Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

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, 4^th 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

Like the Olympics, the International Congress of Mathematicians only meets once every four years. Like that global athletic competition, medals are presented to those who excel. In this case, they’re presented to those with breakthrough research on subjects like topology, random matrices, combinatorics. 

Simply being asked to present research at an ICM is, as Davide Castelvecchi wrote in a 2015 Nature story, “the equivalent, in this community, of an induction to a hall of fame.” So imagine the pride at the School of Mathematics when it learned that it will have not one, but two lecturers at the 2022 ICM, scheduled for July 6-14 in St. Petersburg, Russia.  Associate Professor Jennifer Hom and Assistant Professor Konstantin Tikhomirov have accepted invitations from ICM committees to speak at the conference. 

“The ICM speaker invitations are a major news item in the mathematics community every four years. The invitations carry very high prestige, selected with extreme diligence to highlight leading breakthroughs across all of mathematics,” explains Rachel Kuske, Professor and Chair of the School of Mathematics. “An invitation signals innovative research that is driving future discovery. A single invitation in any cycle is a source of great pride for the home department of the speaker, and more than one is particularly noteworthy, reflecting the impressive talent joining the School in recent years.  Of course, we are well aware that our pioneering colleagues Jennifer and Konstantin are leading the world in their fields, but we are very pleased by the community's agreement, via this exceptional international recognition.”

“It was a very pleasant surprise to get the email,” says Hom. “It wasn’t something that was on my radar. Most mathematicians do math because they find it interesting and challenging and fun, and things like this are the icing on the cake.”

The invitation also came as a surprise to Tikhomirov. “I was extremely happy, of course, and I didn’t expect it,” he says. “People usually get invited earlier. I was not really expecting this because it’s a hard thing, it’s a very rare event, once every four years.”

Hom echoes Kuske when she says having two Georgia Tech researchers speaking at ICM “speaks highly of the quality of math being done at the School of Mathematics.”

Hom hasn’t decided the specific topic of her lecture, but her mathematical research focuses on low-dimensional topology. Topology is the study of shapes and spaces that can be stretched, twisted, and otherwise deformed, but never broken or torn. These spaces are called manifolds; for example, the surface of a donut is a two-dimensional manifold. Low-dimensional topology is the sub-discipline interested in topological spaces of four or fewer dimensions. The study of manifolds can help bring simplicity to the understanding of more complex structures in math and physics. 

“I’m lucky enough to sit and think about totally abstract things just for the sake of finding patterns,” she says. “There’s so much more to math than what people see in high school, or what average college students see in the math class. A lot of high school math is focused on getting you to calculus, and that’s a small part of the really cool math that’s out there.”

Tikhomirov’s research is in discrete probability, which tries to bring structure and predictability to chance in the form of modeling. Take a coin flip, for example. “If I could measure the parameters of the coins, and figure out how much muscle you use to flip the coin, and figure for the activity of neurons, I would be able to predict the outcome — heads or tails,” he explains. “But that’s too complicated” to compute outcomes in that way. “Probability, in that respect, is designed to model things. So you have a complicated system, and then you can construct a model that inherits some properties of real physical systems, but at least you can make some predictions.”

The Georgia Tech Alumni Association has released its annual list of young graduates working to change our world, with six College of Sciences alumni from three schools among those honored in the 2021 class of the Tech’s 40 Under 40.

The program, launched last year, seeks to recognize and celebrate Georgia Tech alumni under the age of 40 who have innovated industries and positively impacted communities across the globe.

As the Alumni Association notes, “Georgia Tech’s impact reaches every industry, every part of the globe, and every aspect of people’s lives through the work of our esteemed alumni. These 40 talented individuals have made significant contributions in their fields at an early age. From saving endangered coral reefs in the Caribbean to building a space station near the Moon to paving the way for Black-owned businesses to thrive in Atlanta, these individuals are changing the world for the better.”

Nominees must have completed at least one semester at Georgia Tech, be under the age of 40 as of June 30, 2021, and have made an impact in their profession or community, spanning all industries and sectors. A committee of 21 faculty, staff, and volunteer leaders, who collectively represented all Georgia Tech colleges, scored each nominee using a 25-point rubric.

Profiles on each member of this year’s cohort will be printed in the fall issue of the Alumni magazine, set for mid-October mailing.

Until then, you can learn about the 2021 class on the Alumni Association’s website, and read on to meet the six inspiring College of Sciences alumni recognized in this year’s class:

Arindam Basu, MS Math 09, PhD ECE 10
Associate Professor | City U

Basu’s work in implantable machine learning for brain-machine interfaces (BMI) offers hope to the nearly 5.4 million persons living with paralysis. While the technology is still nascent, Basu’s research group at City University of Hong Kong and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore works on different aspects of neuromorphic circuits and systems that can be applied to brain-machine interfaces and Internet of Things (IoT). He helped pioneer the concept of integrating machine learning to BMI implants to reduce wireless data transmission rates, and thus, reduce the risk of infection that can be caused by needing to implant wires. Recently, his team has developed sensors that can mimic human pain receptors that can learn from harmful stimuli to trigger a pain withdrawal reflex even when the sensor is damaged.

Advice for new Yellow Jackets: “Do not be afraid to explore new grounds—Tech is a melting pot of talented faculty and students, so you should try to maximize your learning experience in all possible ways. Most importantly, do not stick to the boundaries of your discipline—the most amazing discoveries and inventions await you the moment you can make connections between concepts across disciplines.” – Basu

Fun fact: Basu—always the curious researcher—wanted to figure out how humans learn to smile when we are happy. He tried an experiment on his baby by correlating happy moments with a frown instead…but had to stop after his wife said she’d ban him from being with his daughter!

James Belanger, EAS  07, PhD EAS 12 
Senior Meteorological Scientist | The Weather Company, IBM

When it comes to extreme weather events, having accurate forecasts is a matter of life or death. As an atmospheric scientist, Belanger’s work has influenced the type and quality of weather and climate forecast information consumed by millions of people around the world. After graduating in 2012, he joined a Tech VentureLab startup to implement his research on improving probabilistic tropical cyclone forecasts using numerical weather prediction models and machine learning. That research has been applied worldwide and continues to be used today to support more effective emergency management decisions. For the last five years, he’s served as senior scientist with The Weather Company, an IBM business and the largest provider of weather forecasts worldwide.

“My education experience was challenging and global in nature, taking me to study abroad programs in France and conferences across Europe and India, and opening my aperture to both the suffering and the opportunity that lies ahead,” Belanger says.

Fun fact: Belanger is married to Laura Belanger, also a Tech graduate, and she works at the U.S. National Weather Service in Atlanta. The couple has named their children after meteorological events that changed U.S. history. Their son, Andrew, can be traced to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and their daughter, Katherine, to Hurricane Katrina from 2005.

Kristen Marhaver, Bio 04 
Associate Scientist | CARMABI Foundation

Marhaver is a scuba diver, underwater photographer, and a world-renowned expert in coral breeding. In her research lab in Curaçao, she invented new methods for coral breeding, baby coral propagation, and coral gene banking to help scientists and reef restoration teams around the world. Her TED talks sharing her methods and innovations have garnered over 2 million views. She worked as an undergraduate researcher in Georgia Tech’s School of Biology for several years, including multiple years studying corals, coral ecology, and coral reef fishes with Drs. Snell, Jones, and Hay. After graduating, she landed a competitive PhD position at Scripps. Since then, her work has been featured by the Smithsonian, The Atlantic, Scientific American, and TED. Marhaver was the first person in the world to raise baby pillar corals, a nearly extinct Caribbean coral species that is listed as endangered.

This required diving for hours in the dark over multiple years to decode the timing and carefully collect eggs and sperm to achieve fertilization using specialized methods. Three other teams have now successfully bred juvenile pillar corals with her methods. In addition, Marhaver, her father, Carl Marhaver, and her stepmother, Robin Ferst Marhaver, have sponsored a first-year biology researcher each year in the FastTrack Research Program.

“Georgia Tech gave me rocket boosters for my career. As a scientist, I lean on my GT training every single day,” Marhaver says.

Fun fact: Marhaver used to run the 100-meter hurdles.

Melissa Nord,  EAS  13  
Meteorologist | 11 Alive

In December 2020, Nord became 11 Alive’s weekend morning meteorologist in Atlanta. Previously, she was a meteorologist and co-anchor at WUSA 9 for several years. Nord’s ability to forecast and present the weather in a relatable yet stimulating way has earned her national recognition. She won the 2018 Associated Press and Emmy Award for Best Meteorologist/Weather Anchor in the Washington D.C. and Chesapeake Bay region, excelling above veterans in the field. Her mission is to change how people consume weather forecasts by bringing the science to life in a relatable format. Nord is also a passionate STEM advocate, volunteering with community organizations to bring STEM activities to children.

“Georgia Tech allowed me to ‘embrace the nerd’—and I follow this motto in my career, being nicknamed ‘Nord the Nerd’,” she says.

Fun fact: Nord has a German Shepherd-Lab mix named Buzz! On social media @MelissaNordWx, you can see photos of Buzz, her cat Emma, and “Weather Baby,” a future Yellow Jacket that she and her husband (also a Tech grad) welcomed into the world last fall.

Michole Washington, AM 16
Mathematics Education Doctoral Candidate | University of Michigan

Washington’s “abolitionist approach” to STEM education started the year she graduated from Georgia Tech. In 2016, she was the ninth Black woman in history to earn a bachelor’s in Applied Mathematics from the Institute. That fact signaled to her that there were deeply rooted, systemic issues in the education system, including racism, sexism, and imperialism; this makes it hard for Black and Brown students to feel seen, challenged, or excited about learning STEM concepts. She’s committed to shifting the narrative of what STEM education is and who can do it. As a doctoral candidate in mathematics education at the University of Michigan, she studies different aspects of informal STEM environments like extracurriculars designed for students who are underestimated because of their race or economic status. As a resident researcher intern at NASA, she conducts research and develops tools focused on evidence-based, effective practices aimed at sparking and sustaining underestimated K-12 girls’ interest in STEM. She is also CEO and founder of STEMulation, an educational games and media production company that promotes STEM learning through the lens of social justice theory and practice.

“Even though most of my current success is about critiquing mathematics education and the culture around it, my formal mathematics training at GT has set a sturdy foundation for my messaging,” Washington says. “By that, I mean my undergraduate experiences as a math major at GT gave me a first-hand perspective to understand when a student is not comfortable within a STEM space, and secondly, the motivation to want to do something about it.”

Fun fact: Washington has an Amtrak rewards card because she loves riding cross-country trains.

Thomas “Bo” Hatchett, Bio 13
Georgia State Senator – District 50 | Georgia State Senate

Hatchett was elected to the Georgia State Senate in 2020, becoming the youngest state senator in Georgia. He represents District 50, which includes eight counties in the northeastern corner of Georgia. Hatchett also serves as the governor’s floor leader. Since passing the bar in 2017, Hatchett, a civil trial attorney with Cathy & Strain, LLC, has worked on a number of catastrophic injury cases seeking justice for families. While at Georgia Tech, Hatchett served as captain of the school’s swim team during his last two years. As a litigator, representative, and real-estate business owner, Hatchett strives to always live by the Institute’s motto of “Progress and Service.”

“My education extended way beyond the classroom, and the professors, coaches, and staff members at Georgia Tech helped mold me into the person I am today,” Hatchett says.

Fun fact: Hatchett is a huge fan of the show Jeopardy. When he was younger, he would watch the show with his dad, and when he got to Tech, he and his roommates rarely missed an episode.

First photo: Left to right, top row then lower: Arindam Basu (MS Math 09, PhD ECE 10), James Belanger (EAS 07, PhD EAS 12), Kristen Marhaver (Bio 04), Melissa Nord (EAS 13), Michole Washington (AM 16), and Thomas “Bo” Hatchett (Bio 13).

This story by Craig McManamon first appeared in the Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh, Scotland) newsroom and has been tailored for Georgia Tech audiences.

Traffic and wind regularly cause low frequency vibrations to ripple through bridge building materials such as steel and concrete. This energy would normally travel away from its source before dissipating — but academics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh alongside colleagues from Georgia State University and Georgia Tech in the US have recognized an opportunity. They intend to capture and recycle this untapped source by using the principles of physics.

They have received £340,000 (about $463,000) from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, and $443,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to research and develop a revolutionary vibro-impact energy harvesting device.

Daniil Yurchenko, Ph.D., from Heriot-Watt University, has created a prototype called a ‘vibrant pack energy harvester’ that can be fitted at multiple locations on a bridge.

These autonomous devices, measuring around 5 – 10cm in length, do not require wiring to an electrical power source and are relatively cheap to manufacture. They work by holding a small ball housed within a tube that rolls back and forth as the device absorbs low frequency vibrations. As the ball moves, it impacts on non-conductive materials, known as dielectric membranes, located at either end of the tube. When the membrane is stretched, a brief electrical charge is applied but once it returns to its undeformed state, the generated excessive electrical charge can be harvested.

This electrical energy is stored in a battery and used to power a sensor capable of monitoring the structural integrity of a bridge. Engineers can then record multiple measurements, such as vibrations, traffic load, wind and temperature, all at the same time but without the need for specialist infrastructure to be installed at significant cost.

Yurchenko, from the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Heriot-Watt University, explains that while dielectric elastomer technology has been tried in wave energy, nothing has been done on this centimetre scale before.

“What we are doing is creating a more efficient and cost-effective solution by harvesting energy that would otherwise be lost,” he said.

“It’s something that has never been done before in this way.

“It’s a technology that can be used on any bridge anywhere in the world. There are plenty of places where these devices can be fitted to a bridge structure such as on cables, on the pillars, other side of the bridge deck, there really aren’t any limits.

“The biggest problem in energy harvesting is that the absolute amount of energy produced by a typical device is very small due to the low available level of vibrations. In fact, for the past 100 years scientists have been fighting adverse vibrations to ensure that bridges are safe. So, through this work we will try to optimise the performance of our vibro impact energy harvesting device tuning it to the bridge application.”

The team is working alongside Wenzel Consult, an independent company that specialises in bridge sensor technology in Austria and Turkey.

As the project advances, the scientists say they intend to carry our real-life testing of their prototype on a 32-meter long highway bridge in northern Austria.

The multidisciplinary project, entitled, Stochastic Nonsmooth Analysis For Energy Harvesting, is due to complete in 2024.

Rachel Kuske, professor and chair of the School of Mathematics at Georgia Tech, said: “While the device has nonlinear behaviour, which is beneficial in generating more energy than is used to power the device, the same nonlinearity can result in a range of complex responses to the vibrations.  

“We will use dynamical analyses to predict the different types of responses, as well as to select design choices for responses that optimise energy output. As the bridge vibrations are also inherently noisy, the analysis will also identify how to leverage noise sources that are beneficial and mitigate effects from detrimental noise sources.”

Professor Igor Belykh, co-investigator from Georgia State University, adds: “This project seeks to provide guidelines for designing power supplies that can harvest energy from bridge oscillations. These energy harvesters can be used in bridge damage sensors thereby minimising sensor maintenance/battery replacement and decreasing the associated risks to service personnel on high suspension bridges. Moreover, this project is synergistically connected to another project supported by NSF grant (2019-2022) ‘Modern approaches to modelling and predicting bridge instabilities’ that will inform the design of energy harvesters by offering a dynamical characterisation of bridge oscillations and external perturbations to be harvested.”

The scientists say that in the future the same technology could be adapted and used to harvest energy from other vibrating man-made structures and machines.
 

Related news coverage: Edinburgh Evening News, Scottish Construction Now, FutureScot, The Herald Scotland, Digit

In a fiscal year indelibly marked by the pandemic, College of Sciences researchers and students maintained high research standards despite the obstacles and restrictions of Covid-19. The result was a high rate of research study submissions during FY21 (July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021) at Georgia Tech — with some significant funding wins for the College of Sciences. 

“Students used their creativity to imagine new experiments, data analyses, and modeling studies that were feasible despite our facilities being shut down fully last spring and partially throughout summer, fall, winter, and spring of 2021,” says Julia Kubanek, vice president for Interdisciplinary Research (VPIR) at Georgia Tech. “Because of the safety and effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines, we are now in a position to return more fully to lab- and field-based research. It’s energizing to once again learn from each other in collaborative research settings and to meet in person to discuss results and plan new projects.”

Kubanek, a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, who served as associate dean of Research for the College of Sciences until assuming her new role as VPIR on July 1, 2021, says Georgia Tech faculty have been “heroic” in juggling remote and hybrid teaching, and remote student mentorship, while protecting health and safety in their labs. “Each faculty-led team of trainees and researchers has had to decide what works for their own projects, deferring some collaborative field and lab experiments that were unsafe during the year because we couldn’t work shoulder-to-shoulder,” she says. Faculty remained in close contact with sponsors like the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, which made accommodations for project timelines and experimental design.

Faculty and students were also involved in quick pivots of their research so they could study the pandemic. Research teams launched entirely new initiatives focusing on pandemic response, vaccine development, antiviral drug discovery, Covid-19-related testing, and modeling of disease transmission.

“Students and postdoctoral researchers in the College of Sciences got to play critical roles in these projects, which brought new meaning to us regarding Georgia Tech’s mission to improve the human condition,” Kubanek says. 

Here are some major research funding grants approved for the schools during FY21 in the College of Sciences, along with coordinating principal investigators and funding sources: 

Modeling SARS-CoV-2, Interventions, and Impacts on Healthcare Resources (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services)
Joshua Weitz, Patton Distinguished Chair in the School of Biological Sciences and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences, is a key researcher in Georgia Tech’s response to the novel coronavirus. Weitz co-led development of a modeling tool early in the pandemic for estimating risk to those attending events of various sizes in all U.S. counties. 

Exploring a Reservoir Within a Greenland Glacier, and Plumbing the Uncertainties of Sea Level Rise (Heising-Simons Foundation)
Winnie Chu, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is studying the Helheim Glacier, which could lead to more clues about climate change’s impact on losses to Greenland’s ice mass.

Neha Garg Receives NSF CAREER Award to Fight Coral Reef Disease (NSF)
Garg, an assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has won an NSF CAREER award to study Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, which has already infected more than 20 species of corals off Florida’s coast.

Topology Between Dimensions Three and Four (NSF)
Led by Jennifer Hom, associate professor in the School of Mathematics

Program of Research on Multimodal Human-Machine Interfaces (Toyota Corp)
Led by Bruce Walker, professor in the School of Psychology and School of Interactive Computing

The Challenge of Predicting Rainfall in a Changing Climate (NSF)
Jie He, assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, has received an NSF CAREER award to unlock the uncertainty in rainfall predictions.

Giant Polymer Brushes: How Fluid-Like Hyaluronan Brushes Minimize Biofilms Adhesion (NSF)
Led by Jennifer Curtis, associate professor in the School of Physics

Characterization and Recovery of Critical Metals from Municipal Solid Waste (U.S. Department of Energy)
Led by Yuanzhi Tang, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

GLACIOME: Developing a Comprehensive Model of the Coupled Glacier-Ocean-Melange System (NSF)
Led by Alex Robel, assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; learn more about Robel's recent research here.

Reposition and Optimization of Deferiprone for Breast Center Therapy (NSF)
Led by Adegboyega "Yomi" Oyelere, associate professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Yuhong Fan, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Scholar

Breaking the Chain: Disrupting Guinea Worm Disease Transmission (The Carter Center)
Led by Jeannette Yen, professor in the School of Biological Sciences

Several SoM graduate students were recognized for their achievements at the ceremony held May 10th, 2021.

David L. Brown Fellowship

• Umar Ahmed 
• James Anderson 
• Harris Cobb 
• Joshua Marsh 
• Kevin Shu

Top Graduate Student Award

• Timothy Duff,
• He Guo,
• Shu Liu,
• Hyunki Min,
• Jaemin Park,
• Jiaqi Yang, and
• Youngho Yoo;

Herbert P. Haley Fellowship

This award is given by the College of Science for graduate students and is given only in the Spring 2021 semester.

• Jacob Ian Lewis 

Sigma-Xi Best PhD Thesis Nominee

Since 1947, the Georgia Tech Chapter of Sigma Xi has annually honored Georgia Tech faculty and students for their research at the annual Spring Awards Banquet. The Georgia Tech Sigma Xi Research Awards are made possible by the gracious support of the Georgia Tech Research Corporation and the Ferst Foundation.

• Josiah Park

Outstanding Graduate TA

• Christina Giannitsi
• Marc Harkoenen
• Xiao Liu
• Hyunki Min
• Agiva Roy
• Jiaqi Yang
• Weiwei Zhang

FESTA Fellowship

Funded by a gift from John R. Festa, this award  recognizes  graduate students who exhibit superior academic and leadership skills.

• Sarah Collins

CTL/BP Outstanding Grad TA Nominee

• Hassan Attarchi
• Jack Olinde (Online TA of the Year nominee)
• Juntao Duan (Online Head TA of the Year nominee)

CTL/BP Outstanding Grad Instructor

• Surena Hozoori

From the ICA press release of June 4, 2021:

Hall Medals recognize extensive quality research with substantial international impact by Fellows of the ICA in mid-career.

Dr. Ma received the B.S. degree from the School of Mathematical Sciences, USTC, and subsequently obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2011 from the School of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Prof. Xingxing Yu. He was a Hedrick Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics, UCLA, and a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Ma is now a professor at the School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC).

Jie Ma has made outstanding contributions in the fields of extremal and probabilistic combinatorics, and structural graph theory. He obtained several important results in the study of hypergraph Turan numbers, and proved several conjectures on the distribution of cycle lengths in graphs. He solved, or asymptotically solved, several open problems by Bollobas and Scott on judicial partitions of graphs and hypergraphs, which is a “very strong, impressive record". Using “sophisticated arguments and novel tools", he has made breakthroughs on several other difficult, longstanding problems of structural and extremal flavour.

Dr. Ma has published over thirty papers in the most prestigious combinatorial journals. He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences, and a member of recognized editorial boards.

The Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications is an international scholarly society that was founded in 1990 by Ralph Stanton; the ICA was established for the purpose of promoting the development of combinatorics and of encouraging publications and conferences in combinatorics and its applications.

Promotion to Senior Acadmic Professional for Klara Grodzinky

Klara Grodzinsky received her M.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from Georgia Tech in 1996. She has been employed at Georgia Tech since September 1997, serving as an instructor until she was promoted to Academic Professional in January 2017. In 2000, she co-created a training program for graduate and undergraduate teaching assistants, which earned the Board of Regents Teaching Excellence Award in 2006 and has been used as a model for other campus departments. Since 2008, she has served as the TA Coordinator for the School of Mathematics. She earned the Center for Teaching and Learning Undergraduate Educator Award in 2011 and won the institute-wide Class of 1934/1940 Course Survey Teaching Excellence Award seven times. In addition to directing the TA program, Ms. Grodzinsky has taken on key roles in course coordination, registration, permits, and the course scheduling team.

Promotion to Senior Academic Professional for Christopher Jankowski

Christopher Jankowski received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009 and joined Georgia Tech as an Academic Professional in 2016. He has taken on a range of administrative and teaching responsibilities at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Since the inception of formal math course coordination in the School,  he has coordinated Introduction to Linear Algebra (Math 1553), and more recently Math 1551. As Director of Postdoctoral Teaching Effectiveness, he serves as a teaching mentor and an organizer of professional development events for postdoctoral faculty in mathematics. As the Director of Graduate Advising and Assessment, Dr. Jankowski is the central coursework advisor for MS Math and PhD Math students. For three years, he was the lead organizer or co-lead organizer of the High School Math Competition, SoM’s largest outreach event.

Dr. Frederico Bonetto promoted to Full Professor

Before joining Georgia Tech as Assistant Professor in 2002,  Dr. Federico Bonetto was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He previously earned his bachelor degree from the University of Pisa in 1991 and his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University ”La Sapienza” of Rome in 1997.  Dr. Bonetto was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007. His research focuses on mathematical aspects of statistical mechanics with expertise in both dynamical systems and probability theory. His work covers both theoretical understanding of thermal or electric conduction and practical applications in economics dynamics, solid state physics, and novel materials. 

Dr. Galyna Livshyts promoted to Associate Professor with tenure

Dr. Galyna Livshyts joined Georgia Tech as Assistant Professor in SoM in 2015, after receiving her Bachelor’s degree from Kharkiv State University (2009) and her PhD from Kent State University (2015). In Fall 2017, she held a postdoctoral position at MSRI’s Geometric and Functional Analysis program.  Her research focuses on asymptotic analysis, convex geometry and random matrix theory,  presently supported through a NSF CAREER Award. Dr. Livshyts has co-founded the High-Dimensional Seminar and the Online Asymptotic Geometric Analysis seminar, co-organizes the Analysis seminar in SoM, and has organized several conferences. 

Dr. Lutz Warnke promoted to Associate Professor with tenure

Before Dr. Lutz Warnke joined GT in 2016, he received his undergraduate degree  from ETH Zurich (2009), and his PhD from University of Oxford (2012). and was a Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Dr. Warnke's research accomplishments in probabilistic combinatorics and random graph theory have been recognized by the 2014 Richard Rado Prize, the 2016 Denes Konig Prize, a 2018 Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and a 2020 NSF CAREER award. His teaching efforts at GT have been recognized  by a Class of 1969 Teaching Fellowship and a Class of 1940 Course Survey Teaching Effectiveness Award.

Dr. Yao Yao promoted to Associate Professor with tenure

Dr. Yao started her tenure-track position at Georgia Tech in Fall 2015, after receiving her PhD in Mathematics from UCLA in 2012, and holding a Van Vleck Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during 2012-2015. Her research is in the area of nonlinear partial differential equations, and has been supported by three NSF research grants, including a NSF CAREER Award.  Dr. Yao also received a Sloan Fellowship in 2020. She advises and mentors PhD students in SoM and the GT-QBioS program,  as well as a postdoc in SoM.

SoM Undergraduate TA Awards

Three outstanding Undergraduate TA's were recognized for excellence in instruction.

• Jesse Jiang
• Morgan Knowlton
• Wade Kovalik

SoM Graduate Student Instructor Awards

The following graduate student instructors were recognized by the SoM for outstanding online instruction.

• Kofi Amanfu
• Christina Giannitsi
• Mark Harkoenen
• David Harper
• Cvetlenia Hill
• Xiao Liu
• Hyunki Min
• Agniva Roy
• Yian Yao

CTL Intstitute-wide Recognition

There were five SoM TAs who were recognized by the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) for outstanding teaching this year.

• Hassan Attarchi - Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant
• Jun Tao Duan - Outstanding Online Head Teaching Assistant
• Surena Hozoori - Outstanding Graduate Student instructor
• Anshul Tusnial - Outstanding Undergraduate Student Instructor
• John Olinde - Outstanding Online Teaching Assistant