The Cloud Hub, a key initiative of the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS) at Georgia Tech, recently concluded a successful Call for Proposals focused on advancing the field of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). This initiative, made possible by a generous gift funding from Microsoft, aims to push the boundaries of GenAI research by supporting projects that explore both foundational aspects and innovative applications of this cutting-edge technology.

Call for Proposals: A Gateway to Innovation

Launched in early 2024, the Call for Proposals invited researchers from across Georgia Tech to submit their innovative ideas on GenAI. The scope was broad, encouraging proposals that spanned foundational research, system advancements, and novel applications in various disciplines, including arts, sciences, business, and engineering. A special emphasis was placed on projects that addressed responsible and ethical AI use.

The response from the Georgia Tech research community was overwhelming, with 76 proposals submitted by teams eager to explore this transformative technology. After a rigorous selection process, eight projects were selected for support. Each awarded team will also benefit from access to Microsoft’s Azure cloud resources..

Recognizing Microsoft’s Generous Contribution

This successful initiative was made possible through the generous support of Microsoft, whose contribution of research resources has empowered Georgia Tech researchers to explore new frontiers in GenAI. By providing access to Azure’s advanced tools and services, Microsoft has played a pivotal role in accelerating GenAI research at Georgia Tech, enabling researchers to tackle some of the most pressing challenges and opportunities in this rapidly evolving field.

Looking Ahead: Pioneering the Future of GenAI

The awarded projects, set to commence in Fall 2024, represent a diverse array of research directions, from improving the capabilities of large language models to innovative applications in data management and interdisciplinary collaborations. These projects are expected to make significant contributions to the body of knowledge in GenAI and are poised to have a lasting impact on the industry and beyond.

IDEaS and the Cloud Hub are committed to supporting these teams as they embark on their research journeys. The outcomes of these projects will be shared through publications and highlighted on the Cloud Hub web portal, ensuring visibility for the groundbreaking work enabled by this initiative.

Congratulations to the Fall 2024 Winners

• Yunan Luo | CSE “Designing New and Diverse Proteins with Generative AI”
• Kartik Goyal | IC “Generative AI for Greco-Roman Architectural Reconstruction: From Partial Unstructured Archaeological Descriptions to Structured Architectural Plans”
• Victor Fung | CSE “Intelligent LLM Agents for Materials Design and Automated Experimentation”
• Noura Howell | LMC “Applying Generative AI for STEM Education: Supporting AI literacy and community engagement with marginalized youth”
• Neha Kumar | IC “Towards Responsible Integration of Generative AI in Creative Game Development”
• Maureen Linden | Design “Best Practices in Generative AI Used in the Creation of Accessible Alternative Formats for People with Disabilities”
• Surya Kalidindi | ME & MSE “Accelerating Materials Development Through Generative AI Based Dimensionality Expansion Techniques”
• Tuo Zhao | ISyE “Adaptive and Robust Alignment of LLMs with Complex Rewards”
• Annalisa Bracco  | EAS “TBA”

Georgia Tech researcher W. Hong Yeo has been awarded a $3 million grant to help develop a new generation of engineers and scientists in the field of sustainable medical devices. 

“The workforce that will emerge from this program will tackle a global challenge through sustainable innovations in device design and manufacturing,” said Yeo, Harris Saunders Jr. Professor and associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University.

The funding, from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Training (NRT) program, will address the environmental impacts resulting from the mass production of medical devices, including the increase in material waste and greenhouse gas emissions.

Under Yeo’s leadership, the Georgia Tech team comprises multidisciplinary faculty: Andrés García (bioengineering), HyunJoo Oh (industrial design and interactive computing), Lewis Wheaton (biology), and Josiah Hester (sustainable computing). Together, they’ll train 100 graduate students, including 25 NSF-funded trainees, who will develop reuseable, reliable medical devices for a range of uses. 

“We plan to educate students on how to develop medical devices using biocompatible and biodegradable materials and green manufacturing processes using low-cost printing technologies,” said Yeo. “These wearable and implantable devices will enhance disease diagnosis, therapeutics, rehabilitation, and health monitoring.”

Students in the program will be challenged by a comprehensive, multidisciplinary curriculum, with deep dives into bioengineering, public policy, physiology, industrial design, interactive computing, and medicine. And they’ll get real-world experience through collaborations with clinicians and medical product developers, working to create devices that meet the needs of patients and care providers.

The Georgia Tech NRT program aims to attract students from various backgrounds, fostering a diverse, inclusive environment in the classroom — and ultimately in the workforce.

The program will also introduce a new Ph.D. concentration in smart medical devices as part of Georgia Tech's bioengineering program, and a new M.S. program in the sustainable development of medical devices. Yeo also envisions an academic impact that extends beyond the Tech campus.

“Collectively, this NRT program's curriculum, combining methods from multiple domains, will help establish best practices in many higher education institutions for developing reliable and personalized medical devices for healthcare,” he said. “We’d like to broaden students' perspectives, move past the current technology-first mindset, and reflect the needs of patients and healthcare providers through sustainable technological solutions.” 

Faith Sumpter, program and operations manager for the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) at Georgia Tech, is currently managing logistics for IPaT’s Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC) in Asia under the leadership of IPaT’s Executive Director Michael Best.

CIC was founded in 2007 by the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). This year, the Asian CIC competition is co-supported by the Shenzhen Georgia Tech Education Foundation, an independent fund in support of Georgia Tech. The competition recognizes student innovation and entrepreneurship with a focus on global challenges and opportunities. Many projects are linked to United Nations sustainable development goals.

Sumpter is coordinating with eight new Asia faculty fellows recruited from IPaT’s strategic partners and anchor universities across Asia. These faculty fellows are experts in their field who have agreed to give advice and mentorship to interested student teams participating in CIC. 

In addition to supporting CIC, she manages IPaT’s lending library allowing a wide range of technology to be used by faculty and students. Devices that can be checked out include: phones, tablets, and other mobile and wearable devices; Arduinos, Raspberry Pi’s and other IoT development kits; a variety of sensors; cameras and media capture devices; virtual machines and databases, home automation hubs and sensors; and a wide range of networking equipment. 

She previously worked for the University of North Carolina in Ashville, Agnes Scott College, and Chattahoochee Technical College. Sumpter is currently a second-year doctoral student at the University of North Georgia in the higher education, leadership and practice program. Travelling the globe is one of her biggest hobbies and she’s planning to visit Panama and Mexico soon.

The Georgia Tech-led Computer Science for Rural Georgia High Schools Program recently received additional financial support from the Georgia General Assembly for 2024-25. The program has exploded with unprecedented growth over the last year, going from 800 student participants to 4,400. Participating high school teachers across Georgia met at Georgia Tech Aug. 26 – 27 to share ideas and best practices going into the new school year.

Launched with funding from the state legislature in 2022, the program was developed collaboratively by Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics, and Computing (CEISMC) and STEM@GTRI, Georgia Tech Research Institute’s K-12 outreach program.

It focuses on developing coding, music, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity skills in high school students in rural parts of the state. During its pilot year, the program served 11 schools in eight school districts in Bartow, Chattooga, Effingham, Fayette, Gordon, Haralson, Liberty, and Walker counties. 

Today, it serves 39 schools and 24 school districts: Candler, Catoosa, Chattahoochee, Clinch, Decatur, Dooly, Fannin, Grady, Hancock, Houston, Jeff Davis, Jones, Laurens, Lumpkin, Macon, Oglethorpe, Peach, Screven, Stephens, Tattnall, Thomas, Treutlen, and Twiggs counties.

Modules taught to students include introduction to coding, advanced coding, principles of cybersecurity, foundations of AI, introduction to robotics, intermediate coding, intermediate robotics, sensors and data science, website design, sensors, and data science.

“This rural computer science initiative has been transformative for Twiggs County schools,” said Mack Bullard, school superintendent. “We find it very difficult to find computer science teachers who are willing to come to rural Georgia to teach.”

He called partnering with Georgia Tech professors “transformative for our school system. Experiences like robotics and coding in class have excited our kids now that they've been able to see what's possible. From our collaborations with other teachers in this program, I can see future student projects in Twiggs County related to agriculture, such as the building and programming of probes. This computer science program has been phenomenal.”

More than 1,500 parents and children across the Atlanta metropolitan area attended a jam-packed second annual Georgia Tech Science and Engineering Day held on Saturday, March 11 in conjunction with the tenth annual 2023 Atlanta Science Festival. Located across five campus buildings, more than 40 demonstrations, hands-on STEAM activities, tours, and learning opportunities designed to engage and educate participants were offered by students, staff, and faculty volunteers.

Some of this year’s demonstration topics included battery fuel cells, nanotechnology, DNA, immunoengineering, chemistry, engineering, superconductivity levitation, wastewater treatment, aerospace, space outreach, virtual reality, biology, robotics, computing, 3D printing, paper making, and much more.

A parent attending from Peachtree City said, “we’ve discovered our son has an affinity for math and science. He’s handling tenth grade science level coursework, yet he’s only in the seventh grade and can understand math formulas ahead of his age group. We brought him here to expose him to a variety of technologies and advanced equipment that he won’t see or be exposed to in his middle school. The staff and professors here have been very kind to show him how to use some of the equipment we’ve seen. And his eyes have gotten bigger all day because of these interactions.”

Virginia Howell, director of the Roberts C. Williams Museum of Paper Making in the Renewable Bioproducts Institute at Georgia Tech said, “the paper museum is delighted to be part of the Georgia Tech Science and Engineering Day. It's a great opportunity for people to learn more about the paper museum and get hands-on experience in making a sheet of paper to take home. We offer workshops, classes, and tours to students across the state of Georgia. Kids have been lined up all day to participate at our tables today.”

Demonstrations included how to extract DNA, seeing LIDAR in action, experiencing heat sensing sensors, how x-rays are used, viewing scanning electron microscopes, playing a virtual reality game, experiencing chemical reactions, watching 3D printing, making slime, showing atom-level nano materials in synthesized materials, neuroscience demos, liquid nitrogen experiments, and many more.

Presentation areas were hosted by the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology, the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines, and the Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences who provided valuable space in their buildings to house demonstrations. The Ford Environmental Science & Technology Building and Molecular Science & Engineering Building also donated space for demonstrations.

Another tour offering during Science and Engineering Day was the Flowers Invention Studio at Georgia Tech which offers more than 5,000 square feet of industrial makerspace equipment.

“We are the largest student-run maker space in the nation,” said Lillian Tso, president of the Invention Studio and a fourth-year mechanical engineering student. “We house industrial grade equipment for prototyping and manufacturing—we support anything that students want to build. We're open for all students of all majors of all years. They can use our equipment for free which includes CNC machines, more than 50 3D printers, waterjets, laser cutters, and many other professional-level tools. This is our first year participating in the Georgia Tech Science and Engineering Day. We wanted to do a lot more outreach to the Georgia Tech campus and the greater Atlanta community."

Lucas Garza, president-elect of the Invention Studio, added, “we’ve had a busy day offering tours of our studio throughout the festival.”

Located in the mezzanine of the Marcus Nanotechnology Building, Ethan Sirak, a fourth-year aerospace student with the Georgia Space Grant Consortium, was providing kids with exposure to space facts and allowing them to perform crafts related to planets and space. The consortium is an organization under NASA which aims to promote STEM exposure to kids of all ages. He also assists with the Aerospace Engineering Outreach Program. He was partnered at his hands-on learning table with Bill McNutt Jr., a senior aerospace engineering student.

A young participant from Suwanee, Georgia, said, “I want to go to school at Georgia Tech because of aerospace engineering. I want to go on good adventures in future space flight and design things.”

His mom, a sixth-grade science teacher added, “I love coming to science fairs to get new ideas for my students and I love to bring my family because we just have a great time. This is our very first science fair here at Georgia Tech. We've been to ones in north Georgia because that's pretty close to where we live. But when we saw this was available, we're like, yeah, we're coming down to Tech for this today—and having a great time.”

While attendees were able to get a peek into one of the nation’s most research-intensive universities, the event also allowed the many researchers and students participating the opportunity to share their science and engineering work with the public.

One of the more unique tables was manned by Alison Reynolds, an instruction archivist with research services in the Georgia Tech library. She was displaying a selection of unique items from Georgia Tech’s science fiction archives and special collections. She said, “we’ve been teaching with science fiction since 1971 and our collection is now one of the largest science fiction collections in the United States. We wanted to display part of our special collection.”

“I had several Georgia school systems reach out to me that were interested in attending this event,“ said Leslie O 'Neill, education outreach manager with the Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor (SENIC) at Georgia Tech. “Georgia Tech plays a vital part in its community. We wanted to showcase the campus; the student, faculty and staff research; and the amazing science and engineering being done. We’ve had a fantastic turnout this year for this event.”
 

More than 150 people attended Industry Innovation Day and the GVU Spring Research Showcase on April 19 held at the Technology Square Research Building conference center on the Georgia Tech campus. This year’s event centered around the brain and neuro-related technologies, and touched on topics ranging from brain computer interaction, cognitive aids, psychology, the future of work, artificial intelligence and various other topics that surfaced due to audience questions. The event was sponsored by the Georgia Tech Institute of People and Technology (IPaT) and the Georgia Tech Neuro community.

The keynote speaker this year was Thomas Reardon, vice president and head of neural interfaces at Meta Reality Labs. Reardon is a highly regarded neuroscientist and entrepreneur who founded CTRL-labs which was acquired by Meta (Facebook) in 2019. He currently leads a team of computational neuroscientists and biotech engineers working to connect neurons to machines via a novel non-invasive neural interface technology. Reardon’s talk topic for this year’s annual Industry Innovation Day was “Consumer Neural Interfaces: View from Meta Reality Labs.” In addition to providing an informative lecture about neural technology, he briefly displayed some of the capabilities of his Meta team’s wrist-mounted, non-invasive device that was able to translate neuro hand activity into its corresponding robotic hand movements.

“Our undergraduate degree in neuroscience is one of the Institute’s most popular degrees,” said Julia Kubanek, vice president for interdisciplinary research at Georgia Tech, who gave several introductory remarks. “The neuroscience area integrates many disciplines across campus such as the arts, humanities, social science, computer science, engineering, business, design, and the basic sciences and is a great example of the true integration of interdisciplinary research in many forms across Georgia Tech. We are particularly grateful for the participation today of companies and other organizations that collaborate with the Georgia Tech community of researchers.”

Leigh McCook, interim executive director of IPaT, emphasized the need to have dialogue and conversations between industry partners and community partners with Georgia Tech researchers to develop supportive research projects and create greater impact in the area of the human technology frontier.

“The neuro space and the IPaT space are natural partners for each other,” said Chris Rozell, professor and Julian T. Hightower Chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “This is a perfect day to come together and talk about what the human frontier looks like. Georgia Tech hired its first neuro engineer more than 30 years ago long before it was cool to be an engineer studying neuro. Today, we have more than a 100 faculty spanning six colleges studying neuro-related topics with the additional involvement of Emory University and Georgia State University. We’ve had an incredible trajectory over the last decade and we’ve fostered a growing and active community.”

Following Reardon’s keynote were two interactive panel sessions. The first panel was focused on “brain computer input and output” was led by moderator Michelle LaPlaca, professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering. Her research interests are in neurotrauma, injury biomechanics, and neuroengineering as they relate to traumatic brain injury.

The panelists were:

Melody Moore Jackson, professor in the School of Interactive Computing
Omer Inan, professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Carlos Bremer, president North America Division - Global VP of Knowledge at brain4care
Isaac Clements, CTO and co-founder of BioCircuit Technologies
The second panel was focused on the “future of cognitive and psychological aids” and was moderated by Maribeth Gandy Coleman, director of research at the Institute for People and Technology where her work has been focused on the intersection of technology for mobile/wearable computing, augmented reality, AI, human computer interaction, healthcare, assistive technology, and gaming.

The panelists were:

Jennifer R. DuBose, director of the SimTigrate Design Lab
Tansu Celikel, chair of the School of Psychology
Deborah Backus, vice president of research and innovation, Shepherd Center
Barbara Olasov Rothbaum, director of the Emory Healthcare veterans program and chair in neuropsychopharmacology, Emory University School of Medicine
“I am really pleased with the connections we were able to foster today,” said Clint Zeagler, co-director of strategic partnerships for IPaT and principal research scientist. “Key to translational and impactful research outcomes are transdisciplinary collaboration across campus and with industry and corporate partners. Events like this with both academic and industry experts allow for deep conversations and spark interesting and innovative projects.”