Dr. Susan S. Margulies leads the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Engineering in its mission to transform our world for a better tomorrow by driving discovery, inspiring innovation, enriching education, and accelerating access. With an annual budget of nearly $800 million, the NSF’s Engineering Directorate provides over 40 percent of federal funding for fundamental research in engineering at academic institutions, and it distributes more than 1500 awards supporting research and education each year. Projects funded by the Engineering Directorate span frontier research to generate new knowledge, problem-driven research to identify new solutions to societal challenges, and application-driven research to translate discoveries to uses that benefit society.

In partnership with industry and communities across the nation, the NSF’s investments in engineering research and education lead to innovative technologies and sustainable impacts in health, agriculture, clean energy and water, resilient infrastructure, advanced manufacturing and communication systems, and many other areas. NSF support also builds the Nation’s workforce capacity in engineering and supports the diversity and inclusion of engineers at all career stages. Together, the NSF’s investments in engineering research and education enhance prosperity, equity and quality of life for all Americans.

Margulies joined the NSF as the assistant director for the Directorate for Engineering in August 2021 after leading the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. While on detail at the NSF, she is a professor and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar at Georgia Tech and Emory. She received her B.S.E. in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, her Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and post-doctoral training at the Mayo Clinic. She joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 as an assistant professor, rising through the ranks to professor. In 2017 she became the first faculty member tenured in both the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, and she was a department chair in both the college of engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory’s school of medicine. 

Margulies is internationally recognized for pioneering studies spanning the micro-to-macro scales and across species to identify mechanisms underlying brain injuries in children and adolescents and lung injuries associated with mechanical ventilation, leading to improved injury prevention, diagnosis and treatments. She has launched numerous training and mentorship programs for students and faculty, created institute-wide initiatives to enhance diversity and inclusion, and led innovative projects in engineering education. 

Margulies’ transdisciplinary scholarly impact has been recognized by her election as fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and as a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine.  

Sakis Mantalaris is currently Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech & Emory. Prior he was Professor in Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. His expertise is in modelling of biological systems and bioprocesses with a focus on mammalian cell culture systems, stem cell bioprocessing, and tissue engineering. He has received several awards: the Junior Moulton Award for best paper by the IChemE (2004), Fellow of AIMBE (2012), an ERC Advanced Investigator Award (2013), and the Donald Medal by the IChemE for his contributions to biochemical engineering (2015).
 

David G. Lynn has contributed in the general areas of molecular recognition, synthetic biology and chemical evolution, and has developed chemical and physical methods for the analysis of supramolecular self-assemblies, of signal transduction in cellular development and pathogenesis, of molecular skeletons for storing and reading information, and of the evolution of biological order.

Lynn has earned a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professorship, the Emory Scholar-Teacher Award, a fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the ACS Charles H. Herty Medal.

During his tenure as Chair of the Department of Chemistry from 2006-2015, Lynn assisted in the renovation of the Atwood chemistry building. In 2018 and 2019, Lynn also served as a board member for the Atlanta Science Festival.

Hang Lu received her B.S. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and her M.S.C.E.P and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is currently the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the College of Engineering and C. J. "Pete" Silas Chair, School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Lu's research interests involve the interface of engineering and biology and her lab, the Lu Fluidics Group, is conducting research at these interface levels. The Lu Fluidics Group engineers BioMEMS (Bio Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) and microfluidic devices to address questions in neuroscience, cell biology, and biotechnology that are difficult to answer using conventional techniques.

Faces of Research - Profile Article

My laboratory investigates molecular mechanisms underlying eukaryotic genome stability. Chromosomal rearrangements create genetic variation that can have deleterious or advantageous consequences. Karyotypic abnormalities are a hallmark of many tumors and hereditary diseases in humans. Chromosome rearrangements can also be a part of the programmed genetic modifications during cellular differentiation and development. In addition, gross DNA rearrangements play a major role in the chromosome evolution of eukaryotic organisms. Therefore, elucidation of molecular mechanisms leading to chromosome instability is important for studying human pathology and also for our understanding of the fundamental processes that determine the architecture and dynamics of eukaryotic genomes. 

My overall contribution to the field of genome instability has been the demonstration of the phenomenon that repeats often found in eukaryotic genomes are potent sources of genome instability. Specifically, I have been investigating one of the most fundamental and enigmatic processes as to how repetitive sequences that adopt non-canonical DNA secondary structures, such as hairpins and cruciforms, cause replication arrest, double-strand breaks, and gross chromosomal rearrangements. Using molecular biology approaches, we investigate the instability of secondary structure-forming repeats in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, and human fibroblasts.

Nian Liu began as an Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in January 2017. He received his B.S. in 2009 from Fudan University (China), and Ph.D. in 2014 from Stanford University, where he worked with Prof. Yi Cui on the structure design for Si anodes for high-energy Li-ion batteries. In 2014-2016, he worked with Prof. Steven Chu at Stanford University as a postdoc, where he developed in situ optical microscopy to probe beam-sensitive battery reactions. Dr. Liu 's lab at Georgia Tech is broadly interested in the combination of nanomaterials, electrochemistry, and light microscopy for understanding and addressing the global energy challenges. Dr. Liu is the recipient of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) Daniel Cubicciotti Award (2014) and American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Inorganic Chemistry Young Investigator Award (2015).

Dr. Lindsey previously developed matrix array transducers, adaptive beamforming strategies, and interventional devices in Stephen Smith’s lab at Duke University, where he received a Ph.D. for his work in 3D transcranial ultrasound.  While at Duke, he was the recipient of a pre-doctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of the Duke Medical Imaging Training Program.  He also completed postdoctoral training in the labs of Paul Dayton and Xiaoning Jiang at the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University in contrast-enhanced ultrasound imaging and in the design and fabrication of high frequency, interventional ultrasound transducers.  During this time, he was awarded the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the NIH to develop endoscopic transducers for contrast-specific imaging in pancreatic cancer.  Dr. Lindsey recently joined the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech-Emory, where he leads the Ultrasonic Imaging and Instrumentation Laboratory.  Dr. Lindsey is an active member of the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society, the Biomedical Engineering Society and the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine and is a member of the Technical Program Committee for the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium.  In 2022, Dr. Lindsey received the New Investigator award from the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine. At Georgia Tech, Dr. Lindsey holds a primary appointment in Biomedical Engineering.  He is also a faculty member for the Interdisciplinary Bioengineering Graduate Program and holds an adjunct appointment in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Lab members have received best paper, best poster, and best student pitch awards from the IEEE UFFC Society. Research activities in the lab are currently funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Raquel Lieberman is the Sepcic-Pfeil Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. Her research program focuses on biophysical and structural characterization of proteins and the impact of disease-associated mutations on function or dysfunction (e.g. aggregation). Rooted in basic research, the long-term goal of her research program is to convert mechanistic discoveries into disease-modifying therapies.

A major research project in her lab is investigations of glaucoma-associated herocilin, which has been funded by NIH since March 2011. Her lab has made major strides toward detailed molecular understanding of herocilin structure, function, and disease pathogenesis. They have divulged similarities between herocilin-associated glaucoma and other protein misfolding disorders, particularly aherloid diseases. Cumulatively, their work is leading to the first disease-modifying glaucoma therapeutic.

Lieberman also has a track record in membrane enzymes dating back to her thesis work where she solved the first crystal structure of the copper-dependent particulate methane monooxygenase. During her postdoc she shifted focus to intramembrane aspartyl proteases (IAPs), particularly those involved in neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s disease. In her independent lab she developed new proteomics-based assays to measure IAP proteolysis. The lab also collaborates with physicists at Oak Ridge National Labs to use neutron scattering to probe structure and lipids in solution. This work has been funded by NSF and NIH.

She serves on the Executive Council of the Protein Society and as an academic editor for PLoS Biology. She also serves as co-PI of the Department of Education GAANN program in Biochemistry & Biophysics at Georgia Tech and on the advisory committees in a variety of capacities.

Jing Li is a Virginia C. and Joseph C. Mello Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and a core faculty in the Center for Machine Learning at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2020, she was a Professor at Arizona State University and is a co-founder of the ASU-Mayo Clinic Center for Innovative Imaging.

Dr. Li’s research develops statistical machine learning algorithms for modeling and inference of complex-structured datasets with high dimensionality (e.g., 3D/4D images), multi-modality, and  heterogeneity. The objectives of the methodological developments are to provide capacities for monitoring & change detection, diagnosis, and prediction & prognosis. The application domains mainly include health and medicine, focusing on medical image data analytics as well as fusion of images, genomics, and clinical records for personalized and precision medicine. Her research outcomes support clinical decision making for diagnosis, prognosis, and telemedicine for various conditions affecting the brain, such as brain cancer, post-traumatic headache & migraine, traumatic brain injury, and the Alzheimer’s disease. Her research received Best Paper awards from various professional venues such as IISE Transactions, IISE Annual Conferences, INFORMS Data Mining and Decision Analytics, American Academy of Neurology, America Headache Society, etc. Her research has been funded by the NIH, NSF, DOD, and industries. She is an NSF CAREER Awardee.

Dr. Li is a former Chair for the Data Mining Subdivision of INFORMS. She is currently a Senior Editor for IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and a Department Editor for IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering.