Jasper Yen, a PhD student in the school of Applied Physiology, will have a paper published in the J. of the Royal Society Interface. We have been told by the publishers that the following press release will be made at that time:

"The adaptability and stability of animal locomotion still far exceeds that of the best legged robots. A recent study of human hopping provides evidence that a shift in control strategy may occur as locomotion speed is increased. At slow tempos, humans rely on a complex multi-joint coordination strategy to stabilize locomotion. At fast tempos, a simpler control strategy focuses stabilization to a single joint. This debunks the idea that a single control strategy is used at all speeds. These findings provide new insights that may improve current gait rehabilitation techniques and control algorithms for humanoid robots and robotic exoskeletons."

2009 Chemistry Graduate Student Awards Chemistry graduate students win honors at the annual Graduate Student Awards Symposium. (Rakesh Nambiar, the first place winner is shown) more info

Biology

CBID Team awarded NSF grant A team from Georgia Tech's Center for Biologically Inspired Design (CBID), including Jeannette Yen and Marc Weissburg from the school of biology, has been awarded $768,000 from the National Science Foundation for their efforts to develop an interactive design representation system and computer database of biologically-inspired designs. more info

Montoya awarded NSF Grant Professor Joe Montoya, in collaboration with a team of other researchers, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the influences of the Amazon River on the Atlantic more info

Gibson coauthors Nature review on complex diseases, Professor Greg Gibson is a coauthor on a review article entitled "Finding the missing heritability of complex diseases" that appeared in the 8 October issue of the journal Nature. more info

Sara Thomas wins VWR Postdoctoral Award Thomas, a postdoctoral researcher in Meghan Duffy's lab, has been named the inaugural winner of the VWR Postdoctoral Award for Scientific Excellence in Experimental Biology. more info

Julia Kubanek wins the 2009 Women of Distinction Award Georgia Tech's annual Women's Leadership Conference was held this past weekend drawing hundreds of women for workshops, speeches, and networking opportunities. The conference's theme, unleash your potential impact the world, was exemplified through the recognition of five women of distinction within the Georgia Tech community. more info

GT Biology Awarded Funds to Upgrade Priest Landing Marine Facility A team of researchers from Georgia Tech and GT Savannah have been awarded funds from the National Science Foundation to upgrade School of Biology's Marine Facility on Skidaway Island. more info | Skidaway Institute of Oceanography

Chemistry

Mostafa El-Sayed Bestowed Honor from the Chinese Chemical Society Prof. El-Sayed has been awarded an Honorary Fellow of the Chinese Chemical Society. An Honorary Fellow is the highest honor that CCS can bestow on an individual and it is only conferred on eminent chemists who have made significant contributions to the advancement of chemistry. (more info)

Physics

Ron Fox, Professor Emeritus, was named an "Outstanding Referee" by the American Physical Society (APS). Awardees are chosen for truly exceptional contributions to the physics community demonstrated by their hard work and careful attention to the peer review process.

Jim Sowell, graduate recruiter, was awarded the Undergraduate Educator Award from the Georgia Tech Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning (CETL). This award is open to non-tenure track faculty members and recognizes outstanding contributions to undergraduate education.

Andrew Zangwill, was awarded one of two College of Sciences Faculty Mentor Awards. This award recognizes the time and effort that the faculty member spends in mentoring and shows appreciation for the mentor’s services to the Georgia Tech community.

Ed Conrad, associate professor, was awarded the Georgia Tech Faculty Award for Academic Outreach. This distinction is awarded to faculty who use their academic expertise to further the learning of K-12 students, teachers, or other educational stakeholders in Georgia.

Pablo Laguna, professor, has been elected Fellow to the American Physical Society. His citation reads "for his various contributions to numerical relativity and computational astrophysics. Twelve of the fifteen Full Professors in the School of Physics are APS Fellows.