Since Godzilla crawled out of the ocean in 1954, a monstrous consequence of the atomic age, ecohorror has given modern audiences an imaginative way to grapple not only with our primal fear of nature — but also with our complicated feelings about humanity’s impact on the environment.

This subgenre of horror, in which people face the wrath of nature and its emissaries, has never been more popular — driven in large measure by climate change anxiety and showcase titles such as the hit video game and HBO series The Last of Us.

For many, ecohorror offers a safe outlet for our tangled and difficult feelings about climate change. The heroine of ecohorror comic Dark Fang, for example, sets out to solve the fossil fuel problem — or at least avenge beaches blighted by an oil spill — by attacking oil company CEOs, said Brianna Anderson, a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication.

“Ecohorror is great at expressing the rage and fear that people have about environmental issues, at the inadequacy of contemporary environmental movements,” Anderson said. “In the 1980s, we thought everything would be okay if we recycled, right? But now we know that’s absurd, that it’s not even close.”

Read the full article on the Ivan Allen College website.

The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health has awarded $7.8 million over the next five years to the Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies (ACME POCT) to support inventors across the country in developing, translating and testing microsystems-based point-of-care technologies to help improve patient care.

Point-of-care technologies are medical diagnostic tests performed outside the laboratory in close proximity to where a patient is receiving care. This allows health care providers to make clinical decisions more rapidly, conveniently and efficiently.

AMCE POCT, which is one of six sites in the U.S. selected by NIH as part of the NIH Point-of-Care Technologies Research Network, was originally established in 2018 to foster the development and commercialization of microsystems (microchip-enabled, biosensor-based, microfluidic) diagnostic tests that can be used in places such as the home, community or doctor’s office. The center played a pivotal role during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as the national test verification center to rapidly evaluate COVID-19 tests and help make them widely available.

Read the full announcement

LG Chem, a leading global chemical company with a diversified business portfolio in the key areas of petrochemicals, advanced materials, and life sciences, today signed a memorandum of understanding with the Georgia Institute of Technology to promote basic and translational research, innovative business models, and related educational endeavors.

The agreement is expected to serve as an opportunity to connect LG Chem research and development, manufacturing, commercial, and operations teams with faculty thought leaders and students across the Institute. 

“The combination of our industrial expertise and the university’s academic knowledge will enable us to extend our collaboration from next-generation battery materials to field,” said Jongku Lee, senior vice president and CTO at LG Chem.

“By partnering with LG Chem, we aim to foster next-level innovation in battery research, offering our students and faculty access to resources from a renowned industry leader,” said Chaouki Abdallah, executive vice president for Research at Georgia Tech. “I’m excited about the invaluable expertise LG Chem will bring to our campus community.”

LG Chem is committed to giving $2 million over five years to support student fellowships and the research collaboration. Georgia Tech intends to continue to build on its strengths, expertise, and capabilities in battery technology and related technical fields to further develop a pipeline of undergraduate and graduate students with related skills and training.

“The signing of the LG Chem-GT MOU represents a significant opportunity for our students and researchers as we develop key advances in battery and clean energy technologies while preparing the next talent pipeline to support them,” said George White, senior director for Strategic Partnerships at Georgia Tech.

In keeping with a strong strategic focus on AI for the 2023-2024 Academic Year, the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS) has announced the winners of its 2023 Seed Grants for Thematic Events in AI and Cyberinfrastructure Resource Grants to support research in AI requiring secure, high-performance computing capabilities. Thematic event awards recipients will receive $8K to support their proposed workshop or series and Cyberinfrastructure winners will receive research support consisting of 600,000 CPU hours on the AMD Genoa Server as well as 36,000 hours of NVIDIA DGX H-100 GPU server usage and 172 TB of secure storage.

Congratulations to the award winners listed below!

Thematic Events in AI Awards

Proposed Workshop: “Foundation of scientific AI (Artificial Intelligence) for Optimization of Complex Systems”
Primary PI: Raphael Pestourie, Assistant Professor, School of Computational Science and Engineering
Secondary PI: Peng Chen, Assistant Professor, School of Computational Science and Engineering

Proposed Series: “Guest Lecture Seminar Series on Generative Art and Music”
Primary PI: Gil Weinberg, Professor, School of Music

Cyber-Infrastructure Resource Awards

Title: Human-in-the-Loop Musical Audio Source Separation
Topics: Music Informatics, Machine Learning
Primary PI: Alexander Lerch, Associate Professor, School of Music
Co-PIs: Karn Watcharasupat, Music Informatics Group | Yiwei Ding, Music Informatics Group | Pavan Seshadri, Music Informatics Group

Title: Towards A Multi-Species, Multi-Region Foundation Model for Neuroscience
Topics: Data-Centric AI, Neuroscience
Primary PI: Eva Dyer, Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering

Title: Multi-point Optimization for Building Sustainable Deep Learning Infrastructure
Topics: Energy Efficient Computing, Deep Learning, AI Systems OPtimization
Primary PI: Divya Mahajan, Assistant Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Computer Science

Title: Neutrons for Precision Tests of the Standard Model
Topics: Nuclear/Particle Physics, Computational Physics
Primary PI: Aaron Jezghani - OIT-PACE

Title: Continual Pretraining for Egocentric Video
Primary PI: : Zsolt Kira, Assistant Professor, School of Interactive Computing
Co-PI: Shaunak Halbe, Ph.D. Student, Machine Learning

Title: Training More Trustworthy LLMs for Scientific Discovery via Debating and Tool Use
Topics: Trustworthy AI, Large-Language Models, Multi-Agent Systems, AI Optimization
Primary PIs: Chao Zhang, School of Computational Science and Engineering & Bo Dai, College of Computing

Title: Scaling up Foundation AI-based Protein Function Prediction with IDEaS Cyberinfrastructure
Topics: AI, Biology
Primary PI: Yunan Luo, Assistant Professor, School of Computational Science and Engineering        

• Christa M. Ernst

The teams awarded will focus on strategic new initiatives in Artificial Intelligence.

The Institute for Data Engineering and Science, in conjunction with several Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRIs) at Georgia Tech, have awarded seven teams of researchers from across the Institute a total of $105,000 in seed funding geared to better position Georgia Tech to perform world-class interdisciplinary research in data science and artificial intelligence development and deployment. 

The goals of the funded proposals include identifying prominent emerging research directions on the topic of AI, shaping IDEaS future strategy in the initiative area, building an inclusive and active community of Georgia Tech researchers in the field that potentially include external collaborators, and identifying and preparing groundwork for competing in large-scale grant opportunities in AI and its use in other research fields.

Below are the 2023 recipients and the co-sponsoring IRIs:

Proposal Title: "AI for Chemical and Materials Discovery" + “AI in Microscopy Thrust”
PI: Victor Fung, CSE | Vida Jamali, ChBE| Pan Li, ECE | Amirali Aghazadeh Mohandesi, ECE
Award: $20k (co-sponsored by IMat)

Overview: The goal of this initiative is to bring together expertise in machine learning/AI, high-throughput computing, computational chemistry, and experimental materials synthesis and characterization to accelerate material discovery. Computational chemistry and materials simulations are critical for developing new materials and understanding their behavior and performance, as well as aiding in experimental synthesis and characterization. Machine learning and AI play a pivotal role in accelerating material discovery through data-driven surrogate models, as well as high-throughput and automated synthesis and characterization.

Proposal Title: " AI + Quantum Materials”
PI: Zhigang JIang, Physics | Martin Mourigal, Physics
Award: $20k (Co-Sponsored by IMat)

Overview: Zhigang Jiang is currently leading an initiative within IMAT entitled “Quantum responses of topological and magnetic matter” to nurture multi-PI projects. By crosscutting the IMAT initiative with this IDEAS call, we propose to support and feature the applications of AI on predictive and inverse problems in quantum materials. Understanding the limit and capabilities of AI methodologies is a huge barrier of entry for Physics students, because researchers in that field already need heavy training in quantum mechanics, low-temperature physics and chemical synthesis. Our most pressing need is for our AI inclined quantum materials students to find a broader community to engage with and learn. This is the primary problem we aim to solve with this initiative.

PI: Jeffrey Skolnick, Bio Sci | Chao Zhang, CSE
Proposal Title: Harnessing Large Language Models for Targeted and Effective Small Molecule 4 Library Design in Challenging Disease Treatment
Award: $15k (co-sponsored by IBB)

Overview: Our objective is to use large language models (LLMs) in conjunction with AI algorithms to identify effective driver proteins, develop screening algorithms that target appropriate binding sites while avoiding deleterious ones, and consider bioavailability and drug resistance factors. LLMs can rapidly analyze vast amounts of information from literature and bioinformatics tools, generating hypotheses and suggesting molecular modifications. By bridging multiple disciplines such as biology, chemistry, and pharmacology, LLMs can provide valuable insights from diverse sources, assisting researchers in making informed decisions. Our aim is to establish a first-in-class, LLM driven research initiative at Georgia Tech that focuses on designing highly effective small molecule libraries to treat challenging diseases. This initiative will go beyond existing AI approaches to molecule generation, which often only consider simple properties like hydrogen bonding or rely on a limited set of proteins to train the LLM and therefore lack generalizability. As a result, this initiative is expected to consistently produce safe and effective disease-specific molecules.

PI: Yiyi He, School of City & Regional Plan | Jun Rentschler, World Bank
Proposal Title: “AI for Climate Resilient Energy Systems”
Award: $15k (co-sponsored by SEI)

Overview: We are committed to building a team of interdisciplinary & transdisciplinary researchers and practitioners with a shared goal: developing a new framework which model future climatic variations and the interconnected and interdependent energy infrastructure network as complex systems. To achieve this, we will harness the power of cutting-edge climate model outputs, sourced from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), and integrate approaches from Machine Learning and Deep Learning models. This strategic amalgamation of data and techniques will enable us to gain profound insights into the intricate web of future climate-change-induced extreme weather conditions and their immediate and long-term ramifications on energy infrastructure networks. The seed grant from IDEaS stands as the crucial catalyst for kick-starting this ambitious endeavor. It will empower us to form a collaborative and inclusive community of GT researchers hailing from various domains, including City and Regional Planning, Earth and Atmospheric Science, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering etc. By drawing upon the wealth of expertise and perspectives from these diverse fields, we aim to foster an environment where innovative ideas and solutions can flourish. In addition to our internal team, we also have plans to collaborate with external partners, including the World Bank, the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, and the Berkeley AI Research Initiative, who share our vision of addressing the complex challenges at the intersection of climate and energy infrastructure.

PI: Jian Luo, Civil & Environmental Eng | Yi Deng, EAS
Proposal Title: “Physics-informed Deep Learning for Real-time Forecasting of Urban Flooding”
Award: $15k (co-sponsored by BBISS)

Overview: Our research team envisions a significant trend in the exploration of AI applications for urban flooding hazard forecasting. Georgia Tech possesses a wealth of interdisciplinary expertise, positioning us to make a pioneering contribution to this burgeoning field. We aim to harness the combined strengths of Georgia Tech's experts in civil and environmental engineering, atmospheric and climate science, and data science to chart new territory in this emerging trend. Furthermore, we envision the potential extension of our research efforts towards the development of a real-time hazard forecasting application. This application would incorporate adaptation and mitigation strategies in collaboration with local government agencies, emergency management departments, and researchers in computer engineering and social science studies. Such a holistic approach would address the multifaceted challenges posed by urban flooding. To the best of our knowledge, Georgia Tech currently lacks a dedicated team focused on the fusion of AI and climate/flood research, making this initiative even more pioneering and impactful.

Proposal Title: “AI for Recycling and Circular Economy”
PI: Valerie Thomas, ISyE and PubPoly | Steven Balakirsky, GTRI
Award: $15k (co-sponsored by BBISS)

Overview: Most asset management and recycling-use technology has not changed for decades. The use of bar codes and RFID has provided some benefits, such as for retail returns management. Automated sorting of recyclables using magnets, eddy currents, and laser plastics identification has improved municipal recycling. Yet the overall field has been challenged by not-quite-easy-enough identification of products in use or at end of life. AI approaches, including computer vision, data fusion, and machine learning provide the additional capability to make asset management and product recycling easy enough to be nearly autonomous. Georgia Tech is well suited to lead in the development of this application. With its strength in machine learning, robotics, sustainable business, supply chains and logistics, and technology commercialization, Georgia Tech has the multi-disciplinary capability to make this concept a reality; in research and in commercial application.

Proposal Title: “Data-Driven Platform for Transforming Subjective Assessment into Objective Processes for Artistic Human Performance and Wellness”
PI: Milka Trajkova, Research Scientist/School of Literature, Media, Communication | Brian Magerko, School of Literature, Media, Communication
Award: $15k (co-sponsored by IPaT)

Overview: Artistic human movement at large, stands at the precipice of a data-driven renaissance. By leveraging novel tools, we can usher in a transparent, data-driven, and accessible training environment. The potential ramifications extend beyond dance. As sports analytics have reshaped our understanding of athletic prowess, a similar approach to dance could redefine our comprehension of human movement, with implications spanning healthcare, construction, rehabilitation, and active aging. Georgia Tech, with its prowess in AI, HCI, and biomechanics is primed to lead this exploration. To actualize this vision, we propose the following research questions with ballet as a prime example of one of the most complex types of artistic movements: 1) What kinds of data - real-time kinematic, kinetic, biomechanical, etc. captured through accessible off-the-shelf technologies, are essential for effective AI assessment in ballet education for young adults?; 2) How can we design and develop an end-to-end ML architecture that assesses artistic and technical performance?; 3) What feedback elements (combination of timing, communication mode, feedback nature, polarity, visualization) are most effective for AI- based dance assessment?; and 4) How does AI-assisted feedback enhance physical wellness, artistic performance, and the learning process in young athletes compared to traditional methods?

-         Christa M. Ernst

A new Georgia Tech study reveals that excluding front-line workers from the design process can increase employee turnover rates, leading to higher costs and reduced efficiency for businesses implementing new automated technologies.

Alyssa Sheehan has seen firsthand how companies can struggle to leverage new technologies meant to improve systems and benefit workers. She collaborated with dozens of companies as the director of the Georgia Center of Innovation's aerospace team from 2022 to 2023.

That experience inspired the Ph.D. candidate and 2022 Foley Scholar to explore the effects on workers when technology is implemented to automate traditional paper-based processes. Making Meaning from the Digitalization of Blue-Collar Work won a best paper award at the 2023 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) this week in Minneapolis.

“I’m trying to cast meaningful work into a new light with automation and technology design,” Sheehan said. “The intention is so focused on delivering efficiency and optimizing the process. Companies and technologists forget about user input from workers using these systems.”

Microsoft and other major tech companies have announced commitments to use technology to foster a culture of meaningful work within the workplace. However, Sheehan said that small businesses often lack the resources and knowledge required to incorporate such beneficial technology. Others design the technology with only productivity in mind and without considering if it makes their employees’ jobs more meaningful.

“There’s a lot of research that shows there’s a technology gap, particularly for small businesses,” Sheehan said. “I’m not always advocating for technology as a solution, but I look at what exists critically and ask, ‘Is this technology doing what we want it to? If the goal is to support workers, how is it doing that?’”

Sheehan worked with a small Georgia-based manufacturing company to conduct an 18-month study. She designed and deployed off-the-shelf tools to automate the company’s shipping and receiving processes that required time and paperwork.

With the support of researchers from Georgia Tech’s Institute of People and Technology (IPAT), she customized a wearable and mobile app. The workers used the app to check off critical tasks within the shipping process one by one.  

The results were mixed.

Sheehan said many ground-floor shipping experts were frustrated by the frequency of having to repack orders because of customer complaints about improper shipping. The workers insisted they’d done the job correctly. The mobile app allowed them to take pictures of each order after packaging for quality assurance.

The workers appreciated the feature, but they also provided negative feedback. In some cases, the app required workers to perform tasks contrary to methods that suited them and made them feel productive. It also took away a sense of autonomy and pride in expertise from workers because it instructed them what to do step by step. Instead of making the job easier, workers felt like their superiors didn’t trust them to do the job correctly.

“It helped in certain areas like not having to take notes on paper anymore and using outdated equipment. However, they struggled to see how it would preserve meaning in their job in terms of working with their hands and doing various tasks at any given time.

“We create universal systems and solutions for mobile apps that are often deployed without understanding the context of organizational practices. That’s a problem. Now, the workers have to adapt their processes to make this tool work in practice. They’re being asked to give up how they do things,” Sheehan said.

She added that automated technology systems need to go beyond convenience and productivity, and these systems may cause more harm than good if it diminishes meaning and value from workers.

“By leaving the worker perspective out of the design process, we limit the potential of these technologies,” she said. “Productivity still relies on people being engaged in the process. If we’re going to create true productivity, we need to make sure those jobs are valuable and that people feel what they do matters. That leads to less turnover and higher job satisfaction rates.”

Funding is aimed at transformative biomedical and health breakthroughs to provide cancer solutions.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is a research funding agency that supports transformative biomedical and health breakthroughs — ranging from the molecular to the societal — to provide health solutions for all. ARPA-H awardees are developing entirely new ways to tackle the hardest challenges in health. 

President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative aims to cut the cancer death rate by half in 25 years. Three projects connected to Georgia Tech, which have collectively received $119 million from ARPA-H, are doing just that. 

With a grant worth up to $50 million, Georgia Tech will lead development of a new generation of cancer tests capable of detecting multiple types of tumors earlier than ever. Led by biomedical engineer Gabe Kwong, the project will map the unique cellular profiles of cancer cells and leverage that knowledge to build new bioengineered sensors to detect those profiles. The goal is to create a new kind of multi-cancer early detection test that would allow oncologists to start treating the tumors sooner, when they’re still small and most responsive. 

The project is the third with ties to Georgia Tech received in recent weeks. Professor Philip Santangelo, professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, received the first tranche of funding from the agency — $24 million — for a project building a toolbox of mRNA drugs to activate or shut off specific genes to help the immune system fight cancer and other disorders. 

Josiah Hester in the School of Interactive Computing is co-principal investigator of a $45 million Rice University-led effort to develop an implant to help the body better respond to cancer treatments. Celine Lin, associate professor in the School of Computer Science, is working with Hester to develop ultra-energy-efficient chips for signal processing and embedded control. Together, they will develop a robust platform that is energy-efficient enough to last for months. 

“At ARPA-H, we recognize the urgency of the health challenges facing cancer patients and their families.” said ARPA-H Director Renee Wegrzyn, “and we are committed to funding truly transformative research that can improve health outcomes for everyone.”       

$50M Cancer Moonshot Grant Will Build an Atlas for Earlier Cancer Detection

Biomedical engineer Gabe Kwong will map cancer cell biomarkers, then engineer new sensors to hunt for multiple kinds of cancer.   

Read more

Computing Faculty Supporting Research That Could Cut Cancer Deaths in Half

A surgically implantable device the size of a pinky finger could be a huge step toward a cure for cancer.   

Read more

BME Researchers Lead $24M Project Using mRNA to ‘Turn On’ Helpful Immune Responses

Philip Santangelo wants to build a toolbox of mRNA drugs to activate or shut off specific genes to help the immune system fight cancer and other disorders.   

Read more

Omid Veiseh (right) and Dr. Amir Jazaeri in Veiseh’s Rice University laboratory in August 2023. Veiseh, an associate professor of bioengineering, is principal investigator on the “targeted hybrid oncotherapeutic regulation” (THOR) project, a $45 million effort by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to fast-track the development of a small implant that can continuously monitor a patient’s cancer and adjust their immunotherapy dose in real time.

How do you explain the physical prowess of video gamers? In mainstream sports, such as soccer or basketball, people can see the physical feats: the arc of a jump shot or the speed of the ball through a goalie's fingertips. However, at major esports competitions, viewers see the video game characters on screen rather than the player controlling them behind the scenes. So, how do esports commentators and promoters explain this invisible activity?

Keung Yoon Bae, an assistant professor of Korean Studies at the School of Modern Languages, explores how the Korean esports industry is one of the first to confront the challenge of describing physical performance in a digital medium. Through industry events and promotional materials, they've developed a new visual language to describe what cannot be seen by viewers watching the gamers in competition. As the novel language and strategies spread, it also helps cement Korean esports as a pioneer in the field.

"South Korean esports media have developed visual strategies, their own specific visual language, to try and communicate on-screen abstract concepts such as the prowess of their players and the histories that they bring to the game," Bae writes in her book chapter "Visualizing the Invisible: Korean Esports and the Representation of Gameplay Skill."

For example, esports player Ryu Je-Hong streams with a camera aimed at his hand to show how sensitive his mouse is and how accurate his hand movements are. In the animated hype videos tournaments use for promotion, companies don't show players sitting in chairs at screens. Instead, they create more exciting visuals, such as the players climbing a mountain peak or standing in a room surrounded by portraits of past tournament champions.  

"Esports broadcasts and promotional media often look quite absurd or bizarre to those unfamiliar with esports, so these visual strategies give us a great point of access to understand why esports looks the way it does," Bae says. 

Her chapter counters what she says is a common misconception: that esports is not an actual sport because it doesn't involve physical skill. 

"Physical skill is core to esports, just not in the way we are used to," Bae says. "Therefore, it is also core to esports discourse, which often contends with questions about gender and biology — even if the discussions often use biology research in problematic or misguided ways," she adds.

"Visualizing the Invisible: Korean Esports and the Representation of Gameplay Skill" was published in Introducing Korean Popular Culture in 2023.

Bae's next project will take a historical approach to the field, interviewing esports professionals in Korea about how copyright law, intellectual property law, and esports ownership have changed over the past decade.