College of Sciences Faculty, Students, Staff Honored in 2020 Georgia Tech Faces of Inclusive Excellence

Ten College of Sciences researchers, staffers, and students are among those named as 2020 Faces of Inclusive Excellence at Georgia Tech. The publication with the names of those honored was distributed during the Institute’s 12^th annual Diversity Symposium on September 9.

The ten are among 57 Georgia Tech faculty and staffers named in the annual Faces of Inclusive Excellence publication from Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The publication recognizes “a diverse group of faculty, staff, and students who are committed to advancing a culture of inclusive excellence at Georgia Tech, and who have distinguished themselves in their research, teaching, and service.” 

The theme of this year’s Diversity Symposium is “Understanding Accessibility as Inclusion: Georgia Tech’s Pathway to Accessibility,” which will highlight members of the Tech community who are paving the way for an accessible and inclusive campus. 

“When you dive deeper to explore the source of Georgia Tech’s greatness, you discover this diverse group of faculty, staff, and students reveals the true faces of inclusive excellence,” says Archie W. Ervin, Vice President of Georgia Tech Institute Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera adds that scientific and entrepreneurial advances "only matter if they drive positive change that helps all of us live better lives. That’s why accessibility and developing the technologies that fuel it are so vital. Indeed, accessibility’s chief goal is to use technology to ensure no one is excluded from exercising their rights as humans and enjoying their freedoms as citizens — mobility, safety, communication, education, personal development, civic participation, and more."

Join us in congratulating the College of Sciences personnel named to the Faces of Inclusive Excellence. Following are their names, titles, and why they were selected:

Flavio H. Fenton 
Professor 
School of Physics 

Fenton was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, and serves as Provost Teaching and Learning Fellow 2018–20. He participated in “Rostros Fisicos,” a project to promote Hispanic/ Latinx physicists across the world. 

Jennifer B. Glass 
Associate Professor 
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Glass serves on the College of Sciences Faculty Diversity Council, and has spearheaded efforts to remove the GRE requirement from the Institute’s graduate admissions due to the inherent bias of the test. Her 2018–19 Georgia Tech Diversity and Inclusion Fellow project, in collaboration with School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Ph.D. candidate Minda Monteagudo, “A Database of Databases of Diverse Speakers in STEM,” has become a widely used international resource. 

Neha Gupta 
Academic Professional and Director of Scheduling 
School of Mathematics 

Awarded the CIOS Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: Class of 1934 Award. As the coordinator of the Math 1551 course and an advisor for math majors, Gupta interacts with some of the most diverse groups of students on campus. She also aims to build community among math majors and reaches out to underrepresented students about opportunities that they may be unaware of. 

Nasrin Hooshmand 
Senior Research Scientist 
School of Chemistry and Biochemistry 

Hooshmand contributed to important discoveries in the field of nanoplasmonics, and applied these insights to signal detection and amplification, biological sensing, drug delivery, and their use in the photothermal therapy of various medical conditions, including cancer. She published her research outcomes in prestigious journals such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Hooshmand strives to create an inclusive learning environment for students from different backgrounds. 

Joseph Lachance 
Assistant Professor 
School of Biological Sciences 

Lachance developed a new technology for detecting genetic associations with prostate cancer in men of African descent. He led a diverse team of researchers to study health disparities and the evolution of genetic disease risks. 

Marissa Kawehi Loving 
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor 
School of Mathematics 

Kawehi Loving co-authored an article published in the December 2019 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society entitled “Broadening the Horizons of Teaching and Diversity in Math Departments.” She co-founded SUBgroups, an online peer-support program for first year math graduate students that launched during the Fall 2019 semester. 

Judith Taylor 
Faculty Affairs Administrative Specialist 
School of Mathematics 

Taylor is a voting outreach organizer. She coordinated a math and English summer program in 2018–19 and has spent three years coordinating faculty affairs for the School of Mathematics. Taylor manages the visa application process, welcoming and onboarding newcomers, and supporting them throughout their experience. 

Prasad Tetali 
Regents Professor 
School of Mathematics and School of Computer Science 

Tetali was appointed director of Georgia Tech’s interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in algorithms, combinatorics, and optimization, and is currently co-chair of the recently formed Equity, Diversity, and InclusionTask Force in the School of Mathematics. He is also co-lead on a virtual research center at Georgia Tech on polynomials as an algorithmic paradigm. 

Samuel Weiss-Cowie 
Undergraduate Student 
College of Sciences and School of Modern Languages 

Weiss-Cowie presented in Korean at the American Association of Teachers of Korean annual conference. His presentation was on new methods in Korean pedagogy.    

Yao Yao 
Assistant Professor 
School of Mathematics 

Yao is a recipient of the Sloan Research Fellowshipand the National Science Foundation Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her research in nonlinear partial differential equations.