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Georgia Tech EVPR Chaouki Abdallah Named President of Lebanese American University

admin — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 19:45:41 +0000

Georgia Tech EVPR Chaouki Abdallah Named President of Lebanese American University admin Tue, 06/25/2024 - 15:45

Chaouki Abdallah, Georgia Tech’s executive vice president for Research (EVPR), has been named the new president of the Lebanese American University in Beirut.

Abdallah, MSECE 1982, Ph.D. ECE 1988, has served as EVPR since 2018; in this role, he led extraordinary growth in Georgia Tech’s research enterprise. Through the work of the Georgia Tech Research Institute, 10 interdisciplinary research institutes (IRIs) and a broad portfolio of faculty research, Georgia Tech now stands at No. 17 in the nation in research expenditures — and No. 1 among institutions without a medical school.

Additionally, Abdallah has also overseen Tech’s economic development activities through the Enterprise Innovation Institute and such groundbreaking entrepreneurship programs as CREATE-X, VentureLab, and the Advanced Technology Development Center.

Under Abdallah's strategic, thoughtful leadership, Georgia Tech strengthened its research partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities, launched the New York Climate Exchange with a focus on accelerating climate change solutions, established an AI Hub to boost research and commercialization in artificial intelligence, advanced biomedical research (including three research awards from ARPA-H), and elevated the Institute’s annual impact on Georgia’s economy to a record $4.5 billion.

Prior to Georgia Tech, Abdallah served as the 22nd president of the University of New Mexico (UNM), where he also had been provost, executive vice president of academic affairs, and chair of the electrical and computer engineering department. At UNM, he oversaw long-range academic planning, student success initiatives, and improvements in retention and graduation rates.

A national search will be conducted for Abdallah’s replacement. In the coming weeks, President Ángel Cabrera will name an interim EVPR.

Summary sentence

Abdallah will serve as LAU's 10th president.

Summary

Abdallah will serve as LAU's 10th president.

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Tue, 06/25/2024 - 12:00

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Tue, 06/25/2024 - 15:44

Nanowires Create Elite Warriors to Enhance T Cell Therapy

admin — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 16:42:41 +0000

Nanowires Create Elite Warriors to Enhance T Cell Therapy admin Wed, 06/12/2024 - 12:42

Adoptive T-cell therapy has revolutionized medicine. A patient’s T-cells — a type of white blood cell that is part of the body’s immune system — are extracted and modified in a lab and then infused back into the body, to seek and destroy infection, or cancer cells.

Now Georgia Tech bioengineer Ankur Singh and his research team have developed a method to improve this pioneering immunotherapy.

Their solution involves using nanowires to deliver therapeutic miRNA to T-cells. This new modification process retains the cells’ naïve state, which means they’ll be even better disease fighters when they’re infused back into a patient.

“By delivering miRNA in naïve T cells, we have basically prepared an infantry, ready to deploy,” Singh said. “And when these naïve cells are stimulated and activated in the presence of disease, it’s like they’ve been converted into samurais.”

Lean and Mean

Currently in adoptive T-cell therapy, the cells become stimulated and preactivated in the lab when they are modified, losing their naïve state. Singh’s new technique overcomes this limitation. The approach is described in a new study published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

“Naïve T-cells are more useful for immunotherapy because they have not yet been preactivated, which means they can be more easily manipulated to adopt desired therapeutic functions,” said Singh, the Carl Ring Family Professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering.

The raw recruits of the immune system, naïve T-cells are white blood cells that haven’t been tested in battle yet. But these cellular recruits are robust, impressionable, and adaptable — ready and eager for programming.

“This process creates a well-programmed naïve T-cell ideal for enhancing immune responses against specific targets, such as tumors or pathogens,” said Singh.

The precise programming naïve T-cells receive sets the foundational stage for a more successful disease fighting future, as compared to preactivated cells.

Giving Fighter Cells a Boost

Within the body, naïve T-cells become activated when they receive a danger signal from antigens, which are part of disease-causing pathogens, but they send a signal to T-cells that activate the immune system.

Adoptive T-cell therapy is used against aggressive diseases that overwhelm the body’s defense system. Scientists give the patient’s T-cells a therapeutic boost in the lab, loading them up with additional medicine and chemically preactivating them.

That’s when the cells lose their naïve state. When infused back into the patient, these modified T-cells are an effective infantry against disease — but they are prone to becoming exhausted. They aren’t samurai. Naïve T-cells, though, being the young, programmable recruits that they are, could be.

The question for Singh and his team was: How do we give cells that therapeutic boost without preactivating them, thereby losing that pristine, highly suggestable naïve state? Their answer: Nanowires.

NanoPrecision: The Pointed Solution

Singh wanted to enhance naïve T-cells with a dose of miRNA. miRNA is a molecule that, when used as a therapeutic, works as a kind of volume knob for genes, turning their activity up or down to keep infection and cancer in check. The miRNA for this study was developed in part by the study’s co-author, Andrew Grimson of Cornell University.

“If we could find a way to forcibly enter the cells without damaging them, we could achieve our goal to deliver the miRNA into naïve T cells without preactivating them,” Singh explained.

Traditional modification in the lab involves binding immune receptors to T-cells, enabling the uptake of miRNA or any genetic material (which results in loss of the naïve state). “But nanowires do not engage receptors and thus do not activate cells, so they retain their naïve state,” Singh said.

The nanowires, silicon wafers made with specialized tools at Georgia Tech’s Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology, form a fine needle bed. Cells are placed on the nanowires, which easily penetrate the cells and deliver their miRNA over several hours. Then the cells with miRNA are flushed out from the tops of the nanowires, activated, eventually infused back into the patient. These programmed cells can kill enemies efficiently over an extended time period.

“We believe this approach will be a real gamechanger for adoptive immunotherapies, because we now have the ability to produce T-cells with predictable fates,” says Brian Rudd, a professor of immunology at Cornell University, and co-senior author of the study with Singh.

The researchers tested their work in two separate infectious disease animal models at Cornell for this study, and Singh described the results as “a robust performance in infection control.”

In the next phase of study, the researchers will up the ante, moving from infectious disease to test their cellular super soldiers against cancer and move toward translation to the clinical setting. New funding from the Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance is supporting Singh’s research.

CITATION: Kristel J. Yee Mon, Sungwoong Kim, Zhonghao Dai, Jessica D. West, Hongya Zhu5, Ritika Jain, Andrew Grimson, Brian D. Rudd, Ankur Singh. “Functionalized nanowires for miRNA-mediated therapeutic programming of naïve T cells,” Nature Nanotechnology.

FUNDING: Curci Foundation, NSF (EEC-1648035, ECCS-2025462, ECCS-1542081), NIH (5R01AI132738-06, 1R01CA266052-01, 1R01CA238745-01A1, U01CA280984-01, R01AI110613 and U01AI131348).

Summary sentence

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a method using nanowires to deliver miRNA to T-cells, preserving their naïve state and significantly enhancing their effectiveness in adoptive T-cell therapy for fighting infections and potentially cancer.

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Wed, 06/12/2024 - 12:00

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Wed, 06/12/2024 - 12:41

Physicists Pioneer New Quantum Sensing Platform

admin — Thu, 02 May 2024 20:24:41 +0000

Physicists Pioneer New Quantum Sensing Platform admin Thu, 05/02/2024 - 16:24

Quantum sensors detect the smallest of environmental changes — for example, an atom reacting to a magnetic field. As these sensors “read” the unique behaviors of subatomic particles, they also dramatically improve scientists’ ability to measure and detect changes in our wider environment.

Monitoring these tiny changes results in a wide range of applications — from improving navigation and natural disaster forecasting, to smarter medical imaging and detection of biomarkers of disease, gravitational wave detection, and even better quantum communication for secure data sharing.

Georgia Tech physicists are pioneering new quantum sensing platforms to aid in these efforts. The research team’s latest study, “Sensing Spin Wave Excitations by Spin Defects in Few-Layer Thick Hexagonal Boron Nitride” was published in Science Advances this week.

The research team includes School of Physics Assistant Professors Chunhui (Rita) Du and Hailong Wang (corresponding authors) alongside fellow Georgia Tech researchers Jingcheng Zhou, Mengqi Huang, Faris Al-matouq, Jiu Chang, Dziga Djugba, and Professor Zhigang Jiang and their collaborators.

An ultra-sensitive platform

The new research investigates quantum sensing by leveraging color centers — small defects within crystals (Du’s team uses diamonds and other 2D layered materials) that allow light to be absorbed and emitted, which also give the crystal unique electronic properties.

By embedding these color centers into a material called hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), the team hoped to create an extremely sensitive quantum sensor — a new resource for developing next-generation, transformative sensing devices.

For its part, hBN is particularly attractive for quantum sensing and computing because it could contain defects that can be manipulated with light — also known as "optically active spin qubits."

The quantum spin defects in hBN are also very magnetically sensitive, and allow scientists to “see” or “sense” in more detail than other conventional techniques. In addition, the sheet-like structure of hBN is compatible with ultra-sensitive tools like nanodevices, making it a particularly intriguing resource for investigation.

The team’s research has resulted in a critical breakthrough in sensing spin waves, Du says, explaining that “in this study, we were able to detect spin excitations that were simply unattainable in previous studies.”

Detecting spin waves is a fundamental component of quantum sensing, because these phenomena can travel for long distances, making them an ideal candidate for energy-efficient information control, communication, and processing.

The future of quantum

“For the first time, we experimentally demonstrated two-dimensional van der Waals quantum sensing — using few-layer thick hBN in a real-world environment,” Du explains, underscoring the potential the material holds for precise quantum sensing. “Further research could make it possible to sense electromagnetic features at the atomic scale using color centers in thin layers of hBN.”

Du also emphasizes the collaborative nature of the research, highlighting the diverse skill sets and resources of researchers within Georgia Tech.

“Within the School of Physics, Professor Zhigang Jiang's research group provided the team with high-quality hBN crystals. Jingcheng Zhou, who is a member of both Professor Hailong Wang’s and my research teams, performed the cutting-edge quantum sensing measurements,” she says. “Many incredible students also helped with this project.”

Du is a leading scientist in the field of quantum sensing — this year, she received a new grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, along with a Sloan Research Fellowship for her pioneering work on developing state-of-the-art quantum sensing techniques for quantum information technology applications. The prestigious Sloan award recognizes researchers whose “creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments make them stand out as the next-generation of leaders in the fields.”

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adk8495

This work is supported by the U. S. National Science Foundation (NSF) under award No. DMR-2342569, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under award No. FA9550-20-1-0319 and its Young Investigator Program under award No. FA9550-21-1-0125, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) under grant No. N00014-23-1-2146, NASA-REVEALS SSERVI (CAN No. NNA17BF68A), and NASA-CLEVER SSERVI (CAN No. 80NSSC23M0229).

Summary sentence

The researchers’ results have created a new resource for developing next-generation, ultra-sensitive quantum electronic devices.

Summary

Georgia Tech physicists are investigating quantum sensing and leveraging cutting-edge techniques — embedding color centers in a 2D layered material called hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). The researchers’ results have created a new resource for developing next-generation, ultra-sensitive quantum electronic devices.

Dateline

Thu, 05/02/2024 - 12:00

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Thu, 05/02/2024 - 16:24

Vogel to Lead Institute for Matter and Systems

admin — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 11:59:41 +0000

Vogel to Lead Institute for Matter and Systems admin Thu, 04/11/2024 - 07:59

Effective July 1, Eric Vogel will become the executive director of the Institute for Matter and Systems (IMS), Georgia Tech’s newest Interdisciplinary Research Institute (IRI) that will launch on the same date.

As an evolution of the Institute for Materials (IMat) and the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN), IMS aims to enable convergent research at Georgia Tech related to the science, technology, and societal underpinnings of innovative materials and devices. Additionally, IMS seeks to integrate these innovations into systems that enhance human well-being and performance across information and communication, the built environment, and human-centric technologies that improve human health, wellness, and performance.

“Executive Vice President for Research Chaouki Abdallah and I are very excited about the launch of IMS, which positions Georgia Tech for integration of science and technology from atoms to devices, while explicitly drawing in researchers in the social sciences, design, business, and computing,” said Vice President of Interdisciplinary Research Julia Kubanek.

“IMS will ensure relevance across Georgia Tech through its newly configured Internal Advisor and Ambassador Board with representation across all six Colleges and GTRI,” she said. “Additional advisory committees representing IMS employees and facility users will ensure that we don’t sacrifice any of the research excellence for which IEN and IMat are known. With IMS I expect we will be even better positioned to tackle research problems that will have the greatest positive societal impact.”

Vogel will continue in his current position as the executive director of IMat until the launch of IMS. In addition to leading and growing IMat, Vogel is the Hightower Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering, and he served as the IEN deputy director prior to leading IMat.

“It is an honor to be appointed executive director of the Institute for Matter and Systems, and I look forward to collaborating with the talented faculty and staff associated with it,” said Vogel. “This opportunity allows us to leverage the core competencies of IEN and IMat while extending our capabilities beyond nanotechnology and materials science. Together, we will be a hub for interdisciplinary research ranging from advanced materials to complex systems that solve global challenges.”

Georgia Tech’s IRIs facilitate collaboration between researchers and students from its six Colleges, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, national laboratories, and corporate entities to tackle critical topics of strategic significance for the Institute as well as for local, state, national, and international communities. IMS will also house and maintain the state-of-the-art Materials Characterization Facility and one of the largest academic cleanrooms in the nation, which offers a broad range of fabrication capabilities from basic discovery to prototype realization.

Before joining Georgia Tech in 2011, Vogel was an associate professor of materials science and engineering and electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas. During this time, he also served as the associate director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence and led UT Dallas’s involvement in the Southwest Academy for Nanoelectronics.

Prior to UT Dallas, he led the CMOS and Novel Devices Group and established the Nanofabrication Facility at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Vogel holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from North Carolina State University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on the development and fundamental understanding of electronic and nanomaterials and devices.

Summary sentence

Summary

Effective July 1, Eric Vogel will become the executive director of the Institute for Matter and Systems, Georgia Tech’s newest Interdisciplinary Research Institute that will launch on the same date.

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Tue, 04/09/2024 - 12:00

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Thu, 04/11/2024 - 07:58

Energy Materials: Driving the Clean Energy Transition

admin — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 16:04:01 +0000

Energy Materials: Driving the Clean Energy Transition admin Wed, 03/20/2024 - 12:04

Energy is everywhere, affecting everything, all the time. And it can be manipulated and converted into the kind of energy that we depend on as a civilization. But transforming this ambient energy (the result of gyrating atoms and molecules) into something we can plug into and use when we need it requires specific materials.

These energy materials — some natural, some manufactured, some a combination — facilitate the conversion or transmission of energy. They also play an essential role in how we store energy, how we reduce power consumption, and how we develop cleaner, efficient energy solutions.

“Advanced materials and clean energy technologies are tightly connected, and at Georgia Tech we’ve been making major investments in people and facilities in batteries, solar energy, and hydrogen, for several decades,” said Tim Lieuwen, the David S. Lewis Jr. Chair and professor of aerospace engineering, and executive director of Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute (SEI).

That research synergy is the underpinning of Georgia Tech Energy Materials Day (March 27), a gathering of people from academia, government, and industry, co-hosted by SEI, the Institute for Materials (IMat), and the Georgia Tech Advanced Battery Center. This event aims to build on the momentum created by Georgia Tech Battery Day, held in March 2023, which drew more than 230 energy researchers and industry representatives.

“We thought it would be a good idea to expand on the Battery Day idea and showcase a wide range of research and expertise in other areas, such as solar energy and clean fuels, in addition to what we’re doing in batteries and energy storage,” said Matt McDowell, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), and co-director, with Gleb Yushin, of the Advanced Battery Center.

Energy Materials Day will bring together experts from academia, government, and industry to discuss and accelerate research in three key areas: battery materials and technologies, photovoltaics and the grid, and materials for carbon-neutral fuel production, “all of which are crucial for driving the clean energy transition,” noted Eric Vogel, executive director of IMat and the Hightower Professor of Materials Science and Engineering.

“Georgia Tech is leading the charge in research in these three areas,” he said. “And we’re excited to unite so many experts to spark the important discussions that will help us advance our nation’s path to net-zero emissions.”

Building an Energy Hub

Energy Materials Day is part of an ongoing, long-range effort to position Georgia Tech, and Georgia, as a go-to location for modern energy companies. So far, the message seems to be landing. Georgia has had more than $28 billion invested or announced in electric vehicle-related projects since 2020. And Georgia Tech was recently ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the top public university for energy research.

Georgia has become a major player in solar energy, also, with the announcement last year of a $2.5 billion plant being developed by Korean solar company Hanwha Qcells, taking advantage of President Biden’s climate policies. Qcells’ global chief technology officer, Danielle Merfeld, a member of SEI’s External Advisory Board, will be the keynote speaker for Energy Materials Day.

“Growing these industry relationships, building trust through collaborations with industry — these have been strong motivations in our efforts to create a hub here in Atlanta,” said Yushin, professor in MSE and co-founder of Sila Nanotechnologies, a battery materials startup valued at more than $3 billion.

McDowell and Yushin are leading the battery initiative for Energy Materials Day and they’ll be among 12 experts making presentations on battery materials and technologies, including six from Georgia Tech and four from industry. In addition to the formal sessions and presentations, there will also be an opportunity for networking.

“I think Georgia Tech has a responsibility to help grow a manufacturing ecosystem,” McDowell said. “We have the research and educational experience and expertise that companies need, and we’re working to coordinate our efforts with industry.”

Marta Hatzell, associate professor of mechanical engineering and chemical and biomolecular engineering, is leading the carbon-neutral fuel production portion of the event, while Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, assistant professor in MSE, is leading the photovoltaics initiative.

They’ll be joined by a host of experts from Georgia Tech and institutes across the country, “some of the top thought leaders in their fields,” said Correa-Baena, whose lab has spent years optimizing a semiconductor material for solar energy conversion.

“Over the past decade, we have been working to achieve high efficiencies in solar panels based on a new, low-cost material called halide perovskites,” he said. His lab recently discovered how to prevent the chemical interactions that can degrade it. “It’s kind of a miracle material, and we want to increase its lifespan, make it more robust and commercially relevant.”

While Correa-Baena is working to revolutionize solar energy, Hatzell’s lab is designing materials to clean up the manufacturing of clean fuels.

“We’re interested in decarbonizing the industrial sector, through the production of carbon-neutral fuels,” said Hatzell, whose lab is designing new materials to make clean ammonia and hydrogen, both of which have the potential to play a major role in a carbon-free fuel system, without using fossil fuels as the feedstock. “We’re also working on a collaborative project focusing on assessing the economics of clean ammonia on a larger, global scale.”

The hope for Energy Materials Day is that other collaborations will be fostered as industry’s needs and the research enterprise collide in one place — Georgia Tech’s Exhibition Hall — over one day. The event is part of what Yushin called “the snowball effect.”

“You attract a new company to the region, and then another,” he said. “If we want to boost domestic production and supply chains, we must roll like a snowball gathering momentum. Education is a significant part of that effect. To build this new technology and new facilities for a new industry, you need trained, talented engineers. And we’ve got plenty of those. Georgia Tech can become the single point of contact, helping companies solve the technical challenges in a new age of clean energy.”

Summary sentence

Energy materials facilitate the conversion or transmission of energy. They also play an essential role in how we store energy, reduce power consumption, and develop cleaner, efficient energy solutions.

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Wed, 02/21/2024 - 12:00

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Wed, 03/20/2024 - 12:03

Mark Prausnitz Elected to National Academy of Engineering

admin — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 19:52:53 +0000

Mark Prausnitz Elected to National Academy of Engineering admin Thu, 02/09/2023 - 14:52

Professor and entrepreneur Mark Prausnitz has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), joining a membership that includes the nation’s most distinguished engineers. He is Georgia Tech’s 46th NAE member.

Prausnitz is the J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) and director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Drug Design, Development and Delivery. He’s also the only Georgia Tech faculty member recognized as both a Regents’ Professor and Regents’ Entrepreneur, the highest academic titles awarded by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents. He joins 105 new NAE members in the 2023 class along with 18 new international members.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Summary sentence

The honor is one of the highest professional distinctions for engineers

Summary

The honor is one of the highest professional distinctions for engineers

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Tue, 02/07/2023 - 12:00

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Thu, 02/09/2023 - 14:18

$2.3B Qcells Solar Power Investment Holds Major Potential for Georgia

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 22:47:05 +0000

$2.3B Qcells Solar Power Investment Holds Major Potential for Georgia admin Mon, 01/23/2023 - 17:47

The state of Georgia is at the epicenter of what may be the largest investment in clean energy manufacturing in U.S. history, and Georgia Tech is poised to play a key role in an investment that is slated to create thousands of jobs and boost solar power infrastructure in our state and beyond.

Qcells, a solar power company, plans to build a $2.3 billion manufacturing complex just north of Atlanta in Cartersville to not only make state-of-the-art components for solar panels, but also to build complete panels used in a variety of settings, from houses to large-scale commercial and industrial solar arrays.

Georgia Tech is home to some of the world’s leading researchers and experts in photovoltaic materials and solar energy. Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, assistant professor and Goizueta Junior Faculty Rotating Chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, and his research group have been blazing trails on the hunt for new materials that can be used in solar energy conversion.

“The most important part of this investment in U.S. manufacturing is the fact that Qcells is investing in the development of ingot and wafer production,” Correa-Baena said. Currently, silicon needs to be processed to form solar cells used to harvest energy. Ingots are the first step in the manufacturing process of refining raw materials into wafers. The wafers become the base for completed solar panels.

Over the past decade, most ingot and wafer production has been happening outside of the U.S. “With this investment, we guarantee that we can have full control of the supply chain by manufacturing all aspects of the solar panels domestically,” said Correa-Baena. Ultimately, the goal is to make solar energy more affordable for American consumers and create high-paying jobs for Georgians.

“It is exciting to see that silicon manufacturing is restarting in the U.S. and that Georgia is at the forefront of it,” said Ajeet Rohatgi, Regents’ Professor and John H. Weitnauer Jr. Chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Rohatgi is one of the world’s leading researchers in photovoltaics – the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials like silicon. He is the founding director of the first university-based and Department of Energy-funded Center of Excellence for Photovoltaics Research and Education. The center’s work focuses on finding and improving the materials used to make solar cells while also improving their efficiency.

Qcells built its first plant near Dalton, Georgia, in 2019. By 2022, the facility had become the largest producer of solar panels in the western hemisphere. Rohatgi says representatives from Qcells have visited his research facilities on campus, and he and his team have visited the company’s Dalton facility as well.

“As demand for clean energy continues to grow nationally, we’re ready to put thousands of people to work creating fully American made and sustainable solar solutions, from raw material to finished panels,” said Justin Lee, CEO of Qcells. “We are committed to working with our customers as well as national and Georgia leaders to bring completely clean energy to millions of people across the country.”

Tim Lieuwen, executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute, Regents' Professor, and David S. Lewis Jr. Chair said, “Georgia Tech is a key leader in most of the core technologies associated with clean energy industries, has nationally distinctive researchers and facilities, and educates a lot of undergraduate and graduate students in these areas.”

That is why Tech has the potential to be a valuable partner in this project. “We are in a unique space where we can interface with Qcells to help them improve materials processing and explore new materials, but also aid in their manufacturing processes by introducing artificial intelligence to optimize processes and increase their productivity,” said Correa-Baena.

The announcement is not just significant for Georgia Tech, but for the state of Georgia as well. In Lieuwen’s view, Georgia is emerging as a center of clean energy manufacturing and technology, in no small part thanks to the Institute’s partnerships, research, and workforce development efforts. He says advancements in electric vehicles, batteries, and hydrogen power are all picking up steam in our state. “Having these types of companies in areas where Georgia Tech is focusing research and development efforts is good for the Institute and the state.”

The Qcells expansion is likely just the tip of the iceberg, as leading researchers from across campus identify projects like these where Tech ingenuity and innovation can make a difference.

“I’m enthusiastic about this expansion of solar cell manufacturing in Georgia because it builds on other clean energy, electrification, and energy storage industries already existing or planned for our state,” said Julia Kubanek, professor and vice president for Interdisciplinary Research. “The Southeast is increasingly becoming known as a hub for cleantech innovation, and Georgia Tech is proud to be a key contributor to this ecosystem.”

Production at the new Qcells solar plant is expected to start in 2024.

Summary sentence

Georgia Tech experts are at the forefront of technology and research that could revamp clean energy infrastructure in our state.

Summary

Georgia Tech experts are at the forefront of technology and research that could revamp clean energy infrastructure in our state.

Dateline

Mon, 01/23/2023 - 12:00

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Mon, 01/23/2023 - 17:27

Georgia Tech Receives $65 Million Grant from Semiconductor Research Corporation for JUMP 2.0 Centers

admin — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 13:40:31 +0000

Georgia Tech Receives $65 Million Grant from Semiconductor Research Corporation for JUMP 2.0 Centers admin Fri, 01/06/2023 - 08:40

Intelligent machines and AI characters that can interact seamlessly and intimately with human beings will have wide-ranging effects on society – in healthcare, search and rescue, business and defense, and even recreation. The technology is not very far off, and a massive national effort, led in part by Georgia Tech researchers, is charting the course.

Last year, the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced a new program to improve the nation’s information and technology infrastructure. With a global chip shortage, supply chain issues, and other challenges in play, a group of Georgia Tech faculty members jumped at the opportunity to participate.

Their landing was perfect. Two new research centers, representing an investment of about $65.7 million, have been awarded to Georgia Tech through the SRC-administrated Joint University Microelectronics Program 2.0, or JUMP 2.0.

JUMP 2.0 will support the work of dozens of inter-disciplinary researchers from multiple universities, tackling the technological issues of an increasingly connected world. The goal is to improve the nation’s performance, efficiency, and capabilities for both commercial and military applications.

“Georgia Tech won two of the seven centers, which is not only fantastic, but also speaks highly about the breadth and depth of our research enterprise,” said Professor Arijit Raychowdhury, the Steve W. Chaddick Chair of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech and will direct one of the new centers.

The JUMP 2.0 announcement represents the latest round of significant support advancing AI-related research at Georgia Tech. Last July, Tech received two National Science Foundation Artificial Intelligence Research awards totaling $40 million. In September, the U.S. Economic Development Administration awarded Georgia Tech $65 million to support a statewide initiative combining AI and manufacturing innovations with workforce and outreach programs.

A New Collaborative Chapter

Launching in 2023, JUMP 2.0 is the next chapter of an SRC-led alliance that formed in 2018 – the original JUMP, with its broad focus on nano-electronic computing.

JUMP 2.0 is a collaboration between SRC industrial participants (IBM, Intel, Raytheon, TSMC and Samsung, to name a few) and the Department of Defense. The program asked researchers from U.S. universities to solicit proposals for collaborative, multidisciplinary, multi-institute research in seven theme areas: cognition; communications and connectivity; intelligent sensing to action; systems and architectures for distributed computing; intelligent memory and storage; advanced monolithic and heterogenous integration; and high-performance energy efficient devices.

The two new research centers Georgia Tech, both headquartered within the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) are:

• CoCoSys: Center for the Co-Design of Cognitive Systems (theme area: cognition), under the direction of Raychowdhury;

• CogniSense: Center on Cognitive Multispectral Sensors (theme area: intelligent sensing to action), under the direction of Saibal Mukhopadhyay, Joseph M. Pettit Professor in ECE.

Semiconductors, or microchips, are basically tiny silicon slices packed with millions of transistors that control electron activity. These chips enable all our electronic devices to work. So, a shortage of semiconductors – or a shortcoming in terms of quality and efficiency – spells trouble for sectors and industries that depend on these little bits of hardware, for example: computing, healthcare, telecommunication, security, transportation, or manufacturing.

Building a Digital Human

The goals for the JUMP 2.0 centers are lofty and wide-ranging, addressing current and future needs.

“In some sense, the question we’re addressing is, ‘how do you build a perfect digital human,’” Raychowdhury said of the Team CoCoSys mission. “We want to learn how to build systems which are aware – capable of interacting as human agents with us. For example, we want AI that can listen to a conversation between two human beings and learn from that and seamlessly merge into society.”

Current AI, Raychowdhury said, may be able to perform relatively narrow tasks better than a human, but one area that it is much less effective is human-intelligent machine collaboration. This concept has been increasingly researched in recent years as automated virtual assistants and the metaverse have entered the mainstream. As cognitive systems research moves toward creation of a digital human, it will have far-reaching impact in industry and healthcare testing, disaster relief, fully autonomous and collaborative systems, immersive training and gaming experiences, and more.

“Continuous learning through interactions with humans is missing,” Raychowdhury said. “The next generation of AI needs to comprehend nuances of human interaction, explain, and interpret visual cues and language, and be able to do that in real-time with high energy-efficiency. That’s what we want to address. That’s the meta goal of this center.”

Three other Georgia Tech faculty researchers, all from ECE, are part of Team CoCoSys: Larry Heck, Azad Naeemi, and Tushar Krishna.

“This is a diverse team in all possible ways with expertise across the board,” Raychowdhury said.

Sensors with a Brain

The ability to sense is fundamental and probably the most critical component for building an intelligent machine. “It is fundamental to nature,” said Mukhopadhyay. “We have eyes, ears, a nose, and skin to sense the environment around us.”

The CogniSense Center research team wants to develop sensors that can effectively “perceive” everything around them and, like humans, efficiently attend to the information that really matters.

Today’s electronics sensors samples everything they “see” and generate abundance of digital data; sometime way too much for a machine store, process, and make sense. The CogniSense center’s goal is to change this paradigm by learning from biology.

“In human, sensors and the brain work together to control attention and extract only important information from everything happening around us,” said Mukhopadhyay. “Can we make electronic sensors that behave like that – cognizant and energy efficient?”

The team he’s assembled is made up of 20 researchers from 12 different institutions, including two other ECE faculty members: Justin Romberg (associate chair for research in ECE) and Muhannad Bakir (interim director of the Georgia Tech 3D Systems Packing Research Center).

“We have a diverse team with expertise in radars, optics, integrated circuits, packaging, signal processing, and artificial intelligence to build these new sensors with a brain,” said Mukhopadhyay.

Beyond Campus

Georgia Tech researchers will play critical roles in three other centers based at other universities around the country:

• PRISM: Center for Processing with Intelligent Storage and Memory

• ACE: Evolvable Computing for Next-Generation Distributed Computer Systems.

• CHIMES: Center for Heterogenous Integration of Microelectronic Systems

CHIMES in particular will feature a large, multi-disciplinary Georgia Tech influence including ECE’s Suman Datta, Callie Hao, and Shimeng Yu; George Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering’s Suresh Sitaraman and Satish Kumar; and the center’s associate director, Bakir (doubling up on his JUMP 2.0 responsibilities as a member of both CogniSense and CHIMES).

“We are delighted in the critical and fundamental role Georgia Tech plays within CHIMES,” said Bakir. “In each of the four research themes that constitute this center, Georgia Tech faculty play a key role. This not only reflects our world class faculty, students, and staff, but also our world-class fabrication, assembly and bonding, and advanced system level prototyping facilities that will be critical in enabling next generation 3D heterogeneous and 3D monolithic circuits and systems.”

Tech's multidisciplinary research activities related to CHIMES are supported by the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN). Georgia Tech's nanotechnology core facilities, namely the IEN Micro/Nanofabrication Facility and Materials Characterization Facility, support CHIMES and other JUMP 2.0 research activities.

Establishing all of these new semiconductor research centers is the result of impeccable timing, according to Raychowdhury, who pointed out that ECE broke into the top two in national rankings by U.S. News and World Report rankings for the first time in 2022, not long after President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act, which provides about $280 billion in new funding to boost U.S. research and manufacturing of semiconductors.

“These research centers are part of a confluence of things that are happening simultaneously across the U.S.,” he said. “And they have implications for Georgia Tech, national security, and the independence of our national supply chain as a whole.”

Summary sentence

Two new research centers, representing an investment of about $65.7 million, have been awarded to Georgia Tech through the SRC-administrated Joint University Microelectronics Program 2.0, or JUMP 2.0.

Summary

Dateline

Thu, 01/05/2023 - 12:00

jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu

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Fri, 01/06/2023 - 07:39

Georgia Tech Remains in Top 20 in Higher Education Research Spending

admin — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 19:29:29 +0000

Georgia Tech Remains in Top 20 in Higher Education Research Spending admin Tue, 12/20/2022 - 14:29

For the second consecutive year, the Georgia Institute of Technology has garnered a spot among the 20 universities in the U.S. with the highest amount of research and development (R&D) spending. Georgia Tech ranked No. 20, based on the annual Higher Education Research and Development Survey conducted by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The ranking is especially significant because Georgia Tech is the only institution in the Top 20 without a medical school.

Indeed, the research funding has led to remarkable breakthroughs in biomedicine, such as 3D-printed medical devices, including tracheal and bronchial splints for children with rare, life-threatening genetic irregularities. It also has put Georgia Tech at the forefront of sustainability as researchers reimagine toilet systems that operate without inlet water or output sewer lines, improving issues with sanitation and pollution.

“We strive for knowledge, understanding, and impact in all that we do at Georgia Tech,” said Chaouki T. Abdallah, executive vice president for Research at Georgia Tech. “These expenditures also help us address our most pressing challenges here at home in Georgia, around the world, and even beyond Earth.”

The research has also taken Georgia Tech to space with a team of faculty and students guiding NASA’s Lunar Flashlight satellite probe in the quest to find frozen water on Earth’s moon. Here at home, Georgia Tech is leading a coalition of partners across the state in an effort to bring together artificial intelligence and innovation to strengthen Georgia’s manufacturing sector, create new opportunities for the state’s workforce, and augment its economic resiliency.

Georgia Tech’s R&D spending of $1.114 billion in fiscal year 2021 reflects a 6.2% increase from the 2020 figure for its entire research enterprise, which includes the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). All R&D spending in higher education increased 4% to $89.872 billion in fiscal year 2021. The nation’s top 30 schools accounted for 42% of that overall R&D spending amount, unchanged from 2020.

"We are proud to see Georgia Tech in such a distinguished group of public and private universities,” said Abdallah. “The driving mission behind all of our research is to develop and lead in creative work and innovations that improve the human condition.”

The NSF collected its data from 916 universities in the Higher Education Research and Development Survey, sponsored by the NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics unit.

The Institute’s showing on the list of research-intensive or R1 universities places it among a group of schools that include Johns Hopkins University, which had the top spot in R&D spending with $3.181 billion, Duke University (No. 11 with $1.237 billion), and Yale University (No. 15 with $1.165 billion).

In addition to the innovations that those federal and state research dollars and foundation grants help support, the R&D funding has very real and immediate impact on Georgia’s economy. According to the University System of Georgia, all schools within the system contributed $19.3 billion to the state’s economy in fiscal year 2021. Georgia Tech’s portion of that total — roughly $4.2 billion — was the highest of any USG institution and reflects a 4.6% jump from fiscal year 2020. Learn more about Georgia Tech’s research contributions in this report.

Summary sentence

Annual research spending enables medical breakthroughs, space exploration, and scientific innovation across multiple disciplines

Summary

Annual research spending enables medical breakthroughs, space exploration, and scientific innovation across multiple disciplines

Dateline

Tue, 12/20/2022 - 12:00

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Tue, 12/20/2022 - 13:40

Faculty Honored as National Academy of Inventors Fellows

admin — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 16:23:48 +0000

Faculty Honored as National Academy of Inventors Fellows admin Fri, 12/09/2022 - 11:23

Three faculty from Georgia Tech have been chosen as 2022 National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellows, the highest professional distinction for academic inventors.

The new class of fellows includes Adegboyega "Yomi" Oyelere of the College of Sciences, along with Madhavan Swaminathan and Zhong Lin Wang of the College of Engineering.

They are among approximately 150 honorees from research universities and governmental and non-profit institutions around the world. They were chosen by the NAI for demonstrating “a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society.”

Oyelere is a professor in the School of Chemistry & Biochemistry. His research spans bioorganic chemistry, biochemistry, and drug design with interrelated work across RNA-small molecule interaction, targeted histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibition, and design and synthesis of novel bioconjugates for molecular delivery applications.

Oyelere's lab has worked to develop a therapeutic strategy for cancer treatment to inhibit enzymes called histone deacetylases, which play an important role in the regulation of gene expression. He has also worked on the design of histone deacetylase inhibitors that can be taken up by the hormones expressed on the surface of hormone-positive breast cancer cells to stop the cells from dividing. In 2018, he received Georgia Tech’s Outstanding Undergraduate Mentor Senior Faculty Award.

Swaminathan is the John Pippin Chair in Microsystems Packaging & Electromagnetics in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and has a joint appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE). He directs the 3D Systems Packaging Research Center at Georgia Tech. He is an internationally recognized researcher in electronics packaging, an area that is expected to fuel the semiconductor industry over the next decade.

Swaminathan holds 31 patents and is the founder and co-founder of two start-up companies (E-System Design and Jacket Micro Devices).

Wang is the Regents’ Professor and Hightower Chair Emeritus in MSE. His discovery and breakthroughs in developing nanogenerators established the principle and technological roadmap for harvesting mechanical energy from environment and biological systems for powering mobile sensors.

Wang’s work also pioneered the field of self-powered sensors, and he coined piezotronics and piezo-phototronics for the third-generation semiconductors. Wang holds 70 U.S. and foreign patents.

Georgia Tech now has 16 NAI Fellows. The new cohort will be inducted at the NAI Fellows Induction Ceremony in July.

Summary sentence

Three faculty from Georgia Tech have been chosen as 2022 National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellows, the highest professional distinction for academic inventors.

Summary

Three faculty from Georgia Tech have been chosen as 2022 National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellows, the highest professional distinction for academic inventors: Adegboyega "Yomi" Oyelere of the College of Sciences, along with Madhavan Swaminathan and Zhong Lin Wang of the College of Engineering.

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Thu, 12/08/2022 - 12:00

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Fri, 12/09/2022 - 11:03

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Faculty Honored as National Academy of Inventors Fellows

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