Linda Griffith, ‘82, Honored with “Genius” Award Linda Griffith, ‘82, was named one of 25 MacArthur Fellows for 2006, commonly known as the “genius awards,” by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Linda is currently the director of the Biotechnology Process Engineering Center and a professor in the Departments of Biological and Mechanical Engineering at MIT. “The award was a huge surprise and I am incredibly honored – and owe much of the credit to the fantastic environment at Tech when I was an undergraduate,” said Linda. “Tech fostered independence and rigorous thinking, but in an environment of collegiality and fun, it made engineering seem like a wonderful career – Tech let my inner nerd hang out.” MacArthur Fellows are selected for their creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions in the future. Each of the recipients receive $500,000 in “no strings attached” support over the next five years. There is no question about Linda’s potential for future contributions that are both original and creative. She
has already established herself as a leader in the field of biotechnology by shaping the frontiers of tissue engineering and synthetic regenerative technologies. Her early work focused on designing novel substrates for liver cell cultures to allow pharmacologists to test in vitro the efficacy and toxicity of many potential drugs. She has designed several methods for fabricating scaffolds on which cultured cells can adhere and grow. Linda’s current research is now offering the prospect of significant reduction in the need for future organ replacement or regeneration by developing a powerful tool for exploring the normal function of the liver and the mechanisms of disease that attack it. Her latest experiments are expanding the use of 3-D scaffolds for growing other cell types, such as blood-forming cells. These experiments lay the groundwork for building in vitro
Message from the Chair During the last few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of proofreading the soon-to-be-completed history of the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (our program was first called Engineering Chemistry and then Chemical Engineering). I was struck by two things: (1) how important the development of Georgia Tech has been to Atlanta and Georgia, and (2) how the activities central to the School and to Georgia Tech have broadened. Many contributed to the establishment of the School, but perhaps none more than William Henry Emerson, who started the discipline here in 1901. From that time until the 1950s, the emphasis in the School, and indeed throughout Georgia Tech, was on bachelor’s degrees. That began to change when the first Ph.D. from Georgia Tech was awarded in 1950 to William Lloyd Carter; we are proud that Dr. Carter’s Ph.D. was from the School of Chemical Engineering. Today, the School’s under-
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models of toxicity and cancer metastasis. She works at the intersection of materials science, cell surface chemistry, physiology, and anatomy. She is extending the limits of biomedical engineering and its applications for diagnosing disease and regenerating damaged organs. “I am grateful to Ajit Yoganathan for giving me great freedom and responsibility in his lab when I was an undergraduate at Tech,” Linda said. “But my undergraduate education was only a part of it. After I left, Tech emerged as a bioengineering giant under Bob Nerem’s superb leadership. He has been a terrific inspiration to the whole field of bioengineering and to me especially.” After graduating from Tech, Linda received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988 and joined the chemical engineering faculty at MIT in 1991 after a post-
doctoral appointment at MIT and Children’s Hospital for two years. She has held various positions in the departments of chemical, biological, and mechanical engineering at MIT. Linda was inducted into Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni this fall. MacArthur Fellowships come without stipulations or reporting requirements, offering the opportunity for Fellows to accelerate their current activities or take their work in new directions. The unusual level of independence afforded to Fellows underscores the spirit of freedom intrinsic to creative endeavors. Fellowships are awarded to women and men of all ages and at all career stages. The MacArthur Fellows Program was the first major grantmaking initiative of the MacArthur Foundation. The inaugural class of MacArthur Fellows was named in 1981. Including this year’s Fellows, 732 people, ranging in age from 18 to 82 at the time of their selection, have been named MacArthur Fellows since the inception of the program.
graduate and graduate programs enjoy outstanding reputations. We have approximately 550 undergraduates and 170 advanced degree students enrolled. Our graduates are recruited intensely, and their contributions and those of our faculty have impact around the globe. There is something that ties together the people we meet in the School’s history and those here now, and that factor has made possible the enhanced and still advancing opportunities for students and faculty: an intense drive for excellence. Whether it was Jim Fair, Pete Silas, Jim Wei, Garry Betty, Tom Gossage, Gerri Dickerson, Rudy Bunzl, Liz Moore, Tom Pigford, Bob Armstrong, Jim Harris, Sherman Glass, Glenn Wright, Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, Roger Kearns, Steve Hall, Wahid Tawfik, Tom Deloach, Kelley Williams, Kellye Hafner, Henry McGee, Fred Hollaway, Clyde Orr, Henry Linden, Ray Davis, Tom Malone, Duncan Mellichamp, John Burson, John Brock, George Spindler, Evelio Hernandez, Bing Shi, or any of the more than 6000 graduates from the School, a recognition and pursuit of excellence was paramount. In more than 100 years at Tech, we have graduated an elite, talented group of hard-working, innovative engineers. Truly, our history is filled with accomplishments by alumni who have made the world a better place. Watch the next issue of ChBE News and chbe.gatech.edu for more information about the published history of the School, which will be available January 2007.