Georgia Tech has named the second cohort of its Research Leadership Academy, a group of 14 faculty from across campus selected for their scholarly achievements and leadership potential. Over the coming months, they will build skills in strategic research leadership through mentorship, hands-on learning, and cross-disciplinary conversation.

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Researchers at Georgia Tech's School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP) are being recognized for research that has helped shape how scientists understand and measure internet security.

Two papers co-authored by Georgia Tech researchers have received the 2026 ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) Test of Time Award, recognizing research with a lasting impact on the field. Among them is The Matter of Heartbleed, a 2014 study co-authored by SCP Professor Michael Bailey and Associate Professor Frank Li.

The paper examined how the internet responded to the Heartbleed vulnerability, one of the most serious security flaws of its time. But its impact extended beyond documenting the incident. A collaboration between researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan produced a broad analysis of the security crisis and helped shape a line of research that would influence Li's academic career.

In April 2014, Heartbleed took the internet by surprise. The flaw in OpenSSL, a widely used software library for securing internet communications, allowed attackers to trick vulnerable servers into revealing portions of their memory, potentially exposing passwords, session tokens, and private cryptographic keys.

With just one month before the IMC paper deadline, researchers at Berkeley and Michigan began investigating the vulnerability. They initially pursued separate efforts before learning about each other's work and deciding to combine forces.

Li, then a first-year Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley working with his advisor Vern Paxson, led the Berkeley team. Zakir Durumeric, now at Stanford University, led the Michigan team.

Joining forces enabled the researchers to examine the vulnerability from several angles. They tracked vulnerable servers across the internet, studied the replacement of digital certificates that might have been compromised, and investigated attempts to exploit the flaw.

“We heard about each other’s efforts, talked, and decided to join forces,” Li said. “As a result, our final work was far more comprehensive than what any of us could have done individually.”

One part of the study produced a particularly surprising result. The researchers wanted to know whether directly notifying system operators about vulnerable servers would encourage them to fix the problem. Because Heartbleed had received widespread media attention, the team initially expected the notifications to have little effect.

Instead, operators who received notifications patched vulnerable systems at a rate 47% higher than those who had not yet been notified. Many operators already knew about Heartbleed but had overlooked some servers or had not completed remediation correctly. The researchers found that specific, actionable information could make a difference.

The experiment also led Li down an unexpected research path. He continued studying how security notifications could help organizations address vulnerabilities, including web misconfigurations and compromised websites. He also investigated whether security patches introduced new bugs and examined the human and organizational factors that affect how system administrators handle security updates.

Together, that work formed the foundation of his doctoral thesis and faculty job talk, both focused on internet-scale vulnerability remediation.

“Research paths are highly dynamic, especially for early researchers,” Li said. “Jump on opportunities when they present themselves.”

That lesson has stayed with Li throughout his career. At Georgia Tech, he continues to study how internet operators handle security and privacy, while expanding into areas such as online authentication and AI agent abuse.

For Li, the award is a reminder that an unexpected opportunity early in his career helped shape his research and his career path.

“It’s an honor to get this recognition for the work, which goes all the way back to the start of my academic career,” he said. “I feel fortunate to have been involved in such a fun, interesting, and ultimately impactful project, especially early in my career.”

The Heartbleed paper was not the only Georgia Tech-connected research recognized this year. The conference also honored Analysis of Country-wide Internet Outages Caused by Censorship, a 2011 paper co-authored by Alberto Dainotti, a Georgia Tech professor in the School of Computer Science and adjunct professor at SCP.

The paper examined internet disruptions in Egypt and Libya in 2011, using large-scale internet measurements to understand how governments can disrupt communications across entire countries.

Photos of Frank Li, Michael Bailey, and Alberto Dainotti by Terence Rushin and Kevin Beasley/College of Computing

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From developing technology for critical repairs on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers to teaching teenagers to design and race 3D-printed cars, Kyle Saleeby has applied his manufacturing expertise to challenges worlds apart.

Now, the Georgia Tech alumnus and former research faculty member is bringing his experience to Washington as one of 11 "exceptional Americans" selected for the 2026-27 class of White House Fellows.

Saleeby has been assigned to the National Security Council, where his work will focus on advanced manufacturing and the supply chains that support it.

The White House describes its nonpartisan fellowship as an opportunity for “gifted and highly motivated young Americans” to gain firsthand experience in government and national leadership.

“Georgia Tech has both the opportunity and the responsibility to serve our nation by bringing our expertise to bear on consequential decisions facing our leaders,” said Tim Lieuwen, interim president of Georgia Tech. “Given the critical importance of manufacturing and strengthening our domestic industrial base for our nation's economic prosperity and national security, Kyle's expertise and experience will be invaluable. We are tremendously proud of his selection as a White House Fellow and the opportunity he has to serve our country.”

Saleeby earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech and later joined the research faculty at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute. There, he worked with industry partners to solve manufacturing problems using advanced machining, digital technologies, and artificial intelligence.

One of those problems came from the U.S. Navy, which for decades relied on a single specialist to repair critical components of the system used to launch aircraft from carriers. Saleeby was part of a Georgia Tech team that developed an automated approach to those repairs, reducing the Navy's dependence on one person's specialized knowledge.

“One of the biggest challenges in American manufacturing is getting new technology out of the laboratory and onto the factory floor,” said Tom Kurfess, executive director, Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute “Kyle has spent his career working at that intersection. He understands what it takes to move from a promising idea to something manufacturers can actually use. This is what ensures that American manufacturing operations are always at the leading edge.”

Steven Ferguson, GTMI deputy director, has worked closely with Saleeby on research projects and educational outreach. What impresses him most about his former colleague goes beyond his technical abilities.

“He's a gifted individual who is incredibly technical but is able to distill that information and convey it in a way an industry executive, a ninth-grader, a high school teacher, and a Ph.D. scientist and engineer can all understand,” Ferguson said.

Saleeby and Ferguson also co-founded Advanced Manufacturing Pathways, a Georgia Tech program that brings manufacturing engineering into high school classrooms. Students design, 3D-print, and race pinewood derby cars, learning how digital designs become physical products. The program now includes eight Georgia high schools, with plans to expand further.

Ferguson said Saleeby routinely invited colleagues into research projects, even when he didn't need their help. He wanted others to have opportunities they might not otherwise get.

“He is a consummate collaborator,” Ferguson said.

About the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI)

The Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI) convenes industry leaders, government partners, and top researchers to collaborate on the grand challenges facing manufacturing today: accelerating technology development and deployment; creating, maintaining, and filling quality jobs; ensuring global competitiveness; and advancing economic and environmental stability.

Our vision is to ensure rapid innovation that secures U.S. dominance in advanced manufacturing. Through the design and development of artificial intelligence systems, secure digital manufacturing, additive and subtractive processes, and large-scale production enterprises, GTMI stands at the forefront of manufacturing innovation — leveraging state-of-the-art facilities, including the Advanced Manufacturing Pilot Facility, to turn research breakthroughs into market-ready solutions.

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One of the biggest breakthroughs in modern cancer treatment doesn’t attack cancer directly. Instead, immunotherapy harnesses the body’s immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells.

Now, Nick Housley is exploring whether another bodily system could be recruited in the fight against cancer: the nervous system.

“From first principles, the nervous system is involved in every aspect of normal development and bodily maintenance,” says Housley, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences and faculty director of Innovation for the Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society. “When these normal processes go awry, the nervous system is not just a bystander. It is actively driving changes and/or responding to disease.”

With a new five-year, $3 million Stephen I. Katz Award from the National Institutes of Health, Housley aims to uncover how cancer interacts with the body’s neural circuitry and whether those connections could ultimately reveal new ways to fight the disease.

The idea that cancer and the nervous system interact isn’t entirely new. Scientists have known for more than a century that many solid tumors are connected to nerves. More recently, studies of brain cancer have revealed that tumors can form circuits with neurons that affect cancer growth, invasion, and resistance to treatment. But exactly how cancers elsewhere in the body connect with and potentially exploit the nervous system is largely a mystery.

Housley is starting with the ovary, an organ especially reliant on cues from the nervous system for normal function. Ovarian cancer is also one of the leading causes of cancer death among women, making the need for new approaches especially urgent.

“Ovarian cancer is tricky because it disproportionately lacks clear early symptoms,” says Housley. Without reliable symptoms or an effective early screening method, the disease is often not detected until later stages, when it is more difficult to treat. “We are very interested in understanding how the tumor innervates and integrates into the host nervous system to modulate activity patterns and remain hidden.”

Yet even the baseline for understanding those connections is missing. Scientists don’t yet have a complete map of the neural circuitry of a healthy ovary, much less an understanding of how that circuitry changes when cancer develops.

That kind of knowledge gap is precisely what the National Institutes of Health’s Stephen I. Katz Award is designed to address. It empowers early-career scientists like Housley to make bold research pivots into new scientific fields without requiring preliminary data.

With the Katz Award, Housley will start by creating the missing neural map of the ovarian system, comparing neural connections in healthy and cancerous ovaries and tracing them from local networks to the spinal cord and brain.

“We’re trying to figure out who’s connected to whom and whether those structural connections are functional,” he said.

From there, his team will examine how ovarian cancer cells and neurons communicate and how those interactions affect both cell types. Finally, they will manipulate specific populations of neurons to test how neural activity affects tumor development, progression, and response to cancer treatments.

“Where we are right now with cancer neuroscience is very similar to where immunotherapy was several decades ago,” Housley said. “Our blue-sky goal is to develop enough foundational knowledge about how the nervous system interfaces with ovarian cancer that we can exploit it — suppressing pro-tumoral signals and enhancing tumor suppressors to improve patient outcomes.”
 

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Your skin is remarkably good at keeping things out of your body.

Typically, that’s a positive. It becomes an issue when medicine needs to get in.

Swallow a pill to treat a skin condition, and the medicine enters your stomach, moves into your bloodstream, and travels throughout your body — all to reach a problem in your skin.

Applying the drug directly seems simpler. But the skin’s outer layer blocks most medicines meant to treat it.

Mark Prausnitz, a Regents’ Professor, Regents’ Entrepreneur, and J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has spent years trying to get medication through that barrier. He says his solution looks a little like a tiny spiny creature or a centuries-old weapon.

“Like the ball and chain of medieval times, with all those spikes sticking out of the ball,” Prausnitz said. “Or like a porcupine.”

Only much, much smaller.

Prausnitz calls them STAR particles because tiny microneedles project from each particle like the points of a star. Mix them into a cream or gel, rub them across the skin, and they create microscopic openings that give medicine a way through.

Ditching the Patch

The idea grew out of  microneedle patches, which are already used to help drugs penetrate the skin. But patches are best suited to small areas. But conditions such as eczema and psoriasis can affect broad or irregular parts of the body where Prausnitz said patches would be impractical.

STAR particles ditch the patch. Mixed into a cream or gel, they can be rubbed wherever they’re needed. Their microscopic points puncture the skin’s outer barrier, creating openings that help drugs get in.

“Just that rubbing action on your skin causes these particles to roll and slide around and poke little holes in the skin,” Prausnitz said.

Those openings allow the medicine in the cream or gel to be absorbed over time. In one small human study, earlier ceramic STAR particles helped a topical anesthetic take effect faster and reduce sensation more than the anesthetic used alone.

Separate tests focused on tolerability. The particles caused mild redness, but it faded. Participants described tingling rather than pain or discomfort.

“You can barely even tell,” Prausnitz said of the earlier particles. “If you look very closely, you can see just faint redness on the skin. But if you look from a distance, you can’t even tell it’s there.”

But those particles were made from titania, a material that is safe but isn’t biodegradable. Once they have done their job to deliver drugs into the skin, they have an uncertain fate afterwards. 

No one has found evidence they cause harm. Still, Prausnitz wondered where they might end up after use. In an eye? On a child? Somehow impacting the environment?  Those questions drove the redesign.

Designed to Disappear

Prausnitz and his team created new STAR particles with three materials that break down after use. One is the same substance used in dissolvable stitches, which is a biodegradable plastic that can be made from corn. Another is based on cellulose, which is a major component of essentially all plants. The final is an additive often used in candy and other foods. All three made the tiny openings needed to help compounds pass through the skin.

The strongest result involved copper tripeptide-1, a skincare ingredient. Prausnitz reported good results with methotrexate, which is used to treat psoriasis, and with tacrolimus, which is used to treat eczema. 

With STAR particles, nearly 37 times as much entered the skin as without the particles That doesn’t mean it was 37 times more effective. The study measured drug delivery into the skin, not treatment results. And the biodegradable particles haven’t been tested in people yet.

Prausnitz said some drugs that might otherwise be useful for skin disease have been “thrown in the trash or stuck on the shelf” because of the side effects caused when they circulate throughout the body. Drug delivery directly to the skin using STAR particles could reduce those side effects. 

He has also said STAR particles might one day deliver anti-aging treatments without injections or harsher procedures. Those cosmetic uses, however, were not evaluated in this study.

For patients, using STAR particles could feel much like applying an ordinary cream or lotion: Rub it on. Feel a little tingle.

“Users don’t really know or care that STAR particles are in there,” Prausnitz said. “Your experience is a familiar one.” 

The study was published in the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials.


Mark Prausnitz is affiliated with two of Georgia Tech’s Interdisciplinary Research Institutes: The Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and The Institute for Matter and Systems.

Prausnitz and Dr. Andrew Tadros are inventors of the STAR particle technology used in this study and have ownership interests in Aldena Therapeutics Ltd. and Microstar Biotech LLC, which are developing technologies related to this study. They are eligible to receive royalties from the company’s future commercialization of products associated with this research.
These interests have been disclosed and are subject to oversight and management by the Institute’s Conflict of Interest Office.  Management plans are in place to mitigate actual, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest and commitment.

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Clio Andris sees it far too often. Government research data that should take her students 10 minutes to access for their projects often takes an hour.

As an associate professor jointly appointed in Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing and School of City & Regional Planning, Andris relies on government data for her research, so slowdowns like this can be more than inconvenient. They can also hinder scientific discovery.

The problem is that many government websites that host the data aren’t user-friendly. These data sources are complex and voluminous, and the search engines are inefficient at narrowing down what users are seeking.

“It kind of has a ‘last mile’ problem,” Andris said. “Government workers and geospatial data workers have spent so much time and money creating these data sources. They’ve kept such great records year after year, but then that last mile is, how do we get it to people?”

Andris advised the federal government on this challenge while serving on the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC). The committee was formed by the Department of the Interior under the Geospatial Data Act of 2018, which established a new system for how the federal government collects, manages, and shares geospatial data.

Andris rotated off the committee in 2025 but led a report released in March 2026 titled Improving the Digital Experience for Users of National Geospatial Data. In the report, Andris and her collaborators outline recommendations for making geospatial data easy to retrieve and download. 

These recommendations were intended for government agencies with websites that feature maps and segment data by geographic region. These agencies included the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and NASA. 

“The NGAC hadn’t focused yet on the way that users are interfacing with these sites, but it’s in our best interest to study it,” Andris said.

Andris and her co-authors on the report focused on five key areas for improvement:

• Provide clear navigation signposts that allow users to access data in as few clicks as possible
• Display key statistics so users know how large a file is and how many times it’s been downloaded
• Provide thumbnail previews of the data files
• Add forums for comments, discussion, and engagement
• Create user typologies to understand who is accessing the data

One glaring crack in the system Andris found was the frequency with which drop-down menus didn’t immediately take the user to the data or let them download it.

“When users click on something that says data, they should be able to get data,” she said. “It’s like going to a vending machine and having it ask if you’d like to learn more about vending machines instead of giving you what you want.” 

Andris said users should also be able to know as much as possible about a file before downloading it.

“People are used to seeing reviews and ratings on sites like Amazon to get a sense of how many people are using a product,” she said. “In that respect, we think people should be given more metrics on how many downloads the data they are seeking has. 

“They should be able to see the metadata—including the file size so they can know how much space it will take up before downloading. They should also know the file type and whether they can open it in their software.”

Andris said there’s wisdom in emulating how private companies design their websites.

“Retail sites have conditioned people to expect things to be easy. They get what they want in one click. If they don’t find what they’re looking for almost immediately, they might give up. Adopting some of these practices from industry would probably be a good idea.”

For more information about the NGAC, visit https://www.fgdc.gov/ngac/. For the full report written by Andris, click here.

In today's episode, Ryan Phillips with the Georgia Forestry Commission and Christopher Luettgen with Georgia Tech's Renewable Bioproducts Institute discuss the challenges facing Georgia's timber industry and how the Georgia Forestry Innovation Initiative (GFII) emerged from the Governor Kemp's Forestry Task Force. GFII is a collaborative effort to develop new markets for Georgia-grown wood by taking innovative technologies already proven in the laboratory and demonstrating their potential for commercial production. From transforming sawmill wood chips into materials that could be used to make refrigerants, solvents and other everyday products to developing a pilot facility in partnership with The Langdale Company, we'll explore how this initiative could create new opportunities for forest landowners, strengthen rural economies and help shape the future of Georgia's forest products industry.

Listen to the episode.

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In recognition of World Hydrogen Day on Oct. 8, Georgia Tech convened more than 75 leaders from industry, government, academia, and research organizations for the inaugural Georgia Tech Hydrogen Day. The two-day event focused on advancing the commercial deployment of hydrogen technologies across Georgia and the Southeast.

Hosted by the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI), the event brought together stakeholders from across the hydrogen value chain to address opportunities and challenges related to infrastructure, market development, technology deployment, and regional collaboration.

The program began Oct. 7 with a networking reception and hydrogen research poster session, sponsored by the Southeast Hydrogen Energy Alliance (SHEA). Researchers, industry leaders, policymakers, and students gathered for collaboration and discussion. 

On Oct. 8, Yuanzhi Tang, SEI’s executive director and Georgia Power Professor, delivered opening remarks, followed by Tricia Chastain, executive vice president for administration and finance and chief business officer at Georgia Tech, who offered an institutional perspective.

“Georgia Tech is uniquely positioned to help advance hydrogen because we bring together expertise across engineering, transportation, manufacturing, policy, economics, and sustainability,” Chastain said. “Our strength lies not only in those disciplines, but in our ability to connect them, collaborate with partners, and move innovations from research into real-world applications.”

Frank Wolak, president and CEO of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, delivered a keynote address on the state of hydrogen in the United States. He discussed national trends, policy developments, and market opportunities that could influence hydrogen adoption and create opportunities for the Southeast.

“Convening this forum on World Hydrogen Day highlights both the growing global momentum behind hydrogen technologies and the Southeast’s unique opportunity to help shape their development, deployment, and long-term impact,” Wolak said.

A leadership panel brought together Quinta Warren, airport senior director of sustainability at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; Dan Raudebaugh, executive director of the Center for Transportation and the Environment; Erin Lane, vice president of public affairs at Plug Power; Costas Simoglou, director of Energy Technology at the Georgia Center of Innovation; and John Knox Porter Jr., CEO of Capital Development Partners.

Panelists discussed hydrogen's potential to strengthen industrial competitiveness and energy security, support transportation decarbonization, and contribute to regional economic growth.

“One of the most important questions facing the hydrogen sector is how we work together to address the challenges ahead,” said Tang. “At Georgia Tech and the Strategic Energy Institute, our role is to bring the ecosystem together. We not only advance research and innovation, but also connect people, technologies, and partnerships that can turn ideas into real-world solutions.” 

Developing a Regional Hydrogen Road Map

The event’s centerpiece was the Southeast Hydrogen Roadmapping Forum, organized and led by Scott McWhorter, director of the National Laboratory Partnership Program and Federal Energy Initiatives at the Strategic Energy Institute. McWhorter also serves as chairman of the SHEA Board of Directors. 

Participants worked through facilitated discussions across three strategic focus areas: 

• Hydrogen freight and multimodal logistics corridors 
• Hydrogen for critical-power resilience and long-duration energy storage 
• Clean hydrogen and hydrogen-derived molecules for industry, fertilizer, and fuels 

The discussions identified technology gaps, infrastructure priorities, workforce needs, demonstration opportunities, and pathways for future investment.

"The goal of this forum was to move beyond discussion and identify tangible opportunities for collaboration,” said McWhorter. “By bringing together leaders from transportation, energy, industry, economic development, and research, we are able to develop a road map that highlights priority projects, infrastructure needs, and next steps for growing a hydrogen economy that serves the Southeast."

The road-mapping sessions concluded with a cross-track synthesis focused on identifying priority projects and defining next steps toward a coordinated regional hydrogen strategy.

Showcasing Georgia Tech Hydrogen Research

Attendees also connected with Georgia Tech researchers through a hydrogen research showcase organized by Comas Haynes, Georgia Tech's hydrogen initiative lead and a principal research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. The showcase included guided tours of the North Avenue Research Area and the Ben T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory. Participants got an up-close look at hydrogen research underway across the Institute.

The tour highlighted Georgia Tech's growing hydrogen research portfolio and the Institute's capacity to support industry, federal agencies, and regional partners working to advance next-generation energy technologies.

“By convening the forum on World Hydrogen Day, Georgia Tech underscored both the global momentum behind hydrogen technologies and the region's opportunity to shape their future deployment,” said Haynes.

The event’s outcomes will inform a regional hydrogen road map and white paper intended to support future collaboration, investment, and deployment efforts across the Southeast.

“This is only the beginning,” said McWhorter. “The road map will help guide the partnerships and projects needed to advance hydrogen infrastructure and strengthen the region's energy future.”

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When the Jewish community was expelled from much of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, many of their books stayed behind and served a new purpose. Paper was too valuable to throw away, so texts were often reused to build bindings or covers for other books. 

Centuries later, Jewish texts can still be found inside book covers in Catalonia. But intact volumes remain much more difficult to investigate without damaging them. Researchers are exploring terahertz imaging, a nonionizing technique that uses electromagnetic radiation between the microwave and infrared regions of the spectrum, to detect writing beneath the surface without taking the binding apart.

A National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research planning award with the Binational Science Foundation supports this research. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor David Citrin and collaborator Leor Jacobi, senior lecturer in Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Jewish Art, will build partnerships with archives in Catalonia and test the technology on historical materials.

Hidden History

The project grew from Citrin’s nearly 10 years of work using terahertz imaging to examine art and archaeological objects, including paper, glass, and ceramics.

Citrin’s team has already tested whether terahertz imaging can distinguish text buried within layers of paper. Previous experiments distinguished iron-gall-ink characters written on opposite sides of a single sheet and on two stacked sheets without separating them. But medieval pasteboard bindings can contain up to 20 recycled sheets, so the researchers still need to determine how well the technique will perform on thicker stacks and on aged, varied historical materials.

“If we could find new texts inside materials, this opens up all kinds of possibilities,” he said.

Imaging the interior is only part of the challenge. Researchers also need to determine which ink traces belong to which surface or layer of paper. That’s where machine learning can help. The team records terahertz measurements across a sample, producing depth-sensitive data. In recent experiments, a convolutional neural network classified whether ink appeared on the front, back, both sides, or neither side of a sheet. Extending that approach to multilayer historical bindings is one of the next steps.

“It’s those two things together, the measurement and the machine learning, that have made this work,” Citrin said.

The researchers don’t necessarily need to decipher every word buried within a binding to determine if it is valuable for further research. Citrin said identifying Hebrew characters, for example, could help researchers flag promising book covers for closer study. Ultimately, the goal is to develop an approach that could be applied across large collections. 

“These bindings are archives within archives,” Jacobi said. “If terahertz imaging lets us identify hidden manuscript fragments without dismantling the binding, we can search collections on a scale that was previously impossible.”

The potential extends beyond these texts. The same approach could also reveal Arabic, Latin, Catalan, and other centuries-old texts preserved in reused materials. Identifying where fragments originated geographically could help historians understand how manuscripts and books traveled, offering insights into mediaeval and early modern intellectual life and trade. Studying the construction of the bindings themselves can also provide useful information for art history and conservation.

For Citrin, that intersection between engineering and history is part of the appeal. He has a longstanding interest in art history and believes projects like this one extend scientific research beyond the laboratory.

“I think it’s important to bridge the gap between the humanities and STEM,” he said. “Humanities questions can push imaging technology toward problems it would not otherwise encounter, while engineering can give scholars access to evidence that has been inaccessible for centuries.”

If the technique ultimately works on historical materials, it could let scholars search for hidden texts without sacrificing the binding relics that preserved them.

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When two high school science teachers stepped into Georgia Tech’s research labs, they discovered more than nanotechnology. They found new ways to inspire curiosity, build confidence, and open doors for their students.

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