Efficiently transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy means looking at so much more than just the technology we use.

Reliable energy is required to keep safe in cold winters and hot summers, making it a matter of national security. There are also vying economic policies to consider, political and financial incentives to navigate, and questions of social and economic inequality.

Experts in Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts examine the challenges we face with the U.S. energy transition, and work to help make it safe, fair, and effective for all.

• Challenge No. 1: Managing National Security — with Adam N. Stulberg, professor and chair of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.
• Challenge No. 2: Confronting Inequality — with Bijesh Mishra, a postdoctoral scholar in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy.
• Challenge No. 3: Choosing the Right Economic Policies — with Bobby Harris, an assistant professor in the School of Economics.
• Challenge No. 4: Navigating Financial and Political Incentives — with Kate Pride Brown, a sociologist in the School of History and Sociology.

Read the article on the Ivan Allen College website.

Putting more electric cars on the road doesn’t just benefit those with enough money to buy the often-pricey vehicles, it also pushes down prices at the gas pump while strengthening U.S. energy security, according to new research from Georgia Tech’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy.

According to the study, published in Energy Policy, widespread adoption of electric vehicles, or EVs, by 2035 would cut energy bills for U.S. households by more than 6% — including more than 4% at the gas pump. It also would drive oil imports down by 7% and increase exports by nearly 4%, the researchers say.

However, those benefits are imperiled by the repeal of national electric vehicle incentives and the recent decision by the federal government to roll back EV-boosting rules meant to increase vehicle fuel efficiency and reduce pollution, according to the study’s authors, Ph.D. candidate Niraj K. Palsule; Marilyn A. Brown, Regents’ Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems; and former graduate student Suprita Chakravarthy. Their study was conducted prior to the federal decisions.

“Proponents of eliminating fuel efficiency standards and other EV-boosting policies often frame those regulatory approaches as consumer-unfriendly, but our analysis shows that such policies have many long-term benefits, both for consumers and for the nation’s energy security,” Palsule said.

For more on the study, read the full story.

It’s uncommon for any startup to receive the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Breakthrough Devices designation. For the roughly 40% of applicants who receive the designation, it shows that the technology has real potential to improve patient outcomes and should get priority attention from the agency. 

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) in Georgia Tech’s Office of Commercialization announced two of its health technology (HealthTech) portfolio companies, Nephrodite and OrthoPreserve, earned the designation. 

Achieving this rare milestone underscores the caliber of founders, science, and support in ATDC’s 30-company HealthTech portfolio, the incubator’s largest focus area. It’s also a win for Georgia because it reflects the strength of the state’s health innovation ecosystem. 

“This designation is one of the strongest signals the FDA gives that a technology could change the standard of care,” said Greg Jungles, HealthTech catalyst at ATDC. “For ATDC to have two in the same year is remarkable.” 

The Breakthrough Device Program doesn’t waive evidence requirements, but it accelerates learning with the FDA, ATDC’s Jungles said. “That means shorter response times, more frequent meetings, and prioritized review. Teams avoid dead ends and align earlier on study designs and endpoints.” 

For the founders of both startups, their technologies come one step closer to moving their innovations to market. Nephrodite’s technology improves the lives of dialysis patients. OrthoPreserve’s device addresses challenges faced by those who suffer from chronic knee pain. 

Nephrodite: Advancing Continuous Artificial Kidney Technology 

Dr. Nikhil Shah and Dr. Hiep Nguyen, cofounders of Nephrodite, aim to improve care for dialysis patients with end-stage kidney disease who need transplants. These patients often spend three to four hours in a dialysis clinic up to three times a week. Being tethered to stationary machines with needles drawing blood via arm grafts complicates everyday activities — from work tasks to the ability to travel. 

Dialysis addresses chronic kidney disease, which means kidneys no longer work properly. The treatments filter out toxins, waste, and other fluids in the blood. Kidney disease costs Medicare $124.5 billion every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And those costs are expected to rise because of increasing rates of kidney failure and chronic kidney disease. 

“Dialysis, while lifesaving when it was pioneered in 1952, is incredibly burdensome,” Shah said. Besides being a long process that keeps the patient in a fixed location, it’s physically tiring. “Taking out your blood continually many, many times over, and over the course of four hours is the equivalent of running the Boston Marathon, hitting the finish line, and then someone saying, ‘You're not done; go do it again,’ ” he said. 

A surgeon by training, with expertise in transplantation and oncology, Shah is also an adjunct associate professor in Tech’s School of Interactive Computing. He worked with Nguyen to develop a continuously functioning mechanical artificial kidney, leading to Nephrodite’s formation. 

The FDA’s breakthrough designation on its artificial kidney allows the company to pursue approvals to begin tests in human trials. 

The company traces its beginnings to a German aerospace facility outside Munich, where Nguyen and Shah watched engineers demonstrate a pediatric artificial heart — the Berlin Heart. 

“That’s how we got started,” Shah said. “Seeing an artificial heart that led us to think about doing this for kidneys — because the kidney space has been largely ignored for 70 years.” 

Backed by a German federal grant, Nephrodite grew, moving from Germany to Boston, Massachusetts, then to Austin, Texas, before calling Atlanta home. The company joined ATDC and tapped into other Georgia Tech programs. This included the Center for MedTech Excellence and the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Nephrodite also drew on student talent as the researchers quietly worked on their continuous mechanical artificial kidney. 

Nephrodite began interviewing patients to find out what they wanted the artificial kidney needed to solve. 

They learned patients want the ability to be mobile. Patients also desire an alternative therapy to large needles being inserted into arm grafts because the injection sites are prone to infection and the grafts can fail. In addition, the process can be painful and disfiguring. Finally, patients want a quality of life independent of machines. 

“Those quality-of-life needs, especially being free and mobile, were absolutely universal,” Shah said.  

Nephrodite began developing the technology to build its device — a filter surgically implanted in the pelvis area. 

“We developed an implant designed to run constantly, connected to larger blood vessels in the pelvis to avoid arm graft failures, and paired with an external interface that lets patients sleep at night while the system removes toxins and excess fluid,” Shah explained. 

The device also has built-in sensors, with data uploaded to the cloud, enabling medical care teams to remotely monitor their patients while freeing patients from frequent in-clinic visits. 

Shah said Nephrodite’s device could restore everyday independence, while potentially lowering infection risk. 

“It's like having an actual kidney, but without all the issues of an unhealthy one,” Shah said.  

OrthoPreserve: Innovating a Minimally Invasive Meniscus Implant 
 
OrthoPreserve’s technology aims to address issues from people have with their meniscus, the C‑shaped piece of cartilage in a knee joint that acts as a shock absorber between the thigh bone and shin bone. 

Though patients undergo a now-routine surgery to address it, incomplete recoveries are also common. An estimated quarter of patients later experience recurring knee pain. No FDA-approved implant currently exists for this population. Now, OrthoPreserveis developing a minimally invasive, artificial meniscus implant to restore cushioning, relieve pain, and delay — or even prevent — knee replacement for some patients. 

“There are a million meniscus surgeries every year, and 25% of those patients still live with recurring pain,” said Jonathan Schwartz, OrthoPreserve’s founder and CEO. 

Patients can face daily pain from ordinary activities, such as prolonged standing or walking a dog. Other activities like jogging and recreational sports can trigger flares that can lead to swelling and prolonged discomfort, Schwartz said. “Those patients have no reliable options today,” he said. “We’re building a minimally invasive implant to restore cushioning and help people get back to the activities they love.” 

OrhoPreserve’s durable implant restores cushioning, and it could help people return to normal activities and delay invasive knee replacement. Along with this comes potential cost and recovery benefits for the healthcare system.   

Schwartz created the implant as his Georgia Tech master’s thesis in the lab of David Ku in the Lawrence P. Huang Endowed Chair for Engineering Entrepreneurship and Regents' Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. After industry experience, Schwartz returned to further develop the technology, building on Georgia Tech’s translational expertise 

OrthoPreserve has completed mechanical testing and a successful study. The company is raising a $2 million seed to complete validations and begin human trials, which Schwartz expects to start in 18 months. 

“The FDA breakthrough designation validates that nothing like this technology exists, and that it has the potential to disrupt the standard of care,” Schwartz said, adding the U.S.’ market opportunity is roughly $1.5 billion. “We finally have a minimally invasive option to bridge the gap between meniscus surgery and knee replacement.” 

What FDA Breakthrough Designation Means for ATDC’s HealthTech Startups 

Having a faster and clearer path is a derisking milestone for investors who are evaluating capital intensive medical device technologies, Jungles said. 

“This breakthrough device designation is a really big deal for medical device companies,” Jungles said, adding that startups often fear navigating the FDA approval process. “But this designation adds to the legitimacy of their technologies and the problemsthey are solving. The designation will help them get to market faster, assuming their data continues to meet expectations.” 

ATDC launched its HealthTech vertical in 2018, which is now sponsored by Catalyst by Wellstar ATDC’s HealthTech portfoilo companies include medical devices, biotech, and digital health, among other segments. 

ATDC’s Role in Accelerating HealthTech Innovation 

Nephrodite and OrthoPreserve’s founders noted ATDC’s coaching and programming as critical in navigating fundraising and regulatory milestones. Another factor, they said, was ATDC’s connection to Georgia Tech’s labs and facilities and prototyping support and clinical advisors from across metro Atlanta.  

“We meet with ATDC coaches every two to four weeks to troubleshoot and plan,” Schwartz said. “Having that level of seasoned guidance, all without consultant-level costs, has been huge.” 

Jungles added that two Breakthrough device designations in the same year reflects ATDC’s selection rigor, noting he’s evaluated hundreds of technologies since the HealthTech vertical launched. 

“It reflects the caliber of the companies in ATDC, specifically in the medical device space,” Jungles said. “It’s the strength of their teams, the persistence of the founders, and the collaboration of the ecosystem in Georgia and Atlanta.” 

 

Robots are increasingly learning new skills by watching people. From folding laundry to handling food, many real-world, humanlike tasks are too nuanced to be efficiently programmed step by step. 

With imitation learning, humans demonstrate a task and robots learn to copy what they see through cameras and sensors. While at the leading edge of robotics research, this approach is limited by a major constraint: Robots can only work as fast as the people who taught them. 

Now, Georgia Tech researchers have created a tool that smashes that speed barrier. The system allows robots to execute complex tasks significantly faster than human demonstrations while maintaining precision, control, and safety.

The team addresses a central challenge in modern robotics: how to combine the flexibility of learning from humans with the speed and reliability required for real-world deployment. The technology could lead to wider adoption of imitation learning in industrial and household applications and even enable robots to execute humanlike tasks better than ever before. 

“The thing we’re trying to create — and I would argue industry is also trying to create — is a general-purpose robot that can do any task that human hands can do,” said Shreyas Kousik, assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and a co-lead author on the study. “To make that work outside the lab, speed really matters.”

The new tool, SAIL (Speed Adaptation for Imitation Learning), was born out of a cross-campus, interdisciplinary collaboration that brought together expertise in mechanical engineering, robotics systems, and machine learning. The research team includes Kousik; Benjamin Joffe, senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute; and Danfei Xu, assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing, along with graduate students and researchers from multiple labs.

Speed Without Sacrifice

Teaching robots to work faster than the speed of human demonstrations is challenging. Robots can behave differently at higher speeds, and small changes in the environment can cause errors. 

“The challenge is that a robot is limited to the data it was trained on, and any changes in the environment can cause it to fail,” Kousik said.

SAIL addresses this challenge through a modular approach, with separate components working together to accelerate beyond the training data. The system keeps motions smooth at high speed, tracks movements accurately, adjusts speed dynamically based on task complexity, and schedules actions to account for hardware delays. This combination allows robots to move quickly while staying stable, coordinated, and precise.

“One of the gaps we saw was that our academic robotics systems could do impressive things, but they weren’t fast or robust enough for practical use,” Joffe said. “We wanted to study that gap carefully and design a system that addressed it end to end.”

He added, “The goal is not just to make robots faster, but to make them smart enough to know when speed helps and when it could cause mistakes.” 

The team evaluated SAIL’s performance across 12 tasks, both in simulation and on two physical robot platforms. Tasks included stacking cups, folding cloth, plating fruit, packing food items, and wiping a whiteboard. In most cases, SAIL-enabled robots completed tasks three to four times faster than standard imitation-learning systems without losing accuracy.

One exception was the whiteboard-wiping task, where maintaining contact made high-speed execution difficult.

 “Understanding where speed helps and where it hurts is critical,” Kousik said. “Sometimes slowing down is the right decision.”

While SAIL does not make robots universally adaptable on its own, it represents an important step toward robotic systems that can learn from humans without being constrained by human pace.

By showing how learned robotic behaviors can be accelerated safely and systematically, SAIL brings imitation learning closer to real-world use — where speed, precision, and reliability all matter.

 

Citation: Ranawaka Arachchige, et. al. “SAIL: Faster-than-Demonstration Execution of Imitation Learning Policies,” Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL), 2025. 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.11948

Funding: The authors would like to acknowledge the State of Georgia and the Agricultural Technology Research Program at Georgia Tech for supporting the work described in this paper. 

After watching hundreds of mosquitoes buzzing around one of their colleagues and collecting 20 million data points, Georgia Tech and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have created a mathematical model that predicts how and where female mosquitoes will fly to feast on humans. 

The new study is the first to visualize mosquito flight patterns and provides hard data for improving capture and control strategies. In addition to being a nuisance, mosquitoes transmit diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, and Zika, which cause more than 700,000 deaths every year.

“It’s like a crowded bar,” said David Hu, a professor in Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Biological Sciences, with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics. “Customers aren’t there because they followed each other into the bar. They’re attracted by the same cues: drinks, music, and the atmosphere. The same is true of mosquitoes. Rather than following the leader, the insect follows the signals and happens to arrive at the same spot as the others. They’re good copies of each other.”

Read more and watch: 
Georgia Tech College of Engineering newsroom and The Conversation

Five Georgia Tech computer science (CS) students have been named Squarepoint Foundation Scholars, receiving merit- and need-based scholarships for their undergraduate studies. The Squarepoint Foundation is providing $100,000 to fund the awards, which offer $10,000 per year for two years to rising third-year students. 

Now in its second year of supporting the College of Computing, the Squarepoint Foundation continues to expand opportunities, enabling students to focus fully on their studies and pursue activities outside the classroom.  

A selection committee led by Mary Hudachek-Buswell, interim chair of the School of Computing Instruction (SCI), chose this year’s cohort.  

“These students exemplify the curiosity, talent, and determination we strive to cultivate in computer science,” Hudachek-Buswell said. “The Squarepoint Foundation Scholarships will give them the opportunity to focus fully on their studies while pursuing research and projects that have the potential to make a real-world impact.” 

The scholars have demonstrated strong leadership across campus, with all five serving as teaching assistants (TAs) and earning faculty honors. The cohort is also engaged in research and study abroad opportunities. 

Founded in 2021, the Squarepoint Foundation supports STEM education and research while partnering with organizations worldwide to expand opportunity and access.  

“We are proud to continue our partnership with Georgia Tech, as we extend our support to a number of students working towards achieving their academic goals,” said Allison Henry, Squarepoint Foundation manager.  

“The Squarepoint Foundation aims to increase access to education, ensuring that all individuals have the opportunity to pursue the degree of their choice, no matter their circumstances. We wish these talented students the best of luck as they undertake their studies and recognize them for their hard work and dedication to the STEM field."

Meet the Scholars

Maria Cymbalyuk 

Cymbalyuk studies Cybersecurity and Information Internetwork threads, focusing on how technical systems shape who is protected or exposed in digital environments. She’s interested in supporting public defenders and improving access to justice through technology. 

“This scholarship made this semester feel less financially stressful and more like I can focus on building the skills and experiences I care about,” Cymbalyuk said. “I want to use my skills to build tools and do research that supports public interest organizations.” 

Marziah Islam 

Jie and I had been hoping to identify naturally occurring whitening pigments that could be used in paper and paints. The beetle’s white exoskeleton is made from a compound called chitin, which is a type of carbohydrate – one that is also commonly found in crab and lobster shells.

Read the full article in The Conversation here: https://bit.ly/4uBteYr

The building blocks of proteins, amino acids are essential for all living things. Twenty different amino acids build the thousands of proteins that carry out biological tasks. While some are made naturally in our bodies, others are absorbed through the food we eat. 

Amino acids also play a critical role commercially where they are manufactured and added to pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, cosmetics, animal feeds, and industrial chemicals — an energy-intensive process leading to greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption, and pollution.

A landmark new system developed at Georgia Tech could lead to an alternative: a commercially scalable, environmentally sustainable method for amino acid production that is carbon negative, using more carbon than it emits.

The breakthrough builds on a method that the team pioneered in 2024 and solves a key issue – increasing efficiency to an unprecedented 97% and reducing the bioprocess cost by over 40%. It’s the highest reported conversion of CO2 equivalents into amino acids using any synthetic biology system to date.

Published in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology, the study, “Cell-Free-Based Thermophilic Biocatalyst for the Synthesis of Amino Acids From One-Carbon Feedstocks,” was led by Bioengineering Ph.D. student Ray Westenberg and Professor Pamela Peralta-Yahya, who holds joint appointments in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. The team also included Shaafique Chowdhury (Ph.D. ChBE 25) and Kimberly Wennerholm (ChBE 23); alongside University of Washington collaborators Ryan Cardiff, then a Ph.D. student and now a Chain Reaction Innovations Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory, and Charles W. H. Matthaei Endowed Professor in Chemical Engineering James M. Carothers; in addition to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Synthetic Biology Team Leader Alexander S. Beliaev.

"This work shifts the narrative from simply reducing carbon emissions to actually consuming them to create value,” says Peralta-Yahya. “We are taking low-cost carbon sources and building essential ingredients in a truly carbon-negative process that is efficient, effective, and scalable.”

Heat-Loving Organisms

The work builds on the cell-free technology the team used in their earlier study. “Previously, we discovered that a system that uses the machinery of cells, without using actual living cells, could be used to create amino acids from carbon dioxide,” Peralta-Yahya explains. “But to create a commercially viable system, we needed to increase the system’s efficiency and reduce the cost.”

The team discovered that bits of leftover cells were consuming starting materials, and — like a machine with unnecessary gears or parts — this limited the system’s efficiency. To optimize their “machine,” the team would need to remove the extra background machinery.

"Leftover cell parts were using key resources without helping produce the amino acids we were looking for,” says Peralta-Yahya. “We knew that heating the system could be one way to purify it because heat can denature these components.”

The challenge was in how to protect the essential system components from the high temperatures, she adds. “We wondered if introducing enzymes produced by a heat-loving bacterium, Moorella thermoacetica, might protect our system, while still allowing us to denature and remove that inefficient background machinery.”

The results were astounding: after introducing the enzymes, heating and “cleaning” the system, and letting it cool to room temperature, synthesis of the amino acids serine and glycine leaped to 97% yield — nearly three times that of the team’s previous system.

Scaling for Sustainability

To make the system viable for large-scale use, the team also needed to reduce costs. “One of the most costly components in this system is the cofactor tetrahydrofolate (THF),” Peralta-Yahya shares. “Reducing the amount of THF needed to start the process was one way to make the system more inexpensive and ultimately more commercially viable.”

By linking reaction steps so waste from one step fueled the next, the team devised a method to recycle THF within the system that reduces the amount of THF needed by five-fold — lowering bioprocessing costs by 42%.

“This decrease in cost and increase in yield is a critical step forward in creating a method with real potential for use in industry and manufacturing,” Peralta-Yahya says. “This system could pave the way for moving this carbon-negative technology out of the lab and onto the continuous, industrial scale."

 

Funding: The Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E); U.S. Department of Energy; and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research Program.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.5c00352

A chemical signature hidden in a 3.8‑billion‑year‑old lunar rock is offering new insights into the availability of oxygen within the young Moon.

Published today in the journal Nature Communications, the paper “Trivalent Titanium in High-Titanium Lunar Ilmenite” confirms titanium in a reduced, trivalent state in a black, metal-rich lunar mineral called ilmenite. It’s a state only possible in low-oxygen environments, conditions researchers refer to as “reducing.”

“Models have suggested that these reducing conditions may have varied at different locations and times across the surface of the Moon,” says lead author Advik Vira, a graduate student in the School of Physics who recently earned his doctoral degree. “We hope our microscopy technique can be a valuable step in mapping and understanding the Moon’s 4.5-billion-year history.”

The team anticipates that their technique could be used on many of the lunar samples collected more than 50 years ago by the Apollo missions in addition to the Apollo Next Generation Samples — a group of lunar samples that have been stored under pristine conditions — and new samples from the planned Artemis missions, with Artemis II slated for launch this spring. The technique might also be applicable to samples collected from the far side of the Moon and returned in 2024 by the Chang’e-6 mission.

“The Moon holds clues not only to its own past, but also to the earliest eras of Earth’s evolution — history that has long since been erased from our planet,” Vira says. “This study is a step toward understanding the history of both and a reminder that there is still so much left to learn from the lunar rocks we’ve brought back to Earth.”

The School of Physics research team included corresponding authors Vira and Professor Phillip First; in addition to graduate student Roshan Trivedi; undergraduate students Gabriella Dotson, Keyes Eames, Dean Kim, and Emma Livernois; and Professor Zhigang Jiang, along with Institute for Matter and Systems Materials Characterization Facility Senior Research Scientist Mengkun Tian; School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Senior Research Scientist Brant Jones and Thom Orlando, Regents' Professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry with a joint appointment in the School of Physics. 

The Georgia Tech team was joined by Addis Energy Senior Geochemist Katherine Burgess; Macalester College Assistant Professor of Geology Emily First; along with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Research Scientist Harrison Lisabeth, Senior Scientist Nobumichi Tamura, and Postdoctoral Fellow Tyler Farr, who recently earned a Ph.D. from Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

CLEVER research

The investigation began with a dark gray rock called a lunar basalt. Formed when ancient magma erupted on the Moon’s surface, minerals crystallized as it cooled — preserving key information in their structures. Billions of years later, the rock was brought to Earth by the 1972 Apollo 17 mission, where a small piece is now stored at Georgia Tech’s Center for Lunar Environment and Volatile Exploration Research (CLEVER), a NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) center led by Orlando.

As a NASA virtual institute, CLEVER supports researchers exploring lunar conditions and developing tools for the upcoming crewed Artemis missions, and provided the lunar samples for this research. The SSERVI also plays a critical role in training the next generation of planetary researchers: both Vira and Farr earned their Ph.D.s while on the CLEVER team.

“At CLEVER, we are very interested in understanding the impacts of space weathering,” Vira says. “We implemented modern sample preparation and advanced microscopy techniques to image samples at the atomic level, and were curious to apply it more broadly to the collection of Apollo rocks in the Orlando Lab. This sample caught our attention.”

“When we imaged an ilmenite crystal from the lunar basalt, what struck us first was how uniform and perfect the crystal structure was,” he recalls. “We found no defects from space weathering and instead saw an undamaged, pristine crystal — undisturbed for 3.8 billion years.”

To investigate further, the team analyzed small chips of the rock with Burgess, a member of the RISE2 SSERVI team and then a geologist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Using state-of-the-art electron microscopy and spectroscopy techniques, Vira determined the oxidation state of the elements in the ilmenite present. 

In spectroscopy measurements, each element leaves a distinct ‘signature,’ Vira explains. “When we brought our results back to Georgia Tech’s Materials Characterization Facility, Mengkun (Tian) noticed something unusual: the signature showed titanium might be present in the trivalent state.”

The presence of trivalent titanium had long been suspected in this lunar mineral. The team was intrigued. 

A new window into old rocks

With funding from Georgia Tech’s Center for Space Technology and Research (CSTAR), Vira returned to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory to analyze additional samples. The results confirmed that more titanium was present than the mineral’s formula (FeTiO₃) predicts — indicating a portion of the titanium present was trivalent.

“That led me to place our measurements in terms of the broader geological context,” Vira shares. Working with First, Vira explored how ilmenite with trivalent titanium could help reconstruct the nature of ancient magmas from the Moon, especially the chemical availability of oxygen.

“Because its location on the Moon was noted during the Apollo mission, we know exactly where this rock is from, and we can determine how old the rock is,” he explains. “When coupled with our trivalent titanium measurements, we can use that information to estimate the reducing conditions for this specific region at the specific time our rock formed.”

If the upcoming Artemis missions return samples suitable for the team’s technique, these rocks could provide a new window into ancient lunar geology. The research also highlights that many lunar samples already on Earth could be reexamined to look for trivalent titanium.

“There is still so much to learn from the lunar samples we have already brought to Earth,” Vira says. “It’s a testament to the long-term value of each sample return mission. As technology continues to advance, this type of work will continue to give us critical insights into our planet and our place in the universe for years to come.”

 

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-69770-w

Funding: This work was directly supported by the NASA SSERVI under CLEVER. Researchers were also supported by the NASA RISE2 SSERVI and the Heising-Simons Foundation. Funding for collaborations between the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Georgia Tech for the investigation of lunar minerals was provided by the Georgia Tech Center for Space Technology and Research. Sample preparation was performed at the Georgia Tech Institute for Matter and Systems, which is supported by the National Science Foundation. This work utilized the resources of the Advanced Light Source, a user facility supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and was supported in part by previous breakthroughs obtained through the Laboratory Direct.