Advancing the careers of Georgia Tech’s research faculty is an integral part of Research Next, the institute’s strategic plan for its research enterprise.
Georgia Tech’s research faculty perform important research in labs, centers, and departments across campus and play an important role in the research enterprise. To support these essential employees, Georgia Tech has launched an initiative to evaluate and develop research faculty.
The Research Next team, currently in the implementation phase of the plan, was tasked with finding ways to recognize, support, and retain research faculty. This includes the development of reference materials and workshops specifically designed to guide research faculty seeking promotion. These resources provide important information about the promotion process and ensure researchers are ready to take the next step in their career.
With this support and guidance, six researchers from the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies and the division directly reporting to the Deputy Director of the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies applied for promotion. All six promotions were approved.
The following interdisciplinary researchers have earned promotions:
- Devin Brown, Principal Research Engineer, Electronics Nanotechnology Institute
- Michael Chan, Principal Researcher, Brooke Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems
- Paramita Chatterjee, Research Scientist II, Marcus Therapeutic Cell Characterization and Manufacturing Center
- Evan Goldberg, Principal Research Engineer, Institute for Synthetic Immunology and Global Center for Medical Innovation
- Vrinda Nandan, Researcher II, Design Intelligence Lab and National Institute of Adult Learning and Online Education National AI Institute
- Sikka Harshvardhan, Research Scientist II, National AI Adult Learning and Online Education Institute
In addition, the University System of Georgia’s Board of Governors has awarded the prestigious Director Research Fellowship to Leanne West, Georgia Tech’s Principal Research Scientist and Chief Engineer for Pediatric Technologies. As chief engineer, West coordinates pediatric research activities across campus and serves as the technical liaison for the partnership with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.
West’s research focuses on mobile and wireless health systems and sensor development, user interfaces, system integration, and diagnostic devices. She has seen her self-invented wireless personal captioning system installed in commercial facilities through her own startup, her Intelligent Access, LLC. She has another wearable system for identifying specific behaviors in dogs that is also being brought to the commercial market.
