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

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

The Law, Science, and Technology (LST) Program in the School of Public Policy has created a new information portal for Georgia Tech students interested in legal careers.

The portal is open to anyone with an active Georgia Tech login. It offers information for students on every step of the journey, including finding undergraduate legal internships, preparing for the LSAT, getting letters of recommendation, and writing personal statements for law school applications. According to Chad Slieper, LST director, scholarship opportunities will be added soon.

“This resource is a great way to start learning what you need to do to prepare for law school,” Slieper said. “We’re excited to give more options to students and provide a 24/7 supplement to the in-person counseling and advice we’ve always offered.”

LST also offers the Minor in Law, Science, and Technology, which recently celebrated its 20^th anniversary, as well as pre-law advising, a pre-law newsletter, and events of interest to members of the Georgia Tech community with an interest in the intersection of law and technology.

The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

The Law, Science, and Technology (LST) Program in the School of Public Policy has created a new information portal for Georgia Tech students interested in legal careers.

The portal is open to anyone with an active Georgia Tech login. It offers information for students on every step of the journey, including finding undergraduate legal internships, preparing for the LSAT, getting letters of recommendation, and writing personal statements for law school applications. According to Chad Slieper, LST director, scholarship opportunities will be added soon.

“This resource is a great way to start learning what you need to do to prepare for law school,” Slieper said. “We’re excited to give more options to students and provide a 24/7 supplement to the in-person counseling and advice we’ve always offered.”

LST also offers the Minor in Law, Science, and Technology, which recently celebrated its 20^th anniversary, as well as pre-law advising, a pre-law newsletter, and events of interest to members of the Georgia Tech community with an interest in the intersection of law and technology.

The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

The College of Sciences is pleased to announce the appointment of Steve Diggle as the director of the Center for Microbial Dynamics and Infection (CMDI). 

Diggle is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the principal investigator for the Diggle Lab. He takes over the CMDI leadership position from Biological Sciences Professor Sam Brown, who has served as CMDI’s director since January 2020.

Founded in 2018, CMDI seeks to understand the chemical, physical, and biological connections that together underpin microbial dynamics. The Center’s science research includes a wide variety of disciplines — microbial ecology, microbiome dynamics, biogeochemistry, microbial biophysics, socio-microbiology, infection dynamics, host-pathogen interactions, marine and aquatic microbiology, microbial evolution, viral ecology, spatial imaging, and math/computational modeling. 

“It’s an honor to be chosen for this,” Diggle said. “I think that what’s really exciting is that when I joined Georgia Tech in 2017, we were only just developing microbiology here. What’s happened since is that microbiology has taken on a much bigger profile at Georgia Tech. We’re now at the point where we are attracting really strong graduate students specifically to do microbiology, which is great. CMDI is more visible now, and I think that’s one reason graduate students are applying.”

“Steve Diggle is a perfect fit to lead CMDI forward,” Brown said. “Steve's research showcases impactful interdisciplinary research, combining molecular biology with ecology and evolution to understand what makes microbes tick, and how we can better control them. Steve has also shown a lasting commitment to mentorship and scientific service, and so I'm sure CMDI is in very good hands.”

Growth of the Center 

Brown said the Center continues to add key personnel. In the past year, CMDI announced its inaugural Early Career Award Fellow in Ellinor Alseth, and its first grant writing specialist, Senior Research Scientist Carina Baskett. “Dr. Alseth is leading through her science, pulling multiple labs together to form new collaborations. Thanks to Dr. Baskett, we have substantially increased our rate of applications for both postdoctoral and postgraduate fellowships, and she has also led the pursuit of multi-principal investigator grants,” Brown added.

The CMDI has also boosted inclusive resources that supported trainee and staff recruiting visits to underrepresented minority-serving conferences and local institutions, and provided additional stipends to help underrepresented minority recruits with relocation costs to Atlanta. The Center has also re-launched its showcase public event, MicrobeATL, a speaker series designed to integrate the microbiology research community across Atlanta that was paused during the pandemic. 

CMDI targets models of human disease, but also complex microbial communities in a range of aquatic and terrestrial environments. This research is united by the beliefs that studying across systems is essential for identifying organizing principles, and fully understanding microbial ecology and evolution requires knowledge of social interactions over space and time.  

Diggle added that the CMDI’s research priorities include climate change’s impact on the microbial world, and searching for new drugs that can tame antibiotic-resistant pathogens. “Antibiotic resistance is one of the great problems we're facing in the future,” he explained. That problem is why CMDI scientists like Julia Kubanek, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and Georgia Tech’s Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research, are scouring oceans for natural antibacterial alternatives.

Diggle also hopes to continue attracting the world’s top microbiology researchers to join the CMDI faculty while seeking out more external funding. “The ultimate goal is to make Georgia Tech one of the best places to come and do microbiology research in the U.S. Given what we’ve accomplished so far, I think that's a reasonable goal.”

Meet Steve Diggle

Diggle’s research interests focus on cooperation and communication in microbes, and how these are related to virulence, biofilms, and antimicrobial resistance. He has a longstanding interest in understanding how the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa causes disease, and is especially interested in how this organism evolves during chronic infections such as those found in cystic fibrosis patients and chronic wounds.

Diggle received his B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of Salford in the United Kingdom, and earned a Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Nottingham in 2001. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Nottingham before obtaining a Royal Society University Fellowship (2006-2014). He joined the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech in 2017 and was named a full professor in 2022.

Diggle currently serves as a senior editor on the editorial board of the journal Microbiology. He has previously served on the editorial boards of FEMS Microbiology Letters, BMC Microbiology, Microbiology Open and Royal Society Open Science. He served as an elected member of the Microbiology Society Council from 2012-2016, and was also on their conference and policy committees. In 2020, Diggle received the Cullen-Peck Scholar Award, which recognizes research accomplishments led by College of Sciences faculty at the associate professor or advanced assistant professor level. Diggle was selected as an American Society for Microbiology Distinguished Lecturer in 2021. 

Learn more about Diggle’s research:

• CMDI: Mighty Microbial Dynamics for a Healthier People and Planet

• A Problematic Pathogen Develops Antibiotic Tolerance — Without Previous Exposure

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.

The NSF REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) program is designed to provide meaningful research experiences to undergraduates who may not otherwise have the opportunity, with an ultimate goal of increasing matriculation in STEM careers and graduate school.  

Most NSF REU programs are designed to pair students attending smaller and undergraduate-only schools with faculty and lab groups at larger host institutions for mentorship and a meaningful research experience. 

Importantly, as NSF notes, the inclusion of historically under-represented groups in STEM (minorities, low socio-economic status, first generation students, veterans and women) will serve to broaden the STEM talent pool.  

As such, most REU programs in the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech host a diverse cohort of approximately ten non-Georgia Tech undergraduates, who have limited research opportunities at their current institution. Each unique program's focus and requirements vary, so check individual program links for application guidelines and deadlines. Each of the six schools in the College of Sciences participate in the eight to 10-week program. The REU supplements — which include stipends, housing, and travel allowances — engage students in research related to a new or ongoing NSF research award. Application deadlines are typically in January and February each year, depending on the program.

“Georgia Tech has had a long, outstanding record of hosting REU students,” said College of Sciences Assistant Dean for Academic Programs Cameron Tyson. “We are delighted that we can offer programs affiliated with each of the six schools in the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech.” 

Summer 2023 NSF REU programs in the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech are:

Aquatic Chemical Ecology (ACE) Summer Research Program 
(Co-hosted by the Schools of Biological Sciences, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and from the College of Engineering: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.)

Students participate in research with one or more faculty, and learn about careers in science and engineering, and see how scientists blend knowledge and skills from physics, chemistry, and biology to investigate some of the most challenging problems in environmental sciences. Three areas of research activities covered by faculty in the Aquatic Chemical Ecology program include biological and geochemical transformations of chemicals in aquatic ecosystems, sensory biology and ecology of aquatic chemical communication, and ecological roles and consequences of chemicals in aquatic environments.

Broadening Participation Summer Undergraduate Research Program in Physics 
(Hosted by the School of Physics)

This program includes a hands-on computational workshop, an overnight trip to a National Laboratory, a weekly Physics Frontiers Lunch and Learn seminar series, a half-dozen professional development seminars, and social activities with other REU students. At the end of the summer, participants will present their research to the School of Physics community and at a Georgia Tech REU Poster Symposium that includes REU participants from all the REU programs in the Georgia Tech College of Sciences.

Mathematics Research Experiences for Undergraduates 
(Hosted by the School of Mathematics)

REU summer projects in mathematics are mentored by many different faculty, on topics ranging from fad formation, to random walks, tropical geometry, one bit sensing, extremal graph theory, and convex polyhedra.  Students will have the opportunities to publish papers, win awards, and succeed in graduate school applications.

Broadening Participation in Atmospheric Science, Oceanography and Geosciences Research 
(Hosted by the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) 

Each participant will work with a faculty member or research scientist and focus on a single research project, but will also gain a broad perspective on research in Earth and atmospheric sciences by participating in the dynamic research environment. This interdisciplinary REU program has projects spanning topics related to the geosciences, planetary science, atmospheric sciences, oceanography, and climate science. In addition to full-time research, undergraduate researchers will participate in professional development activities, seminars with faculty and research scientists, presentation and research poster symposiums, and social activities with other summer REU students.

Chemistry Function, Application, Structure and Theory (FAST) 
(Hosted by the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry)

The Chemistry Function, Application, Structure, and Theory (FAST) Program’s objective is to provide a high-quality research experience, augmented by experiential learning components, for a diverse group of undergraduate students. The program will provide participants with encouragement and preparation to pursue advanced studies and/or careers in the sciences while emphasizing the importance of collaboration and interdisciplinarity in chemistry.

Human Neuroscience Research and Techniques 
(Hosted by the School of Psychology) 

Working with Georgia State University, this program gives students the opportunity to gain knowledge and hands-on experience with human neuroscience techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants will also perform exciting research in the laboratories of Georgia Tech or Georgia State faculty mentors. Students will learn about neuroscience careers and tips for succeeding in graduate and medical school. The research areas of the faculty mentors are organized around three core neuroscience themes: Human Motor Control, Cognitive Processing, and Human Neurophysiology.

“These programs are an excellent opportunity for students, especially those from colleges and universities with limited research opportunities, to gain an immersive experience working alongside Georgia Tech faculty and their team on cutting-edge projects in science and mathematics,” added Tyson, who is also a faculty member in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “We often see participants having a transformative experience and continuing on to graduate studies and pursuing a career in research.”

For more information on REU summer program details, requirements and application deadlines, interested students should visit the links to individual programs listed here.

John McDonald, emeritus professor in the School of Biological Sciences and founding director of Georgia Tech’s Integrated Cancer Research Center, has been named one of “Today’s Innovators” in cancer care by the Georgia Center for Oncology Research and Education (CORE). 

McDonald, who also served as the chief scientific officer of the Ovarian Cancer Institute, will be honored during the “Toast to the Trailblazers” event that is part of CORE’s 20th Anniversary Celebration, set for Saturday, February 18 of this year, at the Atlanta History Center.

“For me, it's always an honor — and often a surprise! — when I receive an award, as was the case for this award from the Georgia CORE,” McDonald said. “It's certainly encouraging to know that others believe what I'm doing is worthwhile. At the same time,” he added, “I'm acutely aware that nothing in life, and especially in science, is accomplished in isolation. Whatever I've been able to accomplish is, in large measure, because I have had great students and collaborators to work with over the years here at Georgia Tech.”

Also chosen as a “Today’s Innovator” this year is Lynn Durham, CORE’s president and CEO. Before joining CORE in 2021, Durham served as vice president for Institute Relations at Georgia Tech. Across 25 years on campus, Durham also worked as chief of staff and led the Institute’s legislative advocacy program.

Individuals selected as “Today’s Innovators” by CORE have “embraced the original vision of collaboration and advancement throughout the state’s cancer care ecosystem and are working today to continue to enhance cancer research and exceptional care for all Georgians.” 

Durham noted that McDonald was chosen because of his past leadership of Georgia Tech’s Integrated Cancer Research Center and his scholarship in ovarian cancer detection and treatment.

“He is the leader of a cancer research center in one of our state’s most respected higher education institutions, and I hope this recognition will demonstrate the important connection between basic science and the remarkable innovations in cancer care during the past 20 years,” Durham added.

McDonald is engaged in translational research, which seeks to quickly move more basic science discoveries into actual practice to help patients. The challenge, McDonald explained, is how to best get those discoveries and technologies into clinical practice. This requires connections between research scientists, clinicians, and appropriate patients. While the scientist/clinician connection is relatively easy to establish at medical schools, it is not as easy for researchers at non-medical schools like Georgia Tech, he added. 

“The Georgia CORE was designed to address these challenges by facilitating connections between scientists and clinicians while at the same time providing Georgia citizens access to the latest trials,” McDonald said. “These efforts have been tremendously successful over the last 20 years. 

“I have tried to play some role in improving communication and encouraging collaboration among Georgia Tech researchers doing cancer-relevant research,” McDonald added, “by establishing the Integrated Cancer Research Center (ICRC) and connecting our scientists and engineers with clinicians, all with the assistance of the Georgia CORE.”

McDonald became an emeritus professor in January 2023. Now, he’s focused on writing a book, and still working to get discoveries made in his lab into clinical practice. For that effort, McDonald has established startup companies with two colleagues in the School of Biological Sciences, postdoctoral researcher Nick Housley and Jeffrey Skolnick, who serves as Regents' Professor, Mary and Maisie Gibson Chair, and as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology. 

“One effort is focused on a drug delivery nanoparticle, and the other is focused on our machine learning-based personalized diagnostic tool,” McDonald said. “Collaboration with Georgia CORE is proving essential in moving both of these projects forward into clinical trials.”