The most recent round of Sustainability Next Research Seed Grants has been awarded to 15 transdisciplinary teams featuring 36 collaborators from across Georgia Tech and beyond. The teams span 21 units from six of Georgia Tech’s seven Colleges, including Schools, research centers, and Interdisciplinary Research Institutes, as well as organizations external to Georgia Tech.

The seed grant program, administered by the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS), reaches faculty members from a diverse array of disciplines due to the generous support provided by broad-based partnerships in addition to the funds provided by the Sustainability Next committee. This year’s partners are the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the College of Design, BBISS, the Renewable Bioproducts Institute, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and the Institute for Data Engineering and Science.

The goal of the program is to nurture promising research areas for future large-scale collaborative sustainability research, research translation, and/or high-impact outreach; to provide mid-career faculty with leadership and community-building opportunities; and to broaden and strengthen the Georgia Tech sustainability community as a whole. The call for proposals was modeled after the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research’s Moving Teams Forward and Forming Teams programs.

This year’s seed grant awards align with the four main thematic areas in which BBISS aims to enhance Georgia Tech’s research to address some of our most pressing sustainability challenges:

• AI and Sustainability, and the Sustainability of AI Infrastructure.
• Climate Science, Technology, and Solutions.
• Healthy Environments and Sustainable Resource Use.
• Resilience and Regeneration.

The 2026 Sustainability Next Seed Grant awards are:

Forming Teams:

• Actualize Shallow Geothermal Systems for Decentralized Heating. Principal Investigator (PI): Sheng Dai.
• Building Community University Research Capacity for PFAS Testing and Treatment. PI: Ruth C. Yow. Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs): Joe Bozeman, Yongsheng Chen, and Ahmed Ibrahim Yunus.
• A Global Sustainability Analysis of Places “Urbanizing from Within.” PI: Gregory Randolph. Co‑PIs: Sabina Dewan, Yiyi He, John Taylor, and Celine Vacchiani‑Marcuzzo.
• Creating a Refusal Taxonomy to Explore Alternate Computing Practices. PI: Richmond Wong. Co‑PIs: Heidi Biggs and Carl DiSalvo.
• Demystifying Data Centers: Examining Georgia Tech’s Coda HPCC in the Context of Sustainability and Resilience. PI: Scott Duncan. Co-PIs: Jung-Ho Lewe and David Solano Sarmiento.
• Physical Transport of Sunlight‑Exposed Dissolved Organic Carbon in the New Arctic. PI: Lilian Dove. Co‑PI: Jennifer Bowen.

Moving Teams Forward:

• Agentic AI Digital Twins for Hurricane Resilience in Coastal Georgia. PI: Ali Sarhadi.
• CLEAR‑SE: Co‑Creating a Center‑Scale Network for Advancing Collaborative, Long‑Term Action Research on Community‑Led Resilience and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Southeast. PI: Sofía Pérez‑Guzmán. Co‑PI: Jennifer Hirsch.
• Data Center Effects on Communities in Georgia’s Black Belt. PI: Cindy Kaiying Lin. Co‑PIs: Joe Bozeman, Anthony Harding, Allen Hyde, Nicole Kennard, Jung-Ho Lewe, and Ahmed Saeed.
• Reimagining Southern Forests: Enabling Cost‑Effective Sustainable Production of High‑Value Climate‑Ready Southern Pines. PI: Caitlin Petro. Co‑PIs: Lucas Clay, Ulrika Egertsdotter, and Joel Kostka.
• Human‑Technology Collaborations: Towards Sustainable and Inclusive Food Systems. PI: Rosemarie Santa Gonzalez. Co‑PIs: Ashutosh Dhekne, Sylivia Janicki, Nicole Kennard, Yaman Sangar, and Abigale Stangl.
• Guiding Transportation with Community Action through Research, Education, and Service (GT‑CARES). PI: Rounaq Basu. Co-PIs: Sofía Pérez‑Guzmán, Jennifer Hirsch, and Scott Moffat.
• Instability‑Resolved Ocean Mixing for Climate Prediction and Climate Solutions. PI: Suhas S. Jain. Co‑PIs: Mohammad Mohaghar, and Donald Webster.
• Buildings Next: Forming a Transdisciplinary Consortium for Sustainable Building Innovation. PI: Paula Gomez. Co‑PI: Allison Bridges.
• Paper and Natural Dye Living Exhibition. PI: Anna Doll. Co‑PI: Virginia Howell.

You don’t need an idea to begin. You don’t need a co‑founder, a pitch deck, or a perfect plan. What you need is curiosity, a willingness to talk to real people, and a place where it’s safe to learn by doing. That’s exactly what CREATE‑X Startup Lab delivers.

Omar Garcia Urdiales, CREATE‑X’s associate director of Learn, brings a global entrepreneurial experience to Georgia Tech: founder and CEO of a startup operating in the AWS Accelerator Loft, longtime startup coach in Europe’s major innovation hubs, lecturer across multiple universities, and an external doctoral researcher in entrepreneurship and digitalization. He brings this background to his teaching of Startup Lab’s latest iteration – a significant redesign developed by VentureLab’s Director Keith McGreggor. McGreggor created the course and has evolved it over many years, building on its initial success.  

“This new iteration of Startup Lab allows us to meet students exactly where they are,” said McGreggor. “By doing this, we give them the strongest foundation possible, providing them with the tools to grapple with uncertainty and build their confidence.” 

Startup Lab has long anchored the Institute’s entrepreneurial pathway with clearer structure, a unified language, and a deeper focus on reflective growth, so more Georgia Tech students can discover (and trust) their own entrepreneurial judgment.

Startup Lab is expanding responsibly, with six sections in Atlanta and additional global sections in France and Asia-Pacific taught by faculty trained in the curriculum. Students here benefit from a program that’s learning across borders and bringing that learning back to campus.

“Startup Lab is not about becoming an entrepreneur, but about engaging in the unknown and adopting entrepreneurial behavior, which can be applied to all career paths,” Urdiales said. “Students become better equipped to identify problem spaces and solve them through evidence-based building.” 

Start Where You Are

Urdiales emphasized that Startup Lab is built for students who are still exploring, uncertain, or are simply curious.

“Many students tell us they’re curious about entrepreneurship but feel not ready,” he said. “They worry they’re too introverted for customer interviews or assume Startup Lab is only for people with fully formed ideas. In fact, those are the most common misconceptions.”

The course’s first few weeks focus on training students to see struggles and patterns in the world. Then, they apply those skills on a team, exploring, designing, and testing a concept with real people. The nonnegotiable outcome isn’t the best idea; it’s a more confident, evidence-driven version of you. 

“Startup Lab is strengthening that self-awareness. All of us who are entrepreneurs, we don’t grow linearly. We have various iterations of how we see things,” Urdiales said. “This ability to see patterns or to see problems with customer discovery, it’s a learning process and a growth process.” 

Building Muscle Memory

Urdiales said that students won’t have a passive experience in the lab.

“To become an entrepreneur, you need to do it. You need to engage with customers. You need to get out of the building,” he said. “It gives you the ability to incorporate theoretical frameworks into practical solutions and then understand these more practical outcomes.”

Aligning with CREATE-X’s culture of continuous iteration, Startup Lab is tightening the hands-on core of the course around four simple, repeatable tools so that entrepreneurial thinking becomes muscle memory, not a one-off assignment. The new iteration of the curriculum, developed by McGreggor, helps students learn to: 

• Elicit grounded problem stories from real people (and separate observations from interpretations).
• Make explicit strategic decisions — who you serve, what you offer, how you deliver, how you get paid — and back them with discovery evidence.
• Externalize your logic with clear Business Model Canvas snapshots (hypotheses ≠ decisions ≠ open questions).
• Design minimum viable experiments (MVEs) that can falsify assumptions, not just confirm them. 

“What we have is a frontier model in entrepreneurial education,” said McGreggor. “The result is a course that teaches sound decision making and builds entrepreneurial confidence that rewards authentic discovery and iteration over performative polish. It creates a more solid foundation for entrepreneurial thinking and sets students up to engage more deeply with everything that follows in their CREATE-X pathway.” 

Reflection as a Feature

As a part of Startup Lab, instructors integrate reflection throughout the semester, which helps students notice patterns of work, make small experiments, and adjust based on what’s learned. Students often worry they’re not the founder type or that their introversion will hold them back; Startup Lab reframes those worries as raw material for growth, including communication skill building and one-on-one interactions you won’t always get in higher-level courses. 

Startup Lab integrates HaradaLite — McGreggor's adaptation of the Japanese Harada Method — as a weekly reflection practice in which students keep a reflection log, helping them notice patterns of work, run small experiments, and adjust based on what's learned. With this approach, educators are able to measure the growth of entrepreneurial confidence by self-report, leading to a more quantitative approach to teaching.

A Common Language Across CREATE‑X

There’s no mandated order for CREATE-X courses. Startup Lab simply makes the next steps clearer by providing a shared language and milestone structure across sections and instructors, so whatever comes next (I2P, Capstone, Launch, or an internship), you can carry forward a coherent, evidence- aware story of your work. 

“All CREATE‑X Learn sections will work with the same milestone objectives,” Urdiales said. “Students trained in Startup Lab are already trained in the muscles of entrepreneurship. They’re more equipped to go into Make and Launch or be a leader within their industry.”

Built To Be Inclusive Across Disciplines and Needs

Startup Lab is about becoming the kind of person who can see opportunities, reason from evidence, and make better decisions when the path isn’t obvious. 

• You do not need an idea or a pre‑built team — curiosity is enough.
• You do not need special permits to enroll. Startup Lab is open to anyone ready to explore.
• You can benefit from the course before or after I2P or Capstone, since there’s no fixed order to the CREATE‑X pathway.
• Introverts are welcome. The course intentionally builds communication skills through structured, low-pressure interviews and guided interaction. 

“Startup Lab helps students see the world’s problems and fill the gaps with fresh ideas, teaching them to see and understand the important difference between evidence and inference,” said McGreggor. “This lays the foundation that leads to good founders, and builds the entrepreneurial confidence needed to succeed.”

What You’ll Actually Do 

Students in Startup Lab can expect a workshop-heavy, conversation-rich semester with weekly artifacts, scenario-based decision prompts, startup reports, and quizzes that keep you honest about what you’re learning. You’ll assemble a Continuity Pack near the end: a compact bundle of your best discovery evidence, decisions, MVEs, economics, and final story slides so your future self (or your I2P/Launch application) can pick up right where you left off. 

The course also sets norms for modern tool use. AI is welcomed as a coach and organizer, after your own baseline thinking and research, and as an enhancement of the real conversations you have. That matters because Startup Lab’s promise is that you build solid judgment under the test of uncertainty, critical to the world of today and the future that is being built. 

Jump Into Startup Lab

You don’t have to have it all figured out. If you’re a first-year student still exploring, a junior craving real-world projects, or a senior looking to stand out in interviews, Startup Lab is for you. 

Seats fill quickly across all sections — and for good reason.
This course gives you the clearest, most supportive on‑ramp into CREATE‑X, with a global methodology, a unified curriculum, and instructors who believe deeply in your potential to grow. Learn how to think entrepreneurially. See the world differently. Build the confidence that will follow you long after the semester ends.

Register for Startup Lab for Fall 2026.

 

A Georgia Tech School of Interactive Computing professor and his Ph.D. student have been named to the 2026 list of Microsoft Research Fellows and Fellowship Advisors.

Associate Professor Alan Ritter and Ph.D. student Ethan Mendes were awarded fellowships for their work on creating artificial intelligence (AI) agents that function as teammates.

Mendes was named a fellow, while Ritter will serve as his fellowship advisor.

The Microsoft Research Fellowship is open to faculty, students, and postdocs. Ritter said that if Microsoft sees alignment in a project, it gives recipients the opportunity to work even closer with their collaborators by inviting them to join as additional fellows.

That turned out to be the case with Mendes after Ritter listed him as a collaborator in his fellowship proposal.

“I’m delighted to serve as Ethan Mendes’ fellowship advisor,” Ritter said. “He is an exceptionally strong researcher, and I’m excited to see his work recognized through the Microsoft Research Fellowship.”

Through the fellowship, Ritter and Mendes will design AI systems that better support collaboration and decision-making within organizations. 

“The goal is to move beyond AI as a tool for a single user and instead study how AI can help groups make more informed, transparent, and coordinated decisions,” Ritter said. “We will focus on methods that bring together information from many different sources, help people reason under uncertainty, and generate analyses that support collective problem-solving in complex work settings.”

 

Professor Named to Sustainability Cohort

The Purple Mai’a Foundation has selected Associate Professor Josiah Hester to join its Eahou Global Immersion Cohort.

The Purple Mai’a Foundation is a technology education nonprofit headquartered in Aiea, Hawaii, that teaches coding and computer science to Native Hawaiian students.

The 29 members of the Eahou Global Immersion Cohort from 15 countries are leaders from indigenous communities recognized for their contributions to sustainability.

Hester is a Native Hawaiian whose research centers on sustainable and battery-free technology.

The cohort will gather on O’ahu May 1-3 for Eahou Fest, where they will share stories and solutions from research around the world.

“I’m honored to be selected for the Eahou Global Immersion Cohort and to learn alongside such an inspiring group of resilience leaders who come from around the globe,” Hester said. 

“Participants are selected for their significant leadership over the past decade and their ability to bring what they learn back to their communities and integrate it into ongoing work and partnerships. I’m excited to connect these experiences with my work and bring these lessons back into research and teaching at Georgia Tech.”

 

Jill Watson Creator Receives AAAI Lecture Award

Professor Ashok Goel received one of the most distinguished awards from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).

Goel was selected as the 20th recipient of the AAAI Robert S. Engel Memorial Lecture Award. Established in 2003, the award is given to those who have demonstrated excellence in AI scholarship, outstanding applications of AI, and extraordinary service to AAAI and the AI community.

Goel received the award in January during the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Singapore. According to the awards program, Goel was recognized for contributions to biologically inspired design, case-based reasoning, and application of AI in virtual teaching.

Goel is the inventor of Jill Watson, one of the first AI virtual teaching assistants used in higher education classrooms.

AAAI is also the publisher of AI Magazine, which Goel served as editor-in-chief from 2016 to 2021.

“I am both honored and humbled to receive AAAI's Robert Engelmore Award,” Goel said. “Bob was a long-time editor of AAAI's AI Magazine, and many years after he retired, I became the editor of the magazine. This makes the Engelmore Award special to me.”

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded $2 million to a team of Georgia Tech and Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) researchers to develop a first-of-its-kind vaccine pill for bird flu.

For decades, bird flu was uncommon in the U.S., but that has changed. In the past several years, epidemics have threatened poultry and dairy cattle operations across the country. Higher egg prices, driven largely by bird flu-related supply disruptions, have cost American consumers billions of dollars in losses.

“The H5N1 strain of the bird flu, which has driven recent and current outbreaks, is a highly lethal virus that kills domestic chickens and other bird species in droves,” said David Pattie, GTRI research scientist and branch chief. “It can easily jump from birds to other animal species — and sometimes to humans.”

The research team will leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to design and test a probiotic avian flu vaccine that, if successful, could be served to chickens in their feed. Currently, vaccinating a flock means individually injecting every bird. 

“We’re focusing on live bacterial vaccines, which means the vaccine comes from living bacteria you swallow, instead of an injection,” said Mike Farrell, GTRI principal research scientist and the project’s lead investigator. 

“These probiotic vaccines would help protect birds and livestock from flu-like infections and lower the risk of those viruses spreading to humans,” he added.

In addition to Farrell and Pattie, the team includes researchers from an array of disciplines across the Institute: Faramarz Fekri, professor and John Pippin Chair in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; JC Gumbart, Dunn Family Professor in the School of Physics; Brian Hammer, associate professor in the School of  Biological Sciences; and Anton Bryksin, director of the Molecular Evolution Core at the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. 

Building on Human Influenza Research 

The project builds on Farrell’s ongoing research into developing probiotic vaccine adjuvants for human influenza. The goal is to use probiotic bacteria — the “good bacteria” found in foods like yogurt — to help create immunity for the flu vaccine.

If the researchers can get probiotic bacteria to display pieces of the flu virus (called antigens) on their surface, then they could be swallowed like a normal probiotic pill.

“The gut is a great place for building immunity. When these bacteria reach the gut, your body would recognize the virus pieces on the bacteria and start building flu antibodies,” Farrell explained. “That way, when the chickens get exposed to flu, their immune system would already be prepared to fight it.”

Putting AI to the Test

“The idea behind this oral bird flu vaccine is to leverage artificial intelligence and the vast historical database for H5N1 available to us, because it's a very well-studied virus,” Farrell said. “There is a ton of structural data out there.” 

Gumbart is an expert in protein modeling and simulation. Part of his role is figuring out the best design for a viral protein piece (antigen) — one that looks and behaves like the real virus protein, so it triggers the right immune response. To do this, he will combine Fekri’s AI-generated predictions with computer modeling. 

“That’s where my team adds real value,” Gumbart said. “We use simulations to test how stable and realistic these protein designs are, which allows us to choose the best ones for lab experiments.”

AI has already identified new medicines and antibiotics by studying chemical databases. If the team can use AI to help design virus proteins for vaccines, it could transform how vaccines are made. 

Pattie says that any viral infectious disease with a high mortality rate has the potential to become a national security threat. “At that point, developing countermeasures becomes exceedingly important from a national security perspective,” he said.  

This is the first time several of the team members are working on poultry research. For Gumbart, the project is a full-circle moment.

“I grew up in rural Illinois, and as a kid, one of my daily chores was to take care of chickens, and I kind of hated it,” he said. “It is some sort of universal irony that I am back to taking care of chickens again.”

Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing, or Georgia AIM, has received one of the highest research awards at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Outstanding Achievement in Research Program Impact.

 

The award was announced March 25, 2026 and is one of six Institute Research Awards given by Georgia Tech’s Office of the Executive Vice President for Research. The portfolio of awards honors achievements in research engagement, innovation, faculty advising, and impact. 

 

Georgia AIM is a statewide coalition led by the Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) and the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI) to develop and deploy AI talent and innovation in manufacturing. The Georgia AIM coalition includes dozens of universities, technical colleges, nonprofits, and economic development organizations.

 

“It is an incredible experience to collaborate with technology and economic development leaders around the state to lead the nation and the world in AI for manufacturing,” said Aaron Stebner, Georgia AIM co-director and the Eugene C. Gwaltney Jr. Chair in Manufacturing at Georgia Tech. 

 

“We are truly honored to receive this recognition from our peers at Georgia Tech,” said Tom Kurfess, GTMI Executive Director and HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control. 

 

Georgia AIM was initiated in 2021 by Stebner, EI2 Vice President David Bridges, Kurfess, Georgia AIM managing director and GTMI deputy director Steven Ferguson, and Georgia Tech executive director for strategic partnerships George White. The coalition received an initial $500,000 planning grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA), which was followed by $65 million in additional grants from EDA and with additional federal, state, and private sector support now totals more than $100 million to enact projects across the state. 

 

The Georgia AIM coalition counts many achievements on and off campus, including:

• Supporting collaborations for more than thirty-five faculty, fifty research faculty and professionals, ten post docs, eighty graduate research assistants, one hundred and fifty undergraduate research assistants, and dozens of staff at Georgia Tech.
• Transforming the Georgia Tech Advanced Manufacturing Pilot Facility into a national user facility for research and development to invent, test, derisk, and mature AI manufacturing and materials technologies.
• Building a manufacturing commercialization pipeline that links faculty research, student innovation, startups, and corporate partners to introduce AI manufacturing innovations to regional and national economies.
• Launching workforce development programs that provide new opportunities and career paths thousands of students spanning K-12 engagement, technical apprenticeships and credentials, and professional education.
• Providing STEM experiences including AI coding camps, robotics competitions, and advanced manufacturing competitions to thousands of students across Georgia.
• 21 peer reviewed journal articles, 5 peer reviewed conference proceedings, 5 National Academies workshop presentations, 5 keynote/plenary presentations, more than 200 conference presentations and posters, 13 invention disclosures, 7 provisional patents, 2 full patents filed to date with dozens more in process. 

“Georgia AIM proves that innovation scales when built alongside workforce,” said Ferguson. “We built a seamless pipeline from education to industry, ensuring talent is ready to deploy AI in real manufacturing environments on day one.”

 

“The impact of Georgia AIM is grounded in collaboration — universities, industry, nonprofits and communities working together to shape the future of advanced manufacturing in Georgia,” said Bridges. “This recognition underscores what a coordinated statewide effort can accomplish.”

 

Because research covers a range of activities — from research and development to commercialization and public impacts — the annual awards recognize the many facets of work in this area. The peer-driven nomination process emphasizes measurable contributions and leadership across disciplines.

 

“The strength of Georgia Tech’s research enterprise begins with the talented people who push discovery forward every day,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive vice president for Research. “Congratulations to this year’s honorees, who demonstrate what it means to turn bold ideas into real-world impact, advancing knowledge from fundamental science to commercial and community applications. With these awards, we celebrate their leadership, creativity, and dedication to serving the public good.”

 

Read more about this year’s Institute Research Award winners. 

Earlier this year, Georgia Tech researchers showed that specially designed lenses could harvest energy from ambient wireless signals, pointing toward a future of battery-free sensors embedded throughout smart cities and digital infrastructure. 

But powering devices is only part of the challenge. Enabling those same systems to communicate at modern data rates is a much harder. That’s the leap the team is now making. The same lens-based approach is being used to unlock high-speed communication once considered out of reach for ultra-low-power systems.

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers in Professor Manos (Emmanouil) Tentzeris’ Agile Technologies for High-performance Electromagnetic Novel Applications (ATHENA) lab demonstrated a first-of-its-kind lens-enabled backscatter system capable of multi-gigabit data rates, reaching up to 4 gigabits per second (Gbps). At the same time, it operates using only a fraction of the power required by conventional wireless devices — bringing high-speed connectivity to systems that were never meant to support it.

For years, backscatter has been treated as a tradeoff: extremely low power, but extremely limited performance. Rather than generating its own radio signal, a backscatter device modulates and reflects existing wireless transmissions to communicate, allowing it to operate with minimal energy. 

As a result, backscatter has typically been used only to send small amounts of data, most often in simple identification and sensing systems.

“What we’ve shown is that backscatter doesn’t have to be slow,” said Marvin Joshi, the research lead and Ph.D. candidate in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “With the right architecture, it can operate at gigabit‑per‑second speeds while remaining ultra‑low power.”

Hospitals filled to capacity. Case counts climbing by the hour. Quarantine became routine.

It was the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The world needed a vaccine that didn’t exist, and there was no clear timeline for one. No one knew how long the vaccine development process would take — or whether it would work at all.

Then, less than a year later, Pfizer and BioNTech set a record for how fast a drug moved from clinical trials to federal authorization — and to people waiting as the virus surged worldwide.  That speed depended on more than scientific discovery. It hinged on trials, regulatory approval, and manufacturing at scale.

Experience Made the Difference

Startup BioNTech, a small biotech firm, had spent years developing mRNA technology. Pfizer, a huge pharmaceutical company, brought deep experience running large clinical trials, working with regulators, and manufacturing at scale. The two companies had worked together before, which meant they did not have to build trust, decision-making structures, or workflows in the middle of a crisis. Trials moved quickly. They knew what regulators required and how to meet those demands.

According to Georgia Tech research, that kind of business alignment is far from common — and can explain why many promising drugs never reach patients.

Manpreet Hora, senior associate dean for programs and professor of operations management in Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business, studies what happens after a drug leaves the lab. In a study published in Production and Operations Management, he and his coauthors analyzed nearly 300 biotech–pharma partnerships to understand why some drugs make it through and others stall.

“If you are a patient, this process is out of your control,” Hora said. “In some cases, it can cost lives.”

Where It Breaks Down

Drug development often depends on handoffs. Small biotech firms typically generate early discoveries. Larger pharmaceutical companies step in to run trials, work with regulators, and bring products to market.

But complications can arise when companies that lack similar experience levels try to develop the drug together.

Decision-making slows down. Roles become unclear. The process starts to erode.

"That's why partner choice matters," Hora said, comparing the process to a popular TV show. "It's like going on Shark Tank — just because someone is offering money doesn't mean they're the right partner."

Hora said the Pfizer–BioNTech partnership worked because both companies approached the work the same way, despite the difference in their size. Pfizer is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. BioNTech was a much smaller firm.

What Decides the Outcome

As of September 2025, 5 billion doses of the Pfizer–BioNTech Covid vaccine have been distributed globally.

Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, Albert Bourla, attributes the unprecedented success to a “world class collaboration” with BioNTech. He said, "I think it was because both companies had developed very similar cultures…We were both really very purpose-driven.”

Hora's research comes to the same conclusion: In an industry where drugs can take a decade to reach patients, the wrong partner can mean they never arrive at all. 

When Mark Prausnitz talks about his work as a professor, researcher, and entrepreneur, one theme comes through clearly: collaboration. 

Prausnitz, a Regents’ Professor, Regents’ Entrepreneur, and J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is this year’s recipient of the Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award. 

“While I may be the focal point, it’s not a recognition of me as an individual. It’s a recognition of everything the team has done,” Prausnitz said. “I know how to do some things, but there are many things I don’t know how to do. That’s why working with others matters. You bring people together, fill in the gaps, and solve the whole problem.” 

The “some things” Prausnitz knows how to do have led to revolutionary medical innovation over a 30-year career at Georgia Tech, where he has led transformative work in microneedle drug delivery, launching 10 companies in the process. 

During that time, Prausnitz published hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, was granted dozens of patents, and advanced his work from early laboratory studies into more than 20 human clinical trials. His research has produced multiple FDA‑approved or clinically tested technologies. 

Understanding Prausnitz’s success starts with his approach to engineering in practice. Science may begin with discovery, but engineering, as he describes it, focuses on taking something uncertain and making it work. 

“One of the things that really distinguishes engineering from science is the work of problem-solving to reach an answer,” he said. “You start with something diffuse and figure out how to put all the pieces together. That to me is a hallmark of engineering.” 

That way of thinking took shape early in his life. 

Read the full story.

North Carolina's Bald Head Island Conservancy (BHIC) and Georgia Tech for Georgia’s Tomorrow (GT²) are pleased to announce a formal research fund and partnership between BHIC’s Johnston Center for Coastal Sustainability and GT².

GT² is a newly established research initiative at Georgia Tech that focuses on discovery science, engineering innovation, and AI-enabled decision tools to address urgent challenges at the intersection of environmental and community resilience in the Southeast. The initiative fosters research in direct service to regional communities through public-private partnerships, and it provides opportunities for graduate student engagement.

The BHIC-GT² research fund and partnership will pursue shared initiatives in the fields of coastal sustainability, ecosystem health, and environmental resilience. By combining BHIC’s applied, field-based conservation work with Georgia Tech’s expertise in technological innovation and data analysis, new opportunities for impactful research will be created through graduate student projects and community engagement.

About the Partnership
Like the GT² initiative, BHIC’s Johnston Center for Coastal Sustainability was created to translate research into real-world impact. BHIC established the Johnston Center as a research partnership and education hub for sustainability initiatives on Bald Head Island, with the broader goal of advancing coastal sustainability across the Southeast. Seed funding for the Center was provided in 2021 by Dick and Pat Johnston, longtime supporters of BHIC. 

Dick, a Georgia Tech IM 1962 alumnus, and Pat Johnston shared their enthusiasm for the BHIC and Georgia Tech collaboration, noting: 

“We are delighted to see our two favorite institutions come together through this partnership. It brings additional resources, expertise, and leadership to our shared focus on keeping the historic tagline ‘Living in Harmony with Nature’ in the hearts of future generations.”

Joel Kostka, Faculty Director of GT² who also serves as Tom and Marie Patton Distinguished Professor and associate chair for Research in the School of Biological Sciences with a joint appointment in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech added:

“The Bald Head Island Conservancy and its Johnston Center for Coastal Sustainability exemplify how place‑based conservation and rigorous science can work together to create real impact. The Bald Head Island Conservancy’s long‑term stewardship, research infrastructure, and commitment to translating science into action make it an ideal partner for Georgia Tech for Georgia’s Tomorrow as we advance collaborative research that strengthens coastal resilience across the Southeast.”

This partnership will focus on Georgia Tech graduate student research projects that use innovative technology and data analyses to directly support the conservation work of BHIC.

Graduate student research already plays an important role in BHIC’s conservation efforts. Gabie Krueger, a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student in Ocean Sciences and Engineering and BHIC’s 2025-26 Johnston Graduate Fellow in Coastal Sustainability, has been working with BHIC scientists on a salt marsh ecology project that examined how ribbed mussels and fiddler crabs influence the health of Bald Head Island’s dominant salt marsh grass Spartina alterniflora. These flora-fauna interactions serve as primary indicators of marsh health, so her research is important for understanding the resilience of Bald Head Island’s salt marsh to environmental concerns such as sea-level rise and development.

Through the BHIC-GT² partnership, Georgia Tech student researchers who work with the Conservancy will also gain invaluable experience with local conservation efforts and community engagement.

G. Christopher Shank, Ph.D., Executive Director of BHIC, commented:

“The Bald Head Island Conservancy is thrilled about this opportunity to create a formal research partnership with Georgia Tech, one of the nation’s most esteemed research universities. It is recognition of the quality of conservation studies we are currently pursuing at the Conservancy and it also augments the impact of our work for BHI and beyond because of the technological and data analysis talent that Georgia Tech for Georgia’s Tomorrow will bring to this partnership.”

Why This Matters
This research fund and partnership represents an important step forward in strengthening connections between academic research and applied conservation institutions. Together, BHIC and GT² aim to inform coastal management decisions, support resilience planning, engage students, and advance research that benefits coastal ecosystems and communities across the southeastern U.S.

Looking Ahead
Additional details about joint initiatives, research priorities, and collaborative opportunities will be shared in the coming months.