Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, Vol. 99, No. 04, Winter 2023 by Georgia Tech Alumni Association

A I I S C OM I N G F O R T H E C O L L E G E E SS AY

YOUR FUTURE WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SCIENCE SQUARE

SIX TIMES TECH SHAPED THE FUTURE

WINTER 2023 VOL.99 NO.4

The Future Is...

“I think the type of quality education that Georgia Tech provides should be attainable and affordable.” — Tiffany G. Rosetti, MGT 2008, and Richard J. Rosetti

In her position as vice president and financial advisor for Wealth Enhancement Group, Tiffany G. Rosetti, MGT 2008, spends several hours a day discussing financial matters. “I spend a lot of time speaking with my clients about the concept of legacy and what that means to them,” she said. “When you have enough of those conversations, you begin to internalize it and consider it for yourself.” As Rosetti began considering her own legacy — and discussing estate plan issues with her husband, Richard — she settled on the concept of making higher education more affordable. “I value education and believe it can change students’ lives and their trajectory,” Rosetti said. As a result, she added Georgia Tech as a beneficiary on her 401K, with the funds directed to a need-based scholarship. “I want to support students who have financial need, and my first preference is for students who graduate from Morrow High School, my alma mater,” she said. “Georgia Tech is tough, so anything I can do to help students attend the Institute while alleviating their financial stress is important to me.” Although Rosetti earned her degree in management, she also credits her experiences playing in musical ensembles at Tech with preparing her for career success. “Performing together with other musicians is the ultimate teamwork,” she said. Doing so “gave me experience in listening to and working with people from different backgrounds, countries, and perspectives.”

Founders’ Council is the honorary society recognizing donors who have made estate or life-income gifts of $25,000 or more for the support of Georgia Tech. For more information, please contact: 404.385.6716 • giftplanning@dev.gatech.edu • plannedgiving.gatech.edu

Become a Double Jacket: Earn Your MBA at Scheller

Skye Blevins, Double Jacket B.S. Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering ’18, Evening MBA ’23 Senior Product Development Engineer, Newell Brands

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PUBLISHER’S LETTER

FORGING A BRIGHTER FUTURE

GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE VOL. 99 | NO. 4 PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER Dene Sheheane, Mgt 91

VP S TR ATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

Lindsay Vaughn

Write my column for the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. It should talk about Georgia Tech and the way the Institute impacts emerging technologies. Be sure to include Avant South and how excited I am about the stories in this issue. Thanks!

EDITOR Jennifer Herseim

ART DIREC TOR Steve Hedberg

COPYWRITER Matt Sowell

COPY EDITOR

ChatGPT

Barbara McIntosh Webb

Certainly.

S TUDENT ASSIS TANT S Riddhi Bhattacharya and Sadie Mothershed

EXECUTIVE COMMIT TEE

In the fast-paced world of emerging technologies, Georgia Tech stands as a beacon of innovation and excellence. As we eagerly dive into the stories featured in this issue, it’s impossible not to feel a sense of pride and excitement for our beloved alma mater. Last autumn, Georgia Tech played a pivotal role in the tech landscape by hosting Avant South, a gathering that showcased the Institute’s profound impact on the future. It was a testament to the dedication of our faculty, students, and alumni who tirelessly push the boundaries of what’s possible. Georgia Tech’s influence extends across various fields, from artificial intelligence and robotics to biotechnology and renewable energy. Our graduates are at the forefront of technological breakthroughs, shaping industries and changing lives worldwide. As I read through this issue, I can’t help but marvel at the incredible stories of Georgia Tech alumni who are driving change and making a difference. Whether it’s a groundbreaking startup, a life-saving medical innovation, or a sustainable solution to global challenges, our alumni are at the forefront of it all. In these pages, you’ll find inspiration and evidence that Georgia Tech’s commitment to fostering innovation continues to shape the future. So, let’s celebrate our Institute’s legacy and the exciting journey ahead as we explore the intersection of technology and human progress. Georgia Tech truly is where the future begins.

Did that sound like me? Was it factual? Whether we like it or not, artificial intelligence is here, and the implications could change our lives. I’m cautiously optimistic. I remember a time after graduation, when I took a position at the governor’s office. Over those years, “white-out” became backspace, floppy disks became flash drives, and printed memorandums became emails. I watched my job become more efficient. New technologies removed tasks that bogged down my workflow. 4 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

I hope AI will do the same and it can simplify our jobs to help us appreciate our lives away from our screens. We Yellow Jackets are curious innovators. As you’ll read in these pages, we’re working to make the future brighter, which makes me proud to be a Tech alumnus. Go Jackets!

Chair Betsy Bulat, IAML 04 Past Chair/Vice Chair of Finance Magd Riad, IE 01 Chair Elect, Vice Chair/Roll Call Tommy Herrington, IM 82 Vice Chair Rita Breen, Psy 90, MS IE 92 Member at Large Jason Byars, ME 96 Member at Large Amy Rich, MBA 12 Member at Large James “Jim” Sanders, IE 88 Member at Large Anu Parvatiyar, BME 08

BOARD OF TRUS TEES Jennifer Abrams, PP 17; Latanza Adjei, IE 98; Thomas Antonino, BA 15, MSA 22; Sybrina Atwaters, EE 94, MS HSTS 09, PhD HSTS 14; Donald Beamer, Econ 05; Michael Bogachek, IE 00; Alexia Borden, IE 01; Jasmine Burton, ID 14; Jacky Cheng, IE 17; Catherine Cooper, IE 90; Aurélien Cottet, MS AE 03; Cynthia Culbreath, IE 93, MS IE 95; Elizabeth Serafine Donnelly, IA 08; Matthew Dubnik, Mgt 03; Adam Fuller, Mgt 93; Robyn Gatens, ChE 85; John Gattuso, ME 15; Joy Jordan, ChE 92; Olivia Langevine, IAML 13; Meghan Green LaRue, Mgt 13; Antonio Llanos, CS 95; Matthew Mason, IE 01; Randolph McDow, IE 95, MS PP 03; Meredith Moot, Mgt 08; Kyle Porter, Mgt 04; Jacquelyn Renée Schneider, BC 06, MBA 18; Rene Simon, MBA 18; Chad Sims, BA 15; Greg Sitkiewicz, IE 00; Courtney Robinson Smith, Mgt 00; Mary Lynn Smith, EE 88; Miya Smith, IE 03; Russell Smith, Cls 98; John R. Spriggle, ME 02; Kenji Takeuchi, ME 94; Maurice Trebuchon, IE 86

GEORGIA TEC H ALUMNI MAGAZINE (ISSN: 1061-9747) is published quarterly by the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313. Periodical postage paid in Atlanta and additional mailing offices. © 2023 Georgia Tech Alumni Association

POS TMAS TER

D E N E S H E H E A N E , M G T 91 PRESIDENT GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313 editor@alumni.gatech.edu (404) 894-2391

VOLUME 99 ISSUE 4

COVER ILLUSTRATION

MATT CHINWORTH

We asked experts in the Georgia Tech community to answer our questions about what the next year—or 20 years—will bring.

FEATURES

FUTURE FORECAST

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HAVE IN STORE FOR ME?

YOUR FUTURE WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

SCIENCE SQUARE

Ask the Magic 8 Ball and find answers to your questions about the future.

Experts weigh in on where AI is heading.

The future is at Georgia Tech. Take a look at plans for Science Square, poised to become the premier hub for life sciences in the Southeast.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

VOLUME 99

DEPARTMENTS

ISSUE 4

VICTORY CHEERS The Yellow Jackets beat No. 17–ranked University of North Carolina 46-42 at this year’s Homecoming game. Georgia Tech rallied in the fourth quarter and scored the winning touchdown with just 4:28 left on the clock.

PHOTOGRAPH

DANNY KARNIK, EE 07, MS ECE 16

CONTENTS

AROUND CAMPUS

Talk of Tech 12 AI Is Coming for the College Essay 20 Y’all, Georgia’s Accent Is Changing 22

ON THE FIELD

The Best Transfer Portal Picks, According to the Numbers 26 Student Brings AI to Basketball Officiating 28 Sports Shorts 30

IN THE WORLD

Melody Lee on Brand Storytelling and Storied Brands 34 Jacket Copy 36

ALUMNI HOUSE

Coming Home 64 A Bond That Lasts a Lifetime 66 Staff Spotlight 68 Annual Report 70 Angels Among Us 74 Ramblin’ Roll 76 In Memoriam 84

TECH HISTORY

Six Times Tech Shaped the Future 92 Back Page 98

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

FEEDBACK

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR WERE THE ’60S THE BES T GENERA TION FOR TECH’S GEARHEADS? ONE ELEMENT OF “GEARHEAD CULTURE” at Tech missing from the Fall 2023 edition was the enthusiasm Tech students once had for cars and the astounding collection of now classic cars on and around campus in the 1960s. Students do not seem to drive or even care so much about such things today, but it was impressive back then. Between 1965 and 1969 when I was on campus, there was a Mercedes 300SL Gullwing coupe sometimes parked in the EE parking lot, Jaguar XKEs were not uncommon, and guys in my dorm owned a Jaguar XK-120 under restoration and even a Ferrari 250 GT. There were several Porsche 356 models, more than one Lotus, a few Alfa Romeos, lots of C1, C2, and the then-new C3 Corvettes, and many, many MGs, Triumphs, Austin-Healeys, and other sports cars. American muscle cars were common. Up North Avenue, not far from The Varsity, there was a warehouse in which someone stored a collection of Maseratis, Facel Vegas, and other even then exotic European cars from the 1950s and ’60s. These cars are collectors’ items now, some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and some such as the Gullwing and the Ferrari worth more than a million dollars if they still exist. Even then, I never saw so many such cars as on Tech campus every day on the way to class. —Jack Derrick, IM 69

READERSHIP SURVEY The Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine is the No. 1 preferred method of communication for alumni to stay connected with the Institute and one another. Help us continue to serve you by taking this 3-minute survey using the QR code. Let us know which stories and topics matter most to you.

8 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

MINI 500 CHAMPIONS THE PHOTO ON PAGE 95 of the Fall 2023 magazine was taken when I was a freshman for Homecoming in 1972. The Fiji’s won the Mini 500 and our collapsed driver was Jim Quina, CE 76. Jim also won the Freshman Cake Race, but he was so far ahead of the field he took a wrong turn and finished second..—Martin Bretherton, CE 77

Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation

The In Memoriam for Fall 2023, Vol. 99, No. 3, incorrectly listed alumnus Richard W. “Rick” Lantz, Jr. as deceased instead of Richard A. “Rick” Lantz, who was an assistant football coach at Georgia Tech during the 1980s. We apologize for the error. Please find Richard A. Lantz’s information in this issue’s In Memoriam. Thank you to alumnus Rick Lantz, Jr., for graciously informing us of the error. In 1972, Lantz, BM 73, was co-captain of the Yellow Jacket football team. Several years after he graduated, Rick Lantz was hired as assistant coach, which caused confusion over the years. “I am so fortunate to have been a small part of teams representing the institution and Tech tradition,” alumnus Lantz, Jr., says. “We were humbled and proud to wear the White and Gold. Every year, Coach Dodd would remind us, ‘You are better when you wear the White and Gold.’ At Tech, that applied on the field and in the classroom.”

(Required by 39 USC 3685) Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, Publication No. 014-073 Frequency: Quarterly. No. of issues published annually: Four. Annual subscription price: None. Publisher: Dene Sheheane Editor: Jennifer Herseim Owner: Georgia Tech Alumni Association, 190 North Ave. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30313 Known bondholders, mortgagees and other security No. of Average holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, copies of No. of mortgages or other securities: None Tax Status/The purpose, function single issue copies each and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for published issue during federal income tax purposes: Has not changed in the preceding 12 months. preceding 12 months

nearest to filing date

a. Total No. Copies

90,136

164,669

b. Paid Circulation (1) Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 354

90,136

164,669

(2) Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541

None

(3) Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales & Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS

None

(4) Paid Distribution by Other Classes of Mail Through the USPS

Extent and nature of circulation

None

c. Total Paid Distribution

90,136

164,669

d. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541

None

(2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541

None

(3) Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes Through the USPS

None

(4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail

100

e. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution

100

f. Total Distribution

90,236

164,769

g. Copies Not Distributed

100

h. Total

90,336

164,869

i. Percent Paid

99.9%

This statement of ownership has been printed in the Vol. 99, No. 4 issue of this publication. I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete.

Dene Sheheane, Mgt 91 President, Georgia Tech Alumni Association

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VOLUME 99

AROUND CAMPUS

ISSUE 4

MAKE A SPLASH The Great Cardboard Boat Race features teams of six students who have 90 minutes to build a boat using only cardboard and duct tape. The teams race their boats in the pool in the Campus Recreation Center during Week of Welcome.

PHOTOGRAPH

ALLISON CARTER

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

TALK OF TECH ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

TECH SOARS IN L ATEST RANKINGS GEORGIA TECH GAINED SPOTS ACROSS MULTIPLE CATEGORIES IN THE U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT RANKINGS. BY STEVEN NORRIS GEORGIA TECH has much to celebrate in the 2023–2024 U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Rankings. The Institute catapulted 11 places to claim the No. 33 spot overall in the nation. Georgia Tech ascended five places in the Top Public Schools ranking, securing a top 10 position. Check out the rankings below.

Engineering Programs #3 and among public universities for undergraduate engineering #1 2 Aerospace

1 Biomedical

2 Chemical

2 Civil

5 Computer

4 Electrical

3 Environmental

1 Industrial (since 2002)

6 Materials

2 Mechanical

Computer Science Programs #6 5 Artificial Intelligence

INNOVATION AND EDUCATIONAL VALUE

6 Computer Systems

2 Cybersecurity

94 Best Value Schools (up 47 spots)

33 National Universities

5 Most Innovative

6 Data Analytics/Science

Universities in America

COLLEGE EXPERIENCE

10 Top Public Schools

7 Mobile/Web Applications

17 Best Colleges for Veterans (up 6 spots)

4 Co-ops/Internships

4 Game/Simulation Development

12 Senior Capstone

3 Software Engineering

11 Theory

7 Undergraduate Research (up 10 spots)

Business Programs

3 Analytics

2 Management Information

Systems 6 Production/Operation

OTHER RECENT RANKINGS

In addition to the U.S. News & World Report Rankings, Tech earned the following rankings:

WalletHub’s List of Best Colleges and Universities. The Institute is the only Georgia school to make the top 20. Best Public University according to The Wall Street Journal

Best Public University according to Niche.com

12 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

Management 9 Supply Chain Management/

Logistics 4 Quantitative Analysis

Several programs at Georgia Tech made their debut in the national rankings, including Economics from the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, Psychology from the College of Sciences, and Marketing and Accounting from the Scheller College of Business.

AROUND CAMPUS

GEORGIA TECH L AUNCHES GTDC THE INAUGURAL GTDC SEMESTER INCLUDED 13 STUDENTS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

BY VICTOR ROGERS

IT’S RARE that a student gets the opportunity to be in the room with a U.S. senator. But Georgia Tech’s first cohort of GTDC students were able to celebrate the Washington, D.C., launch of the program with three—Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and former Senator Sam Nunn. Insight into the people and organizations who make decisions that impact the lives of all Americans is a key aspect of the GTDC: Pathways to Policy program, which is a fully immersive, semester-long experience in Washington, D.C., available to undergraduate students from Tech. The inaugural semester and the 13 students pioneering the program were celebrated with an Oct. 24 event. GTDC: Pathways to Policy is a partnership of the School of Public Policy

and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. Students engage in courses, internships, research opportunities, and extracurricular activities, including with Tech alumni. The program educates and equips students for policyrelated careers where they can help solve national and global challenges. The launch brought together GTDC students with not only three senators, but also Georgia Tech leaders and a large group of alumni who live and work in the D.C. area. Former Senator and Georgia Tech Distinguished Professor Sam Nunn explained to the students that working and learning in D.C. would have a huge impact. “I was 23 years old when I first came to D.C. out of law school…and I can assure you, from my perspective, your year will be transformative indeed,” Nunn told the students. “It will enlighten you in terms of both the opportunities and the challenges of public service in a way that no textbook can really adequately explain.” In his remarks, Warnock praised

Former Senator Sam Nunn talks with students at the launch event.

the Georgia Tech graduates and students who had worked for his office and said he looked forward to working with more. “It has been my experience that it’s a good idea to hire Georgia Tech grads,” Sen. Warnock said. “They are indeed among the most conscientious and industrious individuals working on the Hill. And I’m thrilled that there will be more opportunities for Georgia Tech students to gain insight into what is happening in Washington, D.C.” The event drew a sizable group of alumni; connecting alumni who live and work in D.C. with GTDC students is a key aspect of the program. Though they’ve only been in D.C. since August, students are already reporting a positive experience. “This program is extremely beneficial in so many ways,” says GTDC participant Parker Alderman, who studies International Affairs and Modern Languages “Not only does it provide an opportunity to live and work in such a beautiful place, but it also allows you to establish professional connections and mentorships, cultivate personal relationships with the other GTDC students, understand varying pathways to success, and learn concrete skills to take to future endeavors.” GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

TALK OF TECH

SNAPSHOT OF AVANT SOUTH GEORGIA TECH’S INAUGURAL AVANT SOUTH, HELD SEPT. 28–29, SHOWCASED THE BEST OF TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATION, AND CREATIVITY.

BY VICTOR ROGERS

Avant South’s Street Innovation Showcase featured robots and other innovations that use AI. Among them was the first graffiti-painting robot system that mimics the fluidity of human movement, built at Georgia Tech.

JOYA CHAPMAN, ROB FELT, TYLER PARKER

Charles Isbell Jr., ICS 90, provost at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former dean of the College of Computing, and President Ángel Cabrera, MS Psy 93, PhD Psy 95, addressed attendees on the first day of the event.

Atlanta WABE journalist Rose Scott (far left) moderates a panel, “AI’s Creative Canvas: Revolutionizing Arts and Culture,” with Tech Assistant Professor Joycelyn Wilson, Tech Professor Gil Weinberg, and alumnus Brandon Butler, MBA 15, CEO of media company Butter ATL.

An opening reception for the two-day event took place at the Coda Building. A dance installation created by Georgia Tech Professor Brian Magerko and his team allows people to dance with an AI dancer via their shadows. 14 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

PHOTOGRAPHS

AVANT SOUTH at Georgia Tech, in its inaugural year, explored artificial intelligence and the importance of creating AI responsibly. The event convened professionals, executives, tech enthusiasts, and academics for two days of keynote addresses, panel discussions, and an innovation showcase.

AROUND CAMPUS

GEORGIA TECH SORORITIES FUND SCHOOL IN GUATEMALA TEC H L AUNC HES ‘NEURO NEXT ’ INITIATIVE THIS OCTOBER, the Institute launched a foundational, interdisciplinary program to lead in research related to neuroscience, neurotechnology, and society. The Neuro Next Initiative is the result of the growth of GTNeuro, a grassroots effort over many years that has been instrumental in the hiring of faculty studying the brain and the creation of the bachelor’s in neuroscience degree in the College of Sciences, and contributed to exciting neuro-related research and education at Georgia Tech. “Neuroscience and neurotechnology have advanced dramatically in the last few years, making it clear that there are few endeavors that have as much potential societal impact as our study of the brain,” says Christopher Rozell, professor and Julian T. Hightower Chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Georgia Tech is uniquely positioned to build on its existing strengths to create an effort tailored to meet the scientific, technical, and social needs of these promising research trajectories. I’m excited that the Neuro Next Initiative represents the next step in creating that collaborative community.” By bringing together a diverse cohort of faculty experts from varied disciplines, members aim to create a holistic, integrative, and inclusive approach to neuroscience and neurotechnology that emphasizes real human impact and broad accessibility. The new program is guided by Rozell; Simon Sponberg, Dunn Family Associate Professor of Physics and Biological Sciences; and Jennifer S. Singh, associate professor in the School of History and Sociology.—CHRISTA M. ERNST 16 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

THE SCHOOL IN CANTÓN LA SOLEDAD, GUATEMALA, WAS MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH PHILANTHROPIC EFFORTS LED BY TECH STUDENTS.

GEORGIA TECH’S SORORITIES may be known for supporting each other in their individual chapters, but they also come together to support women and girls around the world. Most recently, their philanthropic efforts led to the development of a school in Cantón La Soledad, Guatemala, that will provide education for 67 students—half of them girls. For Anna Andani, seeing the school open was the culmination of years of effort among her peers. “I am so proud of our community for funding the school build, as we have been able to assist the next generation of students in receiving the education they deserve,” says Andani, a business administration major who serves as vice president of Philanthropy for the Collegiate Panhellenic Council (CPC). The group had planned to send Tech students to Guatemala for the build, but travel advisories made it impossible. Instead, the money raised for travel was used to fund an Enroll Program Grant for the Cantón La Soledad community. “This grant will ensure the community has resources to maintain school enrollment and attendance by providing families with micro-loans and food insecurity resources,” Andani says. This is the second school that Georgia Tech students have supported. In 2018, a group of 18 Tech students traveled to Senegal to construct a school. CPC, which is composed of nine sororities on campus, uses its Circle of Sisterhood philanthropic arm to support these educational efforts.—KRISTEN BAILEY

DIVINE NINE PL AZA OPENS ON CAMPUS

THE SPACE HONORS HISTORICALLY BLACK FRATERNITIES AND SORORITIES AT GEORGIA TECH.

DURING HOMECOMING WEEKEND, students, alumni, faculty, staff, and distinguished guests celebrated the opening of the Divine Nine Plaza, located on the experiential pathway at the Smithgall Student Services Building. The ceremony, held in honor of historically Black fraternities and sororities, marked a new chapter in Georgia Tech’s history and an extraordinary opportunity to foster unity and celebrate the legacy of the National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC), also known as the Divine Nine. “The timing of this celebration during Homecoming weekend is the perfect backdrop for this event. It gives all Yellow Jackets, former and current, an opportunity to share in this day of pride and legacy,” said President Ángel Cabrera. “Days like this remind us that Tech thrives on diversity. We want Tech to be a place where every student can succeed and go on to do incredible things.” The history of the Divine Nine at Georgia Tech dates back to 1976, when the Delta Kappa chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity obtained its charter. The plaza features nine distinct plots, each dedicated to a specific NPHC sorority or fraternity, showcasing their respective emblems and values. An amphitheater at the heart of the plaza will serve as a site for events, performances, and gatherings, celebrating artistic expression and cultural appreciation. It also honors the Institute’s commitment to diversity and inclusivity.

BY SHIZELLE SMALL-MARTIN In her speech to the crowd, Cynthia Culbreath, IE 93, MS IE 95, president of Georgia Tech’s Black Alumni Organization and an Alumni Association trustee, quoted the poet Maya Angelou. “Maya Angelou said, ‘If you are going to live, leave a legacy. Make a mark on the world that can’t be erased.’ Since the beginning and still today, Divine Nine organizations do not follow the standard, we set the standard with regard to voter registration, youth mentorship, access to affordable health care, and social justice pursuits,” Culbreath said. She emphasized that the Divine Nine Plaza is a place of celebration. “We celebrate not only who we are, but the impact we have made on Georgia Tech’s campus and this community in a space that will be a shining example for all who come to this campus to see,” she said. Other speakers included Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, ChE 98; Brian Blake, EE 94, president of Georgia State University; and Valerie Montgomery Rice, Chem 83, president of Morehouse School of Medicine. Speakers from the Institute included Cabrera as well as Shantay Bolton, executive vice president of Administration and Finance, students representing NPHC, and Kim D. Harrington, interim associate vice president for Arts, Belonging, and Community, a division of Student Engagement and Well-Being. “This space embodies the spirit of belonging; belonging not only to our Georgia Tech campus, but to a legacy that stretches across generations,” Harrington said. GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

FACULTY NEWS

TECH RECEIVES $50M CANCER MOONSHOT GRANT BIOMEDICAL ENGINEER GABE KWONG WILL MAP CANCER CELL BIOMARKERS, THEN ENGINEER NEW SENSORS TO HUNT FOR MULTIPLE KINDS OF CANCER.

GEORGIA TECH will lead the development of a new generation of cancer tests capable of detecting multiple types of tumors earlier than ever. L e d by bi om e d i c a l engineer Gabe Kwong, the project will map the unique cellular profiles of cancer cells and leverage that knowledge to build new bioengineered sensors to detect those profiles. The goal is to create a new kind of multi-cancer early detection test that would allow oncologists to start treating the tumors sooner, when they’re still small and most responsive. The $50 million grant funding the research is from the new Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) and part of President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative, which aims to cut the cancer death rate in half in 25 years. “The ARPA-H program is really designed to accelerate true blue-sky visions of what the field needs to solve in

18 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

body and send up an alert when they recognize the unique cancerspecific markers. The metabolic changes in cancer cells would trigger B Y J O S H U A S T E W A R T the release of a synthetic biomarker in high enough levels to be detected in order to push medicine and health forblood, urine, or feces and signal the apward,” says Kwong, associate professor pearance of early cancer lesions. in the Wallace H. Coulter Department “Our project will be the first to sysof Biomedical Engineering at Geortematically map out, with spatial gia Tech and Emory University. resolution inside the body, what “This is what researchers like are the things that are realto do—we dream about a ly different between cancer different future, about the cells and healthy cells,” technologies we need to Kwong says. develop to get there. I’ve Early detection is possibeen cultivating this vible now for only a handful sion for the last 10 years. of cancers. The goal is Gabe Kwong Now there’s a mechanism to build a one-size-fitsto implement it and go at light speed. all product that could do the work of That’s pretty exciting.” those existing tests—mammograms, colonoscopies, and Pap smears, for The core of this work will be deexample—plus detect cancer types velopment of the Cancer and Organ currently without reliable tests for earDegradome Atlas, or CODA platform. ly detection. The project will catalog the enzymatThe project will include Georic activity of cancer cells—collecting gia Tech researchers John Blazeck in their unique biosignatures—and the the School of Chemical and Biomolectypical cellular profiles of healthy tisular Engineering and Peng Qiu in the sues. Together, that information will Wallace H. Coulter Department of function like a traditional atlas, showBiomedical Engineering. ing researchers both when cancer cells Their team also includes Tal Daniare present and where they’re located. no, a biomedical engineer at Columbia With that data, the research team University, and chemist Min Xue at the will develop a suite of bioengineered University of California, Riverside. sensors that can be deployed in the

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.

Learn more about our goals at transformingtomorrow.gatech.edu

AROUND CAMPUS

AI IS COMING FOR THE COLLEGE ESSAY

RICK CLARK ISN’T WORRIED. TECH’S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF UNDERGRADUATE ADMISSIONS WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TO PROVIDE GUIDANCE ON AI IN THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PROCESS.

E A R L I E R T H I S Y E A R , Rick Clark given how ubiquitous AI has become,” found himself in an eye-opening he says. So Georgia Tech pioneered conversation on a panel about a path forward, becoming one of artificial intelligence. Before the the first schools—if not the first—to talk, Clark, Tech’s executive diprovide guidance on the use of generrector of undergraduate ative AI like ChatGPT in college admissions, had asadmissions. sumed that however AI is one topic that Clark convincing ChatGPT and his co-author, high could be at mimicking a school guidance counhigh schooler writing a selor Brennan Barnard, personal essay for a college discuss in the new edition application, there would of their book, The Truth Rick Clark be a technology equally About College Admission. capable of detecting it. “I thought there Clark sat down recently with the would be a reverse AI bot that could Alumni Magazine to discuss the book scan these essays,” he says. and predict future trends in admisHe was wrong. Clark was on the sions and enrollment. panel with alumnus David Joyner, the executive director of Tech’s Online EdQ: WHAT’S NEW IN THIS EDITION? ucation & OMSCS program. Joyner We heard from families who wantdescribed how quickly the technology ed more information about paying was changing and explained how any for college and how to have a healthy detection tools would likely produce family conversation around the realfalse positives. ities of the cost. This book provides That changed Clark’s approach. “I resources and facilitates converknew we needed to talk to students, sations around that topic. We also

20 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

BY JENNIFER HERSEIM included post-pandemic updates, such as information on the test-optional movement. Of four-year schools, 82% are test-optional or don’t look at tests. Georgia Tech requires testing, but my advice for students applying to schools that don’t require it is to look at the average test scores of those who were admitted. If your score is average or higher, send your test in. We knew advice about emerging technologies like AI could become outdated, so we also created QR codes in the book for more resources, including blogs and podcasts.

Q: WHAT IS GEORGIA TECH’S GUIDANCE ON USING AI IN THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PROCESS? The way we look at this is it’s not cheating, and we don’t think it’s unethical to use ChatGPT or other generative AI. But there’s a proper way to use it. We recommend students approach it like they would a conversation with a friend or a classmate to help brainstorm and get their ideas on paper.

THE NUMBERS BEHIND THE NEW CLASS

Take a closer look at Tech’s record-breaking enrollment:

3,760

first-year students

15%

first-generation college students

43%

women; overall undergraduate population is 40% women

1,400+

transfer students

You benefit from discussing ideas and what you want to communicate before writing. We don’t think students should have ChatGPT open, however, while they’re writing an essay, or copy and paste from it. It shouldn’t be used as a panacea for their essay.

significant proliferation of schools that move toward accepting a recently submitted essay from a high school assignment and a minute-or-so-long video or recording of a response to a particular question.

Q: ARE YOU TRAINING STAFF TO LOOK FOR

ADMISSION PROCESS? Yes. More on the machine learning side, we’ve been talking with C21U (Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities) about pilot projects. For us and other schools, we use a lot of human time scanning transcripts for information. What machine learning does well is scrape information. I think in the next cycle, we’ll be at a place where those functional and important tasks, but not higher-level thinking tasks, move over to AI.

ESSAYS THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN WITH GENERATIVE AI? In talking with colleagues at other schools, our common wisdom is, don’t worry about what’s happening on the other side. We need to determine our rubrics for evaluating essays and look at what we’re asking for. We tell students, we’re looking for specificity, unique details, and a personalized voice. And that’s not what ChatGPT does well. So, if a kid were to do what we tell them not to do, they’re going to have a subpar essay because it’s not detailed or specific enough.

Q: WHAT EFFECT COULD AI HAVE ON THE COLLEGE ESSAY? I actually think this might break the college admission essay going forward. I believe this may be what ultimately forces schools to allow students, instead of writing an essay, to submit video or audio recordings in response to an essay question. We were never reading essays for grammar in the first place, so why are we asking for written essays? In the next two years, there’s going to be a

Q: ARE YOU IMPLEMENTING AI IN THE

60%

of undergraduates are from Georgia

cases, and we already have seen them at the state and federal levels, challenging legacy. That’s something to watch, particularly with the Ivy League schools. We don’t use legacy admission for first-year admission. We do have a conditional one-year pathway for transfer students with a family member who went to Georgia Tech.

Q: THIS YEAR’S ENROLLMENT NUMBERS ARE RECORD-BREAKING. WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON FOR ENROLLMENT? President Cabrera and the system really want to see Georgia Tech expand access, particularly to Georgians, but also across the board. That’s because our students are so highly sought after. Right now, we’re on track to get to a first-year class of 4,000 by the 2026 academic year.

Q: WHAT OTHER TRENDS DO YOU EXPECT

Q: WHAT ARE SOME TRENDS THAT

TO SEE? Outside of AI, the big one is the Supreme Court case reversing affirmative action. For schools that use holistic admissions, two things that will change the most are a real ramp-up in recruitment, and then, once you’ve admitted students, you’ll have to work harder and have a campuswide effort to reach your institutional goals of having a diverse student body.

CONCERN YOU? The truth is so many good things are happening at Tech. It’s great that we have more students who want to come to Tech than ever before. That’s a sign of strength. Where we’re not doing well is serving low-income students. As a public school, we don’t want money to be the reason a qualified student can’t come. We are doing a phenomenal job on almost every front, but we need support from the community for needbased scholarships, which is part of the goal of Georgia Tech’s Transforming Tomorrow campaign.

Q: WHERE DO YOU SEE LEGACY ADMISSIONS IN THE FUTURE? I do think you’re going to see court

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

RESEARCH

Y’ALL, GEORGIA’S ACCENT IS CHANGING

NEW RESEARCH SHOWS THE STATE’S ACCENT IS FADING.

BY MICHAEL PEARSON

GEORGIA, something is happening to your accent, and Georgia Tech linguist Lelia Glass has some ideas about what’s going on. In ne wly published research in the journal Language Variation and Change, Glass and her collaborators report finding that the Georgia accent familiar to generations of Peach State residents rapidly declined with the Gen X generation and never recovered. Gen X’s Millennial and Gen Z kids and grandkids never picked up the twang, according to the data—and

the

BASELINE

Glass’s own experience teaching GeorIt is important to note that the study, gia-born students. And while the which tracks accents back to speakaccent still holds sway in rural reachers born in the late 1890s, focuses on es of the state, its days are numbered white Georgia residents. Another study there, as well, Glass says. looking at accent changes among Black Georgians “Our study includes speakis in progress, according to ers from across the state, and Glass. while we do see more SouthWhy Gen X Georgians ern pronunciations in some suddenly started dropping rural speakers, even they the drawl of their Boomer sound far less Southern than parents is a bit of a mystery, the urban speakers from the Lelia Glass says Glass, an assistant Boomer generation,” says professor in the School of Modern LanGlass, who conducted the research guages who runs a project examining with UGA’s Margaret E. L. Renwick the traditional Southern accent. and Jon Forrest, and Joey Stanley of Brigham Young University. “It’s challenging to pinpoint the exact

-460

DEGREES FAHRENHEIT

the temperature commonly needed to house superconductors. Tech researchers are developing a machinelearning database to find superconductors that would work in room temperatures.

22 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

80%

the accuracy of ChattyChef, a recent GT-led breakthrough in AI cooking software that tracks the steps that chefs use in a recipe.

MILLION

cost of the BioSpark Labs expansion. The collaborative shared laboratory, located in the Science Square district, is designed to support life sciences and biotech startups.

HOW YOU SAY ‘FACE’ MATTERS

“FACE” IS NOW MORE OFTEN PRONOUNCED WITH A HIGHER TONGUE PLACEMENT “FAYCE” WHILE “DRESS” FEATURES A LOWER PLACEMENT THAT SOUNDS LIKE “DRUSS.”–PROF. GLASS

So, what’s different about today’s Georgia accent? Looking at the intricacies of vowel pronunciation is the best way to understand, says Renwick, the study’s lead author. “You could measure consonants or intonation, but vowels are the richest goldmine for capturing those differences,” she says. For the Southern accent, the vowels in words like “face” and “dress” are particularly telling. Since at least the early 1900s, the researchers say, “face” has been pronounced by traditional Georgia speakers with a low back tongue placement, which sounds like “fuh-eece,” whereas “dress” has a high front placement, which sounds like “dray-uss.” In recent decades, there’s been a shift in these pronunciations: “face” is now more often pronounced with a higher tongue placement—“fayce”—while “dress” features a lower placement that sounds like “druss,” Glass says. Those

are patterns much more typical of non-Southern accents, she says. One theory for the change in the Georgia accent involves something called the “Low Back Merger,” in which the vowel sound in words such as “cot” and “caught” are pronounced identically, leading to a chain reaction of other vowel changes known as the “low back merger shift.” “This shift involves the vowel sound in words like ‘cat’ and ‘hat’. In the Southern accent, it’s pronounced with a higher tongue placement, but in the ‘Low Back Merger Shift,’ it’s lower,” Glass says. Linguists first described this system of pronunciation in California, but it’s not known if that’s where it started, Glass said. Regardless, it’s spread across the country, showing up in places such as Georgia and North Carolina.

reasons,” she says. “While we don’t have definitive answers, there were significant social shifts during that period. Factors such as increased migration, with many people moving into the South from other regions, and urbanization could have played roles.”

YEAR

length of time that Janelle Dunlap will serve as Georgia Tech’s first-ever beekeeper in residence. Dunlap will conduct research into the pollinator’s place in our ecosystem and how beekeeping might offer relief to veterans dealing with PTSD.

WHEN IT COMES TO ACCENTS, THE FUTURE IS HERE This shift is particularly noted among Millennials and Gen Z speakers. The “Low Back Merger Shift” has been found changing regional accents in other places as well. That widespread geographical and generational influence suggests Southern accents as a whole will eventually disappear, Glass says. So, what will the Georgia of the future sound like? Glass says a good place to start would be Tech classrooms, where she says her students from across the state already exhibit fewer traditionally Southern speech patterns. Many Georgia cities and suburbs also offer examples, she says. “To paraphrase William Gibson, the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed,” says Glass.

60,000 3.7

MILLION MILES

number of neutrinos, high-energy subatomic particles, found throughout the Milky Way by a recent NSF IceCube study. Georgia Tech Professor Ignacio Taboada serves as IceCube’s spokesperson.

distance from Earth of the Lunar Flashlight Satellite that NASA recently turned over to Georgia Tech, making it the only higher ed-institution in full control of an interplanetary spacecraft.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

VOLUME 99

GEORGIA TECH ATHLETICS/JC RUIZ PHOTOGRAPH

ON THE FIELD

ISSUE 4

24 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

“CRAZY GOOD” PLAY Georgia Tech’s Yellow Jackets earned the “Crazy Good” Play of the Week by the Football Writers Association of America for Haynes King’s 44-yard touchdown pass to Christian Leary that sealed Tech’s Oct. 7 victory against Miami 23-20.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

ON THE FIELD

THE BEST TRANSFER PORTAL PICKS, ACCORDING TO THE NUMBERS A GEORGIA TECH PRACTICUM USES ANALYTICS TO DECIPHER COLLEGE BASKETBALL’S TRANSFER PORTAL.

BY TONY REHAGEN

KYLE STURDIVANT knows a thing or two about analytics. As a senior point guard for the Georgia Tech men’s basketball team, he has experienced the rise of data-driven analysis in every facet of the game, from true shooting percentage to player efficiency ratings. Indeed, the use of advanced statistics has become standard procedure off the court, as well, helping predict and prevent injury, scouting potential recruits, and even trying to decipher the business side of sports. So, it came as no surprise to Sturdivant, also a business administration major, when the Scheller College of Business approached him and two of his teammates about working with the Georgia Tech Athletic Association on a sports management practicum to take an analytical look at the NCAA transfer portal. “They came to us because we play basketball and two of us transferred, one didn’t,” says Sturdivant, who transferred as a sophomore from the University of Southern California to be closer to his family in Norcross, Ga., after his father died.

26 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

“They wanted our experience.” Launched in 2018, the transfer portal is a place for student-athletes looking to change schools without sacrificing a year of eligibility as they had to, previously. Players are now essentially able to leave their current team for any reason in search of a different coach, setting, system, or situation. As a result, coaches not only have to recruit new players and transfers from other schools, but they also must convince their current student-athletes to stay. And with several thousand players entering the portal every year, the portal has completely changed college athletics—sending athletic departments scurrying to find ways to adjust and remain successful. “It’s a bit of the Wild West at this point,” says Jonathan Clarke, associate professor of finance in the Scheller College of Business, who along with marketing senior lecturer Tim Halloran created the practicum. “These days, there is so much data on college basketball teams and players. So, we posed the questions: Can you build a team from transfers? And whom should you recruit?” The practicum team looked at the year-by-year number

of transfers that enter the portal, along with individual player rankings and actual performance before and after the transfer (including per-game points scored, rebounds, and assists). The analysts also looked at each school—particularly those in the so-called “Power 6” conferences, which includes the ACC, in which Tech plays—and how many transfers they accepted and their year-to-year results. Some of what the undergrads and MBA students found surprised them. First, while the number of transfers has exploded since the advent of the portal (a 147% increase between 2018 and 2022, 226% in Power 6–to–Power 6 transfers), transfers typically don’t improve their performance statistically after jumping schools. Perhaps even more surprising: The schools that used the portal most didn’t experience a significant improvement in performance the following year. In fact, only one school in the top 10% of incoming transfers, Texas Tech, has reached a Final Four—and all their transfers came after that 2019 Final Four appearance. “Perennial contenders like Duke and Kentucky aren’t using the portal,” says Clarke. “One takeaway is that if you can

recruit a good class coming in, it tends to bode well for the success of the team.” That insight might be valuable to the Tech basketball team. But the practicum’s true significance as it pertains to Yellow Jacket basketball—and the athletic department as a whole—is showing how athletics can use the Tech expertise outside of McCamish Pavilion to gain a competitive advantage. “This is an area where Georgia Tech can excel,” says Simit Shah, CmpE 99, associate athletic director for Georgia Tech athletics. “In general, people in sports are using analytics to look beyond performance on the field; there is different data you can use in and around your stadium. We’re in a great centralized position to tap into resources and talent on campus and find ways to collaborate.” And in return, students and faculty in these other departments can have access to subjects for their own research, including student-athletes like Sturdivant. Which is important because, for all the emphasis on data and statistics, there are real people behind those numbers. “I think stats are important, but they don’t tell the complete story,” says Sturdivant. “You can’t forget what your eyes tell you. And everyone forgets that student-athletes are students first.”

“WE POSED THE QUESTIONS: CAN YOU BUILD A TEAM FROM TRANSFERS? AND WHOM SHOULD YOU RECRUIT?” GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

ON THE FIELD

STUDENT BRINGS AI TO BASKETBALL OFFICIATING BLOCK OR CHARGE? AN AI-POWERED BASKETBALL OFFICIAL COULD HELP MAKE THE CALL.

BY STEVEN GAGLIANO

EVERY SPORTS FAN can recall a moment that had them screaming from their seat or their couch as their favorite team landed on the wrong end of an official’s crucial call. Now, artificial intelligence could offer assistance. Ayush Pai, an avid NBA viewer, set out to create a solution as he watched fouls go uncalled and outcomes be decided by officials rather than the players. With a self-taught knowledge of computer vision AI, he created the initial model for the official dubbed “version 1.0” in the summer of 2022, after graduating high school. With

QUICK FACTS: NBA FOULS

Number of fouls to foul out of a game

PERSONAL Most common foul FOUL in NBA KAREEM Player with the most fouls ABDUL-JABBAR (4,657) in NBA history 28 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

soccer’s video assistant referee (VAR) system and the Hawk-Eye review system in tennis as guides, Pai felt that basketball was missing an AI component to supplement referees on the court. “The officials are running up and down the court constantly. Basketball in general, especially the NBA, is one of the most fast-paced sports, and the entire court is difficult for officials to see at all times. Why not implement a system that can enhance their ability to see the floor using multiple cameras with real-time processing and detection of the basketball and the players?” he says. Version 1.0 of Pai’s system was trained to detect the color of the basketball and used a pedometer to track

steps, but lighting issues and the use of a cumbersome step-counter proved limiting. In June, the Denver Nuggets capped a 4-1 series victory over the Miami Heat to earn their first NBA championship, but officiating mistakes in the Heat’s lone win propelled Pai to get back to work on his concept. By the end of the month, version 2.0 of the AI official was complete. To improve accuracy, he used over 3,000 photos of basketballs to better train the model to track the ball’s movement, and he also used pose estimation for tracking the position of a player’s ankles and wrists to detect double-dribbling and traveling violations. He is now working on version 3.0, which will include the capacity for multiple players, multiple cameras,

“YOU CAN USE AI FOR CHATGP T, IN TESLA’S AUTONOMOUS SYS TEMS, AND EVEN IN SPORTS,” SAYS PAI. and the ability to detect shooting fouls and reach-ins. Pai is also developing a mobile app that he hopes will bring accurate officiating to youth leagues and pickup games worldwide. The AI craze shows no signs of slowing down, and Pai sees his creation as a way to introduce the concept to new audiences. “Everyone should see the potential of AI, and it’s important that everyone has a basic understanding of its implications and how it can be used in different fields. You can use AI for

ChatGPT, in Tesla’s autonomous systems, and even in sports,” he says. An ongoing debate amid the rise of AI is its potential to displace people. Pai sees the benefit of his system as one of coexistence rather than a replacement for the human element of officiating. “You don’t want to make AI feel like a threat to the people in any industry. It’s a much better approach to consider this a partnership between AI and officials. In basketball, there are so many

physical aspects of the job that AI can’t do,” he says. The Florida native traded his University of Florida Gator blue and orange for Yellow Jacket white and gold this fall as a transfer student. “One of the main reasons I transferred is because of the opportunities the Institute offers within AI and computer science,” he says. “The chance to participate in the College of Computing’s Threads program will help me with my projects, and I’m looking forward to exploring the entrepreneurial side of Tech with great programs that foster innovation.” Pai’s interest in the capabilities of AI isn’t limited to basketball. He has also created systems that attempt to discourage texting while driving and keep students on task while studying.

Connect with Jackets and celebrate Tech’s spirit in your community at Ramble the Night. Join old friends and make new ones as you share memories and celebrate Georgia Tech’s impact across the globe for one night only.

April 25, 2024 Find a gathering near you at gtalumni.org/ramblethenight GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

SPORTS SHORTS

VOLLEYBALL RECEIVES HIGHEST SEASON RANKING

G E O R G I A T E C H VO L L E YBALL RECEIVED A NO. 8 R A N K I N G I N T H E AV C A POLL AFTER THEIR HIGHEST RANKED HOME V I C T O RY I N H I S T O RY.

GEORGIA TECH VOLLEYBALL was ranked No. 8 in the Week 11 AVCA/Taraflex Division I Women’s Volleyball Poll. The ranking follows the highest-ranked home victory in Yellow Jacket volleyball program history, over then-No. 3 Louisville, on Nov. 3. The ranking is the highest since nonconference play last season (Sept. 12), when the Jackets were ranked No. 7. —GEORGIA TECH ATHLETICS

30 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

YELLOW JACKE TS OPEN SEASON WITH DOUBLE VICTORIES GEORGIA TECH’S WOMEN’S AND MEN’S BASKE TBALL T E A M S C R U I S E D T O V I C T O RY I N T H E I R S E A S O N O P E N E R S . T H E S E C O N D - L A R G E S T crowd for a women’s basketball game in McCamish Pavilion history (4,963) witnessed the Yellow Jackets cruise to victory 83-53 against Coastal Carolina for their season opener this November. Jackets’ Kayla Blackshear and Tonie Morgan combined to score 44 points. Blackshear and Morgan posted career highs in scoring with Blackshear

leading all scorers on the day with 24 points. Georgia Tech men’s basketball made 13 three-pointers, including six-straight during a 24-10 run midway through the second half, to pull away from Georgia Southern and win the first game under head coach Damon Stoudamire, 84-62 on Nov. 6 at McCamish Pavilion.

BL AS T FROM THE PAS T

that summer, on its way to becoming the highest-grossing film of 1991. Tech’s marketing team, deciding to ride the pop culture zeitgeist, made promotional posters that had Coleman, Swilling and Jones sitting on motorcycles and wearing leather jackets, shooting their best, Schwarzenegger-esque scowls. The title at the bottom of the poster? Naturally, Terminators 3. Little did he know the poster, which calls to mind the iconic Costacos Brothers posters of the ‘80s and ‘90s, would be a precursor to Coleman actually appearing in a movie a few years later (Ace Ventura: Pet Detective). And when he had it in his office, his defensive linemen didn’t mind having some fun with it. “They were talking about how young I looked. I actually had hair.” —ANDY DEMETRA (THE VOICE OF THE YELLOW JACKETS)

A 3 0 -Y E A R - O L D P O S T E R ADORNS GEORGIA TECH H A L L - O F - FA M E R M A R C O COLEMAN’S OFFICE. A STAGED, 30-YEAR-OLD P H OT O S H O OT can often be a minefield of cringe. Not for Georgia Tech defensive line coach and former Tech Sports Hall-of-Famer Marco Coleman, Cls 91. “I really enjoyed it. It was a really cool picture,” he says. Andy Demetra, the voice of the Yellow Jackets, asked Coleman and other Tech coaches about the most interesting item in their offices. Coleman’s office featured a poster of him, safety Ken Swilling, and quarterback Shawn Jones that was made as part of a 1991 preseason All-America marketing campaign. The movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day had come out

alexander-tharpe fund GEORGIA TECH ATHLETICS

End of year giving is here! Help us DRIVE the success of the Yellow Jackets by joining the Alexander-Tharpe Fund to support student-athlete scholarships. As alumni, be a part of the tradition of giving back at Georgia Tech.

TECH ALUMNI IMPACT ON STUDENT-ATHLETE SUPPORT

4,792 DONATE TODAY

ALUMNI DONORS

$19.7M in Alumni Support

$4.3M in Non-Alumni Support

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT ATFUND.ORG OR CALL (404) 894-5414

Interested in further supporting our studentathletes who compete and represent Georgia Tech at the highest level? Learn more about our official NIL partner at thetechway.com

VOLUME 99

IN THE WORLD

ISSUE 4

THE FUTURE OF BRANDING Melody Lee is an innovative marketing and brand strategist for some of the most recognizable names—Herman Miller and Knoll, Cadillac, Shiseido. Now at Mercedes-Benz, she gives us a peek into the future of the industry.

PHOTOGRAPH

KAYLINN GILSTRAP

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

IN THE WORLD

MELODY LEE ON BRAND STORYTELLING AND STORIED BRANDS THE DOUBLE JACKET IS CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER FOR MERCEDES-BENZ USA.

34 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

prestigious merit-based scholarship. While studying abroad with Tech’s Oxford program, she changed majors from industrial engineering to international affairs, thinking of a career in diplomacy. But through a series of what she has self-effacingly described as “accidents,” Lee instead emerged as a high-profile, innovative marketer and brand strategist for some of the most recognizable brands on the planet: Cadillac, Shiseido, Herman Miller and Knoll, and now Mercedes-Benz. In this Q&A, Lee, IA 03, MS IA 04, explains the appeal of working for “heritage” brands, forecasts marketing trends, and describes how her team at

Mercedes-Benz is approaching AI. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: HOW WOULD YOU CHARACTERIZE THE OVERALL ARC OF YOUR CAREER ACROSS BRANDS AND INDUSTRIES? WHAT’S BEEN YOUR MOTIVATION? I lead with curiosity and openness, which is why I've gone from Fortune 500 corporate communications to cars to beauty and makeup to design and now back to cars—entering brand-new environments and figuring things out. It’s important to make myself uncomfortable, because if I’m not, then I’m not growing.

KAYLINN GILSTRAP

AS MELODY LEE, chief marketing officer for Mercedes-Benz USA, tells it, she ended up at Georgia Tech because of marketing. “My dad was an industrial engineer, and when I was a high school senior receiving college brochures, Georgia Tech’s said it had the No. 1–ranked IE program. So obviously that’s where I needed to go—despite not really knowing what industrial engineering was. Marketing works,” Lee says, laughing. Lee received a Stamps President’s Scholarship, the Institute’s most

PHOTOGRAPH

BY SHELLEY WUNDER-SMITH

The

Inside Al Sharpton speaks ..............Page 2 A golden anniversary ............Page 3

MARKETING, WHAT’S BEEN THE APPEAL OF THOSE COMPANIES? I love brands with a heritage because they give marketers such rich storytelling opportunities. If you have storytelling opportunities, then you’re not simply pushing a product. There are also incredible opportunities for inviting someone into an experience. That’s the crux of luxury marketing— the overall experience of the brand, rather than something transactional.

Q: WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO MERCEDES? IS THEIR “ALL ELECTRIC BY 2030” FOCUS PART OF IT? Definitely! The car—the internal combustion engine—has not really changed in 100 years. This move toward electric vehicles is the most transformational moment in the automotive industry in a century. And Mercedes is at the forefront of this change. We have the most ambitious stated goal when it comes to the electric future, which is to go all-electric by the end of the decade where market conditions allow. Coming to Mercedes meant being part of the leading company at this historical moment.

Q: WHAT ARE YOU AND YOUR TEAM WORKING ON? In the short term, meeting our sales targets—we do have to stay in business! But over the next two to five years, we’ll be charting a course to the future for our customers. If Mercedes-Benz is to remain at the forefront of electric technology and innovation, we in marketing have a big task to tell that stor y in a compelling way that brings our customers along.

Scholarship opportunity .......Page 3 Campus events ......................Page 4

The Georgia Institute of Technology

WH STLE Faculty/Staff Newspaper Volume 25. No. 8

February 26, 2001

http://www.whistle.gatech.edu/ar chives

Music Department fosters sense of community, increasing retention in the bargain Sean Selman Institute Communications and Public Affairs

s Georgia Tech moves into the new century, a major goal for its faculty and staff is to create a campus environment where diversity is welcomed and valued. This increased emphasis on diversity is not intended to be an end, but a dynamic foundation for innovation and growth. “In a global environment that thrives on innovation, diversity is a competitive advantage,” President Wayne Clough said in his State of the Institute Address for 2000. “It provides a broader, richer, more fertile environment for creative thinking and problem solving.” Few programs on campus reflect these sentiments better than the Music Department in the College of Architecture, which brings together students of diverse ethnic groups and academic

Photo by Stanley Leary

Q: IN TERMS OF BRANDING AND

From left, Kurt Fausset, Richard Bowen, Melody Liu, Kriangsiri Malasri and Elizabeth Dawson comprise the ‘U.N. Quintet,’ one of several chamber ensembles at Tech. disciplines. In that vein, one would be hard pressed to find a group of students that represents the positive effects of diversity in action better than the Georgia Tech String Quintet.

Formed this past year by a group of enterprising second-year students, the quintet boasts five talented musicians from four ethnic groups. While they come from different backgrounds, the students

are united in their passion for music and in their common ties to Georgia Tech. “We’re pretty well represented racially and by gender, and we’re well represented by majors and schools,” said Melody Liu, a Chinese violinist with the quintet who studies international affairs. Other members of the quintet include Kriangsiri “Toppy” Malasri, an Indonesian violinist who studies aerospace engineering; Elizabeth Dawson, a Caucasian violinist in management; Richard Bowen, an African-American cellist studying chemical engineering; and Kurt Fausset, a Caucasian student in architecture who plays the string bass. They jokingly refer to themselves as “The U.N. Quintet.” “Kurt had the idea for the quintet,” Liu said. “He usually organizes the rehearsals, while I’m the Music continued, page 2

While a student at Georgia Tech, Melody (Liu) Lee played violin in a student quintet. This photo of the group appeared in an issue of The Whistle, Tech’s faculty and staff newspaper, in February 2001. Lee is pictured center.

Tech signs Barnes and Noble to manage campus bookstore Michael Hagearty Institute Communications and Public Affairs

is multifaceted, Senior Vice President of Administration and Finance Robert Thompson indicated that it is part and parcel of the strategic plan outlined by the administration. The current bookstore, he said, doesn’t support the overall strategic vision in accommodating both the direct educational as well as community outreach initiatives that will enhance Tech’s reputation as a technological research university. “Our bookstore needs to be a resource for that clientele,” he said. Rosalind Meyers, associate vice president of Auxiliary Services, explained what drove the Institute to look for outside assistance. The goal, she said, is to offer more than a traditional college bookstore.

Q: WHATW MARKETING TRENDS ARE YOU SEEING,

“We were looking at creating a bookstore that would be three things: a college bookstore; a bookstore superstore for the Midtown community — books, CDs and a café; and a bookstore that would be a reference resource for our entire technical community.” In order to accomplish that, she said “we felt we needed professional knowledge, resources and expertise we didn’t possess.” When they take over in four months, Barnes and Noble will be responsible for the complete management of the store and its employees. Meyers anticipates that patrons will notice little in the way of operational changes, but did note a shift in policy regarding the computer store.

customer could collaborate with an AI BOTH FOR 2024 AND THE NEXT FEW YEARS? version of Mercedes F1 driver Lewis I believe that brand stories matter, and Hamilton to configure a high-perforthey’re still wanted. We are inundated mance vehicle based on Hamilton’s with more information than ever, and race car? AI can seem quite big and General Faculty spring meeting will be Feb. 27 in the Student Center Ballroom we have access to more content than scary, so we’re really trying to focus ever. All that content is getting shorton how we can use it to provide our er and shorter; our attention spans are customers with a personalized, exshrinking. But people still love iconic citing experience. That helps sell brands and those brands’ stories. more cars, because that is ultimately There’s also a lot of talk about how our aim. I think the challenge of AI is the U.S. is becoming the most dithat it is so broad and unexplored right verse, multicultural market in the now. But I do believe in the transforworld. We’re already there. Mercedes mative power of AI and the pace of is marketing to the new multiculturchange it’s starting to drive. al majority—look at California, with its multicultural-majority audience Q: YOU HAD NOT INTENDED TO GO INTO MARfor all age groups under 65—and to KETING AS A CAREER. GIVEN THAT, HOW other markets approaching multiculWOULD YOU SAY GEORGIA TECH PREPARED tural-majority in the under-40 age YOU FOR WHAT YOU’RE DOING NOW? group, like Florida, Texas, New York, Prior to college, my education inGeorgia, and Arizona. volved studying and being tested on my knowledge. I was never taught how Q: OF COURSE, I HAVE TO ASK HOW to think and solve a problem, and that’s ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WILL HAVE what Georgia Tech did for me. It was AN IMPACT. grueling—and that’s our reputation, At Mercedes, we’re thinking about right? It was four difficult years of behow AI can help provide customing taught how to think, and to train ers with a simpler, more enjoyable myself to be open and curious and experience. For example, what if a solve problems. ith a simple stroke of the pen, future management of the Georgia Tech Bookstore quietly shifted this month. Taking up that mantle of responsibility will be a private company whose principal challenge lies in helping to realize the vision for the planned Fifth Street Project, recently renamed Technology Square. As of July 1, the Bookstore will be under the guiding hand of Barnes and Noble College Bookstores, a division of the retailing giant that currently operates on some 400 university campuses in 44 states. While the decision to privatize the Bookstore

Bookstore continued, page 3

General Faculty and General Faculty Assembly will meet in the Student Center Ballroom on February 27 at 3 p.m. The major item of discussion will be a presentation on “Distance Learning” by Joe Boland, director of the Center for Distance Learning, followed by discussions of matters raised by various standing committees, including a first reading of changes to the statutes and bylaws in respect to election matters. A full agenda can be found at http://www.facultysenate.gatech.edu/generalfaculty_00-01.html. For more information, contact Edward Thomas, secretary of the faculty, at edward.thomas@physics.gatech.edu or 894-5249.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

JACKET COPY

FROM THE BOOKSHELVES

ENJOY THESE RECENTLY PUBLISHED TITLES FROM GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI. MEMOIR

BUSINESS

SAILING UPWIND

FOOLED BY EARLY ADOPTERS BY JEFF EVERSMANN, MGTSCI 92, CMPE 93, MS EE 94

BY ADM. SANDY WINNEFELD, AE 78

This memoir by Adm. James “Sandy” Winnefeld shares how he managed risk and developed leadership qualities throughout his career as a naval officer. The book covers his experiences as an F-14 fighter pilot, TOPGUN instructor, aircraft carrier commander, and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Winnefeld also discusses the culture of excellence in the Navy, leading operational command at various levels, and decision-making at the highest levels of government. The book emphasizes the importance of challenging assumptions, leading change, and managing risk, using the metaphor of sailing upwind against a prevailing force.

This leadership fable follows the story of Jonathan Reeves, a serial entrepreneur who faces challenges with his second tech startup. Despite initial success, Jonathan struggles to scale his company and faces the risk of running out of funding. Through his journey, readers can learn practical and memorable examples of lean startup concepts and how they can be applied to their own companies.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

FICTION

A JOURNEY THROUGH CHEMICAL DYNAMICS BY WILLIAM H. MILLER, CHEM 63

THE AI INTERVIEWER: PRODUCT MANAGER EDITION: 101 QUESTIONS AND AI-GENERATED SOLUTIONS BY RUSHAD HEERJEE, CS 14, MS QCF 17

ROLLING WITH TROUBLE BY BRETT M. OAKLEAF, MS MGT 96

In a short essay about his life’s journey, Miller relays an autobiographical review of what led him to a career in science. From his early years experiencing the launch of Sputnik to his professional development at Georgia Tech, readers walk with him down a scientific memory lane.

36 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

In this resource for the product manager interview process, Heerjee considers common product manager interview questions and answers generated by ChatGPT (AI). The book covers questions concerning a wide range of topics and discusses the merits of AI-generated versus traditional industry expert responses.

[

Jack Harris leads a double life: as a printer in Las Vegas by day and a professional gambler by night. But when he meets Erin, he starts to question his choices. It’s hard to leave the game, though, as powerful people want something from him. Will Jack be able to quit before it’s too late? Find out in this crime thriller set in the glamorous casinos and gritty back alleys of Las Vegas.

P E R S O N A L D E V E LO PM E N T

FICTION

THE COLLEGE SUCCESS GUIDE BY DEVESH DALMIA, CMPE 21

NINE WAYS TO DIE: AN ENNEAGRAM MURDER MYSTERY BY KATHLEEN SANDERS, BA 04 (PEN NAME KATE HALLOCK)

This book, aimed at helping fellow college students succeed both academically and personally, draws on Dalmia’s personal experience navigating the challenges of higher education. It offers practical tips and strategies for building relationships with other students, identifying and addressing common challenges, and fostering a culture of success and support on campus.

[

Follow Tara Sharp as she attempts to solve the case of her missing sister and becomes a part of a larger mystery surrounding the murder of Michael Higgins in this Enneagrambased mystery thriller.

H E A LT H

HEALING THE TRAUMATIZED BRAIN: COPING AFTER CONCUSSION AND OTHER BRAIN INJURIES BY SANDEEP VAISHNAVI, BIO 95 Co-authors Sandeep Vaishnavi and Vani Rao discuss emotional, behavioral, mental, and physical consequences following concussions and other brain injuries, and how to cope with the lasting effects. Topics include neuroplasticity and nutrition, medication and lifestyle changes, and how coexisting factors can interact to create alternate outcomes in the recovery process.

How one man’s innovative medical procedure revolutionized the treatment of coronary heart disease Dr. Andreas Gruentzig, the inventor of coronary balloon angioplasty and the “Father of Modern Cardiology,” moved from Switzerland to Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1980 to establish a clinical and research center. For more than two decades, the Gruentzig Center was the world leader in research and development in angioplasty and related techniques as well as the preeminent institution for clinical treatment. Patients from around the world H E AtoLT H for their angioplasty procedures. traveled Emory During its first 10 years, Dr. Gruentzig’s interventional center periodically mailed a series of newsletters to referring physicians highlighting the many novel activities underway and keeping them informed of ongoing work as well as future plans.

ORIGINS OF ANGIOPL AST Y – THE GRUENTZIG NEWSLET TERS BY VERNON “SKIP” ANDERSON, EE 73 This volume contains all the original newsletters from the Gruentzig Center. These newsletters illustrate the growth and development of a revolutionary new medical procedure from its infancy to its acceptance as a mainstream therapy for patients with coronary heart disease.

$120

These newsletters were assembled by one of Dr. Gruentzig’s trainees, Dr. Skip Anderson, who, as an eyewitness to these noteworthy historic events, has provided insightful commenplus shipping taries. Never before published, living history is presented here as it unfolded. In addition to Dr. Gruentzig, these newsletters pre-press & quantity discounts available also highlight a large group of talented individuals whose contributions provided enormous assistance to the development and application of coronary angioplasty, helping to prove its benefits. Readers will gain a unique background and understanding of how the current therapeutic environment for coro- TheEditorialStudio nary disease was created, essentially by the work of one man @gmail.com — Andreas Gruentzig — and the people who worked with him.

Dr. Skip Anderson’s new academic publication dives deep into the developments of coronary angioplasty: the treatment of coronary heart diseases. This curated novel homes its lens on Dr. Andreas Gruentzig, the Swiss doctor whose aim of creating a clinical and research center led to vast advancements in the world of angioplasty.

Author. H. Vernon (‘Skip’) Anderson, MD

is Professor of Medicine in the Cardiology Division at the University of Texas Health

Science Center, McGovern Medical

School, and the Memorial Hermann Heart and Vascular Institute, in Houston. He

is widely known for his clinical research

on several types of “clot-busting” drugs, S PA C E including fibrinolytic agents and platelet

FIGHT FOR THE FINAL FRONTIER: IRREGUL AR WARFARE IN SPACE BY JOHN J. KLEIN, AE 88

inhibitors, and for integrating these agents

in combination with immediate coronary

angioplasty into the standard emergency

treatment of patients experiencing heart attacks. Along with several colleagues,

Dr. Anderson helped establish the National Cardiovascular Data Registry, which has an unmatched record of research productivity in interventional cardiology. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the American College

of Cardiology in 2014 for this work. For more than 25 years, Dr. Anderson has been Associate Editor with two major

Stretching outside the perspective of common combat, Klein explores the potential dangers of warfare in space in his new book. From standard tactical strategy to the irregular elements found beyond our atmosphere, he uses his insightful strategist expertise to study potential methods of combating threats within our orbit.

cardiovascular journals.

FICTION

[

IMPERFECT LIVES BY C.J. WASHINGTON, MS CS 18 In this new emotional mystery thriller, the deathbed confession of a contract killer upends the lives of Tamara Foster, a single mother and widow, and Cindy Fremont, someone who intends to keep the perfect life that she fought for. The secrets left behind by Foster’s late husband, the impact of this confession on all that Fremont hopes to keep, and the chaos that ensues will all be accounted for in C.J. Washington’s new novel. GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

What does the future have in store for me?

38 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

We peer into the next 20 years and beyond and ask a panel of faculty, staff, and alumni to answer our questions about what’s next.

BY KELLEY FREUND

Just two decades into the 21st century, we’ve seen our world evolve in ways our past selves may not have predicted. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter (now X), and Instagram—all launched in the 2000s—have helped us make global connections but have also led to depression and contributed to the spread of misinformation. Some of us got a personal assistant called Siri. The hottest decade on record was 2010–2019 and led to the U.S.’s most ambitious investment in combating climate change. And we experienced a global pandemic, which led to virtual workspaces and a desire for a healthier work-life balance. It makes you wonder: What comes next? Will we have a four-day workweek? Will I have a robot co-worker? Will all this technology hinder my well-being? Do we still have time to reverse climate change? As a kid, you may have looked to a not-so-technical device to predict your future: the Magic 8 Ball. This allknowing sphere told us whether we would pass the big math test or if our crush liked us back. Here we have Georgia Tech’s own version of the classic kid’s toy: a panel of faculty, staff, and alumni, experts in a range of areas, who will answer our now more complicated questions and tell us what they think our world will look like in the next 20 years and beyond.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAT T CHINSWORTH

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

ROBOTS

DANFEI XU : assistant professor, School of Interactive Computing; part-time research scientist at NVIDIA AI

Will tiny robots repair my body in surgery? IT IS We have quite capable surgical CERTAIN. robots right now, like the da Vinci Surgical System, that have been used all over the world to complete minimally invasive surgeries. So we’re already doing that, just with human help—there’s always been a human operating it. But I think it will be automated someday. In order to make these robots fully automated, there’s a few things that need to happen. There’s the dexterity part: how do we get a robot to complete the procedure with precision? And there’s the safety part: how do we guarantee that the robot continues to make progress in the surgery instead of freaking out and getting stuck somewhere? We need to find some way to guarantee their success. The simple answer is we have all the hardware for autonomous surgeries, but we don’t have all the software yet. What we need to consider with robotics in general is safeguards. We have lots of regulations and rules for cars. But it’s really difficult to put those around AI-enabled robots, and no one knows how to do that yet. It’s a very challenging issue, but it needs to be solved as soon as possible.

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TECHNOLOGY + CITIES DONALD BEAMER, ECON 05: The City of Atlanta’s first-ever senior tech advisor

Will Atlanta be a top city for technology companies?

Will I have a robot to cook my meals?

MOST

Things like opening doors, LIKELY cooking a dish, and making (IF YOU WANT). coffee come naturally to humans. But robots don’t have any of that prior knowledge. How can we use AI to give them this knowledge and make them better understand physical interactions? We have robots that work in factories and do the same procedures over and over, but we don’t have anything for everyday tasks that humans do that require some dexterity. But if we can make a robot do the things humans can do, this will open up broader automation in places like homes and hospitals. Cooking a meal is a difficult problem. While cooking, we have to apply reason to a lot of different things and handle food in a variety of physical states. Cutting an object into pieces is actually a very complex concept. But if we want, we can just program a robot for a certain procedure. We can do that now, but there’s not a big enough demand in the personal space. But in bigger kitchens, people are already using that. And if you think about it, an oven is a robot.

Atlanta’s current mayor, Andre Dickens, YES, DEFINITELY. is also a Georgia Tech grad, and they call him the “Tech Mayor” for his understanding of the importance of technology to the citizen experience in making sure the government is efficient and effective. In 2017, in partnership with Georgia Tech, the city created the North Avenue Smart Corridor, with smart traffic signals and interesting new approaches to traffic and mobility. It was impactful, but for some reason they discontinued it. We want to bring that back. One of the challenges here in Atlanta is traffic, and that’s a place where we want to start to improve the citizen experience through technology. This also ties into the 2026 World Cup. It will be the first time in a long time that the world has descended upon Atlanta, and we need to start preparing for this influx of people. But the major goal of ours is to be a top-five tech hub. An important distinction for how we want to approach this is that we want it to be built equitably so all people from Atlanta are able to participate in the prosperity that comes from this tech sector. I feel like many cities have not been thoughtful about that point and people get left behind. So we want to create an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem where any Atlanta resident has access to both the resources and the pathways to pursue a business venture or create new technology. In doing this, we’re thinking a lot about Atlanta Public Schools. What are the ways we can build tech awareness for young people, and then provide them with the skills, tools, and connections to get in that space? We’re currently using esports as a pathway, putting esports labs in our parks and recreation centers. In addition to gaming, we’ll also do some exposure to all the careers that are in gaming development, such as design and production.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

HEALTH + HAPPINESS

LUOLUO HONG: vice president for Student Engagement and Well-Being

Will people be happier in the future than they are today?

CANNOT Gallup has been doing research for quite PREDICT some time on global emotions and NOW. well-being. For the past few years, the trend has been that negative emotions have risen and positive emotions have declined. This past year, the global rise in unhappiness stalled, with negative emotions remaining at the record high set in 2021. Based on these trends, it’s not really clear, and I would need to see next year’s data. Well-being is going to be different for each person. There is a lot of talk about well-being programs, almost implying that there’s a one-size-fits-all solution. But the reality is well-being is oftentimes a self-reported state. It’s my perception that I experience a sense of happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment. There may be the presence of what we call negative emotions, like anger, fear, and sadness, but they don’t become disruptive. For different people, different conditions and contexts lead to a sense of well-being. Before I arrived at Georgia Tech in August 2021, the Institute’s focus was on getting students help. But if a student is already in a state of stress or crisis, that’s further down the continuum than I think we want for them. So now a focus on prevention and self-agency are an important part of our efforts. And we’ve introduced the wellness model, which has eight dimensions: emotional, financial, social, spiritual, occupational, physical, intellectual, and environmental. These are interdependent, and to improve well-being, we have to work on all eight.

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Will technology be more of a hindrance to my well-being AS I than a help? SEE IT, In some ways, technology can be a YES. facilitator of well-being, but I see it much more as a detractor, and I think that’s going to be the case even more so in the future. I hope Georgia Tech, as a STEM institution, can help tackle this issue. Social media is a pathway for building connections and community, but it has to be used purposefully and mindfully to leverage

CLIMATE CHANGE MARILYN BROWN: Regents’ and

Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy

Do we still have time to reverse climate change?

that. I worry about the negative, detrimental aspects. There’s quite a bit of research that shows teenagers who spend more time on social media experience higher levels of mental health issues. Also, with all the global conflicts and violence happening around the world, we have communities experiencing vicarious trauma. We’re not directly involved in these events, but we are bombarded with images of it through social media. As technology in this area has risen, I don’t think we’ve kept pace with thinking about the effects it would have on us in this way. But there’s almost this FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) of not being on social media. So how do we balance that? Each person is going to have to answer that for themselves, and there are some personal choices that have to be made. Another concern I have is the pace of life. Think about technological advances like the washing machine. These were designed to create more time for leisure, but what’s happened is they’ve just created more time for us to work. In the U.S., this is a particular challenge. We are wired to celebrate achievement, and the volume of our “human doingness” has become more important than the quality of our engagement. I think that’s another trend that will continue to be problematic.

CANNOT While better technologies would be helpPREDICT ful, no scientific miracles are needed. NOW. We just need the political and societal will to get the job done, like we had when the National Highway System was built. We will need to capture CO2 and store it. We know how to do it, but at a time when we also have wars and poverty and other priorities, I’m not sure how quickly this will happen. While we’re not going to be able to get back to where we used to be before the industrial revolution, we’re not doomed. We can moderate the amount of CO2 and harden society and our infrastructure— raising bridges, planting mangroves, and burying our electric grid. At the moment, we have the largest single investment in cleantech ever made in the United States, with the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and CHIPs. Each of those has programs to support climate smart choices. However, we haven’t seen an outpouring of standards or requirements to ensure goals are met, so I’m hoping to see more of that in the future. The choices we make in our everyday lives can drive change as well. It used to be that we blamed everything on the producer of the goods. We’re turning that around to focus on the power of the consumer. With all the gadgets we have, we can know what we’re buying and the consequences...a very powerful shift. The Institute is leading by example with a climate action plan and courses and curricula, such as the GT energy minor, the Master of Stable Energy and Environmental Management in the School of Public Policy, and new offerings in Industrial Systems and Engineering and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. There’s an explosion of opportunities for students to study this field and go on to make a difference.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

ENTERTAINMENT

GIL WEINBERG: professor, founding director of the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology

Will people go see a band of robots in concert, just like they now go to see their favorite band of humans? VERY Very doubtful for just robots. But robots and humans, yes. Humans have DOUBTFUL. emotion and expression that is uniquely human. But a machine thinks about music differently and plays music differently. At the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, we are trying to invent the next generation of music technologies that would revolutionize how we make music and how we consume it. In my robotics musicianship group, we develop robots that can understand music and then use algorithms to improvise and generate new ideas. Ultimately, the robots listen to music like humans, but they play like a machine, which means that they can play like no human can. For example, one of our robots has eight arms to play the marimba, and each can play much faster than a human. So with humans and robots on stage together, there can be a spark that builds on great things from both. Humans bring emotion and expression, robots bring some unique algorithms and some abilities humans don’t have. And together there can be a spark that will make someone want to go see those kinds of performances.

Will AI or a robot win a Grammy Award? Even for humans, it’s very difficult to win a Grammy. We create so much music; some ASK AGAIN of it is very bad, some of it is less bad, some is good, and only one will win. LATER. Currently, AI is generating bad music. We have all the music in the world to train it, and we try to use the good music, but it’s very difficult. People have been trying to predict for many years what will be a hit, but there’s a je ne sais quoi about music. What can be a hit in 2020 might not be a hit in 2023. Music is also about the artist, and how they walk and talk. In our Robotic Musicianship group at Tech, we develop robots with unique gestures and voices that can give a robot a personal character that humans can connect with emotionally. But the reason I didn’t say no to this question is because with AI and the rule of big numbers, maybe it can happen. If we can generate billions and trillions of pieces of music, maybe one of them will surface at just the right time and become something people like.

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SOCIAL MEDIA SYBRINA ATWATERS, EE 94, MS HSTS 09, PHD HSTS 14: director, OMED

Educational Services, interdisciplinary sociologist

Will bots take over social media?

MY They say no because bots need the SOURCES everyday user to function. This SAY NO. technology seems like a new phenomenon, but it’s not. It’s in search engines. It’s in word processing with autocorrect. Bots started with those automated phone calls and now have become a computerized, AI way of mimicking our social behaviors. They collect data, and the data we give them is how these platforms work. Facebook only works if people are out there interacting. YouTube only works if the user provides content. They are literally designed to be user-centered. That’s why they give you the programs for free— because you’re doing the work for them. Bots just take advantage of that information and data. We all click it. We see that privacy notice, but we don’t pay any attention to it. And we also know there’s very few ways for us to operate effectively without entering into these spaces.

Will I be able to tell what’s fake on social media? It will become increasingly difficult as the bots become smarter. But I’ll add another question to REPLY this: What do we call fake? The distinction between fake and real is very nuanced for me. In the HAZY. digitized space, everything is a digitized version of a human. Even a photo you say is real, you know you changed the lighting and the angles. There’s no non-digitized version of any of us out there, and yet, I would argue they’re all very real. A bot does what a human does and that’s taking content, images, and words to create a narrative and engagement. To me that’s very real. This technology has been here for a while, and the fact that now everyday users are engaging with it should not promote fear. Sometimes when we are afraid of what we feel we don’t know, we want to encapsulate, ignore, or block it out. But instead, it should cause us to be aware, conscious, and more technologically literate. That will make us implement behaviors that allow technology to be safe, social, and equitable.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

WORKLIFE

CLARENCE ANTHONY JR.:

workforce development manager for the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation and current Georgia Tech MBA student

Will my office adopt a four-day workweek?

VERY The pandemic was kind of an DOUBTFUL. existential crisis. It gave a lot of us time to sit still and think about what we were doing, whether that was meaningful to us, and how we could live a more balanced life. I think the pandemic caused a shift in how people worked, which would not have happened organically. But when it comes to a four-day workweek, I think it must be less about what I like to call “the warm and fuzzies.” It can’t be about “How does this make people feel?” but about “Does this make sense analytically?” Unless there is some information that shows people can be just as productive with four days of work as with five, then I would say a four-day workweek is very unlikely.

Will artificial intelligence take my job? For anyone who takes the opportunity to expose themselves to MY REPLY generative AI, they will see that it can only go as far as human prompts IS NO. can take it. But it does enhance people’s ability to be productive. If I’m trying to develop panel questions for an event or planning an agenda, and I just don’t have the 30 minutes to think out what I want, I can provide a program with some prompts and within five minutes I have something. But I have to retool what is put out. So there are limits, and it does require human intervention.

46 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

What does Roll Call mean to you? Thousands of alumni make a gift to Roll Call every year – each for a reason that is important to them:

Some give to help students achieve their fullest potential as engineers and leaders. Students like Maria Rain Jennings, MS ChBE 21, PhD ChBE 24, who has not only benefited from a Roll Call funded Georgia Tech President’s Fellowship, but also learned so much about mentorship and professional networking as an active member and mentor in the Roll Call supported Georgia Tech Women in Engineering (WIE) program.

Some give to help make the best-in-class student experience possible for the next generation of leaders and problem solvers. For leaders like Jason Sodikin, the Roll Call supported Tech Promise program broke down the walls of financial insecurity and made the Tech experience a reality. Now the President of Tour Guides at Georgia Tech, Jason exemplifies the Tech spirit by sharing his insights with new Tech students.

And others give to help ensure the future excellence of Georgia Tech. Scan to see a special video Being the best means providing unmatched message about what Roll Call experiences for students, like the internship means to Georgia Tech in the United States Senate that Kyle J. Smith, President Ángel Cabrera PP 22, experienced through Tech’s Roll Call GTalumni.org/RC supported Federal Jackets Fellowship.

No matter the reason, when you support Roll Call, you are supporting superlative students just like Maria, Jason, and Kyle. Whether it helps fund the next generation of engineers, provides unmatched opportunities, or helps bring the very best to Tech, a gift to Roll Call preserves and enhances Georgia Tech’s legacy of excellence. gtalumni.org/givetoday

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

Your Future With

Artificial Intelligence By John Toon

or more than half a century, artificial intelligence was largely the domain of research laboratories, academics, and science fiction authors. All that changed in November 2022 when a California company introduced ChatGPT, a large-language AI chatbot that could be used by ordinary people.

TERENCE RUSHIN

By January 2023, more than 100 million people had used ChatGPT, making it the fastest-growing consumer software application ever. The generative AI program helped create text, conversations, and images for a world that had mostly known AI through a science fiction lens. Though forms of

artificial intelligence had already been working behind-the-scenes in such mainstream applications as search engines, vehicle navigation, and language translation, ChatGPT gave AI a whole new face—and lots of new fans. An April 2023 article from Goldman Sachs predicted that generative AI would bring about “sweeping changes” to the world’s economy and boost global GDP by 7%. Consulting firm Accenture forecast that the technology underlying ChatGPT would “transform work and reinvent business.” McKinsey & Company said AI would bring improved efficiency and productivity. A s e x c i t i n g a s t h at m a y b e , A s h o k Goel—a professor of Computer Science and Human-Centered Computing in Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing—doesn’t expect everyone to be celebrating. He’s among the voices concerned that AI technologies will disrupt the lives of many workers, some more than others. Changes will come not just to low-skilled jobs that have been the victims of previous technological change, but also to middle-class professional workers whose livelihoods depend on advanced cognitive and social skills.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE 48 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZI

Ashok Goel

THIS IMAGE WAS CREATED USING AI WITH THE PROMPT:

Illustration in futuristic style depicting Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets shaping artificial intelligence

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

assistant who answered questions from online com“My own sense is that the economic, financial, and puter science students—without them knowing at the commercial impact of AI is already happening,” he time that she was a computer program based on IBM’s says. “It is going to disrupt a large number of American Watson platform. Today, Jill continues working as a workers and workers across the world. That is going to teaching assistant, helping students in an English be one of the biggest short-term impacts of AI class taught at Wiregrass Georgia Technical Colover the next five years.” lege, where she answers questions and explains While potentially impacting millions of course materials. Jill also interacts with students workers, AI may conversely also help those in an online computer science course at Georgia workers adapt to the new reality. Goel beTech, and is the focus of a new research study lieves AI-based technologies can help with evaluating how well AI supports learning. the reskilling and upskilling of the workforce; Goel is aware of the doom and gloom providing convenient, affordable, and achievpredictions that AI will wreak able education to workers who are well havoc on the world. beyond the age of traditional college “My sense is that as with any and technical-school students. new technology, we have to be And he knows something about careful and harness this potenAI in education. In 2016, Goel Nashlie Sephus tial,” he says. “The challenge is not and his graduate students gained so much with AI, but whether we worldwide attention with Jill as humans can figure out how to Watson, an AI-enabled teaching harness this potential in a positive direction—and how to create laws and rules that reduce the risk. We haven’t figured that out yet, but ultimately it depends on us.” Reducing the risks of artificial intelligence by making it more transparent and “explainable” is part of what Nashlie Sephus, MS ECE 10, PhD ECE 14, considers responsible AI. She knows the quirks, faults, nuances, and limitations of artificial intelligence from Here are a few areas where AI may help you in Facilitating having worked with AI for more than a dozen years, the next few years: personalized first at Georgia Tech, then at Atlanta startup Partmedicine tailored pic, and for the past seven years at Amazon AWS AI, to your needs where she has the title of Principal Tech Evangelist. That deep knowledge gives her an understanding of why AI is doing what it does deep within its algorithms. While it’s critically important to understand Simplifying dense, Predicting the Writing and technical text to hyperlocal editing reports, and measure bias and fairness in how systems interact help lay readers impact of global essays, memos, with different groups or subgroups, there’s much more understand it climate change emails to having responsible AI. “The umbrella of responsible AI is more than just checking for biases and performance disparities and high error rates across certain groups,” she says. “It’s Customizing Gathering and services such as summarizing vast also about being transparent, because the nature of streaming music amounts of informachine learning and AI is based on probabilities, so to individual mation on specific tastes topics there’s always a percentage that what a model returns may not be correct. It’s never absolute or guaranteed by the nature of the system.”

Six Ways AI May Help You

50 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

Ask The Experts Will AI become smarter than the humans who created it? AI can draw connections in ways we have never seen before, but it can’t generate something truly novel. The reason these systems are so powerful is that they’ve been trained on hundreds of years of stuff created by people.

What happens when AI learns from AI-generated content?

Will AI replace my doctor?

The next generation of AI is going to be trained on a combination of human interaction and AI input. It’s just going to reinforce itself, so it’s going to be like an echo chamber…so it’s going to get more and more like itself.

—DAVID JOYNER, CS 08, MS HCI 09, PHD HCC 15

—JOYNER

That’s not going to happen in the short term. Healthcare is one of those domains in which the margin for error is very small. No doctor, no patient, no insurance company, and no hospital system will accept errors. But AI machines still make errors.

Will humans lose control and let AI take over the world? There are many misconceptions, and one of the biggest is that AI is going to somehow take over the world. I think we are far away from that. Right now, we are building tools that are specific to certain tasks. But yes, they can be misused by humans. —IRFAN ESSA

— ASHOK GOEL

David Joyner JOYA CHAPMAN

healthcare-related applications coming down the line,” she notes. “I’m both excited and, equally, concerned about making sure we educate startups on how to be responsible with AI, not only in healthcare, but in other areas such as transportation.” Irfan Essa sees ChatGPT—and programs like it— ushering in a true sea change that will create dramatically new impacts for artificial intelligence, with equally important ethical and moral issues to be debated. Essa, co-director of Georgia Tech’s new AI Hub, has David Joyner will be speaking about AI in the workplace been working on machine during the Georgia Tech Alumni learning at Tech since 1996. Association’s Career Month “What’s happened now in March 2024. Learn more at is a confluence of a whole gtalumni.org/career. lot of things,” he says. “We can access large amounts of data, compute on large amounts of d at a , a n d t h rou g h significant advances in machine-learning techniques, build models to understand that data and generate new outputs from it. The technologies we are

CAREER MONTH

TERENCE RUSHIN

Transparency may require explaining those limitations to the lawyer for whom generative AI cited a fictitious court case, a loan applicant turned down for no obvious reason, or a doctor questioning an AI interpretation of a diagnostic test result. And that’s where efforts are needed to educate a new generation of AI users. “I love the fact that people who didn’t have access to the technology before now have it, but we have to make them aware of the limitations,” she adds. “As a tech evangelist and applied scientist, one of my roles is to educate people on responsible AI use. That includes everyone from members of Congress to community organizations to the K-12 community.” Sephus is pleased to see these discussions happening. “When I started at Georgia Tech in 2008, my research area was AI and machine learning, and it was difficult. You couldn’t talk to people about it. You could barely explain it, and there weren’t many applications to point to.” Recently, she ser ved as a judge for a major business publication’s ranking of top Irfan Essa artificial intelligence companies. “There are so many

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

seeing now are much better than previous ones.” For example, wire services such as Reuters have for years been using AI to automate the generation of simple formula-driven content such as corporate earnings reports, he noted. “But ChatGPT allows us to do more creative writing, with more variability. It can learn Aaron someone’s specific style.” Enten However, generative AI has created skepticism for its “hallucinations” that create false information, even fabricating legal cases that never happened. That very significant issue comes from what the algorithms are really doing. “The AI may not have completely understood something because what it’s really doing is building from all of the knowledge it extracted from other writings and using that to form sentences,” Essa says. For the short term, that likely means AI’s role will be as a helper supporting—and supervised by—human beings. Still, Essa says humans would do well to keep in mind an adage coined by scientist and futurist Roy Amara: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.”

Where AI Fits In Enhancing the work of human physicians is very much the goal of Insight Optics, a company formed by two Georgia Tech alumni to make specialized screening

Which of these is the real President Cabrera? Can you tell the difference between the real headshot of Georgia Tech’s president and the AI-generated one?

Find out if you’re correct and test your ability to spot AI-generated images by taking our quiz at gtalumni.org/AIQuiz

52 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

available in medical clinics and general practitioner offices. Its first target is screening for retinal damage caused by hypertension and diabetes, a major cause of blindness that can be prevented with regular eye exams—if patients got those exams. “We can ensure that patients who are going to a point of primary care for their annual physical have access to effectively specialized medicine without the need to schedule an additional appointment, make an additional trip, take additional time off, or bill a separate insurance protocol,” says Aaron Enten, MBA 19, PhD BioE 19, the company’s CEO. “It boils down to increased access and making it easier not just for the patient, but also for the primary care practitioner.” As a part of initial triage during a regular office visit, a medical practitioner would use an inexpensive optical device connected to an iPhone to record 30-second videos of the retinas at the back of each patient’s eye— without the pupil dilation now required for screening. The video would be transmitted to the company’s servers, where an AI program would quickly confirm that the video has been properly captured—after which it can be sent to a specialist for evaluation. Enten and Co-founder T.J. LaGrow, MS ECE 19, hope that one day AI will help with the diagnosis as regulation and patient acceptance evolve. The

aren’t enough of them to meet the need for explaining complex topics—and doing it on demand. She expects her AI assistant will serve classroom teachers and parents who want to help their children tackle new topics. For faculty members such as Goel, who joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 1989 and has labored in the AI trenches, seeing the blooming of real artificial intelligence applications and broad interest is rewarding. “We as humans live in the age where AI permeates our society and our lives and our world, and it is going to have huge impact,” he says. “It will be mostly positive, I think, but also somewhere that we’ll have to be very careful. But just to see this turn in human history and to be alive and to witness it and perhaps shape it in some Wei Xu small way is incredibly exciting and satisfying.” KEVIN BEASLEY

company is expanding, and the founders believe the platform could allow other specialized screenings to be done in primary care offices. AI is already operating behind popular programs that translate from one language to another. Wei Xu, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing, is facilitating a different kind of translation useful to anyone who’s ever struggled to understand difficult technical articles. Her work shows how specific areas of AI research may help meet important niche human needs. “My team is working on a writing and reading assistant to simplify text,” she says. “It will take a news article, Wikipedia page, or any kind of document you may find online and make it easy to read for elementary-school children, people who don’t have a higher education, or even non-native English speakers.” Writers and editors already do that, of course, but Xu says there

How to Tell If AI Is Emailing You—And Other Ways to Avoid Getting Fooled Generative AI programs such as ChatGPT depend on their knowledge of previous writings by humans to create new text. Because the AI relies on what it knows about other human communications, it can be difficult to tell if a given text was written by a machine or a real person. However, frequent readers of AI-generated essays and emails can pick up on signs their sources may be non-human, even if they might not have proof that would stand up in court. “AI generally has impeccable grammar, but no style to speak of,” says David Joyner, CS 08, MS HCI 09, PhD HCC 15, executive director of Online Education & OMSCS in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, who’s writing a book designed to help instructors deal with the flood of AI-written material. “We’ve read enough AI-generated text

to feel that there’s something different about it. The response feels a bit weaker, a bit more distant.” People who have human assistants often entrust them with sending emails on their behalf. But recipients usually can tell. “With ChatGPT, it’s like everyone has the same administrative assistant emailing for them,” Joyner adds. “It just can feel inauthentic, especially when coming from a student, though a lot of times I completely understand they’re doing it to be professional.” What can instructors do? One option is, instead of accepting written assignments in PDF format, they could request MS-Word documents with “track changes” enabled. That would allow examination of revisions—and suspicion if large blocks of text suddenly appear. Programs do exist that attempt to identify AI sources, but Joyner says

they face a difficult challenge. For ordinary viewers, separating AI-generated images from the real thing can be even more difficult. But a current weakness of AI image generators is that they cannot consistently create the same scenes from different perspectives. For instance, AI won’t be generating two or three images of the same purported plane crash from different angles. Growing awareness of AI-generated images and text may make people more suspicious of what they read and see—and ultimately drive more real interpersonal communication, he says. “Interacting with real people could be a wonderful thing if it drives us to be more present in the real world. I see this pushback happening already. But I don’t know yet if it’s a bump in the road or a real societal shift.” GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

SCIENCE SQUARE

THE FUTURE IS AT GEORGIA TECH Georgia Tech’s largest planned innovation hub aims to create a life sciences district on the edge of campus.

BY JENNIFER HERSEIM

54 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

In our bodies, enzymes act as catalysts to speed up biochemical reactions, helping with everything from digesting our food to powering our cells. Without these vital proteins, reactions would slow down, and we couldn’t survive. On the west edge of campus, Georgia Tech’s newest innovation hub is set to be a catalyst of a different kind for the life sciences and biotechnology. Science Square is an 18-acre multi-phase development that encompasses residential units, retail, restaurants, and more than 1.8 million square feet of lab and office space. “Science Square will be an ecosystem for the life sciences,” says Tony Zivalich, Georgia Tech’s associate vice president of Real Estate Development. The planned district is located at North Avenue and Northside Drive, across the street from the North Avenue Research Area (NARA). The initial construction phase, which includes Science Square Labs and The Grace, a 280-unit residential building, is

expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2024. Developers plan to fully develop the district within 10 years. A pedestrian bridge will be the main artery to the district, connecting campus to Science Square and the westside community beyond. The visionary project is the result of a publicprivate partnership between the Institute, developer Trammell Crow Company, and High Street Residential. Their aim is to create a life sciences hub that attracts entrepreneurs and researchers to Atlanta while retaining the Institute’s own talent. “We want to encourage students who graduate from Tech to stay in Atlanta because we’re creating a life sciences cluster right here,” Zivalich says. Georgia Tech faculty members will also have convenient access to commercial lab and office space next door to campus, says Katherine Lynch, a principal with Trammell Crow Company’s Atlanta office. “With the talent out of Georgia Tech and Emory, life sciences startups, and the CDC, there are all the ingredients here in Atlanta to have a GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

world-class life sciences ecosystem,” says Lynch. The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering already occupies space inside the district at Technology Enterprise Park (TEP). Science Square also includes BioSpark Labs, a shared lab space designed to launch life sciences and biotech startups. BioSpark Labs recently underwent a $6 million expansion.

Venture capital firm Portal Innovations, known for supporting entrepreneurs in life sciences districts in Chicago, Boston, and Houston, will expand into Science Square next year, occupying a floor inside Science Square Labs. “We’re here to stimulate, retain, and scale companies, and that plays into the design of this building,” says Suna Lumeh, director of operations for Portal Innovation. The new district will expand the

Institute’s presence from Tech Square in Midtown Atlanta to the westside communities and beyond. “Science Square is double the space that Tech Square was originally planned to be," Zivalich says. “It will be the bookend to Tech Square, connecting the east with the west." On the next few pages, take a look at plans for Science Square and learn how it’s positioned to be the premier life sciences hub in the Southeast.

CONNECTING SCIENCE SQUARE TO GEORGIA TECH

A $46 million pedestrian breezeway will connect campus with the new district and the westside communities beyond. The concept for the bridge was designed by a team of students from Georgia Tech who won a design competition last year. The architecture and civil engineering students traveled to London to seek inspiration from the city’s famous foot bridges. The Westside Community Connector Bridge will cross over North Avenue and connect to campus where Georgia Tech plans to develop Arts Square in the former Randall Brothers development. Ultimately, the bridge will connect to the John Lewis Student Center, says Zivalich. “Like the Fifth Street Bridge to the east that connects Tech Square...what we’re trying to do is create a similar connection on the westside to better physically connect to the westside communities,” he says. “From the bridge, you will be able to see panoramic views of Vine City, Buckhead, and Downtown.”

PROJECT TIMELINE

APRIL 2022

Beginning of construction

AUG. 18 2022

Official groundbreaking ceremony

AUG. 18, 2022 – Q1 2024 Phase 1 delivery

Q2 2024

Graduator suites in Science Square Labs earliest occupancy

Q3 2024

Portal Innovations opens in Science Square Labs

The project includes five construction phases, with the goal of being fully developed within 10 years. 56 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

AR IE TT A

-75

rth

Georgia Tech Campus Expansion

re Tech Squa

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To Interstates 75/85 NO

Ingress/Egress

RT H

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Vehicular Route Pedestrian Route

High-line style pedestrian/ bike/scooter bridge

TECH WAY NW

Future Road

North Avenue Research Area

Loading Dock

IL TR A

YANCEY ST

Phase 1

DONNA SMITH ST

WALNUT ST

Phase 3

Residential

TOR NEC ON EC LIN

Phase 4 Lab/Office

BioSpark Labs

T BEL Phase 5 Lab/Office

MELDRUM ST NW

IDE STS

NEREM ST

Phase 1 368,258 RSF Lab/Office Tower

TEP-1: Existing 120K Lab/ Office Building

Phase 4 Lab/Office

ST HEL MIC

Bankhead Station

1 MILE

NORTH AVENUE NW

1.7 MILE

North Ave Station

Shared Parking Deck

NORTHYARDS BLVD

Phase 2 Lab/Office

Phase 5 Retail & Park

1.3M SF of Lab/Office to accommodate future expansion

Herndon Square GRAY ST

JETT ST NW

NORTHSIDE DR NW

CAMERON MADISON ALEXANDER BLVD NW

Northyards

IN THE HEART OF THE WESTSIDE

“We want to create opportunities for community members to work and live in Science Square, not just look at Science Square,” Zivalich says. Trammell Crow along with CalSTRS has committed $500,000 in community engagement projects to the Vine City and English Avenue neighborhoods, including scholarships for workforce development and teacher training programs to prepare community members to work in Science Square. Over the course of the five phase development, Trammell Crow has committed to investing $2.5 million. In partnership with the Atlanta Housing Authority, a portion of the district’s residential space will also include affordable housing units.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

PURPOSE-BUILT LABS

Science Square Labs, a 13-story lab and office tower, was designed from “the inside out” to accommodate life sciences companies in all stages of their growth, Lynch says. The electrical and mechanical infrastructure was tailored to support state-of-the art cleanrooms and wet labs critical for research. The building was also designed with more rigidity than a typical office tower to prevent vibrational noises from interfering with sensitive microscopes. The building uses network power, reducing reliance on distribution power, and it includes three generators to ensure labs continue to operate, even in emergencies. The mechanical systems on the top floor include 4½ miles of piping that provides 100% fresh air to lab areas. Two freight elevators ensure ample space to transport chemicals and waste in and out of the building.

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN Electrochromic windows throughout the building tint during the day and block UV rays so tenants can enjoy unobstructed views of Atlanta’s skyline without window blinds. This also reduces dust and pathogens. The building is designed to meet LEED Gold Certification and includes solar panels on the parking deck.

58 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

INDUSTRIAL STYLE INSPIRED BY LOCAL HISTORY A hundred years ago, the land where Science Square sits was predominantly an industrial rail yard. Designers for Science Square took inspiration from the area’s past for the exterior design, Lynch says. “The concrete columns are part of the skin of the building that speak to the industrial area, but with Class A high-end finishes and amenities,” she says.

BY THE NUMBERS

1.8 MILLION square feet of office/lab space

The 13-story Science Square Labs is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2024.

500+ 25,000 residential units square feet of retail space

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

AN INCUBATOR FOR LIFE SCIENCES STARTUPS BioSpark Labs is situated within the Science Square district. The BSL2 shared lab includes co-working areas, private wet labs, an ISO 8 cleanroom, and capital equipment—everything to support a life sciences startup. “The goal is that you’ll outgrow our spaces and eventually move to Science Square Labs,” says Ryan Lawler, MS Bio 12, MBA 15, general manager of BioSpark Labs (pictured left). Five companies are currently located in BioSpark Labs, including SynthBiome, a Georgia Tech spinoff from the Whiteley Lab in the School of Biological Sciences that uses bioinformatics models that outperform animal models for research purposes such as studying antibacterial resistance. OrthoPreserve is another company in BioSpark Labs that was founded by a Georgia Tech grad (CEO Jonathan Schwartz, MS ME 18). The company focuses on a meniscus implant for knee pain treatment. Other tenants are working to develop mRNA therapeutics, cancer immunotherapy, and MedTech for brain cancer. “We have MedTech, bacterial and viral research here. And we’re agnostic, so we don’t only take Georgia Tech spinoffs; we’re committed to supporting everyone in the life sciences and MedTech arena,” Lawler says.

60 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

‘SCIENTISTS ARE HUMANS, TOO’

Science Square Labs will include Class A amenities such as a fitness center, shared conference and board rooms, 24/7 onsite security, concierge services, and a coffee shop. “We like to say that scientists are humans, too,” says Lynch. The district will include ground-floor restaurant and retail space positioned around an openair courtyard. A few hundred feet from the district is a Beltline spur trail and the West Midtown Echo Street development on Northside Drive. “We’re building 280 residential units, along with the first building to be done in March,” Lynch says. Approximately 250 more units are expected later. “The goal is for tenants to not only want to work in Science Square, but to live here, too,” Lynch says.

Explore your city, meet friends, and build relationships bonded by Tech. Connect with alumni in your area for a night of new memories experiencing what makes your community special at Social in the City. February - March 2024. Learn more and register at gtalumni.org/socialinthecity

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

VOLUME 99

ALUMNI HOUSE

ISSUE 4

BUZZ BASH This Homecoming, Yellow Jackets visited their favorite familiar places and some new spaces on campus. This year’s Buzz Bash, an all-alumni party, included special performances and a surprise Georgia Tech ring ceremony for Tech’s most energized Yellow Jacket—Buzz!

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

HOMECOMING 2023

COMING HOME TO FAVORITE PLACES WHETHER IT WAS YOUR FIRST time stepping on campus (welcome, OMSCS grads!) or you’ve lost track of how many steps you’ve walked up Freshman Hill, Homecoming 2023 was a special weekend for the whole Georgia Tech community. Ramblin’ Wrecks in the classes of 1973, 1983, and 1998 celebrated milestone reunions, and all alumni

connected at Buzz Bash, the premier alumni Homecoming party. During this year’s Buzz Bash, Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera presented Buzz with a championship ring for the famous Yellow Jacket winning No. 1 mascot in the country this year. The crowning moment of the weekend, though, came when the Yellow Jackets beat North Carolina 46-42.

25% WISHED TO SEE INSIDE BRIT TAIN TOWER Brittain Tower Steam Tunnels

WHERE DID YOU MEE T YOUR GEORGIA TEC H BES T FRIEND? 1

Dorm

Class

Greek Life

Band

Third Street Tunnel

Burdell’s Dorm Room

Bus Stop

WHERE WERE YOU ON GAME DAYS? In the Stands - 44%

Fans rushed the field at Bobby Dodd Stadium to celebrate the impressive win that will be talked about for years to come. Homecoming was also a celebration of the places that made you the “helluva” person you are today. We asked Yellow Jackets to tell us their favorite campus locations. Take a look at the results:

Baptist Study Football Student Abroad Game Union Trip

WHERE DID YOU WORK AS A S TUDENT?

Spirit Groups - 28%

64 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

Bookstore

Student Center

CRC

Harris Rooftop - 3%

Off-campus Job

Studying/Missed the Game - 8%

Student Assistant

Band/Majorette - 17%

Find your career path with

Connect. Chat with fellow Yellow Jackets in your field and beyond.

Engage. Search hundreds of job listings and take advantage of development workshops.

Network. Meet new mentors and reconnect with classmates.

ALUMNI HOUSE

A BOND THAT LASTS A LIFETIME GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI NETWORKS OFFER YELLOW JACKETS A COMMUNITY BEYOND CAMPUS. BY MAT T SOWELL GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI NETWORKS are one way the Yellow Jacket community stays strong beyond campus. “Georgia Tech alumni are special—they have a bond that other university alumni don’t,” says Katie Crowe, senior manager of alumni engagement at the Georgia Tech Alumni Association. “By having Networks, we give them a space and community in their area that they otherwise may not have,” she says. “There are 391 events a year across all network groups,” says Crowe. With so many opportunities for Yellow Jackets to come together, we reached out to network leaders in three U.S. cities to hear what they love about their areas, ways alumni can get involved, and more.

ALUMNI NETWORKS: BY THE NUMBERS Represented in 82 cities, 30 U.S. states, and 56 countries across the globe, each network is led by local Georgia Tech alumni. 66 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

WASHINGTON, D.C., NETWORK KAYLA KELLY, ECON 16, with the Washington, D.C., Network.

Kayla Kelly, Econ 16, and her aunt with U.S. Senator Cory Booker in D.C.

What are your “top five” things about Washington, D.C.? 1. I love D.C. culture! From the food and music scene to the way our city celebrates and embraces diversity, there’s never a dull moment when living here. 2. There are a lot of free events and things to do in D.C. All the Smithsonian museums are free, we have a lot of free cultural festivals, and parks and recreation centers host free events for residents. 3. D.C. is a beautiful city. We have a lot of national parks, bike trails, gardens, and other beautiful green spaces for residents and visitors to enjoy nature. D.C. also has beautiful and historic architecture and city streets. 4. There are a lot of opportunities for young professionals to network in D.C. We are one of the most educated cities in the U.S. with many universities here and in the surrounding areas. 5. D.C. has a great visual and performing arts scene. There are a lot of world-renowned art galleries located in the city. The Kennedy Center hosts a lot of performances and workshops from nationally and internationally renowned artists, and some of these are free. Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a D.C. public school dedicated to the visual and performing arts, hosts events throughout the city and attracts well-known artists to the school.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA NETWORK

SEATTLE NETWORK ARMINA KHWAJA MACMILLAN, BA 11, with the Seattle Network. What are your “top five” things about Seattle? 1. Mount Rainier! No matter how long I’ve lived here, I cannot imagine I’ll ever lose the awe and beauty of seeing Mount Rainier out on a sunny and clear day. 2. As much as I miss my East Coast wardrobe, I love how casual every outing can be here. 3. I love that every neighborhood in Seattle has a distinct vibe and personality. It reminds me of Atlanta in that way! 4. Asian food, for sure. Atlanta has a lot of great food that I miss dearly, but Seattle wins for dumplings, dim sum, and many other Asian cuisines. 5. My favorite weekends involve going to a farmers’ market, a park, a hike, or a Japanese garden. I also love wine tasting here. It never disappoints. We’re surrounded by so many wonderful valleys. BRIAN TYSON, EE 10, with the Seattle Network. What is one thing about the future of your city that excites you? I’m excited to see how Seattle expands as a tech hub and brings in forward-thinking innovators and technologies but also looks to address local issues related to access to public services and public transit.

SHRUTI GUPTA, CMPE 10, with the Northern California Network. What is one thing about the future of your city that excites you? The Bay Area is a leader in sustainability efforts. I am excited to see where we go next! What kind of activities can alumni do in your area? The Bay Area has beautiful weather most of the year, so there are beautiful hikes to do all year round. If you are into the arts, there is live theater, symphony, opera, and everything you can imagine. The food in the Bay Area is fabulous and from all over the world. There’s something for everyone!

WANT TO GET INVOLVED?

Be sure to check out Home for the Holidays this winter and Ramble the Night happening in spring 2024. Visit gtalumni.org.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

STAFF SPOTLIGHT

BEHIND THE SCENES OF ROLL CALL

MEET JESSICA FISCHLER, THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION’S MANAGER OF LEADERSHIP AND VOLUNTEER GIVING.

68 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

is that funds are unrestricted. “That means we can help basically anything. A lot of the funds go directly to help students through need-based scholarships, such as the G. Wayne Clough Georgia Tech Promise Program, and merit-based scholarships, like the Stamps President’s Scholars Program.” For Fischler, the Tech Promise

FAST FACTS: ROLL CALL 15,854 alumni donors

93%

of gifts were below $1,000

1,332

donors gave for the first time during the 76th Roll Call

2,272

donors have given for 50+ years

$100

is the most common gift amount

158

ambassadors volunteered their time to promote Roll Call

Program is special. “It’s one of my favorites,” she says. “It’s a scholarship for students from low-income Georgia families to make sure that once they get to Tech, they don’t have the financial burden of worrying about how they’ll pay for the next semester.” Fischler’s ties to Tech extend beyond her position at the Alumni Association. She recently married double jacket Michael Fischler, CmpE 12, MS CS 19, and they had the Alumni Association’s Wreck at their wedding. “It was our getaway car,” she says. There are many ways Yellow Jackets can be a part of the tradition of Roll Call, Fischler says. “Alumni can become a Roll Call ambassador, which is our peer-to-peer fundraiser. We’re always looking for them, especially around Giving Day, since it’s such a day of impact,” Fischler says. She says it doesn’t stop there. “Even spreading the word about what Roll Call is does a lot,” she says, “and asking if your friends or family members have given this year can make an impact.”

PHOTOGRAPH

R O L L C A L L , Georgia Tech’s Fund for Excellence, is a tradition stretching back to 1947 that provides unrestricted funding to support student needs, scholarships, and programs. No one knows the impact of Roll Call quite like Jessica Fischler, manager of leadership and volunteer giving. Fischler works with Leadership Circle members, an exclusive group of top donors. “I’m that frontline fundraiser, that person donors can go to when they have questions about their gifts.” Hearing about Tech’s impact on alumni and their reasons for giving are rewarding parts of her job, Fischler says. “When alumni call, they say they give back to Georgia Tech because Georgia Tech gave them so much.” Tech’s impact goes beyond a degree, she adds. “Georgia Tech changes lives. Alumni tell me they come here and find their passions, and in some cases, their spouses. Sometimes, their children also come to Tech. So, it’s not only changing individuals, but also impacting generations.” One key characteristic of Roll Call

SCOTT DINERMAN, STC 03

BY MAT T SOWELL

37%

of workplace

from 5 years ago are no

skills

longer relevant.*

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On-Site

Online

https://learn.pe.gatech.edu/gtpe * Shifting Skills, Moving Targets, and Remaking the Workforce, 2022, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Emsi Burning Glass, and The Burning Glass Institute

GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

ANNUAL REPORT

FISCAL YEAR 2023 The Alumni Association closed a successful year focused on engagement, meaningful connections, and community.

Note: Statistics as of June 30, 2023. Totals do not equal 100% where information on class year or college is unavailable.

LIVING ALUMNI BY DECADES & GENDER

ALUMNI BY COLLEGE 10,448 College of Design +2.8%*

6,598 Ivan Allen College 475 of Liberal Arts Undesignated +6.4%*

-2.1%*

15,176 College of Sciences

377 total 0.27% *Evening School

1950s

3,021 total 0.20% *

1960s

+4.2%*

25,529 Scheller College of Business

1940s or earlier

8,091 total 0.98% * 15,494 total 7.39%*

1970s

22,108 total 20.88%*

1980s

196,132

Living Alumni

26,688 total 25.54%*

1990s

+1.9%*

36,031 total 28.18%*

2000s 26,611 College of Computing +16.0%*

111,357 College of Engineering

2010s

+3.5%*

2020s

*percent change from previous year

*Percentage of Women

54,195 total 30.35%* 30,197 total 33.96%* 0

10K

20K

30K

40K

50K

60K

RAMBLIN’ WRECKS IN 50 STATES AND 157 COUNTRIES*

177,906 United States

1,214 South Korea

1,847 France

3,904 China >10,000 1,000-9,999

3,770 India

10-999 1 to 10

* Snapshot as of Nov. 1, 2023. 70 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

ASSO CIAT IO N FINA N C E S REVENUES

F I S C AL Y E AR 2 0 2 3 BUDGET

ACTUAL

GT Foundation

$5,578,650

VARIANCE $0

Georgia Tech

497,755

522,422

24,667

Advertising & Sponsorships

209,000

215,090

6,090

Career Services

14,000

(14,000)

Tours

105,000

216,052

111,052

2,000

3,317

1,317

Royalties

120,000

89,240

(30,760)

Event Registrations

228,900

275,528

46,628

Other Sources of Revenue

175,155

223,622

48,467

Merchandise Sales (net of Cost of Sales)

Gold & White Honors Gala/Contributions

405,000

591,946

186,946

$7,335,460

$7,715,867

$380,407

President & Admin

$1,874,317

$2,055,872

$181,555

Tech Services/Bio

605,050

532,216

(72,834)

(6,945)

TOTAL

EXPENDITURES PRESIDENT & ADMINISTRATION

CHIEF OF STAFF HR and Career Services

278,800

271,855

Business Development

87,000

166,394

79,394

Event Management

1,341,330

1,450,681

109,351

ENGAGEMENT Alumni Engagement

670,335

715,411

45,076

Student Engagement

349,050

266,064

(82,986)

1,093,850

945,735

(148,115)

Publications

528,275

660,242

131,967

Marketing Services

698,110

592,940

(105,170)

TOTAL

$7,526,117

$7,657,410

$131,293

TOTAL NET INCOME/(LOSS)

($190,657)

$58,457

$249,114

ROLL CALL Roll Call/Gift STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS

ASSETS Cash and Cash Equivalents Accounts Receivable less Allowance for Doubtful Accounts of $3000 in 2023 and $3000 in 2022

2023

2022

$1,270,581

$1,113,001

LIABILITIES AND NET ASSETS

$433,778

Note Payable

40,638

403,256

371,939

$1,221,030

$805,717

1,064,432

1,110,866

Prepaid Expenses

66,969

11,355

Inventory

2,867

7,007

Total Liabilities

1,741,066

1,788,391

Property, plant and equipment, net

227,247

203,279

NET ASSETS

Antique Ramblin’ Wreck

12,500

Without Donor Restrictions

$3,645,412

$3,310,384

TOTAL ASSETS

$777,136

174,851

Accrued expenses

Investments

2022

LIABILITIES Accounts Payable

324,182

2023

1,359,950

1,393,801

Total Net Assets

With Donor Restrictions

$2,424,382

$2,504,667

TOTAL LIABILITIES AND NET ASSETS

$3,645,412

$3,310,384

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

LETTER FROM THE CHAIR DEAR FELLOW ALUMNI, It is an honor to serve as the Alumni Association’s chair for the 2024 fiscal year. Having the chance to celebrate with old friends and meet new ones at events like Buzz Bash, our biggest homecoming party, and Ramble on the Green, our welcome party for new students, has been incredible. Our Yellow Jacket spirit is strong. Over the summer, we took the Alumni Association’s Wreck on a tour across the country to meet Yellow Jackets along the West Coast. This successful endeavor was an excellent reminder of the bonds we share as Georgia Tech alumni. You don’t need to be physically

near campus or have attended Georgia Tech at our Atlanta campus to join us in spreading the Good Word. Our alumni population continues to grow. This spring, we welcomed 5,673 new graduates into our alumni family, and thousands more will join us over the next year. In the spirit of the Institute’s motto—“Progress and Service”—we are here to serve you and our community of alumni. If you’ve just started your professional journey, take advantage of our network of experts, make connections at local events, and participate in Roll Call. Being active in your Alumni Regional Network is a great way to continue

We are here to serve you and our community of alumni.”

VISION

The vision of the Alumni Association is to build an enduring community with all alumni standing in proud support of Georgia Tech and each other.

72 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

MISSION

The mission of the Alumni Association is to champion and serve our alumni and the Institute through programming and engagement that fosters lifelong relationships and philanthropic support.

your growth as a Yellow Jacket and stay connected to your alma mater. If you’ve been lucky enough to represent the alumni community for many years, remember to give back by guiding and engaging the next generation of Yellow Jackets. Thank you for joining me in this helluva alumni community. Go Jackets! BETSY BULAT, IAML 04 GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI ASSOCIATION CHAIR FY 2024

VALUES

The Alumni Association’s culture, aligned with the Institute, is built on our core values of Community, Excellence, Innovation, Collaboration, Integrity, and Respect.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM A YEAR OF ENGAGEMENT IN FY23, THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION FOSTERED MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS THAT ENRICHED THE LIVES OF ALUMNI AND STUDENTS. READ A FEW OF THESE STORIES BELOW.

OVER 500 ALUMNI AND FRIENDS TRAVELED WITH US MIKE REEVES , M

GT 92

Cruising Sognefjord in Norway

The Georgia Tech Alumni Travel program offers Yellow Jackets and friends exclusive opportunities to experience new places around the globe. In FY23, over 500 travelers joined us on 50 tours. Our travelers were eager to share their travel treasures with us, including traveler Sharlene Smith, who brought home an aboriginal painting from Australia. “I try to collect some local artwork wherever I visit because it tells a story about the place and the people and gives me fond memories of my travels and those I have met,” Smith says.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & CAREER MONTH SHED LIGHT ON EMERGING TRENDS In FY23, the Alumni Association offered 23 virtual and in-person professional development sessions with 4,250 registrants. Programs were designed to help Yellow Jackets in all stages of their careers navigate the changing workforce. Career Month, held in March 2023, featured expert advice on emerging technologies and their impact on jobs, career paths of the future, data analytics, and more. “I took the Finding Your Career Sweet Spot Webinar and enrolled to do the Ability Assessment in October last year and loved it. Kene did an awesome job!” said attendee Cristina Rojas, MS IE 09.

Speaker Kene Iloenyosi

THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION’S WRECK TAKES ITS LONGEST JOURNEY YET This summer, the Alumni Association celebrated the reach of Georgia Tech’s impact across the country with “Wreck on the Road”. The Alumni Association’s car traveled the farthest it’s ever been to visit Yellow Jackets in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. The car stopped at iconic spots along the way, including NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California.

INAUGURAL SOCIAL IN THE CITY & RAMBLE THE NIGHT SPREAD TECH SPIRIT This spring, alumni and friends of Tech celebrated the lasting bonds that Yellow Jackets share at the Alumni Association’s inaugural Social In The City and Ramble the Night events. More than 300 participated in Social in the City in five cities: San Francisco, Calif.; Seattle, Wash.; Houston, Texas; New York, N.Y.; and Washington, D.C. The GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) Advisory Council was instrumental in supporting the new program, from development to event logistics and promotion. Ramble the Night, which took place January 26, was the Alumni Association’s first global night out for alumni. Events took place in every region of the U.S. and in 13 other countries.

Laura Pike, Mgt 11, and Olivia Pool, ChBE 18

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

ALUMNI HOUSE

ANGELS AMONG US

HOW A GT NETWORK CONNECTED ALUMNI-FOUNDED COMPANIES WITH $6.5M FROM INVESTORS IN ONE YEAR.

DHAVAL PATEL i s s o m e o n e adept at solving problems. Born with twisted knees, he found himself having to hobble on crutches just to get to household appliances. So, the Tech alumnus and former senior engineer manager at Apple started Lotus Labs, a company that invented a wearable ring that can control electronics without apps, rewiring, or the internet. But even Patel, EE 08, MS ECE 09, who has 37 patents to his name, was in search of funding for this new endeavor. At the same time, another person with Yellow Jacket connections, Sean Henry, Cls 19, was looking for projects to fund. In 2015, Henry founded Stord, an early cloud-based supply chain startup that is now worth more than a billion dollars. By 2023, Henry was an active angel investor and a scout for Kleiner Perkins, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms. Fortunately for both alumni, their alma mater had just built a bridge that could connect them. The GT Angel Network was co-founded by two students, Adithya Gurunathan and George Goodfellow, BA 22, in the fall of 2022. Their goal was to streamline startup founders’ access to investors, broaden the diversity of the investor

74 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

BY TONY REHAGEN pool, and foster an environment where Tech alumni-investors could also mentor alumni-founders. Their innovative structure allows the network to move more quickly and efficiently than a traditional angel network. “We wanted to rip up the rule book on how a traditional angel network is done,” says Goodfellow. “Historically, the process is very slow, and you have to go to a prestigious club to present your idea to a uniform group of investors who might not even be interested. It’s both daunting and exclusionary.” Typically, this process takes about 4 to 12 weeks to even get founders in front of potential investors. Instead, the GT Angel Network’s method takes just two weeks from the moment they receive a startup’s business plan. The student-led team meets with the founder for about 30–60 minutes and drafts a “memo” detailing the proposal, market analysis, and any potential challenges to distribute among their group of around 25 angel investors. From there, the students gauge investor interest and make introductions. This approach clearly benefits founders and angel investors. The students running GT Angel Network, in turn, get exposure to elite investors, promising founders, and a window into the world of venture capital. “My favorite part as an advisor has been seeing the mutual growth of students

and startups,” says Chris Klaus, legendary tech entrepreneur and founding board member of the network. “The exchange of knowledge and resources fosters an environment of innovation and practical learning.” Since its inception, the GT Angel Network has discovered 350 companies founded by alumni, including 75 that they then connected to investors, who invested in several of those companies to the tune of $6.5 million. But what’s in it for Tech, which sponsors the network but receives no financial incentive? They’re finding successful grads and bringing them back into the Tech community. “From our standpoint, several of the angels are alumni who haven’t been very active with Tech,” says Janet Kinard, vice president for Engagement with the Georgia Tech Alumni Association. “It’s a great way to help them feel connected and provide further connections for founders with growing businesses who might come back and hire other Tech grads.” One of those might be Patel, whose Lotus Labs secured seed funding through the GT Angel Network. “It absolutely changed the trajectory of Lotus’ first-ever fundraiser,” says Patel. “What you’re doing at GT right now is incredibly enabling to all alum entrepreneurial communities. I’m so glad this exists.”

RAMBLIN’ ROLL

CLASS NOTES & ALUMNI UPDATES

S TILL ADVENTURING TOGE THER AFTER 50 YEARS Y E L L O W J A C K E T S came together to celebrate more than 50 years of the Outdoor Recreation at Georgia Tech (ORGT) program. Multiple generations of ORGT alumni, including the organization’s founder, Miller Templeton, Phys 61, MS NS 63 (center left, above), attended | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE WINTER 2023 2023 76 FALL

the 50th anniversary celebration this October. ORGT is a student program through the Campus Recreation Center that’s dedicated to outdoor adventures. Past trips have included rock climbing, caving, backpacking, and whitewater rafting.

O R G T a l u m n i re t u r n e d t o campus from Alabama, Florida, Vermont, and Oregon for a weekend of activities, which included “decades” gatherings for alumni from the 1970s to the present and a dinner with current ORGT students and staff.

CLASS NOTES AYESHA AHMAD, BIO 15, will join Lexington Medical Center in Columbia, S.C., as a hospitalist. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Piedmont Athens Regional in Athens, Ga. SHAYLA BRADSHAW, CE 19, was selected as a 2024 ENR Top Young Professional. She was recognized for her work as a project engineer specializing in roadway design. She will appear in the January 2024 edition of ENR Southeast. SAMUEL CLEMENCE, CE 62, MS CE 63, PHD CE 73, is a longtime faculty member at the L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University. He has been named the 2023 DFI Engineer Legend for his contributions to the field of helical foundations over 40 years. JEFF CLEMENT, ME 08, completed his PhD at the University of Minnesota in Information and Decision Sciences. He’s taken a position as assistant professor of Management Information Systems at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minn.

BOBBY GASTON, IM 4 8 , celebrated his milestone birthday in style with fellow Yellow Jackets and a G e o rg i a Te c h birthday cake. Gaston turned 100 on Oct. 18. He was a letterwinner in both football and basketball while a student. He played “wingback” for the Yellow Jackets under legendary Tech football coach William Alexander, playing in his first college bowl in 1944 at the Sugar Bowl. Gaston was a college football referee in the SEC from 1957 to 1981 and became the SEC’s coordinator of football officiating in 1988, a position he held until his retirement in 2006. Gaston

CHAD BISHOP/ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION

CENTURY OF MEMORIES

helped develop the use of instant replay for SEC football games. He’s been recognized for his love of the game by the National Football Foundation. He was inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of 2006 and received the Officiating Award from the National Football and College Football Hall of Fame in 1995.

A L U M N U S W I N S J E O P A R DY ! S E C O N D C H A N C E

COURTNEY DORNELL, CE 02, was recognized as a nominee for the Women on the Rise award by Paradigm for Parity in 2023. Dornell is executive director of marketing and sales for Otis. MANDY (McFARLIN) FILL, MGT 99, is now the head of IT for Sunnyland Farms. JYOTI GUPTA, PHD CHE 09, recently met with members of Congress to discuss support for breast cancer screening. Gupta is the president and CEO of Woman’s Health & X-Ray at GE Healthcare.

G E O R G I A T E C H A L U M N I never quit. Hari Parameswaran, EE 22, returned to win his second championship on Jeopardy! in the show’s “Second Chance” tournament

this September. He won a $35,000 prize and advanced to the show’s Champion Wildcard tournament. Parameswaran is a hardware engineer from Cupertino, Calif. GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

RAMBLIN’ ROLL MONTGOMERY RICE RECOGNIZED BY NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION MOREHOUSE SCHOOL O F M E D I C I N E President and CEO Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, Chem 83, has received the Scroll of Merit Award from the National Medical Association. The award is the society’s highest honor and recognizes individuals “whose

efforts and contributions have been preeminent in medicine, health advocacy, or service to the National Medical Association,” the organization says. Montgomery Rice received the Dean Griffin Community Service Award as part of the 2020 Gold & White Honors.

ALUMNUS CELEBR ATES HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH ON WALL S TREE T D AV I D R O J O , B A 1 6 , is global co-lead for Adelante Nasdaq, Nasdaq’s Hispanic/ Latino Employee Network. As part of Hispanic Heritage Month, held Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, Adelante along with HOLA at Microsoft rang the Opening Bell at Nasdaq’s g l o b a l he a d q u a r t e rs i n Times Square, New York City. Adelante Nasdaq hosts a variety of events throughout the year to promote Hispanic/Latino Culture. They

MIKE JACOBS, ME 94, has been appointed president of InLine Engineers, a Gray Company. Jacobs has over three decades of experience in the food and beverage industry. MARY BETH LAKE, ID 04, senior VP & managing broker of Harry Norman Realtors’ East Cobb office, will serve as vice president of the Atlanta Realtors Association in 2024. MOJGAN LEFEBVRE, ICS 90, was elected to Unum Group’s Board of Directors. Lefebvre is executive vice president and chief technology and operations officer at The Travelers Companies, Inc. WADE LNENICKA, MGT 73, was elected to serve two regional commander positions: one is for the American Legion Post 160 in Smyrna, Ga. (elected for his seventh consecutive term) and the other is for the American Legion 5th District.

cover topics such as financial literacy, mental health, Latin music, and career development.

YELLOW JACKE TS NAMED TO TOP 200 OF INC. 5000 T H R E E B U S I N E S S E S led by Georgia Tech alumni made the top 200 of Inc.’s 2023 list of the fastest-growing 5,000 companies. Kyle Alexander, ME 94, is president and COO of eTrueNorth, which landed No. 14 on the list. Fusus, led by CEO Chris Lindenau, MBA 11, was No. 70, and Flock Safety, founded by Garrett Langley, EE 09, who serves as CEO, came in at No. 189. 78 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

INGRID HACKETT, IE 96, has been named chief legal officer by Curriculum Associates. She has over two decades of experience as a corporate attorney.

JOSÉ MONTERO RUIZ DE MOLINA, IE 95, was appointed CEO of Terratest, an international engineering and construction company. MICHAEL NEWBORN, MS MGT 15, co-hosts the podcast The Second Act with Michael + John, which explores human potential, life lessons, breaking boundaries, and other uplifting content. MELISSA NORD, EAS 13, was promoted to the 4 p.m. meteorologist spot Monday through Friday on 11Alive.

Clockwise from top right: Lindenau, Alexander, and Langley.

CHRIS RAWLS, MGT 92, was promoted to director of administration technology in the IT department at Shaw Industries, Inc.

FORBES’ 30 UNDER 30 LOCAL ATL ANTA LIS T INCLUDES SIX YELLOW JACKE TS KHALID SIDDIQI, PHD CE 97, professor emeritus of Construction Management at Kennesaw State University, has been appointed chair of the Board of Trustees for the American Council of Construction Education. SEAN ST. CLAIR, MS CE 00, PHD CE 04, a distinguished professor of Civil Engineering at Oregon Tech, was honored with the George K. Wadlin Distinguished Service Award by the Civil Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) for outstanding service to civil engineering education and to ASEE. RYAN SWINGRUBER, ARCH 05, and his business partner opened their company’s first build-for-rent community in southern Wisconsin, Heyday Sun Prairie, in August.

SIX GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI were recognized in Forbes’ inaugural “30 Under 30” Local Atlanta list. This is the first year Forbes has published local lists, which included Atlanta and nine other cities. The following Tech grads made the Atlanta list: Ryan Babaie, Phys 20, Co-founder of Wattch Jared Duncan, CS 19, Co-founder of Wattch Alex Nussey, CmpE 19, Co-founder of Wattch Vedant Pradeep, ChBE 19, CmpE 19, Co-founder of Reframe Seth Radman, ME 17, Co-founder of Infinite Giving Antwan Owens, HTS 21, Founder of The Owens Group Consulting

WRECKS AT WORK

BIANCA (RUSS) ULRICH, CHE 04, was honored with the award for Most Promising Engineer–Downstream at the 2023 Gulf Energy Excellence Awards. She works as a principal technology specialist at Lummus Technology in Houston, Texas. STEFANIE M. WAYCO, IAML 04, has been welcomed into the law firm Duane Morris LLP as a partner in security litigation enforcement. BRIAN WILLIAMS, MS ME 97, joined the staff of Florida International University as the new executive director of the Bob Moses Research Center for Math Literacy Through Public Education. DAVID ZISKIND, EE 05, became senior principal of global food and beverage practices at Stantec, a global architecture and engineering design firm, this July.

WRECKS AT WORK

The Alumni Association is celebrating the amazing work of our alumni. Send us your on-the-job selfies featuring cool views at gtalumni.org/wrecksatwork.

Jessica Luza, STC 07, moved to Los Angeles two days after graduating from Tech to pursue a career in acting. Since then, she’s amassed an impressive resume of credits, including roles on the medical drama House, a national commercial with Blake Shelton, and various TV and film roles. Now back in Atlanta, she’s had recurring guest roles in two TV shows, Johnson and Hysteria! “I’ll be playing the role of Cassie

Dandridge in all eight episodes, which just so happens to be the daughter of campy horror legend Bruce Campbell,” Luza says of her role in Hysteria! She snapped this picture with Campbell above. She’ll also appear in the Netflix limited series A Man in Full and the upcoming film The Electric State. #WrecksAtWork GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

RAMBLIN’ ROLL

BIRTHS 1

1. LAURA (MULLEN) BERTHOLD, ID

2. ASHLEE (HATCHER) NICHOLS, BC

4. MELISSA (MONDELLO) SHENK,

12, and her husband, Mike Berthold, welcomed their daughter, Clara Kit Berthold, on September 24. Clara is accompanied by her older brothers, Henry (4) and Max (2). The family resides in Charlotte, N.C., but eagerly returns to Tech whenever they can!

11, and LANE NICHOLS, MGT 11, welcomed their second baby boy, Mack, in February.

IE 14, and WARREN SHENK, CS 14, MS CS 21, welcomed their first baby, Eva, in August.

3. LEE PEACOCK, ME 08, and Amanda

5. ED ZAHLER, AE 70, and his wife,

Peacock welcomed their second son, Louis Theodore Peacock, to the world this April.

Lenora, are overjoyed for their second grandson, Asher James Gerwitz. Parents Danny and Whitney Gerwitz can’t wait to make Asher a GT fan!

80 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

Mind the Gap: Bridging Skill Sets Jennifer Stanford Johnson was already a Double Jacket when she returned to Georgia Tech for a third degree — this time to pivot in a whole new direction with the Online Master of Science in Analytics (OMS Analytics).

With a background in electrical engineering and in the avionics industry, what prompted you to pursue a master’s in data analytics?

When my children were small, I found I didn’t have the work-life balance that I wanted, so I did independent consulting for a while until they started school. When I was ready to jump back into full-time work, even though I had extensive engineering experience I felt I wanted to approach things differently. I took a position at Spelman College as director of Student Success. That ended up being life-changing! While working with engineering students I started to uncover all of these various data sets. I was broadly aware of the cool things I could do with the data — I just needed to add to my skill set.

Q And that led you to look for data analytics programs? A Yes, I wanted a career pivot because I knew I was capable technically of

so much more. I wanted to upskill and have a broader toolkit to allow me to uncover insights in the data sets to help the student population I was serving.

Q A An opportunity of a lifetime came up for me to work at Accenture as an And then your professional life took another turn?

applied intelligence data scientist. I love it! I have a mindset that everything just compounds — and what I mean by that is I don’t feel like I abandoned any aspect of engineering. I just took those core problem-solving abilities and layered on very specific skills. All of it synergistically works together.

Online Master of Science in Analytics • Top-5 nationally ranked program • 100% online and self-paced • Complete in 24-36 months • Same faculty and curriculum as on-campus program • 3 specialized tracks: - Analytical Tools - Business Analytics - Computational Data Analytics • Total tuition under $10,000 • No GRE/GMAT required

Q What made you choose the OMS Analytics program? A Every time I’ve graduated from Georgia Tech, I’ve greatly accelerated my

career. I thought, “Where have I found success in the past?” And, I didn’t have to look very far. The OMS Analytics program really did change the trajectory of my career — it gave me the additional expertise and knowledge I needed to take my career to a whole new level. Read more about Jennifer Johnson’s journey at pe.gatech.edu/blog/JenniferJohnson.

omsanalytics.gatech.edu

RAMBLIN’ ROLL

WEDDINGS 1

1. EMILY BOHANNON, ME 19, and MATT DEJONGE, ENVE 20, were married on Oct. 7 at The Curtis Atrium in Philadelphia, Pa., Emily’s hometown. The two met as freshmen at Georgia Tech in 2015. They live in Pasadena, Calif., where Emily is a systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Matt works in corporate sustainability for CBRE. They reminisce fondly on their years at Tech, and were thrilled to have nearly 40 other Yellow Jackets at their wedding!

2. FRANCESCA LIDBACK, BME 18, and FRANKLIN MARTONE, CE 18, met in Atlanta after graduation through a mutual friend. That same friend, Chris Sequeira, IE 18, officiated their wedding in Denver, Colo., in March. Instead of a typical honeymoon, Francesca and Franklin visited four countries (Turkey, Tanzania, Oman, and the UAE) and summited Mt. Kilimanjaro!

3. CARL SCHRIEVER, CS 20, and ELENA (MAY) SCHRIEVER, CS 20, married this spring. Carl and Elena first met in their freshman dorm, Hopkins, shared their first kiss at a Homecoming game, and finished their undergraduate computer science degrees at the same time. Carl proposed a year after graduation, and the rest is history! 82 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

ENGAGEMENTS ALEX CABRERA, CS 19, and KRISTEN VOSSLER, BIO 19, were engaged this March in Córdoba, Spain.

OUT & ABOUT 1

1. RIDING IN STYLE

2. REPPING TECH IN TUCSON

3. A DOG’S BEST FRIEND

Nothing says “panache” more than a new Georgia Tech Cycling Club kit (including matching socks). Morris Maslia, CE 76, MS CE 80, is out for a ride on Georgia’s famous Silver Comet Trail on a restored vintage (early 1990s) Greg LeMond titanium racing road bike. Morris received many “Go Jackets!” biking down the trail.

Georgia Tech Alumni Board Trustee Moe Trebuchon, IE 86, and his son Josh Trebuchon, Phys 21, both placed in their race categories at the Salute Our Vets 5K in Tucson, Ariz. in October.

Connor Abdo, ME 14, launched Salvation Bark, a company that sells dog-related products and donates half of all profits to animal shelters. Today, he donates to dozens of shelters around the country and sells products in all 50 states. His goal is to donate $1 million by 2030.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

IN MEMORIAM

84 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

WE REMEMBER & HONOR THE FOLLOWING

CALEB SOUTHERN: BELOVED COMPUTING LECTURER & MUSIC PRODUCER

19 4 0 s

Gonzalo Fernandez, Cls 44, of Fairfax, Va., on June 14. Wilburn L. “Bill” Grissom Jr., ME 47, of Glen Ridge, N.J., on Sept. 10. Joseph M. “Joe” Haas, ME 49, of Lakeway, Texas, on July 25. Walter E. Hawkins, EE 49, MS EE 51, of Winter Park, Fla., on July 1. Kenneth E. “Gene” Holly, AE 46, of Palm Springs, Calif., on July 15. Victor A. Panagos, EE 49, of Gaithersburg, Md., on Aug. 15.

19 5 0 s

Robert B. Adams, IE 58, of Aldie, Va., on July 30. Lynn A. Aubel, Arch 51, Arch 52, of Penney Farms, Fla., on July 1. Richard D. “Dick” Austin, IE 57, of Charlotte, N.C., on July 7. Elbert L. Bailes Jr., IE 57, of Walhalla, S.C., on July 13. Joseph H. Barker, Arch 53, of Lilburn, Ga., on July 11. Newton H. Bollinger Jr., IE 50, of Wilmington, Del., on July 6. James A. Butler Jr., TE 57, of Acworth, Ga., on Aug. 3. Randolph W. Cabell, EE 54, MS EE 54, of Newport News, Va., on Sept. 7.

CALEB SOUTHERN, MS CS 18, of Atlanta, on July 6. Southern was part of the Georgia Tech community as a student and a lecturer since 2010 and will be remembered for his kindness, influential research, and dedication to students and colleagues. “Even in a college full of dedicated faculty who care about students, no one was more dedicated to our ‘crazy smart kids,’ as he liked to put it,” says former College of Computing Dean Charles Isbell. “He was a muchloved colleague and an exceptional teacher. We will miss him.” In March, Southern served as a faculty mentor for the first-place award-winning students of the InVenture Competition. Last year, he won the College of Computing Award for Outstanding Instructor. He served on the college’s awards committee, where he assisted in rewriting and creating additional awards for faculty and students, as well as the second-floor construction committee, which he called “Space Force.” “Space Force was a passion of his,” says School of Computer Instruction Associate Chair Mary HudachekBuswell. “He envisioned a wonderful open area for students as well as labs for courses. His input in the design phase was crucial.” Throughout his career, Southern was honored with several awards, including the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2011 and 2012. He won First Place in the MobileHCI Design Competition and was a finalist in the innovation contest at the Georgia Tech

Research and Innovation Conference. Southern completed his degree in mathematics and computer science with honors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was a recipient of the prestigious Brooks scholarship. His PhD research focused on mobile-human-computer interaction, and he created the app Braille Touch, which allows visually impaired users to text. Additionally, he worked on the Cycle Atlanta app, tracking routes of bicycle riders to inform City of Atlanta transportation planning. His efforts in urban planning were also evident in Durham, N.C., where he solved a 35-year-old transportation problem by designing a route that preserved local wildlife and natural spaces. Independent Weekly magazine honored him with the Citizen Award for this work. Southern will also be remembered as a music producer who produced legendary local bands Ben Folds Five, Archers of Loaf, Southern Culture on the Skids, Zen Frisbee, and Shark Quest, among others. His production of Whatever and Ever, Amen by Ben Folds Five became a gold record in 1998.—Emily Smith GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

IN MEMORIAM

Charles K. Cobb Jr., TE 56, of Atlanta, on Aug. 21. Lawrence R. Cowart, Phys 57, of Atlanta, on Sept. 2. William V. Custer III, ME 54, of Bainbridge, Ga., on Dec. 22, 2020. Thomas M. “Tom” Driggers,

ME 59, of Albany, Ga., on July 15.

Bobby F. Farmer, IE 58, MS IM 65, of Acworth, Ga., on Aug. 3.

Henry G. Duffer, IE 58, of WinstonSalem, N.C., on July 23.

Samuel H. “Sam” Fowlkes, IM 59, of Cupertino, Calif., on Jan. 29, 2020.

Glenn D. Falcon, EE 58, MS EE 61, of Jacksonville, Fla., on May 27.

George H. “Hugh” Hunnicutt, ChE 59, of Hacienda Heights, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2010.

Lowell D. Fambrough, IE 52, of Greensboro, Ga., on July 1.

Louis I. “Lou” Jones, CE 56, of Springfield, Va., on May 18.

W. JASON MORGAN: FATHER OF PL ATE TEC TONICS THEORY

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Robert D. King, Math 59, MS Math 60, of Austin, Texas, on July 6. Edward G. Miller Jr., Chem 59, PhD Chem 63, of Knoxville, Tenn., on July 13. Bob J. Millikan, ME 59, of Atlanta, on Aug. 1. Robert F. Pickens, IE 52, of Greenville, S.C., on Aug. 9. Frank P. Roth, EE 55, of Orlando, Fla., on Aug. 25. LAURA SIKES

W. JASON MORGAN, PHYS 57, of Natick, Mass., on July 31. In the 1960s, Morgan developed the theory of “plate tectonics” and in doing so, set earth science on a new trajectory. He received his bachelor’s in physics in 1957. He did his geological research as a professor at Princeton University, where he taught for many years after receiving his PhD there in 1964. In 1967, he presented new findings at a conference, detailing how what he called “crustal blocks” moved around over time. He further developed these concepts in a 1968 paper, published shortly after other geologists’ papers on similar findings. Morgan’s crustal blocks came to be known as tectonic plates, and the scientific community soon accepted his theory that the movement of those plates changes the face of the Earth and causes volcanic and seismic activity. His map of the tectonic plates is considered their first accurate representation. Morgan later focused on explaining how some volcanoes arise not at the edges of plates but in the middle of them. He suggested an explanation for the phenomenon that he called

mantle plumes, in which superhot material from the Earth’s core bubbles up to form a “hot spot” in the crust. Morgan was widely honored for his work, including receiving the National Medal of Science in 2002, presented by President George W. Bush. He was also a U.S. Navy veteran. He is survived by his son Jason Morgan and his daughter Michèle Morgan. He is predeceased by his wife, Cary Morgan.

William L. “Bill” Schwanebeck Jr., IM 59, of Warner Robins, Ga., on Sept. 13. Gerald E. Speck, ChE 59, of Ellijay, Ga., on July 6. Charles E. Statzer Jr., ME 58, of Harriman, Tenn., on Aug. 3. Joseph T. “Joe” Stubbs Jr., IE 55, of Savannah, Ga., on Sept. 19. William R. Tadder, ME 54, of Colorado Springs, Colo., on June 8.

MAXIE BAUGHAN: LEGENDARY FOOTBALLER

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George C. Allen, PhD Chem 61, of Odessa, Texas, on July 4. Marvin W. Alston Jr., IM 60, of Sandersville, Ga., on July 9. Robert T. Anderson, Text 65, of Grovetown, Ga., on April 7. Ronald G. “Ron” Atchley, ME 66, of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., on Aug. 24. Grady G. “Glenn” Barnwell Jr., Chem 62, of Pine Mountain, Ga., on July 23. James P. Barrett Jr., IM 63, of Snellville, Ga., on Jan. 15. Glenn E. Brooks Jr., IM 61, of Lineville, Ala., on Aug. 19. Hugh A. Carter Jr., IE 64, of Tampa, Fla., on July 23. Charlie L. Cobb, IM 68, of Port Orange, Fla., on Aug. 8. Emily J. “Judy” Davis, ChE 68, of Jacksonville, Fla., on Dec. 14, 2022. Patrick D. “Donovan” Dean, Arch 63, of Orlando, Fla., on July 24. Guy R. DeRosa, IM 66, of Fort Mill, S.C., on July 3. Byard Edwards Jr., IE 65, of Hammond, La., on Aug. 11. Pietro A. Fenu, MS IE 69, of Plano, Texas, on Nov. 2, 2022.

MAXIE BAUGHAN, IM 60, of Ithaca, N.Y., on Aug. 19. Born in Forkland, Ala., on Aug. 3, 1938, Baughan went to Bessemer (Ala.) High School before attending Georgia Tech, where he lettered in football from 1957 to 1959 (before freshmen were eligible in NCAA athletics). He started at both center and linebacker for the Yellow Jackets, and earned a plethora of honors, highlighted by first-team All-American recognition as a senior in 1959. He was also the 1959 Southeastern Conference Lineman of the Year and a two-time all-SEC honoree (1958 and 1959). He captained the Jackets as a senior in ’59, when he racked up a then-school-record 124 tackles and was named co-MVP of the 1960 Gator Bowl. After graduating from Georgia Tech, Baughan was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles in the second round of the 1960 National Football League Draft (20th pick overall). He became a day-one starter for the Eagles as linebacker and helped lead them to the 1960 NFL Championship as a rookie. In 11 NFL seasons (Eagles 1960–’65, Los Angeles Rams 1966–’70, Washington Commanders 1974), he was a seven-time All-Pro and nine-time Pro Bowler. He initially retired from the NFL in 1972 to return to Georgia Tech as the Yellow Jackets’ defensive coordinator under head coach Bill Fulcher, and in his first season in the role, helped lead the Jackets to a 31-30 victory over

Iowa State in the 1972 Liberty Bowl. He left Tech in 1974 to return to the NFL as a player-coach for the Washington Commanders. After retiring for good as a player following the ’74 campaign, he embarked on a coaching career that spanned three decades, including six seasons as the head coach at Cornell (1983–1988) and stints as an NFL assistant with the Baltimore Colts, Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Baltimore Ravens. Baughan was inducted to the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame in 1965 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1988. He was also a member of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, and the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame. He reached the semifinalist stage of voting for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2022. Baughan is survived by his wife of 62 years, Dianne, three children, and eight grandchildren.—Georgia Tech Athletics

EDITOR’S NOTE

For the In Memoriam section of the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, we will include an abbreviated version of each obituary in print. Full obituaries can be found at gtalumni.org/InMemoriam. To report a death, please email bioupdate@gtalumni.org.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

IN MEMORIAM

Benjamin D. “David” Gullett, AE 61, of Mooresville, N.C., on July 10.

David R. Knowles, CE 63, MS CE 64, of Fayetteville, Ark., on July 3.

Leslie W. “Bill” Moran, IM 62, of Franklin, Tenn., on Aug. 6.

James R. Hall, EE 60, of Lake Wylie, S.C., on Aug. 3.

Derrol B. Luker, IE 66, of Pell City, Ala., on Dec. 15, 2022.

John G. “Greg” Murphy III, IE 63, of Anniston, Ala., on June 28.

Lawrence E. Joyner, BC 67, of Gainesville, Ga., on July 28.

Cecil L. Maxwell, IE 66, of Prior Lake, Minn., on June 30.

Gerald G. Naddra, IM 62, of Johns Creek, Ga., on Aug. 26.

James R. “Jim” Kennedy, Math 61, of Huntsville, Ala., on July 17.

George E. McCrory, IE 69, of Jasper, Ga., on Sept. 4.

Oscar T. “Terence” Nichols, IM 61, of Jesup, Ga., on Aug. 1.

Hugh D. Kinney Sr., IE 62, of Gainesville, Ga., on July 15.

Charlie N. McGlamry, EE 60, of Byron, Ga., on Aug. 20.

Joseph E. “Ed” Phillips, AE 64, of Kennesaw, Ga., on July 14.

JIM POOLE: HALL-OF -FAME BASEBALL PITCHER JIM POOLE, EE 88, of Roswell, Ga., on Oct. 6. Poole arrived on The Flats in 1985 and had an immediate impact, as Georgia Tech baseball would win the first of four straight ACC Tournament Championships. During his four years, he pitched in 120 games and struck out 263 batters in 188 innings. He still ranks first in the Tech record book with 22 career saves, including 10 as a junior and nine as a senior. He was named all-ACC his last two seasons. Poole would be enshrined in the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame just nine years later in 1997. A stellar worker in the classroom, Poole elected not to turn professional after being selected in the 34th round of the 1987 MLB Draft by the LA Dodgers, and returned to Georgia Tech for his senior year, recording a 2.03 ERA and 113 strikeouts in only 71 innings. Once again, the LA Dodgers would call his name in the 1988 MLB Draft, this time taking him in the ninth round. He would return to graduate from the Institute with a degree in 88 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

electrical engineering. Poole played 11 years in the major leagues, predominantly with the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Guardians, and San Francisco Giants. He helped pitch Cleveland to two American League Championship Series (1995, 1998), making it to the 1995 World Series, where he would face the Atlanta Braves. Following his retirement at the end of the 2000 season, Poole returned to Georgia Tech to join the AlexanderTharpe Fund as a fundraiser and supporter of the baseball program. He

then began serving as the pitching coach at Johns Creek High School in 2010, teaching many young men about pitching mechanics, while also conveying his personal pitching philosophy. He later joined the business world as a Personal Wealth Advisor for the Baseball Division of BIP Wealth. After being diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) in 2021, Poole worked tirelessly to raise awareness for the disease. In addition to serving on MLB ALS boards, he also worked with Georgia Tech, who together hosted an ALS Awareness Day during the 2022 baseball season, with Tech wearing Jim Poole shirts and both teams wearing honorary wristbands. Tech later designated the number 21 each year to be worn by a student-athlete who exemplifies Poole’s ideals—self-determination, a strong academic work ethic, and high moral fiber on and off the field. Poole is survived by his wife, Kim, three children, and two grandchildren.

HARRY G. DUL ANEY JR.: PHYSICS PROFESSOR & LIFELONG YELLOW JACKE T James M. Pope, CE 64, of North Augusta, S.C., on Sept. 11. James T. “Jim” Ratliff, ChE 63, MS ChE 65, PhD ChE 69, of Glen Allen, Va., on July 14. Carlton W. “Buddy” Redfern Jr., IM 60, of Marietta, Ga., on Feb. 17, 2022. James E. “Jim” Richmond, IE 68, of O’Brien, Fla., on Aug. 10. Philip B. Smith, Text 69, of Griffin, Ga., on June 30. Sidney F. Smith, Bio 69, of Evergreen, Colo., on April 24. Lloyd J. Southern, IM 65, of Carrollton, Ga., on July 20. Chung S. Suh, MS TE 60, of Shallotte, N.C., on July 12. William G. Sullivan, MS IE 67, PhD IE 71, of Oak Ridge, Tenn., on June 27. William A. “Bill” Thau Jr., IM 62, of St. Simons Island, Ga., on Aug. 26. Robert C. Thornberry, ChE 61, MS NE 63, of Arroyo Grande, Calif., on May 28. Richard A. “Dick” Torbik, MS CE 64, of Marietta, Ga., on May 3. Richard K. Washington, IM 66, of Raleigh, N.C., on Aug. 9. Eddy N. Whitley, IE 62, of The Villages, Fla., on June 27.

HARRY G. DULANEY JR., PHYS 55, PHD PHYS 61, of Marietta, Ga., on Aug. 16. Dulaney was born on Dec. 3, 1932, in Lexington, Ky., to Harry G. Dulaney Sr., a traveling medical supply salesman, and Inez Congleton Dulaney, a school teacher. Blessed with a photographic memory, he graduated as valedictorian from Henry Clay High School in Lexington. He moved to Atlanta in 1951, starting at Georgia Tech as a freshman physics major, and in 1955 he received his bachelor’s in physics with highest honor. The same year, he married Charlene Barrett. He received his PhD in physics in 1961 and decided to dedicate his career to higher education. From 1961 until retirement in 1990, he served as a physics professor at Georgia Tech, leading the Self-Paced Physics program in the later years, educating and inspiring thousands of future scientists and engineers. It was during this period that Dulaney dealt with the tragedy of losing Charlene to cancer in 1977. A few years later, he found

happiness again when he married Anna Hale in 1980. Family, friends, and colleagues of Dulaney remember him as kind, generous, gentle, funny, and brilliant. His lifelong friend and fellow alum Bill Collins, BME 57, IM 62, recalls how much he enjoyed Dulaney’s friendship over the years, especially playing basketball and taking road trips during the early college days. More recently, Dulaney enjoyed joining Collins in his box at Georgia Tech home football games. Dulaney is survived by his wife of 43 years, Anna Hale Dulaney of Marietta, Ga.; sister Virginia Dulaney Berg of Chapel Hill, N.C.; three children: Harry (Lane) G. Dulaney III, EE 81, of Arlington Heights, Ill.; David H. Dulaney, APhys 91, of Atlanta; and Julie Dulaney Carson of Johns Creek, Ga.; six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his first wife, Charlene Barrett Dulaney, parents, and brother William Dulaney.

Norman T. “Thomas” Williams, MS CE 60, of Mountain Brook, Ala., on Aug. 16.

David M. Ballou, ME 79, of Melbourne, Fla., on May 9, 2022.

197 0 s

William T. “Toby” Barfield, IM 73, of Chapel Hill, N.C., on Sept. 6.

James P. Adams, CE 71, of Dunedin, Fla., on Aug. 12.

David W. Berg, MS CE 74, of Richmond, Va., on July 4.

Sandra (Lewis) Armstrong, IM 78, of Marietta, Ga., on July 27.

Roger G. Brooke, IM 73, of The Rock, Ga., on June 18.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

IN MEMORIAM

James M. “Michael” Burke, ChE 75, of Rockingham, Va., on Aug. 8.

John A. Lewis Jr., IM 79, of Flowery Branch, Ga., on July 20.

Robert C. “Rob” Scott, Mgt 87, of Williamson, Ga., on Jan. 9.

Henry E. “Gene” Collier, TE 70, of Burlington, N.C., on Aug. 11.

Everett D. Lucas, MS OR 76, of Eatontown, N.J., on July 5.

Dana A. Thomas, IE 88, of Marietta, Ga., on July 25.

John M. “Marshall” Conner, ME 70, of Greensboro, Ga., on Aug. 22.

John M. McKelvey Jr., PhD Chem 71, of St. Peters, Mo., on July 4.

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Gary B. Coursey, Arch 70, of Atlanta, on Aug. 4.

Gonzalo Mitre-Salazar, PhD IE 70, of Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico, on July 8.

Barry J. Cown, Phys 71, MS Phys 74, PhD Phys 82, of Marietta, Ga., on Aug. 27.

David B. Moser, MS IE 70, of Cleveland, Ga., on June 21.

Domenico C. Frate, ME 71, of Atlanta, on Aug. 25.

Curtis D. Oglesby, ME 79, of Martinez, Ga., on Aug. 19.

Daniell E. “Dan” Garrett, Phys 73, of Lithonia, Ga., on Aug. 3.

Charles R. Rowe III, Arch 74, of Lake Forest, Ill., on July 31.

Robert W. “Bob” Gibeling Jr., BM 72, of Atlanta, on Sept. 2.

Roy K. Smith, Chem 76, of St. Augustine, Fla., on Aug. 24.

James F. Hennessee, MS IE 71, of Annapolis, Md., on June 1, 2020.

David Wells, CE 77, of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., on Sept. 18.

Eugene W. Hodges, EE 70, MS EE 71, of Reynolds, Ga., on May 3.

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Jorgen Jakobsen, PhD ME 73, of Allerod, Denmark, on July 16. Daniel B. “Dan” Jenkins, Arch 77, of Mercer Island, Wash., on Aug. 19. Leslie M. “Les” Johnson, IM 70, of Murrells Inlet, S.C., on June 27. Edward P. Kane, MS CE 74, of Sellersville, Pa., on June 25.

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John J. Crittenden, AM 81, of Cary, N.C., on Aug. 20. Marc E. Dillon, MS GeoS 89, of Neptune Beach, Fla., on Aug. 5. Melinda R. McNicoll, IE 83, of Houston, Texas, on June 25. Neron C. Pfannkuche, EE 80, of Warner Robins, Ga., on June 26. Kerry D. Schutt, MS EE 83, of Johnson City, Tenn., on July 1.

Kelly M. Allegret, Mgt 90, of Gardner, Kan., on Aug. 5. Ronald L. Chadwick, ICS 92, MS CS 94, of Tybee Island, Ga., on Sept. 12. Ronald S. Mace, ME 95, of Pine Mountain, Ga., on July 29.

2000s

Casey E. Hudson, MS EnvE 00, of Atlanta, on July 24. Andrew J. Mettler, ME 07, of Bluffton, S.C., on Aug. 24. Robert S. Williams, Mgt 07, of St. Marys, Ga., on Aug. 6.

2 010 s

Kenan J. James, CS 19, of Dallas, Ga., on Aug. 6. Erik R. Sandin, MBA 11, of Kennesaw, Ga., on July 7.

2020s

Wesley A. Ivester, CmpE 21, of Carrollton, Ga., on Aug. 12.

JOE COC HR AN: FACULT Y MEMBER FOR OVER 54 YEARS

FRIENDS

Michael L. “Mike” Angel, of Flowery Branch, Ga., on June 6. Herbert H. Butler, of Douglasville, Ga., on May 25, 2020. Jane Butler, of Douglasville, Ga., on Nov. 2, 2022. Gurpal Singh Gill, of Lawrenceville, Ga., on July 3. Bernd Kahn, of Atlanta, on July 13. Richard A. “Rick” Lantz, of Charlottesville, Va., on March 26. Kristie I. Macrakis, of Atlanta, on Nov. 14, 2022.

J O E C O C H R A N , C E R E 6 5 , M S C E R E 6 8 , of Marietta, Ga., on Aug. 21. Cochran was a professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech. His longtime association with Tech began as a student, receiving h i s b a c he l o r ’s a n d master’s in Ceramic Engineering. After receiving his PhD from The Ohio State University, he returned to Tech, joining the faculty ranks, where he ultimately served as professor and associate chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. He remained on the faculty for over 54 years. Throughout this time, his primary focus was

research. He worked on several projects involving the space industry, DARPA, and various branches of the military. In addition, he was the founder and president of Ceramic Fillers Incorporated. Cochran received numerous awards, including the Hewit t Wilson Award for the American Ceramic Society, and was inducted into the Georgia Tech College of Engineering Hall of Fame in 2013. Cochran is survived by his wife, Jane Whitehead Cochran; his son, Jim (Belinda); his daughter, Cathy Myrick (Stuart); his six grandchildren; and his sisters, Mary McCool (Rick) and Martha Ward (Judd).

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GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

TECH HISTORY

SIX TIMES TECH SHAPED THE FUTURE WE HIGHLIGHT SIX EXAMPLES FROM TECH’S HISTORY WHEN YELLOW JACKETS WERE ON THE FOREFRONT OF INNOVATION.

BY MAT T SOWELL

THIS SUMMER, the Institute announced the AI Hub, Tech’s cross-campus center for artificial intelligence. This collaborative approach empowers Georgia Tech to become a global pioneer in the AI domain. Innovation is nothing new for the Institute. Georgia Tech has a long history of being an early adopter of future trends that have become commonplace. “Tech has always been focused on creating an atmosphere for creativity and experimentation that can serve our community and beyond,” says Alex McGee, Georgia Tech’s university archivist. “If you think about how the school was structured originally with the academic building and the shop building, they gave students and staff a real-world space to work through their ideas from the classroom. Holding that space allows for the innovation we see, and I think that legacy has continued over the years,” she says. While instances of Georgia Tech embracing the future are numerous, we narrowed those down to six times when Yellow Jackets were on the forefront of innovation.

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1897 FIRST TEXTILE ENGINEERING SCHOOL IN THE SOUTHERN U.S. Georgia Tech’s pioneering spirit has been a part of the Institute’s DNA since the beginning. Established in 1897, the School of Textile Engineering, originally named the A. French School of Textiles, opened with the help of a generous gift from Pittsburgh manufacturer Aaron French. Lyman Hall, Georgia Tech’s president at the time, believed that the Institute needed a textile engineering program in response to the booming textile industry in Georgia and South Carolina. President Hall was instrumental in securing private donations and convincing French, an acquaintance of his, to support the new school. Hall also persuaded the Georgia Legislature in 1897 to appropriate $10,000 for the establishment of the new department, on the condition that private donations matched the allotment. Oscar Elsas, a Tech alumnus and vice president of the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill, also played a role in the school’s creation, contributing machinery from textile firms to prepare students for the real-world equipment they’d encounter in the industry.

1954 THE FIRST SORORITY AT AN ENGINEERING SCHOOL With only five women students on campus in 1954, Ella Lillian Wall Van Leer, wife of Georgia Tech President Blake R. Van Leer, saw a need for community. She was an alumna of Alpha Xi Delta at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, she founded Delta Epsilon, an art honor society for women. Her interest in expanding access for women at Tech was personal. McGee says that Van Leer’s daughter, Maryly, wanted to study engineering at Tech, but was barred; she went to Vanderbilt instead. “Ella worked with the Women’s Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta to advocate for the Board of Regents to change the rules barring women from studying at Tech,”

says McGee. “Once women were allowed to study engineering and architecture, she worked with the Women’s Chamber of Commerce again to create the first scholarship for women students.” Each of the five women enrolled at Tech in 1954 received an invitation to tea in the Van Leer residence, where they would be introduced to several Alpha Xi Delta alumnae. The women were greatly inspired and took steps to form a chapter at the Institute. In 1954, Alpha Xi Delta’s 65th chapter was announced at Tech, making it the first sorority at an engineering school. The chapter was established with just seven members, including the original five Yellow Jackets who had been invited to Van Leer’s home.

1961 LIBRARY INNOVATION Dorothy Crosland has a legacy at Georgia Tech. Working in the library for almost 50 years, she climbed the ladder from assistant librarian to director of libraries. “She was a fierce advocate for women, doing some persuasive research and campaigning to the Board of Regents for why Tech should admit women,” says McGee. Crosland saw the value of enhancing science libraries with equipped information specialists. She advocated for this in 1953, and through her tireless efforts, the library secured a National Science Foundation grant to support “training personnel for scientific and technical librarians.” With the help of Georgia Tech faculty, Crosland organized two

conferences on Tech’s campus related to the field, which took place in 1961 and 1962. These conferences were attended by engineers, scientists, and librarians from across the United States and Europe. Due to the success of these gatherings, the School of Information Science was established at Georgia Tech in 1963. Over the following decades, the school evolved and eventually became the College of Computing in 1990.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

TECH HISTORY

2009

THE LARGEST CLEANROOM IN THE SOUTHEASTERN U.S. In 2009, Georgia Tech unveiled The Marcus Nanotechnology Building, which currently serves as the central hub for the Institute of Electronics and Nanotechnology, one of several interdisciplinary research institutes at Tech. The Marcus Nanotechnology Building houses the most extensive cleanroom laboratory in the southeastern United States. The space is devoted to creating, studying, and assembling biomedical and semiconductor devices. The lab boasts 15,000 square feet of lab space, strategically divided into two areas: semiconductor research and development, and biological applications. The lab features state-of-the-art technology, including an electron beam lithography machine, one of

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approximately only 100 worldwide. Yellow Jackets who enter the lab wear mandatory protective gear. These precautions are essential for preserving the precise conditions required for this type of research and experimentation.

2015 THE FIRST A I TEACHING ASSISTANT Georgia Tech was making headlines about artificial intelligence before it was part of everyday conversation. Conceived in 2015, a chatbot named Jill Watson became the teaching assistant in the spring of 2016 for an online course focusing on “Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence.” Ahead of her time, the digital assistant helped students navigate the class by answering complex questions, solving problems, and giving advice as a human TA would. “Students in the course did not know that Jill was AI. She was actually so quick to answer

questions they had to include a time delay so that students wouldn’t suspect she was AI,” says McGee. “Some students eventually thought there could be AI in use in the class forums. It was only after the final exam that Jill’s identity was revealed. The need for secrecy was because it was a blind experiment to essentially test the believability of an AI TA like Jill.” This experiment showcased the potential of AI chatbots to revolutionize online education by providing swift and accurate responses to student questions, ultimately improving the scalability and efficiency of digital learning.

Professor Ashok Goel created Jill Watson, a virtual teaching assistant, in 2015.

GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE | WINTER 2023

TECH HISTORY

This illustration shows the Lunar Flashlight satellite using laser technology to search for ice on the moon.

2023 THE ONLY SCHOOL WITH ITS OWN INTERPLANETARY SPACECRAFT A small, briefcase-sized spacecraft is 3.7 million miles away from Earth. It’s operated by a team of 10 students at Georgia Tech who check in daily to monitor the spacecraft and execute scientific studies. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has given Georgia Tech ownership of the Lunar Flashlight satellite. The spacecraft’s original goal was to circle the moon and search for frozen water on the lunar surface. However, when the Lunar Flashlight failed to achieve lunar orbit, the mission

Check out our Instagram reel @gtalumni to see even more examples of Yellow Jackets on the forefront of innovation.

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pivoted to using the spacecraft as a tool that will shape future space exploration. Today, the Lunar Flashlight orbits the sun slightly ahead of Earth. The team of Yellow Jackets uses the satellite’s lasers, detectors, radios, and imaging devices. They also use the spacecraft’s star-tracking device as a camera to take photos of planets and demonstrate various forms of classical optical navigation.

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‘ BACK TO THE FUTURE’ WITH THE CLASS OF 1973 WE ASKED ALUMNI FROM 1973 ABOUT WHAT THEY IMAGINED THE FUTURE WOULD LOOK LIKE. BY JENNIFER HERSEIM IT WAS THE SPRING OF 1973. Senator Sam Nunn, Cls 60, HON PhD 08, was Georgia Tech’s commencement speaker and offered advice for the future: “Whether you will lead mediocre, dull lives or exciting, productive lives depends on how long you keep your desire and your capacity to learn,” Nunn said. “Some people have it as long as they live. Until the day they die they keep a sense of wonder, of curiosity, of zest.” We asked alumni from 50 years ago to think back to when they were graduating: What did you imagine the future would look like today? What new techTo read the entirety of Sam Nunn’s 1973 comnology did you envision? What did mencement speech, see the online version of the Institute teach you that helped this story at gtalumni.org/magazine. prepare you for the future?

DR. CLEMMIE WHATLEY, MS MATH 73 When I look back and remember graduation, I think two things stand out. One is the whole increase in the use of technology and the other is the cyclical nature of what is going on in the world. I also remember thinking about how my parents’ generation really only had two career choices for women: become a teacher or a nurse. So when I graduated, I was thinking, I don’t have to do that! I can do things my parents couldn’t do. One lesson Georgia Tech taught me was tenacity. It taught me that you can have highs and lows, but you always have to stay in the fight.

RETIRED MAJOR GENERAL DAVID BURFORD, CHE 73

DICK BUNN, ARCH 73

I was a chemical engineering major at Tech in the early ‘70s and a very active user of the Tech Computer Center (usually at 3 a.m.). I just knew this was the future… and it was. Little did I know, though, that we would move from IBM punch cards to today, when I wear a Dick Tracy-like watch on my wrist that I can make calls with, monitor my heart rate, and check the forecast. This astounding acceleration will continue—and we’ll see more technologies that begin as a dream or get kicked around in a midnight “what if” discussion. I can only hope that someone remembers the basics, so we don’t become the servant to our own advancements in technology.

In 1973, who would have known what the future would hold for us? Clearly not me. I walked out of the architecture building after presenting my thesis and thought to myself, I’m finished with school—what do I do now? My life was about to change in so many ways, most of which I had no clue. Architectural styles evolve over time, but the biggest change I witnessed was in the way a building gets “made”. When I started my first job, we used mechanical pencils to draw on paper. Today computer technology has streamlined our work. As technology became more sophisticated, so did the architect’s work so that a building now can be “built” in a virtual 3D world. The future will be full of innovation and the prospect of artificial intelligence in architecture and construction is in its nascence. We can only imagine where the evolving technology will take us.

KARL BARNES, MGT 73, MS ARCH 77 I gained much of the Ma Tech wisdom through my lived experiences there! I was the first African American letterwinner (Track and Football) to graduate. Focused on graduation, I matriculated with intentionality. My parents were both college educated but had limited formal technical or engineering experience. I remember eating in Brittain Dining Hall daily with my peers and watching Star Trek and seeing the future possibilities of technology and diversity in the universe! I also remember reading Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World, plus a number of African American authors, for insights into the future. These books brought different insights into my limited expectations about the world of tomorrow. 98 WINTER 2023 | GTALUMNI.ORG/MAGAZINE

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