Pascal Van Hentenryck, professor and chair of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, as well as director of Tech AI and the NSF AI4OPT Institute, presented at the Georgia Department of Human Services’ Annual HR Conference, held Jan. 28-30, 2025, at the Savannah Convention Center.

Themed “Customer-Centric Culture,” the event explored how leaders and employees can harness AI for customer engagement. Key topics included: defining AI, guiding workforce adaptation to AI-driven changes, and debunking myths, emphasizing AI's role as a vital tool rather than a threat.

To learn more about the Georgia Department of Human Services, click here.

The Georgia Legislator AI Workshop took place at the Georgia State Capitol, drawing state lawmakers, academic experts, and industry leaders to explore the transformative role of artificial intelligence, Jan. 28, 2025.

The event was designed to provide legislators with a comprehensive understanding of how AI is reshaping key sectors, including energy, manufacturing, education and cybersecurity. Georgia Tech’s prominent role in AI research and application was highlighted through contributions from its leading faculty and research experts.

Tim Lieuwen, interim executive vice provost for research at Georgia Tech, opened the workshop, amplifying the strategic importance of AI for Georgia’s economic development and infrastructure resilience. Pascal Van Hentenryck, director of the Tech AI Hub and the NSF AI4OPT Institute, followed with a presentation on AI advancements and their implications for the state.

A significant portion of the workshop focused on AI’s impact on energy infrastructure. Lieuwen returned to discuss how AI is enhancing energy efficiency and supporting Georgia’s transition to smarter, more resilient energy systems. This session highlighted AI’s role in driving sustainable energy solutions.

The conversation then shifted to manufacturing, with Tom Kurfess, chief manufacturing officer at Georgia Tech, detailing how AI-driven innovations are optimizing production processes and revolutionizing industry practices. His insights described a future where AI maintains Georgia’s competitiveness in the manufacturing sector.

Cybersecurity and data privacy were other focal points. Michael Barker from Georgia Tech’s Manufacturing Extension Program addressed the challenges and opportunities surrounding AI-driven cybersecurity solutions. His presentation touched on data privacy and compliance with public information regulations.

The educational landscape also took center stage as Steve Harmon from Georgia Tech’s College of Lifelong Learning explored the ways AI is reshaping learning experiences. Harmon highlighted AI’s potential to deliver personalized education and better prepare students for a rapidly evolving workforce.

Donna Ennis, interim associate vice president for community-based engagement and co-director of Georgia AIM, wrapped up the program by presenting a comprehensive overview of state and national AI resources available to foster innovation and collaboration.

This event highlighted the importance of strategic investments and informed policymaking to harness the full potential of AI for Georgia’s future.

Merging a love for engineering with a lifelong passion for music led Kevin Kamperman, a graduate student in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, to fulfill a lifelong dream of filing a patent on a fully functioning acoustic violin made completely from 3D printing.

Kamperman is a research engineer in the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Division (RASD) at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). He and a team of Woodruff School students, including William Davis, Inseo Grace Park, Gihane Rachid, and Lars Worlund, designed and fabricated the violin as a final project in Woodruff Professor Carolyn Seepersad’s additive manufacturing (AM) class last spring.

The research was provisionally filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in December.

Read the full story on the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering website.

Andrei Fedorov, Associate Chair for Graduate Studies, Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Chair, and professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, will represent Georgia Tech in a new international research initiative. The program, Adopting Sustainable Partnerships for Innovative Research Ecosystem (ASPIRE) for Top Scientists, is funded by the Japan Science and Technology Agency. It will receive approximately $3.2 million in funding over five years.

The award will support a broad spectrum of multidisciplinary research activities by the multinational teams and intermediate to long-term (three months to one year) collaborative visits to global research sites in Japan, Europe, and the U.S. A total of 46 proposals were submitted to ASPIRE for Top Scientists, out of which 14 were selected by expert evaluation. Each project is an international collaboration and the initiative's key focus is advancing science and technology on an international level.

Fedorov will lead a project titled "Construction of International Data and Analysis Platform for Inorganic Power-storage Materials Informatics with Nano/Micro-Structure" that will explore the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Informatics, and Energy. He will represent Georgia Tech as a principal investigator. The planned research will also involve faculty members and graduate students from College of Engineering schools involved in the Strategic Energy Institute.

Read the full story on the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering website.

The Space Research Institute (SRI) at Georgia Tech has initiated an internal search for its inaugural executive director. This new Interdisciplinary Research Institute (IRI) will build upon the foundation laid by the Space Research Initiative.

The SRI is dedicated to advancing cutting-edge research in space-related fields, fostering interdisciplinary collaborations, and establishing strong partnerships with industry, government, academic, and international organizations. As leader of the newly established IRI, the executive director will lead the Institute's strategic vision, nurture a culture of innovation, and champion initiatives that position Georgia Tech, via the SRI, as a global leader in space research and exploration.

The SRI is composed of faculty and staff across campus who have a common interest in space exploration and discovery. Collectively, SRI will research a wide range of topics on space and how it relates to human perspective and be an ultimate hub of all things space related at Georgia Tech. It will connect all the research institutes, labs, facilities, and colleges to pioneer the conversation about space in the state of Georgia. By working hand-in-hand with academics, business partners, and students we are committed to staying at the cutting edge of innovation. 

Click here to learn more about this position and how to apply.

Resilience hubs are trusted, community-serving facilities designed to support residents and coordinate communication and resources in everyday life; and before, during, and after disruptions. Environmental disruptions such as hurricane damage, coastal erosion, flood damage, extreme heat, and wildfire destruction are occurring more frequently and with greater economic costs. 

On November 21, 2024, a team from Georgia Tech met with nine other organizations at the Penn Center on St. Helena Island in South Carolina to work towards developing targeted resilience strategies to cope with environmental disaster events. More specifically, the Penn Center workshop’s overall goal was the co-creation of paths toward building community-led and -engaged, scientifically supported resilience hubs, addressing the unique challenges faced by coastal and inland vulnerable communities in the Southeastern United States.

A common definition of community resilience is “the sustained ability of a community to use available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations.”

Part of the process to build these action research partnerships and resilience plans is to bring together community leaders, government representatives, and an interdisciplinary team of researchers—many of whom are from Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech researchers bring expertise from science, engineering, design, humanities, and social sciences.

As part of the workshop, 15 Georgia Tech architecture students presented their design models for a multipurpose 20,000 square-foot building designed for the Penn Center campus which is steeped in African American history.

Some of the researchers at Georgia Tech attending the workshop and supporting the development of Southeastern community-focused resilience strategies included: 

• Sofía Pérez-Guzmán, assistant professor in the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering; 
• Allen Hyde, associate professor in the School of History and Sociology, and faculty member of the Institute for People and Technology; 
• Danielle Willkens, associate professor in the School of Architecture and faculty member of the Institute for People and Technology; 
• Alexander Robel, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; 
• Jennifer Hirsch, director of the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education at Georgia Tech;  
• Valerie M. Thomas, Anderson-Interface Chair of Natural Systems and professor in the H. Milton School of Industrial and Systems Engineering with a joint appointment in the School of Public Policy; 
• Joe F. Bozeman III, assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a joint appointment in the School of Public Policy; 
• Russell Clark, lead principal investigator of the Coastal Equity and Resilience Hub and senior research scientist at the Institute for People and Technology; 
• Nicole Kennard, assistant director for community-engaged research in the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems; and 
• Jung-Ho Lewe, senior research engineer in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

Participating partner organizations in addition to the Penn Center include:

• 7 Dimensions Outreach
• Atlanta Preservation Center
• Center for Sustainable Communities 
• Coastal Conservation League 
• Community Church Atlanta
• Furman University
• Gullah Geechee Futures Project
• University of South Carolina: Arnold School of Public Health, the EJ Strong Program, and the Department of Environmental Health Science
• Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at the University of Georgia

 

This work is supported by a Georgia Tech Sustainability Next research seed grant. The seed grant program is administered by the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBIS) in collaboration with the Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI), the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI), and the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). The program nurtures promising areas for future large-scale collaborative sustainability research, research translation, and high-impact outreach; provides mid-career faculty with leadership and community-building opportunities; and broadens and strengthens the Georgia Tech sustainability community as a whole.

When Kostas Konstantinidis proved that many microbes — like plants and animals — are organized into species, he upended a long-held scientific belief. Scientists widely believed that bacteria, due to their unique genetic exchange mechanisms and the vast size of their global populations, did not — and could not — form distinct species.

New research from Konstantinidis and collaborators further challenges this notion, suggesting that not only do bacteria form species, but they also maintain cohesive species through a process that is somewhat “sexual." 

“The next question for us was how individual microbes in the same species maintain their cohesiveness. In other words, how do bacteria stay similar?” said Konstantinidis, the Richard C. Tucker Professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 

Bacterial and other microbes are thought to evolve primarily through binary fission, meaning asexual reproduction, while also engaging in infrequent genetic exchange. Using a novel bioinformatic method for detecting gene transfer, along with a new trove of whole genome data, Konstantinidis and an international team of researchers tested their hypothesis for how species emerge and are maintained. They found that bacteria evolve and form species more “sexually” than previously thought. 

Their research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

To investigate how microbial species maintain their distinct identities, the team analyzed the complete genomes of microbes from two natural populations. They collected and sequenced over 100 strains of Salinibacter ruber (a salt-loving microbe) from solar salterns in Spain. Then they analyzed a set of previously published Escherichia coli genomes isolated from livestock farms in the U.K. They compared the genomes of closely related microbes to see how genes were being exchanged.

They found that a process called “homologous recombination” plays a major role in keeping microbial species together. Homologous recombination occurs when microbes exchange DNA with each other and integrate the new DNA into their genome by replacing their own similar DNA. They observed that recombination occurs frequently and randomly across the entire genome of microbes, and not just in a few specific regions. 

“This may be fundamentally different from sexual reproduction in animals, plants, fungi, and non-bacterial organisms, where DNA is exchanged during meiosis, but the outcome in terms of species cohesion may be similar,” Konstantinidis said. “This constant exchange of genetic material acts as a cohesive force, keeping members of the same species similar.” 

The researchers also observed that members of the same species are more likely to exchange DNA with one another than with members of different species, further contributing to distinct species boundaries.

“This work addresses a major, long-lasting problem for microbiology that is relevant for many research areas,” Konstantinidis said. “That is, how to define species and the underlying mechanisms for species cohesion.”

This research has implications for several fields, from environmental science and evolution to medicine and public health, and offers valuable insights for identifying, modeling, and regulating clinically or environmentally important organisms. The methodology developed during the research also provides a molecular toolkit for future epidemiological and micro-diversity studies.

 

Note: The research was made possible by contributions from the groups of Ramon Rossello-Mora at IMEDEA in Majorca, Spain, and Rudolf Amann at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, who obtained data from the natural microbial populations and equally contributed to the data analysis and interpretations. 

Citation: Conrad, R.E., Brink, C.E., Viver, T. et al. Microbial species and intraspecies units exist and are maintained by ecological cohesiveness coupled to high homologous recombination. Nat Commun 15, 9906 (2024). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-53787-0

Funding: U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. National Science Foundation, European Regional Development Fund