The Georgia Institute of Technology continues to make progress in the graduate school rankings published each spring by U.S. News and World Report. One constant is the top 10 ranking of the College of Engineering and each of its specialties.

The College of Engineering ranked No. 8 (No. 4 among public universities), and all 11 of the programs within the college are ranked in the top 10, including:

• Industrial Engineering (No. 1)
• Biomedical and Bioengineering (No. 2)
• Civil Engineering (No. 2)
• Aerospace Engineering (No. 4)
• Computer Engineering (No. 4)
• Electrical Engineering (No. 5)
• Mechanical Engineering (No. 5)
• Environmental Engineering (No. 5)
• Chemical Engineering (No. 7)
• Materials Engineering (No. 7)
• Nuclear Engineering (No. 9)

Programs on the move include the College of Computing, which moved up from No. 9 to No. 8. Its programs are evaluated every four years by U.S. News and World Report, and it is the second time in the last three ranking periods in which the College of Computing improved its position.

The College of Computing also achieved rankings in the following specialties: Artificial Intelligence (No. 7), Programming Language (No. 16), Systems (No. 10) and Theory (No. 9).

In the College of Sciences, Chemistry jumped four to No. 20, Mathematics moved up two to No. 26, Physics moved up one to No. 28,  Earth Sciences moved up four to No. 38, and Biology moved up one to No. 54. Within mathematics, the discrete math/combinatorics specialty had Georgia Tech at No. 2, up two positions.

The Scheller College of Business full-time MBA program moved up one to No. 28, and its part-time MBA moved up five to No. 25. Scheller was also ranked in the following specialties: Production/Operations (No. 7), Supply Chain/Logistics (No. 17) and Information Systems (No. 12).

In the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, the Public Policy program moved up two to No. 43 overall with the Information and Technology Management specialty remaining at No. 2, Public Policy Analysis moved up two positions to No. 20 and the Environmental Policy and Management specialty debuting at No. 12.

This story was modified from a story originally published by Lance Wallace for the Georgia Tech News Center, March 20, 2018.

The Georgia Institute of Technology announces the formal launch of the Global Change Program, a new initiative designed to coordinate and grow educational and research activities focused on providing solutions and creating economic opportunities at the intersection of global change, climate change, and energy.

The launch follows a year of deliberations by an executive committee of campus stakeholders brought together under a joint charge from the Office of the Provost and Office of the Executive Vice President for Research. The 22-member committee was led by President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough and represented all six colleges.

“The work of the committee highlighted the many ongoing and exciting efforts in the global change space happening in schools, units, and centers across the Institute,” said Rafael L. Bras, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “Bringing these groups together in a coordinated, collaborative, and multidisciplinary way will amplify Georgia Tech’s thought leadership and expertise, expand academic programs, and strengthen key partnerships with industry and peer institutions.”

The program will be directed by Kim Cobb, ADVANCE professor and Georgia Power Chair in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Early program activities include curriculum design for undergraduates, including creation of an “Energy and Climate” minor and a climate solutions lab. The program will also host speakers and roundtable events to showcase Georgia Tech’s contributions to global change-related subjects including energy, food and water supply, air quality, ocean health, public policy, and economics. Objectives include possible expansion of academic programs to graduate students, and growth of new partnerships both within Georgia Tech and with public and private partners.

“The initial thrust of the Global Change Program will focus on undergraduate education and the creation of critical connections among our research and academic faculty,” said Cobb. “Our students want exposure and real-world, hands-on experience with these topics as they enter the workforce. Growth of current programs like the Carbon Reduction Challenge and development of new programs will allow future generations of learners to understand issues of global change from the vantage point of their own discipline.”

The Global Change Program is initially supported by seed funds from the Office of the Provost and the Executive Vice President for Research, and through a $500,000 gift from the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. The gift builds upon the successful expansion of Cobb’s Carbon Reduction Challenge to co-op and internship students who partner with their employer to design and implement a carbon reduction project that delivers cost savings.

The co-curricular initiative is a partnership between Cobb and Beril Toktay, professor in the Scheller College of Business and faculty director of the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business.

“We believe this is a critical time to support an initiative as exciting as the Global Change Program,” said John A. Lanier, executive director of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. “With its focus on solutions to our pressing global challenges, in particular the challenge of climate change, the program will make Georgia Tech a leader in creating positive change. We are grateful to President Peterson, Dr. Cobb, President Emeritus Clough, and the entire administration for their commitment to this important work.”

Two councils will be established in support of the program. A faculty advisory council has been established to help shape program activities and ongoing strategic objectives. Chaired by Clough, the council is an extension of the initial executive committee. An external advisory board will also be established.

“The implications of global change are economic, environmental, and cultural,” said Clough. “The work is happening all over campus, and Georgia Tech has a tremendous opportunity to influence the scholarship and policy solutions that address issues of global change and ready students for the careers of the future.”

EDITOR"S NOTE: This item was adapted from a story by Susie Ivy published on March 19, 2018, in the Georgia Tech News Center. 

Marc Weissburg has been appointed Georgia Tech’s newest Brook Byers Professor. The Brook Byers Professorship is the highest title bestowed at Georgia Tech for distinguished faculty who are specifically engaged in sustainability-related research and education.

Weissburg is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and codirector of the Center for Biologically Inspired Design. He joined Georgia Tech in 1997, having earlier earned his B.S. degree in Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the State University of New York, Stony Brook.

Weissburg's research interests concern chemical signaling by marine animals, marine community ecology, and predator-prey dynamics. His recent efforts have been concentrated in two areas: developing methods to suppress predation on juvenile oysters in farmed and natural communities and examining the biological and fisheries consequences of climate change and ocean acidification.

More broadly, Weissburg has a long-standing interest in comparative and interdisciplinary research and education. To this end, he has collaborated with industry groups, professional designers, architects, scientists, and engineers on the use of biologically inspired strategies to enhance human-built systems. Using principles derived from the examination of energy and material flows in ecological systems, he has helped to develop methods for determining material and energy use efficiency and resilience, and he has applied them to systems at scales ranging from neighborhoods and industrial complexes to large cities.

Concurrent to Weissburg’s appointment, five Georgia Tech faculty members were named Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Faculty Fellows. Among them is Yuanzhi Tang, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Tang is interested in the complex interworking between human activities and the natural environment by exploring the chemical reactions occurring at the microbe-mineral-water interface from molecule to macroscopic scale. By combining laboratory-based analytical techniques with synchrotron-based X-ray techniques, she aims to understand the fate, transport, and bioavailability of metal and radionuclide contaminants and nanoparticles, as well as the biogeochemical cycling of important nutrients in complex environmental settings.

Tang has partnered with scientists in Georgia Tech and beyond to attack the problem of integrated contaminant elimination and resource recovery from biological wastes. The National Science Foundation has awarded Tang and her collaborators over $2.4 million over three years to figure out how to integrate and optimize multiple technologies to recover energy, water, and nutrients from biological wastes, while simultaneously reducing waste volume and removing the heavy metals, pathogens, and organic contaminants.

The other BBISS Faculty Fellows are

• Kate Pride Brown (School of History and Sociology),
• Emanuele Massetti (School of Public Policy),
• Cassandra Telenko (Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering), and
• Perry Yang (School of City & Regional Planning).

In addition to their own work, the Brook Byers Professor and BBISS Fellows serve as a board of advisors to BBISS, helping to advance institute's vision, mission, values, and objectives across the community of sustainability-minded researchers, educators, and students at Georgia Tech.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This item was adapted from an article by Brent Verrill published on March 19, 2018, on the BBISS website. Information about Yuanzhi Tang was added.

Middle and high school teachers will have a new program to help them teach computer science and engineering skills to students.

The STEM Teacher Leadership Program at Georgia Tech will create a professional network of teachers from metro Atlanta to serve as instructional leaders to strengthen students’ learning experience in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

The program, which was announced Wednesday, is a joint effort of the Institute and Honeywell Hometown Solutions, the company’s corporate citizenship initiative.

Participating school districts include Atlanta Public Schools and the school systems of Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties.

Key components of the two-year program include:

• Four weeks of intensive summer training in software engineering and computing with 25 selected teachers. Teachers will have access to Georgia Tech’s computing research and Honeywell engineers, who will serve as mentors and coaches.
• The Honeywell STEM Challenge, a software engineering competition open to students of teachers who participate in the STEM Teacher Leadership Program. Students will work in teams to solve real-world challenges using software coding and computation techniques.
• An annual STEM Teacher Leadership Program Symposium, where alumni and other teachers and leaders from the metro Atlanta area can attend academic and networking activities at Georgia Tech.

The program will be facilitated by Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC).

“We’re pleased to continue our relationship with Honeywell as part of our vision to be among the most highly respected, technology-focused learning institutions in the world,” said Rafael L. Bras, Georgia Tech’s provost, executive vice president for academic affairs and K. Harrison Brown Family Chair. “Strong students start with strong foundations. Together with Honeywell’s support, Georgia Tech will be able to continue to place strategic emphasis on teachers as they prepare the next generation of STEM leaders.”

Beyond the new program, Honeywell and Georgia Tech already collaborate on job fairs, research projects and other academic opportunities and internships.

“The complexities of today’s connected world require young people to learn new computer science and software skills to solve tomorrow’s problems,” said Jamshed Patel, site leader for Honeywell’s Atlanta Software Center. “By offering new teaching techniques in these subject areas to metro Atlanta teachers, we hope to prepare students to join a workforce where success comes from the ability to logically think through a technical problem and find a way to solve it.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story by Laura Diamond was first published on the Georgia Tech News Center on March 22, 2018.

Earth experienced a profound change 2.4 billion years ago. That's when oxygen, a by-product of photosynthesis, became an important component of its atmosphere.

The earliest photosynthetic organisms were blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria. Their descendants still exist today.

Cyanobacteria emerged billions of years ago, when Earth supported only anaerobic life and before life evolved mechanisms to cope with the toxic effects of reactive forms of oxygen. Abundant iron in ancient oceans exacerbated oxygen’s reactivity, making it an even stronger poison.

So how did ancient cyanobacteria cope with the effects of the toxic by-product of their own metabolism?

Starting in May, Georgia Tech’s Nadia Szeinbaum will pursue that question with a fellowship from the NASA Astrobiology Postdoctoral Program. She will assemble microbial communities to test the hypothesis that cyanobacteria survived rising oxygen with help from other bacteria.

“Many modern cyanobacteria have limited ability to counter the toxic effects of the oxygen they themselves produce,” Szeinbaum says. Instead, they rely on other bacteria that produce catalase, an enzyme that detoxifies oxygen.

“Could it be that this cooperative relationship was what allowed cyanobacteria to succeed and adapt to oxygen billions of years ago?” she asks.

To address the question, Szeinbaum will create a community of model cyanobacteria and catalase-producing bacteria under conditions of ancient Earth – with just a bit of oxygen and lots of iron. In this environment, Szeinbaum says, oxygen is highly toxic to cyanobacteria, but not to catalase-producing bacteria. 

In modern ecosystems, the model organisms typically live apart, but evidence suggests that their ancestors may have helped each other adapt as oxygen rose. Szeinbaum hopes her experiments will yield insights about what happened billions of years ago.

Szeinbaum is a postdoctoral researcher in the labs of Jennifer Glass, Christopher Reinhard, and Yuanzhi Tang, assistant professors in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Born, raised, and educated in Argentina, Szeinbaum came to Georgia Tech to study wastewater treatment.

After receiving a master’s degree in environmental engineering in 2009, she switched her focus to anaerobic physiology and microbial genetics. She joined the lab of School of Biological Sciences Professor Thomas DiChristina and earned a Ph.D. 2014.

Szeinbaum is among many early-career scientists addressing the fundamental questions driving the burgeoning field of astrobiology at Georgia Tech: How did life start? Where could life exist outside Earth?  Where is life going on Earth and beyond? How would we recognize life outside of Earth?

The conditions of early Earth could be similar to current conditions in potentially habitable bodies in the universe, Szeinbaum says. “Understanding what forms of life may have existed in the past can help us understand whether life exists somewhere else.” 

On March 14, 2018, Georgia Tech hosted the K-12 InVenture Prize for the fifth year. The competition is modeled after the Georgia Tech InVenture Prize. It encourages elementary, middle school, and high school students to engage with invention and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts. The mission is to develop the next generation of engineers and entrepreneurs by making invention education accessible to all students and teachers across the state of Georgia.

To prepare for the competition, students are encouraged to immerse themselves in the engineering design process by identifying real-world problems and designing solutions that consider essential aspects of invention and design – such as ethical issues, environmental sustainability, and marketability. Student teams first compete within their schools before advancing to the Georgia Tech event. Industry experts and Georgia Tech faculty judge the inventors and their inventions according to practicality, knowledge base, design-based thinking, creativity, marketability, social responsibility, enthusiasm and communication, and manufacturing.

Jasmine Patel, Educational Outreach Coordinator at CEISMC, says inviting members of Georgia Tech faculty and the business community to engage with the young competitors makes a big impact on participants. “It gives the students a more meaningful experience,” Patel said, “because the feedback is not just from their classmates or their teachers; it’s from someone outside of whom they normally see every day. It feels more real to them.”

Roxanne Moore, Director of the K-12 InVenture Prize, added: “Whether they win or not, the students are given very valuable feedback. It is really empowering having somebody who is an adult and who is successful in business tell you that your idea is a good one.”

More than 4,000 students from 22 Georgia counties participate in the K-12 InVenture Prize. In 2018, the program established a K-2 division to accommodate the growing participation among students in these grades. Eighty-nine teams advanced from school competitions to the K-12 InVenture Prize at Georgia Tech, where many young inventors enthusiastically shared their plans to continue pursuing STEM education.

Young inventors Haleigh Bagwell and Reese McCarthy from Kelly Mill Elementary School voiced excitement for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics). “We have a class for gifted students every Thursday where we do different STEAM challenges,” Bagwell said. “Thursdays are always exciting because we have fun new projects to do.”

“STEAM is important to us because we learn the four Cs – creativity, collaboration, communication, and critical thinking,” McCarthy said. “The four Cs are important because they help us think outside the box when we’re trying to solve our different challenges at school.” McCarthy said.

Bagwell and McCarthy applied those concepts to their invention, “Butter Butter Butter,” a device that distributes butter evenly through tubs of popcorn.

Meanwhile, Hana Awad from Meadowcreek High School drew upon her coding skills – developed from interships – to create her invention. “Linx” is a home security app for people who cannot afford expensive security systems. “This project got me really interested in mobile app design,” Awad said. “I would like to pursue the field as a possible eventual career.”

Like Awad, Isabella Parker from Harrison High School also has long-term STEM goals. Parker invented “A Kinesthetic Approach to Muscle Memory.” It is a device to help individuals with dysgraphia – the inability to write coherently – and children who are learning how to write. “From a very young age I decided that I wanted to be a doctor, so I’m currently following the biomedical engineering track at Harrison,” Parker said. “I’m hoping to study biomedical engineering here at Georgia Tech.”

Parker’s invention won second place in the high school division. She and the other K-12 InVenture Prize winners will qualify to represent the state of Georgia at the National Invention Convention & Entrepreneurship Expo (NICEE) later this year.

By: Rosemary Pitrone - CEISMC Communications

Laura Cadonati has been selected to receive the 2018 Outstanding Faculty Research Author Award. Cadonati is a professor in the School of Physics and a member of the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics. Georgia Tech presents the award to faculty who most contributed to highly impactful publications describing the results of research conducted at Georgia Tech and published during the period January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2017.

The award recognizes Cadonati for her contributions in gravitational-wave astronomy as a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC), consisting of the hundreds of scientists working with the Laser Interferometry Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington.

Three of Cadonati’s publications, with the LSC, in Physical Review Letters and Astrophysical Journal Letters helped usher the era of multi-messenger gravitational-wave astronomy. The papers chronicled the first detection of a gravitational wave produced by the merger of black holes in 2015. About 18 months later, LIGO detected a gravitational wave from the merger of neutron stars for the first time. This detection came with a plethora of astronomic observations of the electromagnetic radiation also generated by the cosmic cataclysm.

Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity predicted the existence of gravitational waves, which are ripples in the fabric of spacetime due to cataclysmic events in the distant universe. The waves would be so tiny by the time they reached Earth that Einstein himself thought they would never be detected.

LIGO detected one of the elusive waves for the first time on Sept. 14, 2015, which came from the collision of two massive black holes.

On Aug. 17, 2017, LIGO detected for the first time a gravitational wave from the merger of two neutron stars. Neutron stars are the densest stellar objects; a teaspoonful of neutron star material would weigh more than a billion tons. They comprise the collapsed core left behind by exploding stars that were 10-20 times the size of our sun.

“The future of astrophysics is now one in which gravitational waves, electromagnetic waves, and neutrinos will together provide a new, multisensory experience of the universe.”

Extremely bright and energetic explosions called gamma ray bursts are believed to accompany the merger of neutron stars. This idea remained untested until LIGO detected the gravitational wave from the collision of two neutron stars.

This event was so powerful that it lit up the sky in many electromagnetic wavelengths, from gamma rays to radio. Scores of astronomers from around the world, looking at data from 70 telescopes and satellites, proved that the neutron star merger also powered a kilonova – the radiation from rapid neutron capture processes that leads to formation of heavy elements, like gold, platinum, and lead.

Cadonati was at the core of these successful endeavors, previously as the data analysis lead for LIGO and now as deputy spokesperson for LSC. In just two years, the three papers have taken the fundamental physics field of gravitation into the new era of multi-messenger gravitational-wave astronomy.

“I am humbled by Georgia Tech’s recognition of my role in the publication of LIGO’s results and of the impact that this work has on astrophysics,” Cadonati says. “The future of astrophysics is now one in which gravitational waves, electromagnetic waves, and neutrinos will together provide a new, multisensory experience of the universe, and the only way it can succeed is by the collaborative effort of the physics and astronomy community.

“I am grateful for the support of my Georgia Tech colleagues, postdocs, and students, who joined me in this adventure of the past two years, and I look forward to the things we will learn about the universe in the years to come.”

Georgia Tech has selected Troy Hilley as the recipient of the 2018 Outstanding Achievement in Research Enterprise Enhancement Award. Hilley is the Academic and Research IT Support Engineer Lead for the School of Biological Sciences (SoBiosci). The award recognizes staff members who consistently improve Georgia Tech’s research programs but are not traditional researchers themselves.

Hilley is responsible for the day-to-day operations and maintenance of faculty, research group, and administrative computing infrastructure in SoBiosci. He also acts as a critical liaison between SoBiosci, the College of Sciences, and Georgia Tech computing teams. Yet in practice, Hilley does much more. As SoBiosci grows, he has established himself as a leader in thinking creatively and acting proactively to prepare SoBiosci for the rapidly changing environment for integrative computing.

“Troy is the reason we’ve managed to scale up so seamlessly,” a colleague says.

According to colleagues, Hilley has been instrumental in advancing SoBiosci’s research. Relentlessly pursuing institutional effectiveness, he has gone beyond his scope of duties to help faculty build infrastructure for effective research, assist with strategic planning of computational needs, and provide timely and expert assistance to advance computation-based discoveries in the life sciences.

Hilley’s advice and collaboration has enabled critical research publications, catalyzed translation of discoveries form lab to industry, and helped secure extramural funding for sustained work in SoBiosci.

“I love being able to assist people. I listen to the needs of faculty. My goal is for them to leave the office knowing that their needs will be met,” Hilley says. “It is an honor to be recognized by such an esteemed group and to be a small part of their research.”

For their groundbreaking accomplishments with the Internship and Co-op Carbon Reduction Challenge, Kim Cobb and Beril Toktay have been selected as the recipients of the 2018 Innovation in Co-curricular Education Award, administered by the Center for Teaching and Learning.  

Kim Cobb is Georgia Power Chair and ADVANCE Professor in the College of Sciences. Beril Toktay is Brady Family Chair in Management, ADVANCE Professor, and Director of the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business in the Scheller School of Business.

In 2008, Cobb launched the Carbon Reduction Challenge for an undergraduate course in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: EAS 3110, “Energy, the Environment, and Society.” In this course, she challenged student teams to develop projects during the semester that will yield real-world reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, if implemented.

The challenge took off. Over the years, winning projects have resulted in aggregate reductions of more than 2,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to the annual carbon footprints of 100 Americans.  

“A focus on innovation and experiential learning are key differentiators of Georgia Tech. The Carbon Reduction Challenge gives students a hands-on experience in innovating for sustainability."

In 2016, Toktay teamed up with Cobb to translate the challenge into a co-curricular offering for Georgia Tech students participating in co-ops and internships. The initiative was supported by a philanthropic donation from the Ray C. Anderson Foundation NextGen Fund and matching funds from the Scheller College of Business Dean’s Innovation Fund. They bet that students embedded within their partner organizations would have easy access to key decision-makers and data that would enable them to  achieve even larger carbon dioxide reductions.

They were right. Launched in summer 2017, the co-op and internship version was immensely successful. In just one semester, student developed and implemented projects that will avoid more than 5,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over 10 years. That amount offsets the carbon footprints of at least 300 Americans for one year. Furthermore, projects will translate into reduced costs at their partner organizations amounting to tens of thousands of dollars over 10 years.

“When I first started the Carbon Reduction Challenge, I never dreamed that it would result in such massive impacts,” Cobb says. “I am excited to work with Beril to grow the challenge at Georgia Tech and beyond.”

Participating students acquired valuable, real-world experience. They learned to harness their creativity and navigate complex organizational hierarchies in companies large and small. Embraced by partner organizations, such as SunTrust Bank and Delta Airlines, the Internship and Co-op Carbon Reduction Challenge is helping to establish Georgia Tech as a regional leader in sustainability.

Students "are learning a life-long lesson: that saving carbon can save us money, while strengthening key partnerships."

One student says the challenge “made me more aware of the importance of being a steward for the environment.”

“A focus on innovation and experiential learning are key differentiators of Georgia Tech,” Toktay says. “The Carbon Reduction Challenge gives students a hands-on experience in innovating for sustainability. My hope is that it inspires them to continue to do that throughout their careers.”

Cobb and Toktay not only perform world-class research, but also inspire and equip the next generation of sustainability champions to solve society’s most pressing challenges. As a colleague puts it, “they are wonderful examples for our entire faculty.”

“As a climate scientist, I take great heart in seeing the next generation take such concrete, scalable action on climate solutions,” Cobb says. “They are learning a life-long lesson:  that saving carbon can save us money, while strengthening key partnerships.”

Says Toktay: “I’m proud of the unique educational innovation this challenge represents: a collaboration of the Colleges of Business and Sciences and a format that empowers interns to pitch their ideas at the highest levels of the organization.”

Christopher Stanzione has been named as the recipient of the 2018 CTL Undergraduate Educator Award.  This award recognizes the outstanding contributions of non-tenure-track faculty to the education of Georgia Tech undergraduate students.

Stanzione has been a full-time academic professional instructor in the School of Psychology since fall 2014. He teaches Introductory Psychology, Human Development, and Personality Theory. “From what I understand of the Undergraduate Educator Award, it was made for Dr. Stanzione,” a colleague says.

Stanzione goes above and beyond what he signed up for at Georgia Tech – which is to teach. On his own initiative, Stanzione mentors students, conducts research, and leads outreach efforts for the School of Psychology.

Students and colleagues say Stanzione has an unparalleled passion for teaching, which manifests in instructor effectiveness. Stanzione’s instructor effectiveness ratings for each of his classes are never lower than 4.7 and often reach 5.0.

The ability to connect with students may be one ingredient of Stanzione’s success as a teacher. Multiple students describe meeting with him after class – or for coffee – to discuss career goals or common interests. Stanzione strives to help students, whatever their majors are.

In the classroom, Stanzione’s energy makes him stand out to students and faculty.

Students describe a learning environment of humor, discussion, and true engagement. “He made a huge lecture class seem like a seminar,” one student says.

“Dr. Stanzione is exactly the kind of person we want teaching in the classroom,” a colleague says.

According to colleagues, many students say their interest in majoring in psychology was sparked when they took one of Stanzione’s introductory courses. This ability to inspire students and expand their horizons is well known in the School of Psychology, earning Stanzione the nickname “major magnet”.

Stanzione conducts research in language development in deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Because of his research, he was invited to be the keynote speaker at the 2016 meeting of the Georgia Psychological Society.

Stanzione frequently offers research opportunity to undergraduates. He welcomes all students to join his research. “I hadn’t imagined that as a second-year student, I would be able to work in a lab,” says one non-psychology-major student, “let alone conduct and present my own research to a professional organization.”

Stanzione is a passionate believer in the psychology program at Georgia Tech. For this reason, he often undertakes outreach activities, including giving presentations about the program at events for accepted students, families, and high school students.

“I am proud to work at one of the top public institutions in the country surrounded by phenomenal students,” Stanzione says. “One of my goals is for students to become informed consumers of knowledge. I also teach students to be good people, celebrating those from different backgrounds or who have different views from our own.

“I am also honored to represent the School of Psychology, which is unique in many ways. All of our professors welcome interaction with students, which means no one sits passively in a class or a research lab. Students are engaged in learning and creating.”