Two School of Physics faculty have recently received funding from the Georgia Tech Fund for Innovation in Research and Education (GT FIRE). The GT FIRE program was created in order to inspire innovation in research and education at Georgia Tech. “The program is off to a great start,” said Rafael L. Bras, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “The submitted proposals mesh well with our strategic plan, and that was our hope.” “Innovation in research is critical for us to lead and set the science, technology and policy agenda for the United States and the world,” said Steve Cross, executive vice president for research. “I am happy to support GT FIRE in stimulating faculty thinking and creativity.”
Dr. Harold Kim received an award for "A single-cell study to investigate the functional impact of chromosomal landscape." By correlating expression noise of identical genes placed at different locations on the genome, Kim will create a construction of the segregation map of genes inside the nucleus of a cell. The funds will be used for a pilot study aimed to construct the segregation map of genes inside the nucleus of a cell. Prof. Kim will correlate expression noise of two identical genes placed at various locations on the yeast genome and investigate whether this correlation can be used to infer physical distance inside the nucleus.
Dr. Daniel Goldman received an award for "Micro-Labs: A hands-on course in experiment, theory and computation in Nonlinear Science/Complex Systems." Using GT FIRE funds, Prof. Goldman will develop a course in Nonlinear Science/Complex Systems which will emphasize and demonstrate the creativity and critical thinking skills involved in scientific inquiry through participation in hands-on “micro-labs.” These will be short and intense laboratory experiences in which creative problem solving and hypothesis generation will be utilized to design and build an experiment, collect and analyze data, and compare data to a model, all in a single week while working in a laboratory with Prof. Goldman and a graduate student TA. The course will show students that original, cutting-edge science is accessible to them now, with skills and tools they already have or, with guidance, can readily develop.
