{"531521":{"#nid":"531521","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Beyond Excellence","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) took time out to honor one of its most vital resources last week with the second annual BME Graduate Student Awards.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESix grad students and a faculty member were recognized in front of their peers and fellow nominees at the event (Friday, April 29) in the atrium of the Molecular Science and Engineering Building, hosted once again by Shannon Barker (BME\u2019s director of graduate training) and Garrett Stanley (BME professor, associate chair for graduate studies, and a researcher in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Outstanding Teaching and Mentorship Award went to Eric Snider, a fourth-year student from Chattanooga, Tennessee, who works in the lab of BME Professor Ross Ethier. In addition to his work as a graduate teaching assistant (GTA), Snider was a mentor in Project ENGAGES, working with Atlanta-area high school students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEric has a true knack for explaining complex material and for interacting with students in a positive and enthusiastic way,\u201d says Ethier, a Petit Institute researcher. \u201cEric was one of the most effective TAs I have ever had in my 30 years of teaching at multiple institutions.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe other nominees for Outstanding Teaching and Mentorship were Cheryl Lau, Travis Meyer, John Nicosia, Yogi Patel, and Marissa Ruehle (Meyer and Patel won awards in other categories).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EEric Alonas, who received his Ph.D. in December, won the Outstanding Fundamental Research Award, which recognizes exceptional fundamental or basic research, leading to high impact publications and presentations at national or international conferences. The other nominees were Robert Mannino and Douglas White.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAlonas, from Scottsdale, Arizona, was selected because of his scientifically rigorous approach to research and a prolific publishing record (10 peer-review research articles to his credit already). During his studies at Georgia Tech, he was awarded the Whitaker International Fellowship (2010) and the Chinese Government Scholarship (2012).\u0026nbsp; Eric received his PhD in December of 2015\u003Cem\u003E.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI feel that his combination of talent, intelligence, and motivation were instrumental to the success of his graduate studies and the research endeavors of many colleagues at Georgia Tech and Emory,\u201d says Elizabeth Wright, assistant professor in Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Emory, where she also directs the Integrated Electron Microscopy Core. \u201cI think that the research Eric pioneered will have a long-lasting impact on the field of RSV biology, RNA biology, and imaging probe design.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBME Associate Professor and Petit Institute researcher Phil Santangelo, who was Alano\u2019s advisor, noted the student\u2019s contributions beyond his own thesis: \u201cHe has always been willing to assist other labs with their imaging experiments and answer their questions to the best of his knowledge.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFourth-year grad student Guolan Lu won the Outstanding Translational Research Award, which recognizes success in translational research, leading to publications in translation-focused journals, patents, and clinical testing, among other things. The other nominees were Meredith Fay and Jack Tung.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELu, from Suizhou, China, has published five peer-review research articles while at Georgia Tech and has also given multiple presentations at conferences, workshops, and other proceedings. She published a comprehensive review paper in the field of medical hyperspectral imaging, which has received national and international attention, being cited more than 100 times in only two years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHer noninvasive imaging technology holds great potential to improve the survival and quality of life of cancer patients,\u201d says Lu\u2019s advisor, Baowei Fei, BME associate professor and director of the Quantitative BioImaging Laboratory (QBIL) at Emory.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELu was new to biomedical engineering, says thesis committee member and BME Associate Professor John Oshinski, but is \u201cnow capable of designing and conducting animal and human tissue imaging experiments, as well as developing machine learning algorithms to analyze different types of dataset such as hyperspectral and histological images.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYogi Patel won the award for Outstanding Entrepreneurship, which honors a student who has turned innovative ideas into commercial reality. Patel, who wasn\u2019t present to receive the award, was the only nominee in this category.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPatel, a fifth-year grad student, has had an impressive entrepreneurial record during his time at Tech. He won the 2014 Young Investigator Award at the IEEE BRAIN Grand Challenges Conference, the same year he joined the TI:GER (Technical Innovation: Generating Economic Results) Program and his team, Bioletics, went on to win the 2015 Georgia Tech Venture Lab Startup Competition, as well as the Edison Prize. He\u2019s also published four highly translational journal articles, obtained three patents, and presented at seven conferences.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cYogi is stubbornly independent in both his thinking and his actions,\u201d notes his advisor, Petit Institute researcher Rob Butera, a BME professor and co-director of the Neural Engineering Center. \u201cI mean this as a compliment \u2013 he is quite accepting of critical feedback, but is always trying to chart his own course and keep his thinking independent. To that end, Yogi is the most entrepreneurial student I have ever mentored.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd according to Patel\u2019s TI:GER teammate, Emory law student Sarika Mathur, Patel is driven by something more than commercial success.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt is clear to anyone that works with Yogi that his goal is not to create a startup and retire rich,\u201d Mathur says. \u201cRather, it is to continually develop technologies that will change the world, and in his words \u2018get them out the door.\u2019\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETravis Meyer won the Outstanding Departmental Service Award, which honors a grad student who demonstrates leadership or has provided academic support within the BME department. Joan Fernandez, Robert Mannino, Claire Segar and Aline Yonezawa were the other nominees.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeyer \u2013 a fourth-year grad student from Houston, Texas \u2013 co-chaired the Graduate Student Advisory Board from 2013-2015, helping revitalize the organization. He chairs the Social and Public Policy committees for BBUGS (Bioengineering and Biosciences United Graduate Students); chaired graduate pre-fair events for the 2014 Biotechnology Career Fair; and was vice chair for Biomaterials Day in 2014.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHe definitely showed a tremendous ability to lead the group and to lead with purpose,\u201d says Sally Gerrish, who organizes the career fair as BME\u2019s director of student, alumni and industrial relations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe gregarious Meyer also made an impression on BME\u2019s Graduate Academic Advisor Shannon Sullivan, who says, \u201cMost of the time I hear Travis coming before I see him. He\u2019s friendly, engaging, and usually booming with ideas and energy. Travis is the go-to guy for getting things done. He happily takes on tasks personally and recruits others to pitch in.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeyer currently represents BME at the College of Engineering Graduate Student Advisory Council. But all of this service has not taken away from his research. In addition to being a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, he was a young scientist participant at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting last year.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe award for Outstanding Community Service went to Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee. Kyle Blum was the only other nominee for this award, which honors a grad student who provides significant education, outreach, or other service to the larger community.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBhattacharjee has chaired the Gamma Beta Phi (GBP) Honor Society and Service Organization since 2014. In that time, he\u2019s organized a record number of service hours for GBP both on and off campus. As a result, GBP has received both the Danielle McDonald Legacy Award and the Five-Start Organization Award (the highest honor of excellence awarded to any on-campus student organization). He\u2019s also served as president of Asha for Education, a totally volunteer-run non-profit organization for the education of underprivileged children and women in India.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s the kind of service Bhattacharjee has become known for. According to former president of GBP, Hoang Luu, he \u201chas never shied away from any opportunity that he has had to serve the community. I believe his dedication will inspire future student leaders.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe final award of the day, for Outstanding Faculty Advisor (selected by the Graduate Student Advisory Board) went to Manu Platt, who was not present. Like most of the students who were honored, Platt\u2019s influence is felt in the lab and beyond.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPlatt\u2019s lab fuses engineering, cell biology, and physiology to understand how cells sense, respond, and remodel their immediate mechanical and biochemical environments for repair and regeneration in health and disease. Platt and his colleagues then translate that knowledge to clinics domestically and internationally to address global health disparities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAdditionally, Platt is BME\u2019s director of diversity, and co-chair\/co-founder of Project ENGAGES, the high school education and lab work program based in the Petit Institute.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Coulter Department honors top scholars with BME Graduate Student Awards"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECoulter Department honors top scholars with BME Graduate Student Awards\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Coulter Department honors top scholars with BME Graduate Student Awards"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2016-05-02 13:14:17","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:21:32","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-05-02T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2016-05-02T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"531501":{"id":"531501","type":"image","title":"BME Grad Trophy","body":null,"created":"1462287600","gmt_created":"2016-05-03 15:00:00","changed":"1475895312","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:12","alt":"BME Grad Trophy","file":{"fid":"89353","name":"award_shannon3.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/award_shannon3_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/award_shannon3_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1968214,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/award_shannon3_0.jpg?itok=WpRaxXrf"}},"531511":{"id":"531511","type":"image","title":"BME grad awards","body":null,"created":"1462298400","gmt_created":"2016-05-03 18:00:00","changed":"1475895312","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:55:12","alt":"BME grad awards","file":{"fid":"89354","name":"winners_tight_crop_angle.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/winners_tight_crop_angle_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/winners_tight_crop_angle_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2357981,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/winners_tight_crop_angle_0.jpg?itok=lOxWXBMf"}}},"media_ids":["531501","531511"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"1808","name":"graduate students"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}