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Student Life Photos Raise Relief Funds
each applicant. Assistance includes scholarships, grants and job opportunities that allow eligible in-state students to attend Georgia Tech without the burden of student loan debt. Marie Mons, director of Scholarships and Financial Aid, said the program plays an important role in keeping students at Tech. “If you study hard and get admitted to Georgia Tech and your family is in a situation where you need the Tech Promise program, then we want to make sure we put together a program that will help students not only get to Tech but to graduate,” Mons said. “The key to the Tech Promise program is not only recruitment but also retention.” Mons hopes that news of the program will inspire middle school and high school students who are interested in Georgia Tech to study hard and work on their academics.
Georgia Tech graduate student James K. Holder II has raised $10,000 in donations through his Your Face HERE: Haitian Earthquake Relief Effort project. Holder, Arch 08, who is pursuing a master’s degree in building construction, had a solid photography portfolio from work for the Technique and classes he took as an undergraduate from the College of Architecture’s artist-in-residence Ruth Dusseault. “At first I didn’t know if I would be able to get 200 people to donate $50, but as the project continued and as participants posted their photos on Facebook and Twitter, their friends would begin to sign up and so on and so forth,” he said. Holder created a Web site and launched publicity for the effort within 24 hours of James K. Holder raised $10,000 in aid for Haiti. news of the earthquake in January. To shoot the photos, he set up a makeshift studio in his Graduate Student Receives Fellowships dorm room. With the assistance of Dottie Hunt, a multimedia designDoctoral student Michael Casciato has been tapped as the recipier in the Library and Information Center, he was able to reserve ent of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research equipment to film interviews with several of the Your Face HERE Fellowship Program and the Georgia Tech Goizueta Fellowship. participants. He then uploaded the footage to YouTube and other As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the GRFP has a Web sites to assist in the viral effort. He reached his $10,000 goal in long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of sucJuly. cess in their future academic and professional careers. Past fellows “People seemed to love the photos, so much so that they often include Nobel Prize winners, Google founder Sergey Brin and donated even more than the requested amount,” Holder said. Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt. Casciato will receive a threeAn estimated 70 percent of the money was donated by Georgia year annual stipend of $30,000 along with a $10,500 cost-of-educaTech alumni, students, staff and student organizations. tion allowance for tuition and fees and a one-time $1,000 internaHolder now is planning a service trip to Port-au-Prince with a tional travel allowance. small group of Georgia Tech students and alumni. He is hoping to The Goizueta Foundation Fellowship is a supplemental award secure enough sponsorships and funding to offset the cost of travel that provides Casciato with a $4,000 stipend that is renewable for a and other expenses. Those who would like to help in this service effort through donasecond year based upon successful academic performance and partions, sponsorships or volunteering should contact Holder at ticipation in various service activities sponsored by the Office of JKH@gatech.edu. His portraits for Your Face HERE and other photoHispanic Initiatives at Tech. graphic work can be viewed at jkh2.com.
Promise Class Largest to Date
More than 360 students have benefited from the G. Wayne Clough Georgia Tech Promise Scholarship Program. This fall, 71 freshmen representing 36 Georgia counties are participating in the program. This is the largest incoming class in the program’s history. Launched in 2007, Tech Promise is designed to help academically qualified Georgia students whose families have an annual income of less than $33,300 (150 percent of the federal poverty level) earn their college degree debt-free. To date, 93 students have graduated from Georgia Tech with the support of the program. Picking up where Georgia’s HOPE scholarship and other financial aid options leave off, the program is individually tailored for 34
Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine
September/October 2010
Sand-swimming Robot Paper Wins Award
Ryan Maladen, a doctoral candidate in the bioengineering program at Georgia Tech, won the best paper award at the 2010 Robotics: Science and Systems conference in late June at the Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain. The prestigious and selective conference brings together researchers working on algorithmic or mathematical foundations of robotics, robotics applications and analysis of robotic systems. The paper, “Biologically Inspired Development of a Sand-swimming Robot,” focuses on the design and construction of a robot that can move through granular media with performance comparable to a biological organism, the sand-swimming sandfish lizard. Maladen received $1,500.