The National Science Foundation (NSF) received more than 12,000 applications, from all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and U.S. territories, for this year’s Graduate Research Fellowship. Of the 2,000 reward offers made to outstanding students pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees, five were awarded to Woodruff School graduate researchers.
The Woodruff School is very pleased to present this year’s NSF Graduate Research Fellowship recipients and their advisors:
Camila Camargo, Mechanical Engineering, Advisor – Susan Thomas
Marshall Johnson, Mechanical Engineering, Advisor – Surya Kalidindi
Karen Martin, Mechanical Engineering (BIOE), Advisor – Andres Garcia
Maguerite Matherne, Mechanical Engineering, Advisor – David Hu
Alexander Murphy, Mechanical Engineering, Advisor – Julie Linsey
The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) is the country’s oldest fellowship program that directly supports graduate students in various STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. As the oldest graduate fellowship of its kind, the GRFP has a long history of selecting recipients who achieve high levels of success in their future academic and professional careers. The reputation of the GRFP follows recipients and often helps them become life-long leaders that contribute significantly to both scientific innovation and teaching.
"To support U.S. leadership and innovation in science and engineering, we must recognize and nurture talent from all of our nation's communities," said Jim Lewis, NSF acting assistant director for Education and Human Resources. "I am pleased that again this year, the competition has selected talented students from all economic backgrounds and all demographic categories. In addition, NSF worked successfully to accommodate students from U.S. islands devastated by Hurricanes Maria and Irma, so that they could still compete for a fellowship."
The group of 2,000 awardees is diverse, including 1,156 women, 461 individuals from underrepresented minority groups, 75 persons with disabilities, 27 veterans and 780 who have not yet enrolled in graduate school. These awardees did their undergraduate studies at more than 443 institutions, ranging from small undergraduate, minority-serving, tribal and community colleges, to large state or private universities and Ivy League institutions.
Since 1952, NSF has funded close to 50,000 Graduate Research Fellowships out of more than 500,000 applicants. Currently, 42 Fellows have gone on to become Nobel laureates, and more than 450 have become members of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition, the Graduate Research Fellowship Program has a high rate of doctorate degree completion, with more than 70 percent of students completing their doctorates within 11 years.
Woodruff School Associate Professor Devesh Ranjan has been selected to serve as one of five 2018-2020 Provost Teaching and Learning Fellows by the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Dean of the College of Engineering.
Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Why did you choose Georgia Tech and what have you been up to since getting out?
Problem: Getting People to Vaccines: In the most vulnerable areas, the closest health centers are often located hours or days away. A trip to a health center could cause people to lose out on earnings from working. Because ‘Last Mile’ areas are so isolated, communication between these areas and vaccine distribution centers is often difficult. Information about which days people can get vaccinated are confused, or people arrive after all the vaccines have been administered. Often, these communities rely on a single phone to communicate. It is similar to a game of telephone. While the information passed along starts off being accurate, as the information spreads, it becomes more inaccurate. Not Impossible Labs would like Team “Geeky Blinders” to create a sound amplification device so people in these communities can all hear the information about vaccines from a single phone.
Woodruff School Associate Professor Devesh Ranjan has been selected to serve as one of five 2018-2020 Provost Teaching and Learning Fellows by the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Dean of the College of Engineering. 
By treating living cells like tiny absorbent sponges, researchers have developed a potentially new way to introduce molecules and therapeutic genes into human cells. 
suddenly without conserving volume. Yet the process has little to no effect on cell viability. “We have done a variety of tests to see if cell viability, function and gene expression are altered, and we haven’t seen any significant differences,” Liu said.
Larry Huang has made a career of turning good ideas into tangible results.
Georgia Tech student competition team 
Led by Professor Samuel Graham of the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, the team brings together experts in heat transfer, materials science, electrical engineering, and materials synthesis to address fundamental questions of how heat flows across semiconductor interfaces and how one might manipulate this phenomena. 
Lawrence Dennis Ballou (‘54), of Tallulah Falls, Atlanta and Macon, GA, died on October 20, 2017 in Macon. 
Smart materials are becoming pervasive in many areas of engineering to help devices monitor and collect information about their environment and to assist in specific tasks. The materials—which include ceramics, polymers, and metal alloys—are becoming smaller and smarter.
By instructing key immune system cells to accept transplanted insulin-producing islets, researchers have opened a potentially new pathway for treating type 1 diabetes. If the approach is ultimately successful in humans, it could allow type 1 diabetes to be treated without the long-term complications of immune system suppression.
Five Woodruff School graduate students received accolades at the ITherm-2018 Conference. Sponsored by the IEEE's Electronics Packaging Society (EPS), ITherm-2018 is an international conference for scientific and engineering exploration of thermal, thermomechanical and emerging technology issues associated with electronic devices, packages and systems.
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers are part of a new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiative to develop the next generation of concentrated solar power (CSP), a technology that uses heat from the sun to turn power-generating turbines. CSP is an alternative to the better known photovoltaic technology, which produces electricity directly from sunlight.
From electric cars that travel hundreds of miles on a single charge to chainsaws as mighty as gas-powered versions, new products hit the market each year that take advantage of recent advances in battery technology.
The Boeing Company announced this week that Hummingbuzz - a Georgia Tech-based team of engineering students - is one of just 10 teams to triumph in Phase I of the company's $2 million global GoFly Prize rotorcraft design competition.