Experts in the News

The winners of the 2023 World Laureates Association Prize were recently announced, and the Prize in Computer Science or Mathematics was awarded to Arkadi Nemirovski, adjunct professor in the School of Mathematics, and Professor Yurii Nesterov at Université Catholique de Louvain "for their seminal work in convex optimization theory, including self-concordant function and interior-point methods, a complexity theory of optimization, accelerated gradient methods, and robust optimization methodological advances." Nemirovski is also Professor and John P. Hunter Chair in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. (This story was also covered in Science, Technode Global, Yahoo! Finance, China Daily, ecns.cn and Cision.)

The first enzyme was discovered in 1833, almost 200 years ago and long before the nature of proteins was appreciated. The field of enzymology came into its own in the 20th century. Technological advances in the hands of creative enzymologists led to an ever-growing understanding of how enzymes achieve enormous rate accelerations as well as the structural basis for substrate specificity and allosteric regulation. A session scheduled for the Discover BMB convention in San Antonio March 23-26 will feature Raquel Lieberman, Professor and Sepcic-Pfiel Chair in Chemistry in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, speaking on the topic, Enzymes for a Sustainable Future.

At the apex of the Greenland ice sheet, a community of 41 scientists and support staff carry out cutting-edge research into everything from climate change to particle physics. This story details recent research underway at Summit Station, located close to the apex of the Greenland ice sheet and one of the most remote scientific stations on Earth. One of two ice-coring projects at Summit Station involved Rachel Moore, a postdoctoral scholar in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Moore will use the core samples to study bacteria and other latent biological entities once afloat in the atmosphere and now buried in the ice sheet. Her research will provide a window into the Earth’s environmental history and changing atmospheric patterns that goes back about six centuries.

Zhong Lin Wang, Hightower Chair and Regents' Professor in the School of Materials Science & Engineering, with an adjunct appointment in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, will take part in a webinar sponsored by the IOP Publishing journal, JPhys Materials, to explore the immense potential of ambient energy harvesting materials. Wang pioneered the nanogenerators field for distributed energy, self-powered sensors, and large-scale blue energy. The webinar is scheduled for 11 a.m.-1 p.m. EDT Tuesday, September 26; click here for registration.

Researchers are exploring how active matter can be harnessed for tasks like designing new materials with tailored properties, understanding the behavior of biological organisms, and even developing new approaches to robotics and autonomous systems. But that’s only possible if scientists learn how the microscopic units making up active matter interact, and whether they can affect these interactions and thereby the collective properties of active matter on the macroscopic scale. School of Physics Professor Roman Grigoriev and his research colleagues have found a potential first step by developing a new model of active matter that generated new insight into the physics of the problem. They detail their methods and results in a new study published in Science Advances, “Physically informed data-driven modeling of active nematics.” Lead author of the study is graduate researcher Matthew Golden. Co-authors are graduate researcher Jyothishraj Nambisan and Alberto Fernandez-Nieves, professor in the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Barcelona and a former associate professor of Physics at Georgia Tech. (This research was also covered in WorldTimeTodays andCityLife.)

Valerie Montgomery Rice, president and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine and a Georgia Tech alumna, has received a major honor from the National Medical Association. The organization is giving its 2023 Scroll of Merit Award, its highest honor, to Montgomery Rice. The award recognizes someone who has made significant contributions to medicine, health advocacy or service to the association. Montgomery Rice, who received her bachelor's degree from the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, is the first woman to lead the private historically Black medical school in Atlanta. (This award was also covered in the Atlanta Tribune.) 

There’s no artist more vibrant, spiritual, or creative than Mother Earth. Then, we have mortals like Georgia Tech School of Physics alumni Dylan Diamond, who execute Mother Earth’s designs into functional tools or, in this case, a timepiece: “Moss Clock.” The clock has its own gear train and servo, or motors. The bottom line: this technology is a clock composed of living moss. Diamond had the idea to make a “digitally inspired” clock where moving panels of different colored moss resemble a classic digital clock display. "My physics degree helped, but I firmly believe that in the age of information, with public access to so many free tutorials and teachers online, anyone can do something like this," Diamond said. 

Santosh Vempala, the Frederick Storey II Chair of Computing and Distinguished Professor in the School of Computer Science, with courtesy appointments in the School of Mathematics and H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has been named a 2023 Simons Investigator in theoretical computer science by the Simons Foundation. Simons Investigators are outstanding theoretical scientists who receive a stable base of research support from the foundation, enabling them to undertake the long-term study of fundamental questions in mathematics, physics, astrophysics and computer science. Vempala is the second Georgia Tech scientist to be named a Simons Investigator; in 2022, Joshua Weitz, former professor in the School of Biological Sciences, was supported by the Foundation for research in theoretical physics in life sciences. 

Wetlands serve as a natural protection from storms, fires, and floods. But those protections can be deadly at times. Joel Kostka, professor and Associate Chair of Research in the School of Biological Sciences (with an adjunct appointment in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences), talks about the nation's wetlands in the latest episode of The Earth Unlocked, The Weather Channel's weekly series on the planet's natural wonders and the roles extreme weather, constant geologic change, and biological evolution play. The series airs at 8 p.m. ET Sundays, and can also be viewed on demand on The Weather Channel app (subscription required.) 

Up to twice the amount of subglacial water that was originally predicted might be draining into the ocean — potentially increasing glacial melt, sea level rise, and biological disturbances. Two School of Earth and Atmospheric Scientist researchers — Alex Robel, assistant professor, and Shi Joyce Sim, research scientist — have collaborated on a new model for how water moves under glaciers. The new theory shows that up to twice the amount of subglacial water that was originally predicted might be draining into the ocean. (The research is also covered at SciTechDaily and Earth.com.)

A team led by members of the Department of Chemistry at King’s College London, in collaboration with scientists from the University of Oklahoma and the Georgia Institute of Technology, have reportedly discovered a new molecular method that could enable more effective and cheaper prevention of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. The School of Chemistry and Biochemistry researchers involved in the study are James Gumbert, professor, and Katie Kuo, Ph.D. scholar. 

On a cold March evening in 1964, a colossal earthquake struck off the coast of Alaska. At magnitude 9.2, it was the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America, and it triggered massive tsunamis that killed more than 120 people and leveled communities. But no wave reached Anchorage, the state’s biggest city. Many concluded that nearby geography makes the city immune to tsunamis. A new study published this week by the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys (DGGS), however, finds Anchorage simply got lucky in 1964—and might not the next time an earthquake strikes the seismically active region. Hermann Fritz, professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ocean Science and Engineering, and the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, did not work on the study but is quoted in this article.