Julia Kubanek serves as Georgia Tech’s Vice President for Interdisciplinary Research and is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In this role, she oversees and supports interdisciplinary activities at Georgia Tech including the Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRIs); the Pediatric Technology Center (PTC), the Novelis Innovation Hub; the Center for Advanced Brain Imaging (CABI); and the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI). She also partners across the institute on developing and advancing new research initiatives based on student and faculty interests, expertise, and societal need.

Kubanek has held several previous leadership roles at Georgia Tech, including Associate Dean for Research in the College of Sciences and Associate Chair in the School of Biological Sciences. She joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2001. Her areas of research interest include chemical signaling among organisms (especially in aquatic systems), natural products chemistry, metabolomics, chemical biology, and drug discovery. She has authored approximately 100 research articles on marine plankton and coral reef chemical ecology, and on the discovery, mechanism of action, and biosynthesis of marine natural products. She was awarded the NSF CAREER Award in 2002, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in 2004, and was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2012. In 2016, she served as chair of the Gordon Research Conference in Marine Natural Products; since 2016, she has chaired the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. Kubanek received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Queen’s University, Canada, in 1991 and her Ph.D. in at the University of British Columbia in 1998, and performed postdoctoral research at the University of California – San Diego and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Selected recent publications:

➤ Robert G. Mannino, Eric J. Nehl, Sarah Farmer, Amanda Foster Peagler, Maren C. Parsell, Viviana Claveria, David Ku, David S. Gottfried, Hang Chen, Wilbur A. Lam, and Oliver Brand, “The critical role of engineering in the rapid development of COVID-19 diagnostics: Lessons from the RADx Tech Test Verification Core” Science Advances. 9, eade4962 (2023). https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade4962

➤ Liu ZL, Bresette C, Aidun CK, Ku DN. (2021) SIPA in 10 milliseconds: VWF tentacles agglomerate and capture platelets under high shear. Blood Advances doi.org/10.1182/bloodadvances.2021005692

➤ Kim DJ, Ku DN. “Structure of shear-induced platelet aggregated clot formed in an in vitro arterial thrombosis model” Blood Adv (2022) 6 (9): 2872–2883. doi.org/10.1182/bloodadvances.2021006248

➤ Kim DJ, Bressette C, Liu Z, Ku DN. Occlusive thrombosis in arteries.  APL Bioengineering  2019;3, 041502. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5115554

Licensed Patents: 

➤ Ku, D.N., Wootton, D.M., Greer-Braddon, L., “Poly(vinyl Alcohol) Cryogel,” No. 5,981,826 and 6,231,605, issued May 15, 2001. Licensed; created prosthetic cartilage; acquired by Wright Medical. $645 million

➤ Denoziere, G., Ku, D.N., “Methods of Producing PVA Hydrogel Implants and Related Devices,” issued U.S. Patent No. 8,038,920, Licensed to Mimedx.  Market cap >$600 million.

Dr. Kostka is currently a professor of Biology at Georgia Institute of Technology (GT). Prior to GT, he was an Associate Professor at the Department of Oceanography, Florida State University. His research involves microorganism studies in geochemical cycles of pristine and contaminated ecosystems, from the oceans to the terrestrial subsurface.

Margaret E. Kosal's research explores the relationships among technology, strategy, and governance. Her research focuses on two, often intersecting, areas: reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and understanding the role of emerging technologies for security. Her work aims to understand and explain the role of technology and technological diffusion for national security at strategic and operational levels. In the changing post-Cold War environment, the most advanced military power no longer guarantees national or international security in a globalized world in which an increasing number of nation-states and non-state actors have access to new and potentially devastating dual-use capabilities. The long-term goals of her work are to understand the underlying drivers of technological innovation and how technology affects national security and modern warfare. She is interested in both the scholarly, theoretical level discourse and in the development of new strategic approaches and executable policy options to enable US dominance and to limit the proliferation of unconventional weapons. On the question of understanding the impact of emerging technology on national and international security her research considers what role will nanotechnology, cognitive science, biotechnology, and converging sciences have on states, non-state actors, balance of power, deterrence postures, security doctrines, nonproliferation regimes, and programmatic choices. Through examination of these real applications on the science (benign and defensive) and potential (notional) offensive uses of nanotechnology, she seeks to develop a model to probe the security implications of this emerging technology. The goal of the research is not to predict new specific technologies but to develop a robust analytical framework for assessing the impact of new technology on national and international security and identifying policy measures to prevent or slow proliferation of new technology - the next generation “WMD” - for malfeasant intentions. Kosal is the author of Nanotechnology for Chemical and Biological Defense (Springer Academic Publishers, 2009), which explores scenarios and strategies regarding the benefits and potential proliferation threats of nanotechnology and other emerging sciences for international security. She is also Director of the Sam Nunn Security Fellows Program and Co-Director of the Program on Emerging Technology within the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy (CISTP).  Kosal was recently appointed Adjunct Scholar to the Modern War Institute at the US Military Academy/West Point. From 2012-2013, she as a senior advisor to the Chief of Staff of the US Army as part of his inaugural Strategic Studies Group (SSG). Before joining the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, she was Science and Technology Advisor within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Kosal also served as the first liaison to the Biological and Chemical Defense Directorate at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). She has been recognized for her leadership across the U.S. federal government, specifically for efforts to coordinate across the DoD as part of the interagency Nonproliferation and Arms Control Technology Working Group, reporting to the National Security Council (NSC), and as member of the interagency federal group charged with leading the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). Kosal was nominated to and led the U.S. involvement in the NATO Nanotechnology for Defense Working Group. Her awards include the 2015 CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, 2014 Georgia Tech Junior Faculty Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award, 2012 Ivan Allen Jr Legacy Award, 2010 INTAGO Faculty Award, CETL Class of 1969 Teaching Scholar, the OSD Award for Excellence, 2007 UIUC Alumni Association Recent Alumni Award, the President’s Volunteer Service Award, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Defense Policy Fellow, and the Society of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines Dissertation Research Award. Currently, she serves on the editorial board of the scholarly journals Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, the Journal of Strategic Security, the Journal of Defense Management, and Global Security: Health Science and Policy. Education: Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign B.S., Chemistry, University of Southern California Awards and Distinctions: Senior Adjunct Scholar to the Modern War Institute at the U.S. Military Grand Challenges Faculty Fellow, AY2015-2016 & AY 2016-2017 2015-2016 CETL Class of 1969 Teaching Scholar 2015 CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award Gold Star Award in Recognition of the Highest Level of Accomplishment in Research, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Dean Griffith Teaching Recognition – “Thank a Teacher” Award 2014 Georgia Tech Junior Faculty Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award Ivan Allen Jr. Legacy Faculty Award, 2012 INTAGO Faculty of the Year, 2010 Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence, 2007 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Recent Alumni Award, 2007 President’s Volunteer Service Award, 2007 American Associatio for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Fellowship, 2005-2007 American Chemical Society’s Chemical and Engineering News Top 2002 Supramolecular Chemistry research paper Areas of Expertise: Biotechnology Emerging Technology Military Nanotechnology National Security Nonproliferation Nuclear Weapons Terrorism US Foreign & Defense Policy

Itamar Kolvin received his B.Sc. (2007) in Physics and Mathematics and his M.Sc. (2009) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2017, he completed his Ph.D. in Physics under Prof. Jay Fineberg in the Hebrew University. He was a HFSP cross-disciplinary postdoctoral fellow in the Physics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara with Pro. Zvonimir Dogic. His research interests are in the fundamentals of soft matter out-of-equilibrium: assembly, deformation, flow and fracture. Current efforts make use of model systems that are assembled of protein machineries to investigate active and adaptive material mechanics. 

Dr. Kostas Konstantinidis joined the Georgia Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor in November 2007. He received his BS in Agriculture Sciences from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece) in 1999. He continued his studies at the Center for Microbial Ecology at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI) under the supervision of Prof. James M. Tiedje, where he obtained a PhD in 2004. His PhD studies were fully supported by the Bouyoukos Fellowship program and were devoted in advancing our understanding of the ecology and physiology of soil bacteria through the comparative analysis of their whole-genome sequences. This research resulted in a NSF-funded project to advance the species definition for prokaryotes, which also fostered a short post-doc position at the Center for Microbial Ecology. He then moved to MIT and the laboratory of Prof. Edward DeLong to get trained on innovating metagenomic techniques. His work at MIT provided important new insights into the complexity and function of oceanic microbial communities as well as how life is adapting in the deep and cold Oceans. His research interests are at the interface of genomics and computational biology in the context of microbial ecology with the overarching goal to broaden understanding of the genetic and metabolic potential of the microbial world. Advancing our knowledge on these issues is essential for a better understanding of the microbes that power, by and large, the biogeochemical cycles that sustain life on Earth and cause or control important diseases in humans and animals. He is a member of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), the International Society for Microbial Ecology (ISME) and the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP). Konstantinidis held the Carlton S. Wilder Junior Professorship for five years and subsequently received the Maulding Faculty Fellowship in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Adam M. Klein, MD, FACS, is Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor in Voice in the Department of Otolaryngology at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Klein serves as Director of the Emory Voice Center and as Chief of the Division of Laryngology. Board certified with the American Board of Otolaryngology, Dr. Klein's clinical specialties include general otolaryngology, laryngeal disorders and the professional voice. 

Dr. Klein is a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute. He is a Fellow of The American College of Surgeons and American Laryngological Association. He holds professional memberships with American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, American Broncho-Esophagological Association, and Georgia Society for Otolaryngology.

Kim joined the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering as an Assistant Professor in July 2013. Prior to his current appointment, he was a Postdoctoral Associate in the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, where he developed biomimetic microsystems for probing nanoparticle behaviors in the inflamed endothelium and for synthesizing therapeutic and diagnostic nanomaterials. His doctorate research at CMU focused on closed-loop microfluidic control systems for lab-on-a-chip applications to biochemistry and developmental biology. Prior to his Ph.D., he was a researcher in areas of dynamics, controls, and robotics at R&D Divisions of Hyundai-Kia Motors and Samsung Electronics for six years.