When College of Sciences External Advisory Board Chair Heidi Schindler (ABIO 1991) was a student at Georgia Tech, she struggled to find help with career opportunities in the sciences.

“Once I decided I didn’t want to go to med school or into academia, the Career Center didn’t have answers for me,” says Schindler. “I found my own way.”

As an alumna, she appreciates the emphasis now placed on student career education and makes student engagement and mentoring a priority.

“Attending events like the Student and Alumni Leadership Dinner is important to me because I don't want students to feel unsupported — like I once felt. Alumni know people. We know the business world, and we want to help students make the connections that shape their futures.”

A Networking Extravaganza

The Student and Alumni Leadership Dinner, organized by College of Sciences Career Educator Program Manager James Stringfellow and Director of Alumni Relations Leslie Roberts, is an annual event that encourages networking and promotes student and alumni engagement.

“It is our premier event,” says Stringfellow. “This year, we were fortunate to have more than 20 alumni in attendance, willing to give their time and expertise to help students prepare for securing a career.”

Attendees included students from all six schools in the College of Sciences. First-year Matthias Keys is a biology major.

“I’m here to gain knowledge and wisdom,” says Keys. “There’s so much to learn from alumni working in the real world.”

Maddie Tibaldi is a fourth-year neuroscience major. “I’ve heard so much about the strength of Georgia Tech’s alumni network. I’m enjoying talking to alums and learning what activities I can do to enhance my professional development.”

Double Jacket Ralph Cullen (PSY 2008, M.S. Human Factors Psychology 2008) attended the Leadership Dinner for the fourth time.

“I enjoy interacting with the students,” says Cullen, a research manager for the quant team at Etsy. “Since I frequently interview job candidates, I can pass on what I look for in a resume and what impresses me in interviews.”

A Big Event with Small Groups

The event kicked off with a special 30-minute session facilitated by Dean of the College of Sciences and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair Susan Lozier who discussed current and future goals for the College and answered questions from students and alumni.

"I’m inspired by the enthusiasm and energy I’ve seen tonight," says Lozier. "In the College of Sciences, we believe in learning that extends beyond the classroom, and our alumni are a vital part of that experience. Their insights can help our students bridge the gap between academic theory and professional practice."

The evening’s activities included Networking Bingo and Speed Networking. The Networking Bingo icebreaker helped alleviate students’ nervousness by providing specific questions to ask alumni. For the speed networking activity, students rotated between tables to talk with alumni about topics such as what they wished they had known in college, making good career decisions, negotiating workplace conflicts, and how to get hired in the real world.

Georgia Tech Career Center Executive Director David Gaston applauded the collective team effort it takes to launch students into professional careers.  

“From faculty and staff to alumni and industry partners, every member plays a crucial role in providing the support, guidance, and opportunities our students need to thrive in their chosen fields,” says Gaston. “ The College of Sciences Student Alumni Leadership Dinner is instrumental in bringing our partners together to allow students to meaningfully engage with professionals in careers they may want to pursue. ”

2024 Internship Company of the Year

During the festivities, Stringfellow announced the inaugural winner of the Internship Company of the Year, BrandSafway. The award honors a company that provides a high-quality learning environment for student interns.  

Lauren Hester, who graduated this past August with a psychology degree, interned with BrandSafway as a Workday case management intern and nominated them for the award.

“It was my first corporate experience and BrandSafway was such a welcoming environment,” says Hester. “There were no dumb questions. I was able to be a sponge and learn so much about how business works. Thank you to BrandSafway for opening that door so I could learn and grow, not just as a scientist, but as someone who is now business savvy.”

BrandSafway President and CEO Karl Fessenden accepted the award.

“We are based in Atlanta and appreciate the benefit of having a world-renowned Institute just 20 minutes from our doors,” says Fessenden. “What we value most about our internship program is that it brings in students who are not only technically skilled but also bring fresh perspectives and innovative ideas to our organization. We are a better company because of our internship program.”

When presenting the award, Hester related that she heard about the internship at a networking event hosted by the College of Sciences and the Career Center:

"Networking really does pay off!”

A wellness course at Georgia Tech was redesigned for the fall to help first-year students better navigate the challenges of college life. The course, APPH 1040: Scientific Foundations of Health, expands the Institute’s First-Year Wellness Experience (FYWE), which promotes student wellness across multiple areas.

“This course bridges the academic and well-being experiences of the student,” says Christie Stewart, co-director of the wellness course and senior academic professional in the School of Biological Sciences. “We designed it to help students develop habits that support their overall success, both in and out of the classroom.”  

Teaching Wellness from Day One 

APPH 1040 gives students practical strategies they can apply immediately. The course now covers topics like sleep improvement, stress management, resilience, and social wellness to help students better adapt to college life. 

Becky James, one of the course instructors, encourages students to take a holistic approach. “Students are empowered to take a whole-person perspective and explore how wellness dimensions relate, overlap, and play a role in their well-being,” says James.  

First-year mechanical engineering student Gargi Telang says the course is reshaping her perspective. “Each lecture focuses on a different aspect of wellness,” she says. “My professor doesn’t just tell us what to do — she explains why. This approach has completely transformed my mindset. I wish I could take this course every semester at Tech. You show up, you reap the benefits.”   

Fostering Community and Belonging

In addition to individual wellness, the course emphasizes building social connections. “Social wellness is about creating a community. It’s important that students connect to their classmates and find a sense of belonging,” says Stewart. “With a focus on mental health both campus-wide and nationwide, we needed to take a closer look at our culture of wellness and how we can build that on campus.”  

First-year computer science student Ella Foster says the focus on collaboration and self-discovery is one of the course’s strengths. “I love how we are working together to establish roles for our research projects based on our CliftonStrengths Assessments — a tool that helps people identify their natural talents.” 

Strengthening an Established Program

Faculty redesigned the curriculum of the existing APPH 1040 course to better align with FYWE and the eight key dimensions of well-being (financial, spiritual, environmental, intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and occupational well-being). Supported by partnerships with Housing and Residence Life, the Center for Mental Health Care and Resources, and the Wellness Empowerment Center, the FYWE provides a range of services designed to promote student well-being, including peer support networks and designated residence halls.  

“Many first-year students face stress related to academic rigor, making it essential to introduce them to wellness strategies early in their college careers,” says Stewart.  

This year, the new APPH 1040 piloted two cohorts of 48 students each — one on the east and west side of campus. Feedback through student surveys will help improve future courses.  

“The first year is an integral part of a student’s foundation for success,” says School of Biological Sciences Lecturer Sasha McBurse. “By the completion of this course, students will have strategies to overcome adversity and a game plan for improving their wellness for life.”  

First-year computer science student Ayden Beard says this semester was the perfect time for him to take the course. “It’s given me so many tips on ways to develop healthy habits, manage stress, and maintain a happy, healthy life.”  

The course will be offered again in the spring. 

You can find more information on Georgia Tech’s wellness programs and events here and the School of Biological Sciences’ wellness courses here.   

 From sending cancer into remission to alleviating Covid-19 symptoms, immunotherapy can provide revolutionary disease treatments. Immunotherapies use antibodies — proteins that bind to cell markers called antigens — to target and eliminate the antigen. But despite how effective immunotherapy can be, it isn’t widely used because finding the right antibodies to develop treatments is challenging, time-consuming work.

Georgia Tech researchers are making this process a little easier, though. Their new tool, AF2Complex, used deep learning to predict which antibodies could bind to Covid-19’s infamous spike protein. The researchers created input data for the deep-learning model using sequences of known antigen binders. This method correctly predicted 90% of the best antibodies in one test with 1,000 antibodies and was recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Treating Covid-19 is just the start of its potential. 

“AF2Complex improves therapeutic development,” said Mu Gao, a senior research scientist in the School of Biological Sciences (SBS). “If you have a high-quality model, then you can tinker with the protein sequence and optimize the antibody, making it more suitable for drug development.”

Developing the Deep-Learning Model

The researchers weren’t the first to use deep learning to predict protein structures, but they did considerably expand the model’s capabilities. In 2020, the Nobel Prize-winning DeepMind AlphaFold, an Alphabet project, made breakthroughs using deep learning to predict the protein structures of single proteins. Georgia Tech researchers pushed the model to predict the structures of protein complexes. In 2021, they created the first version of AF2Complex, which could predict interactions between multiple, complex proteins like E. coli. Applying it to human proteins was the next step — but much harder.

“Normally, when you predict protein-protein interactions, the surface area of the protein is quite large, so you could afford to make a few mistakes with an imperfect model,” said Jeffrey Skolnick, a Regents’ Professor and the Mary and Maisie Gibson Chair in SBS and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar.  “But an antibody-protein interaction occupies a much smaller interfacial area. Imagine going from hitting a big target anywhere to hitting the bullseye.”

Determining how to predict the antibody-antigen interactions was the biggest challenge. The researchers focused on the Covid-19 virus because it had many complex antigen-binding sequences and epitopes, the specific molecule region that interacts with B- and T-cells to trigger an immune response. Covid-19 also was a widely available dataset, unlike many immunotherapies to which only pharmaceutical companies have access. The Covid-19 database, in effect, offered a rich training environment for the AF2 algorithm. 

Skolnick and Gao used Covid-19 sequences from known antibodies to identify evolutionary relationships and patterns, improving the accuracy of predictions. From there, they applied the AF2 deep-learning model, already trained on a vast amount of protein structure data. The model used sequences to predict how proteins fold and interact, developing a 3D structure of protein complexes. Plus, it could produce 3D structures for more than just one dominant epitope.

The predictions were validated against experimental data, refining the model. With these predicted structures, researchers can do everything from better understanding biological processes to developing new drugs.

Treating the Virus of the Future

The researchers believe deep-learning technologies could revolutionize how we treat future diseases. With infinite resources and time, researchers could manually try every antibody-antigen combination, but no scientist has that. AF2Complex can narrow the focus and get to the treatment sooner. 

“Imagine the virus from hell arises. You could design a series of antibodies using this algorithm, so it cuts down the time for vaccine development,” Skolnick said. “There are no substitutes for a real experiment, but AF2Complex can prioritize which experiments you should do, so you have more shots at the goal.”

The researchers are already collaborating with Emory University to conduct experiments that validate AF2Complex’s findings. They also are pursuing a path to commercialize the model. When the next pandemic starts, we will be better prepared.

The  National Institutes of Health provided, and the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation supported, the main computing resources.

Benjamin Freeman has been named a 2024 Packard Fellow for groundbreaking research in climate change and bird ecology. Freeman, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences, will receive $875,000 to fund his work.

“From all of us in Biological Sciences, we’re thrilled to see Ben Freeman named a Packard Fellow,” says School Chair Jeffrey (Todd) Streelman. “Ben’s research is important, compelling, and creative — a triple-threat combination that justifies this recognition.”

Awarded annually to only 20 individuals by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Packard Fellows are known for pursuing cutting-edge research, never-before-done projects, and ambitious goals. 

“These scientists and engineers are the architects of tomorrow, leading innovation with bold ideas and unyielding determination,” shares Nancy Lindborg, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Packard Foundation. “Their work today will be the foundation for the breakthroughs of the future, inspiring the next wave of discovery and invention.” 

“I'm flabbergasted to receive this prestigious award,” says Freeman. “Packard support will be transformative. It will give me the freedom to do the sorts of risky projects that I've dreamed about, and will support the intense fieldwork that I'm convinced is necessary to understand big questions in climate change ecology.”

The Packard funding will support Freemans most ambitious project to date: developing “Tech Mountain” in the tropics, a long-term field project focused on surveying thousands of individual birds. From mountain slope to summit, he will track their motions, their nests and predators, where they live, eat, move, and die — and how this changes as temperatures warm.

The pioneer study will shape a window into how birds and other organisms are responding to our changing climate, while developing technology and methodology that could revolutionize the fields of ecology and biology.

The escalator to extinction

Freeman’s previous research has shown that, in general, birds are moving to higher elevations as our climate changes. 

“I found that as it's gotten warmer in the tropics, it's set in motion what I call an escalator to extinction,” he explains. “Birds are living at higher and higher elevations, and those that were common on a mountain top when I was a toddler in Peru are now gone from that mountain.”

While this previous research has shown that tropical birds are on this escalator, it hasn’t been possible to determine the specifics: which birds might be most vulnerable and what the key stressors are.

Freeman explains that “Tech Mountain” will be a first-of-its-kind field site, equipped with innovative sensors and trackers — think cameras placed on nets, recording equipment, climatic sensors, and small individual trackers on each bird.

“I want to figure out what drives their birth rates, where they're dying, and where they're moving during the course of their life,” he shares. “That will help us unravel how this escalator to extinction works.”

Building ‘Tech Mountain’

Several thousand meters tall, encompassing lowland rainforest, foothill rainforest, and cloud forest, Freeman’s field site will feature dense vegetation, steep grades, and encompass several different climatic zones — each with unique species.

Along its slopes, Freeman’s team will find, catch, mark, and follow the lives of thousands of individual birds across hundreds of species — for a minimum of five years, but potentially for decades. It’s never been done before.

Currently, most GPS trackers are too large for small birds, and smaller trackers capture limited information. Additionally, these smaller trackers cannot wirelessly transfer data — in order to download and access the data, each bird must be recaptured.

“The conditions are tough. It’s rugged. It’s humid. It’s cloudy and wet. We’ll need to put resources into developing technology that fits our needs, and experiment with different ways of tracking individuals in these difficult conditions,” Freeman says.

Freeman will also leverage eBird, an online hub where community scientists can upload their observations. “Millions upon millions of observations are uploaded by community scientists, citizen scientists, birders — people,” he adds. “And using this data, we can estimate the vulnerability of mountain bird species — which species seem to be shrinking their ranges and declining in abundance.”

This builds on Freeman’s current work creating the Mountain Bird Network, which supports community scientists in conducting bird surveys on their local mountains.

Georgia Tech and global connections

Freeman’s tools and methodologies could revolutionize fieldwork for ecologists and biologists, opening the door for rigorous new field studies.

It will also provide opportunities to deepen collaborations abroad. “I'm planning on working closely with Dr. Elisa Bonaccorso's lab at the University of San Francisco, Quito (USFQ Ecuador),” Freeman says, “and I’m looking forward to that collaboration. The Packard funding will also support work in Ecuador conducted by an Ecuadorian graduate student who is studying at Georgia Tech.”

Throughout the research, students will be at the heart of the projects. “I take mentoring scientists very seriously,” Freeman shares. “Undergraduates will have the opportunity to get involved on the biology side of this research, the computational side, and on the engineering side of the research. They’ll even help develop new tracking technologies.

The Packard Fellowship will not only support my research — but help me provide these opportunities in the coming years to Georgia Tech’s future scientists.”