Yuanzhi Tang, Georgia Tech Professor, and Strategic Energy Institute's initiative lead for Sustainable Resources providing an overview of the GEMs-3 initiative and the GRACE Engine at the workshop in Macon, GA
On April 29, nearly 70 attendees representing 36 organizations from industry, government, academia, and nonprofits gathered at the Middle Georgia Regional Commission for the third Georgia Partnerships for Essential Minerals (GEMs) Workshop, held jointly with the Growing Resilience for America’s Critical Mineral Economy (GRACE) Engine initiative. The workshop marked a pivotal step in the region’s critical mineral strategy, bringing together leaders across sectors to align priorities and accelerate ecosystem development.
Hosted by the Center for Critical Mineral Solutions and Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech in partnership with the Middle Georgia Regional Commission, GEMs-3 highlighted the economic development potential of critical minerals through production and recycling. Critical Minerals such as rare earth elements, gallium, and graphite are materials essential for technologies ranging from electric vehicles, permanent magnets to national defense systems. Building on the industry-led conception of GEMs-1 and road mapping efforts at GEMs-2, this workshop focused on translating strategy into action, with particular emphasis on use-inspired innovation, commercialization, workforce development, community engagement, and strategic investment.
Keynote speaker Costas Simoglou, director of the Center of Innovation for Energy Technology at the Georgia Department of Economic Development, emphasized the state’s leadership in advanced energy manufacturing and innovation. Sessions highlighted ecosystem capabilities and insights from experts at Southern Company, Chemours, Ginn Technology Group, Savannah River National Laboratory, Georgia Research Alliance, Georgia Cleantech Innovation Hub, Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing, Technical College System of Georgia, University of Georgia, Partnership for Innovation, the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute and the Advanced Battery Center.
Yuanzhi Tang, professor at Georgia Tech and director of the Center for Critical Mineral Solutions, shared an update on the GRACE Engine initiative, which aims to develop a co-located innovation ecosystem that integrates extraction, processing and advanced manufacturing across Georgia. “The GRACE vision is to move from potential to practice,” said Tang, “by building a regional supply chain that is resilient, sustainable, built for speed and benefits all stakeholders.”
Afternoon breakout discussions brought participants together into focused groups to explore commercialization models, community advisory board structures, and pilot program priorities. Participants emphasized the importance of fast-start strategies, shared economic development, and leveraging existing regional strengths and infrastructure.
As Georgia continues to lead in kaolin mining and advanced manufacturing, the GEMs-GRACE platform stands as a model for how states can turn mineral resources and waste streams into new engines of economic opportunity.
For more information, visit gems.research.gatech.edu.
Scott McWhorter, Distinguishied External Fellow and Federal Funding Lead at the Strategic Energy Institute presenting during the GEMs-3 and GRACE Workshop
Matt McDowell, Professor at Georgia Tech at the GEMs-3 and GRACE Workshop
Written by: Yuanzhi Tang
Media Contact: Priya Devarajan | SEI Communications Program Manager
Students from all majors are invited to register for the new Minor in Astrobiology at Georgia Tech. Welcoming its first enrolled students in Fall 2025, the minor is the latest degree offering from the College of Sciences and Georgia Tech Astrobiology Program.
The Minor in Astrobiology will provide a broad, interdisciplinary introduction to the field of astrobiology while encouraging exploration beyond students’ primary fields of study.
The program will foster the development of well-rounded scientists and engineers who will graduate with confidence in their knowledge and ability to engage in cutting-edge endeavors across the astrobiology discipline.
The Minor in Astrobiology is open to all undergraduates at Georgia Tech. Students who enroll now and meet program requirements may graduate with the minor designation as early as the end of Fall 2025 term.
Enrolled students will learn about the physical and chemical conditions for development of a habitable planet; deeply understand Earth, space, and planetary science as well as the origin and evolution of life on Earth; and critically evaluate scientific issues related to astrobiology in media and popular culture.
The foundation of the new minor is the popular School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) course EAS 1601: Habitable Planet. Led by EAS Assistant Professor Frances Rivera-Hernández, the course enrolls up to 300 students a semester and expands options for study and career horizons.
"Students from a lot of different majors enjoy 1601 where they get a true sense for the broadness of astrobio — stars, galaxies, biology, life beyond Earth, and how we create technology and science to explore those places,” Rivera-Hernández explains.
Like the new minor, EAS 1601 is also open to all majors. The class is offered in person across fall and spring semesters, and also available online during the summer term.
“We’re purposely very flexible with that course and the overall minor,” adds EAS Jean “Chris” Purvis Professor Jennifer Glass. “Students use EAS 1601 as a launchpoint to pick their interests for their wider field of study and to hone career interests — whether that’s space, biology, and autonomous rovers; hunting for chemical signs of life beyond our planet; or becoming an entrepreneur.”
Over the past five years, students in the class frequently asked for formal degree offerings in astrobiology. Glass and fellow faculty partnered with then-graduate fellow Tyler Roche to explore the idea of a minor, leveraging Sutherland Dean's Chair funding in 2021 to officially launch the Georgia Tech Astrobiology Program in tandem with the Astrobiology Graduate Certificate Program, Astrobiology Fellows, and ExplOrigins young researcher group.
The Astrobiology Program is now supported by the new Georgia Tech Space Research Initiative and co-directed by Rivera-Hernández and EAS Assistant Professor Christopher E. Carr, who holds a primary appointment in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.
Glass and Rivera-Hernández co-direct the Astrobiology Graduate Certificate Program, and co-direct the Astrobiology Minor with Nicholas Hud, Regents' Professor and Julius Brown Professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
The team’s collaborative approach to interdisciplinary leadership mirrors unique opportunities ahead for students who are interested in exciting careers across the field of astrobiology and beyond.
“The minor is designed across three broad divisions of study,” Glass adds. “Whether you’re curious about ‘Foundations of Life,’ want to dive deep into ‘Earth, Space, and Other Worlds,’ or are exploring career ideas for ‘Astrobiology in a Wider World,’ we’ve built a solid home for you in Astrobio at Tech.”
The Minor in Astrobiology will be listed in the 2025-26 Catalog beginning May 12.
Jess Hunt-Ralston
Director of Communications
College of Sciences at Georgia Tech
(Story and Photos: Jess Hunt-Ralston)
Milton Mueller's new book explores a little-known but crucial episode in internet history — the shift away from U.S. control over how internet addresses are assigned.
Nearly three decades ago, the United States government began relinquishing control over an obscure but crucial bit of internet bureaucracy: overseeing the assignment of the names and numbers allowing computers and networks worldwide to find and talk to one another.
This shift eventually resulted in a novel form of global governance that has since helped largely shield the internet from national and geopolitical pressure. But the transition from U.S. control to a global stakeholder governance model was not without intense backlash, according to Milton L. Muller, a professor in Georgia Tech’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy.
“What seemed small and technical turned out to be very big and political," Mueller writes in Declaring Independence in Cyberspace, his new book on the history and lessons of this pivotal moment in internet history.
It’s a story that Mueller says has particular relevance today amid global concerns over how best to address the growing influence of artificial intelligence on our lives and work.
Mueller’s book focuses on the establishment of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), created by the U.S. government in 1998 to replace an informal U.S.-led system with a private-sector-led international model.
During the 1990s, policymakers recognized the need for change amid rapid commercialization and globalization of the internet. The informal system run by technical researchers had proved inadequate for burgeoning policy disputes, according to Mueller.
In response, the U.S. set up ICANN as a private-sector manager of the internet’s address book to provide a more formalized structure.
Initially, the U.S. Department of Commerce retained oversight. However in 2014, under intense international pressure, the agency announced it would relinquish that role in favor of a framework in which ICANN was accountable only to global internet stakeholders.
The decision came amid international criticism of the U.S. over internet surveillance activities revealed by Edward Snowden and consequent doubts over the ability of the U.S. to serve as a neutral steward. A deep divide between advocates of state-centric approaches to internet governance and those who supported multistakeholder approaches also contributed to the debate.
The U.S. decision to give up control sparked a domestic political firestorm driven by those who emphasized the U.S. role in inventing and paying for the initial development of the internet. Opponents of the change argued that the U.S. had a duty to continue as steward to act as a shield protecting internet freedom from potential interference by authoritarian countries such as China, Russia, and Iran.
It took two years, but the administration of President Barack Obama overcame the opposition by highlighting broad internet-community support for the change as well as positioning the newly independent ICANN as a bulwark against undue influence from countries that wanted a more direct role for governments.
The newly independent ICANN began operating without any U.S. government oversight in 2016.
Mueller — a long-time observer and participant in internet governance processes — argues the move towards a multistakeholder model was "one of the crowning achievements (or [the] last gasp?) of neoliberal globalization."
"The story has a moderately happy ending," Mueller notes in his book. "The new ICANN realized, to some degree, the radical vision of Internet registry governance via non-state actors. That option now seems clearly preferable to the alternatives,” Mueller writes.
Since becoming independent of the U.S., ICANN has demonstrated neutrality in the face of geopolitical pressures such as its refusal to remove Russian domain names from the internet following the invasion of Ukraine, according to Mueller.
However, challenges do persist. Mueller points to ICANN's often cumbersome domain name policymaking, its slow response to rules such as Europe's General Data Privacy Regulation, and controversies such as the attempted sale of the .org registry, which highlighted issues of accountability and the influence of its U.S. jurisdiction.
Mueller’s work underscores the crucial role of Carter School and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts in fostering the interdisciplinary expertise needed to navigate such complex global issues.
For instance, the history of ICANN offers potent lessons for today's heated debates over how to regulate artificial intelligence, Mueller argues in his book's conclusion.
"AI now occupies the same prominent place in the public imagination as the Internet did back in the mid-1990s," accompanied by similar widespread anxieties and urgent calls for government regulation, sometimes framed in almost apocalyptic terms, Mueller writes.
In the book, Mueller cautions against assumptions that state control is the best response to concerns over AI’s potentially pernicious influence. This, he says, is because nations will often weaponize technologies or prioritize surveillance opportunities over public good.
The ICANN experiment, while imperfect, demonstrates the potential for non-state actors and the global community to responsibly manage critical infrastructure while largely insulating it from geopolitical conflict, he argues.
Instead of reacting solely with "intensified national governmental controls," Mueller suggests that exploring diverse governance models — perhaps involving multistakeholder principles, industry self-regulation, or new transnational arrangements — might be better for managing concerns related to AI while preserving innovation and mitigating the risks of purely state-centric control.
"The story told here suggests that we might address the governance problems posed by this evolving system with a more confident vision of human-technical possibilities, as happened in 1998,” Mueller writes.
The Carter School is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.
Michael Pearson
Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
Assistant Professor Yalong Yang looks over the shoulder of Ph.D. student Tao Lu as they create a simulation of a news story presented in virtual reality. Photo by Nathan Deen (College of Computing)
It hasn’t been long since consumers put down the newspaper and picked up their phones to get their news.
It may not be long before augmented reality/virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets cause them to keep their phones in their pockets when they want to read The New York Times or The Washington Post.
Data visualization and AR/VR researchers at Georgia Tech are exploring how users can interact with news stories through AR/VR headsets and are determining which stories are best suited for virtual presentation.
Tao Lu, a Ph.D. student at the School of Interactive Computing, Assistant Professor Yalong Yang, and Associate Professor Alex Endert led a recent study that they say is among the first to explore user preference in virtually designed news stories.
The researchers will present a paper they authored based on the study at the 2025 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems this week in Yokohama, Japan.
Digital platforms have elevated explanatory journalism, which provides greater context for a subject through data, images, and in-depth analysis. These platforms also allow stories to be more visually appealing through graphic design and animation.
Lu said AR/VR can further elevate explanatory journalism through 3D, interactive spatial environments. He added that media organizations should think about how the stories they produce will appear in AR/VR as much as they think about how they will appear on mobile devices.
“We’re giving users another option to experience the story and for designers and developers to show their stories in another modality,” Lu said.
“A screen-based story on a smartphone is easy to use and cost-effective. However, some stories are better presented in AR/VR, which will become more popular as technology gets cheaper. AR/VR can provide 3D spatial information that would be hard to understand on a phone or desktop screen.”
Active or Passive Interactions?
Using Meta’s Oculus Quest 3, the researchers and their collaborators created four immersive virtual reality simulations from web-based news stories produced by The New York Times:
The study aimed to determine whether users prefer to be actively or passively immersed in a story, whether from a first-person or third-person point of view, or a combination of these perspectives.
“We’re in the nascent stages of storytelling in VR,” said Endert, whose research specializes in data visualization. “We lack the design knowledge of which mode of immersion we should use if we want a certain reaction from the audience. Understanding design is at the crux of our study.”
Active immersion gives the user complete control over their experience. The classroom simulation offers a first-person point of view and allows users to teleport from one point in the classroom to another. New information from the story is presented each time the user moves to a new point.
The researchers acknowledged they could design a free-roaming simulation that allows users to walk freely within the classroom. However, they restricted that ability for this study due to safety concerns and lab space constraints.
In the Tulsa Race Massacre simulation, which uses a passive, first-person point of view, users follow a predefined route along one of Tulsa’s main streets. Information about each building is presented at each step.
The Atlantic Ocean simulation is an active, third-person experience. The user sees a representation of Earth and can select which interaction points to explore to learn new information.
The 9/11 simulation is a passive third-person experience. Each step includes a narrative paragraph with companion visual elements, and users proceed to the next step through a navigation trigger.
Finding the Right Balance
Lu said that first-person active enhances spatial awareness, while third-person passive improves contextual understanding. Journalists and VR designers must determine which presentation is most effective case by case.
Yang said the goal should be to balance interests in making those determinations, which might require compromise. Knowing how users prefer to consume news is critical, but journalists still have an editorial responsibility to decide what the public should know and how to present information.
“You have more freedom to explore in an active experience versus a passive experience,” Yang said. “But if you give them too much freedom, they might stray from your planned narrative and miss important information you think they should know. We want to understand how we can balance both ends of this spectrum and what the right level is that we can give people in storytelling.”
The study and others indicate that users retain information better when they feel like they are part of the story. Yang said the technology to make that possible isn’t there yet, but it’s coming along as wearable VR devices become more accessible.
The debate is whether these devices will become people's preferred technology for consuming content. According to the Pew Research Center, 86% of U.S. adults say they at least sometimes get their news from a smartphone, computer, or tablet.
“I believe AR and VR will be mainstream in the future and will replace everything, but I think there’s a transition period,” Yang said. “Older devices will exist and act as support. It’s an ecosystem.”
Soonho Kwon is one of the developers of Timeless, a mobile platform that creates personalized memorial packages—including curated photos, voice recordings, and letters—to be sent to loved ones after their death. Photo by Nathan Deen/College of Computing.
On Halloween night in 2022, more than 100,000 people flooded the streets of Seoul, South Korea, to celebrate and participate in the city’s festivities. Thousands funneled into a 14-foot-wide alley in the Itaewon district from multiple directions.
The crowd grew so large that no one could move in the alley, resulting in the deadliest crowd crush in the nation’s history. Nearly 160 people were killed, and another 196 were injured.
Soonho Kwon, a first-year human-centered computing Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech, lived within walking distance of the alley when the incident occurred.
“It was tragic,” Kwon said. “It really makes you think about how life is fragile. Everyone in my community talked about what it would have been like if they were in that alleyway.”
Many of the victims were young people — some of them teens who had no identification on them. Kwon thought about their family members being told their loved ones’ lives had been cut short. He wondered what memories those families would have of the deceased.
The incident inspired Kwon to create a new mobile platform that helps young adults and career professionals create a post-death memorial for their families. The platform, which Kwon and his research collaborators named Timeless, allows users to be remembered how they want to be remembered in the event of their untimely death.
“Most death preparation services are for terminally ill patients or aging adults, focusing on will management or funeral planning,” Kwon said. “We thought such needs may differ for young adults and asked how we could design a system that better caters to their needs.”
Timeless is a photo-based death preparation system that enables users to send a physical package containing pre-curated pictures, voice recordings, and letters to a designated recipient in the event of their passing.
The system syncs with a user’s mobile photo album and creates a list of scanned faces. Users can select a face and view all the photos they’ve taken with that person. They can choose which photos they want sent to that person after death and write individual messages for each image.
Once the user’s death has been reported, Timeless sends a package to each selected individual with printed photos, letters, and a QR code or a CD that contains videos or voice recordings.
Breaking the Ice
Kwon and his collaborators designed Timeless based on a group study that asked participants to imagine what would happen if they unexpectedly died. The participants were asked what was on their bucket lists, their epitaphs, and what they would wish for if they could make one wish come true.
“Surprisingly, people were happy to participate because we framed it in a way that wasn’t gloomy,” Kwon said. “Many shared that reflecting on their death motivated them to actively express their love and be grateful for what they have. Turning something as heavy as death into something positive was a key design implication.”
Digital vs. Physical
Kwon began his research career examining virtual commemoration systems, including Facebook and Instagram commemoration pages, during the Covid-19 pandemic and exploring how technology can meaningfully memorialize the deceased.
He said two aspects distinguish Timeless from other commemoration platforms:
“Leveraging only the digital side of it can be superficial,” Kwon said. “We build monuments, statues, and tombstones because the notion of death itself is losing your physical presence. By making it physical, we aimed to connect the discussion on digital legacies to traditional human commemoration forms.”
AI Afterlife
Kwon also said he is aware of artificial intelligence (AI) afterlife. This emerging technology allows people to train an AI agent and produce digital avatars with which family and friends can communicate after they die.
Meredith Ringel Morris, director and principal scientist for human-AI interaction at Google DeepMind, spoke about AI afterlife in October during the Summit on AI, Responsible Computing, and Society hosted by Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing.
In her talk, Morris spoke about the criticism AI afterlife is already facing for causing people to experience extended grief and the inability to move on from losing a loved one.
Kwon said another drawback is that AI agents are susceptible to hallucinations and could say untrue things about the deceased.
“How can you say for sure that the representation of AI is me?” he said. “As researchers, our role is to explore and critically examine how the emergence of such technology may shape society while striving to ensure its development benefits people.”
Kwon sees Timeless as a catalyst for meaningful discussions about how a digital legacy curation system may accurately reflect a user’s wishes before death.
He will present a paper on Timeless's design process and its implications at the 2025 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) this week in Yokohama, Japan.
Jason Azoulay is an associate professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is the Georgia Research Alliance Vasser-Woolley Distinguished Investigator in Optoelectronics and serves as co-director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics.
This story by Janette Neuwahl Tannen is shared jointly with the University of Miami newsroom.
Today, most of us carry a fairly powerful computer in our hand — a smartphone.
But computers weren’t always so portable. Since the 1980s, they have become smaller, lighter, and better equipped to store and process vast troves of data.
Yet the silicon chips that power computers can only get so small.
“Over the past 50 years, the number of transistors we can put on a chip has doubled every two years,” says Kun Wang, assistant professor of physics at the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences. “But we are rapidly reaching the physical limits for silicon-based electronics, and it’s more challenging to miniaturize electronic components using the technologies we have been using for half a century.”
It’s a problem that Wang and many in his field of molecular electronics are hoping to solve. Specifically, they are looking for a way to conduct electricity without using silicon or metal, which are used to create computer chips today. Using tiny molecular materials for functional components, like transistors, sensors, and interconnects in electronic chips offers several advantages, especially as traditional silicon-based technologies approach their physical and performance limits.
But finding the ideal chemical makeup for this molecule has stumped scientists. Recently, Wang, along with his graduate students, Mehrdad Shiri and Shaocheng Shen, and collaborators Jason Azoulay, associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia Research Alliance Vasser-Woolley Distinguished Investigator; and Ignacio Franco, professor at the University of Rochester, uncovered a promising solution.
This week, the team shared what they believe is the world’s most electrically conductive organic molecule. Their discovery, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, opens up new possibilities for constructing smaller, more powerful computing devices at the molecular scale. Even better, the molecule is composed of chemical elements found in nature — mostly carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen.
“So far, there is no molecular material that allows electrons to go across it without significant loss of conductivity,” Wang says. “This work is the first demonstration that organic molecules can allow electrons to migrate across it without any energy loss over several tens of nanometers.”
The testing and validation of their unique new molecule took more than two years.
However, the work of this team reveals that their molecules are stable under everyday ambient conditions and offer the highest possible electrical conductance at unparalleled lengths. Therefore, it could pave the way for classical computing devices to become smaller, more energy-efficient, as well as cost-efficient, Wang adds.
Currently, the ability of a molecule to conduct electrons decreases exponentially as the molecular size increases. These newly developed molecular “wires” are needed highways for information to be transferred, processed, and stored in future computing, Wang says.
“What’s unique in our molecular system is that electrons travel across the molecule like a bullet without energy loss, so it is theoretically the most efficient way of electron transport in any material system,” Wang notes. “Not only can it downsize future electronic devices, but its structure could also enable functions that were not even possible with silicon-based materials.”
Wang means that the molecule’s abilities might create new opportunities to revolutionize molecule-based quantum information science.
“The ultra-high electrical conductance observed in our molecules is a result of an intriguing interaction of electron spins at the two ends of the molecule,” he adds. “In the future, one could use this molecular system as a qubit, which is a fundamental unit for quantum computing.”
The team was able to notice these abilities by studying their new molecule under a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Using a technique called STM break-junction, the team was able to capture a single molecule and measure its conductance.
Shiri, the graduate student, adds: “In terms of application, this molecule is a big leap toward real-world applications. Since it is chemically robust and air-stable, it could even be integrated with existing nanoelectronic components in a chip and work as an electronic wire or interconnects between chips.”
Beyond that, the materials needed to compose the molecule are inexpensive, and it can be created in a lab.
“This molecular system functions in a way that is not possible with current, conventional materials,” Wang says. “These are new properties that would not add to the cost but could make (computing devices) more powerful and energy efficient.”
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c18150
Funding: U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy
Sciences; National Science Foundation (NSF); Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under support provided by the Organic Materials
Chemistry Program; Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) Graduate
Student Researcher Fellowship Program (GSFP). Computational resources were provided by the Center for Integrated Research Computing (CIRC) at the
University of Rochester.
Along with Jason Azoulay, Georgia Tech co-authors also include Paramasivam Mahalingam, Tyler Bills, Alexander J. Bushnell, and Tanya A. Balandin.
Jess Hunt-Ralston
Director of Communications
College of Sciences at Georgia Tech
More than 100 researchers, faculty, industry representatives, alumni, and students came together on April 14 to explore the future of space research and exploration at the 2025 Yuri's Day Symposium. Hosted by Georgia Tech’s Space Research Initiative (SRI), Yuri’s Day serves as an annual celebration of space research across the Institute, the state of Georgia, and beyond. It built on the success of Yuri’s Day 2024, and was designed to be interactive and drive participation through panel discussions, a poster session, and networking opportunities.
The day began with opening remarks from Georgia Tech’s Executive Vice President of Research Tim Lieuwen, Vice President of Interdisciplinary Research Julia Kubanek, and the SRI executive committee, comprised of Professor Glenn Lightsey and Associate Professors Mariel Borowitz and Jennifer Glass. They provided an update on the SRI's latest achievements and its elevation to the Space Research Institute, one of Georgia Tech’s Interdisciplinary Research Institutes, on July 1.
“Space research is much broader than building spacecraft…it includes science, policy, business, and culture. We are here to celebrate all aspects of space research at Georgia Tech,” said Lightsey.
Borowitz lead a panel discussion on the implications of current space policies and the role of academic institutions in shaping the future of space exploration. It highlighted the importance of policy decisions in advancing space research and ensuring sustainable development. Jonathan Goldman, director of Quadrant-i at Georgia Tech, and his panel of entrepreneurs then discussed the commercialization of space technologies and the opportunities arising. They shared how collaboration between academia and industry can drive innovation and bring these new technologies to market.
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) organized a space poster session during the lunch break to provide insight into the various space research projects happening there. This networking opportunity highlighted the breadth of work at GTRI and enabled researchers and students to present their projects to attendees.
The Keynote speaker, Georgia Tech Alumnus Griff Russell, M.S. ME 1999, president of Gryphon Effect, LLC, and former SpaceX F9 vehicle manager, shared his personal journey to inspire future researchers. His talk, “From a letter to an astronaut to the trenches of Falcon 9 and beyond: Setting the foundation for accelerated Moon to Mars exploration” followed Russell’s path to the space industry, chronicling a letter he wrote to an astronaut early in his career to his current role as an entrepreneur. Russell shared his thoughts on the future of space exploration and encouraged students in the room to move fast and develop innovative new space technologies. “The time is now for you to make a difference,” he said.
Professor Thom Orlando then led a panel of experts from other Georgia universities on the Human Space Initiative in the State of Georgia. Orlando and the panelists discussed the state's contributions to human spaceflight and the potential for future missions. This was followed by a panel on Earth analog field studies led by Assistant Professor Frances Rivera-Hernandez. Panelists including students explained how studying Earth analogs, like lava tubes and deserts, can help researchers better understand other planetary environments. Georgia Tech graduate students gave brief presentations chronicling recent fieldtrips and the data they gather in the field. The final session of the day led by Professor Lightsey showcased Georgia Tech’s space-related student organizations and the importance of engaging the next generation of scientists and engineers in space exploration.
As the Space Research Initiative transitions into the Space Research Institute, Georgia Tech is prepared to lead groundbreaking research, and Yuri’s Day gave attendees a preview of things to come. For more information about the SRI and the research at Georgia Tech, visit our website.
Laurie Haigh
Research Communications
Early on, Georgia Tech graduate students William Trenton Gantt and Hugh (Ka Yui) Chen imagined working in the space industry.
“When I was 14, I dreamed about being in space one day,” recalls Chen, 22, a native of Hong Kong and a Ph.D. student in aerospace engineering. “I think the industry has been making space more accessible to everyone. Commercialization is a big part of enabling this.”
Gantt, an engineer and former U.S. Army veteran graduating with an MBA from the Scheller College of Business this spring, remembered seeing the space shuttle retire and companies begin privatizing space as he entered young adulthood.
“I’ve always been interested in space, and a lot of it comes from the challenge of going to space,” he observes. “Seeing how hard it is to get to space and seeing it become achievable — that to me was the most attractive thing about it.”
For Gantt, the feeling always brings to mind John F. Kennedy’s famous line that spelled out America’s space ambitions: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Recognizing Georgia Tech’s aerospace strengths, Gantt didn’t waste time building bridges within Scheller and in other parts of Georgia Tech. He founded the Scheller MBA Space Club, a first at the College, to track the industry as it grows and develops.
“I came from a military background, so I had my eye on the defense industry going into the MBA program. Georgia Tech, being the No. 2 aerospace engineering undergraduate school in the nation, I knew they already had strong industry connections. Making connections was a big goal coming into this program.”
Assessing Early-Stage Space Tech
He took part in the Entrepreneurship Assistants Program (EAP), which pairs a Scheller MBA student with a faculty or student inventor to evaluate early-stage technology for potential commercialization. He evaluated two space-related technologies, one with Chen’s support.
“The EAs conduct technology commercialization assessments and develop a business model canvas. By applying an entrepreneurial strategy compass, they predict potential go-to-market strategies for new technology,” says Paul Joseph, principal in the Office of Commercialization’s Quadrant-i unit, who created the EAP.
Tapping Into a Nearly $2T Industry
According to McKinsey & Co., the space technology market, fueled by advancements in satellite technology, commercial space travel, and 5G networks, is projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035.
“We're seeing an industry shifting from a multibillion-dollar market cap to a multitrillion-dollar market cap in less than a decade. If you look at this from a business perspective, this is a massive addressable market for entrepreneurs," says Gantt.
From its Center for Space Technology and Research to the new Center for Space Policy and International Relations and labs like the Space Systems Design Lab, which focuses on areas such as CubeSat propulsion, lunar research, and hypersonic flight, Georgia Tech excels in space research across disciplines. In July, Georgia Tech will launch the Space Research Institute (SRI), one of its newest Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRI), to foster additional collaboration in this growing field.
“At Georgia Tech, there are competencies across every single College that will help to augment our understanding of space,” says Alex Oettl, professor of strategy and innovation in Scheller College, whose interest in the new space economy spans the last 20 years. “When you look at the technologies coming from Georgia Tech, they can impact this future trillion-dollar industry.”
An economist by training, Oettl led Georgia Tech’s involvement in the Creative Destruction Lab-Atlanta, a multi-university program that helped commercialize early-stage scientific technologies.
Leveraging Affordable Launch
The emergence of affordable launch, spurred by SpaceX’s introduction of the Falcon 9 rocket using reusable rocket technology, has made space much more accessible, from biomedical companies to academic institutions.
“Because there has been a drop in the cost of accessing space, it allows experimentation to flourish,” says Oettl.
He recalls Mark Costello, former chair of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, explaining how he could launch a CubeSat into Low Earth Orbit out of his research budget, whereas before it would have been cost-prohibitive.
Today, Georgia Tech students and researchers are poised to capitalize on the new space economy stack — from new launch capabilities to new development in propellants and in-space operations and maintenance to more powerful sensors on Earth-observation satellites.
“I’ve seen firsthand the traction occurring on the commercial side. There are a lot of social scientists waking up to the opportunity that exists and thinking about business dynamics that will emerge as a result of this great opportunity,” he says.
Georgia Tech, an interdisciplinary, tech-focused university, brings significant capabilities across its Colleges to drive new and emerging technologies that have implications for space.
“Space hits on all the strengths that exist at the various Colleges,” Oettl explains. “Faculty at Georgia Tech are pushing the boundary and showing our students innovations that will emerge in the space economy that are not immediately obvious — such as in adjacent industries.”
Oettl calls these first-order and spillover impacts of new technology. By first-order impacts, he means businesses can take advantage of these opportunities and create new products on top of the original innovation. By spillovers, he cites as an example an Earth-observation satellite enabling other industries to take advantage of data from the ground. For instance, insurance companies are one of the largest users of space technology by way of satellite imagery.
Bringing Capabilities Together Through New Space IRI
The SRI will bring together the best in engineering, computer science, policy, and business research across Georgia Tech. Along the way, it could help engineers and computer scientists think with a more business-minded approach to pitch their innovations to the commercial space sector.
“You don’t see a lot of engineers having that inherent ability,” notes Gantt. “The Space IRI can shine by fostering collaboration between business students and engineers, enabling them to develop innovative go-to-market strategies and clearly define the unique value propositions these technologies offer to end users. You can bring these people together and create some forward momentum in the space industry.”
News Contact: Laurie Haigh
Writer: Anne Wainscott-Sargent
Schematic representation of cofactor-bound Walker A P-loops. This figure is adapted from Demkiv et al., Mol. Biol. Evol. 2025, 42, msaf055, originally published under a CC-BY license.
How did life originate? Ancient proteins may hold important clues. Every organism on Earth is made up of proteins. Although all organisms — even single-celled ones — have complex protein structures now, this wasn’t always the case.
For years, evolutionary biochemists assumed that the most ancient proteins emerged from a simple signature, called a motif. New research, though, suggests that this motif, without the surrounding protein, isn’t as consequential as it seemed. The international team of researchers was led by Lynn Kamerlin, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Georgia Research Alliance Vasser Woolley Chair in Molecular Design, and Liam Longo, a specially appointed associate professor at Earth-Life Science Institute at Institute of Science Tokyo, in Japan.
“It’s probably an eroded molecular fossil, with its true nature having been overwritten over billions of years of evolution,” said Kamerlin. “This work completely reshapes how we think about proteins. It’s like trying to play protein Jeopardy! — now we need to rethink what the original question was.”
Prehistoric Proteins
It's not hard to understand why this hypothesis was wrong for so long. The motif is associated with the element phosphorus, one of the key elements of life. Many of the earliest proteins bound to phosphorus-containing compounds. While these early proteins have different structures, they frequently share the same motif.
“For years, researchers took this to mean that today’s complex proteins came from the motif itself — that this tiny protein gave rise to entire families,” Longo said.
To discover the protein’s origins, the researchers pored over available data on protein crystal structures. Then they identified and characterized relevant proteins computationally. Although they recognized some of the protein’s similar structure in their modeling, the motif was not identical. They found that many different types of phosphate-binding proteins were possible. The idea that this motif was somehow special on its own was false.
“We don’t hypothesize that eyes gave rise to heads, even though nearly all heads have eyes; that’s because seeing involves interlocking systems,” Kamerlin said. “Our early peptide presents a similar instance. Only embedding within the larger system allows it to shine.”
Protein Possibilities
The researchers tested this work in water and methanol environments. Methanol mimics environments on Earth that may have less water around. The researchers found comparable protein motifs in this methanol environment, proving that the famous motif was not unique, but rather one of many possible motifs with similar properties. What was assumed to be a building block of early life is probably just a fossil fragment — and not the complete picture.
Kamerlin and Longo’s work helps their field determine not just how life started but also bolsters biotechnology advancements. A better understanding of how natural proteins evolved will help other researchers create artificial proteins, for everything from drug delivery to new vaccines.
The work is far from finished. Now that the researchers know this protein motif is one of many possible options, the question becomes: When did this motif become dominant, and what else could life have looked like? These questions will help the scientific world make discoveries that could benefit everyone.
Funding from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation; the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) with subsidy funding from the Cabinet Office, Government of Japan; and the National Academic Infrastructure for Supercomputing in Sweden.
Tess Malone, Senior Research Writer/Editor
tess.malone@gatech.edu