This week, 50 students from Georgia Tech’s Astronomy Club will travel to Missouri to view the solar eclipse on April 8. Georgia isn’t in the path of totality — which occurs when the moon fully covers the sun — but Missouri is, and club members want to be there to experience the rare celestial event. While viewing the eclipse is the organization’s biggest adventure of the year, it is just one of many events the club hosts every month. The group is a place for hobbyist astronomers and physics students to connect over their love of the solar system and the mysteries within it.

Every Monday, the club hosts meetings at which a topic of astronomical interest — such as black holes or stellar evolution — is presented; attendees then visit the Georgia Tech Observatory to see what the sky has in the store for them that night.

“I am completing the astrophysics concentration for my studies, so I can apply what I learn in class to the club and explain to people what they’re actually looking at,” said Ethan Atkinson, club president and a fourth-year physics major. They also take monthly field trips to the observatory at Fernbank Museum for a different view of the sky and the chance to use older telescopes.

Once a month, weather permitting, the Astronomy Club invites everyone to join in on the fun with Public Nights at the Georgia Tech Observatory. Club members place telescopes outside the Howey Physics Building, where anyone take a look through the lens at whichever planet is in focus that evening. The events are popular, not just across campus but also Atlanta. Most nights, almost 350 people attend.

The club’s signature annual event for members is usually a field trip to dedicated dark sky area Deerlick Astronomy Village in Sharon, Georgia, to see constellations unadulterated by light pollution and capture them via astrophotography. “The main attraction for most people is seeing the Milky Way and counting shooting stars,” Atkinson said. While this year’s field trip is to Missouri for the eclipse, they are still bringing the cameras along.

The club wasn’t always this popular on campus. Even though the organization started in 2007 when Tech built the observatory, membership had dropped to only 20 members by 2021. Covid-19 made hosting a lot of people in a small observatory challenging, so faculty advisor James Sowell recommended they move the telescopes outside, increasing the number of people who could attend and the interest in studying physics. “Sometimes students take my classes because the club let them know about my courses,” Sowell said.

Atkinson has also worked to make the club more accessible to every major and interest level. Computational media student Victoria Nguyen was one of those students. Although she has loved astronomy since childhood, it was just a hobby until she found the club in her first year. “The community is really great and relaxed,” said Nguyen, who is incoming president of the club. “We’ve created a safe environment to learn about space, and you don’t even need to have your own telescope.”

Although solar eclipses don’t happen annually, the Astronomy Club is stronger and bigger than ever. Whether someone gazes at the stars nightly or has never even looked through a telescope, the club is open to the campus community — so everyone can better understand what lies beyond our planet.

Georgia Tech is supporting career growth for its research faculty, who do critical work at the heart of the research enterprise.

The word faculty is often synonymous with tenure-track professors — the individuals who teach courses and run major labs with their surnames in the title. But while groundbreaking discoveries regularly happen at Georgia Tech, the people doing the day-in, day-out research aren’t always visible.

Research faculty are non-tenure track faculty who carry out crucial research in labs, centers, and departments across campus. They are the lifeblood of research enterprises at major universities like Georgia Tech, but their work often occurs behind the scenes.

To support these essential employees, Georgia Tech launched an initiative to recognize and develop research faculty, who comprise 60% of the nearly 4,400 total faculty currently employed at the Institute. It is part of the second phase of Research Next, the strategic plan for Georgia Tech’s research enterprise.  

Maribeth Coleman, interim assistant vice provost for Research Faculty, and Michelle Rinehart, vice provost for Faculty, were appointed as co-chairs of a Research Next implementation team tasked with finding ways to recognize, support, and retain research faculty. Building on years of effort and collaboration with campus partners, the group took on several projects to improve the research faculty experience and environment at Georgia Tech.  

“Research faculty are critical members of the Georgia Tech community, and their contributions to our billion-dollar research enterprise and the state’s economic development cannot be overstated,” Rinehart said. “We wanted to understand what it’s like for research faculty as they come on board at Georgia Tech, what the hiring process is like, and how we as an Institute can more effectively mentor and develop research faculty in terms of advancing in their careers.”

At the outset, the implementation team identified and examined several facets of the research faculty experience. They reviewed policies in the faculty handbook, giving special attention to existing guidance for promotion and career growth for research faculty.

Promotion guidelines are generally clear for tenure-track faculty. Research faculty, on the other hand, are often not actively encouraged to seek promotion, and may not even know that promotion is an option, according to Rinehart and Coleman. One issue is that funding for research faculty often comes from external research dollars. At least nine months of a tenure-track faculty member’s salary, however, comes from the state budget.

“When you’re constantly having to bring in all of your own salary, as research faculty do, it can be a stressful experience,” Coleman said. “It can also mean you’re more isolated, because you’re focused on bringing in those research dollars that will help you keep your position. But we want research faculty to know that we want them to build their careers here.”

To address these issues, the team developed reference materials and workshops for research faculty seeking promotion. The workshops are offered on a regular basis, and resources and recordings are available on the Georgia Tech faculty website. The team also created educational materials for promotion committees, often composed of tenure-track faculty who are unfamiliar with the research faculty experience.  

“We saw a need for better consistency across campus with regards to guidance for research faculty promotion committees,” Rinehart said. “Tenure-track faculty need guidance on not just how to properly hire research faculty, but also in how to mentor and retain them.”

According to Coleman and Rinehart, the implementation team’s most significant achievement was the launch of a research faculty mentoring network. The mentoring network connects junior research faculty mentees with senior research faculty mentors who have grown their careers at Georgia Tech.

“When new tenure-track faculty arrive, they are usually assigned a mentor within their School or department, but that method doesn’t generally work for research faculty,” Coleman said. “There may not be a large research faculty community in their unit, and research faculty roles and responsibilities vary significantly from person to person. For this reason, the mentoring network is meant to foster cross-pollination and build community across units.”

The mentoring network is a collaboration with MentorTech, a program run by Georgia Tech Professional Education. The program is ongoing, and enrollment is always open. 

To foster inclusivity and belonging, the team established an orientation program for research faculty, modeled after the tenure-track faculty orientation. The Provost’s Office hosted the inaugural research faculty orientation in Fall 2023. Because research faculty are hired throughout the year, the team decided the orientation should take place semiannually. The second orientation took place on March 13. 

In addition to the workshops, mentor network, and orientations, the implementation team also launched a program to welcome research faculty in a personal way. When a new research faculty member is hired, another more senior research faculty member is assigned to welcome them in person, provide them with important information for getting oriented to campus, tell them about relevant professional opportunities, and give them Georgia Tech-branded swag.

“All of this work is about recognizing that research faculty are a tremendously valuable part of our community,” Rinehart said. “They also really enhance our reputation internationally.”

According to Coleman, research faculty can sometimes be viewed as disposable, because of their support from grants that may be limited in time and scope. But she believes that line of thinking is a disservice to both the individual and the Institute.

“It’s important that we recognize the value of research faculty, nurture them, and retain them long term,” she said. “We need to make it possible for people to spend their careers here, as I have, and help make sure research faculty positions at Georgia Tech can be both viable and fulfilling long-term careers.”

To read more about Georgia Tech's strategic research initiatives, visit the Research Next website.

Scientists have been searching for the optimal coronavirus vaccine since the Covid-19 pandemic started. The mRNA vaccines developed through the federal government's "Operation Warp Speed" program were a massive innovation; however, annually updating those boosters for specific SARS-CoV-2 variants is inefficient for scientists and patients. SARS-CoV-2 is just one member of the Sarbecovirus (SARS Betacoronavirus) subfamily (others  include SARS-CoV-1, which caused the 2002 SARS outbreak, as well as other viruses circulating in bats that could cause future pandemics).

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a new vaccine that offers broad protection against not only SARS-CoV-2 variants, but also other bat sarbecoviruses. The groundbreaking trivalent vaccine has shown complete protection with no trace of virus in the lungs, marking a significant step toward a universal vaccine for coronaviruses.

“We had been working on strategies to make a broadly protective vaccine for a while,” said Ravi Kane, Garry Betty/V Foundation Chair and GRA Eminent Scholar in Cancer Nanotechnology and professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “This vaccine may protect not just against the current strain circulating that year, but also future variants.”

They presented their findings in “Broad protection against clade 1 sarbecoviruses after a single immunization with cocktail spike-protein-nanoparticle vaccine,” published in the February edition of Nature Communications. 

Kane and his research group have been working on the technologies to develop more widely protective vaccines for viruses since he joined Georgia Tech in 2015. Although the team didn’t specifically foresee Covid-19 arising when it did, pandemics have regularly occurred throughout human history. While the team pivoted their vaccine research to address coronaviruses, they were surprised by how rapidly each new variant arose, making their broader vaccine even more necessary.

Once they realized the challenge inherent in how fast SARS-CoV-2 mutates, they had two options for how to build a vaccine: design one to be widely preventative against the virus, or use the influenza vaccine, which updates annually for the anticipated prevalent variant, as a model.

Making a broad vaccine is more appealing because it enables patients to get one shot and be protected for years. To create their general vaccine, Kane’s team capitalized on the key to the original mRNA vaccines — the spike protein, which binds the virus to healthy cells. Their vaccine uses three prominent spike proteins, or a trivalent vaccine, to elicit a broad enough antibody response to make the vaccine effective against SARS-CoV-2 variants as well as other sarbecoviruses that have been identified as having pandemic potential.

“If you know which variant is circulating, you can immunize with the spike protein of that variant,” Ph.D. student and co-author Kathryn Loeffler said. “But a broad vaccine is more difficult to develop because you’re protecting against many different antigens versus just one.”

Collaborators in the Kawaoka group at the University of Wisconsin tested their vaccine in hamsters, which they had previously identified as an appropriate animal model to evaluate vaccines and immunotherapies against SARS-CoV-2. The vaccine was able to neutralize all SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants tested, as well as non-SARS-CoV-2 coronaviruses circulating in bats. Even better, the vaccine provided complete protection with no detectable virus in the lungs.

Kane hopes that the vaccine strategy his team identified can be applied to other viruses — other coronavirus subfamilies as well as other viruses such as influenza viruses. They also expect that some of the specific antigens they describe in this paper can be moved toward preclinical trials. Someday, a trivalent vaccine could comprise a routine part of people’s medical treatment.

The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence released its Spring 2024 special issue of AI Magazine (Volume 45, Issue 1). This issue highlights research areas, applications, education initiatives, and public engagement led by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and USDA-NIFA-funded AI Research Institutes. It also delves into the background of the NSF’s National AI Research Institutes program, its role in shaping U.S. AI research strategy, and its future direction. Titled “Beneficial AI,” this issue showcases various AI research domains, all geared toward implementing AI for societal good.

The magazine, available as open access at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/23719621/2024/45/1, a one-year effort, spearheaded and edited by Ashok Goel, director of the National AI-ALOE Institute and professor of computer science and human-centered computing at Georgia Tech, along with Chaohua Ou, AI-ALOE’s managing director and assistant director, Special Projects and Educational Initiatives Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at Georgia Tech, and co-author Jim Donlon, the NSF's AI Institutes program director.

In this issue, insights into the future of AI and its societal impact are presented by the three NSF AI Institutes headquartered at Georgia Tech:

• AI-ALOE: National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education
  • Introduction to the Special Issue by Ashok Goel and Chaohua Ou.
  • The magazine features AI-ALOE’s work in reskilling, upskilling, and workforce development, showcasing how AI is reshaping adult learning and online education to prepare our workforce for the future.
• AI4OPT: AI Institute for Advances in Optimization
  • An overview of AI4OPT’s efforts in combining AI and optimization to tackle societal challenges in various sectors. The institute aims to create AI-assisted optimization systems for efficiency improvements, uncertainty quantification, and sustainability challenges, while also offering educational pathways in AI for engineering.
• AI-CARING: National AI Institute for Collaborative Assistance and Responsive Interaction for Networked Groups
  • AI-CARING’s section in the magazine details its comprehensive approach to using AI technologies to address the complex needs of aging adults, while navigating ethical considerations and promoting education in the field.
  • Co-authors contributing to AI-CARING's section include Sonia Chernova, associate professor at Georgia Tech and director of AI-CARING, along with members Elizabeth Mynatt, Agata Rozga, Reid Simmons, and Holly Yanco, all involved in AI-CARING research and education.

The magazine provides a comprehensive overview of how each of the 25 institutes is shaping the future of AI research.

About 'AI Magazine'

AI Magazine is an artificial intelligence magazine by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). It is published four times each year, and is sent to all AAAI members and subscribed to by most research libraries. Back issues are available online (issues less than 18 months old are only available to AAAI members).

The purpose of AI Magazine is to disseminate timely and informative articles that represent the current state of the art in AI and to keep its readers posted on AAAI-related matters. The articles are selected to appeal to readers engaged in research and applications across the broad spectrum of AI. Although some level of technical understanding is assumed by the authors, articles should be clear enough to inform readers who work outside the particular subject area. 

To learn more, click here.

RBI Fellows Discussing Their Research with the Workshop Participants

With the nation’s goals to net zero well underway and the world moving toward sustainable production methods, biorefineries play a crucial role in our transition to a greener future. These multifaceted facilities convert biomass into biofuels, biochemicals, and bioproducts; foster a circular economy; and reduce reliance on fossil fuels while promoting environmentally friendly industrial practices.

The Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI) at Georgia Tech recently hosted a workshop on the Emerging Bioeconomy and the Future of Biorefining. The event cultivated new partnerships as more than 75 attendees from academia, national laboratories, and industry shared and learned about the cutting-edge developments in the emerging field.

Carson Meredith, executive director of RBI, said, “The workshop provided an immersive experience for the attendees with access to knowledge, opportunities to network, and a platform for collaboration to positively impact their understanding and involvement in this rapidly evolving field. I saw a lot of human connections being made, a lot of people shaking hands, and having conversations off to the side. That’s exactly why we hold such workshops — to exchange ideas within the Institute as well as between researchers in universities, industry, and national labs.”

The program started with a keynote by B. Frank Gupton, professor of chemical and life science engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University, on creating resilient national supply chains for essential medicines and the need for waste reduction through process chemistry improvements to reduce the carbon footprint in the pharmaceutical industry.

Kim Nelson, CTO of GranBio and Georgia Tech Alumnus at the 
2024 RBI Spring Workshop

Various presentations from RBI’s research faculty demonstrated the depth of research in the field of bioeconomy and biorefineries. Topics included integrated biorefining processes by multicomponent separations and catalytic conversion, lignin-derived phenol as the new platform of biorefineries, catalytic conversion of organic acids, data-driven biorefinery process control, hot topics in lifecycle assessment, and more.

A highlight of the annual workshop was the student poster session that showcased the diversity of research happening in the renewable bioproducts field. Over 25 RBI Fellows, spanning chemical and biomolecular engineering, mechanical engineering, materials science and engineering, civil and environmental engineering, and chemistry and biochemistry presented their research to a highly engaged audience.

Andreas Villegas, president of the Georgia Forestry Association and the dinner keynote speaker, addressed the need for educating the community about working forests and their potential to create carbon-neutral products and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Working forests in the state of Georgia are managed with a growth-over-harvest-rate of 50% and are a natural solution to the major challenges in sustainable forests and communities.

2024 RBI Student Fellows at the Workshop

Blake Simmons, keynote speaker from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, discussed the importance of intellectual property models and licensing technology models that will allow companies to access new processes emerging in the field.

Mi Li, assistant professor of biorefinery and sustainable materials from the University of Tennessee, presented his research on the modification of plant cell walls, while Bronson P. Bollock, professor of forest biometrics and quantitative timber management at the University of Georgia, presented the current issues and factors in the quantification of forest biomass feedstocks.

Student Panel at the RBI Spring Workshop

Kim Nelson, the chief technology officer of GranBio, addressed the opportunities and challenges in meeting the global demand for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and low-carbon bioproducts. Nelson presented GranBio’s patented AVAP technology that uses woody biomass to produce SAF, renewable diesel, electricity, and other byproducts like BioPlus nanocellulose for tires in the process.

“At this moment, there is a tremendous federal, state, and industrial focus on developing the U.S. bioeconomy,” Meredith said. “RBI's vision is that pulp producers and users of wood extractives and byproducts have an opportunity to develop higher margin products from woody biomass residues, including plastics, pharmaceuticals, and fuels, without disrupting current paper and lumber markets. Traditional petrochemical producers of these products have an opportunity to substitute more carbon-neutral sources as feedstocks. Our workshop sought a conversation around the opportunities and challenges from feedstock to the marketplace.



 

A team of Georgia Tech researchers has introduced a new therapeutic system to offset the poor clinical outcomes often associated with common rotator cuff surgery.

It’s the kind of surgery that makes headlines whenever a famous athlete is sidelined with a torn rotator cuff. Major League Baseball All-Star pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander, for example, both had rotator cuff surgeries and made successful comebacks.

For those of us who can’t throw baseballs 95 miles an hour, the rotator cuff may tear over time from repeated overhead motions (painters and carpenters, for instance). Or an injury can occur as we age and our body’s tissues naturally degenerate. And although rotator cuff injuries are common, they can be serious, leading to muscle degeneration after surgery.

Now, two professors from the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint department of Georgia Tech and Emory University, have addressed the problem with a novel cell-based dual treatment, which they describe in a study published recently in the journal Tissue Engineering.

“We’re thinking mainly of an aging population with this study — the people most likely to have these injuries,” said Johnna Temenoff, whose research group collaborated with the lab of Ed Botchwey on this work. “The great thing about this system is, it isn’t specific to a particular population. These are cells we all have, and this treatment system might work even better in younger patients.”

Local Delivery

The rotator cuff is a group of muscles and tendons surrounding and protecting the shoulder joint, keeping the head of the upper arm bone firmly in the shallow socket of the shoulder. It’s tight jumble of tissues, and not an easy environment for muscle regeneration.

“With a rotator cuff injury, you’re actually tearing the tendon,” said Temenoff, director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) at Georgia Tech. “And that causes the muscle to atrophy.”

 While pro athletes have access to world-class training and rehabilitation to help rebuild the shoulder following surgery, for many patients that rotator cuff muscle doesn’t fully regenerate, even after a successful surgery. Temenoff isn’t sure why.

“That’s a big unknown,” she said. “And it’s a big field of study right now, an active area of research. There is a need for regenerative therapies that can be used in conjunction with rotator cuff restoration surgery, as a long-term treatment option —that is what we are addressing.”

In previous studies using mouse models, Temenoff found that she could change the cellular environment in the muscle with the local injection of microparticles loaded with a protein called stromal cell-derived factor (SDF), which can attract various pre-regenerative cells circulating to the muscle.

The Push-Pull Effect

The idea is to mobilize the cells that can heal, the cells that rebuild muscle at the source. Getting enough of them to do the work is the trick.

Temenoff’s lab has developed microparticles that use heparin, a natural sugar-based molecule found in the body that has a high negative charge. SDF is positive-charged, so that electrostatic interaction between the two particles allows for controlled release of SDF over time.

SDF interacts almost magnetically with a receptor on pro-regenerative cells in bone marrow or circulation to “call” them to a certain location. However, older people may not have enough of these cells in circulation to make much of a difference in healing. That’s where Botchwey’s lab entered with the major assist.

His team provided experience with a bone marrow mobilizing agent (called VPC01091) that can send healing cells into circulation around the body. In clinical settings, bone marrow mobilizing agents are used to “push” stem cells out of the marrow and into the blood. These cells can regenerate and differentiate into all kinds of cells in multiple tissue environments.

The researchers set out to develop a single therapeutic option by combining the two technologies. Here's what happened when they tested the system in rats: The mobilizing agent was injected systemically while the SDF was injected locally into the shoulder. So, while the mobilizing agent “pushed” pro-healing cells into circulation, SDF’s magnetic effect “pulled” them to the injury site, resulting in the desired regenerative effects.

The researchers found different levels of regeneration spatially—in other words, where they applied the local injection really matters. Further research will aim to fine-tune the process, so clinicians can recruit healing cells to even more specific areas of the damaged muscle. Temenoff and her collaborators believe they are onto something that will result in better muscle regeneration, with potential applications beyond the rotator cuff.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant no. R01AR071026).

CITATION: Leah Anderson, Liane Tellier, Keshav Shah, Joseph Pearson, Alexandra Brimeyer, Ed Botchwey, Johnna Temenoff. “Bone Marrow Mobilization and Local Stromal Cell-Derived Factor-1a Delivery Enhances Nascent Supraspinatus Muscle Fiber Growth,” Tissue Engineering.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1089/ten.tea.2023.0128

This story by Kelsey Gulledge first appeared in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering newsroom. See the full feature here.

Georgia Tech Launches Quadrant-i, a New Unit to Enhance Research Commercialization

Georgia Tech's Office of Commercialization introduces Quadrant-i, a new unit dedicated to helping faculty, researchers, and students translate their research into startups.

The name is inspired by Pasteur’s quadrant in the Daniel Stokes innovation-impact model and will emphasize the translation of deep scientific research into products. (See more information about Pasteur’s quadrant here.)

Quadrant-i will join the other units in commercialization — the Office of Technology Licensing, VentureLab, and CREATE-X — in making Georgia Tech the premier campus for startups and commercialization.

“As we grow our efforts toward delivering impact through commercialization, creating a unit that is solely focused on helping our faculty, students, and researchers launch startups based on their research is essential,” said Raghupathy “Siva” Sivakumar, vice president of Commercialization and chief commercialization officer.

The functions of Quadrant-i have historically been supported by VentureLab, a national leader in entrepreneurship training and research. The reorganization will also allow VentureLab to amplify its impact in making Georgia Tech a thought leader for entrepreneurship.

Quadrant-i will be a comprehensive resource for the thriving research community on campus, facilitating the journey from innovations to impact. The unit will offer programs, resources, and services tailored to expedite and enhance the commercialization process, including:

• Advocating for policy changes and incentive structures to foster a culture of impact.
• Securing non-dilutive grant funding.
• Navigating conflicts of interest to maintain research integrity.
• Providing mentorship on the business aspects of innovation.
• Interfacing with customers, investors, and mentors.
• Launching startups with essential resources and support.

A search is currently underway for a director, who will report to Sivakumar.

The Office of Commercialization invites faculty, researchers, students, investors, mentors, industry leaders, and innovators to collaborate with Quadrant-i and learn more about its programs and services.

For more information, visit: commercialization.gatech.edu/quadrant-i.

Georgia Tech opened the 11th annual Atlanta Science Festival (ASF) with record attendance for Science and Engineering Day. Despite the drizzly weather, about 4,000 people of all ages from throughout metro Atlanta — more than double the number of attendees in 2023 — visited campus on Saturday, March 9, 2024, for the space-themed event. They explored more than 45 exhibitions and hands-on activities related to art, robotics, nanotechnology, chemical and systems engineering, and biology, as well as other STEAM areas. 

Visitors began their investigations at “Earth” (the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design), where they picked up a galactic passport specially designed to guide them from building to building — each designated with the name of a planet — and the demonstrations housed within.

At “Mars” (Marcus Nanotechnology Building), attendees measured their height in nanometers, experimented with fruit batteries, and took a window-tour of the largest cleanroom in the Southeast, where semiconductors are developed. Inside “Venus” (Parker H. Petit Biotech Building), budding scientists examined bioluminescent bacteria under a microscope and made Play-Doh models of the human brain. When visiting “Saturn” (Ford Environmental Sciences and Technology Building), visitors studied density by making DIY lava lamps and inspected human brain specimens the way a pathologist would.

“Getting to hold a human brain was cool,” said a 12-year-old participant from Alpharetta. “And I also liked comparing it to the brains of a pig and a mouse.”

Other activities included math games and puzzles, the opportunity to build an artificial hand and a gallery display of research-inspired artwork. Georgia Tech faculty, students, and staff hosted all the demonstrations and served as volunteers who helped Science and Engineering Day guests navigate campus and the demonstration sites.

For many participants, the undoubted highlight was the chance to hear a presentation by former NASA astronaut and Georgia Tech alumnus Shane Kimbrough, MS OR 1998. Kimbrough spent 388 days in space over three missions and served as commander of the International Space Station (ISS) in 2016. He captivated the standing-room-only crowd with photos and descriptions of his time living and working aboard the ISS and answered questions from the kids in the audience.

“It’s really exciting to see all the activities around campus today … we’re inspiring the next generation of scientists and explorers for our country,” Kimbrough said afterward.

The event was a resounding success for Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Science Fair.

Lauren Overton-Kirk, who organized the event for the Institute, said, "Georgia Tech Science and Engineering Day 2024 was so wonderful to share with the community. What started years ago as a day for young scientific exploration became an all-ages, space-themed scientific spectacular. You could feel the passion for learning fill the campus in a way only Georgia Tech could do.”

Both the Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Science Festival teams are looking forward to next year’s Science and Engineering Day.

“As one of the founding organizations of the Atlanta Science Festival, Georgia Tech has been deeply invested in sharing the Institute’s innovations with the community,” said Meisa Salaita, ASF co-director. “And that investment was deeply evident on March 9th as they opened their doors to kick off the 11th annual Science Festival. Their students and faculty came out with enthusiasm to showcase science to the public. We couldn't be more thrilled with this partnership — and the many ways Tech has helped us show our community that Atlanta is a science city.”

Robotic exoskeletons designed to help humans with walking or physically demanding work have been the stuff of sci-fi lore for decades. Remember Ellen Ripley in that Power Loader in Alien? Or the crazy mobile platform George McFly wore in 2015 in Back to the Future, Part II because he threw his back out?

Researchers are working on real-life robotic assistance that could protect workers from painful injuries and help stroke patients regain their mobility. So far, they have required extensive calibration and context-specific tuning, which keeps them largely limited to research labs.

Mechanical engineers at Georgia Tech may be on the verge of changing that, allowing exoskeleton technology to be deployed in homes, workplaces, and more.

A team of researchers in Aaron Young’s lab have developed a universal approach to controlling robotic exoskeletons that requires no training, no calibration, and no adjustments to complicated algorithms. Instead, users can don the “exo” and go.

Their system uses a kind of artificial intelligence called deep learning to autonomously adjust how the exoskeleton provides assistance, and they’ve shown it works seamlessly to support walking, standing, and climbing stairs or ramps. They described their “unified control framework” March 20 in Science Robotics.

“The goal was not just to provide control across different activities, but to create a single unified system. You don't have to press buttons to switch between modes or have some classifier algorithm that tries to predict that you're climbing stairs or walking,” said Young, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.