape of every branch, rock, and blade of grass on the island,” he explains. “When connected to our lizard backpacks, we’ll know the exact microhabitats and resources available to each lizard as they move through this environment.”

Stroud will also deploy hundreds of microclimate sensors to understand how species are reacting to changes in temperature and climate. The result will be the world’s first comprehensive database: a record of minute lizard movements, the resources each individual uses, daily interactions, and changes in the environment spanning seasons and years. 

“For evolutionary scientists, it has been seemingly impossible to track the moment-by-moment decisions of individual organisms… until now,” he says.

“Today, it’s possible to study what Darwin could only dream of — evolution occurring in real time,” Stroud adds. “Behavior is a critical component of evolution, understanding evolution is critical to understanding life on Earth, and understanding life on Earth is more important than ever.”

The annual “What’s New in Atlanta?” event hosted by the Atlanta Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience will be held at the Hatchery at Emory Point on Wednesday, November 12th from 6-8 pm. There will free parking (validation sticker provided at registration desk) and light bites for you to enjoy while you preview the best of Atlanta Neuroscience and connect with folks from our ATL peer institutions. Trainees at all levels (including undergraduates) are encouraged to sign up to present a poster, especially if they will be presenting at SfN, so they can get practice and important feedback before performing on the international stage, but we also welcome recycled posters from other events. 

To register to attend, please use this link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/acsfn-whats-new-in-atlanta-neuroscience-tickets-1797583814579?aff=oddtdtcreator. If you are interested in presenting a poster, please register no later than Wednesday, November 5th (one week beforehand). Just be sure to select “General Admission with Poster Abstract Submission” rather than “General Admission” for your registration type, and fill out the information requested, including title and abstract for your poster (please note that the same boxes will show up for General Admission, but you can just ignore these if you aren’t submitting a poster).

 There is a great lineup of faculty speakers this year that will each give ~5 min. talks about their research:

  •  Vanessa Brown, Emory, “Using neurocomputational learning theory to understand the role of uncertainty in anxiety”
  • Sulagna Das, Emory, “RNA dynamics in neuronal health and diseases”
  • Matthew Flavin, Georgia Tech, “Treating sensory impairments with epidermal virtual reality and neural interfaces”
  • Ming-Fai Fong, Georgia Tech and Emory, “Promoting learning and plasticity in the visually-deprived brain”
  • Anna Ivanova, Georgia Tech, “Dissociating language and thought in humans and in machines”
  • Brielle James, Agnes Scott, “Cognitive control and biases in judgment and decision-making”
  • Zachary Johnson, Emory, “Profiling the social brain at cellular resolution”
  • Nathan McDonald, Georgia Tech, “Molecular control of synapse formation by biomolecular condensates”

Please email jbolton@gsu.edu with any questions. 

Event Details

Are you interested in cognitive neuroscience? Come to the trainee social event from 2:30-3:30 at the Center for Advanced Brain Imaging (CABI) to meet with students and post docs who are studying cog neuro!

Register here: https://forms.gle/SgXdeoh2hvvjSspp7

Event Details

Abstract: At the crux of human bipedalism and childbirth is the ilium, which evolved to be shorter, broader, and parasagittally curved, compared to cranio-caudally tall, coronally-oriented ilia of other apes. Here, using histological, morphological, comparative genomic and functional genomic approaches on ethically collected human samples and museum-collected prenatal primates, we reveal that underlying this human iliac shape are two key developmental shifts. First, the human iliac growth plate underwent a spatial shift in orientation, residing perpendicular to that present in all other primate and mouse ilia and using molecular methods, we discovered human accelerated sequence changes in numerous molecular pathways, permitting undifferentiated iliac skeletal cells to shift the direction of their outgrowth. Second, the human ilium experienced a timing shift in bone ossification unlike that observed for human long-bones, or in non-human primate ilia and long-bones. Here, human iliac ossification initiates at the posterior border, then radiates anteriorly, but remains external with external cells contributing initially to the production of bone as compared to chimpanzees and other primates, where internal ossification of the ilium is like other long bones. Underlying this shift are regulatory changes in other molecular pathways. The consequence of these shifts is a human pelvis that can grow, permit proper muscle orientation and function, all-the-while retaining its complex unique human shape for walking and birthing functions later in life.

Event Details

This fall, 20 Georgia Tech students published a peer-reviewed scientific paper — the culmination of work done during a semester-long laboratory course. During the semester, students analyzed genomes sequenced from marine samples collected in Key West, Florida — doing hands-on original bioinformatics research on par with graduate students and working with bioinformatics tools to explore drug discovery potential.

The course, BIOS 4590, is a research project lab for senior biology majors that provides an opportunity for professors to share their expertise with students in a hands-on environment. In his class, Associate Professor Vinayak (Vinny) Agarwal, who holds joint appointments in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Biological Sciences, aimed to introduce undergraduates to advanced bioinformatics tools through applied research using new-to-science raw data. 

The resulting paper, “Phylogenomic Identification of a Highly Conserved Copper-Binding RiPP Biosynthetic Gene Cluster in Marine Microbulbifer Bacteria,” which was recently published in ACS Chemical Biology, involves the historically understudied genus of Microbulbifer, a type of bacteria often associated with sponges and corals. These microbial communities are rich sources of natural products, small biological molecules often associated with medicine and drug discovery. 

"This class, and the resulting research, is a testament to the transformative power of hands-on learning,” says Susan Lozier, dean of the College of Sciences, Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair, and professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “The success of this course — and the students’ remarkable achievement — reflects Georgia Tech's commitment to fostering curiosity, collaboration, and scientific rigor and to empowering the next generation of scientists and leaders."

Funded by Agarwal’s 2023 National Science Foundation CAREER grant and Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar award, the class also received support from leadership in the College of Sciences, School of Biological Sciences, and School Chemistry and Biochemistry. The study’s lead author, graduate student Yifan (Grace) Tang, served as the class teaching assistant, and was funded in part by a Biochemistry and Biophysics Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need fellowship. 

“The students in this class are working on important, novel work — this cohort worked with real genomic data that had never been sequenced before,” she says. “Typically, researchers might work with one or two genome sequences, but we provided students with 42 — this might be the first time anyone has looked at Microbulbifer at such a wide scope.” 

From classroom to publication

To prepare for the class, Tang worked alongside Laboratory Manager Alison Onstine, who manages the School of Biological Sciences teaching laboratory spaces, to sequence the Key West bacterial genomes.

“Our work in the Agarwal Lab is in natural product discovery. We focus on finding new pharmaceutical drugs through marine bacteria — but with a bioinformatics spin,” Tang explains. “We wanted to bring this type of experience to undergraduates, so we gave fully sequenced genomes to students and asked them to look for potential properties.” 

Throughout the class, students learned different techniques for analyzing bacterial genome sequences and extracting data with various tools — gaining both lab and computational skills through hands-on experiences, live demos, and troubleshooting sessions. 

“The highlight was showing students just how much we can learn about a bacterial genus, especially one that hasn’t been studied at this scale before,” Tang shares. “This is a growing field, so there are so many opportunities for students to make meaningful contributions while learning new skills.”

Empowering future students

For many students, it was their first time using these types of tools, but Agarwal says that it’s something they'll likely encounter in both industry and research. He sees this type of research experience as especially helpful for seniors, who are often deciding between entering the workforce or continuing their education.

“Bioinformatics is increasingly important for analyzing big data. Students need the ability to manipulate and understand data using computational tools, and this class plays an important role in familiarizing them with this process,” he shares. “Our goal is to demystify research and give students the confidence and tools for both graduate school and for the workforce after graduation.”

The class will be offered for a third time in Fall 2026. While the exact course of research hasn’t yet been decided, “we always aim for something new that can produce publication-quality research — students don’t repeat past year’s work,” Agarwal says. This recent cohort of students built on the success of 18 undergraduates who took the class in 2023, who also published a paper. “This course truly underscores Georgia Tech’s commitment to pioneering meaningful undergraduate experiences — no other peer institution I know of is exposing undergraduates to bioinformatics at this level.”

 

Funding: NSF CAREER and the Dreyfus Foundation

Flooding dominated the headlines of summer 2025. Atypical storms and rising rivers in the Texas Hill Country washed away an entire summer camp. Glacial snow melt, combined with flash river floods, caused hundreds of deaths in Pakistan. As the Atlantic hurricane season hits its peak, Americans wait to see if another storm may be as unexpectedly devastating as 2024’s Hurricane Helene. 

Flooding can be an existential threat, affecting everything from infrastructure to health. Georgia Tech researchers are developing solutions to monitor and forecast flooding, as well as restore ecosystems to prevent future flooding. These efforts support communities’ resilience in the face of climate change and keep the U.S. secure.

Read more »

The 2025 round of Sustainability Next Research Seed Grants has been awarded to 17 transdisciplinary research teams representing a vibrant network of 51 collaborators from across Georgia Tech. These teams span 21 unique units from six of the seven Colleges, including Schools, research centers, and Interdisciplinary Research Institutes. 

The seed grant program, administered by the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS), reaches many faculty members from a diverse array of disciplines due to the generous support provided by broad-based partnerships in addition to the Sustainability Next funds. This year’s partners are the Georgia Tech Arts Initiative, BBISS, Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, College of Design, School of City and Regional Planning, School of Computer Science, Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business, Energy Policy and Innovation Center, Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, Institute for Matter and Systems, Institute for People and Technology, Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Strategic Energy Institute, and Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education.

The goal of the program is to nurture promising research areas for future large-scale collaborative sustainability research, research translation, and/or high-impact outreach; to provide mid-career faculty with leadership and community-building opportunities; and to broaden and strengthen the Georgia Tech sustainability community as a whole. The call for proposals was modeled after the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research’s Moving Teams Forward and Forming Teams programs.

Looking ahead, BBISS will support and nurture these projects in collaboration with the relevant funding partners. Beginning in October, BBISS will host a series of focused workshops designed to foster collaboration and provide additional support to help advance these initiatives. Projects have been grouped into five thematic clusters, each of which will be the focus of an upcoming workshop:

  • Circularity Programs
  • Adaptation to the Changing Environment
  • Community Engagement and Education
  • Climate Science and Solutions
  • Environmental and Health Impacts

BBISS faculty fellows, past seed grant recipients, and other interested Georgia Tech faculty are invited to participate. If you are interested in participating in the workshops, please email kristin.janacek@gatech.edu. The first session on Circularity Programs is Oct. 16 at 1 p.m. in the Peachtree Room (3rd floor) of the John Lewis Student Center.

The 2025 Sustainability Next Seed Grant awards are:

Forming Teams:

Moving Teams Forward:

This round of funding was highly competitive, with 45 proposals submitted. BBISS extends its gratitude to all the individuals and groups who applied, as well as to the faculty and staff who contributed their time and expertise to evaluate the proposals. Their thoughtful input was essential to achieving a fair and collaborative selection process, ensuring that the awarded proposals align strongly with the BBISS’ strategy and show promise for long-term impact and future research opportunities.

According to BBISS Executive Director Beril Toktay, and Brady Family Chair in Management, “The high level of participation demonstrates the enduring commitment to sustainability research and engagement by the Georgia Tech community. BBISS honors this commitment by looking for collaboration opportunities with all who are driving sustainability efforts at Georgia Tech.”

The College of Sciences hosted its first-ever Distinguished Alumni Awards Celebration to honor eight alumni who embody the Institute’s motto of Progress and Service and reflect the transformative power of an education from Georgia Tech. Held at the Historic Academy of Medicine, the event brought together more than 200 faculty, students, and alumni, including Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera, a College of Sciences alumnus, and Alumni Association President Dene Sheheane.

“A university’s success is measured and reflected in the achievements of its alumni,” notes Cabrera. “It is a great source of pride for Georgia Tech to recognize these College of Sciences alumni and their impressive accomplishments — across the world and at Georgia Tech.”

Six alumni — one from each School — received the Distinguished Alumni Award:

School of Biological Sciences

Jack McCallum, Applied Biology 1966, a surgeon-turned-entrepreneur and educator, was honored for his contributions to medicine, business, and philanthropy. He joked that medical school was easier than Georgia Tech.

School of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Kelly Sepcic Pfeil, M.S. Chemistry 1992, Ph.D. Chemistry 2003, a scientific leader in flavor and sweetener technology, was recognized for her global career and support of women in chemistry. She thanked Tech for supporting her as a young working mother who traveled globally for business while earning her graduate degrees.

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Rutt Bridges, Physics 1973, M.S. Geophysical Sciences 1975, a pioneer in seismic software and climate solutions, author, and venture fund owner, was celebrated for his entrepreneurial success and philanthropy. His introduction revealed that he worked for $3.50 a day as a roustabout and well digger before Georgia Tech.

School of Mathematics

Frank Cullen, Math 1973, M.S. Industrial and Systems Engineering 1976,
Ph.D. Industrial and Systems Engineering 1984, a serial entrepreneur and longtime supporter of faculty research, was honored for his business leadership and philanthropic impact. He entered Georgia Tech at just 16 years old — and didn’t leave for 14 more years!

School of Physics

Nathan Meehan, Physics 1975, a globally recognized petroleum engineer, business leader, and educator, was celebrated for his technical leadership and commitment to early-career scientists. His introduction showcased his many professional accolades as well as his self-proclaimed status as the “best BBQ cook of his generation.”

School of Psychology

Margaret Beier, M.S. Psychology 1999, Ph.D. Psychology 2004, now chair of Psychological Sciences at Rice University, was honored for her research on lifelong learning and academic leadership. She thanked the faculty and researchers who inspired and supported her, enabling her to realize her dreams.

The evening also included two special honors:

The Young Scientist Award 

Kristel Bayani Topping, Ph.D. Physiology 2021, a principal researcher at The Home Depot, dedicated her win to her two young daughters and thanked her mentor School of Biological Sciences Professor Lewis Wheaton for helping her become a “better scientist and leader.”

The Impact Award 

John Clark Sutherland, Physics 1962, M.S. Physics 1964, Ph.D. Physics 1967, currently the dean of Science and Mathematics at Augusta University, was recognized for being an exceptional graduate whose sustained engagement, visionary leadership, and strategic support significantly advanced the College’s mission. Sutherland spoke about how far Georgia Tech has come since he was a student and the importance of continuing to invest in the Institute’s future through student support.

“This celebration marks a significant milestone for our College,” says Susan Lozier, dean of the College of Sciences and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair. “Our alumni are not just a part of our history; they are central to our future. Their leadership, generosity, and engagement support our faculty and inspire our students.”

In her closing remarks, Lozier thanked alumni Paul Goggin, Physics 1991, and Charlie Crawford, Applied Mathematics 1971, for their help in creating the celebration as well as Leslie Roberts, director of Alumni Relations, for “her vision, persistence, and championship of an alumni recognition event.”

The awards presentation concluded with a rousing performance by the Georgia Tech Glee Club and a reception to celebrate the award winners.

“It was an amazing night recognizing eight incredible alumni who have made such a difference in the world,” says Roberts. “What struck me the most about this night was the humility of our honorees. In their speeches, they thanked Georgia Tech for launching their careers and recognized others for their efforts. They are truly an inspiration to the Yellow Jacket community.”

 

 

Students, alumni, faculty, staff, and friends are cordially invited to celebrate Georgia Tech Homecoming 2025 with the College of Sciences. 

Join us on Tech Tower Lawn two hours before kickoff to reconnect, celebrate, and make new memories with the College of Sciences community. There will be food, games, and TVs available to watch the game right from our tent. 

Register for the College of Sciences Homecoming Tailgate.

Event Details

Abstract: TBD

Event Details

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