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Why the Islamic State Won't Became a Normal State

July 9, 2015

Lawrence Rubin, Assistant Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote an article for the Washington Post as part of the "International Relations and a New Middle East" symposium. Rubin discusses different opinions on the future of the Islamic state before stating his own claim. He argues that the ideological power of the Islamic State has more staying power and serves as more of a threat than the military power.
"An internationally recognized Islamic State would create an ideational security dilemma with its neighbors in which ideological power, not military power, would be the primary trigger of threat perception and policy."
Contrastingly, Rubin believes that a "call for a war of ideas" against the idealogies of the Islamic Nation would likely cause more instability and conflict than less.
"The Islamic State’s effort to project this ideological power will almost certainly trigger defensive reactions from threatened regimes that play out in the religious public space. Neighboring states would likely respond the way they already have but with increased intensity in the ideological sphere through ideational balancing."
In regards to United States foreign policy, Rubin asserts that it is vital for citizens to have a subtle understanding of "threat perception, both who and what drives it, that takes into account the regional players."
All in all, Rubin implies that Middle East relations will always be extremely complicated and it is vital to understand all the nuanced aspects of the dilemma.
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Lawrence Rubin’s research interests include comparative Middle East politics and international security with a specific focus on Islam and politics, Arab foreign policies, and nuclear proliferation.

Published in: The Washington Post
Phantom Phone Vibration Syndrome: Is it actually negative?

July 7, 2015

Robert Rosenberger, assistant professor of Philosophy in the School of Public Policy, recently published a paper on the "phantom vibration syndrome" in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. The phantom phone vibration syndrome occurs when a person thinks his or her phone is ringing or vibrating from a text message when it actually is not. As a society increasingly dependent on mobile devices, the phantom vibrate easily becomes a phenomenon of worry for users.
Those among the worriers fear that the dependency on technology involves rewiring the brain and altering human behavior. Rosenberger says otherwise.
“There are ways to talk about technology without reducing everything to brain rewiring talk,” he tells me over the phone. “Yes, you’re brain’s involved, but your brain’s involved in everything. There's a weird scientific legitimacy that comes from saying it's changing your brain, as opposed to just claiming it’s changing your behaviour or society. If I'm teaching you to drive, we wouldn't talk about brains. I would just say, OK, take hold of the steering wheel. ”
He concludes that the tendency to check phones arises from basic human nature to obsess. For instance, constantly checking the driveway to see if a guest has a arrived or a commuter straining to hear the arrival of a subway.
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Robert Rosenberger received his PhD in philosophy from Stony Brook University. His research in the philosophy of technology explores the habitual relationships people develop with everyday devices such as cell phones and television, with applications in design and policy

Published in: NewStatesman
Kosal on Federal Bioterrorism Policy

June 24, 2015

Margaret E. Kosal, assistant professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was quoted in the Washington Examiner on proposed U.S. preparedness and federal policy to respond to the use of biological weapons by terrorists. Because the science to weaponize pathogens is more sophisticated than ever, a panel of bioterrism experts says that the U.S. government is not prepared to handle a large-scale chemical attack.
Putting the responsibilities for handling a bioterror attack into one agency, however, could be a bad idea, said Kosal. She said the Department of Defense, which historically has taken on bioterrorism preparation, has a drastically different mission than, say, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
She said that a central agency would prepare for a general attack and would inevitably ignore critical details because of a lack of expertise.
"If one tried to collapse all of the resources and all of the budgets for bioterrorism response into one agency, we would end up less prepared than we are now," Kosal said.
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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.

Published in: Washington Examiner
Moreno-Cruz Studies How Atlanta Residents Value MARTA

June 23, 2015

Assistant Professor of Economics Juan Moreno-Cruz, along with Gregory Macfarlane and Laurie Garrow from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, recently published a paper in Transportation Research. The paper, titled “Do Atlanta residents value MARTA? Selecting an autoregressive model to recover willingness to pay,” is featured in Volume 78 of Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice.
According to the abstract, "understanding homeowners’ marginal willingness-to-pay (MWTP) for proximity to public transportation infrastructure is important for planning and policy."
The authors discuss a class of models that control spatial effects and apply them to sample data collected for the Atlanta housing market. Their conclusions may have implications for risk estimations in land value capture forecasts and transportation policy decisions.

Published in: Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice
International Nuclear Fuel Bank Enables Peaceful Energy Use

June 11, 2015

Former United States Senator Sam Nunn, Distinguished Professor of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, aided in the creation of a low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel bank to provide resources to countries for peaceful purposes. This bank, which will be housed in Kazakhstan, is a result of the work between the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“This is a significant milestone in global nuclear cooperation that will enable peaceful uses of nuclear energy while reducing the risks of proliferation and catastrophic terrorism,” said Nunn. “If the dozens of countries interested in nuclear energy also choose to pursue uranium enrichment, the risk of proliferation of dangerous nuclear materials and weapons would grow beyond the tipping point. This has been our experience with Iran. The IAEA LEU Bank now gives countries an alternative to that choice and direction.”
Sam Nunn founded NTI along with Ted Turner and now serves as the co-chairman. As a non-profit and non-partisan organization, NTI became a catalyst for government action and the United States along with the European Union, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Norway, and the United Arab Emirates helped fund the bank's establishment.
“We are very grateful to our funding partners and to Warren Buffett for their generosity and resolve,” said Nunn. “We are also appreciative of the leadership shown by the IAEA and its Board of Governors and the government of Kazakhstan and President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Kazakhstan has made tremendous efforts to reduce nuclear dangers over many decades.”
All in all, the LEU bank enables a stable way to supply nuclear fuel to countries without affecting the commercial market negatively.
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Sam Nunn is co-chairman and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and serves as chairman of the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is also a board member of The Coca-Cola Company, General Electric Company, and Hess Corporation.

Published in: Nuclear Threat Initiative Newsroom
The Reciprocity Phenomena in Congress Co-sponsored Bills

June 10, 2015

Professor and chair of Economics David N. Laband studies the phenomena of co-sponsorships on congressional bills. In general, members of Congress believe that the number of names signed on a bill increases its chance of advancement. This practice of co-sponsorship eliminates the problem of bill duplication and also has fostered a sense of teamwork. On the negative side, it also creates this mentality of obligation through signing each other's bills: "I'll sign your bill if you sign mine."
Laband argues that who signs the bill matters more than the quantity.
In fact, most heavily co-sponsored legislation doesn’t advance. “This raises the interesting question of why individuals co-sponsor bills they know with virtual certainty will go nowhere,” Laband said.
Overall, Laband claims that it is more likely to see only a few co-sponsors on a bill. It is extremely rare for a bill to appear with more than a hundred signatures.
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David N. Laband received his Ph.D. in economics from Virginia Tech in 1981. He is the author of 9 books and over 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals. His research and teaching interests cover a wide range of topics related to economics and policy.

Published in: Bloomberg Politics
Science Fiction: Equipping Students to Face Infinite Possibilities

June 3, 2015

Award winning science fiction writer and Professor of the Practice in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Kathleen Ann Goonan recently wrote a guest editorial on teaching science fiction at Tech for Asimov's Science Fiction, one of the leading venues for contemporary science fiction.
Her piece, entitled Teaching Science Fiction, or Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, explores her particular pedagogy in regards to science fiction as well as the subject matter itself. Goonan believes that science fiction is a very relevant genre and indicates much about the human consciousness.
"Everyone has a hunger for science fiction—astronauts, elementary school children and university students, girls and boys, women and men—people of every age, background, and occupation throughout the world."
She subscribes to Isaac Asimov's science fiction theory that science fiction is a human reaction to change in science and technology. Specifically, she believes that teaching science fiction at Georgia Tech is especially relevant due to the community of innovation.
"Perhaps it is because they are, in no small measure, learning, creating, and living SF in the Aerospace Systems Design Lab, a renowned robotics lab, through weekly nanotech research talks, and by investigating the history of science and technology—not in isolation, but seen as arising from and concurrently driving culture. It is no wonder that they seek to learn how to read and analyze science fiction, to write science fiction, and to see the history of science and technology through a science fictional lens. "
Goonan loves to see the fascinating theories and ideas that her students produce through class discussions and creative writing. Together, they explore the underlying depths of science fiction.
In addition to writing science fiction, Goonan also writes on the impact of nanotechnology, medicine, and education on the future. Read more of what Goonan has written here.
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Kathleen Ann Goonan has been at the vanguard of literary science fiction since the publication of her New York Times Notable Book QUEEN CITY JAZZ in 1994. A Visiting Professor, she teaches Creative Writing, Literature, and Science as well as Technology and Ideology. She is passionate about topics such as gender, inequality, and social justice.

Published in: Asimov's Science Fiction
Who Are the Victims in FIFA Corruption Scandal?

May 27, 2015

Kirk Bowman, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, gave his opinion regarding the groups who fall victim to the illegal money laundering within the FIFA organization. This Wednesday, U.S. proesecutors released a forty-seven count indictment of the illegal and unethical embezzlement practices within FIFA.
Bowman researches the intersection of soccer and global politics commented that this indictment exposes the way in which soccer's leaders cross ethical and legal boundaries for their share of the revenue in the FIFA World Cup cycle.
"The losers are the people at the bottom of the food chain," Bowman said. "There's a tradeoff: for every $100 million paid in kickbacks is $100 million that couldn't go to further support the development of youth soccer."
Many developing countries depend on grants from FIFA to develop their soccer programs.
But it isn't just those underprivileged leagues that suffer, Bowman said. Graft may make it more expensive for people to watch games on television. An argument could even be made that the corruption damaged the United States' ability to transform its lackluster soccer system, he said
Only time will tell how the future of soccer develops after this major scandal.
Continue to full article...
Bowman is a specialist in Latin American politics and politcal development and directs study abroad programs in Argentina, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, and Uruguay. His research interests include comparative politics, economic development, inequality, international affairs, Latin American politics, political economy, and soccer and politics.

Published in: NBC News
Why Empathy is the Next Big Thing in Video Games

May 25, 2015

In an interview conducted by CBC Radio host Nora Young, professor Ian Bogost spoke on the emergence of empathy games—a newly defined genre of games that seek to foster a sense of empathy with a character.
Empathy-driven games simulate an experience constrained by rules in which the player is not empowered, and they may offer commentary on experiences ranging from childhood bullying to the morality choices inherent in expanding a fast food empire. Games like RIOT, which simulates riots that have occured in places like Egypt and Italy, are eliciting empathy in a manner that differs in significant way from experiencing narratives through film or novels.
"You’re not just watching something; you’re making choices, you’re enacting actions inside of the experience. Something is different about that kind of empathy. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one," said Ian Bogost. "Instead of the empathy being a matter of affective feeling that’s emanating from your head and your heart towards the screen or pages of a book, it’s about the decisions you can make and what if feels like to be inside the logic of that other individual’s life. What kinds of choices are available? Which ones aren’t? What does it feel like to operate the machinery of their world?"
Bogost, whose research interest lies in "serious games," or those that have a primary purpose other than entertainment, notes that bridging the cerebral and emotional aspects of an experience is a tension that has been shifting over time. Empathy games, in which the player is embodied in or presented with an inidividual character, weight the emotional aspects more heavily than their systems-oriented counterparts.
"The delightful and beneficial feature of games, which can also be seen as their flaw, is that they’re very logical apparatuses; they’re computer software. You have resources you manage, you make choices, and you build thing," said Bogost. "[...] games like Civilization and Sim City... you’re at a remove, building stuff, and things are happening below you but you’re in charge and making calculated decisions."
As a video game designer and researcher in the Digital Media program in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, Bogost spoke on the use of different philosophies used both by different creators and in different game genres. He notes Paolo Pedercini and Vander Caballero as designers with contrasting approaches to empathy games, comparing the systems-oriented approach to The McDonald's Game with the personal narrative of Papa y Yo, as well as speaking on where he falls on the spectrum.
"For me, as a designer who’s interested in systems-oriented gameplay and the empathy of felling what it’s like to be subjected to a circumstance or scenario that’s different from the one you occupy rather than a specific individual…you look at the world and find these systems," said Bogost. "How does it behave? What is the part of it that you find interesting and appealing? I’m really fascinated with mundane, repetitive, and laborious work, especially work in particular: the kind of menial labor of working in restaurants or copy shops."
While empathy games may be on the rise, Bogost notes that the genre's segmentation out from other games may provide a rehtorical function in and of itself.
"You don’t turn on the television and go to the empathy channel so you can watch the empathy shows. It’s just assumed that empathy is baked in to these media. Good works would provide empathy, and bad works would fail to. We’re trying so hard to respond to this trivialization of games that perhaps we’re overcorrecting in a way."
Bogost concludes the interview by speaking on the importance of providing alternative gameplay alongside larger commercial games, noting that the inclusion of empathy games like Papa y Yo in online marketplaces adjacent to games like Bejewled is an affordance in the game industry that not only increase the diversity of experiences represented, but also validates all of these forms of gameplay.
Listen to the full interview...

Published in: CBC Radio
Porter's Research on Patent Mapping Featured in Georgia Tech Research Horizons

May 21, 2015

Alan Porter, professor emeritus of the School of Public Policy and the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, served as the principal investigator on patent mapping research funded by the National Science Foundation.
What’s likely to be the next big thing? What might be the most fertile areas for innovation? Where should companies invest their limited research funds?
By providing a visual representation of where universities, companies, and other organizations are protecting intellectual property produced by their research, patent maps can help answer those questions. But finding real trends in these maps can be difficult because categories with large numbers of patents — pharmaceuticals, for instance — are usually treated the same as areas with few patents.
However, through the new patent mapping system that Porter and his team envisioned, researchers now have better insight into the interaction between technologies and the way in which they merge to cause new forms of innovation.
“What we are trying to do is forecast innovation pathways,” said Alan Porter, “We take data on research and development, such as publications and patents, and we try to elicit some intelligence to help us gain a sense for where things are headed.”
Porter's academic research focus concentrates upon technology forecasting and assessment, including future-oriented technology analysis, policy analysis, science and technology policy, and technological change.
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Published in: Georgia Tech Research Horizons
Demise of Sports Dynasties Often Widely Celebrated

May 19, 2015

John Matthew Smith, assistant professor for the School of History, Technology, and Society and the undergraduate advisor for the Sports, Society, and Technology (SST) program, discussed the phenomenon of sports dynasties and how fans celebrate their downfall.
Specifically, the controversy surrounding partially deflated footballs, the New England Patriots, and Tom Brady has fans relishing in their demise. After Tom Brady went from being an undesirable player to multimillionaire, he became viewed as the epitome of sucess.
“He’s no longer the underdog, no longer the golden boy," said John Matthew Smith. He’s the boy with all the advantages.”
What Brady wasn’t considered until recently was a breaker of rules, unlike the team he plays for.
“Ever since Spygate, fans from outside New England have looked at Bill Belichick and the Patriots with suspicion,” said Smith. “They’re always looking for an advantage, not only bending the rules but breaking the rules.”
From a fan's perspective, having a team with a perfectly clean record can become dull.
“Going into 1974 there were columnists who said that there were other coaches who were tired of Wooden being held up as a paragon, being on a pedestal,” said Smith, who wrote a book about the UCLA dynasty. “The game had become boring.”
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Smith is an historian of the twentieth century United States, specializing in race, sports, and popular culture. He teaches a range of courses, including: American History since 1877; History of Sports in America; Boxing, Race, and American Culture; and a seminar on Sports and Modern America.

Published in: The Boston Globe
Utz's Research on Medievalism Featured by WMU Press

May 18, 2015

Richard Utz, professor and chair of the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, delivered one of two plenary lectures at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies, hosted at Western Michigan University May 14 - 17. His participation was cited at length on WMUK, a charter member of NPR, as well as in the Western Herald.
Utz's plenary lecture was mentioned on WMUK by James Murray, director of the Medieval Institute, as a talk he was looking forward to attending in particular.
One of our plenary speakers, our Saturday speaker Richard Utz, I’m looking forward to particularly, since he was until a few years ago the chair of the English department and now he’s at Georgia Tech. He’s coming back to talk on Saturday morning about the notion of the Middle Ages, ‘Our Middle Ages Ourselves,’ and about how the dialogue between the modern age and the medieval age has been shaped and in fact how it still captivates our imaginations and sometimes our nightmares. I’m looking forward most of all to Richard's plenary on Saturday morning.
Murray also spoke on the contribution of medialist scholars to popular culture knowledge related to productions like Game of Thrones and video games that utilize medieval themes. Relating to this is emergent focus of study examining medieval literature, language, and culture and their reception in postmedival times, which has featured prominently in Utz's recent research.
Richard Utz in particular is talking about what we call “Medievalism,” which is the embodiment of various things borrowed from the medieval past in such things as architecture, popular entertainment, popular literature—of which Tolkien is an example, who was an authentic Oxford scholar of Old English, but also wrote imaginative fiction based upon what he took away from the Middle Ages and what he wanted to convey to the modern age.
Utz has taught a wide range of topics, from Geoffrey Chaucer's medieval poetry through Bruce Chatwin's postmodern prose, and his scholarship centers on medieval studies, medievalism, the interconnections between humanistic inquiry and science/technology, reception study, and the formation of cultural memories and identities.
Utz's lecture, titled Our Middle Ages, Ourselves, stated that while medievalists have become more geographically, culturally, methodologically, and linguistically inclusive, have more access to more medieval texts, and have amassed more detailed knowledge about aspects of medieval culture than ever before, the most decisive qualitative change have been the inclusion of subjective, affective, atemporal, and public connections medievalists make when they engage with the Middle Ages.
Continue to article on WMUK...
Continue to article on the Western Herald...

Published in: WMUK
Levine Comments on Stem Cell Treatment in USA TODAY

May 18, 2015

Aaron Levine, associate professor in the School of Public Policy, gave his opinion regarding the controversial use of stem cells in the treatment of two former athletes. Both Gordie Howe, former hockey player, and John Brodie, former NFL quarterback, suffered massive strokes that drastically impaired their abilities function.
After entirely losing hope and the will to live, they decided to try an experimental stem cell treatment in Tijuana, Mexico. This treatment used stem cell injections from an aborted fetus. This practice has gone largely unnoticed because many who use fetal tissue refer to it as "adult" stem cells, which can also include stem cells from adults, because fetal cells are much more advanced that embryonic cells.
"Talking about fetal tissue raises concerns for some people, and being able to say you're using adult stem cells probably makes sense from a company's perspective when writing a press release or when asking for funding — just to minimize the controversy," said Aaron Levine. "I don't know if there is some deliberate thought there, but it may have helped the 'adult' terminology take hold just because it describes the science well and it also minimizes some of that concern."
Continue to full article...
Levine's research focuses on understanding how the policy environment influences the development of ethically contentious new technologies, particularly in the life sciences, and his recent work has examined human embryonic stem cell research policy and oversight of the fertility industry.

Published in: USA TODAY
Buzzwords Dominate Business Communication

May 11, 2015

Richard Utz, professor and chair of the School of Literature, Media and Communication, spoke with Georgia Tech Institute Communications on the use of metaphors in business communications.
“Ever since Robin Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s landmark 2003 study, Metaphors We Live By, there has been a broader recognition of metaphors — a figure of speech in which a word/phrase is linked to an object or action to which it is not literally connected: thinking does not ever happen in boxes,” said Richard Utz. “They try to help simplify and link more complex subject matter with commonly comprehensible objects, such as fruit and boxes, to enable easy communication.”
Utz, who has a background in the stuy of rhetoric and linguistics, noted that phrases like buzzwords and metaphors are often tied to a specific region, class, gender, or race, and are therefore subject to the danger of misinterpretation. In addition to the generational nature of buzzwords, wherein older people may lack familiarity with emergent phrases and likewise, Utz notes other challenges in communication.
“Another danger of misinterpretation has to do with the cultural specificity of many buzzwords and their inbuilt metaphors,” said Utz. “Thus, while a German will probably get the idea of ‘thinking outside the box,’ the German will prefer using a different buzz phrase to express the same issue — über den Tellerrand schauen — which is translated as: ‘to look beyond the edge of one’s plate.’”
Despite the potential for buzzwords to be misinterpreted, Utz does not see a decline in thir use in the near future.
“There really is no way for human beings to do without metaphor or buzz phrases. They render us human beings capable of connecting what we know about our physical and social experience with subjects or issues we could otherwise not comprehend.”
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Published in: Georgia Tech News
Social Media Helps Curb Nigerian Election Deathtoll

April 30, 2015

Nunn School professor Michael L. Best was cited in an article on PCWorld discussing the effect social media has had on limiting violence surrounding the recent Nigerian presidential and parliamentary elections, which were the most peaceful in Nigeria since the nation embraced democracy in 1999.
“I do believe that the capacity for social media to connect and inform helped Nigeria conduct a free and fair election and helped to keep violence to a minimum,” said Michael Best via email. "Of course, these technologies are not silver bullets nor do they always contribute to positive elements within a democracy. But during the recent Nigerian elections, our experience monitoring social media over our media aggregation platform, named ‘Aggie,’ demonstrated the power of these technologies can be used for good.”
Along with Thomas Smyth from Sassafras Tech Collective, a worker-owned tech co-op in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Best published a qualitative dual case study, “Tweet to Trust: Social Media and Elections in West Africa,” about social media use during the general elections in Nigeria and Liberia in 2011.
In addition to remarking on media's effect during Nigerian elections, Best noted that the use of social media and technology such as electronic voting systems should not be considered a panacea.
“Electronic voting systems can be beneficial if correctly designed and deployed but too often they are actually detrimental due to lack of smart engineering and weak deployments,” Best said. “Across many parts of the United States, for instance, badly designed e-voting machines have actually reduced the transparency and accountability of that nation’s elections.”
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Dr. Michael L. Best is an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, where he directs the Technologies and International Development Lab. He is also a faculty associate of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and co-founder and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the widely read journal, Information Technologies and International Development.

Published in: PCWorld
The After-Work Email Quandary

April 26, 2015

Ian Bogost (LMC) was quoted in The Atlantic on the ritualistic qualities of reading, sorting, and pruning emails even while out of the office. Bogost suggests that email sorting is simply a default activity when there's nothing much else to do.
"Email pruning doesn’t enact work so much as it simulates work: It’s a ritual—like a secular, corporate rosary—which we perform in the hopes that it will somehow help us leave the domain of ineffectual work and re-enter the domain of gratifying productivity."
Continue to full article...
Ian Bogost is the Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication; holds a joint appointment in the Shool of Interactive Computing; and also holds an appointment in the Scheller College of Business. Bogost is also a contributing editor at The Atlantic.

Published in: The Atlantic
17th Century Precursors of Google Maps on View at Georgia Tech

April 8, 2015

Featuring a vast collection of illustrative world maps compiled in the 1660s, "A Gathering of Continents" has come to Georgia Tech's Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking for a limited time only. Global Atlanta featured a conversation with Ken Knoespal, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, who played a significant role in bringing the exhibition to campus.
“There’s a real sense of this being current,” said Dr. Knoespel, who compared Duth cartographer Joan Blaeu’s telescopic approach to Google Earth technology. Many pages offer detailed glimpses into the architectural and agricultural layout of major cities and regions that serve as a “zoom-in” function for a pre-digital society.
“Google Earth, Google Blaeu,” Dr. Knoespel joked. “You can enter the space.”
The exhibition features a 17th Century Grooten Atlas, one of only a few still left in existence, and will be on display at the Museum of Papermaking until May 15, 2015.
“Every time I come in here I can see something I haven’t seen before,” Dr. Knoespel said with a grin. “Where does that road go? It’s not just museum material. It opens history and opens the way we think about space today.”
Continue to full article...

Published in: Global Atlanta
How to Rethink the Olympic Bid for Boston's Benefit

April 7, 2015

A longitudinal study on public housing conducted by Thomas "Danny" Boston, an economist in the Nunn School, was cited in The Boston Globe article on the Olympic's impact on host cities.
Longitudinal studies by Georgia Tech economist Thomas Boston show that (success following housing displacement) was hardly an aberration. In fact, residents who moved out of one of Atlanta’s many public housing projects and into Section 8 housing were one-and-a-half times more likely to be employed in the long term than those who remained in the projects. And for those who moved into mixed-income complexes like Centennial Place, that job rate was nearly five times higher.
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Published in: The Boston Globe
Hypersexualization of Women at Technology Trade Shows

March 31, 2015

Carlo Colatrella, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was quoted in an article on CNET discussing the presence of scantily clad "booth babes" at technology trade shows to tout products.
"The outcome of dressing women inappropriately, establishing them as eye-candy or as decorative objects or hypersexualized figures, results in people taking women in general less seriously and being less inclined to hire women and promote women into positions of authority," said Carol Colatrella, author of "Toys and Tools in Pink: Cultural Narratives of Gender, Science, and Technology" and co-director of the Georgia Tech Center for the Study of Women, Science and Technology .
Instead of booth babes, "why not just have a neon bulb that goes off to attract people's interest?" Colatrella said.
Colatrella believes the RSA Conference and the other associations instituting dress codes for their tech conferences is a positive move.
"I think it's the right step to treat women as people and not as hyper-sexualized objects," she said. "Whenever you have a professional situation, it's better if all of the professionals are on as equal footing as possible."
Continue to full article...

Published in: CNET
Thomas Lux's Poem Featured in The New Yorker

March 23, 2015

Thomas Lux's poem "Cow Chases Boys," as well as a recorded reading by Lux of the poem, was featured in March 23, 2015 issue of The New Yorker. Lux is a professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication as well as director of the McEver Visiting Writers program and Poetry@Tech.
Cow Chases Boys
What we were thinking
was bombing the cows with dirt balls
from the top of the sandbank,
at the bottom of which ran a cave-cold
brook, spring-born.
We knew the cows would pass below
to drink and we’d pried our clumps of dirt
from a crumbling ledge. Here
August lasted a million years.
There was no “we,”I can tell you that now.
I did this alone. At one cow
I knew as old and cloudy-eyed
I threw the dirt balls as if it were a sport
at which I was skilled.
Boom, a puff of dust off her hip, boom, boom: drilled
her ribs, and neck, and one more
too close to where she made her milk.
She swung round and chased me up an apple tree.
Her rage surprised me, and her alacrity.
She looked up. I looked down at her.
As with many things, I did this alone.
We both knew we’d soon be called home.
Continue to full article...

Published in: The New Yorker

Recent Press Coverage

Why the Islamic State Won't Became a Normal State

Phantom Phone Vibration Syndrome: Is it actually negative?

Kosal on Federal Bioterrorism Policy

Moreno-Cruz Studies How Atlanta Residents Value MARTA

International Nuclear Fuel Bank Enables Peaceful Energy Use

The Reciprocity Phenomena in Congress Co-sponsored Bills

Science Fiction: Equipping Students to Face Infinite Possibilities

Who Are the Victims in FIFA Corruption Scandal?

Why Empathy is the Next Big Thing in Video Games

Porter's Research on Patent Mapping Featured in Georgia Tech Research Horizons

Demise of Sports Dynasties Often Widely Celebrated

Utz's Research on Medievalism Featured by WMU Press

Levine Comments on Stem Cell Treatment in USA TODAY

Buzzwords Dominate Business Communication

Social Media Helps Curb Nigerian Election Deathtoll

The After-Work Email Quandary

17th Century Precursors of Google Maps on View at Georgia Tech

How to Rethink the Olympic Bid for Boston's Benefit

Hypersexualization of Women at Technology Trade Shows

Thomas Lux's Poem Featured in The New Yorker

Cow Chases Boys

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