Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. 

This year, three more SoM professors have been granted this coveted award,  increasing the number CAREER awards to SoM professors to 22 awards since the creation of the award in 1997. This years winners are:

Professor Yao Yao

Professor Yao is an Assistant Professor in SoM, whose interests include mathematical analysis of nonlinear PDEs arising from fluid mechanics and mathematical biology, who has also been involved with research experiences for undergraduates (REU) programs.

Professor Shahaf Nitzan

Professor Nitzan is an Assistant Professor in SoM and works in harmonic analysis, an area of mathematics that is of much interest in natural sciences and engineering, including in sound and image processing, wireless communications and data transmission, methods in quantum mechanics and quantum computing, and the analysis of signals in geophysics and medicine.

Professor Molei Tao

Assistant Professor Molei Tao's research is primarily concerned with control systems characterized by multiple scales, geometric structures, and randomness. Prof. Tao's group addresses both scientific curiosity and engineering practicality, from studying extrasolar and Solar planetary dynamics, the engineering problems of energy transfer and harvest, rare events quantification, the resonant control of microscopic systems, to the interplay between dynamics and machine learning.

Previous NSF CAREER Awards

• 1997 Dana Randall
• 2002 Robert Ghrist
• 2003 John Etnyre
• 2003 Mohammad Ghomi
• 2006 Chongchun Zeng
• 2007 Hao-Min Zhou
• 2008 Yuri Bakhtin
• 2010 Brett Wick
• 2010 Dan Margalit
• 2010 Maria Westdickenberg
• 2012 Anton Leykin
• 2014 Greg Blekherman
• 2015 Karim Lounici
• 2016 Esther Ezra
• 2016 Jen Hom
• 2016 Kirsten Wickelgren
• 2016 Michael Damron
• 2017 Zaher Hani
• 2018 Galyna Livshyts
• 2019 Yao Yao
• 2019 Molei Tao
• 2019 Shahaf Nitzan

Sebastian Fernandez, an award-winning undergraduate TA for Georgia Tech's School of Math, thought that teaching MATH 2552 Differential Equations 4 times since the Fall of 2016 wasn't enough. Hoping to expand his reach, he created an online MATH 2552 Video Series tailored to Georgia Tech's curriculum with the goal of enhancing future 2552 sections while simultaneously allowing anyone in the world the opportunity to receive a quality differential equations education and to help them consider Georgia Tech for their post secondary education. Attached below is the link to the introductory video which is also posted from the channel where all 37 videos can be found.

Introductory Video:

https://lnkd.in/eXHPARf

Enjoy!

Dan Margalit's recent interview with Science Matters featured in the NSF news outlet science360Radio.

https://science360.gov/radio/episode/ad127807-187d-4894-8a90-dd0c8ab7651c/ways-help-students-overcome-fear-mathematics

For the full story on the podcast Science Matters episode "The Mathematics of ... Donuts?" featuring Dan Margalit see:

https://math.gatech.edu/news/mathematics-donuts-sciencematters-episode-9-starring-dan-margalit-0

Four faculty members, including two from the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering operated jointly by Georgia Tech and Emory University, have been awarded research fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The fellowships, awarded yearly since 1955, honor early-career scholars whose achievements mark them as among the most promising researchers in their fields.

“Sloan Research Fellows are the best young scientists working today,” says Adam F. Falk, president of the Sloan Foundation. “Sloan Fellows stand out for their creativity, for their hard work, for the importance of the issues they tackle and the energy and innovation with which they tackle them. To be a Sloan Fellow is to be in the vanguard of 21st-century science.”

Past Sloan Research Fellows include many towering figures in the history of science, including physicists Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann, and game theorist John Nash. Forty-seven fellows have received a Nobel Prize in their respective field, 17 have won the Fields Medal in mathematics, 69 have received the National Medal of Science and 18 have won the John Bates Clark Medal in economics, including every winner since 2007. 

The new Sloan Fellows from Georgia Tech and Emory are:

Eva Dyer is an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. She holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from Rice University. 

Dyer’s research interests lie at the intersection of machine learning, optimization and neuroscience. Her lab develops computational methods for discovering principles that govern the organization and structure of the brain, as well as methods for integrating multi-modal datasets to reveal the link between neural structure and function. 

Matthew McDowell is an assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering. His research focuses on understanding how materials for energy storage and electronic devices change, transform and degrade during operation. He holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University.

His research group uses situ experimental techniques to probe materials transformations under realistic conditions. The fundamental scientific advances made by the group guide the engineering of materials for breakthrough new devices. Current projects in the group are focused on 1) electrode materials for alkali ion batteries, 2) materials for solid-state batteries, 3) interfaces in chalcogenide materials for electronics and catalysis and 4) new methods for creating nanostructured metals.

Chethan Pandarinath is an assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering and in Emory’s Department of Neurosurgery as well as the Emory Neuromodulation Technology Innovation Center. Pandarinath also leads the Emory and Georgia Tech Systems Neural Engineering Lab. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Cornell University.

Pandarinath and an Emory-Georgia Tech team, including biomedical engineers, neurosurgeons and neurologists, are working to better understand how large networks of neurons in the brain encode information and control behavior by using sophisticated methods from the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning. In studying the activity of these brain networks, Pandarinath’s team hopes to design new brain-machine interface technologies to help restore movement to people who are paralyzed, including those affected by spinal cord injury and stroke, and by Parkinson’s disease and ALS.

Konstantin Tikhomirov is an assistant professor in the School of Mathematics whose work is at the intersection of asymptotic geometric analysis and random matrix theory. He studies the geometry of high-dimensional convex sets with the help of probabilistic tools and using random linear operators, and the spectral distribution of random matrices by applying methods from discrete geometry. He holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Alberta.

His research directions have multiple connections with applied science, in particular, for numerical analysis of large systems of linear equations, modeling communication networks and studying certain physical systems with large numbers of particles. 

Valued not only for their prestige, Sloan Research Fellowships are a highly flexible source of research support. Funds may be spent in any way a fellow deems will best advance his or her work. Drawn this year from 57 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, the 2019 Sloan Research Fellows represent a diverse array of research interests.

Open to scholars in eight scientific and technical fields — chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, neuroscience, ocean sciences and physics — the Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded in close coordination with the scientific community. Candidates must be nominated by their fellow scientists, and winning fellows are selected by independent panels of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate’s research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become a leader in his or her field. Winners receive a two-year, $70,000 fellowship to further their research.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit grant making institution based in New York City. Established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-president and CEO of the General Motors Corporation, the Foundation makes grants in support of original research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and economics.

Research News
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Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986)(jtoon@gatech.edu).

As microorganisms evolve to resist antibiotics, the world risks running out of drugs to treat bacterial infections. One way to slow this trend is to find new modes of using existing drugs, even those now ineffective because of microbial resistance.

One strategy is based on the phenomenon of collateral sensitivity: When some microbes develop resistance to one antibiotic, they become hypersensitive to another. For example, when an Escherichia coli strain became indifferent to chloramphenicol, it also became highly vulnerable to polymyxin B. For this strain, chloramphenicol and polymyxin B form a collaterally sensitive pair.

Sometimes the drug pair exhibits mutual collateral sensitivity (MCS) for a pathogen: The pathogen’s evolution of resistance to drug A increases its sensitivity to drug B and vice versa.

Researchers have identified several MCS pairs for pathogens like E. coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Some have proposed exploiting the phenomenon to treat infections by cycling through the drugs, A-B-A-B.

“This sounds very clever,” says Georgia Tech biomathematician Howard “Howie” Weiss. “Bbut what could prevent this scheme from working is the rapid emergence and ascent of a population of cells that are resistant to both antibiotics.”

The prospect is exciting, but no experiments have yet been performed to test efficacy.

 “This was a real team effort between a microbiologist and a biomathematician.”

With Stockholm University microbiologist Klas Udekwu, Weiss has tested the plausibility of such schemes, using a mathematical model that considers factors affecting efficacy. Applying treatment protocols consisting of pairs MCS antibiotics, they examined how fast multiply-resistant mutants would emerge. They reported results in Drug Design, Development and Therapy.

They found some treatments that did not produce multiply-resistant mutants for several weeks, for several months, and even indefinitely. That means some combinations of an MCS pair prevented further development of the bacteria’s resistance to either drug.

 “This was a real team effort between a microbiologist and a biomathematician,” Weiss says. “My job was to construct the model using a system of differential equations and very carefully simulate their solution using a computer.” 

The first experiment used low to moderate concentrations of antibiotics and daily cycling: drug A on day 1, drug B on day 2, drug A on day 3. At these drug levels, treatment failed. Resistant mutants rapidly developed and dominated.

Simulation results improved with higher drug concentrations. “We found that one-day cycling of certain antibiotics kept the double-resistant mutants in check for over two weeks, which would be sufficient to cure many infections,” Weiss says.

The simulations also showed that three-day cycling of antibiotics that only inhibit bacterial growth – not kill – would never result in double-resistant mutants. “This was striking,” Udekwu says, “but in line with ecological theory.”

Udekwu is now conducting in-vitro cycling experiments. The next step would likely be experiments in mice. “It is far too early for clinicians to think about this strategy,” he says, “other than to keep an ear out for it, perhaps in a Cochrane report someday. 

Galina Livshyts, an assistant professor in the School of Mathematics, has received one of the highly competitive early-career grants from the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program.

NSF CAREER grants provide five years of funding to junior faculty. The award is a strong signal of recipients’ potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their organization.

“My research is about geometry in two, three, and higher dimensions,” Livshyts says. The NSF CAREER grant enables her to explore the geometry of convex bodies in high dimensions.

A convex body is a geometric body having the property that any segment joining two of its points is entirely contained within it. Livshyts' research proposal aims to answer the following questions:

• What is the largest hyperplane section of a unit cube?
• How many translates of a slightly smaller copy of a convex body suffice to cover it?
• Can two different polygons have the same collection of normals and the same areas of triangles spanned by their sides?
• How large are the perimeters of convex sets with respect to isotropic log-concave measures?

 “A lot of the geometric properties of convex bodies have important applications,” Livshyts says.

Suppose we have a million 10-inch-diameter ball-shaped items, and we need to pack them in an optimal way. What shape should we choose for the package? Some other questions in which the theory of convex bodies is used are directly related to the speed of certain algorithms.

NSF CAREER awards are unique in also requiring grant proposals to include an education component. Supporting junior researchers is the focus of Livshyts’ education component. During the term of the award, she will undertake several educational activities, including a research workshop for junior mathematicians, seminars for women in mathematics at all levels, and workshops for K-12 mathematics teachers.

“It is very important for a junior mathematician to be able to find just one other direction for their research, to create just one collaboration aside from their doctoral and postdoctoral work,” Livshyts says. She hopes her proposed five-day research workshop will give junior mathematicians – those in their final two years of their Ph.D. and those within five years after completing their Ph.D. – “an opportunity to expand their collaboration network and the circle of their interests early in their career.” 

Livshysts has been organizing regular seminars for Women in Mathematics in Northern Georgia. In this activity she is joined by Yulia Babenko, an associate professor of mathematics at Kennesaw State University.

“Having a network of female researchers in Atlanta will bring more female participants to mathematics conferences,” Livshyts says. Mathematicians of all levels are invited to participate, and talks are intended for a general audience. “That will help junior participants expand their interests, as well as practice giving talks to a broad audience,” Livshyts says.

In spring 2018, Livshyts facilitated workshops at the Atlanta Intown Teachers’ Math Circles. Intended for K-12 mathematics teachers, the workshops will focus on nonstandard mathematics problems to increase participants’ mathematical knowledge and encourage creativity.

Livshyts is one of several School of Mathematics faculty members currently enjoying NSF CAREER grants.

“This award makes a great difference in my career,” Livshysts says. “It will allow me to hire a postdoc, as well as organize a series of workshops for junior researchers, aimed to help others early in their career.”

By the end of the 2017-18 school year, four more students joined the roster of Leddy Family Scholars. Meanwhile four previous scholars graduated.

As the 2018-19 school year begins, the Leddy Family Scholarship Fund will be supporting nine students majoring in the College of Sciences. Before the end of the Fall 2018 semester, the College will name another four scholars.

The Leddy Family Scholarship Fund supports awards to undergraduates in the College of Sciences. Recipients are selected on the basis of academic achievement. Scholars are expected to continue participation in experiential educational programs such as research, study abroad, service learning, outreach activities, or campus leadership.

The fund is made possible by a generous donation by the family of School of Physics alumnus Jeffrey Leddy.

The latest additions to the Leddy Family Scholars’ roster are Quazi Ziyan Ahmed, Gabriel Bonilla, Mariel Barnett, and Madison Elizabeth Luker.

New Scholars

Quazi Ziyan Ahmed, from Snellville, Georgia, is studying for a B.S. in Mathematics, as well as a Certificate in Finance. His career goal is to work in the financial industry. For now, he is the marketing manager of the Student Center Tech Rec. In his spare time, Ahmed enjoys playing basketball, soccer, and cricket. He also loves to cook and travel.

Gabriel Bonilla hails from Minnesota. He is a biochemistry major in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Before attending Georgia Tech, he worked as a research assistant in the lab of Carrie Wilmot, professor and associate dean for graduate education in the College of Biological Sciences, University of Minnesota.

Mariel Barnett is a major in the School of Psychology. Even as a first-year student, she volunteered in the Attention and Working Memory Lab, directed Randall Engle. She is interested in cognition and child development. After college, she intends to go to graduate school. Eventually she wants to teach psychology or become a counselor.

From California, Madison Elizabeth Luker came to Georgia Tech to major in biology, with a minor in biomedical engineering. Luker has extensive experience in working with animals. For example, she has rescued miniature horses from auction and retrained them for therapy work. In 2018, she marched with the trained horses in the Rose Bowl Parade. During her first year at Tech, she did research with Young-Hui Chang, in the School of Biological Sciences. Chang directs the Comparative Neuromechanics Laboratory.

Graduates

Meanwhile, in spring 2018, four Leddy Family Scholars graduated:

• Jessica Amero, B.S. in Biochemistry
• Mary Elizabeth Lee, B.S. in Physics
• Elizabeth Stubbs, B.S. in Psychology
• Michael Zott, B.S. in Chemistry

“One of my proudest achievements is receiving the Leddy Family Scholarship,” Stubbs said in a profile just before she graduated. “I was honored to be recognized for my hard work, and it took a huge financial burden off my shoulders. I am incredibly grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Leddy for their generosity and support.”

Meanwhile, Zott is attending California Institute of Technology to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry. He wants to specialize in inorganic chemistry. He’s exploring research groups developing model systems to study nitrogen reduction as carried out by nitrogenase. He hopes to do outreach volunteer work with faculty and students at nearby Pasadena City College.

Continuing Scholars

As the 2018-19 school year begins in August, three Leddy Family Scholars will begin their third year of studies at Georgia Tech:

• Jack Peters, major in physics
• Brooke Miller, major in mathematics
• Shanee Mortley, major in biochemistry

In addition, two scholars will begin their fourth year of studies:

• Samuel Wiley, major in physics
• Stephanie Wyman, major in biology.

Vote of Confidence

“Our students are at the very center of everything we do at the College of Sciences. As we attract and retain the most promising students, the quality of our academic programs rises, as well,” says College of Sciences Dean and Sutherland Chair Paul M. Goldbart.

“The Leddy Scholarships are awarded to some of the brightest, hardest working, and broadly engaged students in the College,” Goldbart says. “We’re grateful for the Leddy family’s investment in our students—and the Leddy Scholars are likewise grateful for the vote of confidence in their futures.”

All over campus this summer, undergraduates are working with Georgia Tech researchers. Many programs are in full swing, modeled after the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The School of Mathematics likely takes the prize for the most number of programs by one unit: six.  By summer’s end, seven professors, three postdoctoral mentors, and five graduate students would have worked with 13 undergraduate students. The undergrads come from 11 colleges and universities, including three in Georgia: Agnes Scott College, Georgia Tech, and Spelman College.   

Funding comes from various NSF grants and the School of Mathematics. 

Why REUs

REU programs play the same role for research careers as high school sports do for the NFL and NBA, says School of Mathematics Professor Igor Belegradek. Talent presenting early must be nurtured and honed as soon as possible.

Belegradek organized the summer 2018 REUs with colleague Dan Margalit.

“We have a rich history of undergraduate research in mathematics, as you can see on our website,” Margalit says. “It’s a testament to our faculty’s intellectual creativity and dedication to undergraduate education.”

REUs have important benefits for students, faculty mentors, and the School of Mathematics.

They help bring students to the School’s graduate program. They enable members of underrepresented minorities get advanced training and positive experiences in math research.

REUs advance the research of faculty. “We give students problems that we are genuinely interested in,” Margalit. “They are integral to our research programs.” 

REUs also provide mentoring experience to early-career researchers – graduate students and postdoctoral researchers – serving as mentors. “The training is valuable for them,” Margalit says. “It helps give them confidence in their own research and make them marketable for job searches.”

Undergraduates’ ability to penetrate difficult problems inspires Margalit. “They are fearless and creative, trying approaches that I might not think of,” he says. “They might not understand every bit of background that goes into a problem. But we, as mentors, can airlift them to the front lines of the problem.”

Undergraduates "are fearless and creative, trying approaches that I might not think of. They might not understand every bit of background that goes into a problem. But we, as mentors, can airlift them to the front lines of the problem." Dan Margalit

Cutting-Edge Research

Although Margalit’s program – on mapping class groups – has six students, other REUs have only one or two students. Three began as early as May 21; one will last until Aug. 10. In sessions lasting from five to seven weeks, the mathematicians will tackle problems in various cutting-edge areas.

Following are two examples of problems Georgia Tech undergrads will be confronting.

• Shadow Problem

Mohammad Ghomi has been working with Georgia Tech undergraduate Alexander Avery since May 21. From Ghomi’s list of open problems in geometry of curves and surfaces, Avery chose the “shadow problem” for surfaces.

Ghomi explains the problem thus: Consider a convex object, such as a ball or an egg. When such object is illuminated from any direction, the dark region of the surface, called the shadow, forms a connected set. In other words, the shadow is one piece.

What about the converse? Suppose the shape of a surface is unknown. And suppose the shadow is one piece when illuminated from any direction. Does it follow that the surface is convex?

Ghomi published a solution in Annals of Mathematics in 2002. The answer is yes for surfaces similar to balls and eggs. But not for other shapes, such as donuts.

“Alex is working on the discrete version of this problem,” Ghomi says. Avery is looking at surfaces that are not smooth – like balls and eggs – but instead are composed of polygons glued along their edges. “Alex has been making good progress. It looks like the polyhedral case will be similar to the smooth case.”  

• Legendrian Knots

“In mathematics, knots can be thought of as pieces of string which are tied up and then have the ends glued together,” says Caitlin Leverson, one of the postdoctoral mentors. “An interesting problem is to decide whether two knots are the same or different.”

Legendrian knots satisfy additional conditions. Two Legendrian knots may look very different, but be the same. Invariants are methods of assigning values to knots so that two knots are assigned the same value if they are the same. 

From May 29 to Aug. 10, Leverson will be working with two Georgia Tech fourth-year mathematics majors: DeVon Ingram and Hunter Vallejos. Their goal is to find Legendrian knots that are different yet are assigned the same value by the invariant.

 Since his second year as a mathematics major, Ingram has done research with different professors, including outside the School of Mathematics. For example, he worked on computational complexity theory with Lance Fortnow, professor and chair, School of Computer Science.

Ingram appreciates the beauty of differential geometry and its relation to physics. He sees correspondence between knot invariants and topological quantum field theories. Because of these interests, “I am naturally drawn to a knot theory problem,” he says. 

Vallejos has been doing research since he was in Oak Ridge High School, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, just 10 miles from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). One outcome of his stints at ORNL is a 2017 paper in the Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, of which Vallejos was first author.

“I love when algebra, geometry, and topology intersect,” Vallejos says. “Legendrian knot theory blends these three distinct fields, which makes it a rich subject to study.”

Visiting Students

Several of the undergraduate researchers this summer come from outside Georgia Tech. Among them are Johannes Hosle and Andrew Sack.

Johannes Hosle hails from South Bend, Indiana. He is a third-year math major in the University of California, Los Angeles. His major interests are analysis and number theory. Starting on June 18, he will work with Galyna Livshyts and Michael Lacey.

“The general area of my problem will be in harmonic analysis in convex geometry,” Hosle says. “My interest stems from a general interest in analysis. The types of problems in this branch of mathematics seem to resonate most with me.”

Andrew Sack hails from Gainesville, Florida. He is a fourth-year mathematics major from the University of Florida. A published author in the International Journal of Mathematics and Computer Science, he is one of two students who have been working with John Etnyre and Sudipta Kolay since May 30.  

Etnyre also studies how to tell knots apart. In his approach, a knot is represented by a diagram of a loop on a paper. The loop can cross over itself as many times. “But each time the loop crosses over itself, you have to specify which of the two strands is on top of the other,” Etnyre says.

A coloring of a knot is a labeling of the strands by a method that has consistency at the crossings. The coloring can tell two knots apart. “The work is related to research trying to figure out how three-dimensional spaces can be put inside a five-dimensional space.”

 “I’m interested in this research because, after taking two years of topology, I find it fascinating,” Sack says. “Previous research I’ve done centered on graph coloring. I can use some of the intuition I built around graph coloring to help better understand knot coloring.”

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a Research Training Groups (RTG) grant to the Georgia Tech Geometry and Topology (GTGT) group. GTGT will use the $2.1 million grant over five years to train undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. The GTGT project supports NSF’s long-range goal to increase the number of U.S. citizens, nationals, and permanent residents pursuing careers in mathematics.

School of Mathematics faculty members Igor Belegradek, John Etnyre, Stavros Garoufalidis, Mohammad Ghomi, Jennifer Hom, Thang Le, Dan Margalit, and Kirsten Wickelgren make up GTGT and are co-principal investigators of the grant.

Why Study Topology and Geometry
Etnyre answers this question. He explains:

“Topology is the study of spaces. They can be the space we live in or configurations of mechanical systems. Mathematicians also consider spaces of solutions to algebraic equations and partial differential equations, as well as even more abstract space.

“More specifically topology is the study of spaces where some notion of continuity makes sense. What are these spaces? How can we distinguish one space from another? What interesting properties do specific spaces have? These are the basics questions in topology, whose language pervades much of mathematics, science, and engineering.

“Geometry is, loosely speaking, the study of some kind of structure on a space. Riemannian geometry involves spaces on which you can measure lengths of vectors and the angles in between. Symplectic geometry allows one to study dynamical systems akin to classical mechanics on a space.

“Topology and geometry underlie a great deal of science and engineering. Whether trying to understand general relativity and the structure of the universe, design robust sensor networks, unravel DNA recombination, develop string theory, or countless other endeavors, the underlying language and ideas are likely to be that of geometry and topology.”

“Topology and geometry underlie a great deal of science and engineering. Whether trying to understand general relativity and the structure of the universe, design robust sensor networks, unravel DNA recombination, develop string theory, or countless other endeavors, the underlying language and ideas are likely to be that of geometry and topology.”

Expected Outcomes 
Over its five-year run, the grant will enable the training of 60 undergraduate students, 22 graduate students, and 14 postdoctoral fellows. Supplementary funding from the College of Sciences will ensure three years of support for all postdoctoral fellows.

Etnyre says GTGT will leverage its access to Georgia Tech’s engineering programs to spark collaborations between engineers and mathematicians. Similarly, GTGT will use its proximity to institutions serving groups underrepresented in mathematics to help increase the representation of minorities and women in advanced mathematics.

Ultimately, Etnyre says, “we aim to develop students and postdoctoral fellows who are well-rounded scholars, accomplished teachers, and valuable members of the mathematics community.”

Areas of Expertise
The GTGT group is strong in various fields:

• Algebraic Topology: Kirsten Wickelgren
• Contact and Symplectic Topology: John Etnyre
• Geometric Group Theory: Igor Belegradek and Dan Margalit
• Global Riemannian and Differential Geometry: Igor Belegradek, John Etnyre, and Mohammad Ghomi
• Heegard-Floer Theory: John Etnyre and Jennifer Hom
• Low-Dimensional Topology: John Etnyre, Stavros Garoufalidis, Jennifer Hom, Thang Le, and Dan Margalit
• Quantum Topology: Stavros Garoufalidis and Thang Le
• Riemannian Geometry of Submaniforlds: Mohammad Ghomi

All these areas would benefit from the grant.

“We aim to develop students and postdoctoral fellows who are well-rounded scholars, accomplished teachers, and valuable members of the mathematics community.”

Grant-Enabled Activities
The grant enables the GTGT group to embark on several major activities:

• Expand the group by supporting graduate and postdoctoral fellowships
• Enhance educational opportunities for all students through new courses, expanded seminars and REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) opportunities, and a direct-reading program for undergraduates
• Firmly establish the annual Georgia Tech Topology Conference and the biennial Topology Students Workshop, continue the Southeastern Undergraduate Mathematics Workshop, and initiate the Georgia Tech Topology Summer School
• Strengthen professional development components of graduate and postdoctoral training
• Increase interaction with colleges and universities serving groups that are underrepresented in mathematics and expand outreach to precollege students
• Create a website to serve as repository of resources