Seven faculty members at the Georgia Institute of Technology have been elected 2024 Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.

Chaouki Abdallah, Daniel Goldman, Wilbur Lam, Margaret Kosal, Anant Madabhushi, Juan Rogers, and Krista Walton are among the 471 scientists, engineers, and innovators who have been recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements. 

“The AAAS Fellowship is among the highest and most respected honors in the scientific community,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive vice president for Research at Georgia Tech. “These celebrated Yellow Jackets reflect the exceptional contributions of our faculty and their sustained commitment to Progress and Service. We are incredibly proud of their achievements and excited about the continued impact of their groundbreaking work.”

Election to the AAAS is a lifetime honor, and all fellows are expected to meet commonly held standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity. 

This year’s fellows are now among the more than 100 individuals who have been elected from Georgia Tech throughout the Institute’s history. 

2024 AAAS Fellows: 

• Chaouki Abdallah, professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering currently on leave, serving as president of the Lebanese American University: for distinguished contributions in control, communications, and computing systems, and for leadership in higher education.
• Daniel Goldman, professor in the School of Physics: for distinguished contributions to the field of biological physics and nonlinear dynamics at the interface of biomechanics, robotics, and granular physics.
• Margaret Kosal, associate professor and director of graduate studies in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs: for distinguished contributions in the development of testable frameworks to explore the relationships between science, technology, and security, and to explain their impact on geopolitics.
• Wilbur Lam, professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory and co-director of the Pediatric Technology Center: for novel advances in the field of hematologic biophysics, and the development of point-of-care diagnostics that have a global impact.
• Anant Madabhushi, professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory: for seminal contributions in the innovation and translation of machine vision, digital pathology, machine learning, and artificial intelligence technologies in medical imaging and their application to problems in precision medicine.
• Juan Rogers, professor and associate chair in the School of Public Policy: for distinguished scholarship in research assessment and for the development of new models and tools for impact assessment of R&D programs.
• Krista Walton, associate vice president for Research Operations and Infrastructure, and professor and Robert “Bud” Moeller Faculty Fellow in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: for distinguished contributions in the design, synthesis, and characterization of functional porous materials for use in adsorption applications.   

To learn more about the newest AAAS Fellows, please see individual announcements from the College of Sciences, the College of Engineering, and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. 

AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society. The nonprofit was founded in 1848 and includes more than 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. It is open to all and fulfills its mission to “advance science and serve society” through initiatives such as science policy, international programs, science education, and public engagement. 

When Air Force veteran Michael Trigger began looking for a new career in 2022, he became fascinated by artificial intelligence (AI). Trigger, who left the military in 1989 and then worked in telecommunications, corrections, and professional trucking, learned about an AI-enhanced robotics manufacturing program at the VECTR Center. This training facility in Warner Robins, Georgia, helps veterans transition into new careers. In 2024, he enrolled and learned how to program and operate robots.

As part of the class, Trigger made several trips to the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI). When the faculty asked if anyone wanted an internship, Trigger raised his hand. 

“Coming to Georgia Tech allowed me to clarify what I wanted to do,” he said. “I’ve always been in service-based jobs, but I was interested in additive manufacturing,” or 3D printing.

For five months every weekday, Trigger drove from his home in Macon to Georgia Tech’s campus for his internship. The paid internship took place at Tech’s Advanced Manufacturing Pilot Facility (AMPF). This 20,000-square-foot, reconfigurable facility serves as the research and development arm of GTMI, functioning as a teaching laboratory, technology test bed, and workforce development space for manufacturing innovations.

During his time there, Trigger focused on computer-aided manufacturing and met with faculty and students to learn about their research. The internship wasn’t convenient, but it was worth it. 

“From our campus visits, I understood the mission of AMPF, so the fact they offered me this opportunity was huge for me,” he said. “The internship had a big impact on my life in terms of the technical and soft skills I gained.”

Building the Workforce

Launching new careers is just one of AMPF’s goals in testing new manufacturing and growing the future U.S. workforce. Since 2022, AMPF has improved the manufacturing process at all parts of the talent pipeline — from giving corporate researchers space to test and adopt AI automation technologies to training and upskilling their employees. Collectively, GTMI and AMPF’s efforts have led to a stronger, bigger network of manufacturers that other companies and the U.S. government can rely on. 

“We are going to need to manufacture more in the U.S. — from computer chips to cars — so we want to create jobs and fill them,” said Tom Kurfess, GTMI’s executive director. “We need more people working in the manufacturing sector, and we've got to make these jobs better and make people more efficient in them.” 

AI is one way to boost efficiency, but artificial intelligence won’t cut humans out of the process entirely. Rather, people will be integral to monitoring the systems and advancing them. As AI becomes more widely adopted, a college degree won’t necessarily be required to work in the AI field.

“Our workforce is going to need the next generation of employees to be amenable to retraining as the technology updates,” said Aaron Stebner, a co-director of the Georgia Artificial Intelligence Manufacturing program (AIM). A statewide program, Georgia AIM helps fund AMPF and sponsored Trigger’s internship. “Education is going to be more of a lifelong learning process, and Georgia Tech can be at the forefront of that.”

While GTMI already integrates AI into many processes, it remains committed to staying ahead of the curve with the latest technologies that could boost manufacturing. The facility is in the process of an expansion that will nearly triple its size and make AMPF the leading facility for demonstrating what a hyperconnected and AI-driven manufacturing enterprise looks like. This will enable GTMI to build and sustain these educational pipelines, which is key to its work.

“We’re developing the workforce for the future, not of the future,” explained Donna Ennis, a co-director of Georgia AIM. “It’s AI today, but it could be something else five years from now. We are focused on creating a highly skilled, resilient workforce.”

Part of Georgia AIM’s role is creating the pipelines that people like Trigger can follow. From bringing a mobile lab to technical colleges to hosting robotics competitions at schools, these efforts span the state of Georgia and touch populations from “K to gray.” 

“Kids don’t say they want to be a manufacturer when they grow up, but that’s because they don’t know it’s a viable career path,” Ennis said. “We’re making manufacturing cool again.”

Creating Corporate Connection

To create these job opportunities, GTMI is also partnering with corporations. Companies can join a consortium to access the AMPF research facilities and collaborate with researchers. Any size or type of company can take advantage of AMPF facilities — from corporations including AT&T and Siemens to small startups like Alegna, which licenses and commercializes Navy research.

“The ability to manufacture domestically is critical, not only for national security purposes, but also to keep the U.S. economically competitive,” said Steven Ferguson, a principal research scientist and executive director for the GT Manufacturing 4.0 Consortium. “Having the AMPF puts Georgia Tech within the innovation epicenter for these areas and will help us reshore manufacturing.”

The benefit of such an arrangement is twofold. Companies can work with the newest manufacturing technologies and make their own advances, and Georgia Tech builds a network of manufacturers across the state and world that students can work with. For example, AT&T uses the AMPF to test sensors for expanding personal 5G networks, and George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Professor Carolyn Seepersad has Ph.D. students funded by a Siemens partnership through AMPF.

Trigger was able to connect and collaborate with some of these corporations and researchers during his internship. “I told them about my interest in machine learning because I wanted to see how they were integrating machine learning into their research projects,” he said. “All of them invited me to come by to observe and be part of the research.”

Starting a New Path

Because of his research collaborations during his AMPF internship, Trigger now has a new focus. “The internship clarified for me that AI is where everybody is going,” he explained. He wants to be at the forefront of AI manufacturing and hopes to pursue a certificate in machine learning next.

While he knows he still has much to learn, AMPF gave Trigger a foot in the door and confidence about the future. He — and other veterans like him — will help build the workforce that propels America forward in manufacturing.

 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a syndicate of eight Southeast universities — with Georgia Tech as the lead — a $15 million grant to support the development of a regional innovation ecosystem that addresses underrepresentation and increases entrepreneurship and technology-oriented workforce development. 

The NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Southeast Hub is a five-year project based on the I-Corps model, which assists academics in moving their research from the lab to the market. 

Led by Georgia Tech’s Office of Commercialization and Enterprise Innovation Institute, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub encompasses four states — Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Alabama. 

Its member schools include:

• Clemson University 
• Morehouse College 
• University of Alabama 
• University of Central Florida 
• University of Florida 
• University of Miami 
• University of South Florida 

In January 2025, when the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub officially launches, the consortium of schools will expand to include the University of Puerto Rico. Additionally, through Morehouse College’s activation, Spelman College and the Morehouse School of Medicine will also participate in supporting the project. 

With a combined economic output of more than $3.2 trillion, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub region represents more than 11% of the entire U.S. economy. As a region, those states and Puerto Rico have a larger economic output than France, Italy, or Canada. 

“This is a great opportunity for us to engage in regional collaboration to drive innovation across the Southeast to strengthen our regional economy and that of Puerto Rico,” said the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s Nakia Melecio, director of the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub. As director, Melecio will oversee strategic management, data collection, and overall operations​. 

Additionally, Melecio serves as a national faculty instructor for the NSF I-Corps program. 

“This also allows us to collectively tackle some of the common challenges all four of our states face, especially when it comes to being intentionally inclusive in reaching out to communities that historically haven’t always been invited to participate,” he said. 

That means bringing solutions to market that not only solve problems but are intentional about including researchers from Black and Hispanic-serving institutions, Melecio said. 

Keith McGreggor, director of Georgia Tech’s VentureLab, is the faculty lead charged with designing the curriculum and instruction for the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub’s partners. 

McGreggor has extensive I-Corps experience. In 2012, Georgia Tech was among the first institutions in the country selected to teach the I-Corps curriculum, which aims to further research commercialization. McGreggor served as the lead instructor for I-Corps-related efforts and led training efforts across the Southeast, as well as for teams in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Republic of Ireland. 

Raghupathy “Siva” Sivakumar, Georgia Tech’s vice president of Commercialization and chief commercialization officer, is the project’s principal investigator. 

The NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub is one of three announced by the NSF. The others are in the Northwest and New England regions, led by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively. The three I-Corps Hubs are part of the NSF’s planned expansion of its National Innovation Network, which now includes 128 colleges and universities across 48 states. 

As designed, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub will leverage its partner institutions’ strengths to break down barriers to researchers’ pace of lab-to-market commercialization. 

"Our Hub member institutions have successfully commercialized transformative technologies across critical sectors, including advanced manufacturing, renewable energy, cybersecurity, and biomedical fields,” said Sivakumar. “We aim to achieve two key objectives: first, to establish and expand a scalable model that effectively translates research into viable commercial ventures; and second, to address pressing societal needs.

"This includes not only delivering innovative solutions but also cultivating a diverse pipeline of researchers and innovators, thereby enhancing interest in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta, is a proponent of the Hub’s STEM component. 

“As a biology major-turned-congresswoman, I know firsthand that STEM education and research open doors far beyond the lab or classroom.,” Williams said. “This National Science Foundation grant means Georgia Tech will be leading the way in equipping researchers and grad students to turn their discoveries into real-world impact — as innovators, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. 

“I’m especially excited about the partnership with Morehouse College and other minority-serving institutions through this Hub, expanding pathways to innovation and entrepreneurship for historically marginalized communities and creating one more tool to close the racial wealth gap.” 

That STEM aspect, coupled with supporting the growth of a regional ecosystem, will speed commercialization, increase higher education-industry collaborations, and boost the network of diverse entrepreneurs and startup founders, said David Bridges, vice president of the Enterprise Innovation Institute. 

“This multi-university, regional approach is a successful model because it has been proven that bringing a diversity of stakeholders together leads to unique solutions to very difficult problems,” he said. “And while the Southeast faces different challenges that vary from state to state and Puerto Rico has its own needs, they call for a more comprehensive approach to solving them. Adopting a region-oriented focus allows us to understand what these needs are, customize tailored solutions, and keep not just our hub but our nation economically competitive.” 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $7.5 million to Ankur Singh, Carl Ring Family Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (ME) and professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory, for his pioneering research in creating functional models of the human immune system in the lab.

The funding, sourced from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, supports two projects aimed at developing human immune organoids, which are sophisticated models engineered to replicate and study the natural human immune responses. The research could revolutionize vaccine development and immune system research, particularly for aging populations.

"Little advancement has been made in this area due to the complex nature of the immune system and the challenges of making a functional human immune tissue outside the body,” said Singh, who is also director of the Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech. “I am grateful to the NIH for supporting our work, which will enable us to develop an advanced technology that can help solve the problems of emerging infections and enhance our timely response to them.”

Building Next-Generation Human Immune Organoids

The goal of Singh’s first project is to replicate the complex environment of germinal centers (GCs) — the sites within lymph nodes where B cells are trained to produce the antibodies crucial for fighting infections. While animal models and current engineered systems have offered insights, they fall short in recreating the intricate processes that occur in human GCs, which limits their utility in vaccine development and understanding immune responses.

Singh’s method involves using a hydrated polymer-based gel material to create a structure that mimics the environment of lymphoid tissue in the body. By adding human immune cells (like B cells, T cells, and support cells) into this gel, the project tries to recreate how B cells mature into specialized immune cells that are important for a strong and lasting immune response. This advancement will allow scientists to grow and study these cells in the lab and use them for better vaccine testing, therapeutic development including cell-based therapies, and to deepen our understanding of the immune system.

The second project addresses a pressing issue in public health: the decline in immune function with age. As people age, their ability to mount effective immune responses against new infections diminishes, leading to higher mortality rates from diseases such as influenza and Covid-19. However, the underlying mechanisms — whether due to defects in aged B cells, impaired T cells, or changes in the lymphoid tissue environment — remain poorly understood.

Singh’s research proposes the development of an “aged B cell follicle” organoid, a novel platform that replicates the lymphoid microenvironment of older individuals. This system will allow researchers to dissect the factors driving age-related declines in immune function, offering a new tool for studying how aged B cells respond to antigens and identifying molecular targets to rejuvenate immune responses.

A Pioneering Step Forward in Immunology Research

The broader impact of Singh’s organoid research is wide-ranging. By enabling the study of human immune responses in a controlled, reproducible environment, the organoids could dramatically accelerate the development of vaccines and immunotherapies. The models could also provide new insights into whether a particular vaccine will be effective for a given individual, potentially reducing the time and cost of clinical trials.

Singh’s aged immune organoid platform could serve as a rapid screening tool for identifying older individuals who are likely to respond poorly to vaccines, enabling more personalized and effective vaccination strategies for that population. The models could be particularly useful in the context of pandemics or seasonal flu outbreaks, where timely and effective immunization is critical.

“By securing this substantial NIH funding, Singh’s work is poised to make a significant impact on both the scientific community and public health,” said Andrés García, executive director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, Regents' Professor in ME, the Petit Director's Chair in Bioengineering and Bioscience, and a collaborator on Singh’s first project. “This innovative immunoengineering research not only promises to advance our understanding of immune system function and aging, but also holds the potential to transform vaccine development, offering new hope for more effective disease prevention strategies across the lifespan.”

The NIH’s investment in Singh’s research underscores a growing recognition of the need for innovative approaches to studying human immunity. The Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act 2.0, for example, promotes the use of organs-on-chip technologies in the service of drug development. As organoid technologies continue to evolve, they could come to represent the future of immunological research, providing powerful new tools to combat infectious diseases and improve health outcomes globally.

Key collaborators on the first project include Andrés García; Ahmet Coskun, the Bernie-Marcus Early-Career Professor in BME; and Dr. Ignacio Sanz, Mason I. Lowance Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and chief of the chief of the Division of Rheumatology at Emory School of Medicine. 

Key collaborators on the second project include Coskun; Jeremy Boss, professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Emory School of Medicine; and Ranjan Sen, senior investigator in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Immunology at NIH’s National Institute on Aging.