Georgia Institute of Technology VIP Program

North Ave NW
Atlanta, Georgia 30332, United States
Website

Georgia Institute of Technology

North Ave NW
AtlantaGeorgia 30332
United States
Latitude: 33.775618
Longitude: -84.396285

The Institution


Georgia Institute of Technology is committed to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology. With more than 100 centers focused on interdisciplinary research, Georgia Tech consistently contributes vital research and innovation to American government, industry, and business. Georgia Tech provides a focused, technologically based education to both undergraduate and graduate students.

The Program


The VIP Program at Georgia Tech builds upon multidisciplinary and vertically integrated teams. The site has achieved high team longevity through the integration of VIP teams into instructors’ research, with teams making meaningful contributions to instructors’ research efforts. Program-level initiatives include retrospective analysis of peer evaluations to understand team dynamics, and to identify patterns across the program and areas for improvement; and development, documentation and dissemination of faculty professional development tools, workshops and resources. Georgia Tech spearheaded the establishment of the VIP Consortium, with the ultimate goal of transforming undergraduate education. As the lead organization, Georgia Tech seeks to continue expanding the consortium, to establish the organization as an independent body with active engagement between member institutions, and to cultivate a community of collaboration. As contributing members, Georgia Tech has developed the consortium webpage, is working to disseminate peer-evaluation tools, developing professional development tools, workshops and resources, and developing an online sharing portal for Consortium members.

Directors


Coordinators


Julie Sonnenberg-Klein

VIP Teams

  • This VIP has two broad goals. First, to explore curiosity-driven scientific questions. Second, to strive to make science, technology, and healthcare accessible to billions of people by inventing frugal tools and techniques. These goals are not mutually exclusive; pursuit of one often leads to insights for the other.
  • To create, design, and test build jetpacks, robotic landing systems, exoskeletons, and autonomous vehicles to support exploration of extreme environments on Earth, the Moon, and Mars, with multi-disciplinary professionals, DARPA, and NASA scientists and engineers.
  • To build airborne observation platforms equipped with cameras and electromagnetic sensors, to observe lightning and other electrical activity in the atmosphere from high altitude (100,000 ft). We have already launched and retrieved a balloon with camera payload (see picture) in our first year. See pictures of the launch and one taken mid-flight, from above 100,000 ft you are above the sky and...
  • On January 29, 2018 the 10 million acre Patagonia National Park system was born. The goal of this VIP project is to develop and execute a Strategic Sustainability Plan for this new park in collaboration with the Chilean government, US philanthropic organizations, and Yellowstone National Park. Themes include water and energy, transportation, education and communication, waste management,...
  • Energy has become one of the world's biggest engineering challenges. Current carbon-based energy supply faces conventional reserves depletion and climatic hurdles. The goal of this project is to address enhanced subsurface energy recovery and associated environmental mitigation from a geoengineering perspective. The team will study fundamental hydro-thermo-chemo-bio-mechanical properties of...