Georgia Institute of Technology College of Engineering

ATLANTA--Susan Margulies, Ph.D., has been named the Wallace H. Coulter Chair of the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Injury Biomechanics. Her appointments are effective August 1.

Margulies is currently professor of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

“Without a doubt, Susan is the very best person to lead the joint biomedical engineering department into the future,” said Gary S. May, dean of the College of Engineering. “She is an active researcher and highly regarded educator. Susan has the vision, scholarship, and experience in fields critical to the department that make her ideally suited and prepared to lead.”

As the new chair, Margulies will oversee a department that is consistently ranked as one of the nation's most prominent programs of its kind in both graduate and undergraduate education. Currently, U.S. News & World Report ranks the joint Georgia Tech/Emory biomedical engineering graduate program #3 in the United States and the undergraduate program #1. It is the largest BME department in the country, with 72 faculty at Georgia Tech and Emory and more than 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students.

"Dr. Margulies will be an outstanding addition and leader for our joint Department of Biomedical Engineering," says David S. Stephens, MD, interim dean, Emory University School of Medicine and vice president for research, Woodruff Health Sciences Center. "Throughout her career, she has distinguished herself as an educator, scientist, mentor, and a national and international leader in the biomedical sciences, and I look forward to working with her in our many shared initiatives."

The Coulter Department, which was launched in 1997, is a visionary partnership between a leading public engineering school and a highly respected private medical school. The department uses the latest engineering technologies, clinical insights and biological approaches to address unmet clinical challenges in pediatric bioengineering, immunoengineering, regenerative medicine, cardiovascular and neural engineering, imaging, and biomedical computing.

“I speak for all Wallace H. Coulter Department members in stating how delighted we are to welcome Susan Margulies as our incoming chair,” said Ross Ethier, interim chair, Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Biomechanics and Mechanobiology. “Susan has a remarkable track record as a scholar, teacher, academic leader and role model. She brings a deep understanding of both engineering and medicine, and how they can work synergistically in the field of biomedical engineering for the benefit of patients and society. She will further strengthen the Emory-Georgia Tech relationship, and will sustain the strong tradition of excellence and innovation that have characterized the Coulter Department since its establishment.”

Margulies earned her B.S.E in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. After a postdoctoral fellowship and faculty appointment at Mayo Medical School, she joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993. Her research program spans the micro-to-macro scales in two distinct subfields: traumatic brain injury in children and ventilator-induced lung injury. Margulies focuses on prevention, intervention and treatments.  She has pioneered new methods for measuring functional effects of large or repeated tissue distortions; identified injury tolerances and response cascades, and translated these basic research discoveries to preclinical therapeutic trials to mitigate and prevent brain and lung injuries in children and adults.

Over the years, as principal investigator she has secured over $34 million in federal funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Transportation, and private foundations. Her recent engagement and negotiations with industry have led to $1.5 million in corporate research agreements. Her scholarship has been disseminated in over 350 papers, abstracts, and book chapters and numerous media features.

While directing a large, translational, interdisciplinary research program, she has taught more than fifteen undergraduate and graduate courses and has had a broad range of administrative roles at the departmental, school, and institutional levels. She has received honors for improving the lives of women faculty, and for excellence in teaching and mentoring. Margulies has created new programs to improve faculty and student diversity, access, engagement and professional development, as well as leading initiatives to enhance cross-campus research, training, and education, and engagement with industry and alumni.

“The Coulter BME Department is uniquely situated in two excellent institutions,” said Margulies. “As Chair of BME, my goal is to enrich the impact of BME on both campuses by enhancing interdisciplinary research and education; expanding access to educational opportunities in biomedical applications of engineering; creating synergies within the department; and working with faculty, student, staff and alumni communities to catalyze strategic research and translational initiatives with federal, corporate, and foundation partners.”

The College of Engineering at Georgia Tech is the largest and most diverse engineering school in the country. U.S. News ranks all Georgia Tech engineering graduate and undergraduate programs in the top 10 nationally. The College enrolls more than 13,000 students in eight schools. Georgia Tech is a leading research university committed to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology.

Emory University School of Medicine is one of the top 20 medical schools in NIH research funding. The School has more than 2,700 full- and part-time faculty and nearly 700 volunteer faculty. Emory University is a top-ranked private institution recognized internationally for its outstanding liberal arts colleges, graduate and professional schools, and one of the world's leading health care systems.

According to a recent study that made national news, most of the alumni hired by the 25 biggest companies in Silicon Valley don’t come from Ivy League schools. Many come from Georgia Tech.

In a ranking of now-employed alumni who have graduated in the last year, Georgia Tech is ranked fourth. When taking into account all alumni (new and experienced) hired or promoted by tech companies in 2016 and early 2017, Georgia Tech places sixth overall.

The study is from HiringSolved, a company that used artificial intelligence software to identify the most in-demand alumni and the most in-demand skills for the modern technology market. It investigated the public social profiles of over 10,000 tech professionals.

“Our research suggests that in addition to specific skills and educational backgrounds, Silicon Valley is looking for a strong fundamental understanding of the basics of technology in their new hires” said HiringSolved co-founder and CEO Shon Burton. “Having a deeper, more well-rounded comprehension makes a great engineer because they’re thinking creatively and when the technique fails, they have the ability to fix the issue. This is the key to a desirable Silicon Valley job candidate.”

The results are an indicator of the most-valued traits by employers, which may sound familiar to many Georgia Tech students and alumni: the ability to code in Python, Java, or another high-level language, familiarity with cloud services, and numerous other technical skills.

Additionally, HiringSolved also predicted the most likely job titles for new grads who have been hired to Silicon Valley positions. The list includes software engineer, business development consultant, research intern, product specialist, and many more.

More information about the study and its results can be found at: https://hiringsolved.com/blog/hiringsolved-identifies-top-skills-backgrounds-make-2017s-wanted-tech-employee/

Abdallah Al-Shehri, a Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been chosen as the Best-in-Class Young Researcher by Saudi Aramco Oil Company.

He was chosen for his outstanding research work from 170 Ph.D. students worldwide who are sponsored by Aramco.

Through much of his educational career, Al-Shehri’s research has focused on developing new understanding and technologies in the fields of nonrenewable resources, especially the technologies involved in oil reservoirs.

He currently works with Georgia Tech’s Broadband Wireless Networking Lab under the advisement of Professor Ian Akyildiz.

Al-Shehri’s research topic is “OilMoles: Design of Wireless Underground Self-Contained Sensor Networks for Oil Reservoir Monitoring,” and he intends to design magnetic induction-based networks to enable hydraulic fracture mapping, in-situ monitoring, and data collection from underground oil reservoirs in real time.

Al-Shehri will be honored at the Aramco EXPEC Advanced Research Center Advisory Committee Meeting this July in Houston, Texas.

There is a myriad of ways to apply a degree from Georgia Tech; Lieutenant General James McConville put his Master’s of Science in Aerospace Engineering to good use in the United States Army.

In his most recent accomplishment, LtGen McConville was recently nominated to the post of Army Vice Chief of Staff. This nomination was received by the Senate and referred to the Armed Services Committee. If it is confirmed, he will rise to the rank of four-star general.

The Vice Chief of Staff position comes with responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the army and a designation as the senior Army aviator. McConville is the current Deputy Chief of Staff for personnel at the U.S. Army, where he has made numerous changes to Army personnel management, and previously served as commanding general of the 101^st Airborne Division and Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

LtGen McConville began his career in the military as an infantry officer after graduating from the United States Military Academy (West Point). He attended Georgia Tech for graduate school and was a 2002 National Security Fellow at Harvard University.

During his time at Georgia Tech, LtGen McConville was part of a team of students that won the 1989 American Helicopter Society/McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Student Design Competition by designing a low-cost light utility helicopter, according to Flying Magazine.

LtGen McConville has already served in many staff assignments and is the recipient of various awards such as the Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal. He is a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Gen McConville is also the brother-in-law of Professor Dimitri Mavris.

Five associate professors in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering have been selected as Woodruff Faculty Fellows in recognition of their exceptional research initiatives.  

Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb, Alper Erturk, Satish Kumar, Michael Leamy, and Yan Wang will hold the position of Woodruff Faculty Fellows from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2022. The award is accompanied by discretionary funds that amount to $12,000 a year, meant for the recipients to continue to grow their research programs.

Bassiri-Gharb’s research is focused on the applications of ferroelectric and multiferroic materials to nano-and micro-electromechanical systems like sensors and actuators.

Erturk’s theoretical and experimental research is centered on the intersection of smart structures and dynamical systems with applications to novel multiphysics problems.

Kumar and his student researchers have been developing an analytical and numerical framework which helps to understand, control, and design nanowire and nanotube composites suitable for thin film transistors for various macro-electronic applications.

Leamy’s multidisciplinary research puts an emphasis on developing analytical and computational models capable of capturing linear and nonlinear response in systems ranging in scale from the macro- to the nano-scale.

Wang is interested in geometric modeling and visualization, multiscale approaches to simulate behaviors of nanomaterials, design information infrastructure and product lifecycle management, and uncertainty quantifications.

The process of choosing the Fellows was based on initial data provided by each faculty member, which reflected their publications, sponsored expenditures, and graduate student advising.

The selections for the Woodruff Faculty Fellow Awards are made each spring, and the number of Fellows named varies each year.