Yonggang Ke's research is highly interdisciplinary combining chemistry, biology, physics, material science, and engineering. The overall mission of his research is to use interdisciplinary research tools to program nucleic-acid-based "beautiful structures and smart devices" at nanoscale, and use them for scientific exploration and technological applications. Specifically, his team focuses on (1) developing new DNA self-assembly paradigms for constructing DNA nanostructures with greater structural complexity, and with controllable sizes and shapes; (2) developing new imaging or drug delivery systems based on DNA nanostructuresl; (3) exploring design of novel DNA-based nanodevices for understanding basic biological questions at molecular level; (4) developing DNA-templated protein devices for constructing artificial bio-reactors.

For cancer-related research/application, Ke will focus on using DNA/RNA nanostructures as drug delivery vehicles. He is also interested in using DNA/RNA nanostructures to study cancer cell biology at molecular level.

Dr. Shi joined Georgia Tech in August 2018 as an assistant professor. Prior, he worked as a graduate student researcher at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of California, Berkeley and Materials Science Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory focusing on the study of acoustic angular momentum and the design and realization of acoustic metamaterials and high-speed acoustic communication. His Ph.D. dissertation (2018) focuses on the development of acoustic metamaterials and the physics of the angular momentum of sound. Prior to his Ph.D. study at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Shi completed his M.S. degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute in Shanghai, China. His M.S. thesis (2013) focuses on the dynamics and vibration of cyclically symmetric rotating mechanical systems.

I am an Assistant Professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE), Georgia Institute of Technology since January 2022. I received my PhD from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, advised by Prof. Jian Peng. Prior to that, I received my bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Yao Class at Tsinghua University in 2016.

I am broadly interested in computational biology and machine learning, with a focus on developing AI and data science methods to reveals core scientific insights into biology and medicine. Recent interests include deep learning, transfer learning, sequence and graph representation learning, network and system biology, functional genomics, cancer genomics, drug repositioning and discovery, and AI-guided biological design and discovery.

Dr. Noel is a Research Engineer II with the Aerospace and Acoustics Technologies Division in GTRI’s Aerospace, Transportation, and Advanced Systems Laboratory (ATAS). She received her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2009 and 2018, respectively. In her doctoral work, Dr. Noel specialized in biomechanics, with a particular focus on biological adhesive mechanisms. Her work has been highlighted in media outlets like NPR, The New York Times, Science Magazine, and the Discovery Channel. Dr. Noel’s ongoing areas of research include haptic feedback for mixed reality platforms, biomechanics and bio-inspired design, and additive manufacturing.

After completing his Ph.D. studies in 1976, Professor Arduengo began his professional career at the DuPont company as a member of the research staff. Within a year, he accepted a position on the chemistry faculty at the University of Illinois. Dr. Arduengo returned to DuPont in 1984 to pursue applications for a previously unknown type of phosphorus compound (ADPO) that had been discovered by his research group at Illinois. In 1999 Professor Arduengo resumed his work in academe with research groups in Germany and the United States. He is Professor of the Practice in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Saxon Professor Emeritus in organic chemistry at the University of Alabama. 

Professor Arduengo's research in the area of main group chemistry has produced many scientific "firsts," including the discovery of the first planar T-shaped bonding arrangement at phosphorus centers. Further work in this area at DuPont uncovered a previously unrecognized "edge inversion process" that operates at main group element centers and explains many apparent anomalies in main group element chemistry. Dr. Arduengo's interest in and study of compounds with unusual valence allowed him to synthesize the first stable crystalline carbene in 1990. 

This carbene research not only represents a milestone in chemistry, but this science also has led to a rapidly increasing variety of commercial applications. "We're looking into uses in direct catalysis, for crosslinking polymers, and for transition metals catalysis in which carbenes can be incorporated as ligands." "We've added a new tool to the chemist's repertoire which we can take off the shelf and use at will to follow imaginative ideas in new directions." 

Recently, the Arduengo Group research has joined the efforts of the Medicines for All Institute and participates in BARDA programs to develop modern, sustainable technology that facilitates repatriation of essential chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing to U.S. shores. 

His research earned him an Alexander von Humboldt senior research prize and the 1996 Gold Medal for 'Excellence in Main Group Chemistry' from the International Council on Main Group Chemistry. In 2007 Professor was elected Fellow in The American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Professor Arduengo trained as a traditional synthetic organic chemist, but has continually sought collaborations with experts in inorganic chemistry, polymer and material science, and recently through his carbene chemistry, bioorganic catalysis in order to broaden the scope and impact of his scientific interests. As a result, he is recognized in his own right as an expert such diverse areas. Work from the arduengo group has yielded approximately 150 publications and patents including articles intended to stimulate the interest of the young and lay-public in science. 

He values teaching and quality science education, and even from his industrial positions, Professor Arduengo has actively maintained a strong commitment to the preparation of future generations of scientists by holding lectures and demonstrations for elementary and high school classes and his supervision of a dozen post-doctoral co-workers. 

Professor Arduengo leads research groups in the United States and Germany and provides his co-workers with opportunities to study abroad. This bi-national research program fosters a broad training experience with industrial interactions in both Germany and the United States. Professor Arduengo is a strong advocate of international research and training experiences and regularly hosts U.S. undergraduate and graduate students in laboratories in Germany. During these semesters abroad students experience everyday life and culture in Germany in addition to conducting research in a foreign research environment. Professor Arduengo provides instruction in a variety of subjects in Chemistry as well as German language instruction so that students are able to stay on track toward their degrees with no lost time.

Susan Napier Thomas holds the Woodruff Professorship and is a Professor (full) with tenure of Mechanical Engineering in the Parker H. Petit Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience at the Georgia Institute of Technology where she holds adjunct appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Biological Science and is a member of the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. Prior to this appointment, she was a Whitaker postdoctoral scholar at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (one of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology) and received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering with an emphasis in Bioengineering cum laude from the University of California Los Angeles and her Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Department as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow from The Johns Hopkins University. For her contributions to the emerging field of immunoengineering, she has been honored with the 2022 Award for Young Investigator from Elsevier's journal Biomaterials for "outstanding contributions to the field" of biomaterials science, the 2018 Young Investigator Award from the Society for Biomaterials for "outstanding achievements in the field of biomaterials research" and the 2013 Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society "in recognition of high level of originality and ingenuity in a scientific work in biomedical engineering." Her interdisciplinary research program is supported by multiple awards on which she serves as PI from the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the Susan G. Komen Foundation, amongst others.

Dr. Varenberg’s research area is Tribology – the science and technology of interacting surfaces that allow for game-changing advancements ranging from making fire and inventing wheel in the past, to enabling human joint replacement in the present. Dr. Varenberg’s main focus is on bionic tribology and green tribology, but, to enhance the public’s interest in tribology science, he also seeks to uncover tribology from daily life, with examples of works on safety razors and table tennis paddles.

Dr. Yuhang Hu Joined the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in August 2018. Prior to that, Dr. Hu was an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2015 to 2018. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in the area of Solid Mechanics. She worked in the area of Materials Chemistry as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard from 2011 to 2014.

Dr. Levit came to Emory in 2007 after graduating from the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine. She spent 7 years doing research and clinical training in cardiovascular disease. In 2014 she joined the faculty in the Division of Cardiology and is continuing her work on clinically translatable stem cell therapies for cardiovascular disease.