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

See the complete feature here.

Bryan Gomez

Fourth-year student, Biochemistry and Neuroscience

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

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

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

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

Rebecca Hammond

Master's student, Media and Cultural Studies

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

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

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

4 Inside Clough Commons.

Vanesa Vargas

Third-year student, Neuroscience

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

2 Tech Square at night.

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

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

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

Karam Jivani

First-year student, Computer Science

1 Students practice juggling near the Einstein statue.

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

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

4 Students participate in a fencing orientation at the CRC.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MOATAI-VIR methodology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Related News

Skolnick and Team Win Next Stage of NCATS Competition

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

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

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

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

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

Read more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About ADVANCE

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

About Jennifer Curtis

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of the story here. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Applying for a Jefferson Science Fellowship

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

Learn more and apply here.

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

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

Read the rest of the story here. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About ADVANCE

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

About Jennifer Curtis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Applying for a Jefferson Science Fellowship

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

Learn more and apply here.

The College of Sciences is pleased to share the appointment of Young-Hui Chang as associate dean of Faculty for the College. Chang, a professor and associate chair for Faculty Development in the School of Biological Sciences, will assume his new role July 1, 2023.

“In this new role,” Chang says, “I am looking forward to learning about how our faculty are leading and excelling across the College of Sciences. My hope is to support each school in recruiting the best faculty possible, to increase the diversity of our ranks, and to help our faculty succeed at Georgia Tech.”

The associate dean for Faculty is responsible for developing, implementing, and assessing programs that enhance the instructional, research, and career opportunities for faculty. Key areas of responsibility include faculty hiring, mentoring of faculty, faculty retention, promotion, and tenure; and diversity, equity, and inclusion at the faculty level.

“Because of his service to Biological Sciences as the associate chair for Faculty Development over the past six years, Young-Hui will bring a wealth of experience to this new position,” 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 (EAS). “He impressed the search committee and me with his commitment to faculty excellence, support and advancement.

“I am grateful to Greg Huey, chair of EAS, for chairing the search committee and to Jennifer Leavey, Wing Li, and Lewis Wheaton for serving on the committee. Thanks also to Juliet Dawson-Dyce for providing administrative support to the committee,” Lozier added.

“I was really humbled, and [am] honored to be taking on this role,” Chang says. “I see it as an opportunity to support my colleagues in the College and give back to the Institute that has supported me through my own academic journey.

“In my role as associate chair for Faculty Development in Biological Sciences, I was able to see how exceptional our faculty are,” he added, “from the ones dedicated to teaching and serving our students, to those on the leading edge in their respective fields of research — and how I could use my position to support their individual professional goals.”

The College’s inaugural associate dean for Faculty, Matt Baker, appointed 2018, is one of 39 researchers around the country named to the 2023 Class of Simons Fellows. Baker, a professor in the School of Mathematics, will use the fellowship and a Georgia Tech Faculty Development Grant for a sabbatical in 2023-2024. 

“We will soon have a proper send-off to thank Matt Baker for his service over the past five years, but I would be remiss if I did not also take this opportunity to thank him for his many contributions to the College,” Lozier says.

About Young-Hui Chang

Chang is the director of the Comparative Neuromechanics Laboratory in the School of Biological Sciences, where he also currently serves as a professor and as associate chair for Faculty Development. 

His research program focuses on trying to understand how animals move through and interact with their environment. He integrates approaches and techniques from both biomechanics and neurophysiology to study both passive mechanical and active neural mechanisms that control limbed locomotion in humans and other vertebrates.