Woodruff Buzz: 2024-25 Annual Magazine

Woodruff Buzz

GEORGE W. WOODRUFF SCHOOL OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Mikey

Steven

Rachael

Jason

Tess

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

It’s an honor to introduce myself as the interim chair of the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and to present the latest edition of Woodruff Buzz, produced annually for our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends. As many of you know, former chair Devesh Ranjan recently accepted a new role as dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. We are grateful for his outstanding leadership and lasting impact on the Woodruff School, and I am excited to build on that momentum in the year ahead.

This edition of our magazine captures the energy and excellence that define our School — from student innovation and faculty research to alumni engagement and community celebration. During the last academic year, Woodruff School students once again demonstrated their creativity and impact. Mechanical engineering student Anuj Pandey and his Convexity teammates won the Georgia Tech InVenture Prize with a game-changing electronics 3D printer, revolutionizing how circuit boards are manufactured. Georgia Tech Motorsports secured its first podium finish in more than two decades, showcasing the technical depth, drive, and teamwork that define this student competition center team. Beyond competitions, our curriculum continues to set the standard for preparing workplaceready engineers. The Woodruff School’s Lab Sequence — Experimental Methods and Technical Communication followed by Systems Laboratory — is empowering students to conduct complex system-level investigations and communicate actionable conclusions to both executive and technical audiences, an essential skillset in today’s fast-paced, multidisciplinary engineering landscape.

Our faculty continued to advance research at the highest levels. Researchers like W. Hong Yeo, Carolyn Seepersad, and Bill Singhose pushed the boundaries of innovation — from biomedical sensors and interdisciplinary design education to crane safety research. Several faculty were

named Woodruff Faculty Fellows, and we launched the Woodruff Innovation Nexus (WIN) to fund bold, high-risk research ideas. Our faculty also helped shape national conversations around energy and technology: from a leap forward in AI-powered robotic exoskeletons developed in Aaron Young’s lab to a major new manufacturing testbed led by Tequila Harris, and new NIH- and DOE-funded projects tackling critical societal challenges. And in a historic milestone, NREMP Program Chair Steven Biegalski became the first engineer to receive the George Hevesy Medal — the highest international honor for lifetime achievements in applied nuclear and radiochemistry. He is just the seventh American to receive the award in its 57-year history.

This year, we continued to celebrate the achievements and impact of our community. Six members of the Woodruff School were named to Georgia Tech’s Class of 2024 40 Under 40, and we welcomed five new members to the Woodruff Young Alumni Council. At the 2024 College of Engineering Awards, alumni Emily Woods, Lindsey Thornhill, James R. Borders, and Carl D. Ring were honored — a testament to the excellence and influence of our alumni across industries. We also awarded Women of Woodruff (WoW) fellowships to six students. This initiative, launched and supported by members of our advisory board, continues to grow in its mission to support and retain women students and allies in mechanical and nuclear engineering. Faculty and staff were recognized across 22 categories at our annual Faculty and Staff Honors, Awards, and Promotions Reception, a reflection of the commitment and talent that drive our School forward. We also paused to remember and honor Ward O. Winer, Regents’ Professor Emeritus and the longest-serving chair in Woodruff School history, whose passing in May marked the loss of a deeply respected leader, mentor, and friend. His influence on the field of mechanical engineering and on generations of students and colleagues is both profound and enduring.

At the same time, our graduates continued to shape the School’s future in powerful ways. Our alumni paid it forward through generous gifts that support graduate fellowships, student teams, and programs like WoW. Others left a legacy through their stories: a mother and daughter shaped by their shared Georgia Tech experience; a family whose ties to the School span generations; and a couple whose connection began on Techwood Drive. These stories reflect the lifelong bonds and impact of a Woodruff School education, and they underscore our commitment to fostering a culture of inclusive excellence, where every member of our community feels empowered to thrive.

This past year, your support helped us raise $11.3 million, bringing our Transforming Tomorrow campaign total to more than $93 million — well beyond our original $75 million goal, with two years still to go. This success would not be possible without outstanding members of the Woodruff School community — you are the foundation of the Georgia Tech experience. Thank you for all you do. I am inspired by your continued commitment, and I look forward to working together to strengthen our impact — and to build a future that is bold, inclusive, and transformative.

Best regards, Shreyes N. Melkote Interim School Chair, Morris M. Bryan Jr. Professor

ABOUT THE WOODRUFF SCHOOL

MISSION

The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering is an inclusive, innovative, and thriving educational and research environment committed to fostering the next generation of intellectually curious and globally engaged leaders who are empowered to create solutions to society’s most challenging problems and dedicated to improving the human condition.

TOP RANKED PROGRAMS

No. 2

Mechanical Engineering

Undergraduate Program

(U.S. News & World Report, 2025)

No. 5

Mechanical Engineering

Graduate Program (U.S. News & World Report, 2025-26)

No. 9

Nuclear Engineering

Graduate Program (U.S. News & World Report, 2025-26)

VISION

The Woodruff School will be a student-centered, research-focused, and service-oriented community recognized for its outstanding education, the development of leaders, and the creation of innovative technological solutions that improve society and the human condition. We will embrace the diversity of our collaborative community, the foundational principles of engineering and science, and ethical behavior as we achieve a culture of inclusive excellence.

DEGREES AWARDED, 2024-25

The Woodruff School offers:

2 B.S. Degrees

7 M.S. Degrees

6 Ph.D. Degrees

CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH

Acoustics and Dynamics; AI, Informatics for ME (AI2ME); Automation, Robotics and Control; Bioengineering; CAE and Design; Engineering Education; Fluid Mechanics; Heat Transfer, Combustion, and Energy Systems; Manufacturing; Mechanics of Materials; Medical Physics; Micro & Nano Engineering; Nuclear and Radiological Engineering; Tribology

FACULTY AND STAFF

92 Tenure-Track Faculty 89 Staff

Degrees

Degrees

476 299 B.S. Degrees 71

ENGINEERING SCHOLARS

1922 Undergraduate Students Fall 2024

983 Graduate Students Fall 2024

33 Research Faculty

14 Non-Tenure Track Faculty

Alex Aridgides was selected to join the 2025 immersive cohort at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

Milad Azizkhani received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Seunghyeb Ban was selected as a Herbert P. Haley Fellowship recipient.

Erik Barbosa won the 2024 Spark Award.

Saanvi Bethi received the College of Engineering Honors Day Award.

Sara Bitarafan received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Stephen Britten received the Richard K. Whitehead Jr. Memorial Award.

Aisha Brundan was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Jiehao Chen received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Mingeun Choi received the Woodruff School Excellence in Service and Leadership Award.

Katie Ciavola received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship.

Derek Coffsky received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship.

Benjamin Du received the College of Engineering Honors Day Award.

Student Notes

Allannah Duffy was awarded a WoW Fellowship.

Emmeline Evans received the Woodruff School Excellence in Service and Leadership Award.

Colin Gold received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship.

Alexander Gross was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Zhaoyuan Gu received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Jungmin Ha received the Woodruff School Best Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.

Abraz Haque received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship.

Dongjing He received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Nicholas Isaf received the Woodruff School Best Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.

Vibha Ramanathan Iyer was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Anika Kansky was awarded a WoW Fellowship.

Shaspreet Kaur was awarded a WoW Fellowship.

Jamila Khanfri was awarded a WoW Fellowship.

Alexey Khotimsky was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and received the Richard K. Whitehead Jr. Memorial Award.

Keun Hee Kim won the 2024 Spark Award.

Samuel Kirschner was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and received the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Outstanding Scholar Award.

Jordan Kocher was awarded the Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship from NREL and received the Woodruff School Graduate Instructor Award.

Youngjin Kwon received the M.S. Research Excellence Award.

Jeffrey Li was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Wenjing Li received the Woodruff School Best Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.

Daphne Lin was awarded a WoW Fellowship.

Zihao Lin received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Zhi Ling received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Kristian Lockyear was named second runner-up at the 10th annual Georgia Tech 3MT competition.

Matthew Louis received an ANS Scholarship and was awarded a scholarship from the U.S. DOE through the UNLP.

Joshua Mao received the Richard K. Whitehead Jr. Memorial Award.

Harley Martin received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship.

Emmanuel Mate-Kole received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Madison McKinnon won the George Sherouse Award for Trainee and Early Career Investigators.

Maham Mehmood received the Richard K. Whitehead Jr. Memorial Award.

Lena Moller received the Woodruff School Excellence in Service and Leadership Award.

Madeline Morrell was selected by the U.S. DOE BTO to receive the IBUILD Graduate Research Fellowship.

Asif Rashid received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Abigail Robb received the 2025 Roy G. Post Foundation Scholarship.

Autumn Routt was awarded a WoW Fellowship.

Dante Santaniello received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship.

Mason Shackelford received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship.

GEORGE

Neel Shah was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Jacques Singham received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship and the Richard K. Whitehead Jr. Memorial Award.

Gianna Slusher received an ARCS Scholar Award.

Ramón Sosa was selected as a Herbert P. Haley Fellowship recipient.

Shreya Terala was selected for the 2024 Class of the Millennium Fellowship.

Kenneth Thompson III received an ANS Scholarship.

Tianyu Wang received the Woodruff School Ph.D. Research Excellence Award.

Emily Winters received the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering School Chair’s Award.

Samuel Woolsey was awarded a scholarship from the U.S. DOE through the UNLP and received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship.

Jatin Yashroy received the inaugural Chair’s Ambassadors in Leadership and Service Fellowship.

Garrett Youngblood received the Outstanding Scholastic Achievement Award in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering.

Identical Twins on Georgia Tech Journey Together

Ethan and Nathan Morlu have always done things together growing up as identical twins. They played musical instruments, wrestled in middle and high school, became Eagle Scouts, and love Super Smash Bros.

Now, they’re both third-year students in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, on a Georgia Tech journey together.

But when it came time to pick which college to attend after high school, the twins knew they might have to split up.

“I knew that college would be much more fun going with my twin, but we did have an agreement that we would separate if we ended up liking different colleges,” Ethan said. “I’m really happy that we get to share our college experience.”

Coming from the suburbs of Northern Virginia, they both considered attending an engineering school closer to home. However, when their decision came down to the wire, the twins say a tour of Georgia Tech’s campus sealed the deal.

“I chose Georgia Tech because out of all the colleges that I visited, it felt the most welcoming and had the richest show of tradition and school spirit,” Nathan said.

Ethan was a little more skeptical of going to a school in the middle of a city that’s 10 hours away from home, but he changed his mind after what he saw on the Tech tour.

“I really loved the campus atmosphere and design on our visit,” Ethan said. “Another reason is that Georgia Tech’s program for mechanical engineering can’t be beat. No other school we toured could touch it. I wanted to be challenged academically while also having the prestige of a Georgia Tech degree.”

Georgia Tech was also one of the only schools to give them both a scholarship.

The twins are involved in several groups around campus like the Wrestling Club at Georgia Tech, which Nathan, the club president, and Ethan, treasurer, started together. They have wrestled since middle school but always stayed one weight class apart so they never had to wrestle off for a starting spot. They both say missing the sport after high school pushed them to start the club.

They’re also executive board members for Pi Tau Sigma, the Mechanical Engineering Honor Society, the Residence Hall Association, and members of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society.

Ethan and Nathan both agree that always having a study buddy and being able to compare notes on the same classes is one of the benefits of having your twin go to the same school.

One downside of being a twin, Nathan says, is the confusion it causes their classmates and professors.

“Some of our professors and classmates don’t know there are two of us,” Nathan said. “There have been times when one of Ethan’s professors or classmates will approach and have a full conversation with me. I don’t always realize that they know Ethan, and it becomes awkward for me quickly. I haven’t hurt anyone’s feelings yet, so I think I’ve done a pretty good job navigating those situations.”

The twins hope to use their mechanical engineering degrees after they graduate. Ethan hopes to go into manufacturing and possibly get his master’s degree in mechanical engineering. Nathan plans to explore as many possibilities as he can over the next year to narrow down his choices.

THE WOODRUFF SCHOOL’S LAB SEQUENCE:

Developing Workplace-Ready Engineers Through Scenario-Based Systems Investigation

Gone are the days of boring “cookbook” style lab courses—where students mindlessly follow directives to collect data, perform analysis, and parrot back results without meaningful thought. Now the Woodruff School’s Lab Sequence—Experimental Methods and Technical Communication followed by Systems Laboratory—aims to produce workplace-ready engineers, capable of complex system-level investigation and communication of actionable conclusions targeted toward both executive and technical audiences.

The new course progression, a result of collaboration between Director of Interactive Learning David MacNair and Frank K. Webb Chair in Communication Skills Jill Fennell, places students into roles at an engineering faux consulting firm—playfully named Burdell, Inc.—as they advance through scenarios of increasing complexity that simulate an employment journey: moving from newly hired experimental technicians to system engineers responsible for guiding high-stakes decision-making.

Across the sequence, students are taught the following tools, all while investigating technical topics from across the wide spectrum of mechanical engineering: Engineering Experimentation (“How do I characterize what is going on in the real world?”); Engineering Investigation (“How does theory help me explain real world behavior, and when does it fall short?”); and Engineering Communication (“How do I convince stakeholders of my conclusions in ways that best suit their needs?”).

Engineering Discernment vs. Technical Demonstration

“Many people imagine labs as demonstration-oriented exercises where a manual tells you, ‘Set knob A to 10, knob B to 5, and then read from dial C. Plug that number into an equation and write a report about the result.’ There is very little learning there,” said MacNair. “It’s more important that students learn an investigation process,

leveraging experimentation and engineering discernment to logically connect a client’s needs to actionable conclusions.”

Students are primarily responsible for designing key details of the lab experience themselves that produce their final deliverable, much like the autonomy they would have when dealing with a client. One project students complete is a stress/strain experiment. In their scenario, they analyze the device performing the experiment (testing high-strain elements like climbing slings and low-strain metal components such as bolts) instead of the items tested by the device. The rig has intentional issues for academic consideration, and students must use their knowledge and exploration to determine the errors occurring for the client. Their findings are presented the way they would be in a workplace, emphasizing the clear communication of the data and results to the hypothetical client.

“We want to develop their engineering judgment,” said Fennell. “We are trying to shift the bar of what it means to create industry-ready engineers by fostering their ability to determine what data is usable and needs communicating.”

Fourth-year mechanical engineering student Marina Godinez has enjoyed the challenge of directly applying her knowledge and the investigative process. “The information we are given is not super straightforward, which is pretty accurate for how it is in real life. It comes with challenges, but we get to use our engineering judgment and problem-solving skills,” she said.

This unique course design is not standard practice in other schools and is regarded by students as a great advantage.

“It was surprising how much the faculty emphasized the client-to-engineer relationship and how important it is to consolidate the technical data and language in an easily consumable way,” said student Nolan Kurtzer about the Experimental Methods and Technical Communication course.

Students taking Systems Laboratory are expected to analyze complete systems through experimentation to determine the system’s capabilities (whether they meet specifications) and when assumptions are appropriate. One project that students are tasked with focuses on an internal combustion engine. In this scenario, students

perform a complex work/energy analysis on an engine to experimentally derive the system’s properties. Students are given basic details in the form of an email from their client and, like working engineers, design and execute any testing that needs to be done and present their findings to the client.

Creating Information Designers to Inform DecisionMakers

Beyond data collection and analysis, the lab sequence trains students to become effective information designers. In both courses, students are challenged to distill complex technical findings into intuitive and actionable insights that will inform their clients’ decisions via short executive summary reports. This involves prioritizing data, choosing the most effective methods for presentation (such as visualizations), and framing results in ways that align with the client’s decision-making needs.

“In the Webb Program, we tell students that it’s an engineer’s job to communicate

information to their audience with the lowest cognitive load while still remaining trustworthy and actionable,” said Fennell. “This sequence puts the responsibility on students to determine how best to balance these needs within a very short report.”

By embedding students in simulated consulting roles at Burdell, Inc., the lab sequence offers a hands-on approach to mastering engineering judgment and communication, demonstrating that technical skill and communication skill are inextricably intertwined. As students make technical decisions in the lab, they also must plan how they can shape the information for the audience. Graduates leave with more than technical skills—they possess the discernment and adaptability needed to succeed as professional engineers who can not only understand and interpret data but also communicate its value effectively to those who depend on it for critical decisions.

Making an Impact in the Montgomery Machining Mall with Harley Martin

Drilling, threading, or knurling, students can do it all in the Montgomery Machining Mall (MMM) where they’re given the opportunity to build and manufacture prototypes for school projects or gain experience on specific machines.

The machining mall supports academic and research projects for the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the School of Materials Science and Engineering, and the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech. MMM employees maintain a professional learning space with a focus on safety.

Anyone who has spent time in the MMM in the past year has probably seen or asked for help from Harley Martin, a fourthyear student in the Woodruff School who recently completed a cooperative education program, also known as a co-op, in the

Wepfer Design Commons space.

Co-ops allow students to use their disciplinary knowledge on the job to not only reinforce and sharpen their classroom learning, but also to make meaningful contributions in the workplace.

Martin said she was determined to work in the MMM after her academic advisor brought her to meet the machine shop manager and take a tour of the facility.

“I felt welcome and had the chance to meet all the staff members,” she said. “The environment was so positive and confirmed my desire to get the experience of working with machines.”

A typical MMM co-op alternates between full-time study and three semesters of full-time work, which involves 8–10-hour shifts depending on the semester. Students can learn hands-on skills with more

than 30 different machines including manual lathes, mills, and computer numerical control (CNC) machines.

Martin said even though she’s a student, she was treated like every other staff member who was expected to fulfill all the same responsibilities. Some of her main job duties included helping students with their questions and guiding them through machine operations. She also fabricated parts for research based on specific job requests.

According to Martin, the support from the MMM staff has made a difference in her life and experience at Georgia Tech.

“The staff has been so welcoming, and everyone

has been willing to help with anything,” Martin said. “I have formed a relationship with every staff member and see them as family. I appreciate them all dearly. Words can’t capture how grateful I am to have had the chance to get to work with such a great team.”

Nathan Mauldin, machine shop supervisor, said Martin became the face of the MMM during her co-op.

“Working with Harley has been a real pleasure,” Mauldin said. “It was great to watch her go from not knowing anything about machining, to becoming so proficient in manual and CNC machines that she was able to teach others. I know Harley will go on to do great things.”

Graduate Student Receives Travel Award for Analog Space Mission

Graduate student Lillian Tso, ME 2023, was selected as an analog astronaut for the Asclepios IV mission, a training exercise that simulated a space crew deployed to the moon.

The Asclepios project is a program of analog missions designed by students for students under the mentorship of trained professionals, which began in 2019. The two-week exercise occurred last year at the Sasso San Gottardo Museum in Switzerland, a decommissioned war fortress near the Gotthard Pass, where the crew remained underground for the entire exercise simulating life at the lunar South Pole.

Tso’s participation was funded partly by a $1,000 Travel Award from the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. She was one of five students who received a travel award for the semester.

The crew prepared by completing nearly 12 months of intense training, including backpacking in the Andorra mountains, firefighting drills, and zero-g parabolic flight training. Tso was selected as Commander of her mission and was the only female analog astronaut in the crew. During the exercise, Tso and crew had the opportunity to control bomb-diffusing robots, go

on simulated extravehicular activities, and conduct various science experiments.

“I am so grateful for the unforgettable memories, incredible experiences, and new

GEORGE

Woodruff School Student Completes Internship That Is Out of This World

Patrick Villarreal, a fourth-year undergraduate student in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, took his experience and knowledge to new heights recently after completing a 14-week hands-on internship at Firefly Aerospace, where he saw his own work launched into orbit, contributing to the very projects that will help pave the way for future space exploration.

Villarreal’s journey to Firefly Aerospace began with curiosity and an online application. “I heard about the internship by checking their website for applications, but I had no idea that it would be a bigger opportunity than I initially expected,” he said.

During the three-month internship, Villarreal worked on realtime, meaningful projects that directly supported the company’ s mission. This included a variety of critical tasks, such as designing and assembling flight hardware for Firefly Aerospace’s lander missions.

Villarreal worked on Firefly Aerospace’s first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) flight for NASA, Blue Ghost Mission 1, which launched on January 15 at 1:11 a.m. EST aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Villarreal worked directly with the Blue Ghost 1 team and contributed to multiple aspects of the project. He designed a ground support tool to streamline mechanism integration for the LEXI telescope payload, performed final acceptance testing on the final flight units of the four lander legs, worked closely with spacecraft technicians to write work instructions for complex mechanism assembly, and suited up for the cleanroom daily to assist with miscellaneous Mission 1 lander integration tasks. He also assembled the final flight antenna that got mounted to the top of the lander for in-space communications.

Blue Ghost will deliver 10 instruments to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s CLPS initiative. After approximately 45 days in orbit, Blue Ghost successfully landed in Mare Crisium (a large, dark, basaltic plain on the Moon) on March 2. It captured the lunar sunset on

March 16, providing data on how solar activity causes lunar dust to levitate and create the lunar horizon glow, which was first observed during Apollo 17. Following this it will operate several hours into the lunar night.

“I’m very excited to see structures and mechanisms I have designed or assembled fly into space and land on the moon, ” said Villarreal. “I also designed flight hardware that will launch on the Mission 2 lander towards the end of 2026.”

Along with this, Villarreal supported the Mission 2 critical design review with members of NASA and researched conceptual payload deployment designs for future missions.

One of the standout aspects of Villarreal’ s time at Firefly Aerospace was the company’s unique team dynamics. Despite the massive scale of the lander program, the Firefly team consisted of just 50 full-time employees, and Villarreal was the sole intern.

“There’s something special about being part of a small team; I really liked my coworkers’ passion for the project. Being the only intern, I was treated like a full-time employee and had the chance to contribute in multiple ways,” said Villarreal.

This was Villarreal’s second internship, and he has since completed a third. He has very straightforward advice for students seeking internship opportunities.

“Pursue every avenue possible, whether it’s cultivating a relationship with recruiters or applying to every company you may be interested in,” he said. “Keep talking to recruiters and finding applications to fill out because you might find a role to be more interesting than you initially thought!”

As a proud Yellow Jacket, Villarreal credits much of his success to the hands-on learning opportunities Georgia Tech provides.

“I’m happy to say that Georgia Tech prepared me well for this role, especially through our engaging extracurricular engineering teams like GT Off-Road and RoboJackets. Without these experiences, I wouldn’t have had the hands-on exposure needed to be impactful in an important internship like this one,” he said.

TechMade: Building an Interdisciplinary Design Community

A new initiative across the colleges of engineering, business, and design will give Georgia Tech students hands-on exposure to the full sweep of product realization, from design to manufacturing, no matter their major.

Dubbed TechMade, the goal is to unify the widespread design and creation opportunities on campus and add new facets while building a collaborative design community for graduate students and researchers across the Institute.

The initiative kicks off this fall with a new undergraduate course crafted for third-year students in the three colleges. TechMade will also select inaugural fellows, a cohort of four graduate students who will help seed a research community focused on design.

TechMade is the brainchild of the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering’s Devesh Ranjan and is being built by Woodruff Professor Carolyn Seepersad, Wayne Li in industrial design, and Karthik Ramachandran in business.

“TechMade will be an opportunity in the long term to give any Georgia Tech student exposure to hands-on designing, building, making, and product realization in a meaningful way,” said Seepersad, who joined the Woodruff School last year to begin realizing the TechMade vision. “We don’t want to create something

that just serves engineers or just serves industrial designers. We want something that serves all students across the Institute.”

TechMade is organized around three pillars: making and manufacturing, human-centered design, and what the team called “digital engineering” — teaching students to use the newest technology, like artificial intelligence, alongside their human skills to design and realize products.

Seepersad said TechMade isn’t about adding on to existing programs and opportunities. The goal is to unify the disparate offerings that already give students design experience, weave them together, and create additional pieces to strengthen students’ backgrounds. Well-known programs like Capstone Expo and the Flowers Invention Studio will be integrated under the TechMade umbrella alongside the new course for undergraduates, the graduate TechMade Fellows, and a research symposium series.

Li said a formalized ecosystem of product realization education responds to students’ desires for even more opportunity in this area.

“There is a hunger to complement theory with practical understanding of engineering concepts applied in real world situations,” said Li, professor of the practice for design and engineering in the School of Industrial Design.

GEORGE W. WOODRUFF

Ranjan said TechMade taps the technological resources available across Georgia Tech to provide a unique, transformative experience for students, no matter their aspirations or degree program.

“Tackling problems of global significance requires creative, interdisciplinary solutions, and TechMade will be a platform for helping our students think outside the box,” said Ranjan, Eugene C. Gwaltney Jr. School Chair of ME. “It will act as a hub for enhancing transdisciplinary activities between different colleges and create a new educational experience in design for our students.”

Hunger for Design

Georgia Tech engineering students already learn about design in their educational journey. And that’s true for other majors, too. TechMade will expand that design education — deepening it for students in disciplines where it’s a focal point and offering the full picture of product realization for majors where it’s less common.

“An engineering background helps students understand certain aspects of product design and realization, but a business student’s background helps them understand other things better. And someone from the sciences or someone from design will understand other facets better,” Seepersad said. “There’s more opportunity to meet the students where they are and help them have this experience in product realization and what it means to transition an idea into reality.”

One way Seeparsad, Li, and Ramachandran have worked to deepen the experience for students is a new course debuting for the Fall 2024 semester called Product Design and Realization.

Aimed at third-year students, the class of around 30 will mix mechanical engineering, business, and industrial design students, mirroring the way product teams work in the real world. The course will be organized around the three TechMade pillars.

Interdisciplinary teams will work all semester on a big project while, along the way, solo assignments will dive deeper into making and manufacturing, human-centered design, and digital engineering. That will mean tapping low-cost, accessible tools in

makerspaces and perhaps more advanced capabilities in spaces like the Advanced Manufacturing Pilot Facility. Students will learn about AI and machine learning tools to aid in design or mine user data and preferences — marrying human skills with algorithmic power to reach the right process or product.

None of that means business or design students have to understand complex engineering calculations or modeling, for example. The goal is for them to be able to understand those things well enough to work with their engineering teammates to improve the process or product.

“I am a big believer in higher education as an empowerment exercise, rather than just sharing knowhow,” said Ramachandran, Dunn Family Professor in the Scheller College of Business. “Whether our students are talking to a future employer, a potential consumer, or an investor about their creative ideas, it is useful to remember the old mantra: Show, don’t tell. A formal course that introduces design and manufacturing knowhow to our students will be massive in empowering them.”

Growing the TechMade Ecosystem

In these early days, TechMade is a collaboration across engineering, design, and business, but Seepersad said the aim is to involve the other Colleges on campus and expand to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Atlanta.

Already, the TechMade Fellows span a variety of fields, and the design community they’re seeding will be agnostic of discipline. More sections of the Product Design and Realization course could come online in future years, too, including any School interested in integrating more product realization into its elective offerings.

Seepersad, Li, and Ramachandran are thinking about how to build modules and tools to make it easy for other instructors to pick up the course and teach it.

Philanthropic support will be a critical factor for the growth and sustainability of the TechMade vision, Ranjan said: “The TechMade initiative will have a transformative impact on Georgia Tech students, enabling these future engineers and designers to produce novel ideas and create solutions to the world’s most challenging problems.”

TechMade Fellows

Each year, a small group of graduate students will be TechMade Fellows. They will receive a year of financial support and serve as the nexus of a monthly research symposium series for design-focused research. TechMade Fellows also will be charged with helping to build community across the pockets of design throughout campus.

Ph.D. Student

Receives Patent for Thermographic Breast Cancer Detection

Mammograms can be an effective resource for detecting breast cancer, but for some women, it can be an invasive and uncomfortable experience.

That’s why Gianna Slusher, Ph.D. student in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, developed a device that could serve as an effective alternative to traditional early detection methods for breast cancer.

Slusher and her partner, Caitlin Reina, received an official patent for inventing a mounted thermographic imaging system that can be used at home to detect medical issues such as breast cancer.

The device includes a mount that can attach to a wall and a clamp that holds a smartphone or tablet. Through an app programmed by the pair, it uses thermal images as a non-invasive and radiationfree way to capture changes in breast temperature associated with cancerous tumors. The mount can be positioned in multiple discreet and various angles, which can allow for consistent imaging. The user would be instructed on the app to see a doctor if an anomaly is detected.

Convexity Wins InVenture Prize With Electronics 3D Printer

After months of intense competition, Convexity Electronics has been crowned the 2025 InVenture Prize winner. The team’s groundbreaking invention, an electronics 3D printer for manufacturing 3D-printed circuit boards (PCBs) at scale, promises to improve electronics manufacturing by enabling smaller circuitry, faster lead times, and more compact electronic devices.

Teammates Calla Scotch (materials science and engineering), Anuj Pandey (mechanical engineering), and Atharva Lele (chemical and biomolecular engineering) combined their expertise to develop a technology with the potential to reshape how PCBs are produced. By streamlining the manufacturing process, Convexity Electronics aims to make electronic devices more efficient and accessible across industries.

When asked what winning the InVenture Prize meant to them, the team echoed one another enthusiastically onstage: “We can finally do this!”

For their first-place finish, the team will take home $20,000 and a coveted spot in Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X Startup Launch program, where they will receive mentorship and guidance to help bring their product to market.

“The next step is building more printers,” said Pandey, trophy in hand, “testing out our technology on more boards, and using our connections to start implementing our printers and PCBs. You’ll see us everywhere!”

Woodruff School Student Files Provisional

Patent on 3D-Printed

Violin

A love for engineering and a lifelong passion for music led mechanical engineering graduate student Kevin Kamperman to an unusual project: 3D printing a fully functioning acoustic violin.

And what started as a final project in an additive manufacturing class now is a provisionally patented design.

“Seeing this dream become a reality is deeply fulfilling,” said Kamperman, a multiinstrumentalist himself. “This invention has the potential not only to be practical but also to bring joy to those who might one day use it to create music. Knowing that something I contributed to could inspire creativity in others is incredibly rewarding.”

The intent of the violin design was to replicate both the sound and feel of a traditional wooden instrument using only additive manufacturing materials and methods. Kamperman and his teammates worked with Endeavor 3D in Douglasville, Georgia, to fabricate their design using the company’s advanced, powder-based 3D-printing equipment.

Once the group made a prototype, they collected performance data in an anechoic chamber at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, comparing their violin to a midpriced and a high-priced wooden instrument.

In their tests, the sound from the polymer violin ranked highest for warmth, natality, and brilliance. Test violinists praised the warmth of the D and G strings but described the A and upper E strings as slightly nasal and less brilliant. A loudness test revealed the polymer violin produced slightly quieter sound than its wooden counterparts.

Kamperman said he’s excited about making music and arts more accessible, affordable, and inclusive. He hopes combining the precision of 3D printing with the artistry of instrument-making can break down barriers for musicians and revolutionize traditional craftsmanship.

Georgia Tech Motorsports Races to Historic Podium Finish at Formula SAE Michigan

Georgia Tech Motorsports (GTMS), one of the oldest competition teams operating at Georgia Tech, sped into a historic third-place overall finish at the 2025 Formula Society of Automotive Engineers (FSAE) Michigan, marking the first podium placement in over two decades and tying the program’s bestever result.

The FSAE competition challenges university undergraduate and graduate student teams to conceive, design, fabricate, develop, and compete with formula racing-style vehicles. Teams are required to participate in a series of events, both on and off track, and have the chance to demonstrate their creativity and engineering skills against groups from other universities around the world. This year, a staggering 108 teams entered the competition.

Entries are tested in endurance, acceleration, design, cost, and sales presentation. GTMS performed well in all events, and their composite scores led to their place on the podium.

“This year marked several historic firsts for us,” said team lead and neuroscience and business administration major Alexander Merryman. “We won the Endurance event for the first time, a 22-kilometer test of vehicle reliability and efficiency that many teams don’t even complete.”

The result is GTMS’ first top-three finish since 2002. This year’s performance represents a breakthrough for the studentrun organization that operates out of Georgia Tech’s Student Competition Center (SCC).

“GTMS could not have done this without the support the Woodruff School provides the SCC,” said Jacob Tompkins, mechanical engineer III in the Woodruff School, and staff support in the SCC.

GTMS has 123 active members, affectionately known as “membos,” from various majors, including several mechanical engineering students in leadership positions and other roles. Thirty members traveled to Michigan for the competition, representing current leadership and the next generation of team leaders.

However, the road to the competition wasn’t smooth. Early in the academic year, GTMS faced a significant financial setback when its Student Government Association funding was slashed by nearly 70 percent, part of a broader reduction affecting registered student organizations across campus.

“Our business team sprang into action, securing new sponsors and grants,” said Merryman. “Leadership worked to reduce costs by 30 percent and integrated costconsciousness into our design philosophy.”

Technical challenges then followed. In January, after a successful day of testing, the

team left the car off-campus overnight. A rare Georgia freeze caused the engine block to crack due to coolant expansion. GTMS runs pure water as the coolant, a decision that ultimately backfired in the cold.

Weeks later, a wheel hub was sheared off during another test, sending the front-right wheel 500 feet into a stream. Fortunately, the driver was unharmed, and the car sustained minimal damage. However, the incident set the team back by six weeks.

“These challenges underscored the importance of our biggest strategic shift this year, finishing the car early,” said Merryman. “Because we completed the vehicle in December, we had time to test thoroughly and recover from unexpected issues.”

By the time the team arrived in Michigan, the car had logged over 230 miles of testing, another first for GTMS. That preparation paid off. The team passed static tech inspection on the first attempt, a comprehensive safety and compliance review that often takes teams multiple tries. The goal was to have a boring competition, meaning everything went according to plan, and for the first time in years, it did.

GEORGE

HyTech Racing Takes Third

The HyTech Racing team, a student group that designs and develops Formula SAE electric vehicles, finished third overall at the recent FSAE-EV competition in Michigan. The team placed first in acceleration and was a design finalist for the first time.

HyTech’s mission is to provide students with hands-on experience in vehicle design and development, building skills in mechanical and electrical engineering, machining, testing, project management, and more.

GTMS builds a new car each year, as required by FSAE rules, but its two-year design cycle sets the team apart. The 2025 car was designed in the fall of 2023, and the 2026 vehicle is already in production. This extended timeline allows for deeper testing, refinement, and innovation.

The team’s performance has also earned them an invitation to a new international invitational in Rome, Italy. The event will feature the top 100 teams worldwide and be hosted by FSAE in partnership with the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the global motorsport body behind Formula 1 and Formula E.

“We’re actively seeking funding to make the trip. It’s a huge opportunity to represent Georgia Tech and showcase what it truly means to be a helluva engineer on a global stage,” said Merryman.

With the celebration, the team remains focused on the future. With their sights set on gold next season, GTMS is already back in the shop, designing, building, and preparing to push the limits again.

Strong Year Three Finish Sets Up EcoCAR Team for Final Push

Three years ago, the Georgia Tech EcoCAR team was given a 2023 Cadillac LYRIQ and two objectives: turn it into an all-wheel drive vehicle and implement autonomous capabilities.

After hard work from students across the Georgia Tech campus, including from the College of Engineering, College of Computing, and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, the team’s car now has two electric motors and autonomous driving capability.

But, how would the new features hold up at the Year Three Competition?

After a second-place finish at last year’s competition, the car needed to perform even better under much tougher scrutiny this year.

When the nearly two-week-long competition came to an end, the Yellow Jacket team once again proved to be among the best in EcoCAR, finishing second overall.

The EcoCAR EV Challenge is a collegiate competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, General Motors, and MathWorks, and managed by Argonne National Laboratory. The four-year program spans 2022-2026 and features annual competitions.

The Georgia Tech team is one of the Institute’s largest Vertically Integrated Projects, under the guidance of School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Professor David Taylor, along with George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (ME) Professors Antonia Antoniou and Michael Leamy.

The team is now moving ahead with preparations for the final year of the EV design cycle. Their goals are even loftier next year with plans to build a market-ready vehicle.

The team will spend the final year shoring up weaknesses exposed at this year’s competition and diving deeper into the autonomous functions, with an aim to complete every dynamic event at the final competition next year.

“We have big hopes for next year, and we have a really great team returning,” EcoCAR project manager and ME graduate student Eric Gustafson said. “Our entire team is super proud of what we’ve accomplished this year, and we really believe that we’re in a really great spot going into next year.”

Students Compete in EV & the Grid Grand Challenge

Students enrolled in the course Electric Vehicles (EV) & the Grid strapped on helmets and raced their custom-modified scooters in the EV & the Grid Grand Challenge, a high-voltage, high-fun competition that tested speed, innovation, and creativity.

Electric Vehicles & the Grid teaches engineering principles of electric transportation and the energy infrastructure. The class also covers the emerging technologies of batteries, renewables, and connectivity that will allow further optimization of the products with the grid.

As part of their final grade, students modify Segway scooters to include a custom circuit board with microprocessor and display capabilities, energy monitoring circuits, solar charging circuitry, a battery spacer, and custom racks to secure these to the vehicle.

The challenge is the culmination of a semester-long project. Throughout the course, students complete a series of technical tasks that prepare them for race day. Early on, each student is assigned a U.S. city and writes a simple Python algorithm that determines when the scooter should charge based on factors such as green energy availability, cost savings, or grid load shedding specific to that location.

Students can work through 10 modules to earn points leading up to the EV & the Grid Grand Challenge, where they compete in a relaystyle race for the fastest lap time with the lowest energy use.

Electric Vehicles & the Grid is offered through a collaboration between the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and Siemens. Alumnus Barry Powell, M.S. ME 1991, head of Siemens Electrical Products for North America, and John DeBoer, Head of Siemens Future Grid and eMobility Solutions, have sponsored the course since its launch in Spring 2023.

Students appreciate the interactive learning aspect of the course and the perspective it gives to the full scope of EVs.

Mechanical engineering master’s student Aaryan Bhiwandkar enjoyed the hands-on experience of working on the karts and benefiting from Tinskey’s automotive expertise.

“I thought it would be great working with Professor Tinskey, knowing his background with Ford,” he said. “I liked learning about the grid, how electric energy impacts the environment, and, of course, the race!”

The EV & the Grid Grand Challenge provides a dynamic element to the course, empowering students to apply their engineering knowledge in a practical, active setting that reflects the future of electric mobility.

Along with the Siemens partnership, support from the School and the Institute has helped bolster the success of the course. Tinskey looks forward to the course continuing, giving future students the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of EV technology.

Students Compete in Webb-Donnell Communication Competitions

Undergraduate and graduate students in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering had the chance to compete in communication-based tasks that pushed them to demonstrate that engineers can communicate beyond equations in the second annual Webb-Donnell Communication Competitions.

Created in honor of Frank K. Webb, ME 1938, and Jeffrey Donnell, former principal academic professional in the Woodruff School, the competitions aim to highlight the critical need for engineers to communicate their work in a way that is understandable and incites action and change.

In 1999, Webb bestowed an endowment upon the Woodruff School that ensured the continued support of students’ communication skills. Donnell was named the first Frank K. Webb Academic Professional Chair in Communication Skills and held this position until his passing in 2022.

With this generous gift from the Frank K. Webb Trust, the Woodruff School continues its mission of providing students with this critical resource to help them succeed in the classroom and on their career paths.

Jill Fennell, the current Frank K. Webb Academic Professional Chair in Communication Skills, is dedicated to continuing this mission, and these competitions are one initiative she has undertaken to do so.

“These competitions aren’t just about prizes—they’re about preparing engineers to solve society’s toughest problems by

communicating solutions in ways that inspire action. Because what good is a breakthrough if no one understands it?” said Fennell.

Undergraduate students could participate in two competitions. They could create a written PSA for a general audience on daily activity safety, emergency preparedness, or ergonomic awareness, or they could design a safety poster for one of several Georgia Tech facilities. Graduate students could participate in a Ted Talk-style presentation that showcased how their original research addresses pressing challenges or contributes to advancements that impact daily life, public safety, or societal well-being.

Chinaza Ogbonna, winner of the Quick Talks Graduate Communication Competition for her presentation “A Smart Implant for Safer Surgeries,” was honored to receive such a distinction, as she has only recently begun presenting her research.

“This is the second time I have talked about my research publicly, and it feels amazing that people see the value in my work. It makes me feel more motivated to continue my work efficiently and safely, and hopefully save lives,” said Ogbonna.

Hannah Shin, awarded first place in the Safety PSA competition, was inspired by her health challenges for her entry, “The Silent Strain: How Your Desk Setup is Ruining Your Body.” Shin was experiencing vision issues and back pain, and realized she was guilty of several poor workspace practices.

“Now that I am trying to fix it within myself, I am noticing it in others, so it was perfect for the PSA,” said Shin.

Jacob Stancil was inspired by Fennell to enter the competition after one of her presentations. His winning entry in the Safety Poster Competition is aimed at lab space users and the risk of wearing gloves when they are inappropriate.

Fennell was extremely grateful for the support the competitions once again received.

“I want to thank all the volunteer judges— alumni, faculty, staff, and friends—for supporting these students and believing, as Webb and Donnell did, that communication turns ideas into impact. The competition was tough, and I am grateful to have had other discerning judges to collaborate with,” she said.

The winners were presented with the awards during a ceremony attended by members of the Woodruff School community and honored guests: Martha Webb, the Frank K. Webb Trust co-executor; her husband, neuropathologist Dr. Dana Copeland, who also served as a final judge; and Susan Liebeskind, wife of the late Jeffrey Donnell.

“These competitions aren’t just about prizes—they’re about preparing engineers to solve society’s toughest problems by communicating solutions in ways that inspire action.”

—Jill Fennell

COMMENCEMENT SPOTLIGHT: Engineering a Day at the (Theme) Park

Theme parks have always felt like home to Dennis Velez. He wants to recreate that feeling for people around the world.

As a member of a military family, Dennis Velez moved a lot throughout his childhood, but no matter where they lived, whether it was Jacksonville, Florida, or Yokosuka, Japan, the nearest theme park always felt like home.

Velez never tired of the thrill of a roller coaster and other attractions, but the more parks he visited, the more interested he became in their design and operation — most memorably as an elementary school student during a trip to Tokyo Disneyland.

“The more I learned, the more I realized that it’s one of the craziest engineering problems you can have. Sending people on these attractions that go for hours on end every single day of the year, they have to be perfectly safe and perfectly designed to make sure they can run efficiently and give the same experience to every guest every day,” he said.

Velez arrived at Georgia Tech in 2021 as a mechanical engineering student. He quickly earned the nickname “safety guy ” in the Theme Park Engineering Design Club, as he continued to narrow his focus and determine how to use his major in the industry.

“There are insane ideas for rides and how they are supposed to make you feel — like you’re flying on a broomstick or traveling through space,” he said. “So, how can we leverage technology that exists to reflect that idea, make sure it works as intended, and run it safely?”

Velez became Georgia Tech’s first student representative on the ASTM Committee F24 on Amusement Rides and Devices — a global organization that develops standards and best practices for theme park attractions. Completing internships with Oceaneering’s entertainment systems division and Universal Studios, he learned the project management skills to see an

idea come to fruition and better understand the teamwork required to execute its delivery.

“When you’re an engineer, you’re never working on your own. You’re always working with a lot of people, and you have to make sure that you can work well with others and integrate your skills with your team,” he said.

Velez sees that same principle of interconnectedness in his role as a trumpet player in the Yellow Jacket Marching Band.

“If you mess up as one of 40 trumpets, people may not notice because other members are there to hold you up. It’ s another aspect of uniformity and connectedness in a group, and it starts with having a strong connection. For the band, that comes from doing something we love for our school and getting in the heads of the opposing teams at the same time,” he said.

His extracurricular activities and internships took him to new places during his undergraduate degree program, but Velez calls the trip to Ireland to kick off the 2024 college football season his “ magnum opus ” and an experience he’ll remember for a lifetime.

Velez will return to campus in the fall to pursue a master’ s in mechanical engineering before entering the industry. While he admits there were stressful days along the way, he never viewed his time as an undergraduate as a roller coaster, but rather a day at the park.

“Theme parks were always our happy place because we were together as a family, and I’m just excited to one day see the reactions of kids and their families experiencing a ride that I worked on, and giving them that same sense of wonder, ” he said. “This industry is all about bringing joy to others, and I want to do my part in creating this outlet for all to enjoy.”

GEORGE

COMMENCEMENT SPOTLIGHT: Enjoying the Progress with Woodruff School Student

Rijul

Patel

From a young age, Rijul Patel, fourth-year undergraduate student in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, knew he wanted to attend Georgia Tech. Not just to follow in his brother’s footsteps, but because he knew the Tech reputation was more than just a name.

As one of the nation’s top public research universities, Patel always saw Georgia Tech as an institution meant for those who challenge the norms, go beyond practical response, and seek the ultimate solution.

Not only did he accept that challenge, but this semester, Patel will be achieving his goal of walking across the stage at Georgia Tech’s graduation ceremony and living up to those expectations he set for himself.

As a Douglasville, Georgia native, Patel began his journey at Tech in Fall 2021. He knew coming in that the Institute was known as one of the best universities in the country, but he learned early on that that title is not something that’s just given—it’s earned through the dedication and hard work of its students completing the coursework while also becoming a well-balanced person.

“At the end of the day, you are the one who makes or breaks that title,” Patel said. “The motto Progress and Service is something I truly understand now that I have completed my degree.”

Between all of the lectures, projects, and meetings he went through in the Woodruff School, it’s the community that Patel built for himself that he says he will miss the most when he moves on to the next stage.

Part of that community for Patel is being the president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). ASME is a student-led organization committed to fostering professional growth and creating opportunities for career development for mechanical engineering students through events, weekly meetings, career fairs, and networking events. These events serve as opportunities for students to establish connections with industry partners and explore potential career paths.

“It’s been incredible to see the growth of the club that helped me grow both professionally and academically,” Patel said.

After graduation, Patel plans to join GE Vernova for its Edison Engineering Development Program (EEDP), a career development program that exposes its members to industry-leading innovators in the power sector. Members work to solve one of the biggest climate crisis problems, providing electricity while at the same time reducing greenhouse gases. At the same time, he plans to pursue his master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech.

Looking back on how he got to this moment, Patel has one piece of advice for students who may follow in his path—enjoy the progress.

“These years will be some of the most demanding moments of your life, so make sure to find enjoyment in what you do,” Patel said.

Greeshma Agasthya joined as assistant professor. She was elected to serve a threeyear term in the southeast chapter of AAPM.

Alexander Alexeev received the Woodruff School Outstanding Achievement in Commercialization and Entrepreneurship Award.

Steve Biegalski was awarded the Radiation Science and Technology Award by ANS.

Yifeng Che joined as assistant professor.

F. Levent Degertekin was named Regents’ Entrepreneur.

Shaheen Dewji was named Woodruff Faculty Fellow.

Bachir El Fil joined as assistant professor.

Andrei Fedorov received two R01 grants from NIH. The funding, a combined $4.81 million, will be used to develop new instrumentation for biomedical research. He was also selected to represent Georgia Tech in a new international research initiative. The program will receive $3.2 million in funding to explore the intersection of AI and informatics, and energy.

Jill Fennell received the Woodruff School Chair’s Appreciation Award.

Aldo Ferri received the Woodruff School Sustained Exceptional Performance Award.

Craig Forest, associate director for MAKE at CREATE-X, played a pivotal role in the program’s Capstone Design course — one of the elements that helped earn CREATE-X the 2025 ABET Innovation Award.

Andrés J. García received the 2025 Biomaterials Global Impact Award from Elsevier’s Biomaterials.

Srinivas Garimella received the 2024 ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award and the Georg Alefeld Memorial Award.

Abbe Gilmore joined as research associate II-NE.

Rudolph Gleason was promoted to professor.

Ari Glezer received the 2025 AIAA Fluid Dynamics Award.

Faculty Notes

François Guillot received the CoE Outstanding Faculty Achievement in Research Award (Research Faculty) and the Woodruff School Research Faculty Excellence Award.

Marta Hatzell was appointed interim deputy director of the Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute.

Nolan E. Hertel received the Randall S. Caswell Award from CIRMS.

Suhas Jain received the 2025 DNI Award from the American Chemical Society PRF and the 2025 DOE ALCC Award.

Kristen Jakubowski joined as lecturer.

Amit Jariwala was promoted to principal academic professional.

Kyriaki Kalaitzidou was reappointed associate chair for faculty development.

Dooroo Kim joined as research engineer II-NE.

Hojoong Kim joined as research engineer II.

Satish Kumar received the Woodruff School Mentor of the Year Award. He is part of a collaborative team that was awarded a combined $7.3 million from ONR as part of the MURI program. He and his collaborators received the five-year award for their project, Machine learning Enabled Two-pHase flow metrologies, models, and Optimized DesignS (METHODS).

Seung Woo Lee was promoted to professor.

YongWon Lee and his Georgia Tech collaborators were awarded $2 million to advance research in next-generation semiconductor packaging technologies. Georgia Tech was selected as a key partner institution by South Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) for this major international initiative.

Maegan Lenertz joined as research engineer I.

Steven Liang was named Regents’ Professor.

Zhantao Liu received the Woodruff School Postdoctoral Excellence Award.

Peter Loutzenhiser was promoted to professor.

Anirban Mazumdar was named Woodruff Faculty Fellow.

Ellen Yi Chen Mazumdar was named Woodruff Faculty Fellow. She received the CoE Outstanding Teacher Award (Early Career).

Matthew McDowell was selected as associate chair for research. He was chosen to participate in Georgia Tech’s Emerging Leaders Program.

Kristi Mehaffey received the Woodruff School Outstanding Non-Tenure Track Faculty Award.

Shreyes Melkote was named interim school chair. He received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.

Akanksha Menon received the Early Career Researcher Award from ASTFE. She was named to ASME’s 2025 Mechanical Engineering magazine Watch List.

Karthik Menon joined as assistant professor.

Joseph Mooney joined as research engineer II-LT.

Zhanna Nepiyushchikh was promoted to senior research scientist.

Lokanath Patra joined as research engineer II.

Samuel Petter received the Woodruff School Teaching Excellence Award for NonTenure Track Faculty.

Devesh Ranjan was named dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award from the National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli.

Sourabh Saha was named Woodruff Faculty Fellow. He received the Woodruff School Outstanding Junior Faculty Award.

Christopher J. Saldaña was promoted to professor.

Gregory Sawicki was promoted to professor. He was selected to serve as interim executive director of the Georgia Tech Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines.

Ankur Singh was awarded $7.5 million from NIH for his pioneering research in creating functional models of the human immune system in the lab.

GEORGE W. WOODRUFF

Suresh Sitaraman was selected to serve as the director of the steering committee for the new SMART Packaging Program. He will be a key contributor to Georgia Tech’s efforts on the project funded by DARPA to develop the next generation of highperforming semiconductor microsystems for the DoD.

Aaron Stebner was promoted to professor. He was selected by ASM International to receive the 2025 ASM Silver Medal.

Prasoon Suchandra joined as research engineer II.

Todd Sulchek received the Woodruff School Outstanding Achievement in Commercialization and Entrepreneurship Award.

Susan Napier Thomas received the Woodruff School Mentor of the Year Award.

Mike Tinskey was appointed inaugural interim associate chair for innovation and entrepreneurship. He was awarded the inaugural Siemens Corporation Termed Professorship.

Shannon Yee was promoted to professor.

W. Hong Yeo received a Peterson Professorship with the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta PTC at Georgia Tech. He was awarded a $3 million grant from the NSF Research Training program to help develop a new generation of engineers and scientists in the field of sustainable medical devices. He won the Med-X Young Investigator Award, the Woodruff School Culture Champion Award, and the Woodruff School Research Award.

Aaron Young received the Woodruff School Outstanding Mid-Career Faculty Award.

Fan Zhang received the 2025 Landis Young Member Engineering Achievement Award from ANS, the CoE Outstanding Faculty Achievement in Research Award (Early Career), and the Woodruff School Outstanding Junior Faculty Award. She was named a 2025 Jim Pope Fellow and Class of 1969 Teaching Fellow.

Zhuomin Zhang received the 2025 Elsevier/JQSRT Poynting Award on Radiative Transfer and the Woodruff School Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award.

Ye Zhao was named Woodruff Faculty Fellow.

Remembering Ward O. Winer: A Legacy of Excellence in Engineering and Education

The Georgia Tech community mourns the passing of Ward O. Winer, a distinguished Regents’ Professor Emeritus in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, who passed away on May 25, 2025, at the age of 88. Winer’s contributions to mechanical engineering and his unwavering dedication to Georgia Tech have left an indelible mark on the Institute and its people.

Winer began his academic career at the University of Michigan. In 1969, he came to Georgia Tech, where he spent nearly 40 years until his retirement in 2008. From 1989 to 2008, Winer was the longest-serving chair of the Woodruff School. After retirement, he was asked to return as the interim chair of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering for a year, and he continued part-time at Tech until 2019. He maintained his involvement on national and international boards until 2023.

“Ward was instrumental in elevating the School’s academic and research programs. His tenure was marked by a commitment to excellence and a vision that strengthened the School’s standing within Georgia Tech and the broader engineering community,” said Devesh Ranjan, Eugene C. Gwaltney, Jr. School Chair and professor.

Winer’s research spanned tribology, fluid mechanics, highpressure rheology, lubrication, thermomechanics, and machinery diagnostics. Notably, he led a Department of Defense (DoD) MultiUniversity Research Initiative focused on integrated diagnostics of machinery, a testament to his innovative approach to engineering challenges. Other research projects under Winer’s direction were funded by companies from the petrochemical industry, the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Office of Naval Research, and the DoD.

Winer’s distinguished academic career was marked by numerous honors and awards, including election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988 and as a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, underscoring his profound impact on his field. He also received the Georgia Tech Distinguished Professor Award and the Sigma Xi Monie A. Ferst Memorial Award for Sustained Research.

Beyond his professional achievements, Winer was a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. He and his wife, Mary Jo, shared a life rich in experiences, including raising four children and welcoming 13 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Their partnership was a cornerstone of his personal life, reflecting the same dedication and care he brought to his professional endeavors.

Winer’s legacy is one of mentorship, integrity, and a relentless pursuit of knowledge. His influence will continue to inspire future generations of engineers and educators, and his impact on Georgia Tech and the field of mechanical engineering will be felt for many years to come.

Georgia Tech Leads Research Push for National Crane Safety

Cranes are common features in urban skylines. Because construction projects are constantly beginning and ending, the exact number of cranes in use globally is unknown. What is known, however, is that cranes have caused hundreds of deaths and catastrophic injuries. In the U.S. alone, dozens of deaths occur annually, and the construction industry loses billions of dollars.

“Crane usage is not well regulated or well measured. A lot of accidents are not reported or cataloged — and for those that are, there’s often not a proper investigation,” noted William Singhose, professor in Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Crane Safety Research Center.

The center includes researchers from Georgia Tech, the University of Washington, Utah State University, construction equipment suppliers, and industrial automation specialists. Together, they hope to bridge the gap between engineering curricula, practical applications, and legislation.

“We have a six- to eight-year timeline of funding. Our directive is to improve crane safety,” Singhose said.

With the infusion of support, researchers don’t have to apply for funding, which will allow the researchers freedom to focus on pursuing innovative, meaningful ideas.

Researchers, Industrial Partners Gathered in Atlanta

To mark the center’s one-year anniversary, Georgia Tech hosted a one-day symposium in April to share the center’s latest research findings and priorities. Industry speakers presented information on crane operations and safety.

Attendees included university and industry collaborators, including a contingent from American Crane of Philadelphia. Also in attendance were the center’s funders, Andrea Wang and Henry Wong. They established the research center after losing their daughter, Sarah Pantip Wong, in 2019 in a Washington state crane accident.

A major thrust of their efforts involved championing crane safety legislation to protect the public, focused first in Washington. The state’s legislators unanimously passed this legislation in March 2024, and it will be implemented over the next three years. Part of the family’s efforts include supporting a certification process for crane assembly and disassembly directors, who are required by federal and state Occupational Safety and Health Administration laws to be onsite supervising the crane operations.

Focus on Crane Safety Legislation

Georgia Tech’s College of Design, under Dean and John Portman Chair Ellen Bassett, is working with the Crane Safety Research Center to draft model legislation state and federal lawmakers can use. Wong said that research coming out of academia could inform policymakers to help drive safer rules and procedures for protecting the public near tower cranes.

“The idea is to start a process where we can get information and research out there to enable better safety,” he said.

Wang emphasized that every time a crane-related tragedy occurs, it gets covered by the news and then vanishes until another accident happens. “People don’t realize that there is not a concerted effort to look at these incidents from a public safety perspective,” she said, adding that the way these accidents are categorized is not consistent.

Singhose, whose research focuses on the dynamics and control of flexible machines, says, “I’ve been working on cranes for more than 30 years. I’ve always known cranes are dangerous and challenging, and that it is important to control them better.”

Though the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in the U.S., an average of 44 people die in crane-related accidents; Singhose estimates the number is much closer to 200, when all crane-related machines are taken into consideration.

When Singhose was a toddler, his father was involved in a crane accident that hurt a close family friend. And in 2001, Singhose was at work in the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute when a crane accident destroyed a $750,000 machine inside the building. He later used that crane, stabilized by advanced technology, as a laboratory to test crane safety technologies.

Focus on How Accidents Happen, Crane-Control Technologies

Key innovations developed include anti-sway and anti-snag technologies to ensure cranes operate smoothly and avoid entanglement with building materials or supplies. According to Singhose, cranes move sideways when they are out of position, increasing the risk of these incidents. The risks are exacerbated on large cranes, where the operation is performed with joysticks or buttons, often from hundreds of feet away. Georgia Tech’s research has focused on advances including cable angle sensing for safe crane control, wind load modeling, and crane section lift-off modeling.

“Cranes are designed for their payload to hang straight down. They are not very strong sideways — that’s why wind tips them over,” said Singhose, adding, “Misalignment before the crane payload lifts off creates a double-swing problem, and that’s killed a number of people over the years.”

Georgia Tech has developed lift-off control technology and inputshaping techniques to address these issues. Christopher Adams, a mechanical engineering research engineer and assistant director of the center, said his interest in crane safety grew out of his research looking at how to stabilize helicopters carrying suspended loads; helicopters are, in essence, flying cranes.

“Because there are so many kinds of cranes and ways to make them safer, our projects are pretty broad. They range from studying existing standards and regulations to technologies to make cranes safer, and that keeps it interesting,” said Adams.

Wind and electrical lines play major roles in crane accidents. One of the most notorious wind-induced crane accidents occurred in 2015 at Mecca’s Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest site. Extreme weather conditions, including high winds, caused a crane collapse that killed more than 100 people.

And operating cranes near power lines often increases the severity of accidents. “A fairly large percentage of deaths and injury are caused by electrocution,” said Adams.

The researchers stressed that crane accidents are rarely caused by a single factor. Instead, they are often the result of human error, compounded by additional contributing elements.

“I’ve investigated a number of crane accidents, and it usually takes three things to go wrong,” explained Singhose, observing that cranes are robust enough to handle one thing going wrong — but not the cumulative effect of multiple issues.

Key Research Insights

Both Singhose and Adams reiterated the importance of moving a crane without swinging the payload. As cranes have gotten taller and taller, industry standards on how to reinforce these cranes and prevent accidents haven’t kept up.

Adams contributed to a recent Georgia Tech paper examining how industry standards intended to prevent tip-overs of mobile boom cranes provide a decreasing stability margin as mobile cranes have gotten taller. A smaller stability margin means a crane more easily tips over.

Another big challenge is that crane safety standards are not mandatory but voluntary.

“The way they really get enforced is through lawsuits after a tip-over kills somebody,” Singhose said.

For Andrea Wang, the real indication of positive change will be when the construction industry stops assigning blame for crane accidents and instead embraces education and prevention. As a pharmacist, she has seen this transformation in healthcare with how the industry handles medication errors.

“It’s all about safety. Not until you start changing the culture will mindsets change,” she said. “That’s what needs to happen.”

To learn more about the Crane Safety Research Center, visit sites.gatech.edu/cranesafety.

Nuclear Power and Net Zero

From Chernobyl clippings

to the Woodruff School, Anna Erickson advocates for nuclear energy’s safety and strength

Her mom asked her to stop — repeatedly — but Anna Erickson kept on going. She was just 5 years old, yet Erickson would gather newspaper clippings about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and read them to her younger sister again and again.

Her mother worried it would scare the baby. But that fascination set the groundwork for Erickson’s lifetime of interest in nuclear energy.

Decades later, Erickson is one of the nation’s most prominent researchers in nuclear power security, safeguards, and sustainability. Nearly every casual conversation about her job inevitably turns to the notorious nuclear disasters at Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, or Fukushima. But just as she was determined long ago to keep reading to her sister, she’s similarly focused now on telling people that nuclear energy is safe — and necessary for the future.

“Nuclear has the best safety record among traditional energy sources,” said Erickson, Woodruff Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. “Spent fuel, or what some call nuclear waste, lasts a long time. But we know how to handle and store it. Importantly, spent fuel can be recycled into additional energy sources for reactors using isotope separation techniques. Nuclear disasters are incredibly rare. And human health is much more negatively impacted by emissions from coal and fossil fuels.”

The dangers are minimal, Erickson said, and the benefits of nuclear power are unmistakable. She noted that nuclear plants produce maximum power about 93% of the time. Their output isn’t affected by weather, supply and demand, or financial markets.

For comparison, geothermal offers maximum

power three-fourths of the time, natural gas 57%, and hydroelectric systems half the time. Coal produces max electric just 40% of the time. Erickson said nuclear energy will be even more imperative in the years to come: more data centers and artificial intelligence will need substantial energy supplies all day, every day. Data centers currently represent about 4% of electricity demand, but Erickson said the number is expected to more than double by 2030. It’s why Microsoft recently announced an agreement to reopen a nuclear unit at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island and purchase all of the plant’s electricity.

“Americans aren’t good at consuming less, so future electricity needs for everything will only increase,” Erickson said. “Nuclear shouldn’t be, and can’t be, the only source of power. But it definitely needs to supplement other carbon-free, sustainable sources.”

To get there, Erickson suggested three strategies.

One: build more nuclear plants. When the third and fourth units began operating within the past year at Southern Company’s Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, Georgia, they were the first newly constructed nuclear units in the U.S. in more than 30 years. They’re among 94 currently in operation around the country. However, to achieve America’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions from power plants by 2050, the nation will need to triple the output of nuclear power and add 200 more nuclear reactors.

“Vogtle cost about $36 billion, so it’s not possible to build 200 more at that cost,” Erickson said. “Fortunately, we don’t have to, because we learned so much as Vogtle was ramping up about supply chains and how plants could be built at scale.”

She said a cheaper, faster approach for bringing additional nuclear power to the grid would be reopening decommissioned reactors and extending their operating licenses well into the future. This is her second strategy. Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Plant near Grand Rapids recently secured a $1.5 billion loan from the Department of Energy with plans to reopen in 2025. It would be the first shut down U.S. nuclear reactor to be revived.

Erickson’s third strategy is to continue pursuing advanced nuclear power, including fusion technologies — something she admitted has been promised “in about 30 years” for decades. She said fusion is closer now than ever before and perhaps about 15 years from viability because of federal and private equity support. Multiple advanced fission reactors also are being designed by a number of national laboratories and private companies, promising additional diversity in nuclear energy generation.

Erickson is encouraged about nuclear power’s future partially because public opinion has shifted. A 2023 Gallup poll found that support among Americans for nuclear power is at its highest point in more than a decade. Part of her job will be continuing to address misconceptions about the technology and advocating for its increased role in sustainability.

“We’ve been creating nuclear power for more than 70 years. If all its waste were stored at the same place, it would only cover one football field, 10 feet deep,” Erickson said.

“We need to diversify to meet the nation’s carbon zero goals. And nuclear is a clear path to making it happen.”

GEORGE W. WOODRUFF

Leading the Charge

Matt McDowell is transforming battery technology from the lab to the market

Matt McDowell is a matchmaker. As co-director of the Georgia Tech Advanced Battery Center, he connects global companies with Georgia Tech researchers to develop next-generation battery technologies for electric vehicles, grid storage, and more. Within his lab in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, McDowell studies how battery materials transform during use to design safer, more efficient energy storage systems.

“Lithium-ion batteries won’t be replaced for a while, if ever,” said McDowell, Carter N. Paden, Jr. Distinguished Chair and associate professor.

“But we’re looking at new technologies like solid-state batteries that could be safer and store more energy.” He’s also exploring sodium-ion batteries, which use abundant materials and could offer a more sustainable and affordable alternative for gridscale energy.

The Advanced Battery Center includes McDowell, co-director Gleb Yushin, and about 20 other faculty members, along with 150 graduate students and postdocs. Their next big step is a new pilot-scale battery manufacturing facility on campus to help scale innovations from lab to market. “It will be a key resource for Georgia Tech and the region,” McDowell said.

Sustainability on a Roll

Tequila Harris’ roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques mean fewer steps and less waste when making renewable materials

Sustainability is a cornerstone of Tequila Harris’ lab, where she works on coating science and technology for clean water applications, renewable materials, and advanced roll-to-roll manufacturing processes.

A key focus is decreasing the number of steps needed to fabricate thin and thick film technologies used in these areas.

“Fewer manufacturing steps translates to less energy and water requirements, making the manufacturing methods more sustainable,” said Harris, professor in the Woodruff School. “When you consider material scalability, fewer steps when fabricating billions of parts can have a significant impact.”

Harris’ lab explores how the manufacture and design of films, components, and systems affect both their functionality and their life expectancy. From that, she can determine process, structure, and property relationships to enhance performance. In short, she looks to fabricate materials developed by chemical engineers, material scientists, and chemists, quickly, cheaply, and effectively.

Harris’ go-to tooling and manufacturing system combination for the last 18 years has been a slot die coating on a roll-to-roll facility. It’s one of the fastest growing technologies for scaling thin film materials. She produces thin films, coated on a wide variety of substrates, that can be housed in large rolls for later use. When creating the materials at scale, Harris takes great care to detect and correct defects to minimize waste and increase the amount of usable material.

That relentless focus on eliminating waste is why the mantra in her Highly Advanced Roll-to-Roll iManufacturing Systems (HARRiS) group is “No gaps, no scrap.”

That work received a boost this fall. Harris opened a new modular, pilot scale roll-to-roll facility to advance thin film research and development beyond the lab. The facility is open for a large variety of materials that Harris’ group can use across a plethora of different technologies.

“Using our new modular, pilot scale roll-to-roll manufacturing facility, we can analyze film fabrication at speeds a thousand times faster than what has been realized at the laboratory scale,” Harris said.

The HARRiS lab works with academic, government, and industrial users, all with the goal of building an ecosystem around scalable manufacturing for a broad collection of materials. On campus, Harris works with Sankar Nair in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) on new membrane materials for papermaking. With ChBE’s Carson Meredith and Meisha Shofner in MSE, Harris’ lab is collaborating on renewable food packaging. She is planning for a future partnership with McDowell on his battery technologies.

Her focus on improving products and materials comes, in part, Harris said, from a childhood where she was exposed to a combination of a small farm-totable lifestyle and industrial factories in neighboring towns where many people in her community worked.

“I preferred improving and making products to farming,” she said. “In graduate school, I studied manufacturing and design of machine tools. When I began my career at Georgia Tech, my focus shifted from solely coating technology to the integration of coating science. This has led to the design and implementation of innovative manufacturing approaches with an understanding of the entire coating process and the quality and performance of the resulting materials.”

This Pacifier Could Monitor Babies’ Vitals in the NICU

A small but powerful invention could make life in the NICU easier for the tiniest patients.

Newborns must have their vitals checked frequently, and one of the most critical measures of newborn health is electrolyte levels. Right now, the only way to monitor electrolytes is to draw their blood multiple times a day. This can be painful and frightening for babies, and challenging to perform for medical staff, who can have trouble drawing blood from tiny, underdeveloped blood vessels.

Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a pacifier designed to monitor a baby’s electrolyte levels in real time, potentially eliminating the need for repeated invasive blood draws.

W. Hong Yeo, associate professor and Harris Saunders Jr. Endowed Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, came up with the pacifier idea at a pediatric technology conference. Doctors described daily challenges they face in caring for sick newborns, and the lack of noninvasive monitoring systems.

“Physicians told me about the blood draw issue, which happens over and over again as babies sometimes have to stay in the NICU for weeks and even months,” said Yeo, who directs the Wearable Intelligent Systems and Healthcare Center (WISH Center) at the Institute for Matter and Systems. “I wanted to come up with a noninvasive solution for constant electrolyte monitoring, and I decided to focus on something babies like: pacifiers. I immediately thought, ‘OK, I can do something with that.’”

Yeo purchased a few commercially available pacifiers and started brainstorming potential designs. He realized that if he and his team could figure out how to collect a baby’s saliva with the pacifier, then they would likely be able to attach flexible membrane sensors using his existing miniaturization technologies.

The team constructed a tiny tunnel, or microfluidic channel, into the body of the pacifier. The opening at the pacifier’s nipple draws saliva into the channel, which then guides the saliva through the device and into a reservoir equipped with ion-detecting sensors. The sensors react to sodium and potassium ions, constantly measuring their levels.

Hojoong Kim, a research professor at the WISH Center and program manager of the KIAT-Georgia Tech Semiconductor Electronics Center (which Yeo directs), developed special electronic circuits specifically for the pacifier device.

“To make the pacifier wireless, we designed an ultrathin, membrane-based electronic circuit,” Kim said. “We used our technology to make the circuit extremely thin and floppy, so it is flexible and soft in a way that it can be mounted to almost any surface.”

The team installed their flexible circuit on the back side of the pacifier. There, they integrated all the circuit’s wireless components to be compatible with conventional Bluetooth. The system sends the data wirelessly, so physicians can use a smartphone or tablet to receive a real-time, continuous flow of data about a baby’s vitals at any given moment.

This constant data flow paints a fuller picture of babies’ health, and it means serious issues can be detected sooner. If any abnormal signs arise during monitoring, the system alerts the clinicians or medical staff who are using the device.

According to Yeo, the team continually works to develop and optimize the pacifier technology. Currently, the team is seeking funding and commercialization partners that can help take the technology to the next level and into the world.

“Once we get it into hospitals, I think the device will be a game-changer for pediatric health monitoring,” Yeo said. “As far as I know, this is the only device in the world that can measure a baby’s electrolyte concentrations continuously.”

The researchers also think the technology can be expanded further to benefit additional patient populations. The concept of using saliva as a noninvasive way of measuring important disease biomarkers can be greatly expanded, Yeo says.

“This is an important step in showing that this technology can work, and this is just the beginning,” Yeo said. “We hope to integrate the technology with other electrical sensors and systems to achieve comprehensive health monitoring that wasn’t possible until now.”

Funding: National Science Foundation Research Traineeship program, WISH Center (Institute for Matter and Systems), and K-GTSEC Center.

GEORGE W. WOODRUFF

To Mach 5 and Beyond

Imagine boarding a jet in Atlanta and arriving in Japan in about the time it takes now to fly to Miami or Chicago.

That’s just one of the possibilities of research in an area of ultrafast flight called hypersonics. The term refers to traveling at roughly a mile a second, or about five times the speed of sound and faster.

Interest in hypersonics is growing, with early notions of high-speed passenger travel alongside defense and space applications driving questions about meeting the demands of Mach 5+ flight.

Such speeds introduce a host of new challenges for aerodynamics, thermal management, and rapid decision-making that Georgia Tech engineers are working to solve.

For Anirban Mazumdar in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, aerospace questions have always been fascinating.

Hypersonics is an area where those questions are tough. Uncovering answers can have real impact on unlocking new capabilities for travel across the globe or to space, in addition to national security implications.

“It’s very challenging. We are trying to deal with very extreme scenarios, and we’re trying to do it, not just to advance science, but primarily because it matters to our country,” Mazumdar said. “That combination is incredible.”

The idea of hypersonics may sound new and exotic, but experiments by NASA, the Air Force, and the Navy first applied hypersonic theory to an actual flight vehicle in the 1950s and ‘60s. The X-15’s 199 flights contributed key knowledge to early spacecraft and, later, the Space Shuttle.

“People overlook the fact that the Space Shuttle was a hypersonic aircraft,” Mazumdar said. “When the shuttle reentered the atmosphere, it came in at hypersonic speeds. So do the SpaceX systems that come back to Earth. The Apollo capsules did too. Hypersonics is a part of what we do already.”

What’s growing is attention to vehicles traveling at these high speeds for other uses beyond space missions. The U.S. started actively pursuing development of hypersonic weapons in the early 2000s, with Congress ramping up funding in recent years for research on these systems. Meanwhile, private companies are working to build hypersonic autonomous aircraft for the military and passenger planes to shrink the globe, including work happening in Atlanta not far from Georgia Tech.

In Mazumdar’s lab, his team blends modeling and simulations with experimental validations — a combination of basic and applied research made possible by a close relationship between Tech and Sandia National Labs. In fact, in addition to his appointment as assistant professor in the Woodruff School, Mazumdar also is a faculty joint affiliate in the Autonomy for Hypersonics group at Sandia. He spends part of his time working at the Lab and with its hypersonic wind tunnel.

Mazumdar’s goal is maximizing safe performance for vehicles traveling at extreme speeds. His team works to develop algorithms and control systems that can handle the physical stresses of those speeds while making safe and appropriate decisions in split-second timeframes. After all, if it takes several seconds to think about something, the aircraft has already traveled several miles before a decision is made.

Heat also is a significant problem at Mach 5 and beyond. Mazumdar is interested in developing ways to manage extreme heat by controlling the way vehicles fly.

“This could be relevant to a lot of future flight applications, where vehicles returning from space come through the atmosphere and get very hot,” he said. “It’s still very difficult to protect them from that heat. One challenge is developing materials and designs that can handle it. But the second question that we’re excited about is, can you fly in a different way that enables you to heat up less? Or can you protect certain parts of the vehicle that may not have as much thermal protection? We’re interested in how to do that more effectively in the future.”

Mazumdar, who came to the Woodruff School in 2018, said Georgia Tech is one of premier places to work on these complicated questions. He pointed to general excellence in engineering. That means researchers can work together across disciplines to tackle all of the relevant areas — materials, design, controls, aerodynamics, and experimentation. He also said the applied research expertise at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and the close collaboration with Sandia create a unique blend of capabilities.

For a long time, research in hypersonics has been led by industry or government agencies. But the role for academic research institutions is growing, thanks to new government initiatives. Mazumdar said those collaborations have expanded who can contribute to developing the technology and were instrumental in giving him early opportunities to study hypersonics.

“Working on hypersonics means exploring exciting scientific challenges that have not been solved, and it’s clearly very relevant to our country,” he said. “That makes it really fun, to get up and work every day on solving very hard problems that people care about.”

Mechanical Engineering Researchers Use Salt for Thermal Energy Storage

From keeping warm in the winter to doing laundry, heat is crucial to daily life. But as the world grapples with climate change, buildings’ increasing energy consumption is a critical problem. Currently, heat is produced by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas, but that will need to change as the world shifts to clean energy.

Georgia Tech researchers in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (ME) are developing more efficient heating systems that don’t rely on fossil fuels. They demonstrated that combining two commonly found salts could help store clean energy as heat; this can be used for heating buildings or integrated with a heat pump for cooling buildings.

The researchers presented their research in “Thermochemical Energy Storage Using Salt Mixtures With Improved Hydration Kinetics and Cycling Stability,” in the Journal of Energy Storage.

Reaction Redux

The fundamental mechanics of heat storage are simple and can be achieved through many methods. A basic reversible chemical reaction is the foundation for their approach: A forward reaction absorbs heat

and then stores it, while a reverse reaction releases the heat, enabling a building to use it.

ME Assistant Professor Akanksha Menon has been interested in thermal energy storage since she began working on her Ph.D. When she arrived at Georgia Tech and started the Water-Energy Research Lab (WERL), she became involved in not only developing storage technology and materials but also figuring out how to integrate them within a building. She thought understanding the fundamental material challenges could translate into creating better storage.

“I realized there are so many things that we don’t understand, at a scientific level, about how these thermo-chemical materials work between the forward and reverse reactions,” she said.

The Superior Salt

The reactions Menon works with use salt. Each salt molecule can hold a certain number of water molecules within its structure. To instigate the chemical reaction, the researchers dehydrate the salt with heat, so it expels water vapor as a gas. To reverse the reaction, they hydrate the salt with water, forcing the salt structure’s expansion to

accommodate those water molecules.

It sounds like a simple process, but as this expansion/contraction process happens, the salt gets more stressed and will eventually mechanically fail, the same way lithium-ion batteries only have so many charge-discharge cycles.

“You can start with something that’s a nice spherical particle, but after it goes through a few of these dehydration-hydration cycles, it just breaks apart into tiny particles and completely pulverizes or it overhydrates and agglomerates into a block,” Menon explained.

These changes aren’t necessarily catastrophic, but they do make the salt ineffective for long-term heat storage as the storage capacity decreases over time.

Menon and her student, Erik Barbosa, a Ph.D. student in ME, began combining salts that react with water in different ways. After testing six salts over two years, they found two that complemented each other well. Magnesium chloride often fails because it absorbs too much water, whereas strontium chloride is very slow to hydrate. Together, their respective limitations can mutually benefit each other and lead to improved heat storage.

“We didn’t plan to mix salts; it was just one of the experiments we tried,” Menon said. “Then we saw this interactive behavior and spent a whole year trying to understand why this was happening and if it was something we could generalize to use for thermal energy storage.”

The Energy Storage of the Future

Menon is just beginning with this research, which was supported by a National Science

Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award. Her next step is developing the structures capable of containing these salts for heat storage, which is the focus of an Energy Earthshots project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

A system-level demonstration is also planned, where one solution is filling a drum with salts in a packed bed reactor. Then hot air would flow across the salts, dehydrating them and effectively charging the drum like a battery. To release that stored energy, humid air would be blown over the salts to rehydrate the crystals. The subsequently released heat can be used in a building instead of fossil fuels. While initiating the reaction needs electricity, this could come from off-peak (excess renewable electricity) and the stored thermal energy could be deployed at peak times. This is the focus of another ongoing project in the lab that is funded by the DOE’s Building Technologies Office.

Ultimately, this technology could lead to

climate-friendly energy solutions. Plus, unlike many alternatives like lithium batteries, salt is a widely available and cost-effective material, meaning its implementation could be swift. Salt-based thermal energy storage can help reduce carbon emissions, a vital strategy in the fight against climate change.

“Our research spans the range from fundamental science to applied engineering thanks to funding from the NSF and DOE,” Menon said. “This positions Georgia Tech to make a significant impact toward decarbonizing heat and enabling a renewable future.”

“Our research spans the range from fundamental science to applied engineering thanks to funding from the NSF and DOE. This positions Georgia Tech to make a significant impact toward decarbonizing heat and enabling a renewable future.”

—Akanksha Menon

Aluminum scrap is one of the most common materials found on military bases and aircraft carriers worldwide. Now, the U.S. Army has tapped Georgia Tech to help turn that waste into power that can be generated off the grid and on demand.

The Army Research Office awarded Georgia Tech and its partners $20 million to develop scalable, efficient methods for transforming aluminum into hydrogen energy. The project could lead to a new, low-cost, clean, and efficient energy source powered by discarded materials.

Aaron Stebner, professor and Eugene C. Gwaltney, Jr. Chair in Manufacturing in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering, will oversee the multi-year effort at Georgia Tech together with Scott McWhorter, lead for Federal Initiatives at the Strategic Energy Institute.

Army Awards Tech-Led Project $20M to Develop Aluminum Manufacturing for Hydrogen Energy Production

In addition to several team members from Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the project includes researchers from Fort Valley State University, the 21st Century Partnership, MatSys, and Drexel University.

“Aluminum already reacts with water — even wastewater and floodwater — to create hydrogen gas, power, and thermal energy,” McWhorter said. “If aluminum can be efficiently upcycled into stored energy, it could be a game-changer.” The team’s goal is to experiment with aluminum’s material properties so it can be inexpensively manufactured to create a highly effective reaction that produces lowcost, clean hydrogen.

“Having this ability would allow military bases to be less dependent on the use of a foreign country’s electrical grids,” said Stebner, who is also co-director of Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing and faculty at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute.

Manufacturing Aluminum

Several years ago, the Army Research Lab discovered and patented the basic technology for recycling aluminum to produce hydrogen gas. However, current manufacturing methods require too much energy for the amount of hydrogen energy produced.

To make the technology viable and effective, Stebner and his colleagues will research alternate manufacturing processes and then develop automated methods for safely producing and storing stable aluminum. They also plan to optimize these processes using digital twin technologies.

Currently, manufacturers use large machines to grind up and tumble the aluminum in very controlled environments, because stray aluminum powder can be

explosive. These methods are very costly. Stebner and the team are looking into small, modular technologies that could allow for convenient, onsite energy generation. According to Stebner, they are interested in determining how these smaller machines could be so efficient that they could be powered using solar panels.

Stebner envisions that a field of solar panels could power the aluminum-processing modules — the aluminum recycling could be done while the sun shines and produce power 24/7.

Sustainable Impact

Once they have developed the manufacturing techniques and processes, the team plans to test their efficacy by generating power for rural Georgia communities. Success here would prove the technology could be viable for military deployments and other offgrid scenarios.

“The Deep South — especially middle and southern Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana — often has enormous energy disruptions during hurricanes or power outages due to flooding and severe rains,” Stebner said. “Manufacturers can be hesitant to build big plants there, because the grids aren’t as stable. This same technology that the Army plans to use for remote military bases could be a game-changer in rural Georgia.”

If power is unexpectedly cut in those areas, floodwater could then be used to make hydrogen gas. While hydrogen has not yet had its day in the sun, it has great potential as an alternative to fossil fuels, Stebner says.

“From a sustainability perspective, any time you can take something that’s already waste — like scrap aluminum and wastewater — and turn it into a high-value product that can be used to power communities, that is a huge win.”

GEORGE

Steven Biegalski Receives Top International Award in Nuclear Radiochemistry

Georgia Tech nuclear engineer

Steven Biegalski has received the 2025 George Hevesy Medal — the highest international award for career achievements in applied nuclear and radiochemistry. Biegalski is the first engineer to win the honor since it was established 57 years ago, and just the seventh American to receive it.

The medal honors Biegalski’s research and contributions to nuclear analytical chemistry, specifically for “developing comprehensive methods for analyzing radioxenon signatures and creating isotopically pure radioxenon samples, supporting global nuclear monitoring efforts and nuclear accident response.”

The medal is sponsored by the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry with honorees selected by a dedicated panel of scholars overseen by the Board of the Hevesy Award.

“Receiving the Hevesy Medal fills me with profound gratitude and humility. This lifetime achievement award also indicates that I’ve come full circle: I’ve been involved with the international Radioanalytical Methods community since I was a graduate student,” Biegalski said. “I’m grateful to my colleagues and students who have contributed to the research efforts that led to this award.

It inspires me to further advance our understanding of nuclear chemistry while mentoring the next generation of scientists who will carry this legacy forward.”

Biegalski is the chair of Georgia Tech’s Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics program in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. His research focuses on nuclear applications within engineering and the development of advanced nuclear reactor technology.

He holds leadership positions within both the Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation and the Consortium for Monitoring Technologies and Verification. These consortia, supported by the National Nuclear Security Administration, focus on nuclear non-proliferation research. Biegalski is the Georgia Tech lead within the Natura Resources Research Alliance, which is working to design and license a molten salt research reactor.

The award is named after György Hevesy, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1943 for his work on the use of radionuclides as tracers in the study of chemical processes.

DOE Recognizes Sourabh Saha With Prestigious Early Career Award

Sourabh Saha, assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, is a recipient of an Early Career Research Program (ECRP) grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Saha has been awarded $875,000 over five years to pursue research on manufacturing cost-effective fuel capsules for fusion energy. Nuclear fusion is the mechanism that powers the sun and generates the sunlight received on Earth. Fusion can be a clean, safe, abundant, and reliable source of electricity, but controlling it on Earth is a major challenge.

Inertial fusion is one way to achieve and control fusion. This requires holding the nuclear fuel within pea-sized capsules, called targets, that are manufactured to extreme precision. For fusion to be a costeffective source of electricity, the expense of producing these fuel capsules must be reduced from tens of thousands of dollars to less than a dollar. This is where Saha’s work lies: in enabling new ways of making the fuel capsules, cost-effectively and precisely.

The ECRP award will allow Saha to focus on advancing the scientific knowledge base for scalable manufacturing of fusion targets. Generally, manufacturing scale-up is perceived as a late-stage engineering activity that can be postponed until a technology’s scientific underpinnings have been determined. But this perception has also often led to the underfunding of manufacturing science research.

Saha believes that to solve many of engineering’s current grand challenges, the science of manufacturing scale-up should be considered early on — and in concert with researching other aspects of a technology.

“The DOE award allows our group to do precisely this kind of research in the area of fusion energy. I am humbled to be able to work on one of the most challenging but worthwhile problems of our time,” Saha said.

Working From Behind in Race Against E-Waste

The World Health Organization estimated in 2022 that nearly 62 million tons of waste from electronics is created every year. Only 22% is collected and recycled.

It’s not a surprise to Antonia Antoniou and Vanessa Smet, faculty members and collaborators in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

Their research focuses on improving electronic packaging for better performance, while also tying that innovation to sustainable fabrication and recyclability. They’re looking at new, more sustainable ways to assemble and connect components of electronic systems such as active chips, resistors, and capacitors, both to each other and to their surroundings.

They know that they’re working from behind.

“Packaging was typically an afterthought until about 10-15 years ago,” said Smet, an assistant professor and expert in electronics packing. “The main focus was the chip’s performance. Although a chip by itself is obsolete without being powered and able to communicate with other critical system components, everything related to its integration has been treated as a necessary evil.”

That’s a problem, Smet said, because many of the materials involved in creating these integration platforms, such as thermoset polymers with reinforcing fibers, copper, and other metals, don’t degrade or are dangerous when they breakdown in landfills.

It’s one reason why Antoniou called packaging the “next driver of innovation for high performance electronics.” It’s an interdisciplinary field, with mechanical engineers teaming with experts in materials science, electrical engineering, and manufacturing.

Antoniou works on the mechanics side of electronics packaging, figuring out how to design materials and their mechanical properties, and how to keep them from failing. Smet is more of a generalist: She has an applied physics background and looks at packaging as a science to develop comprehensive solutions that jointly advance electronics performance, reliability, and sustainability. She aims to transform that knowledge into new materials and industry-scalable manufacturing practices.

Smet said packaging is coming to the forefront now because of the continuing rise in demand for better performing electronics and the scarcity and expense of the materials used to make them.

“Think about short-term electronics, like phones, that we may keep for just two to three years before throwing away,” Smet said. “There are materials in them that are beneficial to recover, like gold and copper. At the same time, our field is also looking to create sustainable practices to ensure that the manufacturing of electronics is cleaner.”

One idea born out of Georgia Tech labs nearly 20 years ago was using glass substrates, instead of silicon, on computer chips. The technology now is used by companies in Georgia, at Intel, and around the world. Another example Smet pointed to is the switch from copper packaging to recyclable aluminum and graphene, which allows for a cleaner manufacturing process. The key, she said, is making sure new components allow for the same, or increased, signal and power efficiency and reliability than the materials used for decades.

“Electronics are in everything,” Antoniou said. “The process to make them must be cleaner. If we don’t break the waste cycle soon, we’ll be in even bigger trouble than we are now. It’s becoming more urgent as time goes by, and industry must do more sustainable packaging for electronics recycling and end-of-life.”

Unlocking the Brain: Using Microbubbles and Ultrasound for Drug Delivery

The brain is a stronghold, the central command center for the body, protected by the blood-brain barrier (BBB). This network of blood vessels and tissues acts as a biological gatekeeper, a selective filter that prevents harmful substances in the bloodstream from entering the brain’s complex ecosystem.

It’s protection that comes at a cost. While the BBB lets some things in — like water, oxygen, general anesthetics made of very small molecules — it also prevents many vital therapeutics from reaching the brain, limiting the treatment options for neurological problems.

But a multinational team of researchers led by Georgia Tech biomedical engineer Costas Arvanitis is tackling the challenge with a technique that combines microbubbles — tiny gas-filled spheres — and ultrasound technology. Their innovative approach aims to temporarily open the BBB, allowing drugs or immune cells in to take on the fight against disease, offering therapeutic hope for patients battling conditions like brain cancer or Alzheimer’s disease.

“We found that microbubble-enhanced ultrasound, an emerging technology that offers a noninvasive way to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier, allows bloodborne therapeutics to reach the brain,” said Arvanitis, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

The technique can potentially be finetuned to establish windows of opportunity to target brain diseases, he added. Arvanitis and his collaborators describe their work in a recent edition of Nature Communications

Bouncing Bubbles

Microbubbles, smaller than the diameter of human hair, have shells made of a lipid or protein. In healthcare, they’re often used to help enhance visibility in ultrasound, acting as contrast agents, illuminating details inside the body.

Ultrasound uses high-frequency sound waves to create images. When microbubbles are exposed to focused ultrasound waves, they rapidly expand and contract. This gentle mechanical force shakes the protective barrier surrounding the brain, creating small openings for aid to pass through.

“Despite their simple structure, microbubbles have complex behaviors,” Arvanitis said. “They can resonate at specific frequencies, allowing us to manipulate their oscillations to enhance permeability at the blood-brain barrier. And their behavior also depends on their size and shell composition.”

For instance, microbubbles with elastic shells are more effective in increasing the permeability of the BBB. In their research, Arvanitis and his collaborators noted a 12fold increase in drug delivery effectiveness using elastic-shelled (lipid-based) microbubbles.

Math Before Mice

The researchers conducted studies using mice but began with a mathematical model to simulate microbubble dynamics in brain vessels. They identified a resonant frequency that enhances microbubble movement and explored the correlation between frequency, bubble dynamics, and inflammatory responses in the brain.

Their model and later experiments showed that specific ultrasound frequencies can enhance immune cell movement and increase drug accumulation in brain tumors. They also found that higher ultrasound frequencies, while effective in opening the BBB, were also accompanied by increased expression of inflammatory markers on the endothelia cells of the BBB — an important finding, as excessive inflammation can lead to further complications in patients with neurological disorders.

“By understanding and controlling the frequency dynamics of microbubbles, we can create a system that maximizes drug delivery efficacy,” Arvanitis said. “Our findings suggest that using lower frequencies may be beneficial for delivering therapeutics while reducing inflammation, which can be crucial for treating neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”

The research has implications that could extend beyond drug delivery, paving the way for new diagnostic techniques. Using ultrasound to open the BBB could allow clinicians to gather important information directly from the brain, improving diagnostic techniques, like ultrasound-enhanced biopsies.

“The scientific principles established by our work not only enhance our ability to develop safer and more effective treatments for brain diseases, but also lays the groundwork for innovative diagnostic and therapeutic strategies within and beyond the brain,” said Arvanitis, whose team included graduate students from his lab as well as researchers from the University of California (San Francisco), Stanford, and the University of Edinburgh.

He added, “The dynamics of microbubbles interacting with blood vessels could have important implications in other areas of medicine that we haven’t yet explored.”

New Battery Cathode Material Could Revolutionize EV Market and Energy Storage

A multi-institutional research team led by Georgia Tech’s Hailong Chen has developed a new, low-cost cathode that could radically improve lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) — potentially transforming the electric vehicle (EV) market and large-scale energy storage systems.

“For a long time, people have been looking for a lower-cost, more sustainable alternative to existing cathode materials. I think we’ve got one,” said Chen, an associate professor with appointments in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

The revolutionary material, iron chloride (FeCl3), costs a mere 1-2% of typical cathode materials and can store the same amount of electricity. Cathode materials affect capacity, energy, and efficiency, playing a major role in a battery’s performance, lifespan, and affordability.

“Our cathode can be a game-changer,” said Chen, whose team describes its work in Nature Sustainability. “It would greatly improve the EV market — and the whole lithium-ion battery market.”

First commercialized by Sony in the early 1990s, LIBs sparked an explosion in personal electronics, like smartphones and tablets. The technology eventually advanced to fuel electric vehicles, providing a reliable, rechargeable, high-density energy source. But unlike personal electronics, large-scale energy users like EVs are especially sensitive to the cost of LIBs.

Batteries are currently responsible for about 50% of an EV’s total cost, which makes these clean-energy cars more expensive than their internal combustion, greenhouse-gasspewing cousins. The Chen team’s invention could change that.

Building a Better Battery

Compared to old-fashioned alkaline and lead-acid batteries, LIBs store more energy in a smaller package and power a device longer between charges. But LIBs contain expensive metals, including semiprecious elements like cobalt and nickel, and they have a high manufacturing cost.

So far, only four types of cathodes have been successfully commercialized for LIBs. Chen’s would be the fifth, and it would represent a big step forward in battery technology: the development of an all-solidstate LIB.

Conventional LIBs use liquid electrolytes to transport lithium ions for storing and releasing energy. They have hard limits on how much energy can be stored, and they can leak and catch fire. But all-solid-state LIBs use solid electrolytes, dramatically boosting a battery’s efficiency and reliability and making it safer and capable of holding more energy. These batteries, still in the development and testing phase, would be a considerable improvement.

As researchers and manufacturers across the planet race to make all-solidstate technology practical, Chen and his collaborators have developed an affordable and sustainable solution. With the FeCl3 cathode, a solid electrolyte, and a lithium metal anode, the cost of their whole battery system is 30-40% of current LIBs.

“This could not only make EVs much cheaper than internal combustion cars, but it provides a new and promising form of large-scale energy storage, enhancing the resilience of the electrical grid,” Chen said. “In addition, our cathode would greatly improve the sustainability and supply chain stability of the EV market.”

Solid Start to New Discovery

Chen’s interest in FeCl3 as a cathode material originated with his lab’s research into solid electrolyte materials. Starting in 2019, his lab tried to make solid-state batteries using chloride-based solid electrolytes with traditional commercial oxide-based cathodes. It didn’t go well — the cathode and electrolyte materials didn’t get along.

The researchers thought a chloride-based cathode could provide a better pairing with the chloride electrolyte to offer better battery performance.

“We found a candidate (FeCl3) worth trying, as its crystal structure is potentially

GEORGE W.

suitable for storing and transporting ions, and fortunately, it functioned as we expected,” said Chen.

Currently, the most popularly used cathodes in EVs are oxides and require a gigantic amount of costly nickel and cobalt, heavy elements that can be toxic and pose an environmental challenge. In contrast, the Chen team’s cathode contains only iron (Fe) and chlorine (Cl)—abundant, affordable, widely used elements found in steel and table salt.

In their initial tests, FeCl3 was found to perform as well as or better than the other, much more expensive cathodes. For example, it has a higher operational voltage than the popularly used cathode LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate, or LFP), which is the electrical force a battery provides when connected to a device, similar to water pressure from a garden hose.

This technology may be less than five years from commercial viability in EVs. For now, the team will continue investigating FeCl3 and related materials, according to Chen. The work was led by Chen and postdoc Zhantao Liu (the lead author of the study). Collaborators included researchers from Georgia Tech’s Woodruff School (Ting Zhu) and the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (Yuanzhi Tang), as well as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Jue Liu) and the University of Houston (Shuo Chen).

“We want to make the materials as perfect as possible in the lab and understand the underlying functioning mechanisms,” Chen said. “But we are open to opportunities to scale up the technology and push it toward commercial applications.”

CITATION: Zhantao Liu, Jue Liu, Simin Zhao, Sangni Xun, Paul Byaruhanga, Shuo Chen, Yuanzhi Tang, Ting Zhu, Hailong Chen. “Low-cost iron trichloride cathode for all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries.” Nature Sustainability.

FUNDING: National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 1706723 and 2108688)

Lab-Grown Human Immune System Model Uncovers Weakened Response in Cancer Patients

To better understand why some cancer patients struggle to fight off infections, Georgia Tech researchers have created tiny lab-grown models of human immune systems.

These miniature models — known as human immune organoids — mimic the real-life environment where immune cells learn to recognize and attack harmful invaders and respond to vaccines. Not only are these organoids powerful new tools for studying and observing immune function in cancer, their use is likely to accelerate vaccine development, better predict disease treatment response for patients, and even speed up clinical trials.

“Our synthetic hydrogels create a breakthrough environment for human immune organoids, allowing us to model antibody production from scratch, more precisely, and for a longer duration,” said Ankur Singh, Carl Ring Family Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory.

“For the first time, we can recreate and sustain complex immunological processes in a synthetic gel, using blood, and effectively track B cell responses,” he added. “This is a game changer for understanding and treating immune vulnerabilities in patients with lymphoma who have undergone cancer treatment — and hopefully other disorders too.”

Led by Singh, the team created lab-grown immune systems that mimic human tonsils and lymph node tissue to study immune responses more accurately. Their research findings, published in the journal Nature Materials, mark a shift toward in vitro models that more closely represent human immunology. The team also included investigators from Emory University, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, and Vanderbilt University.

The team used synthetic hydrogels to recreate a microenvironment where B cells from human blood and tonsils can mature and produce antibodies. When immune cells from healthy donors or lymphoma patients are cultured in these gel-like environments, the organoids support longer cell function, allowing processes like antibody formation and adaptation to occur — similar to the human body. Utilizing the organoids for individual patients helps predict how that individual will respond to infection.

Using organoids embedded in a novel immune organ-on-chip technology, the team observed that immune cells from lymphoma survivors treated with certain immunotherapies do not organize themselves into specific “zones,” the way they normally would in a strong immune response. This lack of organization may help explain some immune challenges cancer survivors face, as evidenced by recent clinical findings.

Another critical and promising aspect of the research is its scalability: An individual researcher can make hundreds of organoids in a single sitting. The model’s capability to target different populations — both healthy and immunosuppressed patients — vastly increases its usability for vaccine and therapeutic testing.

“At the end of the day, this work most immediately affects cancer patients and survivors, who often struggle with weakened immune responses and may not respond well to standard treatments like vaccines,” Singh explained. “This breakthrough could lead to new ways of boosting immune defenses, ultimately helping vulnerable patients stay healthier and recover more fully.”

The work was initially funded by the Wellcome Leap HOPE program and recently received a $7.5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

No Matter the Task, This New Exoskeleton AI Controller Can Handle It

A leap forward in artificial intelligence control from Georgia Tech engineers could one day make robotic assistance for everyday activities as easy as putting on a pair of pants.

Researchers have developed a task-agnostic controller for robotic exoskeletons that’s capable of assisting users with all kinds of leg movements, including ones the AI has never seen before.

It’s the first controller able to support dozens of realistic human lower limb movements, including dynamic actions like lunging and jumping, as well as more typical unstructured movements like starting and stopping, twisting, and meandering.

Paired with a slimmed down exoskeleton integrated into a pair of athletic pants that was designed by X, “The Moonshot Factory,” the system requires no calibration or training. Users can put on the device, activate the controller, and go.

The study was led by researchers in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (ME) and the Georgia Tech Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines.

Their system takes a first big step toward devices that could help people navigate the real world, not just the controlled environment of a lab. That could mean helping airline baggage handlers move hundreds of suitcases or factory workers with heavy, labor-intensive tasks. It could also mean improving mobility for older adults or stroke patients who can’t get around as well as they used to.

“The idea is to provide real human augmentation across the high diversity of tasks that people do in their everyday lives, and that could be for clinical applications, industrial applications, recreation, or the military,” said Aaron Young, ME associate professor and the senior researcher on a study describing the controller published Nov. 13 in the journal Nature.

What made it possible for the controller to accurately boost hip and knee joint movements was a whole new approach to the data that feeds the machine learning algorithms.

Instead of predicting the task the user is trying to do — say, climbing stairs or lifting a heavy object — the researchers used sensors to instantaneously detect and estimate the human user’s internal joint efforts. That allowed the hip and knee exoskeleton device in the study to provide a 15% to 20% boost to those joints, making it easier for users to do those activities.

“What’s so cool about the system is, you put it on and now it’s part of you. It’s adapting to you. It’s moving with you. There’s no dependency on exactly what you’re doing for the exoskeleton,” said Dean Molinaro, a lead author of the Nature study and a former robotics Ph.D. student. “This was kind of a big swing to say, we’re willing to not only take a different crack at how we approach exoskeleton control, but also to bank on machine learning as that translator. All the pieces that had to align to realize this type of task-agnostic control felt like a bunch of tiny miracles.”

The controller described in Nature builds on previous work where the team created a unified exoskeleton controller that could support walking, standing, and climbing stairs or ramps without user intervention.

Their new controller expands far beyond those activities and was able to offer seamless assistance across the range of natural human movement, including the transient and sometimes halting motions common in daily life. It also generalized, meaning it worked for activities that weren’t part of the data used to train the algorithms.

The team collected data on 28 different tasks. They included climbing stairs and ramps, running, walking backwards, jumping up or across, squatting, lifting and placing a weight, turning and twisting, tug-of-war, and calisthenics.

Even with the added weight of the exoskeleton, users expended less energy, and their joints didn’t have to work as hard on most of the tasks the researchers tested. On the few activities with no measurable benefit from the exo, users still experienced significant compensation for the extra weight of wearing the device.

Most work on exoskeleton devices has

focused on a single joint. Devices for both the hip and knee typically are slow and show little metabolic benefit. Using biological data from the joints as the key driver overcomes those limitations.

“Coordinating two joints, and being able to augment both simultaneously, is something engineers have struggled with because of the codependency on the joints,” Young said. “That’s a beautiful part of our strategy that relies on internal human states: you can then coordinate the two joints naturally and rather effortlessly. That’s huge from an engineering standpoint.”

The exoskeleton involved in the group’s trials also is new. Instead of a bulky, robotic device worn on top of a user’s clothes, the device was integrated into a pair of athletic pants. It was designed by X, “The Moonshot Factory,” an initiative formerly known as Google X that aims to invent radical technologies to solve big problems. X helped fund the research and worked with Young’s team to create the “clothing-integrated” exoskeleton.

Work on the “exo-pants” idea continues at Skip, a company spun out of X and where the study’s other lead author, Keaton Scherpereel, is now an exoskeleton control engineer. The idea is to move this kind of robotic assistance — in terms of both function and ease of use — toward the real world. Slipping on a pair of pants that can support the whole range of daily movement would be far more practical than the reality today.

Next steps include finding ways to incorporate other physiological data that could further improve the controller and adapting the controller for different devices.

“We’ve proved this approach works really well, but it requires a lot of data,” said Scherpereel, also a former robotics Ph.D. student. “What happens when we have a different exoskeleton, change the design of the exoskeleton, or move sensors? We want to handle those changes in a way that allows us to take advantage of the data we’ve already collected.”

Along with Molinaro, Scherpereel, and Young, the research team included Ph.D. student Ethan Schonhaut, Georgios Evangelopoulos at Google, and Max Shepherd at Northeastern University.

“This is the floor of how good we can do and still the very early phases of these kinds of controllers,” Young said. “Now that we have these amazing deep learning algorithms and this fundamental idea of using the internal human state, the capabilities are pretty endless for where this technology can go.”

About the Research

This research was supported by X, The Moonshot Factory, Georgia Tech’s Partnership for an Advanced Computing Environment (PACE), and the U.S. National Science Foundation, grant Nos. 2233164 and 1830215. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of any funding agency.

CITATION: Molinaro, D.D., Scherpereel, K.L., Schonhaut, E.B. et al. Task-agnostic exoskeleton control via biological joint moment estimation. Nature (2024). https:// doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08157-7

Lula Baker was named inaugural school administrative officer (chief of staff).

Bryce Barbour joined as facilities assistant.

Jaeda Bennett joined as program and operations manager.

Craig Burns was promoted to administrative professional senior.

Shinae Cho was promoted to director of HR.

Megan Darling joined as lab and facilities coordinator.

Justin Dean received the Woodruff School Staff of the Year Award.

Scott Elliott received the Woodruff School Culture Champion Award.

Daniel Foster joined as financial administrator II.

Melody Foster received the Woodruff School Sustained Exceptional Performance Award.

Staff Notes

Mikey Fuller received the Woodruff School Hats Off Performance Award.

Holly Germain joined as administrative operations coordinator.

Diamond Giles was promoted to administrative professional senior.

Tayllor Hastings was promoted to IT support engineer.

Jaimie Hayes received the Woodruff School Chair’s Appreciation Award.

Shana Hefferon was promoted to program and operations manager. She received the Woodruff School Professional Support Excellence Award.

Angela Hicks received the Woodruff School Sustained Exceptional Performance Award.

Courtney Hughes joined as development assistant senior.

Hannah Jenkins joined as academic advisor II.

Georgina Guadalupe Jimenez joined as academic advisor II.

Eden Kahssai received the Woodruff School Solutions Award.

Andrew Keller received the Woodruff School Outstanding Student Support Award.

Ann Lamb was promoted to administrative manager I. She received the Woodruff School Solutions Award.

Veronica Leak was promoted to IT support engineer. She received the Woodruff School Staff Excellence Award.

Aniis Lester joined as academic assistant II.

Fonda Mason was promoted to administrative professional senior.

Nathan Mauldin received the Woodruff School Leader Jackets Award.

Johnieda Merritt was promoted to human resources consultant. She received the Woodruff School Staff of the Year Award.

Laura Mullins joined as grants administrator.

Cary Ogletree received the Woodruff School Sustained Exceptional Performance Award.

Joi Outlaw received the College of Engineering Staff Culture Advisory Council (COESCAC) Culture Champion Award.

Kierra Payne was promoted to program and operations manager.

Nick Preston joined as graphic designer.

Jose William Rios Figueroa joined as application developer II.

Ashley Ritchie was promoted to communications manager II. She received the Woodruff School Chair’s Appreciation Award.

Quinntin Saint Laurent joined as human resources coordinator.

Echo Sayr received the Woodruff School Outstanding Staff Leadership Award.

Angela Smith was promoted to faculty support coordinator.

Courtney Sykes was named inaugural alumni program manager.

Jacob Tompkins received the Woodruff School Outstanding Student Support Award.

DeMarlo West received the CoE Soaring Jacket Award.

Jessica Whitaker was promoted to financial manager I. She received the Woodruff School Staff Excellence Award.

GEORGE W. WOODRUFF

Alumni Notes

Michael Alesandro, ME 1983, was named vice chair of the Woodruff School Advisory Board.

Jazmine Brite, ME 2015, joined the Woodruff Young Alumni Council.

Cleve Fann, ME 2005, joined the Woodruff Young Alumni Council.

John Gattuso, ME 2015, was named co-chair of the Woodruff Young Alumni Council.

Siddharth “Sid” Gore, B.S. ME 2017, M.S. ME 2020, was named co-chair of the Woodruff Young Alumni Council.

Ashley Goulding, M.S. ME 2016, Ph.D. MSE 2016, joined the Woodruff Young Alumni Council.

Johney Green Jr., M.S. ME 1993, Ph.D. ME 2000, was chosen to serve as the new laboratory director for SRNL.

James Hazzard, ME 2021, joined the Woodruff Young Alumni Council.

Angela Holmes, ME 1996, was recognized as AI Entrepeneur of the Year by Women in AI.

Deborah Kilpatrick, B.S. ESM 1989, M.S. ME 1994, Ph.D. ME 1996, received the John B. Carter, Jr. Spirit of Georgia Tech Award as part of the 2025 Gold & White Honors and the 2024 Ferolyn Powell Award from MedtechWOMEN.

Patricia L. Lee, M.S. HP 1992, Ph.D. NE 1998, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be a Member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board after being nominated by President Biden.

DJ Lewis, NRE 2018, was named an Outstanding Atlanta Class of 2024 honoree.

Tim Lieuwen, M.S. ME 1997, Ph.D. ME 1999, was named Georgia Tech’s Executive Vice President for Research. He received the ASME 2025 Dedicated Service Award. He was selected for the AIAA Dryden Lectureship. He was elected to the status of International Fellow by the U.K.’s Royal Academy of Engineering.

Calvin Mackie, B.S. ME 1990, M.S. ME 1992, Ph.D. ME 1996, was part of “Faces of New Orleans” featured in the May 2025 issue of New Orleans Magazine.

G. Spencer Mickum, M.S. NRE 2013, Ph.D. NRE 2015, was awarded the Early Career Professional Award by the International Irradiation Association.

Blake Moret, ME 1985, shared insights from his time on campus and his career at Rockwell Automation–from sales trainee to CEO–during a chat with Dean and Southern Company Chair Raheem Beyah, as part of the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series.

Wale Odukomaiya, B.S. ME 2013, M.S. ME 2015, Ph.D. ME 2018, joined the Woodruff Young Alumni Council.

Eric Pinckney Sr., B.S. ME 1986, M.S. CP 1993, received the Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization’s Pioneer Award.

Barry Powell, M.S. ME 1991, was named board chair of the Woodruff School Advisory Board.

Matthew Priddy, Ph.D. ME 2016, received the Bagley College of Engineering Faculty Research Award.

Vicente Reynal, ME 1995, shared insights from his leadership experiences as a CEO, his time on campus, and his childhood in Puerto Rico during a chat with Dean and Southern Company Chair Raheem Beyah, as part of the Dean’s Distinguished Lecture Series.

Chip Starns, NRE 2002, was awarded the Randall S. Caswell Award by the Council on Ionizing Radiation Measurements and Standards (CIRMS).

Lawson Sumner, ME 2021, was named to the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 list, recognized in the transportation and mobility category.

Kenji Takeuchi, ME 1994, joined the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees.

Want to be recognized in future publications? Submit alumni updates to communications@me.gatech. edu.

Tim

Lieuwen Receives ASME Medal, the Society’s Highest Honor

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is recognizing Georgia Tech alumnus and faculty member Tim Lieuwen with its most distinguished award: the ASME Medal.

He is the first person from Georgia Tech to receive the medal in its 105-year history. The honor is reserved for “eminently distinguished engineering achievement” — in Lieuwen’s case, for leadership in promoting clean energy and sustainable propulsion systems. He’s also being recognized for his contributions to policy and workforce development.

“I’m deeply honored to receive this award — and even more grateful for the extraordinary community that made it possible,” said Lieuwen, Tech’s executive vice president for Research and Regents’ Professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

“For three decades at Georgia Tech, I’ve been privileged to work alongside brilliant colleagues, students, and staff who shaped my journey and driven our shared success. This recognition isn’t mine alone; it belongs to every member of our Yellow Jacket family who turns bold ideas into real-world results. It’s a celebration of what we’ve accomplished together — and a powerful reminder of the exciting path ahead.”

Woodruff School Graduates Honored with 2025 CoE Alumni Awards

Four graduates from the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering were among those honored at the College of Engineering’s 2025 Alumni Awards Induction Ceremony held on March 8. The College annually celebrates alumni who have contributed to the profession, advanced in their careers, and enhanced the lives of others both personally and professionally. Honorees are nominated by committees within each of the College’s eight schools and formally submitted for selection.

Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni Award

Emily Woods

ME 2010

COO and Cofounder, Sanivation

The Council of Outstanding Young Engineering Alumni Award recognizes alumni who have distinguished themselves through professional practice and service to the Institute, the engineering profession, or society at large. They are on the fast track and have made rapid advancement within their organizations. Already, they have been recognized for early achievements by others

within their profession, field, or organization.

Through her Georgia Tech experiences with GTRI, work abroad, and Engineers Without Borders, Woods found a passion for human waste management in underserved areas. She went on to earn a master’s from the University of California, Berkeley, in renewable energy focused on the reuse of human waste. She cofounded Sanivation, a social enterprise that provides sanitation solutions for cities in East Africa. Sanivation partners with local governments to improve the dignity, health, and environment of rapidly urbanizing secondary cities.

Woods holds two U.S. patents for fecal waste treatment and transformation to solid fuel. Her experience includes waste management projects in Kenya across the sanitation value chain, from containment to emptying, transport, treatment, and reuse. Her expertise is at the intersection of technology, business models, stakeholder relations, policy, and operations. She is a Forbes “30 under 30” honoree and was among the Georgia Tech Alumni Association’s first class of “40 Under 40” recipients. She is proud to have made Kenya her home for over 12 years.

Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award

Lindsey Thornhill

B.S. ME 1984, M.S ME 1986, Ph.D. ME 1996 Executive Vice President and Board Director, Integrated Solutions for Systems (IS4S)

The Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award recognizes alumni who have provided distinguished contributions to the Institute, profession, field, or society at large. Candidates are highly placed executives and are actively involved in engineering, management, industry, academia, or government.

Thornhill joined IS4S in 2015, where he has been engaged in new business development efforts and managing a team of scientists and engineers to develop and demonstrate novel prototype technology for the Department of Defense. Before joining IS4S, Lindsey managed the Advanced Concepts Division at Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC). At both, he has led teams to capture and successfully execute technology development programs that advanced technology across diverse applications, including air-delivered weapon systems, chemical and biological agent defeat, autonomous robotic systems, hybrid power systems, and algal biofuel systems.

Thornhill received the Sigma Xi Research Award for his M.S. thesis in the Woodruff School. He was also awarded SAIC’s Physics Publication of the Year for a paper based on his dissertation, which appeared in the Cambridge Journal of Plasma Physics. Lindsey served on the Woodruff School External Advisory Board as a member and chair. He has also served on the Board of Visitors at the University of Georgia.

GEORGE

Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame

James R. Borders

ME 1983

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Novare Group

Membership in the Engineering Alumni Hall of Fame is reserved for individuals holding an engineering degree or honorary degree from Georgia Tech. Those selected have made meritorious engineering or managerial contributions during their careers.

Borders began his career in the Gulf of Mexico as a systems engineer for Gearhart Industries after working offshore for Placid Oil Company all four of his summers at Georgia Tech. He then returned to Georgia, where he earned his JD/MBA from the University of Georgia, practiced law at King & Spalding, and was a turnaround manager at GrandWest.

Carl D. Ring

ME 1978

Retired Chairman and CEO, Ring Container Technologies, LLC

In 1992, he founded Novare Group. The company’s early developments were the adaptive reuse of several Atlanta buildings, including Peachtree Lofts and the historic Biltmore Hotel. In 2002, Novare Group delivered its first high-rise development, Metropolis, which has been credited with sparking the residential demand that helped transform Midtown Atlanta into today’s vibrant neighborhood. The company has developed over 20,000 multifamily units in 64 communities. Eighteen buildings have been SkyHouse® communities, a rapidbuild, efficient high-rise program Borders concepted and Novare executed 2011-16.

Borders has received lifetime achievement awards from the Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors, Georgia State’s Robinson College of Business, the Urban Land Institute, and the Atlanta Business Chronicle. He is a member of the Hill Society and a recipient of the Petit Distinguished Service Award. He is currently vice chairman of the Georgia Tech Foundation and lives in Atlanta with his wife, Sarah. They have two daughters, Savannah and Maggie.

After graduating and spending two years with DuPont, Ring joined his father’s company, Ring Can Corp., in Oakland, Tennessee. His challenge was to build the company’s first plastics plant to supplement its metal can product offering. This first plant used machinery designed and built in-house and soon sold out. As machinery advanced significantly, Ring went on to build 20 highly automated clean-room factories across the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain to supply many of the world’s leading food producers. The company was renamed Ring Container Technologies, LLC (RCT) in 2000 and remains one of the nation’s largest and most respected manufacturers of plastic food containers.

Over 37 years, Ring served as engineer, president, CEO, and chairman. In 2017, RCT was acquired by MSD Partners. MSD continues to grow RCT and has maintained its culture where people are valued, respected, and encouraged to have fun.

Ring and his wife, Trish, have four grown children and reside in Memphis, Atlanta, and their ranch in Cashiers, North Carolina, where he is still designing and building machinery.

6 Members of Woodruff School Community Named to 2024 Class of 40 Under 40

Abdalla Abou-Jaoude, Ph.D. NRE 2017

Deputy National Technical Director of the Systems Analysis & Integration Campaign Idaho National Laboratory

Abdalla Abou-Jaoude is an authority on advanced reactor technology, holding pivotal responsibilities at Idaho National Lab (INL). As the deputy national technical director of a Department of Energy (DOE) campaign and the MARVEL experiment interface, he spearheads critical initiatives shaping the future of nuclear energy. Previously, AbouJaoude was the advanced reactor research integrator with a broad research portfolio across seven DOE programs on topics stemming from molten salt technology to nuclear techno-economics and multiphysics simulation. He most notably led a first-of-itskind fueled salt irradiation experiment. He received his doctoral degree from Georgia Tech and previously was the INL Deslonde de Boisblanc Distinguished Postdoctoral Associate.

Favorite Tech Memory: The first time I kissed my now-wife at a Georgia Tech student society–organized party on February 13, 2016!

Kinsey Herrin, M.S. PO 2010

Senior Research Scientist

George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

Kinsey Herrin is a senior research scientist in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the director of the Human Interface Design Development and Engineering lab. Her research focuses on advancing state-of-the-art assistive and rehab technology and studying the associated outcomes in individuals with mobility impairments. She is passionate about advancing technology and clinical care to improve mobility and quality of life for individuals with disabilities. She completed her residency training in orthotics at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and prosthetics at the University of Michigan and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists.

Favorite Tech Memory: The slide at the Georgia Tech pool was one of my favorite things to do with friends after triathlon training at the gym!

About the 2024 Class of 40 Under 40

Kelly Kloster Hon, B.S. ME 2011, M.S. ME 2012

Sr. Manager, Product Development Engineering

Becton, Dickinson and Company

Kelly Kloster Hon is a STEMinist working toward a future with gender parity and equality in engineering. She dedicates her time to helping students develop a passion for STEM while also equipping women to be successful in the industry. Kloster Hon serves as a senator for the Society of Women Engineers and is a board member of Athena. Since earning her bachelor’s and master’s in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech, Kloster Hon has driven critical business outcomes across consumer and medical products. She is a senior R&D manager at Becton, Dickinson and Company, a global medical technology company, where she previously led their Women’s Initiative Network.

Favorite Tech Memory: Studying abroad in Germany (both times). Exciting adventures, cultural insights, lifelong friends, improved language skills, and expanded global perspective.

The Georgia Tech Alumni Association has announced the 2024 class of 40 Under 40. The newest honorees of this annual program push the boundaries of innovation and encompass a world of ideas through a universe of impact.

GEORGE

DJ Lewis, NRE 2018

Director, Strategic Partnerships

Insight Global

DJ Lewis is committed to identifying and creatively solving core problems. His passions include emerging technologies, creating and fostering relationships, and enabling those around him. Professionally, Lewis is director of strategic partnerships for Insight Global’s professional services division, Evergreen. In this role, he is building a mutually beneficial partnership ecosystem and providing goto-market thought leadership. Lewis prides himself on his actionable commitment to his family and community at large, with Black youth being a central focus. In his free time, he can be found at the gym working out, traveling the world enjoying the local culture, or having a wine night with his girlfriend.

Favorite Tech Memory: Creating and executing fun events and programming for Alpha Phi Alpha, NROTC, and the GT Student Ambassadors. You can’t beat fun and impactful times with lifelong friends.

G. Spencer Mickum, M.S. NRE 2013, Ph.D. NRE 2015

Principal Scientist

STERIS AST

Spencer Mickum, a nuclear and radiological engineer at STERIS AST, performs research that integrates computational radiation transport with radiation measurements. He received his doctorate in nuclear engineering from Georgia Tech in 2015 and is now an experienced principal scientist with a demonstrated history of over 10 years working with radiation simulation. He is skilled in Monte Carlo radiation simulation, AutoCAD Inventor, Python (programming language), ANSYS, and radiation detection. He has worked on the ASTM International E61 committee on radiation processing since 2016 and has taken on leadership roles in various other professional organizations and standards committees.

Favorite Tech Memory: Exploring the historical Neely Nuclear Research Center in person before the building was demolished and returned to green fields.

David Montes de Oca Zapiain, B.S. ME 2014, M.S. ME 2015, Ph.D. ME 2019 Senior Member of Technical Staff Sandia National Laboratories

David Montes de Oca Zapiain is originally from Mexico City, Mexico. He obtained his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate degrees from the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is currently a senior member of Technical Staff in the Department of Material and Data Science at Sandia National Laboratories, where he focuses on researching novel approaches to integrate machine learning and artificial intelligence into the manufacturing and development of materials.

Favorite Tech Memory: Being in the stadium when the Georgia Tech Football team defeated the Florida State University team in 2015.

Nominees, who must have completed at least one semester at Georgia Tech and be under the age of 40 as of June 30, 2024, were scored using a 25-point rubric by a committee of 24 faculty, staff, and volunteers who collectively represented all Georgia Tech colleges.

FROM THE WOODRUFF SCHOOL TO WALL STREET: A Journey of Passion and Purpose for Alumnus Russell Ford

Russell Ford, ME 1984, is the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of StandardAero, one of the world’s largest providers of aircraft engine maintenance, repair and overhaul. He joined StandardAero in 2013. Eleven years later, under his leadership, the company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and was the second-largest initial public offering (IPO) of 2024 and the largest aerospace IPO in the last 20 years.

From curious student to CEO, Ford is a testament to the power of passion, education, and a strategic career, and another example of a Yellow Jacket settling for nothing less than their ultimate goal.

An Early Passion for Engineering and Exploring Aerospace

From a young age, Ford was fascinated by STEM subjects and was someone always eager to understand how things worked.

“I always found science and math to be the most interesting subjects for me, as I wanted to know why things operated as they did,” he said. His love for mechanical objects like cars and aircraft further fueled his interest.

Choosing Georgia Tech and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering was a strategic decision. Known for its top-tier engineering programs, Georgia Tech provided Ford with both theoretical knowledge and practical experience through the cooperative education program. Ford joined the co-op program, working with Delta Airlines. Not only did this offer financial assistance, but he credits this with providing him invaluable industry experience.

“I was fortunate to have access to a premier engineering institution like Georgia Tech, which allowed me to develop the knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge in a meaningful way through the co-op program,” said Ford.

Ford fondly remembers the Ramblin’ Wreck Parade and the innovative machines designed each year. “There was a seemingly endless array of very cool ideas for the parade and never enough time to make all the possible contraptions we could envision,” said Ford.

During his undergraduate studies, Ford developed a keen interest in materials science, particularly composite materials. Ford realized these materials were becoming increasingly important in the aerospace industry due to their advantages, such as reduced weight and increased durability. This interest and his co-op experience led him towards a specialized career in aerospace.

Ford’s experience with Delta Airlines made him a competitive industry candidate. After graduation, he joined Bell Helicopter as a design engineer, working on the V-22 Osprey, one of the first aircraft to use composite materials in flight-critical components. His innovative designs earned several patents, but he desired to take his career even further.

From ME to MBA

Ford had long aspired to lead a division of a publicly traded company focused on technical products. He understood that a solid technical foundation was crucial, but he also recognized the importance of business skills. “Once I was working in industry, I saw that very few leaders could effectively work across the technical design elements of programs and the financial return requirements,” he explained.

This realization led him to pursue a master of business administration (MBA) at Duke University, complementing his technical expertise with business acumen.

After completing his MBA, he moved into senior management roles at AlliedSignal and Lockheed Martin, contributing significantly to the Joint Strike Fighter program. His work in these roles showcased his ability to blend technical knowledge with business strategy.

Following the Joint Strike Fighter win with Lockheed, Ford moved into the world of private equity (PE), where he continued to apply a broad array of his educational and work experiences, first as a chief operating officer (COO) and ultimately leading to a CEO role in the automotive sector. Ford had great success growing businesses in the rapidly paced world of PE, and he was soon offered the opportunity in 2013 to return to the

aerospace industry and lead StandardAero, taking it from a $1 billion private company to the now over $10 billion publicly traded company on the NYSE. “It’s been a terrific journey indeed,” said Ford.

Moving into the public world opens a new set of growth opportunities, requirements, and expectations for StandardAero. “In the private sector, it is all about speed of execution and growth,” said Ford. “Cash is always the primary constraint, so you must understand and manage the balance sheet. In the public world, strategy becomes essential as you must consider the longterm ramifications of your market position. For StandardAero, our size and complexity required us to operate like a public company for several years before we moved into that arena. Now, the sky is the only limit for us!”

Looking Back

When reflecting on such an accomplished career, it might be easy to ask, “What if?” but Ford has no regrets. “There is nothing I would change, looking in the rear-view mirror. That is not to say that every move was precisely correct and without difficulty. There is continual learning along the way in any career. Not all experiences are good, but even under challenging experiences, you learn lessons that you may not be able to learn any other way.”

Along with a passion for international travel with his wife and sons, golf, and collecting cars, Ford is also helping future Yellow Jackets by serving on the Woodruff School Advisory Board.

Ford encourages current students to seek out mentors and carefully listen to their guidance. “Few people are successful all by themselves,” he said. His advice is straightforward for those working towards a specific goal: “Never seek money or title. Rather, seek responsibility; if you do well, the money and title will find you.”

About StandardAero

StandardAero was established in 1911 and has become one of the aerospace industry’s most extensive independent maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) providers. The company offers extensive engine, airframe, component, and accessories MRO services to thousands of business aviation, commercial aviation, military, helicopter, and industrial power customers in over 80 countries. Its annual revenues will approach $5 billion (USD) in 2023.

StandardAero is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, and employs approximately 7,800 full-time people in 50 facilities worldwide. StandardAero primarily competes across three end markets within the engine aftermarket industry: commercial, military, and business aviation.

A SHARED JOURNEY DECADES APART: How Georgia Tech Shaped This Mother and Daughter

For Stella Sudderth, ME 1980, and her daughter Margaret Sudderth, B.S. NRE 2013, M.S. NRE 2015, Georgia Tech was not only a place to earn a degree but a shared experience that left a lasting impact on who they became, both personally and professionally.

After playing the trombone and studying music theory for most of her early life, Stella realized she needed a change. “I went to Georgia Tech as a transfer student in my second year of college; I was a music major prior to that, but I just felt like it was a better fit for me to be in a technical field,” she explained.

“Both my brothers had graduated from Georgia Tech, and the guy I was dating was also enrolled, so I’m sure that had something to do with it,” she joked. The guy, Bob Sudderth, ME 1980, would later become her husband – and Margaret’ s father.

Stella was fortunate to secure campus housing, which was awarded by lottery

back then. She became a resident advisor and found a sense of community with the other women on campus. At the time, the ratio of men to women at the Institute was 12-to-1, and she was one of just six women to graduate with a mechanical engineering degree in her class.

Though she had a musical background, Stella was adamant that she wouldn’t play in the Yellow Jacket Marching Band. Instead, she threw herself into her studies and responsibilities in the residence hall.

Thirty years later, Margaret followed in her mother’s footsteps. Like Stella, she was drawn to Georgia Tech’s academic reputation and inspired by her parents’ experiences.

Margaret began her journey as a physics major but soon switched to nuclear and radiological engineering (NRE). Ironically, the change was motivated by her desire to avoid graduate school, though she would go on to earn her master’s degree at Tech.

When Margaret joined the Woodruff School, the NRE program had one of its highest enrollments, but women remained significantly underrepresented. Similar to her mom, she was one of just five women to graduate with a nuclear engineering degree in her class.

While on campus, Margaret served as the president of the Georgia Tech student chapter of the American Nuclear Society and was active in student groups like the Christian Campus Fellowship. And when challenges arose, she leaned on a trusted source of wisdom and experience – her mom.

Though their journeys followed similar trajectories, a big difference in their time at Georgia Tech was the band. While Stella stepped away from music to focus on engineering, Margaret found her place in the Yellow Jacket Marching Band, playing the very same trombone her mother once had. She joined after meeting director Chris Moore during orientation and remained involved throughout her time on campus.

Reflecting on their time at Tech, both women agree the Institute was more than an academic stop – it was where they defined their paths and built the confidence to tackle complex challenges.

Margaret saw nuclear engineering as the perfect intersection of her early interest in physics and her family’s engineering legacy. For Stella, mechanical engineering provided the rigorous environment she craved and opened the door to a fulfilling career in manufacturing.

“It was such a defining time of my life and truly shaped the person I became,” said Margaret.

“During my whole career, I never felt like there was a problem that I couldn’t solve. Georgia Tech taught me how to think on my feet,” said Stella.

Paths may change, but the shared grit, laughter, and wisdom passed between generations, painted in Georgia Tech gold, is forever.

A LEGACY FORGED IN GOLD:

The Blevins' Georgia Tech Journey

For the Blevins family, Georgia Tech isn’t just a school; it’s a shared legacy and a bond built on academic curiosity, perseverance, and faith. The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering shares the story of four mechanical engineers, three sons, two generations, and one proud father whose journey began with a dream and continues through his children.

For Steve Blevins, ME 1985, choosing Georgia Tech wasn’t just about picking a college–it was one of the most influential decisions of his life. What led him to become a Yellow Jacket was a dream to take his career beyond the stars. “I have always been very good at math, and I loved science,” Steve recalled. “I had dreamed of becoming an astronaut, and I knew the only route for me to make that possible was through Georgia Tech.”

His time at the Institute was filled with unforgettable moments, from lifting weights alongside powerlifting champion Dave Pasanella to conquering the infamous Drownproofing class. The now-retired course was introduced during World War II to prepare students for military service, following high numbers of water-related combat deaths. Simply, it trained students to float for as long as they could, and for most, this was well over 24 hours. Today, it’s hard to imagine a required course with a midterm that involves floating for an hour with hands and feet bound. Grueling? Absolutely. But for Steve, it was a badge of honor.

Yet, it wasn’t just academics or athletics that shaped him. His involvement with the campus ministry Cru laid the foundation for a lifelong faith. “Christ is vital to my life, and we need him, even beyond test-taking,” he said. That spiritual grounding became a cornerstone he would later pass on to his sons.

His time at Georgia Tech left an indelible mark and instilled a can-do attitude he carries with him to this day. “Never give up and stay the course were hammered into me from my time there,” said Steve. “These have played out in great ways since graduation.”

Though his career didn’t take him into orbit, that didn’t keep him from reaching greater heights. Steve took his first-rate education and the life lessons he learned as a Yellow Jacket to grow his career as a successful engineer in several sectors. He now operates an extensive e-commerce system and is helping manage the publishing division of a large-scale non-profit.

That spirit of faith, grit, determination, and Yellow Jacket pride has taken root in his three sons: Tyler, B.S. ME 2017, M.S. ME 2019; Jacob, B.S. ME 2020, M.S. ME 2021; and current undergraduate student Isaac. Each has carved their own path through the Woodruff School in honor of their father.

For eldest son Tyler, a specific dream guided his decision to attend the Institute. “Ever since I decided I wanted to design roller coasters, I knew I wanted to go to Georgia Tech. Not only because it’s a great engineering school, but also because my dad went there,” he said.

Tyler is currently designing pediatric care items, including playpens and bassinets. Since graduating, he has had only one regret: “I wish I had the opportunity to take Drownproofing!”

Jacob, associate academic professional in the Woodruff School, admits that his father’ s path initially guided his own. But mechanical engineering wasn’t a given. “I eventually grew into it,” he said.

He may have gambled on mechanical engineering, but the decision to attend

Georgia Tech was never in question. “I’ve been cheering for them since I was born. It was always my top college choice,” Jacob said. His path led him to a career in academia, but his time at Tech echoed his father’s in many ways. “Making fitness and campus ministries a core part of my college experience was heavily motivated by my father’s involvement in the Barbell Club and Cru,” he said. “Weightlifting kept me sane during ME 2110!”

Isaac, the youngest, is entering his second year at the Woodruff School. He was drawn to mechanical engineering and design because of his childhood love of Legos, and was raised with the understanding that the only thing less acceptable than skipping college was attending UGA.

Like his father, Isaac has made faith a central part of his college life. He found his spiritual community at Georgia Tech through the Baptist Collegiate Ministry. “Since Cru became such a central part of his experience, I knew I wanted to join a campus ministry,” he explained. After witnessing the impact the Institute had on his father and brothers, he’s eager to see where the journey will lead him.

The shared Georgia Tech experience has created a unique camaraderie among the Blevins men. “It means we can yell ‘to hell with Georgia’ together at the TV during Thanksgiving,” Jacob joked.

Tyler is grateful to share the experience with his family. “I have a lot of pride knowing that most of my family has walked the same hallowed campus and shared many parallel experiences,” he said.

Isaac agrees: “It’s pretty special knowing the Blevins name has a place in the Woodruff School,” he said.

Though the campus has changed over the years, the values they learned as Yellow Jackets remain. As each Blevins moves forward, he carries the strength of their shared legacy.

Looking ahead, the family hopes future generations will continue the tradition. Steve’s advice is timeless: “Pray and ask for help from Christ, then start working hard.” Jacob offers a practical tip: “Go to office hours. I always tell this to Isaac, but I don’t know if he listens.” Isaac has already learned the importance of balance: “Keep everything in a healthy medium outside of academics, like spending time with friends and being involved in extracurriculars and clubs.”

While their advice may vary, they all agree on one thing: Once a Yellow Jacket, always a Yellow Jacket–and never UGA.

Love and Legacy on Techwood Drive

Georgia Tech isn’t just known for its top-ranked programs and groundbreaking research—it’s also the backdrop for some truly heartwarming love stories. The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering is sharing a special one: the story of two alumni whose paths, through a series of chance events, led them to not only start their college and career journeys together—but to spend the rest of their lives side by side. This Tech love story proves the Institute is a place where both minds and hearts thrive.

In the fall of 1986, Matthew Rose, ME 1992, arrived at Georgia Tech on a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship, with dreams of a long and distinguished career in the Navy. While his scholarship covered his academic expenses, like any other student, he still needed to find a way to cover living costs and enjoy himself outside of class.

It was during his freshman year that Rose discovered Georgia Tech’s cooperative education program—a win-win opportunity that offered both professional experience and a paycheck. The NROTC unit gave him the green light to enroll, marking the first of many life-altering decisions for Rose. The co-op

program extended his time at Georgia Tech by a year and had he not joined the program, he would have graduated in the spring of 1990, before Mary Bennet Dunwody, MGT 1994, began her college journey the following fall.

As a freshman, Rose wasn’t interested in joining a fraternity—his focus was on his studies, the NROTC, and eventually the co-op program. Despite not getting to experience Greek life, he never felt like he was missing out. “I had an amazing first three years,” said Rose, reflecting on his time at Tech.

But in the fall of his fourth year, a friend invited Rose to a rush party, hoping he’d enjoy the band that was scheduled to play. As the music of “Cool Change” by the Little River Band filled the air, something inside Rose clicked, and he felt it was time for a change. He decided to give the Kappa Alpha house a try, and by the fall of 1989, he had officially joined the fraternity— setting the stage for a meeting that would forever alter the course of his life.

Dunwody, born and raised in Macon, Georgia, is a third-generation Yellow Jacket with strong connections to both Georgia Tech and Kappa Alpha. Her family’s legacy at Tech runs strong—every male in her family who attended Georgia Tech was a member of Kappa Alpha, and her grandfather, W. Elliott Dunwody IV, was the Knight Commander in the late 1940s and the architect of the Kappa Alpha house.

Though Rose had heard of her before, nothing could have prepared him for the moment he first saw Dunwody at another rush party.

“She was across the room. I was standing in the same spot where I had made that ‘cool change’ a year earlier, and I thought she was the cutest thing I had ever seen,” Rose recalled.

Although Rose was dating someone else at the time, a friendship blossomed that first night. Over the next year, they saw a lot of each other, often bonding over the house dog, Teddy. Whether they were taking him for walks or driving around Atlanta with the wind blowing through Teddy’s fur and “Ramble On” blaring from the stereo, their connection deepened. During Memorial Day weekend in 1991,

Rose visited Dunwody in Macon, and the rest, as they say, was history.

After graduating, Rose was commissioned into the Navy, but his military career took an unexpected turn when he was medically discharged later that year. He then moved to Macon in September 1993 and began working as an apprentice machinist in a small machine shop.

“When my dream of the Navy ended, even though I had the work experience and the degree, I still didn’t have the confidence in myself that I knew enough to move forward,” Rose said. “That’s why I became a machinist. My lack of confidence in my abilities kept my focus on gaining practical experience.”

While Rose worked as a machinist, his relationship with Dunwody continued to flourish, and just before her graduation in the spring of 1994, he proposed. Now, three decades later, the couple has two children and owns the machine shop where Rose once apprenticed—cheekily referred to as their “middle child.” They later renamed the business Techwood Precision, in honor of Techwood Drive, where their paths first crossed. Rose often jokes that one of the shop’s mantras is, “Machinists…because even engineers need heroes!”

Looking back, it’s clear that fate played a role in bringing them together. From changes in career goals to chance encounters, their love story is full of twists, with one of the most surprising connections dating back 35 years before they met.

In 1955, two students met at a rush party at the Kappa Alpha house, just a few feet from where Rose would later meet his future wife. Gene, a fourth-year student, was dating someone at the time but ended the relationship after meeting Susan, a freshman from Agnes Scott College. The two would eventually marry and have a daughter—Mary Bennet Dunwody.

This Engineer is Flying High

In the air and among the stars, College of Engineering alumni are working every day at the world’s leading aerospace organizations to innovate, fly safer, and travel farther. Philip June told the College about his work and what he sees just over the horizon.

Philip June, ME 2006

Vice President and Program Integration Officer for Space Mission Systems

Boeing Defense, Space and Security

I serve large satellite program management leaders and their teams. In general terms, I work to help our programs run more efficiently from proposal through launch. Our portfolio has many programs with billions of dollars of business from the commercial to government sectors. I help manage risks, issues, and opportunities and identify new ways of working through the use of generative AI, data analytics, and other tools. My goal every day is to help one leader or one teammate be better at their work by removing a roadblock or offering my perspective.

Why is that work interesting to you?

Space has long been a passion of mine. I’m sure that I wasn’t the only young, budding engineer who watched Space Shuttle launches and looked up at the sky with awe and wonder. I still feel

that child-like wonder and curiosity when I learn something new from all the brilliant people I have a privilege to work with every day. That keeps me excited about what I do. It’s a real blessing and a privilege to grow up and do what you have passion for and have had lifelong interest in. I’d also add that being a leader working in space is the cherry on top. Leadership has also been a passion of mine since becoming a first-line leader over 15 years ago. I couldn’t ask for a more fulfilling career.

What are you most excited about right now in space?

I am most excited about all the investment and innovation driving space forward. After many years of development and partnerships and new business models, we are starting to see innovation not only in products but also in business models and the commercialization of space. It’s an exciting and challenging time to be in the business. Ultimately, I believe that what we are experiencing now will push humanity forward in a meaningful way. If you love all things space and aeronautics, there’s no better time to be alive.

Engineer to Entrepreneur: Caitlin Leksana’s Path to CEO

Most career paths don’t always travel in a straight line. Caitlin Leksana, ME 2016, knows that first-hand and has made it her goal to show students and alumni in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering that anything is possible.

Leksana went from focusing on mechanical engineering subjects like control systems, robotics, nanoengineering, and electrochemistry at Georgia Tech, to earning her MBA at Harvard Business School, to starting her own business.

Leksana is the CEO and co-founder of Fazeshift, an early-stage venture capitalbacked tech startup based in San Francisco that helps enterprises use AI to automate complex financial processes.

In January, Fazeshift raised $4 million in seed funding from Gradient, Google’s early-stage AI fund, which will help the company grow the team, continue to build the most advanced AI agent, and bring this technology to more people around the world.

For Leksana, being CEO includes wearing many hats, taking on roles in sales, hiring,

marketing, product development, and more. However, she spends most of her time focusing on helping her team have the resources they need to build the best product possible for their users.

“It’s always amazing to demo the product –every week we have people in awe at what our AI agent can do and what’s now possible with AI,” Leksana says. “It’s so energizing to be able to bring that to customers and help them solve a problem they’ve never been able to solve before.”

“Mechanical engineers are always looking to build cool things and solve problems, which makes them great entrepreneurs, so I loved being surrounded by that while at Tech.” Leksana says.

Starting a company was something Leksana says she dreamed of since she was at Georgia Tech and has been her biggest achievement so far. The experiences and knowledge Leksana gained as a mechanical engineering student taught her how to solve hard, complex, unbounded problems, which is something she runs into constantly in entrepreneurship.

“Mechanical engineers are good at not getting discouraged,” Leksana says. “They can think through ambiguity and complexity and figure out how to focus on what’s most important, which is what entrepreneurs do constantly.”

One thing that Leksana remembers about her time at the Institute was how entrepreneurial mechanical engineers are by nature.

As a Yellow Jacket, Leksana was also involved in the Consulting Club and performed with the Georgia Tech Color Guard. Today she remains involved with the Woodruff School as a member of the Woodruff Young Alumni Council (YAC), where she helps to increase engagement among mechanical and nuclear engineering students and recent graduates.

Last summer, Leksana was accepted into the Y Combinator (YC) program, a three-month program that helps startup companies take off. Participants learn how to improve their product and have more options for raising money. After they complete the three-month period, YC invests $500,000 for 7% of every company.

The most valuable lesson Leksana learned from YC is to not overthink, just talk to users. “The best startups aren’t the ones with the best ideas, but the ones that can execute on talking to customers and building a product people want to use,” she says.

The community of mentors and entrepreneurs at YC inspired Leksana to complete the program.

“YC has this amazing ability to bring together highly technical and ambitious founders, and the type of innovation that fosters is magical,” Leksana says. “It truly was incredible, and I’d encourage anyone who has a startup or wants to start one to apply to YC.”

YC may have helped shape Leksana to be the successful CEO and entrepreneur she is today, but she credits her experience as a Woodruff School student for providing her with a base for learning new things as well as chasing her dreams. That’s something she hopes students and alumni can learn from her experiences.

Tech Alum Launches Meniscus Implant Startup

OrthoPreserve, a startup founded by Georgia Tech alumnus Jonathan Schwartz, is striving to make debilitating meniscus injuries a thing of the past and to address the long-term complications associated with meniscus tears, a common issue among athletes and aging adults.

The meniscus is a C-shaped structure that acts as a shock absorber and stabilizer in the knee, distributing impact and protecting bone cartilage from deteriorating. Meniscus injuries are frequent in sports — aggressive movements from running or rapidly adjusting leg positions can cause the meniscus to overextend and tear. The risk of injury also increases with age. Over time, degeneration in the knee can wear down the meniscus, making it weaker and easier to tear, even during normal daily activities.

“Right now, the main treatment for meniscus injuries is surgery to cut out the damaged part of the meniscus to relieve pain and impairment, but pain often returns within a few years due to degradation,” Schwartz said. “Once the meniscus is cut, the only treatments are pain medication, injections, physical therapy, and even knee replacement.”

According to Schwartz, over half of meniscus surgery patients, regardless of age, get early-onset arthritis because a severed meniscus can no longer cushion the knee as effectively.

“Patients don’t like hearing that the only treatment available is to cut out their meniscus — which will accelerate arthritis development,” Schwartz said. “Our mission is to use our meniscus implant to help people return to activity quickly and avoid the long-term consequences of surgery.”

GT Off-Road Founding Member Makes Donation for 25th Anniversary

When alumnus Matt Spetzler reflects on his time at Georgia Tech, there’s one achievement he finds most impactful.

In 1999, Spetzler, ME 2002; Colin Brooks, ME 1999; Chris Edwards, ID 2003; and Paul Starr, ME 2001, brought together the first Georgia Tech Off-Road team.

“Helping start GT Off-Road is one my proudest accomplishments from my time at Georgia Tech and it also taught me more about how to succeed in life than any class,” Spetzler says.

GT Off-Road is a student-led team in the Student Competition Center (SCC) that competes in annual Baja SAE competitions, where they are tasked with designing and fabricating a high-performing single-seat off-terrain vehicle to sell to the enthusiast market. Teams compete in a set of static and dynamic events that span evaluations from vehicle designs to business models.

In honor of the SCC team celebrating its 25th anniversary, Spetzler has announced that he is supporting GT Off-Road with a gift of $25,000, and he is challenging other former team members to help give back to the team that helped them.

History

Getting an off-road competition club started was “more of an evolution than a revolution,” Spetzler recalls. During his first year, he heard about a transfer student from Penn State who was trying to start a team with a car he was building. So, Spetzler dragged his friend Edwards to one of the meetings to see what it was all about. As soon as Edwards learned he could build and race cars from scratch he was hooked.

“I wanted to design cars since I was seven years old, and I raced everything with wheels I could ever get my hands on growing up,” Edwards said. “Just a desire to create this thing from scratch and go racing to see if we did a good job or not. The competition aspect was a huge motivator!”

With nothing left but a hunger to build, Spetzler, Edwards, Starr, and Brooks found space in the old foundry in the mechanical engineering building and, after many rejections, found a faculty advisor in Professor Emeritus Kenneth Cunefare, who was also the advisor for GT Motorsports and Wreck Racing.

After a few trips to Home Depot and some questionable materials they started to build. It was a lot learning on the fly as they installed their first transmission –backwards – and then wondered why it had no power.

Eventually, they got their first car up and running and even made it to their first competition in Wisconsin, which Edwards remembers was a real effort.

“There were so many difficulties to overcome that year from finding the money, finding a location to build it, finding teammates that would actually spend the hours and hours it took to create it…this list is really long. So, just overcoming the obstacles the first year felt really good,” Edwards said.

Spetzler remembers the car looked good but it wasn’t very fast. “It was not designed for speed. It was not designed for much,” Spetzler said. “We kind of just got something working, so I think we ended up somewhere in 55th to 60th out of what must have been like 70 or 80 on the series, but that was the starting point for the endurance race.”

The endurance portion of the race, which is a four-hour open wheel race, was on a muddy motorcross track and Spetzler recalls it going much better.

“A lot of people were jumping and flipping or breaking, and at one point we got up to I think eighth or ninth place, which we were very happy about.”

The race was flagged for rain at one point, stopping the cars on the track, but the car behind Spetzler didn’t stop. It rammed them from behind shearing the wheel of the tie rod.

“I ran a mile to the trailer to get a portable torch to remove the sheared rod. We got it replaced, and Matt kept racing,” Edwards said.

With the mud and rush repairs, the team ended up placing 13th, which was the highest finish for a rookie team in that competition. By the following year, the team reached as high as third place among all competitions. Bringing the car back with a few personal and practical wins, the team was starting to expand and raised enough money from sponsors to get new equipment and upgrade their space.

GT Off-Road now has more than 40 undergraduate student members, most of whom are engineering students.

Present

In May of 2024, the GT Off-Road team finished seventh out of 107 teams at the Baja SAE Williamsport competition.

Francesca Turrinelli is the current GT Off-Road team lead. She is a mechanical engineering major and going into her fourth year with the team.

The hands-on engineering is what initially drew Turinelli to join GT Off-Road. As one of the smaller SCC teams at Georgia Tech, she says it is easy to get to know her teammates and everyone gets to be involved in all the hands-on building. She attributes much of her academic success to her experience in GT Off-Road.

“This club has probably been the biggest learning experience in my college career,” Turinelli said. “The very foundation of my educational experience as an engineer is from GT Off-Road and just the experience of being on a team doing project management stuff, working with all these other people, it’s just an amazing experience. I’ll remember it forever.”

The team is working on their next vehicle, the OR10, and hopes to have it ready for competition by 2025.

Securing Essential Resources to Compete

The biggest hurdle the early teams encountered while on the GT Off-Road team was getting the funding to build the cars and take them to competition.

“Designing and building a functioning car is a lot of work,” Edwards said. “We put almost all our free time into this pursuit. Having to worry about how to get sponsors to get materials, how to get funds for travel, to be at the competition, to have a place to sleep — these were all administrative necessities, but they weren’t the point of the competition. Having funding taken care of so you can pursue improvements in design and fabrication is not only a huge weight off, it also frees up significant time so you can focus on refining the car and working towards winning the race.”

When Spetzler reflects on his time at Georgia Tech, the hands-on engineering experience

was something he says was more informative for him than some of the classes. He wants to give back to something that was so influential for him, as well as honor former teammate David Cox, who passed away in 2020. Though Cox suffered from spinal muscular atrophy and was bound to a wheelchair, he was an integral part of the initial team’s success by engineering many parts of the car and driving the team’s van. Cox became GT Off-Road’s sixth president and Spetzler’s gift will help continue the legacy Cox helped build.

Turinelli is grateful for the GT Off-Road alumni who are supporting the team that was started 25 years ago. “It’s amazing. I mean, that’s what I imagine I’m going to be doing in 25 years because this club is so impactful.”

To make a gift or commitment to GT Off-Road, contact Senior Director of Development for the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Jaimie Hayes at jaimie.hayes@me.gatech.edu.

All gifts to GT Off-Road are included in Transforming Tomorrow: The Campaign for Georgia Tech, a more than $2 billion comprehensive campaign through 2027 designed to secure the resources that will advance the Institute and its impact — on people’s lives, on the way we work together to create innovative solutions, and on our world — for decades to come.

Investing in the Future: Fort and Beth Flowers on Supporting Graduate Education at Georgia Tech

D. Fort Flowers, Jr., ME 1983, and his wife, Beth, have spent decades giving back to the place where Fort’s engineering journey began — Georgia Tech. From their first Roll Call gift just a few years after graduation to establishing and expanding the Flowers Fellowship for graduate students, their philanthropy reflects a deep belief in the power of education to transform lives.

In this Q&A, Fort and Beth share how their commitment to graduate education grew, why now is a pivotal time to support it, and the legacy they hope to inspire.

Can you tell us about your very first gifts to Georgia Tech? What inspired you to give at that time?

We made our first gifts to Georgia Tech just a few years after graduation and those gifts were through roll call. My parents had always impressed upon us that our education was funded partly by them and partly by those who had come before us and that it was right for us to give back in appreciation for the value we received.

Did you always know you wanted to support graduate education, or did that interest evolve over time?

I had not thought about funding graduate education until I spent time on the ME visiting committee at MIT (where I earned my master’s degree). While on that committee I discovered how competitive it was to recruit the best graduate students, and how important great graduate students were to the strength of an engineering department. I also found out that of the three pillars of endowment support for a department (undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, and faculty chairs), the most difficult to raise was fellowships.

Since you both gave your initial gifts, you have decided to grow the Flowers Fellowship to a Presidential Fellowship. Was there a particular moment or outcome that helped you decide to deepen your support?

As we have funded the fellowship endowment over time, we have been incredibly impressed with the students who have received funding as well as the impact of the research they are doing. This has inspired us to continue to grow the fund. When we realized that there was not yet a Presidential Fellowship dedicated to mechanical engineering (ME), that was all we needed to push us to be first.

How has your perspective on giving evolved since you first became involved philanthropically with Georgia Tech?

We have always believed that the best ways that we can impact the world is by supporting education. Our involvement at Georgia Tech has strengthened that belief as we have watched the difference that Georgia Tech makes for its students, both undergraduate and graduate, as well as the direct impact that Georgia Tech makes on the world through the research that is conducted by our faculty and students.

What would you like others to understand about the importance of supporting graduate students?

Being able to recruit and retain the best graduate students is critical to recruiting and retaining the best professors, which is critical to providing not only the best graduate student experience, but also the best undergraduate education. It is a key component to the success of the Woodruff School, College of Engineering, and the Institute.

Why do you believe now is a critical time to support graduate education at Georgia Tech?

All of our programs have been rapidly climbing in terms of both impact and reputation; but over the last few decades, many of our graduate programs have had further to climb. Additional funding for graduate education helps keep this momentum going.

If you could share one message with to others who are considering investing in Georgia Tech through philanthropy, what would it be?

I cannot adequately describe the joy and satisfaction that you will receive when you see the impact that you have on students’ lives and society as a whole when you support Georgia Tech. It’s something you have to experience!

What kind of legacy do you hope your fellowship creates, for students, for the School, or for the field of engineering?

First, we hope that our giving inspires others to understand the importance of graduate students to the department and the Institute and will join us in supporting them. Second, we hope that the graduate students who receive funding will have a positive impact on the world. And, third, we hope that all the support that the ME department receives helps the world to understand what we already know, that ME at Georgia Tech is the strongest ME department in the world!

Graduate Students: The Backbone of Innovation

Behind every breakthrough at Georgia Tech is a graduate student pushing the boundaries—in the lab, in the field, or at the heart of a research team. These students are more than scholars. They are innovators, collaborators, and problem-solvers powering the research that keeps the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the Nuclear and Radiological Engineering Program among the top-ranked in the nation.

Yet, many of our most talented graduate students face financial barriers that can limit their focus and potential. Through support for graduate fellowships, research assistantships, and travel opportunities, you can unlock bold ideas and help Georgia Tech remain a global leader in engineering research.

450+ Ph.D students in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

No. 4

Graduate Engineering (College of Engineering)

No. 5

Mechanical Engineering Graduate Program

No. 9

Nuclear Engineering Graduate Program

From the Lab to Leadership: Where Our Ph.D. Students Go

Top Corporate Employers:

Your investment in graduate students is an investment in the future, of research, technology, and national resilience.

Jaimie Hayes

Senior Director of Development

Jaimie.hayes@me.gatech.edu

404.385.8345

95%

Job Placement Rate

$93,500

Median Salary for Ph.D. Graduates

Lockheed Martin · Boeing · GE Vernova · Amazon · Apple · General Motors · Tesla · Delta Airlines · GE Aerospace · Google

Top Academic Employers*:

Georgia Tech/GTRI · MIT · University of Michigan Stanford · Colorado School of Mines

*25% of our graduates pursue careers in academia and 25% join national laboratories which support defense, energy, and environmental research

Why Graduate Support Matters

Graduate students are solving real-world challenges with national significance. Whether helping to shape the future of AI-driven manufacturing or contributing to the modernization of the U.S. nuclear enterprise, their work fuels innovation, strengthens our infrastructure, and protects national security.

Did You Know?

Ph.D. holders drive U.S. innovation: Though they represent <2% of the workforce, they contribute to 60% of scientific publications and patents.

—National Science Board

The U.S. faces a shortage of Ph.D.-trained engineers in fields like AI, clean energy, and robotics. Without growth in graduatelevel education, we face a projected shortfall of 67,000 engineers in semiconductor fields by 2030.

— Semiconductor Industry Association & Oxford Economics

Federal agencies rely on engineering Ph.D.s for leadership in defense, nuclear energy, cybersecurity, and advanced manufacturing. Also, firms led by Ph.D. holders are more productive and innovative, especially in high-tech sectors.

— National Bureau of Economic Research

Empowering the Next Generation: Angela Sherman’s Gift to WoW

Angela Sherman, ME 1986, president and CEO of S&S HVAC Equipment, is not just leading—she’s lighting the way for the next generation of women in engineering. Through her generous gift to the Women of Woodruff (WoW), Sherman is making a transformative impact on the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering organization.

WoW’s mission is clear: to provide resources and programming that will allow the Institute to attract, support, and retain women students and faculty, and allies, in mechanical and nuclear engineering. And since its inception, WoW has already created momentum—awarding fellowships to 12 deserving students, hosting a groundbreaking leadership symposium, and bringing in inspiring guest speakers, often alumni, to foster meaningful connections and elevate the voices of those in the field of engineering.

For Sherman, this gift is more than just a donation—it’s a personal mission. As a founding member of WoW and a business owner in a male-dominated industry, Sherman has witnessed firsthand the power of community and mentorship. She understands that support isn’t just helpful; it’s essential.

“Looking back on my own journey, I know the importance of paying it forward,” she says. “The success of women in this field depends on the support we give one another. WoW makes that possible.”

Sherman’s career journey began with a dream at Georgia Tech—a dream to own a successful, family-run business.

“Looking back on my own journey, I know the importance of paying it forward. The success of women in this field depends on the support we give one another. WoW makes that possible.”

—Angela Sherman

Today, as president and CEO of a leading manufacturer representative based in Houston, Texas, she has achieved that dream. But for Sherman, true fulfillment now lies in supporting other women who aspire to follow in her footsteps.

“As the head of a woman-owned company in the construction arena, I’m determined to help other women overcome hurdles and show them that there is no limit to what they can achieve,” she says.

A key source of inspiration for Sherman’s gift is watching her daughter, Ashley, vice president of sales execution at Breakthru Beverage, grow and thrive in her career.

“I’ve seen her gain the self-confidence to step into a boardroom and hold her own. That’s what matters most to me—older women like me supporting younger women to develop that confidence,” Sherman reflects.

Through her generous gift to WoW, Sherman aims to offer unwavering support to women students and faculty, both personally and professionally. She believes this investment will not only nurture the growth of women in the field of engineering but also inspire future generations to reach their highest potential.

Sherman also hopes her gift will serve as a catalyst for WoW to build a lasting legacy–a thriving community where women come together, empower one another, and make a meaningful impact for years to come.

“Supporting women and inspiring them to chase their dreams, especially in technical fields, is what this is all about,” she says.

Transforming Tomorrow: The Campaign for Georgia Tech is a more than $2 billion comprehensive campaign designed to secure resources that will advance the Institute and its impact — on people's lives, on the way we work together to create innovative solutions, and on our world — for decades to come.

To make a gift or commitment to the Woodruff School in support of the Transforming Tomorrow Campaign, reach out to Senior Director of Development Jaimie Hayes at giving@me.gatech.edu or 404-385-8345.

Advisory Board Members

The role of the Woodruff School Advisory Board and the NREMP Advisory Board is to recommend strategic directions for the Woodruff School, suggest broad-based curriculum changes, and consult with the school chair and the faculty on important issues. Members are invited to join the advisory board so that its composition reflects the varied scope of mechanical engineering, nuclear and radiological engineering, and medical physics in industry, the related professions, and the academic community.

Woodruff School Advisory Board

Michael Alesandro CEO, iSoft Solutions

Rick Anderson

SVP & Senior Production Officer-East Georgia Power Company

Kenneth Escoe Executive Vice President Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Russell Ford Chairman & Chief Executive Officer StandardAero Aviation, Inc.

Linda Gilday

Deputy Program Director

Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program at United States Navy

Ryan Greene

Managing Operating Partner, Human Capital Francisco Partners Consulting

Anthony Hylick Senior Engineering Lead, Facebook

Philip June Vice President, Program Integration Space and Mission Systems, Boeing

Fredda Lerner

Senior Engineering Specialist in Enterprise Systems Engineering, Aerospace Corporation

Mark Ligler

Vice President, Factory Automation Systems

Josiah Lindsay Managing Director Fortress Investment Group

Calvin Mackie

Founder and Chief Executive, STEM NOLA

Guru Madhavan

Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and Senior Director of Programs National Academy of Engineering

Lisa Margonis Partner, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough

Shweta (Shay) Natarajan Partner-Strategy, Mobility Impact Partners

Peter Newby President, MS Technology, Inc.

Mihir Pathak

Chief Executive Officer & Founder Pathak Ventures

Barry Powell* Vice President, Low Voltage Distribution Business Unit, Siemens Industry

Angela Sherman President, S&S HVAC Equipment

Ward Sokolowski Medical Device Manufacturing and Engineering

Nzinga Tull

Senior Systems Engineer, Jackson and Tull

Laura Wand Independent Director The York Water Company

James Williamson Principal, Exponent

John Williams

Senior Vice President, Technical Services & External Affairs, Southern Nuclear

NREMP Advisory Board

Joe Aylor Director of Critical Projects, UCOR

Kimberly Burns Nuclear Engineer, SAIC

Pamela Cowan President, Outage & Maintenance Services Westinghouse Electric Company

Dolan Falconer Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board REVEAM

Michele Ferenci

Chief of Medical Physics, Department of Radiation Oncology, Penn State Health

Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Ben Forget Department Head and Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, MIT

Timothy Fox Chief Product Officer, Lumonus

Cynthia G. Jones Nuclear and Radiological Consulting

Mohammad K. Khan Professor & Vice Chair Education in Radiation Oncology Emory University School of Medicine

Andrew Mauer Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs Nuclear Energy Institute

Peter Newby President, MS Technology, Inc.

Joshua Parker* Director, Business Development BWX Technologies, Inc.

Kyle Turner Principal, McCallum-Turner, Inc.

John Williams

Senior Vice President, Technical Services & External Affairs, Southern Nuclear

*Board Chairs

Georgia Tech Homecoming Weekend

Join the Woodruff School for a Homecoming Tailgate on Tech Green, three hours before the Yellow Jackets square off with Syracuse on October 25 for Homecoming.

Open to all students, faculty, staff, alumni, and families.

FINAL SPOTLIGHTS

02 01 02 03 04 05 06

The innovation and ingenuity that only Yellow Jackets can produce was on full display at the Spring 2025 Capstone Design Expo. The proof was in the numbers, with a record 238 teams and over 1,300 students from 12 schools across four colleges participating in the expo. The Woodruff School was represented by 69 teams and saw success in several categories.

Physician Bob Hirsch and fourth-year mechanical engineering major Hudson Higgins walked into their History of the South Before 1864 class, only to discover Dr. Hirsch had delivered Hudson over 21 years ago. “It’s a wild connection to have. I guess not many people can say that they know the doctor that delivered them on a first name basis,” Higgins said.

In Fall 2024, the Woodruff School and the Women of Woodruff (WoW) hosted the inaugural WoW Leadership Symposium for undergraduate and graduate students at Georgia Tech. The event focused on career readiness, strategic networking, and effective leadership. The symposium was divided into three sessions for attendees who heard from alumni and industry leaders and participated in workshops. Students who completed all sessions earned the WoW Leadership Certification from the Woodruff School.

Students at Georgia Tech are lighting up a new lane on campus. One hundred students, part of the GT Solar Racing team, designed a first-of-its-kind four-door solar car. It’s turning heads and powering the future of transportation.

The Nuclear Company made a stop at Georgia Tech for their six-state Nuclear Frontier bus tour. The tour aimed to engage with government and industry leaders, as well as skilled tradespeople who will rebuild America’s nuclear leadership. The group met with NREMP faculty and students and took a tour of the Radiological Science and Engineering Laboratory.

Six faculty teams were selected for phase I funding as part of the Woodruff Innovation Nexus (WIN). The new initiative aims to spark bold, future-focused research. Teams will continue developing their projects over the next academic year, culminating in a competition for a major phase II investment.

Looking back: Members of the advisory board pose for a photo with students during a tour of the Student Competition Center in 2011.