On Saturday, March 11, Georgia Tech will open its doors to the community for Science and Engineering Day at Georgia Tech.

This annual event aims to inspire the next generation of engineers and scientists and share the breadth of Georgia Tech’s research activities with the local community. Last year more than 500 attendees, ranging from toddlers to retirees, explored the campus and participated in hands-on STEAM activities, tours, and demonstrations designed to engage and educate participants. While attendees were able to get a glimpse into one of the nation’s most research-intensive universities, the community-wide event also allowed Georgia Tech students, researchers, and staff members the opportunity to share their work with the public.

Seeking Demo Groups

To continue the success of Science and Engineering Day, we need members of the Georgia Tech community — including student groups, labs, staff, and faculty — to participate in this year’s event. Last year, 26 units and student organizations across campus provided activities in biology, space, art, nanotechnology, paper, computer science, wearables, bioengineering, and chemical engineering just to name a few.

Taking part in Science and Engineering Day gives Georgia Tech students and researchers a unique opportunity to share their work with the community and inspire attendees. Demo space is limited, so reserve your spot today. Opportunities include hands-on STEAM activities, exhibits, demonstrations, and opportunities to meet student researchers. If you have questions about how you can participate, reach out to Leslie O’Neil. All demo groups must register by February 20, 2023.

The Atlanta Science Festival is engineered by Science ATL and community partners, with major support from founders Emory University, Georgia Tech, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber, and from sponsors UPS, International Paper, Georgia Power, Cox Enterprises, Lockheed Martin, Lenz Marketing, and Mercer University.

Learn more and register to demonstrate at research.gatech.edu/ATLscifestGTday23

Georgia Tech alumni are making a difference in their communities throughout the state, with former Yellow Jackets making up 10% of Georgia Trend’s list of the 100 most influential Georgians for 2023.

John Avery, EE 1986 – Director, Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC)

Blending his experience as a serial entrepreneur and a corporate executive, Avery — a Georgia Tech alumnus and holder of six patents — is now in his fourth year leading the state’s technology startup incubator, which serves entrepreneurs across Georgia through one-on-one coaching and provides access to resources and networking opportunities. Touting the innovation that occurs within ATDC, Avery has expressed his belief that it is the “center of gravity for this kind of activity anywhere in the Southeast.”

Brian Blake, EE 1994 – President, Georgia State University

Before embarking on a 20-year career in higher education and becoming Georgia State’s first Black president in August 2021, Blake earned his bachelor’s degree at Georgia Tech. In addition to leading the university to new fundraising and research activity records in his first year, Blake implemented four pillars at Georgia State: research and innovation, student success, college to careers, and identity and placemaking.

Ángel Cabrera, M.S. PSY 1993, Ph.D. PSY 1995 – President, Georgia Institute of Technology

Under Cabrera’s leadership, Georgia Tech continues to flourish as one of the premier research institutions in the nation, receiving $1.3 billion in annual research awards. Looking to the future, Cabrera unveiled a 10-year strategic plan in November 2020, followed by the launch of Transforming Tomorrow: The Campaign for Georgia Tech, with an emphasis on “developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition.”

Lisa Cupid, ME 2000 – Chair, Cobb County Board of Supervisors

A member of the board since 2013, Cupid became the first female and first Black chair in 2021. With an “all-in” approach, Cupid continues to promote inclusion and equity for all Cobb County residents and was recently chosen by the National Association of Counties to chair its economic development subcommittee. In addition to her public service, Cupid is an attorney and previously worked as a manufacturing process engineer after earning her degree from Georgia Tech.

Andre Dickens, ChE 1998 – Mayor, City of Atlanta

It’s been just over a year since Dickens was inaugurated as Atlanta’s 61st mayor at Bobby Dodd Stadium. In his first year in office, the Georgia Tech graduate laid the foundation for his term by unveiling a $750 million infrastructure plan. Dickens also continues to highlight affordable housing as a top priority, with a goal of delivering 20,000 units across the city by 2026.

Hear Dickens' May 2022 Georgia Tech Commencement speech.

Jimmy Etheredge, IE 1985 – CEO, Accenture North America

Serving as CEO of the global consulting firm's North American arm, Etheredge leads 80,000 employees. During his time in the role, he’s earned praise for reforming Accenture’s hiring practices — prioritizing skills, experience, and potential over educational background. Etheredge teamed with up Fox Sports' Emmanuel Acho to record the Change Conversations podcast focused on improving equity in the workplace.

Tom Fanning, IM 1979, M.S. IM 1980, HON Ph.D. 2013 – Chair and CEO, Southern Company

After more than 35 years with Southern Company, it was recently announced that Fanning will hand the reins over to Georgia Power President Chris Womack at the end of March. Under Fanning’s direction, the company has added 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy in the past decade, including a 52% emissions reduction in 2020, while also taking on a leadership role in the nation’s nuclear initiative. The two-time Georgia Tech graduate has also served as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Paul Judge, M.S. CS 2001, Ph.D. CS 2002 – Managing Partner, Panoramic Ventures

Having co-founded and sold three companies, Judge is using his experience as a serial entrepreneur to assist others as a managing partner of the “largest tech venture fund headquartered in the Southeast.” With minority and women-led tech startups receiving just 3% of capital investment, according to Panoramic, the firm highlighted their emphasis on backing underrepresented founders when Judge joined in 2021 with a $300 million fund.

Hear Judge's May 2021 Georgia Tech Commencement speech.

Jerald Mitchell, MBA 2011 – President and CEO, Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce

Having served as the vice president of economic development for Atlanta BeltLine Inc. during a period of exponential growth and job creation, Mitchell now leads the Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce — the chamber’s first Black president — with the goal of attracting businesses to the area while improving local infrastructure. Mitchell also serves as the president of Leadership Georgia, a statewide leadership development program.

Valerie Montgomery Rice, Chem 1983 – President and Dean, Morehouse School of Medicine

As the first female president of the Morehouse School of Medicine, Rice has continued to advocate for equity in the medical field. In 2020, Rice led Morehouse into a historic 10-year, $100 million partnership with CommonSpirit Health to develop and train more Black physicians with a goal of 300 completing their residency each year.

Hear Rice's May 2018 Georgia Tech Commencement speech.

Honorary Degrees:

Raphael Bostic, HON Ph.D. 2022 – President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

While leading the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Bostic has also played a vital role on the Federal Open Market Committee — the monetary policymaking body of the Federal Reserve System. In the community, Bostic served as the 2021–22 chair of the board of directors of the United Way of Greater Atlanta and the 2022 chair for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.

Hear Bostic's May 2022 Georgia Tech Commencement speech.

James Quincey, HON Ph.D. 2020 – Chair and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company

Leading the global powerhouse since 2017, Quincey has taken The Coca-Cola Company to new heights with $11.05 billion in revenue in the third quarter of the past fiscal year. The quarter also saw the company participate in World Water Week as it continues its commitment to addressing water challenges around the world.

Hear Quincey's December 2020 Georgia Tech Commencement speech.

Three second- and third-year undergraduates – including two students from the College of Sciences – were recently chosen as walk-on recipients of the Stamps President’s Scholarship. Though this scholarship is typically given to 40 exceptional first-year students, these students were chosen to receive the honor by a closed group of nominators for exemplifying the program’s pillars of scholarship, leadership, progress, and service.

The new Scholars include School of Chemistry and Biochemistry student Mariah Castillo, Scheller College of Business student Elizabeth Patterson, and School of Psychology student Emmarose Stern. As part of the program, the selected students will receive a full-ride scholarship, special mentoring, and travel opportunities.

About the Scholars

Mariah Castillo is a second-year student pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and is from Santiago, Chile. Her interest in chemistry led her to work as a stockroom assistant in the first-year chemistry labs and as a teaching assistant in quantitative analysis labs. Castillo has also pursued research interests, working in School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Z. John Zhang’s Lab synthesizing core-shell nanoparticles. In the Spring, Castillo will begin work research with Amanda Stockton, an assistant professor also in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Mariah is a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Kappa Alpha Theta, and Alpha Chi Omega. In her spare time, she enjoys creating art, especially digital art, and animation. In the future, Mariah plans on seeking a Ph.D. in chemistry to become a professor. 

Elizabeth Patterson is from Birmingham, Alabama, and is a third-year undergraduate pursuing a business administration degree with a concentration in finance. She competes on the Georgia Tech Women’s Volleyball Team and serves as the vice president of the Student Athlete Advisory Board. She represents Georgia Tech at the conference level on as the service chair on the Atlantic Coast Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Executive. Following her internship next summer with Northwestern Mutual, Elizabeth will decide to continue in the workforce after graduation or pursue a postgraduate degree. 

Emmarose Stern is studying psychology and social justice, and is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She is the president of Crisis Text Line Student Volunteers, a network of mental health hotline volunteers at Georgia Tech. She is also a crisis responder at THRIVE Lifeline, a crisis hotline for people with marginalized identities. Emmarose cares deeply about reproductive health, researching male birth control in the Problem Solving and Educational Technology Laboratory led by School of Psychology Professor Richard Catrambone, as well as raising donations for reproductive equity by selling up-cycled second-hand jewelry. After graduation, Emmarose hopes to pursue graduate school for clinical or counseling psychology and work as a mental health therapist for LGBTQ+ youth.

Information on the 17th Class of Stamps Scholars, published June 2022, can be found here. This cohort included 247 top students attending 31 partner universities across the US and the UK. Selected from over 413,000 applications, these Scholars are passionate about tackling national and global challenges while making impacts on their campuses and for their communities.

During the summer, Duncan Hughes, an Environmental Technology instructor at North Georgia Technical College (NGTC) introduced his students to the web application Virtual Ecological Research Assistant, better known as VERA. It allowed students to construct conceptual models and ecological systems, as well as run interactive model simulations on the brook trout, a species of freshwater fish.

Hughes and his students sought to answer questions about reproduction and food supply, as they worked to add new complexities to the VERA application from different species of trout, circumstances, to changes. According to the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), an international effort, led by the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, brook trout are found in three types of aquatic environments: rivers, lakes, and marine areas and their living requirements in these environments.

“Originally when we populated the brook trout, we noticed the brown trout shared the same life history and ecological information, but we were able to find enough information from the Encyclopedia of Life to differentiate those species,” said Hughes. “I had my students run through the process of building these components through an instructional-based format by having them manipulate some of the parameters and probabilities.”

VERA was developed by the Design & Intelligence Lab at Georgia Tech in collaboration with EOL. The technology is being used by students as an assisting tool and is publicly accessible. The data being collected from their usage is part of the research conducted at the NSF AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE).

“Users can jump into our program and conduct ‘what if’ experiments by adjusting simulation parameters. This is our way of providing an accessible and informal learning tool,” said Ashok Goel, director and co-principal Investigator of AI-ALOE and computer science professor at Georgia Tech. “Using VERA as an assessment tool is excellent. These students are using VERA in a way we are not.”

Goel was recently joined by Georgia Tech graduate researcher Andrew Hornback, research scientist Sandeep Kakar, and staff member Daniela Estrada at NGTC to learn more about the work in VERA and challenges Hughes and his students faced while using the application.

“The main struggle is limitation with the EOL and database,” said Hughes. “There are some species that we just can’t find, and sometimes it is glitchy and doesn’t work right away, but it is not insurmountable.”

Another challenge Hughes’ students found was not being able to find what they wanted to complete certain tasks, such as stream and environmental patterns of comparative fish ecosystems.

With that being known, AI-ALOE is working to address these issues and more to build and cater to specific student and teacher needs. At this time, the Design & Intelligence Laboratory is in the process of expanding VERA in the capability of its on-demand agent-based simulation generator, which would enable users to divide components into separate habitats.

“It was very interesting to see the results because antidotally through much research we were able to set up all these relationships and let them run the model, and the results were exactly what we would have hypothesized what they would be given those perimeters,” said Hughes.

The technical college has plans to introduce VERA to another classroom this semester held by Natural Resource Management instructor, Kevin Peyton.

About VERA

Interested in trying out VERA? Create an account at https://vera.cc.gatech.edu/. You can also find VERA’s user guide as well as a step-by-step tutorial at http://epi.vera.cc.gatech.edu/docs/exercise.

About AI-ALOE

The NSF AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE) is developing an AI-based transformative model for online adult learning through research and data collection.

About NGTC

North Georgia Technical College is a residential, public, multi-campus institution of higher education serving the workforce development needs of Northeast Georgia and part of the Technical College System of Georgia.

Six graduate students, one from each school in the College of Sciences, are among the latest recipients of the Herbert P. Haley Fellowship at Georgia Tech. The initiative recognizes significant accomplishments and outstanding academic achievements for graduate students at Georgia Tech.

College of Sciences’ 2022-2023 Haley Fellows are Karim Lakhani, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; Cody Mashburn, School of Psychology; Andrew McAvoy, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Joshua Pughe-Sanford, School of Physics; Roberta Shapiro, School of Mathematics, and Cassandra Shriver, School of Biological Sciences.

Haley scholars receive a one-time merit award of up to $4,000 thanks to the generosity of the late Marion Peacock Haley. Haley’s estate established the creation of merit-based graduate fellowships at Georgia Tech in honor of her late husband, Herbert P. Haley, ME 1933. It is an award which may be held in conjunction with other funding, assistantships, or fellowships, if applicable. 

Meet the scholars

Karim Lakhani is a 5th-year Ph.D. student who is studying paleoceanography in ADVANCE Professor Jean Lynch-Stieglitz’s lab. The fellowship will allow Lakhani to spend more time on research, where he is currently “looking at the transition between the surface ocean and the deep ocean and how that was different, so the shells I look at are from organisms that floated at specific depths in the ocean in the past.”

Cody Mashburn’s research interest is the cognitive basis of individual differences in intelligence and reasoning. “Basically, why do we see variability in how well people are able to perform on intelligence tests, and how well they are able to problem solve,” he said. Mashburn will use the funds to add “more tools to my research arsenal” and to attend relevant workshops. 

Andrew McAvoy is a fifth-year Ph.D. student who plans to use the Haley funds for registration and travel-related expenses so he can present his research at scientific conferences.

“My graduate research involves studying small molecule production in Burkholderia cepacia complex bacteria, one of the most feared pathogens infecting cystic fibrosis patients,” McAvoy said.

Joshua Pughe-Sanford’s fascination with dynamics — how things move, breaking down complex behavior into simpler parts — drives his physics research. “Dynamics can describe how elementary particles collide, how neurons fire in our brain, how traffic accrues, how galaxies collide,” he said. “The list goes on and on and, in essence, the work I do can be applied to all these different fields.” 

Roberta Shapiro’s research centers on using topology — the study of geometric properties that stay the same, even when they are distorted — to answer questions in complex dynamics. Saying that “mathematics is all about collaboration,” the fourth-year graduate student plans on using the funds to attend conferences “and make connections with future collaborators. That means there's more math coming soon!”

Cassandra Shriver, who is starting her second year in the Quantitative Biosciences graduate program, studies comparative biomechanics and conservation science. “Specifically, I'm curious how various morphological differences and scaling constraints affect climbing kinematics, and how these strategies might change as you increase in size from something as small as a squirrel to as large as a bear.”

Over the past school year, the College welcomed five new members to the College of Sciences Advisory Board (CoSAB). Board members serve a three-year term and provide advice, feedback, and support to the Dean and School Chairs in advancing the education, research, and service missions of the College.

We recently heard from three appointees — Karla Haack, Kelly Sepcic Pfeil, Christa Sobon — on wisdom for current students, their own educational and career paths, their plans as new board members, and about the legacy and impact of giving back at Georgia Tech.

Karla Haack, Ph.D. BIO 2009

Karla Haack is an associate medical writer at Merck with more than 10 years of previous experience in research and teaching in academia. Karla utilizes her background in physiology to assist in the composition of regulatory documents. Haack is the current chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for the American Physiological Society. 

Kelly Sepcic Pfeil, M.S. CHEM 1992, Ph.D. CHEM 2003

Kelly Sepcic Pfeil is president of ArrowInno, specializing in product design and innovation consulting. She served as vice president for Frito Lay North America and PepsiCo Research and Development from 2007-2015. Prior to joining Frito Lay in 2007, she spent 14 years with The Coca-Cola Company. 

Christa Sobon, M.S. PSYCH 1996

A native of Atlanta, Christa also spent part of her childhood in the suburb of Chicago. Christa is a program manager in Manheim Digital for Cox Automotive, where she leads IT and process change implementations. In that role, she delivers large scale change programs that impact operations and drive measurable business results. 

Why did you want to attend Georgia Tech?

Haack: I chose to attend Georgia Tech for its reputation as an Institute where curiosity and problem solving go hand in hand. I also knew that at Tech I would be trained in the specifics of my discipline, and I would learn how to be a scientist — how to think in a cross-disciplinary way and how to engage in scientific inquiry. 

Sepcic Pfeil: While completing my undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of South Carolina, I completed summer internships at Milliken Research Center. Milliken had a liaison with a Georgia Tech chemistry professor, Charlie Liotta. He encouraged me to apply for graduate school.  

Sobon: Having attended Emory University for my undergraduate degree, I wanted to attend another world-class institution to round out and augment my education.

What was it about your major or discipline that attracted your interest? 

Haack: I love the field of physiology because it is the study of the interdependent mechanisms a functioning organism uses to maintain homeostasis. I was able to pursue a cell physiology project within the School of Biological Sciences. 

Sepcic Pfeil: Initially I wasn’t sure if I would go to medical school or work in science research. As I furthered my education, I was more attracted to chemistry than biology. I ended up majoring in chemistry and minoring in biology in my undergraduate degree. I was always interested in the ingredients inside of products and what made them work. As a child, I read the back panel of ingredients of shampoo bottles! 

Sobon: I loved that the School of Psychology was in the College of Sciences. Additionally, I was drawn by the opportunities for hands-on research and professors who were well known and well regarded in their field.

What was the most important lesson you learned from your time at Georgia Tech?

Haack: To be successful, you have to work smart and hard. 

Sepcic Pfeil: The most important lesson I learned while completing M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry at Georgia Tech was a realization that science is ever-changing and you have to continue to learn and grow in your field of science. I realized I needed advanced degrees to continue to understand and grow in the field of chemistry and further my career. My Ph.D. degree certainly helped me to advance throughout the executive roles with both PepsiCo and Frito Lay research and development departments.

Sobon: Georgia Tech pushed me as a student and stretched me well outside of my comfort zone. I really developed a confidence that I could do challenging things and solve hard problems, whatever they may be.

The best advice you can give current students?

Haack: Innovation comes when individuals with diverse perspectives and experiences work as a collective. Bring your authentic self and experiences to your work.

Sobon: There is a lot more you can do outside of research. If research is your passion, then that’s wonderful. However, if you want to contribute in ways outside of that, there are a lot of opportunities!

What do you hope to accomplish as a member of the College’s Advisory Board? 

Haack: I hope to continue to make CoS and Tech a place where any student can feel valued and succeed. I look forward to helping create additional professional development opportunities for students.

Sepcic Pfeil: I hope to contribute to the College of Sciences Advisory Board to help shape the future pipeline of students. Recently my husband and I endowed a faculty chair fund to the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. The endowment is designed to increase the number of women faculty within the school. So few women obtain chemistry degrees and work in the field of chemistry. I hope to make a difference for our future female scientists. 

Sobon: I’m truly honored to serve on the CoSAB. My hope is to stay even more well informed of the many great things happening within the CoS and figure out how I can help the College and the associated professionals achieve goals there. To me, giving back to Georgia Tech is a combination of leveraging my time and talent (and treasure too, of course) to be a visible and engaged ambassador for the CoS.

Karla Haack, Kelly Sepcic Pfeil, Christa Sobon are joined in their CoSAB appointments by fellow new board members Mercedes Dullum and Nsé Ufot — look out for more interviews with CoSAB members over the school year ahead. 

Mercedes Dullum, B.S. BIO 1975

Mercedes Dullum is a retired cardiothoracic surgeon with over 30 years of clinical practice in numerous leadership roles in hospital settings, private practice, and integrated medical practices. She served as medical director of clinical outcomes at Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., and surgical director of the Heart Failure Center at Cleveland Clinic Florida in Weston.

Nsé Ufot, B.S. PSYCH 2002

Nsé Ufot is the chief executive officer of the New Georgia Project and its affiliate, New Georgia Project Action Fund. Prior to joining the New Georgia Project, Ufot worked as the assistant executive director for the Canadian Association of University Teachers, Canada’s largest faculty union. She also served as senior lobbyist and government relations officer for the American Association of University Professors.

Four faculty in the College of Sciences have received new funding to help foster student belonging at Georgia Tech. The team’s six-year grant is part of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s (HHMI) Inclusive Excellence 3 initiative, and is one of 104 new grants funded through an overall initiative that’s allocating $60 million over six years and several phases.

“HHMI’s challenge to us addresses a critical need in U.S. higher education, and it is aligned with Georgia Tech’s strategic plan,” says David Collard, senior associate dean in the College and lead researcher for effort at Tech. “The grant to Georgia Tech will support a team effort in pursuing a number of complementary projects.”

Collard is joined by College of Sciences co-investigators Jennifer Leavey, assistant dean for Faculty Mentoring; Carrie Shepler, assistant dean for Teaching Effectiveness; and Professor Lewis Wheaton, inaugural director of the Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences at Georgia Tech. Collard and Shepler also serve as faculty members in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Leavey and Wheaton in the School of Biological Sciences.

Inclusive Excellence 3

As the third phase of the HHMI program, Inclusive Excellence 3, known as IE3, challenges U.S. colleges and universities to “substantially and sustainably build their capacity for student belonging, especially for those who have been historically excluded from the sciences.”

IE3 is also distinct from previous HHMI science education initiatives because it begins with a learning phase and, during that phase, learning communities envision how to move cooperatively into an implementation phase.

The grant uniquely challenges groups to work collaboratively to address one of three broad efforts. At Georgia Tech, the College of Sciences will work with institutions across the country to help empower colleges and universities to develop and support systems that cultivate teaching and learning in tandem with key concepts in inclusion and equity.

At Georgia Tech, each IE3 team member will concentrate on a distinct area of work.

Inclusive teaching

Leavey will focus on “working with collaborators from other institutions to share faculty development strategies focused on inclusive teaching, such as the Inclusive STEM Teaching Fellows program ,” she shares, “which the College of Sciences piloted last spring along with the Center for Teaching Learning, the College of Engineering, the College of Computing, and the Office of Institute Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” 

Leavey adds that, a semester after its launch, the Fellows program is already generating interest across campus and at collaborating institutions.

Inclusive impact

Shepler will help faculty assess the impact of their inclusive teaching efforts, working with collaborators to develop an iterative process to help institutions create formative assessment methodologies for teaching and learning that both facilitate and prioritize inclusion and equity in a manner that is consistent with institutional values and missions.

“Throughout the project, our aim is to make sure that students have a voice in defining what it means for them to experience teaching that centers” on these concepts, Shepler says.

The work coincides with a goal of the College of Sciences’ new Teaching Effectiveness, Advocacy, and Mentoring (TEAM) committee, which Shepler leads, to “develop and adapt new processes for the evaluation of teaching that are inclusive and equitable for all faculty.”

C-PIES

Meanwhile, Wheaton’s work as the director of the Center for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in the Sciences — C-PIES, for short — will inform and supplement Leavey and Shepler’s goals for the grant.

Wheaton will also lead a competitive C-PIES Faculty Fellows program that focuses on innovative teaching and research ideas that can transform student learning using key principles.

“The Center will sponsor approximately five C-PIES Inclusive Excellence Faculty Fellows in this effort,” he says. “This is an exciting direction that will provide the tools to develop assessments in our curriculum, leading to a culture that emphasizes and facilitates a growth mindset of continued development.”

Transforming tomorrow

Ultimately, the researchers hope to leverage the Inclusive Excellence Grant to transform teaching and learning for faculty and students of today — and of tomorrow.

“Though much of the HHMI work will focus on faculty, particularly those in instructional roles, the potential impact of these efforts is on the learning experiences of future generations of students,” adds Collard, the grant lead. “I look forward to seeing how the project develops — and how it fosters changes that support student, and faculty, success.”

Chances are we all know someone who gets lost easily and often: people who move to a new city or walk into an office building and have no idea where to go — and even after several trips they continue to take wrong turns and spend time searching. Others, however, seem to have a built-in GPS, finding their way and instinctively discovering shortcuts. What could account for these individual differences?

A recent paper by an interdisciplinary team of authors from the School of Psychology and the School of Economics at Georgia Tech discovered that through psychology and neuroscience, good navigators often use a bird’s eye view perspective to organize and remember different places in the environment and have a map-like representation of the environment in their mind. Bad navigators on the other hand, often use a route-based, or turn-by-turn, strategy to learn the environment, making their representation of the environment much less configural. 

Reinforcement learning

“A comparison of reinforcement learning models of human spatial navigation,” recently published in Nature Scientific Reports, explores reinforcement learning (RL), a popular type of machine learning algorithm which the famous AlphaGo is built on, to further investigate these individual differences in spatial navigation.

Academic Professional and first author Qiliang He explained, “What RL can offer — whereas other traditional measurements can’t — is that RL can quantify how much a navigator relies on their ‘map-like’ representation and how much they rely on their ‘turn-by-turn’ knowledge to go from Point A to Point B. It’s a number between 0 to 1, with 0 indicating complete reliance on turn-by-turn knowledge and 1 indicating complete reliance on map-like knowledge.” He added that the study combines psychology and computer science/data science.

“The critical thing which RL brings to the table for human navigation research is it helps us interpret how ‘adaptive’ a person’s strategy is,” noted Assistant Professor of Psychology Thackery Brown. “For example, sometimes navigating a well-learned route is just as efficient as any other path we might come up with to reach a goal — in this case, the person navigating that route isn’t necessarily a bad navigator, but may actually be allocating their brain’s resources in the most efficient way.”

Brown added that in the study, RL was used to characterize how someone’s current navigational choices relate to 1, the quickest option to reach a goal and 2, how this option seems to build on their past experiences. “We can get a much richer understanding of why a navigator chooses the path that they do and how efficient it is in terms of their current understanding of the environment.”

Undergraduate researchers — and co-authors

The paper is unique in that it combines an interdisciplinary group of authors, and that co-authors include two undergraduate students. In addition to Brown and He, co-authors of the paper included undergraduates Lou Eschapasse, who is studying Neuroscience in the College of Sciences with a concentration in Biomedical Engineering in College of Engineering; and Neuroscience major Elizabeth H. Beveridge. The team also included then-graduate student Jancy Ling Liu, formerly mentored by Brown, who is now with the Georgia Tech School of Economics Ph.D. program.

“[The] two undergraduate students contributed significantly to the research, earning authorship in the paper,” said Tansu Celikel, professor and chair of the School of Psychology. “This is a great example of the research ecosystem available to undergraduates at Tech.”

“In our lab, we place great responsibility on the Georgia Tech undergrads who work with us, and they flourish under this real sense of ownership of the studies which we conduct,” said Brown. “In my time as a professor we have had many majors from across the breadth of programs at GT — and Elizabeth and Lou are perfect examples of how brilliant, motivated, and well-trained our students are in neuroscience, psychology, and the related disciplines.”  

“The undergraduate research assistants provided very helpful suggestions during the conceptualization stage of the project,” said He. “[They] collected most of the data, and participated in the writing and revision of this paper.”

Elizabeth Beveridge, one of the undergraduate research assistants, has published three papers with Brown and He, won the PURA (President's Undergraduate Research Award) twice, and has her thesis under invited revision in a prestigious psychology journal. Beveridge's fellow undergraduate research assistant, Lou Eschapasse, has published two papers, and has finished a follow-up study on neuroimaging.

“I think these are both great examples of the research ecosystem available to undergraduates at GT, even during the time when we couldn’t meet face to face,” said He.

“I always knew I wanted to get involved in research, so I reached out to Professor Brown during my fall semester of freshman year. As a neuroscience major, I have always been interested in memory and how we use those past experiences to make decisions,” Beveridge shared. “I feel so lucky to be named as a co-author, and I am extremely appreciative of Professor Brown and Qiliang He. They have been amazing mentors and taught me so much about research throughout college.”

Good navigators

The team's study was conducted between February 2020 and September 2020, at the time COVID was first reported in the United States. “We discussed this project via an online meeting platform during the pandemic and we deployed this project into apps that could work on participants’ Windows and Mac computers,” He said.

Besides using an objective way to quantify navigation strategy, He explained that they were also interested in how consistently people were using their ‘default’ strategy. “We hypothesize that good navigators not only use map-like strategy more often, but also adaptively change their strategy according to the environmental characteristics. We reason that the changing navigation strategy can be good but also cognitive demanding (i.e., using more cognitive resources, or to think harder).”

He explained that they predict that in a stable, predictable environment, good navigators tend to stick to one strategy to preserve cognitive resources. In an unpredictable environment, good navigators tend to vary their navigation strategy more often to meet the navigational needs at the expense of cognitive resources. “The consistency of using a specific navigation strategy can also be estimated by the RL model,” He added.

“Navigating is computationally very challenging for the brain (the stimuli, goals, and relevance of our prior knowledge to the choices we need to make are constantly shifting),” noted Brown. “And it might be tempting to assume certain navigational strategies are inherently better than others. But following a well-worn route can free up resources for us to hold conversations, plan our next tasks, or monitor for dangers in our environment.”

The findings are important, because they show most peoples’ navigation reflects a hybrid of different ways we learn from our past successes and failures (different RL models), and a person’s unique mixture of more turn-by-turn and map-like learning helps define individual differences in how well they do under different types of navigational demands, Brown added.

“The insights from the study could inform interventions to teach people to be better at navigating challenging situations and can even inform efforts in computer science and robotics to develop artificial agents which can learn to solve navigational problems in the ways people do.”

Citation: He, Q., Liu, J.L., Eschapasse, L. et al. A comparison of reinforcement learning models of human spatial navigation. Sci Rep 12, 13923 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18245-1

About Georgia Tech 

The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a top 10 public research university developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its nearly 44,000 students representing 50 states and 149 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

Organized by the undergraduate Student Government Association in collaboration with Greek Week, Tech Beautification Day returns in full force this Saturday, April 1. The event was scaled back in recent years due to the pandemic, but this year, plans are on track to offer a full slate of projects focused on improving the campus landscape — and the campus community is invited to participate.  

Georgia Tech’s Landscape Services collaborates with student leaders to develop projects that have a big impact yet are easily completed in a few hours. This year’s opportunities range from planting wildflowers, shrubs, and trees to laying sod, pulling weeds, and spreading pine straw.  

The event begins with breakfast and a welcome by student leaders. Groups of eight to 10 volunteers are then given tools and gloves and directed to the various worksites across campus. One ambitious goal this year is to plant 200 native azaleas.  

“Our department enjoys working with the students not only because we are able to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time, but it also gives students a small window into the hard work our teams do daily,” says Interim Associate Director of Landscape Services Neil Fuller. “Students also gain a sense of pride when they can look at a completed job and say they did it.  And it gives the students a chance to make their mark on campus and be able to come back and point out a specific plant or tree and tell their family how they planted it years ago.” 

Tech Beautification Day has a long history of engaging students, faculty, staff, and family members on a spring Saturday. Campus archives reveal that during one event more than 1,000 volunteers worked together to beautify campus. Additionally, photographs from 2012 show the entire football team, along with coaches and families, participating. Organizers are working toward increasing participation to pre-pandemic numbers, and this year is just the beginning. Sign up now to spend a morning making the Georgia Tech campus even more beautiful than it already is.  

April 1, 2023 Schedule:

8:30 a.m. – Breakfast, check in, and welcome at The Kendeda Building

9 a.m. – noon: Volunteer projects 

12:30 p.m. – Clean up, return tools, closing remarks 

SIGN UP TO PARTICIPATE 

Download photos from this year’s Sciences Celebration on the GTSciences Flickr.

The College of Sciences community gathered in Harrison Square on April 18 to honor faculty and staff with awards for the 2022-2023 school year during the Spring Sciences Celebration.

“It is nothing short of a pleasure to recognize outstanding faculty who excel in teaching and research,” said Susan Lozier, College of Sciences Dean and Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Chair, “and to celebrate the leadership and commitment to excellence of remarkable staff members across the College.”

At the annual celebration, Lozier and the College also recognized the 25 new faculty members who joined Georgia Tech for the 2022-2023 academic year.

This year’s awardees include:

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT AWARDS

The Cullen-Peck Fellowship Awards, established by Frank Cullen (‘73 Math, MS ‘76 ISyE, PhD ‘84 ISyE) and Elizabeth Peck (‘75 Math, MS ‘76 ISyE), to encourage the development of especially promising mid-career faculty.

Cullen-Peck Faculty Fellows:

• Thackery Brown, Psychology
• Alex Robel, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
• Amanda Stockton, Chemistry and Biochemistry

The Gretzinger Moving Forward Award, endowed by Ralph Gretzinger (‘70 Math) and named to honor 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:

• Cam Tyson, Chemistry and Biochemistry

The Eric R. Immel Memorial Award for Excellence in Teaching, endowed by Charles Crawford (‘71 Math) recognizes exemplary instruction of lower division foundational courses. It honors the late School of Mathematics professor Eric R. Immel, who greatly influenced Crawford’s undergraduate experience at Tech:

• Christina Ragan, Biological Sciences

The Leddy Family Dean’s Faculty Excellence Award, established by Jeff Leddy (’78 Physics) and Pam Leddy, supports a faculty member at the associate professor level with proven accomplishments in research and teaching:

• Amit Reddi, Chemistry and Biochemistry

The Faculty Mentor Award, established jointly by the College of Sciences and its ADVANCE Professor, awards the efforts and achievements of our faculty members who mentor fellow faculty:

• Andrzej Swiech, Mathematics

RESEARCH FACULTY AWARDS

The CoS Outstanding Junior Research Faculty Award and CoS Outstanding Senior Research Faculty Award recognize postdoctoral and non-tenure track research faculty who have made exceptional research contributions with significant impact on their field of study:

• Junior Research Faculty: Claudia Alvarez-Carreño, Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Senior Research Faculty: Mu Gao, Biological Sciences

The CoS Research Faculty Community Trailblazer Award recognizes postdoctoral and non-tenure track research faculty who have demonstrated and sustained leadership that strengthens the sense of community among research faculty within the College of Sciences:

• Eric Shen, Chemistry and Biochemistry

STAFF AWARDS

The College of Sciences Staff Awards are made possible by funding from the Betsy Middleton and John Clark Sutherland Dean’s Chair endowment. They include:

The Exceptional Staff Member Award and Leadership in Action Staff Member Awards recognize College of Sciences staff who exemplify outstanding performance above and beyond the call of duty, by positively impacting the strategic goals of their department and the College, consistently providing excellent service within their school or the overall College, and demonstrating exemplary teamwork.

• Exceptional Staff Member: Aria Higgins, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
• Leadership in Action Staff Member: Gary Longstreet, Physics

The Excellence in Leadership Staff Awards and the Staff Excellence Award recognize College of Sciences staff who have made exceptional contributions to the College through innovative and strategic leadership, change management, business process improvement, special project leadership, and similar accomplishments.

Excellence in Leadership Staff

• Shameka Fahie, Dean’s Office
• Nguyen Nguyen, Academic and Research Computing Services

Staff Excellence Award

• Jenny Eaton, Chemistry and Biochemistry 
• Danny Hardwar, Academic and Research Computing Services
• David Murray, Academic and Research Computing Services
• Shebbie Murray, Psychology

NEW COLLEGE OF SCIENCES FACULTY

Academic Year 2022-2023

• Jason Azoulay, Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Isaiah Bolden, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences 
• Gong Chen, Mathematics
• Aditi Das, Chemistry and Biochemistry 
• Anjuli Datta, Biological Sciences 
• Chunhui Du, Physics
• Benjamin Freeman, Biological Sciences
• Qiliang He, Psychology 
• Svetlana Jitomirskaya, Mathematics 
• Shina (Lynn) Kamerlin, Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Thomas Kelly, Mathematics 
• Hunter Lehmann, Mathematics 
• Kalila Lehmann, Mathematics
• Andrew McShan, Chemistry and Biochemistry
• Farzaneh Najafi, Biological Sciences
• Feryal Özel, Physics
• Michael Porter, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
• Dimitrios Psaltis, Physics 
• Stephanie Reikes, Mathematics 
• Surabhi Sachdev, Physics
• Deborah Santos, Chemistry and Biochemistry
• William Stern, Psychology
• Tiffiny Hughes-Troutman, Psychology
• Hailong Wang, Physics
• Michael Wolf, Mathematics