To request a media interview, please reach out to School of Physics experts using our faculty directory, or contact Jess Hunt-Ralston, College of Sciences communications director. A list of faculty experts and research areas across the College of Sciences at Georgia Tech is also available to journalists upon request.
In this story about the puzzling behavior that goes on inside black holes, Quanta Magazine uses the 2017 first-ever image of the black hole at the heart of the M87 galaxy captured by an Event Horizon Telescope research team. That team included EHT founding members Feryal Özel, professor and chair of the School of Physics, and Dimitrios Psaltis, a professor in the School. The story also includes the recent machine learning-enhanced version of the image.
Quanta Magazine 2023-06-06T00:00:00-04:00After a three-year hiatus, scientists in the U.S. have just turned on detectors capable of measuring gravitational waves — tiny ripples in space itself that travel through the universe. Unlike light waves, gravitational waves are nearly unimpeded by the galaxies, stars, gas, and dust that fill the universe. This means that by measuring gravitational waves, astrophysicists can peek directly into the heart of some of these most spectacular phenomena in the universe. Since 2020, the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory — commonly known as LIGO— has been sitting dormant while it underwent some exciting upgrades. These improvements will significantly boost the sensitivity of LIGO and should allow the facility to observe more-distant objects that produce smaller ripples in spacetime. Faculty and students in the School of Physics and Georgia Tech's Center for Relativistic Astrophysics were part of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration when the observatory made the first direct observation of gravitational waves. Laura Cadonati, professor in the School of Physics and associate dean for Research in the College of Sciences, served as LIGO deputy spokesperson and was on its data analysis team.
Inverse 2023-05-28T00:00:00-04:00A team of mechanical engineering students and alumni at Georgia Tech began developing and testing ForageFeeder, a $400 machine partly inspired by deer feeders that can disperse gorillas’ their meals at random intervals and locations throughout the day. Much like modern humans, zoo animals frequently deal with obesity due to a lack of activity. Tools and techniques such as the ForageFeeder not only promote Zoo Atlanta gorillas’ movement, but better simulate their natural foraging world. David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences, the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and the School of Physics, was faculty advisor for this project. (Read more about the story here.)
Popular Science 2023-05-26T00:00:00-04:00A small but growing group of researchers is fascinated by an organ we often take for granted. We rarely think about how agile our own tongue needs to be to form words or avoid being bitten while helping us taste and swallow food. But that’s just the start of the tongue’s versatility across the animal kingdom. Without tongues, few if any terrestrial vertebrates could exist. The first of their ancestors to slither out of the water some 400 million years ago found a buffet stocked with new types of foods, but it took a tongue to sample them. The range of foods available to these pioneers broadened as tongues diversified into new, specialized forms — and ultimately took on functions beyond eating. This examination of how animal tongues shaped biological diversity includes research from David Hu, professor in the School of Biological Sciences and the School of Physics.
Science 2023-05-25T00:00:00-04:00NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Regina Barber and Emily Kwong, hosts of the Short Wave podcast, about the top science stories of the week, including the mysteries of multicellular organisms as researched by William Ratcliff, associate professor and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences program in the School of Biological Sciences. Ratcliff and several colleagues, including research scientist Ozan Bozdag, used snowflake yeast to initiate the first long-term evolution experiment aimed at evolving new kinds of multicellular organisms from single-celled ancestors in the lab. Other College of Sciences researchers involved include Seyed Alireza Zamani Dahaj, computational biologist, Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences, and the School of Physics; Thomas C. Day, Ph.D. candidate, School of Physics, and Peter Yunker, associate professor, School of Physics. Anthony J. Burnetti, research scientist; Penelope Kahn, research technician; Dung T. Lac, research technician; Kai Tong, postdoctoral scholar; and Peter Conlin, postdoctoral scholar, are all from the School of Biological Sciences. (This segment was also run on Connecticut Public Radio and Georgia Public Broadcasting.)
National Public Radio 2023-05-18T00:00:00-04:00The Atlantic's Pulitzer Prize-winning staff writer Ed Yong writes about the unique snowflake yeast experiment conducted by Georgia Tech researchers that shows how multicellular organisms might have evolved from single-celled ancestors. The study, published recently in Nature, provided new insight into how "that change from micro to macro, from one cell to many, was one of the most pivotal evolutionary journeys in Earth’s history." William Ratcliff, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and co-director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences program led the research team. Other researchers include Ozan Bozdag, research scientist, School of Biological Sciences; Seyed Alireza Zamani Dahaj, computational biologist, Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences, and the School of Physics; Thomas C. Day, Ph.D. candidate, School of Physics, and Peter Yunker, associate professor, School of Physics. Anthony J. Burnetti, research scientist; Penelope Kahn, research technician; Dung T. Lac, research technician; Kai Tong, postdoctoral scholar; and Peter Conlin, postdoctoral scholar, are all from the School of Biological Sciences. ((Atlantic subscription required; read more about the research here.)
The Atlantic 2023-05-12T00:00:00-04:00A research team from Georgia Tech is one of five chosen by NASA to collaborate on lunar science and lunar sample analysis research to support future exploration of the Moon as part of the agency’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). SSERVI will support each of the new teams for five years at about $1.5 million per year, jointly funded by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate. The Center for Lunar Environment and Volatile Exploration Research (CLEVER) is led by Thomas Orlando, professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry with an adjunct appointment in the School of Physics, The team will characterize the lunar environment and volatile inventories required for near-term sustained human exploration of the Moon. Orlando is principal investigator for another lunar-related research team, Radiation Effects on Volatiles and Exploration of Asteroids and Lunar Surfaces (REVEALS), which is also a part of SSERVI. (Read more about this story here. This story was also covered at Newswise and SpaceRef.com)
NASA 2023-05-11T00:00:00-04:00Precisely how multicellular organisms evolved from single-celled ancestors remains poorly understood. The transition happened hundreds of millions of years ago, and early multicellular species are largely lost to extinction. To investigate how multicellular life evolves from scratch, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology decided to take evolution into their own hands. Led by William Ratcliff, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and director of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences, a team of researchers has initiated the first long-term evolution experiment aimed at evolving new kinds of multicellular organisms from single-celled ancestors in the lab. In this case, the cells are snowflake yeast, and they grew so large they could be seen with the naked eye. Other researchers include Ozan Bozdag, research scientist, School of Biological Sciences; Seyed Alireza Zamani Dahaj, computational biologist, Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Quantitative Biosciences, and the School of Physics; Thomas C. Day, Ph.D. candidate, School of Physics, and Peter Yunker, associate professor, School of Physics. Anthony J. Burnetti, research scientist; Penelope Kahn, research technician; Dung T. Lac, research technician; Kai Tong, postdoctoral scholar; and Peter Conlin, postdoctoral scholar, are all from the School of Biological Sciences. (This story was also covered at ScienceAlert, NPR, Interesting Engineering, New Atlas, Newswise, and Tech Explorist. Read more about the research here.)
The New York Times 2023-05-10T00:00:00-04:00When traveling on rough and unpredictable roads, the more legs the better — at least for robots. Balancing on two legs is somewhat hard; on four legs, it’s slightly easier. But what if you had many many legs, like a centipede? Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have found that by giving a robot multiple, connected legs, it allows the machine to easily clamber over landscapes with cracks, hills, and uneven surfaces without the need for extensive sensor systems. Their results are published in a study this week in the journal Science. The researchers from the School of Physics include Daniel Goldman, Dunn Family Professor, and Baxi Chong, postdoctoral scholar and a Ph.D. graduate student in the Quantitative Biosciences program. Two scientists from the School of Mathematics involved in the study are Grigoriy Blekherman, professor, and Daniel Irvine, postdoctoral scholar. And three members of Goldman's Complex Rheology and Biomechanics (CRAB) Lab are study co-authors: Ph.D. graduate students Juntao He and Tianyu Wang, and Daniel Soto, postgraduate research assistant. (This story is also covered in QHubo News, CBC Radio, Tech Briefs, New Atlas, the BBC, and ScienceDaily. Popular Science also mentions the Georgia Tech research in its story on a separate multi-legged robot developed by researchers in Japan. And Baxi Chong wrote about the research in The Conversation which was reprinted in RoboHub.)
Popular Science 2023-05-08T00:00:00-04:00On May the Fourth, a.k.a. Star Wars Day, Discover took a look at the science behind Georgia Lucas' pop culture phenomenon. It cited a previous Georgia Tech story that quizzed faculty about various aspects of the movie franchise, including A. Nepomuk Otte, professor in the School of Physics, and his argument that The Force ignores a central pillar of physics by acting in a one-sided manner, as when Yoda raised Luke's X-wing fighter from the Dagobah swamp. “Didn't we learn from physics classes about Newton’s third law?” Otte said in the story. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So why doesn't the little fella get squished like a mosquito?”
Discover 2023-05-04T00:00:00-04:00Blinking is crucial for the eye. It's how animals clean their eyes, protect them, and even communicate. But how and why did blinking originate? Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Seton Hill University, and Pennsylvania State University studied the mudskipper, an amphibious fish that spends most of its day on land, to better understand why blinking is a fundamental behavior for life on land. By comparing the anatomy and behavior of mudskippers to the fossil record of early tetrapods, the researchers argue that blinking emerged in both groups as an adaptation to life on land. One of the researchers, Brett Aiello, an assistant professor of biology at Seton Hill University, is a former postdoctoral fellow in the Agile Systems Lab at Georgia Tech. Saad Bhamla, assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is a co-author of the study. (This story is also covered in Earth.com, SciTechDaily and the Latrobe Bulletin.)
ScienceDaily 2023-04-23T00:00:00-04:00The 2019 release of the first image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), was hailed as a significant scientific achievement. But truth be told, it was a bit blurry — or, as one astrophysicist involved in the effort called it, a "fuzzy orange donut." Scientists on Thursday unveiled a new and improved image of this black hole — a behemoth at the center of a nearby galaxy — mining the same data used for the earlier one but improving its resolution by employing image reconstruction algorithms to fill in gaps in the original telescope observations. The use of machine learning to improve the photo is detailed in a study in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Two professors in the School of Physics who are EHT founding members — Feryal Ozel, who is also school chair, and Dimitrios Psaltis — are co-authors of the study. (This story was also covered in Space Daily, ScienceDaily and the Calgary Herald.)
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Events
School of Physics Fall Colloquium Series- Dr. Colin Parker(GA Tech)
Dr. Colin Parker(GA Tech) Thulium-doped noble gases - a new playground for quantum information and sensing
Special Condensed Matter Seminar | Tuesday, October 20, 2026 11:00am - 12:30pm | Speaker: Prof. Ignacio Salgado Linares | Host Dr. Mourigal | Howey N201/N202
Title: Thermal Transport and Chiral Spectroscopy from Semiclassical Spin Dynamics.
Soft Matter Seminar| Prof. Kimberly Weirich | Clemson UN | Host: Dr. Itamar Kolvin
Soft Matter Seminar| Prof. Kimberly Weirich | Clemson UN | Host: Dr. Itamar Kolvin
CRA SEMINAR | Federico Testagrossa | DESY Zeuthen | Host: David A. Raudales O.
CRA SEMINAR | Federico Testagrossa | DESY Nat'l Institution | Host: David A. Raudales O.
Observatory Public Night
On select Thursday evenings during the academic year, the Georgia Tech School of Physics invites you to observe various bright celestial objects through telescopes.
The Ever-Changing Georgia Coast with President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough
Join us for a special author conversation, reading, and Q&A followed by a book-signing reception with refreshments, Georgia Tech for Georgia’s Tomorrow swag, and drawing for signed books.
2026 College of Sciences Homecoming Tailgate
Reconnect with fellow College of Sciences alumni, friends, faculty, and students while enjoying food, drinks, and Georgia Tech spirit.
Experts in the News
In an article published by The Conversation, Shiladitya Banerjee, associate professor in the School of Physics, discusses new research suggesting that single bacterial cells exhibit learning-like behavior in changing environments.
This article was also published by The Scientist.
The Conversation 2026-09-10T00:00:00-04:00If you dropped the exact same pulse of food onto two identical bacteria, you'd expect the exact same response. That's not what happened. In a study published in PRX Life in May 2026, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Georgia Tech found that E. coli exposed to unstable, feast-and-famine conditions adapted to new food far faster than bacteria pulled from a stable environment, even when the immediate conditions in front of them were identical.
You may think that one cell has no place to keep things such as memories. Scientists, including Josiah Kratz, a postdoctoral fellow in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics, observed tens of thousands of individual E. coli bacteria through a special microfluidic apparatus and found that the cause was ribosomes, the components of the cell responsible for building proteins and determining the growth rate.
The News International 2026-09-09T00:00:00-04:00Researchers in the School of Physics, working with King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, have found that standard methods for identifying chirality in topological phases fail when applied to mixed quantum states. The study reveals that established diagnostics, including bulk-boundary correspondence and the modular commutator, are unreliable in these complex systems. Consequently, the research presents two new measures, based on relative entropy, to accurately diagnose chirality and determine the chiral central charge in decohered topological phases, indicating a need for a new set of tools when investigating mixed-state topology.
Quantum Zeitgeist 2026-07-16T00:00:00-04:00Bacteria have no neurons or memories in the human sense. Yet in a new study, researchers at Georgia Tech and Carnegie Mellon University — including School of Physics Associate Professor Shiladitya Banerjee and Postdoctoral Fellow Josiah Kratz — found that individual E. coli cells carried traces of past hardship into the future. When nutrients repeatedly rose and fell, the cells changed how quickly they grew, suggesting that even simple microbes can use experience to prepare for what may come next.
ZME Science 2026-06-10T00:00:00-04:00Georgia Tech researchers have recreated the effects of solar wind on lunar minerals in a laboratory experiment, providing new evidence that the constant stream of charged particles from the sun plays a major role in shaping the moon’s surface.
The team exposed ilmenite, a mineral commonly found on both Earth and the moon, to a synthetic version of solar wind. The experiment produced nanophase iron, tiny metallic particles that are widely observed in lunar soil and are considered a key signature of space weathering.
Interesting Engineering 2026-06-10T00:00:00-04:00A new study led by researchers, including School of Physics graduate student Julia Esposito and Associate Professor Gongjie Li, used 1,500 virtual planetary systems to examine how planet-planet scattering may have influenced the formation of Jupiter-sized planets.
American Astronomical Society NOVA 2026-05-22T00:00:00-04:00
