Research into tailored assistive and rehabilitative devices has seen recent advancements but the goal remains out of reach due to the sparsity of data on how humans learn complex balance tasks. To address this gap, a collaborating team of interdisciplinary faculty from Florida State University and Georgia Tech have been awarded ~$798,000 by the NSF to launch a study to better understand human motor learning as well as gain greater understanding into human robot interaction dynamics during the learning process.

 Led by PI: Taylor Higgins, Assistant Professor, FAMU-FSU Department of Mechanical Engineering, partnering with Co-PIs Shreyas Kousik, Assistant Professor, Georgia Tech, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and Brady DeCouto, Assistant Professor, FSU Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, the research will use the acquisition of unicycle riding skill by participants to gain a better grasp on human motor learning in tasks requiring balance and complex movement in space. Although it might sound a bit odd, the fact that most people don’t know how to ride a unicycle, and the fact that it requires balance, mean that the data will cover the learning process from novice to skilled across the participant pool.

Using data acquired from human participants, the team will develop a “robotics assistive unicycle” that will be used in the training of the next pool of novice unicycle riders.  This is to gauge if, and how rapidly, human motor learning outcomes improve with the assistive unicycle. The participants that engage with the robotic unicycle will also give valuable insight into developing effective human-robot collaboration strategies.

The fact that deciding to get on a unicycle requires a bit of bravery might not be great for the participants, but it’s great for the research team. The project will also allow exploration into the interconnection between anxiety and human motor learning to discover possible alleviation strategies, thus increasing the likelihood of positive outcomes for future patients and consumers of these devices.

 

Author
-Christa M. Ernst

This Article Refers to NSF Award # 2449160

Research Communications Program Manager

Klaus Advance Computing Building 1120E | 266 Ferst Drive | Atlanta GA | 30332

christa.ernst@research.gatech.edu

In the world of nanotechnology, seeing clearly isn’t easy. It’s even harder when you’re trying to understand how a material’s properties relate to its structure at the nanoscale. Tools like piezoresponse force microscopy (PFM) help scientists peer into the nanoscale functionality of materials, revealing how they respond to electric fields. But those signals are often buried in noise, especially in instances where the most interesting physics happens.

Now, researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a powerful new method to extract meaningful information from even the noisiest data, or when, alternatively, the response of the material is the smallest. Their approach, which combines physical modeling with advanced statistical reconstruction, could significantly improve the accuracy and confidence of nanoscale measurement properties.

The team’s findings, led by Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb, Harris Saunders, Jr. Chair and Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), are reported in Small Methods.

Co-lead authors Kerisha Williams, a former MSE Ph.D. student, and Henry Shaowu Yuchi, a former Ph.D. student in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), spearheaded the study. Other collaborators include Kevin Ligonde, a Ph.D. student in the Woodruff School; Mathew Repasky, a former Ph.D. student in ISyE; and Yao Xie, Coca-Cola Foundation Chair and Professor in ISyE.

This research was initiated through Georgia Tech’s Forming Teams and Moving Teams Forward seed grant program, launched by the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research in 2021. Designed to support cross-disciplinary collaboration, the program helps build research teams that align with the growing national emphasis on large-scale, team-based projects. The grant supported early work by Bassiri-Gharb, Xie, and Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, associate professor and Goizueta Early Career Faculty Chair in MSE.

Read the full story on the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering website.

Georgia Tech has posted its strongest year ever in research commercialization, breaking multiple records for invention disclosures, issued patents, and licensed technologies — clear indicators of the Institute’s expanding role in delivering research-driven innovation to the marketplace.

“Invention is only the beginning. What sets Georgia Tech apart is our ability to move our ideas out of the lab and into the marketplace, where they can make a tangible impact on human life and contribute to our economy,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “This year’s record results show that our researchers aren’t just pushing the boundaries of knowledge — they’re creating marketable solutions with the power to improve everyday lives.”

For fiscal year 2025, Georgia Tech reported:

• More than 460 new invention disclosures — a 30% increase over the previous year and the highest ever recorded by the Institute.
  • 70 invention disclosures for the Georgia Tech Research Institute, marking a 70% increase year over year.
• A 210% increase in technologies licensed, and 140% in total licenses executed, reflecting unprecedented industry interest, with 65 licenses in total.  
• 124 U.S. patents were issued, representing a 20% increase compared to the prior year.
  • According to the most recent rankings from the National Academy of Inventors, Georgia Tech is in the top 15 public universities for U.S. utility patents filed.

This momentum strengthens Atlanta’s position as one of the nation’s fastest-growing innovation economies. Georgia Tech plays a leading role in advancing the region’s ambition to become a top 5 tech hub by connecting world-class research with industry, supporting a thriving startup ecosystem, and fueling talent pipelines that serve emerging sectors like AI, cybersecurity, and clean energy.  

Omer Inan, a Georgia Tech researcher and faculty member, has launched multiple companies with the support of the Institute’s commercialization resources. Cardiosense is a medical AI company that leverages sensors to provide better management of cardiovascular disease. Having just achieved FDA 501(k) clearance, its latest device — CardioTag — is the first multimodal, wearable sensor that simultaneously captures three cardio signals to provide noninvasive solutions for heart health.  

"The med tech research I conduct at Georgia Tech delivers new technologies to keep patients with heart failure out of the hospital and enables them to monitor their health status at home,” said Inan. “Now, we are commercializing the technology our lab helped develop, so that this dream of improving the quality of care and life for millions of Americans with heart failure can one day become reality."

“As we look to solidify Georgia Tech’s status as a national innovation hub, we are moving research into the marketplace so it can truly make a difference in people’s lives,” said Raghupathy “Siva” Sivakumar, vice president of Commercialization and chief commercialization officer at Georgia Tech. “We are at a pivotal moment to put Atlanta on the map as a leader in research commercialization and have an opportunity to capitalize on our $1.4 billion in research expenditures that drive meaningful inventions, IP, and industry partnerships.”  

To learn more about the licensing and commercialization process at Georgia Tech, visit licensing.research.gatech.edu.

Available for Media Interviews

Raghupathy "Siva" Sivakumar 
Vice President of Commercialization and 
Chief Commercialization Officer 
Georgia Tech

Omer Inan 
Professor and Regents’ Entrepreneur  
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech

Media Contact: 
Lauren Schiffman       
PressFriendly   
lauren@pressfriendly.com  

Angela Barajas Prendiville   
Director of Media Relations    
Georgia Institute of Technology   
aprendiville@gatech.edu  

 

The idea of people experiencing their favorite mobile apps as immersive 3D environments took a step closer to reality with a new Google-funded research iniative at Georgia Tech. 

A new approach proposed by Tech researcher Yalong Yang uses generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies to convert almost any mobile or web-based app into a 3D environment. 

That includes application software programs from Microsoft and Adobe as well as any social media (Tiktok), entertainment (Spotify), banking (PayPal), or food service app (Uber Eats) and everything in between.

Yang aims to make the 3D environments compatible with augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) headsets and smart glasses. He believes his research could be a breakthrough in spatial computing and change how humans interact with their favorite apps and computer systems in general.

“We’ll be able to turn around and see things we want, and we can grab them and put them together,” said Yang, an assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing. “We’ll no longer use a mouse to scroll or the keyboard to type, but we can do more things like physical navigation.”

Yang’s proposal recently earned him recognition as a 2025 Google Research Scholar. Along with converting popular social apps, his platform will be able to instantly render Photoshop, MS Office, and other workplace applications in 3D for AR/VR devices.

“We have so many applications installed in our machines to complete all the various types of work we do,” he said. “We use Photoshop for photo editing, Premiere Pro for video editing, Word for writing documents. We want to create an AR/VR ecosystem that has all these things available in one interface with all apps working cohesively to support multitasking.”

Filling The Gap With AI

Just as Google’s Veo and Open AI’s Sora use generative-AI to create video clips, Yang believes it can be used to create interactive, immersive environments for any Android or Apple app. 

“A critical gap in AR/VR is that we do not have all those existing applications, and redesigning all those apps will take forever,” he said. “It’s urgent that we have a complete ecosystem in VR to enable us to do the work we need to do. Instead of recreating everything from scratch, we need a way to convert these applications into immersive formats.”

Ignacio Montoya was on a flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta in 2024 with a serendipitous seatmate. The biomedical engineer was seated next to Georgia Tech President Àngel Cabrera, and the two had a conversation about Montoya’s personal story and career aspirations. 

Cabrera introduced Montoya to a professor who could take his work to the next level — Cassie Mitchell, an associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME). Montoya’s research uses AI to study how robotic exoskeletons and spinal cord stimulation can reawaken dormant neural circuits and help people with paralysis regain sensation, mobility, autonomy, and vital physiological functions once thought permanently lost. Drawing on his experience in leading-edge clinical research, he aims to turn scientific discoveries into real-world solutions that improve independence, quality of life, and health for those with spinal cord injuries. 

It’s not only a curiosity for him, though. In 2012, Montoya was about to graduate from Georgia Tech and become a fighter pilot in the Air Force. Then, one night, he got into a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the chest down. 

Ever since, he has worked to better understand his injury and his options. After earning a master’s in biomedical engineering from Georgia Tech in 2018, Montoya moved to Los Angeles and joined a prestigious neurophysiology and neurorehabilitation lab at UCLA known for pioneering spinal stimulation and activity-based training to restore movement after paralysis. Now he’s taking everything he’s learned back to Georgia Tech.

Mitchell, also a faculty member in the Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society, applies AI to data science to parse and predict complex medical research. She is also quadriplegic and personally understands the value of spinal cord research. At first, Mitchell mentored Montoya through the BME Ph.D. application process. Now she is his advisor. Montoya starts the program this fall — and he hopes to bring his personal injury recovery insights to the entire spinal cord injury survivor community.

 “My experience as a research participant gives me a unique perspective as I transition into a doctoral researcher,” he said. “It helps me bridge the gap between understanding the science and translating it into real-world clinical practice.”

From Complete Paralysis to Possibility 

Montoya nearly died in the accident. It left him with a complete spinal cord injury and severe peripheral nerve damage in his right arm.

“The doctor told me my spinal cord was like a banana — and mine had been crushed in the middle,” he recalled. “He said I had a 1% chance of regaining any mobility, function, or sensation.”

But Montoya’s life has always been about beating the odds. At 6, he and his father immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba. Years later, he earned a rated pilot slot in the Air Force — a distinction achieved by fewer than 1% of cadets. Then came the motorcycle crash. He flatlined for 15 minutes — a medical event with less than a 1% chance of survival, and even lower odds of returning with full brain function. If anyone was going to defy that prognosis, it was Montoya. He set out not just to walk again, but to rebuild his life and transform his recovery into a blueprint for others to follow.

Exoskeleton Endeavors 

After finishing his master’s at Tech, Montoya went to work with Reggie Egerton, a pioneering neurobiologist at UCLA. With Egerton’s guidance, Montoya experimented with neuromodulation — using electrodes to stimulate the spinal cord. The stimulus helps to excite the neurons below the injury that no longer communicate with the brain. 

While wearing electrodes, Montoya trained in a robotic exoskeleton that progressively reduced its robotic assistance. This encouraged him to contribute increasing effort through each step. Over time, the device provided less support during the swing and stance phases of walking, requiring more active participation. Beyond stepping, Montoya performed standing and weight-shifting exercises, all demanding maximum effort to retrain his nervous system through repetitive, weight-bearing sensory input. 

“Neuromodulation creates a bridge of signals that helps the remaining intact nerve fibers below the injury communicate with each other, enhancing neuroplasticity within the system,” he said.

If the neuromodulation works as intended, it can effectively remodel the nervous system. Through this process and two nerve transfers, Montoya has regained some function in his paralyzed right arm. He has also reversed many common medical complications from paralysis: temperature regulation, body awareness, sexual function, bone density, muscle mass, and digestive health.

“My injury is no longer considered complete, and I believe I’m the first person to achieve that through a combination of spinal stimulation, intensive training, and daily weight-bearing rehabilitation,” Montoya said. “I’m constantly out of my wheelchair — standing, moving, and training. That consistency has been the key. Every day, I walk in an exoskeleton.”

Returning to Georgia Tech

What was supposed to be a 12-month clinical research study turned into the next five years of Montoya’s life. He also wanted to better understand human physiology and how locomotor training worked, so he did a master’s in kinesiology from California State University, Los Angeles. Despite the progress Montoya had made with advancing the field of spinal cord injury and his own mobility, he wanted to bring all his expertise together. That’s when he happened to board a flight to Atlanta in the spring of 2024 with Cabrera.

Initially, Montoya and Mitchell connected so she could help guide him through the Ph.D. application process, but they quickly realized their research was complementary. Montoya is an expert in clinical trials, and Mitchell is an expert in taking clinical trial data and using AI to gather insights. 

“Ignacio wants to diversify his skill set and take his research career further, and data science is what he needs to do that,” Mitchell said. “We will look at his exoskeleton data and try to optimize the exoskeleton to the patient using AI.” 

For the start of his Ph.D., Montoya will remain in Los Angeles to continue his exoskeleton experiments in Edgerton’s lab, which has been collecting terabytes of data he’s never been able to analyze in full. Mitchell’s lab will analyze all that data and pull predictive insights that can feed back to Egerton’s lab and improve the patient experience. 

“AI can identify patterns the human eye wouldn't be able to detect,” Mitchell noted. “AI can help us better understand how and why an exoskeleton paired with spinal stimulation could help with spinal cord injury and function or quality of life.”

Montoya will travel between both coasts to conduct each element of the research before returning to Atlanta full-time. In the process, he’ll build a better knowledge base and exoskeleton training protocol.

This may not have been the path Montoya expected to take when he left Georgia Tech that night in 2012, but it’s a full circle.

“I’m back where my journey paused — this time to push the boundaries of what we believe the human body and spirit can achieve,” he said. “I’m not just walking again. I’m building a future where no one is beyond recovery.”

 

Walk into any room Aleksandra Teng Ma’s been working in this summer, and you’ll probably hear a mix of experimental sounds, snippets of Amy Winehouse vocals, and the occasional Animal Crossing tune playing in the background. That’s just how her brain works—blending tech, artistry, and everyday play into something entirely her own.

Aleksandra is a master’s student in Music Technology at Georgia Tech, but “student” barely scratches the surface. This summer, she’s been everywhere—physically in Massachusetts and intellectually somewhere between a Pride performance and a human-AI jam session at MIT.

“I’m always with my microphone and MIDI keyboard,” she says, like it’s just second nature. “I love singing and coming up with tunes.”

Live from MIT — It’s Human + AI Jamming
Forget dusty textbooks and silent labs—Aleksandra’s research life is about real-time musical interactions between humans and AI. As a visiting researcher at MIT this summer, she’s digging into what it looks like when musicians "jam" with intelligent systems. Think futuristic band practice, but with algorithms joining in.

“It’s giving me a lot of exposure to co-design methodologies,” she explains, “and letting me observe how musicians respond to each other—and to AI.”

It’s not just code and theory, either. The insights come alive when she brings them to the stage. This summer, Aleksandra’s band performed at The Music Porch in Reading, MA for Pride Month. Their cover of Pink Pony Club turned into a moment she won’t forget.

“It was so fun seeing people—especially teenagers—singing and dancing together,” she says. “That’s one of those moments where I just thought, yep, this is why I picked music tech.”

From Winehouse Covers to Ableton Experiments
Despite her research chops, Aleksandra hasn’t lost touch with the joy of just making music. She sings and plays keyboard in a band, covers Amy Winehouse songs, and occasionally writes music just for fun. (Her dream studio partner? You guessed it: Amy herself.)

She’s also been expanding her technical toolkit this summer, diving deeper into sound design with Ableton and Serum.

“Still learning,” she says, “but I’m using them for sound design in songs—and loving it.”

And then there are the unexpected “whoa” moments. Like when she built a vocal patch for the Pixies’ Where Is My Mind? to use live during a performance.

“It was haunting,” she says. “And it worked so well live.”

Dream Tech and Georgia Tech
Ask Aleksandra what she’d invent if she could mash up two instruments, and she already has an idea:

“Automatic vocal effects through a microphone with a built-in amplifier,” she says, laughing. “Honestly, someone probably already made this, but I want it anyway.”

That kind of thinking is exactly what her time at Georgia Tech has sparked. Before the program, she saw music mostly through the lens of conventional instruments. Now? She’s all about how software and hardware can expand what music even is.

Her Summer, in Sound
If Aleksandra’s summer had a vibe, it’d be:

• A creek bubbling in the background
• A long, ghostly reverb trail on a siren vocal
• And the ever-cozy tones of Animal Crossing

Not exactly your typical lab soundtrack—but that’s the beauty of it.

This fall, she’s heading back to Georgia Tech after a gap year at Bose, ready to jump into research on multimodal music source separation (AKA teaching machines to pick apart and understand layers in music the way humans do).

And yes, she’ll still be singing.

Hits with Aleksandra

• Current summer jams: Rosebud by Oklou & the new Lorde album
• What people don’t “get” about her work: “How music signals work on a granular level”

Aleksandra Ma doesn’t just study music tech—she lives it. Whether she’s tweaking reverb patches, performing under porch lights, or teaching AI how to groove, she’s showing what it really means to be a 21st-century musician.

For more than 15 years, Georgia Tech has provided the City of Atlanta with the foundational data and insight that shape how the city tracks, understands, and plans for changes in its tree canopy. The latest cycle of this research — delivered through the Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics (CURA) — continues that legacy by offering a high-resolution, citywide canopy assessment using satellite imagery and field validation.

The assessment, funded by the city’s Tree Recompense Fund, uses advanced remote sensing tools such as WorldView-2 satellite data and a random forest classification model to categorize land into three land cover types. These include tree canopy, non-tree vegetation (grass, shrubs, and low lying vegetation) and non-vegetation (water, pervious surface). The methodology delivers a detailed spatial picture of land cover across the city.

“This is simply a tool in their planning arsenal,” said Anthony Giarrusso, who has led every canopy study since 2008. “Before they did any of this work in 2008, everything was anecdotal. It was reactionary.”

The new study is not advocacy — it’s information. Giarrusso emphasized that while researchers stay neutral in the politics of urban growth and conservation, their work equips city leaders with science-based knowledge to make more effective zoning and planning decisions.

In addition to mapping existing conditions, the Georgia Tech team developed the Potential Planting Index (PPI), a scalable tool that identifies where tree planting is physically possible based on current land cover. The tool quantifies the difference between tree canopy and non-tree vegetation, indicating zones with restoration potential.

Another key insight is the challenge of interpreting canopy change without understanding land use patterns. “It gives you a false sense of stability if you don’t understand the underlying land use,” said Giarrusso. “You might see canopy regrowth on paper, but that land could be cleared again tomorrow.” He explained that this false signal is particularly common in stalled development sites: “We saw a lot of properties where trees had regrown after initial clearing, but it was temporary and monoculture, low quality canopy. Several of those areas were cleared again for construction later.”

Giarrusso pointed to these “loss-gain-loss” cycles as one of the more misleading aspects of tree canopy analysis without strong land use context. “Some of them were pipe farms — land cleared for development with infrastructure like water and sewer lines installed, but then construction never happened. So trees grow back, and you get a canopy gain that doesn’t last and is nowhere near the quality of the trees originally cleared.”

He stressed that policymakers need to consider the permanence of canopy when using the data. “If it’s just going to be cleared again in two years, it’s not really a gain. That’s why long-term tracking and land use analysis together are so important.”

The city has incorporated these tools into broader planning efforts, including zoning reform and tree ordinance revisions. The research supports recommendations such as restricting full lot clearing in certain zoning categories and adjusting setback or lot coverage limits to better preserve existing canopy.

Giarrusso underscored the urgency of protecting larger, intact forested tracts. “If you can see it from space and it’s still forest — save it,” he said. “Once it’s cleared, you don’t get it back.”

As Georgia positions itself as a hub for digital infrastructure, communities across the state are facing a growing challenge: how to welcome the economic benefits of data centers while managing their significant environmental and infrastructure impacts. These facilities, essential for powering artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and everyday internet use, are also among the most resource-intensive buildings in the modern economy.

While companies like Microsoft and Google have pledged to reach net-zero emissions, experts say more transparency and smarter policy are needed to ensure that data center development aligns with community and environmental priorities. That means ensuring adequate energy infrastructure, investing in renewables, training local workers, and mitigating water and carbon impacts through innovation.

A New Kind of Energy Crunch

The rapid rise of AI is fueling explosive demand for computing power — and in turn, energy.

“The proliferation of AI workloads has significantly increased data center energy requirements,” says Divya Mahajan, assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Large-scale AI training, especially for language models, leads to elevated and sustained power draw, often nearing the thermal and power envelopes of graphics processing units systems.”

This sustained demand is particularly challenging in hot, humid regions like Georgia, where cooling systems must work harder. “Training these models can cause thermal instability that directly affects cooling efficiency and power provisioning,” Mahajan explains. “This amplifies reliance on external cooling infrastructure, increasing water consumption and grid strain.”

Environmental and Economic Pressure

“Each new data center could lead to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to a small town,” says Marilyn Brown, Regents’ and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy. “In Georgia, the growth of data centers has already led to plans for new gas plants and the extension of aging coal plants.”

There’s an environmental cost to this growth: electricity and water. A single large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day.

Rising demand has a price. “It’s simple supply and demand,” says Ahmed Saeed, assistant professor at the School of Computer Science. “As overall power demand increases, if supply doesn’t keep up, costs will rise and the most affected will be lower-income consumers.”

Still, experts are optimistic that policy and technology can help mitigate these impacts.

Innovation May Hold the Key

Despite the challenges, experts see opportunities for innovation. “Technologies like direct-to-chip cooling and liquid cooling are promising,” says Mahajan. “But they’re not yet widespread.”

Saeed notes that some companies are experimenting with radical ideas, like Microsoft’s underwater Project Natick or locating data centers in Nordic countries where ambient air can be used for cooling. These approaches challenge conventional infrastructure norms by placing servers underwater or in remote, cold regions. “These are exciting, but we need scalable solutions that work in places like Georgia,” he emphasizes.

What Communities Should Ask For

As communities compete to attract data centers, experts say they should push for commitments that go beyond job creation.

“Communities should ensure that their power infrastructure can handle the added load without compromising resilience or increasing costs,” Saeed advises. “They should also require that data centers use renewable energy or invest in local clean energy projects.”

Training and hiring local workers is another key benefit communities can demand. “Deployment and maintenance of data centers require skilled workers,” Saeed adds. “Operators should invest in technical training and hire locally.”

Policy Can Make the Difference

Stronger policy frameworks can ensure growth doesn’t come at the expense of Georgia’s most vulnerable communities. “We need more transparency from companies about their energy and water use,” says Brown. “And we need policies that prevent the costs of supporting large consumers from being passed on to residential ratepayers.”

Some states are already taking action. Texas passed a bill to give regulators more control over large power consumers. In Georgia, a bill that would have paused tax breaks for data centers until their community impact was assessed was vetoed — but experts say the conversation is far from over.

“Data centers are here to stay,” says Saeed. “The question is whether we can make them sustainable — before their footprint becomes too large to manage.”

Institute Communications

“Nuclear” is a loaded, highly charged word. It can conjure images — both real and imagined — of explosive destruction. 

Nuclear is also a loaded, highly charged technology. A single fuel pellet the size of a pencil eraser contains as much energy as a metric ton of coal, 150 gallons of oil, or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. 

The technology’s complex history, along with its vast potential, is why nuclear scientists and engineers often find themselves moonlighting as myth busters. Georgia Tech experts are eager to untangle fact from fiction so nuclear can shine — safely. 

“I am really excited about nuclear, but this is a technology that has a lot of myths and misinformation around it,” said Anna Erickson, Woodruff Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering (ME), and leader of the Consortium for Enabling Technologies and Innovation (ETI), which is focused on nuclear technology. 

“Concerns about nuclear weapons, accidents, and waste have overshadowed nuclear energy’s potential as a clean, carbon-free technology,” she added.

Here, Georgia Tech researchers share what nuclear is, why it’s important, and why its moment is now.

What Is Nuclear? 

“Nuclear, as indicated by its name, is focused on the nucleus within an atom, but also the atom as a whole,” said Steve Biegalski, ME professor and chair of the Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics Program. “From an engineering perspective, we're looking at how we can use the physics of an atom — and the physics of a nucleus — to solve different scientific and societal problems.” 

In 1938, German and Austrian scientists discovered that breaking apart an atom’s nucleus creates energy through fission. Many aspects of nuclear science, however, were advanced through the Manhattan Project during World War II, in which the U.S. developed the atomic bombs it later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. This historical association has likely played a significant role in shaping the negative perception of nuclear technology.

But nuclear science isn’t only about international power and weapons, Biegalski said. Advances in nuclear science have contributed to life-saving cancer therapies, cutting-edge heart scans, and on-demand X-ray technologies. 

Safe levels of radiation are all around us — for example, our imported fruits and vegetables are treated with radiation when they enter the country. Even kitty litter is radioactive — not very, but detectable by modern sensors. 

“You might have slightly elevated radioactivity for a short while after you eat a banana in the morning,” Erickson said. “Our bodies have evolved to live with radiation.”

AI Has Entered the Chat

Lately, Erickson has been getting calls from major technology companies with questions about how to power data centers. She isn’t surprised — nuclear energy is widely being discussed as the way to power the AI revolution.

 “Today’s energy needs are very different than they were in the past, and consistent, reliable, and independent electricity production is necessary — especially for the technology sector,” Erickson explained. 

“At this stage, it’s not a question of whether nuclear energy can meet those demands, but how quickly we can make it a reality,” she added. 

One of nuclear’s most distinguishing features is its power density, or how much power is produced by volume of raw material. Another defining feature is its reliability. Wind and solar are weather-dependent and provide power intermittently. Nuclear can supply power around the clock, and data centers require that level of consistency. 

“There are discussions about developing a number of data centers just outside of Atlanta, and those will require full-size nuclear power plants to power them,” Biegalski said. “When we look at electricity production, these facilities need power 24/7, 365 days a year. Nuclear power can supply that, and wind and solar simply cannot.”

Great Power, Great Responsibility

According to Erickson, the nuclear reactors in use today are far more advanced than those associated with past disasters like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. 

New nuclear plants are designed with great efficiency in mind. Coal must be supplied continuously, whereas nuclear can be loaded once and run for years. 

In addition to dispelling misinformation, nuclear experts are also knowledgeable about nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear security. Georgia Tech is a leader in these areas. Experts like Erickson and Biegalski are regularly tapped to help design new reactors that are popping up across the country.

The Georgia Tech-led nuclear consortium, ETI, assesses how emerging technologies help or hurt nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Nuclear nonproliferation is the global effort to minimize the spread of nuclear weapons, technology, and development. 

“One of our main missions is to understand expansion of civilian nuclear power through the lens of nuclear safeguards and nonproliferation,” Erickson said. “Specifically, we want to know how we can best prevent misuse and mishandling of nuclear materials and keep nuclear facilities safe, while also investing in advancing nuclear technology.”

A Shift in Public Opinion

Despite the popular culture — think Homer Simpson’s nuclear plant job handling green slime — the public is also becoming better informed about nuclear power’s relative safety, especially compared with other energy sources. 

In early 2025, nearly 6 out of 10 Americans supported increased development of nuclear energy. But why are Americans gradually coming around to the idea? 

Erickson may have the answer. “The technology’s potential is catching on across the globe,” she said. “In France, 70% of their electricity comes from nuclear energy.”

For one of her first research projects as a young student, Erickson analyzed what went wrong with the Chernobyl reactors. She understands why people can be wary of nuclear technology.

“Despite the uptick in support for nuclear, people still have concerns we need to answer, rather than just telling people to trust the experts,” Erickson said. “Talking to people is critical in promoting this technology and making sure we keep the public’s trust in this.”