Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

In the transition from mathematical billiards to physical billiards, where a ball goes from being a point particle to having a positive radius, it may seem intuitive to assume that no categorical difference exists between the two. A new proof-of-concept paper by Leonid Bunimovich says otherwise. Bunimovich discovered as the radius of a physical billiard ball increases, the change in the behavior of the entire system is equivalent to modeling mathematical billiards with a smaller table. With increasing radius, the geometry of the system evolves. For instance, some parts of the table may become inaccessible to the ball. This results in a progression in the dynamics of the system between mathematical and physical cases, and it may become more or less chaotic with changing radius.

An exceprt from the article in Scilight https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.5128222 

In the transition from mathematical billiards to physical billiards, where a ball goes from being a point particle to having a positive radius, it may seem intuitive to assume that no categorical difference exists between the two. A new proof-of-concept paper by Leonid Bunimovich says otherwise.

Bunimovich discovered as the radius of a physical billiard ball increases, the change in the behavior of the entire system is equivalent to modeling mathematical billiards with a smaller table. With increasing radius, the geometry of the system evolves. For instance, some parts of the table may become inaccessible to the ball. This results in a progression in the dynamics of the system between mathematical and physical cases, and it may become more or less chaotic with changing radius.

“Anything is possible,” said Bunimovich. “There are various types of transitions from order to chaos, and chaos to order.”

Article: “Physical versus mathematical billiards: From regular dynamics to chaos and back,” by L. A. Bunimovich, Chaos (2019). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5122195.

Greg Blekherman has been selected to receive a 2019 College of Sciences Cullen-Peck Scholar Award in recognition of his innovative research. Additional information on the award is below, with further details soon to appear on the College of Science news feed. Greg is in good company with past School recipients of this award, including Jen Hom,  Anton Leykin and Sung Ha Kang .

Cullen-Peck Scholar Awards: These awards recognize innovative research led by College of Sciences faculty who are at the associate professor or advanced assistant professor level. They are made possible through the generosity of alumni couple Frank Cullen (BS ’73 Math, MS ’76 ISyE, PhD ’84 ISyE) and Libby Peck (BS ’75 Math, MS ’76 ISyE), who wish to recognize and support faculty development within the College of Sciences.

With over 15,000 undergraduate students, six colleges, and more than 30 majors, the Georgia Tech community is a large and unique group.

Meet Steven Creech – B.S. Mathematics, Class of 2020

Hometown – Valdosta, Georgia

What do you enjoy about mathematics?

In mathematics, whenever you prove a statement, that statement will always be true; and there is a beauty to this truth

What are your plans after graduation?

I plan to pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics, most likely concentrated in algebraic number theory or algebraic geometry. Afterward, I want to go into academia and become a research professor. I am currently doing research under Professor Matt Baker in hyperfields. It is some of the most fun that I have had doing math because there is little that is understood about the subject, and even the task of defining a concept becomes a challenge when you start to work with more complicated structures.

What is your favorite memory at Tech?

In spring 2018, I went to an undergraduate math conference at Georgia Southern University, where a friend presented his research. A group of us also participated in a math competition there, and our team ended up winning.

Why do you like to do outside of classes?

I like to play bridge and attend Bridge Club at Georgia Tech meetings. I also enjoy working with other campus organizations. I am currently the president of Club Math, and I frequently attend Big O meetings as well.

Read more about students from other majors here.

What is earthquake “music”? Can coral reefs devastated by climate change be saved? Does science support the supposed benefits of meditation?

ScienceMatters, the podcast of the College of Sciences, brings more tales of curiosity and discovery. Season 2 is now live at sciencematters.gatech.edu.

All episodes are available for instant listening. However, the ScienceMatters quizzes will follow the episode order. Follow the College of Sciences on Facebook and Twitter (@GT_Sciences, #sciencematters) to find quiz questions and meet winners.

Stars of Season 2

Season 2 features five of the College of Sciences’ award-winning faculty and one of its enterprising postdoctoral researchers.

• When the Earth’s tectonic plates collide and slide, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Professor Zhigang Peng takes data from seismic sensors and creates “earthquake music.” The results can help scientists learn more about what goes on beneath our planet’s crust.
• There’s more to meditation than just chanting mantras in your favorite yoga studio. Practitioners claim the benefits include better mental and physical health. Do the data back those claims? School of Psychology Professor Paul Verhaeghen examines the science behind meditation.
• Glaucoma usually affects older people, but a form of the eye disease can strike younger patients, including children. That keeps School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Raquel Lieberman hard at work studying wayward proteins that may hold the key to new treatments for the second-leading cause of blindness.
• One of the top algae scientists in the world, award-winning School of Biological Sciences Professor Mark Hay, examines the mortal peril facing the world’s coral reefs in a two-part episode. The first part gives a grim prognosis. But the second part offers hope that the coral reefs could heal themselves – if given the chance.
• With incessant curiosity, David Hu discovers physics among water-walking geckos, bridge-building ant, and urinating zoo animals. Hu, an associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Physics, has a joint appointment with the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. This conversation is an edited excerpt from the Uncommon Engineer podcast. Our thanks to Steven McLaughlin, podcast host and dean of the College of Engineering.
• Kennda Lynch studies ancient lakes on Earth that serve as stand-ins for Mars’ formerly flooded craters. The School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences postdoctoral researcher helps NASA look for potential landing sites on the Red Planet.

Join the ScienceMatters Quiz for Fun Prizes

Although all episodes are now available, we will feature episodes in sequence for the ScienceMatters quiz.

Each week on a Wednesday, we will post a question about the week’s episode. We invite you to submit answers at sciencematters.gatech.edu, until Tuesday noon of the following week.

We will choose a winner randomly from all correct entries. We will announce and notify the lucky winner on the following Wednesday.

Winners will receive exclusive ScienceMatters gifts.

Questions will be posted on the College of Sciences’ Facebook page (@GTSciences) and Twitter feed (@GT_Sciences) and at sciencematters.gatech.edu.

The weekly quizzes will start on Wednesday, Feb 27. We will pause during spring break and resume on March 27. The last quiz will be posted on April 17. The last winner will be named on April 24.

Christoph Fahrni, Chrissy Spencer, and Haomin Zhou are the 2018 recipients of the College of Sciences Faculty Mentor Awards.

The College of Sciences presents the mentoring awards annually to exemplary faculty who help early-career colleagues advance in their careers. The award consists of a certificate and a $500 prize.

“We are thoroughly committed to the success of early-career faculty as they learn how to balance their multiple roles as researchers, teachers, and advisors to their own graduate students and postdoctoral fellows,” says College of Sciences Dean and Sutherland Chair Paul M. Goldbart. “Our outstanding faculty mentors do our academic community a great service. We cannot thank them enough.”

“Our outstanding faculty mentors do our academic community a great service. We cannot thank them enough.”

Christoph J. Fahrni is a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Colleagues appreciate his wise guidance in both their personal and professional lives. His mentorship extends into areas such as child care, home loans, proposal and manuscript writing, managing a research lab, mentoring, and teaching. What distinguishes Fahrni is candor and honesty, as well as his ability to keenly dissect an issue and give multiple perspectives.

“Navigating the many challenges junior faculty encounter when starting their academic careers can be daunting,” Fahrni says. “I feel fortunate that sharing of my own perspective and experience somehow contributes to their success. In the process, we develop lasting relationships that are essential for a supportive, open, and vibrant department and academic community.”

Chrissy Spencer is a senior academic professional in the School of Biological Sciences. Colleagues commend her inclusiveness and keen ability to discover, leverage, and foster the strengths of others. By sharing the rationale behind policies, she promotes best practices while encouraging discovery of new ones to meet the needs of growth and change. She models effective teaching and communication, including seeking feedback and opportunities for collective decision-making.

“I have been so privileged to work on a diverse team of faculty, staff, and students with the common goal to educate from an evidence-based perspective,” Spencer says. “As colleagues join our group, they bring a wealth of energy and ideas to infuse into the biology curriculum and to disseminate to the biology-education literature.”

Haomin Zhou is a professor in the School of Mathematics. Colleagues praise his extraordinary commitment to mentoring junior researchers, including many from underrepresented minority groups. He is an exemplary role model. He welcomes everyone and provides junior faculty from underrepresented groups a real chance for success.

“The School of Mathematics has a tradition in mentoring young faculty members and postdocs, as evidenced by many former recipients of the College of Sciences Faculty Mentors award,” Zhou says. “I am very pleased to continue this tradition. It is a great honor that really belongs to many members of the school.”

Three data science projects in the National Science Foundation’s Transdisciplinary Research in Principles of Data Science (TRIPODS) program have been awarded to Georgia Tech investigators.

The awards were designed to expand the scope of the TRIPODS cross-disciplinary institutes established last year, including Georgia Tech’s Transdisciplinary Research Institute for Advancing Data Science (TRIAD).

“The multidisciplinary approach for addressing the increasing volume and complexity of data enabled through the TRIPODS+X projects will have a profound impact on the field of data science and its use,” said Jim Kurose, NSF assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). "This impact will be sure to grow as data continues to drive scientific discovery and innovation.”

A total of $8.5 million in TRIPODS+X  grants were awarded this year, supporting 19 collaborative projects at 23 universities, and bringing new perspectives to complex and entrenched data science problems in science, engineering, and mathematics.

The three Georgia Tech projects span three different NSF priorities in education, visualization, and research.

Education: Data-driven Discovery and Alliance

Prasad Tetali and his multi-institutional team including traditional women’s and historic black colleges and universities, are developing undergraduate courses for STEM majors to give more students access to a data-driven future. With this grant, the collaborative alliance, grounded in math, statistics and computer science theory, will develop a toolkit of data science modules to integrate into science curriculum at Agnes Scott College, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. They will also hold boot camps and workshops. The educational outreach will enrich the knowledge of these institutions’ faculty, and later, the team plans to adapt the initiative to serve other research-intensive women’s and HBCU institutions.

“The NSF-supported educational alliance is exciting in many ways,” Tetali says. “It gives opportunity to infuse the foundational data science curriculum with real-world applications from the physical and life sciences. It will also likely catalyze collaborative research in data science and related fields between Georgia Tech and Atlanta area colleges.”

Investigators:

• Prasad Tetali (lead), Georgia Tech School of Mathematics and School of Computer Science
• Brandeis Marshall (collaborative lead), Spelman College       
• Chris DePree, Agnes Scott College
• Alan Koch, Agnes Scott College
• Wenjing Liao, Georgia Tech School of Mathematics
• Chuang Peng, Morehouse College
• David Sherrill, Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Joshua Weitz, Georgia Tech School of Biological Sciences

Award Amount: $200,000
 

Vision: Creating an Annual Data Science Forum

Dana Randall and colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University and Columbia University are creating a week-long Data Science Forum built around the Second Symposium on Machine Learning in Science and Engineering (MLSE). The forum combines multiple events aimed at catalyzing communication across foundations, applications, and disciplinary fields, and at fostering diversity and inclusion. Two new workshops that complement the conference are a part of the forum: A Women in Data Science Workshop, and a Foundations of Data Driven Discovery workshop.

MLSE, begun last year by Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon, was the first annual machine learning conference organized to collocate tracks within traditional disciplines using machine learning while allowing an exchange of ideas across disciplines. This cross-disciplinary breadth combined with efforts to build diversity in attendance will permeate all MLSE events, and enable a visioning working group at the meeting to develop an inclusive report on the future of machine learning.

“The first MLSE last summer was a great success, providing a new forum for machine learning discussions among scientists and engineers,” said Randall. “It’s very exciting that this grant allows us to expand the event for the next two years by including more students, women, and adding a workshop promoting theoretical foundations, consistent with the goals of TRIAD and IDEaS.”

Investigators:

• Dana Randall (lead), Georgia Tech School of Computer Science
• Srinivas Aluru, Georgia Tech School of Computational Science and Engineering
• Newell Washburn, Carnegie Mellon University
• Jeanette Wing, Columbia University

Award Amount: $200,000
 

Research: Scaling Up Descriptive Epidemiology and Metabolic Network Models Using Faster Sampling

Santosh Vempala and researchers at the University of Washington are interested in solving a sampling problem that will help researchers spanning many disciplines. Sampling from a given distribution from a space with many attributes is a fundamental problem in computer science. Over the past two decades, practical applications of sampling have proliferated in statistics, networking, biology, differential privacy, and, most notably, machine learning. Sampling is used to evaluate models, as a subroutine for optimization, and more generally for exploring large complex spaces.

The researchers will help develop a toolkit for sampling and evaluate it on real data sets—a large-scale, high-dimensional toolkit for sampling smooth and non-smooth distributions, and a suite of functions that can be computed or estimated using access to samples. It will be developed by working with domain experts in health metrics and systems biology.

Investigators:

• Yin Tat Lee (lead), University of Washington
• Santosh Vempala (collaborative lead), Georgia Tech School of Computer Science
• Abraham Flaxman, University of Washington

Award Amount: $600,000
 

Transdisciplinary Research Institutes

Georgia Tech’s TRIAD, part of a community of TRIPODS institutes that share expertise and work together, integrates research and education in mathematical, statistical, and algorithmic foundations for data science. TRIAD also hosts focused working groups, national and international workshops, and organized innovation labs, to share data science insights and resources locally and nationally.

“The TRIPODS program, and with it our own TRIAD institute, were established to expand our collective capabilities and accelerate progress,” said Xiaoming Huo, executive director of TRIAD. “Whether it is for education, defining a vision for the future, or pushing the frontiers of research, the new ideas we need come from bridging the boundaries of science, engineering and mathematics.”

Research opportunities that opened up to Georgia Tech students during their undergraduate years expand significantly when students continue their work as graduate or doctoral students.

Georgia Tech College of Sciences encourages that work with the annual presentation of Larry S. O’Hara Graduate Fellowships, given to outstanding doctoral students who are scheduled to graduate in the calendar year following their nominations.

This year four students were chosen as the winners of the O’Hara Graduate Fellowships:

Yuchen He

Mathematics

Advisor: Sung Ha Kang

Research Area: Lattice Indentification and Separation

Suttipong (Jay) Suttapitugsakul

Chemistry

Advisor: Ronghu Wu

Research Area: Analysis of glycoproteins on the cell surface

Deborah Ferguson

Physics

Advisor: Deirdre Shoemaker

Research Area: Binary coalescences as probes of strong-field gravity

Hyeonsoo (Harris) Jeong

Biology

Advisor: Soojin Yi

Research Area: Genomic landscape of methylation islands in hymenopteran insects

Congratulations to the O’Hara Fellowship winners!

Two Georgia Tech faculty members were recently selected among 126 early career researchers to receive 2020 Sloan Research Fellowships. The fellowships, awarded annually since 1955, honor scholars in the U.S. and Canada whose creativity, leadership, and independent research achievements make them some of the most promising researchers in their disciplines.

“To receive a Sloan Research Fellowship is to be told by your fellow scientists that you stand out among your peers,” Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, said in a press release announcing the winners. “A Sloan Research Fellow is someone whose drive, creativity, and insight makes them a researcher to watch.”

Past Sloan Research Fellows include many towering figures in the history of science, including physicists Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann, and game theorist John Nash. Fifty fellows have received a Nobel Prize in their respective field, 17 have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, 69 have received the National Medal of Science, and 19 have won the John Bates Clark Medal in economics, including every winner since 2007. A database of former Sloan Research Fellows can be found at sloan.org/past-fellows.

Fellows from the 2020 cohort were selected from a diverse range of more than 60 institutions across the U.S. and Canada. The new Sloan Fellows from Georgia Tech are Marta Hatzell and Yao Yao:

Marta Hatzell is an assistant professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering. She holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Pennsylvania State University. Hatzell’s research group focuses on sustainable low energy catalysis and separations, with applications ranging from clean ammonia production to water desalination.

Yao Yao is an assistant professor in the School of Mathematics. She holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California at Los Angeles. Yao’s research focuses on partial differential equations that arise in fluid dynamics and mathematical biology. Her research goals are to study equations from a theoretical aspect in order to prove whether a solution exists and what is its longtime behavior.

Open to scholars in eight scientific and technical fields — chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics — the Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded in close coordination with the scientific community. Candidates must be nominated by their fellow scientists, and winners are selected by independent panels of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate’s research accomplishments, creativity, and potential to become a leader in his or her field. Nearly 1,000 researchers are nominated each year for 126 fellowship slots. Winners receive a two-year, $75,000 fellowship, which can be spent to advance the fellow’s research.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a not-for-profit, mission-driven grantmaking institution dedicated to improving the welfare of all through the advancement of scientific knowledge. Founded in 1934 by industrialist Alfred P. Sloan Jr., the foundation makes grants each year in three broad areas: direct support of research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and economics; initiatives to increase the quality and diversity of scientific institutions; and efforts to enhance and deepen public engagement with science and scientists.

Around the world, people are celebrating 2019 as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements (IYPTCE). The iconic scientific tool is 150 years old, and going strong.

By partnering with other Georgia Tech units, the College of Sciences created a year-long program to celebrate IYPTCE. Among the beautiful outcomes is the book “Interactive Design of the Periodic Table to Celebrate 150 Years of Elements,” by the School of industrial Design, in the College of Design.

The book’s genesis goes back to the summer of 2018, when the College of Sciences approached Professor and Chair Jim Budd with a project idea that we hoped could be used in a spring 2019 course. The project goal was to reimagine the periodic table as an interactive installation.

Suggested ways to achieve the goal were by maximizing sensory modes to deliver information, by interacting with technology, and by presenting in multiple formats. No restriction was imposed on how to approach the project.

Assistant Professor Wei Wang embraced the project. He asked students of ID 6213, Studio Interact Product, to work on the project for the first three weeks of January 2019. Twenty-one students in the Master of Industrial Design and Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction programs explored the fascinating world of the periodic table and developed concepts for an interactive exhibit.

“Students – by teams or individually – designed seven concepts, from public physical installations to virtual reality experiences,” Wang says. “The goal was to enhance the accessibility of the periodic table to inform, educate, inspire, and enable multiple ways of comparing elements and introducing the stories behind.”

On Jan. 28, the students revealed their concepts. Wang invited several guests to the presentation: Rafael San Miguel, a former senior flavor chemist from The Coca-Cola Company who is deaf but could speak and lip-read; Kirk Henderson, the exhibits program manager in the Georgia Tech library; Ximin Mi, data visualization librarian; and Maureen Rouhi, communications director in the College of Sciences.

The students “showed great creative ingenuity in developing tactile interactive exhibits designed to allow users to explore the elemental foundations underlying our everyday existence,” Henderson says.

San Miguel provided guidance and feedback on accessibility. He says he was “instantly amazed and impressed to see the wonderful and diverse talents the students brought along with their seven different concepts. This was a great way to help students think beyond standard norms of end users of designs and inventions.”

The ID 6213 students delivered a riveting array of installation concepts, which are collected in the book. All the projects are delightful to behold. The periodic table never looked so fresh, accessible, and exciting.

From rehabilitation research to Smyrna City Council, School of Biological Sciences Associate Professor Lewis Wheaton has served as a leader in many areas throughout his time at Georgia Tech. With new appointments as the inaugural director of the College of Science’s Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences (C-PIES) and as an advisor on the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) National Advisory Board on Medical Rehabilitation Research, Wheaton will lead in two more spaces on campus, in community, and beyond.

The Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences

The creation of C-PIES is a new milestone in the College’s long standing inclusive efforts, as well as a key pillar of its 10-year strategic plan.

With a mission “to recruit, support and retain a diverse population for all sectors of our community ― staff, faculty, and students ― and build an inclusive community that broadens access to science and mathematics and creates opportunities for advancement,” C-PIES will continue to expand programming across the College of Sciences community.

Prior to the creation of C-PIES, Keith Oden, who retired in December 2020 following a 35-year career with Georgia Tech, served as director of Academic Diversity for the College for ten years. With a focus on student recruitment and retention, Oden’s expertise, outreach, and mentoring transformed the lives of students and the College of Sciences community.

“From reflections and conversations with College of Sciences colleagues, I became convinced that a center focused around broadening access and creating a diverse community would be more effective than tasking a single individual with all programmatic elements needed to advance our mission,” said College of Sciences Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair Susan Lozier in a community letter this summer.

Now, working in tandem with Dean Lozier, ADVANCE Professor Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, and the College’s associate and assistant deans, as inaugural C-PIES Director, Wheaton will lead the Center in implementing recommendations from the College’s Task Force on Racial Equity, coalescing collaborative work across the College’s six schools, and leading new and ongoing efforts.

“I am excited about this new direction and its potential for making significant progress toward our goal of creating a diverse and inclusive community,” Lozier noted in sharing Wheaton’s appointment with the College of Sciences community earlier this August.

Science and Service

Along with leading C-PIES, Wheaton will continue his focus on research and community leadership beyond Georgia Tech. Since joining Georgia Tech in 2008, Wheaton has directed the Cognitive Motor Control Lab, where he strives to improve the lives of people with upper-limb amputations and those who have had strokes through a deeper understanding of the neurophysiology of motor learning.

Outside the lab, Wheaton has worked across communities on campus – serving on the College of Sciences Task Force on Racial Equity and Georgia Tech’s working group on Race and Racism in Contemporary Biomedicine, and being named the 2021 Faculty Diversity Champion for Georgia Tech – as well as throughout Georgia.

Along with serving as a member of the Smyrna City Council since first elected in 2019, Wheaton also helped shape rehabilitation policy and management in the state of Georgia as a Governor-appointed member of the State Rehabilitation Council during a six-year term.

We recently spoke with Wheaton about C-PIES, serving on NIH’s National Advisory Board on Medical Rehabilitation Research, and progress and service across Georgia Tech, and beyond.

A Conversation with Lewis Wheaton

Q: What was your initial reaction to the creation of the C-PIES, when it was announced in April?

A: Probably a mix of excitement, enthusiasm, and a little bit of trepidation to be honest. I think when you start talking about equity and inclusion, those are loaded concepts and very loaded terms, and people define them very differently. So, the trepidation side was more ‘Okay, how is the community going to receive something like this center as a whole?’

At the same time, I reflected on a lot of the conversations that I had with people one-on-one, and also as a result of being a part of the [College of Sciences Task Force on Racial Equity], and there’s a lot of encouragement there. This is the kind of thing that I think, by and large, people in the College want to see and are excited about. It’s a new type of opportunity for the College and it’s something that people want to rally around. So, it was a constellation of all of that all at once.

Q: What interested you about the opportunity to direct the Center?

A: Similarly, my initial feelings, honestly, including the trepidation.

I love science. I’m really, really passionate about what I do, and I’m passionate to the point of wanting to make sure that everyone gets the opportunity to at least be exposed to the possibility of doing science – and specifically doing it here at Georgia Tech. That means a lot to me. Given where [Georgia Tech is] seated within this community, within this region, within this area, we have a unique opportunity here. We should be an attractive force for doing not only science that focuses on or considers equity and inclusion, but that is being done by a population of scientists that is reflective of the broader community around us.

Those opportunities really jumped out to me as something that would be exciting to me – exciting to lead, exciting to figure out how to collaborate with other groups to [accomplish these goals]. Pulling from some other experiences that I’ve had at other places, I just thought, “you know, this could be fun.” And I think we are at a good time to do something like this.

Q: You’ve been involved in a lot of community efforts – a race and racism in biomedicine working group, middle school outreach with Georgia Tech CEISMC (Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing), Science Day in the Park with GTRI (Georgia Tech Research Institute), and more. What is your approach to promoting this work, as well as a sense of community?

A: I think it starts with having honest conversation. By that, I mean really getting past statistics, talking points, and all these other things. Really get to understanding what the challenges are and what the perceptions are.

Also, because I tend to like to know how we’re going to move forward, it’s being very focused on very actionable goals. Being very clear about “Okay, these are the things that we can do now, these are the things that we can maybe target down the line, and these are the things that will be in our 10-year plan.”

We have very concrete, actionable steps that we can take to move things forward. But at the same time, also always communicating with people about what we’re doing, maybe even sometimes what we’re not doing. That clarity and that focus are, I think, what you have to have when you’re dealing with this type of issue, unfortunately because it is sensitive sometimes. But I think that’s what’s needed here.

Q: What are some of the main challenges you see this center as a whole facing?

A: You know, I think perception is everything. I’m going to be honest, [this topic] can be very uncomfortable for some people, and something that some people just disagree with – or that they think they disagree with, I should probably say.

Perception suggests that this center might focus on one thing, but in reality, the perspective is usually much broader. I think a lot of people will immediately think “Oh, this is just about bringing in more women or more people of color into different units.” It could include that. But it could also be, “What scientific questions are we asking? How are we responding to equity needs of our immediate community? To the state? To the nation? Are we asking sharp enough scientific questions that are immediate to some of the needs that are clearly emerging from funding agencies and other organizations that focus on inequity?” That is a part of this, too.

Q: As the inaugural leader of the Center, what immediate goals do you envision for yourself? Your long-term goals for C-PIES?

A: To start with the latter, I hope that the Center, as it evolves, turns into a real catalyst for change. Change not just in building a better community, diversifying our community, and promoting better inclusion, but also creating a catalyst for new questions, new horizons that we should be pursuing that are really addressing the needs of the community. I would love to see the Center evolve in that direction.

To get there though, the first things I’m excited about doing initially are having conversations. Let’s, as campus leaders, get people together and really, just conversate about these issues. Let’s see what our various levels of comfort and sensitivity are around these things. Do we even understand some of these words and phrases and what they mean? Because they’re complicated and they come with a lot of emotion.

Also, starting to identify opportunities for growth within various units within the College that are ripe for development in this area, and going after resources nationally or at the state level to try to move the needle forward in terms of the type of people we have in our labs, the type of people we have teaching, the types of folks that we have sitting in faculty units across campus. Let’s really think innovatively about how we can be a leader in this area.

What’s exciting and inspiring to me is that we see a lot of other universities around the country, and even some of our competitors, that are boldly pursuing sustainable efforts. That tells me it can be done — we just have to do it. That’s all it is, it’s very simple. It sounds complicated and messy, but in reality, it’s incredibly simple. You just have to want to do it.

Q: What are you most looking forward to as you start this new position?

A: I’m just excited to get started. I’m excited to do the work and see the change.

I am convinced that once we, as a community, acknowledge that this is not as hard and messy and complicated as it sounds – once we’re over that barrier, then we can really have progress. But we still have to make sure that we are all united, and clear on that barrier. And that’s what I’m excited about.

Rehabilitation Research and Beyond

Q: As a member of NIH’s National Advisory Board on Medical Rehabilitation Research board, you will be advising the directors of NIH, National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Can you elaborate on what that will entail?

A: A lot of this really focuses on trying to get feedback from the scientific community about the types of discoveries that we need to be making to really move the rehabilitation needle forward. Rehabilitation, in the broadest terms, includes disorders, nervous system injuries, all kinds of things that need rehabilitation.

That’s a broad aspect of NIH’s portfolio. This board will be critical to ensuring that NIH-funded medical rehabilitation research continues to be at the tip of the spear of innovation. I am excited to be on the Advisory Board to make sure that we are thinking proactively about the way that science is emerging, even how our trainees are emerging, to make sure that the funding priorities are aligned with the questions that we need to ask on the ground.

Q: What was your reaction to NIH asking you to serve on this board?

A: I was kind of surprised, actually. I think this is a really exciting opportunity, and it felt good for NIH to reach out and ask me to do something like this. To me it was absolutely a no-brainer to accept it.

Q: What are your main goals as an advisor?

A: I’m certainly in a space where I care a lot about rehabilitation, particularly with limb loss and stroke. But I’m also very interested in understanding how we can better intersect computational and engineering aspects into sciences to ask better questions — and how we can use all these things together to understand how to move rehabilitation forward. I’m excited to share my perspective from this space, and to really get at the root of some of these questions.

Another big area is “telerehab” – it’s taking off as an industry and taking off as a science, as well. That’s great, but we still have bedrock scientific questions that we need to understand about the efficacy of telerehab approaches. So those are the types of things I’m excited to think about on this advisory panel, and to try to hopefully have some influence on how we’re shaping these types of things and the funding priorities that need to emerge from NIH.

Q: In addition to these new positions, you are also a member of Smyrna City Council — and you teach, advise students, and run a research lab. How do you balance all of that?

A: I have a wonderful wife – we are very supportive of each other when it comes to this kind of stuff.

Also, it’s really seeing the common threads of thought between everything. Being on City Council, in many ways, is not unlike being in academia. There are a lot of meetings, that’s very similar. But the thought process, the way you’re doing things, the way you’re going about trying to solve problems is very scientific. So, it feels kind of natural. When I go into all of the spaces that I’m in, I try to at least have that as a common thread, where I’m approaching things in the most genuine way that I can. I’m a scientist, so that’s how I’m going to approach things.

At a practical level, it’s finding balance between these things so that I can honestly give them my full commitment and know that in that moment, that’s what I’m focusing on. If I’m talking to one of my students, in that moment they have all of my attention. If I’m talking to a constituent in my ward, they have my full attention. I want to be actionable and responsive to all the needs of that person. It’s not easy — I’m not going to say it’s trivial, but it’s a balance that you just learn how to strike.

As well, I’ll say, in all aspects of these areas, there are great people. The staff that I get to work within each one of these spaces is exceptional. I’d be lying if I said I was doing it all myself – there are a lot of people that help pull me through all these areas. They really deserve a lot of credit.