​ Covid-19 

On The Front Lines of A Pandemic


With the technical expertise and know-how to handle challenges caused by the pandemic, Georgia Tech alumni have become an unyielding force in the fight against the virus.  

If you are an alum doing the extraordinary to support others during these unprecedented times, please let us know by sending your work and a photo to editor@alumni.gatech.edu.  

 


Fighting to Save Lives

With the number of people infected with the coronavirus in the U.S. surpassing one million, these Yellow Jackets in the medical field are fighting to save lives.

Paul A. Garcia, PhD BioE 04
He’s the division chief of neuroanesthesia at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, where he’s treating critical Covid-19 patients. He’s also collaborating with Georgia Tech researchers on technology that would improve patient monitoring and enhance protections against the virus for doctors and nurses.
Charley Winter, Bio 12
As an anesthesiologist assistant in Atlanta, he’s working with Covid-19 patients and those suspected of having the disease.
Julie Champion, BME 12
What’s an engineer in the healthcare field do during a pandemic? Engineer Julie Champion is senior improvement consultant for Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta. In her role, she leads projects focused on reducing patient harm. Now, she’s also focused on Covid-19.
Bronwen Garner, IA 03
Dr. Garner’s job is to make sense of what we know—and what we don’t know, yet—about the novel coronavirus to protect patients and health care workers at Piedmont’s 11 hospitals and more than 250 locations.
Cheryl Tolliver, IE 81
Cheryl Tolliver is a pediatrician in private practice in Valdosta, Ga. A lack of adequate PPE has made keeping her patients and staff safe during the pandemic extra stressful, she says.
PJ Lynn, BME 08
Measures meant to quell the rising tide of coronavirus cases have also separated patients from a key life support—their loved ones. “The hardest part is having a really sick patient come in and not allowing their family members to be with them,” says Dr. PJ Lynn, BME 05.

Engineering Emergency Medical Supplies

These Yellow Jackets in the engineering and medical device fields are working to produce emergency devices and supplies during the pandemic.

Victor Menezes, ME 19
In Brazil, he’s led the engineering side of a project to develop an emergency ventilator that uses resuscitation bags. The project could be a game-changer for treating Covid-19 patients in developing countries where resources are limited.
Galen Robertson, ME 02, MS ME 04
He’s COO of 410 Medical, which produces LifeFlow, a device that’s been used to treat certain Covid-19 patients with hypotension and sepsis. The device’s unique design makes it easy to use in a variety of locations including those set up to treat Covid-19 patients.
Paul Todd, IMGT 86
Through the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership, he’s helping Georgia companies ramp up production of medical supplies during the pandemic including one Atlanta brewery that went from producing spirits to sanitizer for emergency responders.
Gregory Kolovich, EE 04 and Evan Ruff, CE 03, MBA 07
OXOS Medical, founded by two Georgia Tech alumni, is responding to the National Science Foundation’s call for proposals for specialized equipment to be considered under the Rapid Response Research funding mechanism to develop processes and actions to address the global coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic.
Michael O'Toole, IE 00, MS MoT 06
O'Toole is executive director of Piedmont Healthcare's quality improvement department. He and other Georgia Tech alumni worked with Institute researchers to build an automated decision tree for ordering Covid-19 retests for patients.
Kamil Makhnejia, MBID 15
As COO of Georgia Tech spin-off Jackson Medical, he’s working every connection he has inside and outside the medical industry to help solve supply chain issues and get PPE in the hands of healthcare providers. He’s also volunteering his time to help create a career support program for individuals facing career or professional instability caused by the pandemic.
Varun Yarabarla, BMED 16
Collaborating with 11 others, he helped start a nonprofit to bring a low-cost ventilator to market.
Rachel Wood, IE 10
In the chaotic early days of the pandemic in New York, she left her home in Georgia to oversee the launch and operation of Covid-19 pop-up testing sites across New York’s Brooklyn borough.

racing to produce millions of face masks

Even before guidelines were issued for the public recommending the use of face coverings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, there was a need for personal protective equipment for emergency responders and healthcare workers. These Georgia Tech alumni are striving to fill shortages by sewing face masks, 3D-printing face shields, and leveraging their networks to bolster supply chains.

Laura Slate Shope, ID 99
She’s put her regular business on hold while she sews face masks to sell to individuals and donate to healthcare workers.
Robert "Bob" Sytz, Text 58 and Ron Sytz, ME 83
Beverly Knits, which was founded by a Georgia Tech alumnus and is now operated by his son, who is also a Tech alum, led a coalition of textile producers to retool production operations and begin producing millions of face masks in the U.S. each week.
Kathryn Lanier, PhD Chem 17
She’s the STEM Education Outreach Director for Southern Research and she’s been hand sewing face masks, including masks with the GT logo, for hospitals and healthcare workers.
Caroline Dunn, EE 97, MS EE 99
She worked with a DIY community of volunteer makers, engineers, and fabricators to 3D-print face shields for local healthcare workers and bias tape makers for local seamsters who are sewing face masks.
Georgia Tech Alumni From China Donate Equipment for Healthcare Workers
Georgia Tech alumni and more than 300 families of current and past Tech students from China donated several thousand face masks, as well as hundreds of safety goggles and face shields for the Institute to use and share with area medical providers. The Georgia Tech China Education Foundation contributed to the effort, and UPS, a Georgia Tech corporate partner, delivered the personal protective equipment (PPE). 

maintaining community

Social distancing is one of the main ways the public can help stop the spread of the coronavirus. These Yellow Jackets have found ways to share information and maintain a sense of community from afar.

Walton Baxter, ME 93
As a scientist at Medtronic, he knows how important early-career mentorship can be. So, he’s working with Georgia Tech’s biomedical engineering office to connect students with mentors during the pandemic.
Jennifer Kraft Leavey, Chem 95
She’s created a “Stay At Home Journal Club” to share brief videos of peer-reviewed research papers about everything from the test for antibodies to coronavirus in cats.

Doing Business Remotely

Learn how these Yellow Jackets have used technology to help businesses pivot during the coronavirus pandemic.

Bailey O'Leary, EnvE 11, Brendan O'Leary, ChemE 11, and Brain O'Conner, CS 08
When states banned on-premise drinking and dining as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, independent brewery owners were naturally concerned that they'd see business dry up overnight. But, three Georgia Tech alumni were ready with a plan: The created Biermi, a new consumer-direct digital sales platform designed for independent breweries. 
Alfie Meek, Econ 91, Joe W. Rogers, III, IM 68, and Clay Pirkle, Econ 89
Three Georgia Tech alumni serve on Gov. Brian Kemp's coronavirus task force, which looks at the economic, health, emergency response and preparedness, and housing implications of the virus.
TJ Muehleman, Mgt 00
His company, Standard Co, is a global health data company helps organizations around the world better understand the distribution of disease through data using their platform, Secure Data Kit. When the pandemic began, Muehleman and his team created an online database to help communities keep track of Covid-19 across the U.S.
Salil Sethi, CS 05
A startup founded by a Georgia Tech alum offers job search tools to help those impacted by the pandemic. Salil Sethi, founder of Prosper Circle, shares his thoughts on how the pandemic is changing work and what skills recruiters will look for in new hires.

Georgia Tech: Responding to COVID-19

Georgia Tech researchers, students, and staff are leading the fight against the virus, working to produce immediate and long-term solutions to problems caused by the pandemic.

Georgia Tech Produces Key Components for Governor’s Coronavirus Test Initiative
While social distancing, Georgia Tech researchers will begin producing coronavirus tests in campus labs to support plans for expanded testing across Georgia.
Open-AirVentGT Emergency Ventilator Provides Patient Monitoring, Feedback Control
A team of Georgia Tech researchers designed a low-cost, portable ventilator that addresses acute respiratory distress syndrome in patients with COVID-19.
Do-It-Yourself Medical Devices and Protective Gear Fuel Battle Against Covid-19
In March, Georgia Tech researchers and students raced to design and produce 3D-printed face shields for local hospitals when personal protective equipment was in short supply.
Will Smartphones Help Us Keep Covid-19 Under Control?
Research conducted by the Georgia Tech Research Institute may be key to using smartphone data for “contact tracing”—tracking who may have encountered a person who has tested positive for the coronavirus—while also protecting user privacy.
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