Crystal Hanson is a quiet but powerful force within the Georgia Institute of Technology — an individual whose influence has shaped programs, strengthened communities, and supported leaders across campus. Her career reflects the profound impact a dedicated staff member can have on an institution, not only through operational excellence but through relationships, mentorship, and an unwavering commitment to service.

A Career Built on Service and Adaptability

Hanson’s journey in higher education began immediately after high school when she joined Purdue University and discovered her passion for supporting students, faculty, and academic communities. She carried that passion across multiple institutions before landing at Tech, building a career grounded in adaptability, resilience, and people-centered service.

Her Georgia Tech chapter began in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), where she supported the Water Resources Engineering group. There, she became a trusted resource for students and faculty alike — a steady presence who celebrated their successes, listened during challenges, and helped build a sense of community. 

Hanson credits Lisa Tuttle in CEE with helping her navigate the Georgia Tech landscape. With Tuttle’s help, she also discovered a talent for event planning and administrative leadership, eventually serving as administration manager and supporting the CEE chair with meetings, alumni engagement, and major departmental initiatives. One of her most memorable experiences was coordinating a trip to NATO headquarters in Belgium, an opportunity that deepened her appreciation for global collaboration and institutional history.

“Crystal was an extraordinary contributor throughout her time in CEE, first in the Water Resources Engineering group and later as the trusted manager of the entire administrative support team,” said Donald Webster, Karen and John Huff School Chair in CEE. “In every role, she brought dedication, professionalism, and genuine care for others. Crystal consistently went above and beyond to support the people of CEE — not only through professional challenges, but also during moments of personal crisis — always with compassion, steadiness, and grace. Her presence made our community stronger, more resilient, and more humane.”

A Trusted Partner in Research Leadership

Hanson later transitioned to the Executive Vice President for Research (EVPR) office, where she worked under leaders including Stephen Cross, Christopher Jones, Giselle Bennett, Raheem Beyah, and Julia Kubanek. Her time in this environment was formative. She absorbed the complexities of research administration, budgeting, and strategic planning, all while contributing to a culture where staff felt valued and included.

“When I joined the EVPR office, and it had only three or four people, it seemed everyone was doing two or three jobs,” said Christopher Jones, who joined the office in 2013 and is now the John F. Brock III School Chair in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “Crystal was an immediate fit, bringing with her organizational and management skills, a sense of humor, and an appreciation of our mission.  She is someone whom I always look forward to seeing, both then and now.”

After Beyah left the EVPR office to become the dean and Southern Company Chair in the College of Engineering, Kubanek became the new vice president for Interdisciplinary Research (VPIR). Together, Kubanek and Hanson built and expanded the VPIR team, helping to shape its operations and identity.

Among her many contributions, Hanson initiated the Interdisciplinary Research Spotlight Awards, recognizing staff and research faculty who go above and beyond in the Interdisciplinary Research Institutes (IRIs). She also shepherded the Research Faculty Teaching Fellows program, ensuring that research faculty across Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech Research Institute had opportunities to develop teaching skills in partnership with the Center for Teaching and Learning.

The Connector at the Heart of the VPIR Office

Crystal describes herself as someone who prefers to work behind the scenes: cleaning up after events, coordinating logistics, and taking on nearly any task that needs to be done. 

“Crystal is the ultimate behind-the-scenes master organizer and people connector,” said Kubanek. “She develops individual relationships that enable her to organize, in short order, a meeting of numerous campus leaders whose calendars should be impossible to align. She comes bearing snacks and a smile and is the heart of our operation.”

Hanson’s deep institutional knowledge and extensive network positioned her to navigate Georgia Tech’s complex landscape. She serves as a bridge between the VPIR office, the IRIs, GTRI, and campus partners, ensuring that communication flows smoothly and people feel supported, informed, and connected.

“Her deep institutional knowledge and strong networks across campus meant she almost always knew the right person to connect with or the best way to move something forward,” said Punya Mardhanan, a former colleague in VPIR and now assistant director of business operations for the Space Research Institute. “Crystal works incredibly efficiently and often completes things before anyone asks. She never seeks recognition for the many ways she supports her team.”

A Colleague, Advisor, and Steady Source of Wisdom

Hanson’s colleagues consistently describe her as someone who not only gets things done but also makes everyone around her better.

“She’s like a mother hen to the VPIR team,” said Rob Kadel, executive director of research program administration. “I can always go to Crystal and say, ‘Who should I talk to about this?’ and she will know exactly who to talk to. She is never afraid to speak her mind. She’s a trusted advisor.”

Her leadership has also extended beyond formal responsibilities. She played a key role in designing the VPIR workspace during renovations, coordinated team retreats and bonding activities, and infused every gathering with energy and warmth.

“She cares so much about the Georgia Tech community,” said Colly Mitchell, director of events and engagement for the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience. “Crystal is incredibly responsive, helpful, and friendly. She brings a big burst of energy to every gathering.”

“Words that immediately come to mind when I think of Crystal are collaborative, dependable, responsive, and a true breadth of knowledge,” adds Cynthia Moore, director of operations for the Institute for People and Technology, who worked alongside Hanson for nearly a decade. “Crystal will truly be missed, along with her knowledge of all things Georgia Tech and research.”

A Legacy of Generosity and Excellence

After nearly 14 years at Georgia Tech, Hanson will retire on April 1. She will be remembered as someone who connected people, solved problems, and always went above and beyond. 

According to Raheem Beyah, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs, “Crystal was simply exceptional. She was a creative thought partner who provided outstanding support and strategic advice, and she became a dear friend. I am a better leader after working with Crystal, and Georgia Tech is a better place because of her. I can’t think of many people who deserve a wonderful retirement more than she does.”

Hanson looks forward to spending more time with her family, including her two daughters and two granddaughters, whose busy schedules she is eager to be part of. She and her husband have plans for travel, concerts — including those of her son-in-law’s band, Grouplove — and perhaps even a cruise around the world.

Georgia Tech extends its deepest gratitude to Crystal Hanson for her years of exceptional service, leadership, and dedication. Her impact will continue to resonate across the VPIR office, the IRIs, and the broader research community.

We wish her joy, adventure, and well-deserved rest in the next chapter of her life.

Pregnant women often worry about their babies’ health in between doctor’s visits, but a new mobile app can help put them at ease.

Studies show that one in five pregnant women experience perinatal anxiety, which is characterized by intense negative thoughts about their pregnancy.

Those women will soon be able to conduct an ultrasound and receive an accurate fetal heart rate from their mobile phones.

DopFone uses smartphone speakers to emit a low-pitched ultrasound that detects reflected signals of abdominal surface vibrations caused by fetal cardiac activity.

Alex Adams, an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing and faculty member in the Institute for People and Technology, said he came up with the idea for DopFone as he and his wife, Elise, suffered through two miscarriages. Elise couldn’t reliably measure the fetal heart rate with a commodity fetal Doppler heart rate monitor.

Those experiences exposed some gaps in the maternal healthcare process.

“There are a lot of great devices in hospitals and clinics, but there’s not much outside of those venues, even for high-risk pregnancies,” Adams said. “This is about filling the gaps between checkups.”

Poojita Garg joined Adams to work on DopFone while completing her master’s at Georgia Tech. She is now pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Washington and is co-advised by Professor Shwetak Patel, who earned his Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in 2008.

Garg is working with the University of Washington School of Medicine to conduct DopFone’s first clinical trials.

Garg tested DopFone on 23 patients and achieved a plus-minus of 4.9 beats per minute, well within the clinical standard for reliable fetal heart rate measurement of plus-minus 8 beats per minute.

Adams said it measured within plus minus 2 beats per minute in most cases with an error rate of less than 1 percent.

About 1 million pregnancies in the U.S. end in miscarriage, according to a study from the Yale School of Medicine, and doctors know little about what causes them. Adams said that number is probably higher because many go unreported.

Adams and Garg said it’s unclear whether the innovation could reduce the number of miscarriages. However, consistent fetal heart rate data collection outside of the doctor’s office could provide a better idea of what happens leading up to a miscarriage.

“From there, we can take preventative action,” Adams said. “If nothing else, we can give a sense of comfort to those who may be worried.”

Expanding Access

While couples can purchase portable fetal heart rate monitors, Adams and Garg see DopFone as a low-cost alternative for those who live in areas with poor or inaccessible healthcare systems. 

“There’s a lot of potential for using it in what doctors like to call maternity deserts,” Garg said. “These are areas where a pregnant person, at the time of delivery, would have to travel long distances to reach a hospital. This technology will be useful globally in underdeveloped areas of the world.”

The researchers also said external add-ons and attachments aren’t included in their design goals. They prefer to use what’s built into the phone to keep the technology accessible.

“The real value is that 96% of America already has the technology in their pocket, along with 60% of the world’s population,” Adams said. “Half of the battle is having the right tools. The more we can get form what’s already in the phone, the more we can guarantee people have access to it.”

Not a Substitute

Some patients may feel a constant need to check the heart rate, and Garg acknowledged a tool like DopFone could increase that anxiety. She and Adams said a future version of the app will tell the parent if the heart rate is within a healthy range.

“There’s a lot of tradeoffs between a tool that could provide reassurance or create anxiety,” she said. “We want the use of this tool to be recommended by a doctor and for doctors and their care teams to be kept in the loop.”

She also said DopFone is not meant to replace anything that is done in a clinic.

“There are devices that make the whole process possible at home, but this is something that should be done in a clinic, so that’s the line we want to draw,” she said.

Georgia Tech doctoral student Charles Nimo has been selected as the newest recipient of the Roland Ewubare Fellowship in Societal Engagement and Impact, a philanthropic program supporting underrepresented graduate students whose research advances community focused, socially relevant scholarship.

Funded by Roland Ewubare, a distinguished Nigerian lawyer and corporate executive, the fellowship recognizes emerging scholars whose master’s or doctoral work meaningfully connects with societal engagement and impact. 

The program expands opportunities for graduate researchers committed to addressing real world challenges through innovative, community centered inquiry.

Nimo is a third year Ph.D. student in computer science and a graduate research assistant in the Technologies and International Development Lab led by Michael L. Best, executive director of the Institute for People and Technology and professor in both the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Interactive Computing. He is co-advised by Irfan Essa, professor in the School of Interactive Computing.

Nimo’s research explores human centered natural language processing for healthcare, as well as multilingual AI systems in low resource contexts. Nimo develops tools to evaluate and improve the safety, robustness, and global inclusion of language technologies. His broader goal is to build AI systems that are fair, reliable, and effective across diverse languages and cultures, helping ensure that technological advances benefit communities often overlooked in mainstream AI development.

“I’m very grateful to receive this fellowship for societal impact,” Nimo said. “Thank you for this support and believing in the work, and I’m excited to keep building research that translates into real world benefit.”

Nimo earned his B.S. in electrical and computer engineering from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, and his M.S. in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin.

Now in its fourth year, the Stretch Robot Pitch Competition continues to evolve into one of Georgia Tech’s most imaginative and human‑centered design challenges. Hosted by the TechSAge Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (part of which is located in CIDI), the competition brings together students from across the Institute to create innovative applications for Stretch –  a lightweight, open source mobile manipulator robot with reaching, sensing, and grasping capabilities. Stretch was developed by Hello Robot which was co‑founded by former Georgia Tech professor Charlie Kemp. 

With its compact form factor, capable arm, and relatively affordable price, Stretch has already become a favorite among researchers looking to push the boundaries of assistive robotics. The pitch competition invites Georgia Tech students to imagine not just what the robot can do, but what it should do to meaningfully improve daily life for people aging with disabilities.

This year, teams across several disciplines—from engineering, to business, to computing, and the sciences—submitted video pitches outlining how their technology concept tackles real-world problems users face. The winning team earned $1,000 and, more importantly, the chance to spend a semester working with Stretch in Georgia Tech’s Aware Home turning their pitch into a working prototype. Sponsors included TechSAge, AI-CARING, the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT), and Hello Robot.

First place was awarded to “Chef Stretch,” a concept aimed at helping older adults with disabilities determine whether food has spoiled so they can prepare and consume food safely. The five-student team included Caitlin Woodward and Elizabeth Thompson (College of Engineering), Aditi Ashok (Scheller College of Business), and Michelle Gu and Vedita Sawhney (College of Sciences).

While Chef Stretch took the top prize, the judges awarded an honorable mention to Ali Vafaeian (College of Computing) for “Bimanual Clothes Manipulation and Assisted Dressing” with a $500 cash prize. His proposal tackles another essential activity of daily living, dressing, which can be challenging task for many individuals with mobility impairments. 

Read more about this competition and watch the winning students pitches >>

The Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) is deeply engaged in advancing pediatric research and clinical innovation through a partnership with the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Pediatric Technology Center at Georgia Tech (PTC). The center brings clinical experts from Children’s together with Georgia Tech scientists and engineers to develop technological solutions to problems in the health and care of children. The PTC provides opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration to create breakthrough discoveries that enhance the lives of children and young adults in Georgia and beyond.

IPaT is supporting research within two of PTC’s three core research pillars: data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence; and patient‑centered care delivery. PTC’s third research pillar is focused on technologies and devices. With the expertise of IPaT’s research scientists, these joint efforts combine scientific expertise, clinical insight, and shared funding that are helping to transform research innovations into operational tools that directly support pediatric patient care at Children’s.

“IPaT is bringing two core competencies to both of these research pillars,” said Maribeth Gandy Coleman, IPaT’s director of research. “First, we’re advocating for and supporting the use of people-centered techniques to inform the research and co-designing the resulting system with all the stakeholders. Second, we’re also making sure we can translate this research into a real return on investment for Children’s. We are ensuring that what we design can be deployed in the hospital, and that it can be integrated with their existing systems and merge as seamlessly as possible with their existing workflows.”

Supporting Data Science, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence (Pillar 1)
Pillar 1 focuses on harnessing artificial intelligence to enable more personalized and predictive pediatric care. The work aims to improve data collection infrastructure, support equitable AI practices, and build a Children’s-Georgia Tech pediatric AI collaboration that integrates advanced AI tools into clinical workflows.

Clinical Deterioration Prediction
One of the flagship projects within Pillar 1 involves developing machine learning models that can detect clinical deterioration in hospitalized children. The goal is to identify when a patient needs urgent escalation to the intensive care unit — faster and more accurately than traditional monitoring.

To achieve this, IPaT research scientists are:

• Extracting and securely transferring electronic health record (EHR) data from Children’s clinical systems.
• Training predictive models using that real‑world data.
• Building the software infrastructure required to deploy these models inside Children’s.
• Integrating model outputs directly into the EHR using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources communication protocols. (FHIR is an international standard for the electronic exchange of healthcare information.)

This infrastructure is intentionally designed not just for this single project but as a repeatable, scalable framework for future AI‑enabled clinical tools developed through the Children’s-Georgia Tech partnership.

AI-Enhanced Decision-Making for Hospital Operations
A second emerging project under Pillar 1 aims to address one of healthcare’s most persistent operational challenges: ICU capacity management. Seasonal fluctuations, such as surges in flu or Covid‑19 cases, can create sudden ICU demand surges and staff illnesses, which can make scheduling and staffing decisions challenging.

IPaT is building models that incorporate historical hospital activity, seasonal variation, and real‑time census and staffing levels to predict scheduling needs and help Children’s optimize resource allocation. This research is just beginning, but holds the potential for improving both care delivery and staff well‑being. More importantly, IPaT is applying user-centered design and research techniques along with the engineering work to engage with Children’s people and processes to ensure that these prediction and resource allocation models actually work, and that they will actually be used and useful in the Children’s clinical environment. 
 

Supporting Patient‑Centered Care Delivery (Pillar 2)
Pillar 2 seeks to improve pediatric outcomes by focusing on the “whole child” — physical, psychological, social, and emotional well‑being — while accounting for the needs of families, caregivers, and community environments. Particular emphasis is placed on behavioral health, rural healthcare access, and chronic illness in underserved populations.

IPaT contributes to this work on two fronts:

User Experience and Workflow Research
IPaT’s user experience (UX) researchers conduct interviews, workflow studies, and design evaluations with Children’s clinicians and staff. This human‑centered research helps shape the interfaces, processes, and technologies needed to deliver patient‑centered care in practical, usable ways. These contributions ensure that tools created through the partnership align with the realities of clinical practice.

Data Integration for Behavioral and Social Insights
For Pillar 2 research, IPaT’s secure data enclave enables Children’s EHR data to be transferred, stored, and analyzed in a HIPAA‑compliant environment. Researchers are using this infrastructure to combine clinical data with voluntarily contributed social media information from consenting participants. The aim is to explore indicators of psychological well‑being, behavioral health trends, and early warnings related to self‑harm.
 

A Secure, Scalable Data Infrastructure to Support Both Pillars
The IPaT secure data enclave provides a protected, secure environment for storing and analyzing sensitive patient information. It serves as the backbone connecting Georgia Tech researchers with Children’s clinical systems. Both Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 research initiatives rely on this Georgia Tech IPaT-managed secure infrastructure to safely enable:

• EHR data transfer and storage.
• Machine learning model development.
• Testing and validation workflows.
• Eventual operational deployment back into Children’s systems.

This secure, scalable architecture is central to the shared goal of translating research into actionable clinical tools.

Accelerating Pediatric Discovery 
Georgia Tech’s partnership with Children’s represents a powerful model for cross‑institutional innovation. By aligning IPaT’s strengths in human‑centered design, machine learning, and secure data systems with Children’s clinical expertise, IPaT is helping to build solutions that move quickly from concept to bedside.

As these projects grow, especially with the ongoing expansion of the clinical deterioration system and the launch of the AI-enhanced operations initiative, IPaT research scientists anticipate even greater opportunities to support Children’s mission and improve pediatric health outcomes.

Thank you to Richard Starr for providing insight about these research projects.