Tech Topics - Winter 2007 - (Page 19) TheHill to develop biofuels and hydrogen as alternatives for transportation. We are also creating new green energy sources, from more powerful solar cells to a tiny nanoscale generator that harvests energy that is available in the environment around it so it does not need a designated power source. And we have not neglected new approaches to nuclear energy, for which demand is growing. But energy issues do not exist in a vacuum. They are intertwined with climate change and environmental sustainability. Studies on how the Earth’s climate is changing by civil engineer Peter Webster and Judy Curry in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences have provided new insights into how this occurs and propelled Georgia Tech into the national spotlight. SEI researchers like Bill Koros and Ron Chance are among the national leaders in developing solutions to address the seminal carbon issue with capture and sequestration. Given the growth in world energy demands, there is no question that carbonbased fuels will continue to be used, and Georgia Tech will be among the leaders in developing technologies for carbon capture and sequestration. A decade or two ago, no one would have put the name Georgia Tech in the same sentence with the words medicine or health care. But a transformation is taking place in this arena, and those who can blur the boundaries between biology, chemistry, engineering, computing and medicine will be the leaders in the future. Through a unique and potent partnership with Emory University, the formation of collaborations with others like the Medical College of Georgia and the willingness of our faculty to step across disciplines, Georgia Tech is now positioned to compete in this new world. Research is ongoing on our campus that will allow DNA to be repaired, that will allow nanoparticles to detect and destroy cancer cells before they spread and that will create diagnostic techniques for ovarian cancer. Tackling this problem of separation has proven difficult, but the interdisciplinary environment on our campus gives rise to the conditions for the sought-after reconciliation. The by-product of our interests in blending the arts and technology is enormous as it helps humanize and inform the end result. When our inquiring minds produce new forms of electronic games, they serve to ask bigger questions about humanity and society. Campus video gamers are leading the way in using games as a communication tool to model, simulate and explore the complexities of large social issues and problems facing the nation and the world. One of the most obvious of boundaries that vanishes for a global university is national borders. We have strategic international education and research platforms in France, Ireland and Singapore, with a few more under consideration. We have collaborative research partnerships with other students through Georgia Tech’s chapter of Engineering Students Without Borders. And it is just one example of the many international experiences available to Tech students. The concept of a global Georgia Tech has been welcomed by our students with gusto. From Italy to Australia, from China to Chile, Georgia Tech students have shown an enthusiasm for experiencing other cultures, learning foreign languages, stretching their own boundaries and becoming citizens of the world. The largest study abroad program run by Georgia Tech is on our campus in Metz, France. Last summer, 125 students took more than two dozen courses taught by 14 professors. It is an incredible opportunity for our engineering students to study abroad without missing a beat in their curriculum, but the course offerings also include a broad range of other subjects. When you combine outstanding students and provide them with leadership experiences, you get surprising and remarkable results. The address (on campus in September 2006) by Liberia President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf inspired Karan Chopra to create GT IDEA, a student organization aimed at helping to provide technological skill and business acumen in subSaharan Africa through collaboration with African universities. The pilot project was an eight-week teaching trip to Addis Ababa University this past summer funded by World Bank. Six Tech students joined six Ethiopian instructors to offer courses in digital media, engineering economics and information technology. The new Georgia Tech is at once local and also global, with 1,000 students on other campuses around the world or online. The multiplicity of programs and activities are intertwined, collaborating in unique ways that are mutually beneficial. Taken together, they are building blocks in the process of defining the technological research university of the 21st century, also known as Georgia Tech. Our friend and former provost, now president of Cal Tech, Jean-Lou Chameau, once was asked about Georgia Tech’s expanding international programs and he said, “Georgia Tech has no boundaries.” Jean-Lou was, and is, a forward thinker. He could have said Georgia Tech “should” have no boundaries, but he was more emphatic. He left us with work to do, but he foresaw our voyage toward a future where boundaries vanish and we achieve our mission of defining the technological university of the 21st century. A complete text of President Clough’s address is available at: www.gatech.edu/president/soi/. universities in all three of these locations that have research thrusts that align with ours. And we have joint degree programs that allow our students and those of partner institutions in places like France, Singapore and Shanghai to earn dual degrees. Preserving the Environment The combination of Georgia Tech’s global presence with its interdisciplinary culture provides unique opportunities to work on challenging issues like the environment: preserving coral reefs in Fiji without destroying the local economy; researching the damage from a tsunami earthquake that brought 65-foot waves to Java to discover why there was no warning; providing advance warning of catastrophic floods in Bangladesh so people can prepare; analyzing an old and inadequate water system in Los Lima, Honduras, and proposing a better replacement. The Los Lima project is being done largely by Blending Arts and Technology The notion that technology and the liberal arts are two completely separate things is deeply rooted, dating back to ancient Greece. The call for dissolving this boundary was issued in 1959 by C.P. Snow, who was both a scientist and a novelist. He provoked heated debate by arguing that the lack of communication between the sciences and the humanities was a major hindrance to solving the world’s most significant problems. TECHTOPICS | WINTER 2007 19 http://www.gatech.edu/president/soi/
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