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With Just 1 Plant Under Construction, Nuclear Renaissance Stalls

August 7, 2017

Marilyn Brown, professor in the School of Public Policy was quoted in “With Just 1 Plant Under Construction, Nuclear Renaissance Stalls” for WABE FM 90.1.

Excerpt:

A decade ago, utility executives and policymakers dreamed of a clean energy future powered by a new generation of cheap, safe nuclear reactors. Projects to expand existing nuclear plants in South Carolina and Georgia were supposed to be the start of the "nuclear renaissance." But following the decision last week by two utilities to scrap the expansion at the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Generating Station in South Carolina, that vision is in tatters. There's now just one nuclear expansion project left in the country, its future is also uncertain … With encouragement from the federal government, utilities around the country began applying for permission to build new reactors. At Vogtle in Georgia and V.C. Summer in South Carolina, power companies got to work. “I thought it was going to be a very good thing for the Southern economy,” says Marilyn Brown, a public policy professor at Georgia Tech and board member of the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates three older nuclear power plants in Alabama and Tennessee … According to Brown, “that meant if you went back to reappraise the nuclear investments, they probably would not have been approved, or might not have been approved.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: WABE FM 90.1
A Googler's Would-Be Manifesto Reveals Tech's Rotten Core

August 7, 2017

Ian Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, wrote “A Googler’s Would-Be Manifesto Reveals Tech’s Rotten Core” for The Atlantic.

Excerpt:

An anonymous Google software engineer’s 10-page fulmination against workplace diversity was leaked from internal company communications systems, including an internal version of Google+, the company’s social network, and another service that Gizmodo, which published the full memo, called an “internal meme network.”

“I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes,” the Googler writes, “and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.”

The memo has drawn rage and dismay since its appearance Saturday, when it was first reported by Motherboard. It seemed to dash hopes that much progress has been made in unraveling the systemic conditions that produce and perpetuate inequity in the technology industry.

For the full article, read here.

Published in: The Atlantic
Why Killing Terrorist Leaders Doesn't Necessarily Wipe Out Their Organizations

August 7, 2017

Jenna Jordan, assistant professor in the Ivan Allen College Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech was quoted in “Why killing terrorist leaders doesn't necessarily wipe out their organizations” for Baltimore Sun.

Excerpt:

Analysts don’t expect the policy of targeting militant leaders to change under the Trump administration.

But many analysts also say that while removing leaders may hurt militant groups, there are numerous examples of new leadership taking charge and continuing their missions. In some instances, analysts said, killing terrorist leaders fueled even more violence.

“The prevailing wisdom has been for a long time that taking out terrorist leaders helps to destabilize their groups,” said Jenna Jordan, assistant professor of International Affairs at Georgia Tech, who is writing a book on the subject. “But it's unlikely to diminish a large terrorist group's activities in the long run.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: Baltimore Sun
The New Wave in Digital Humanities.

August 2, 2017

Lauren Klein, assistant professor in the Georgia Tech School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was featured as one of five “rising stars” of the digital humanities in an article in Inside Higher Ed, “The New Wave in Digital Humanities.”

Excerpt:

How can you do digital humanities at an engineering school? Klein models how to both practice digital humanities and cultivate a broad interest in the humanities. Working at a large public research institution, Klein founded the DH Lab to create meaningful research opportunities for students.

“Students tend to come in with computational questions, and it’s my job to introduce them to humanistic ones,” she explains. While her undergraduates are eager to perform portfolio-worthy technical research, Klein also brings students to the annual Alliance of Digital Humanities Organization (ADHO) conference, where they present on humanities work.

Klein’s own scholarship deploys data visualization in conjunction with literary and critical techniques, calling attention to people and stories that might otherwise be overlooked. Janet Murray, associate dean for research and faculty affairs, observed, “Lauren’s work is among the most sophisticated technically and critically of those practicing digital humanities.”

In addition to visualizing the culinary labor of the enslaved men and women who cooked for Thomas Jefferson, Klein’s most recent work, The Shape of History, completed with her students, excavates forgotten historical visualization schemes.

“Lauren is a brilliant scholar, a skilled researcher, a careful editor, and generous collaborator,” explained Gold. “I wanted to edit Debates in the Digital Humanities with her because she is independent-minded, fair, empathetic, and wise; she has a great sense of where the field is and where it is heading.”

Klein and Gold are uniquely equipped to shape digital humanities through Debates, one of the field’s pre-eminent publications. “I see my role as helping to clarify and amplify the perspectives that our writers each bring to the book,” said Klein. “The field can only gain by placing people in conversation.”

Klein hopes these various practitioners will use digital humanities to facilitate collaboration. “I think we will see a continuation of the specialization and sophistication that has characterized the most exemplary recent work in the field,” she noted. “But I’d hate to see that come along with additional barriers. We’ll only need more ways of facilitating conversation, collaboration, and credit as the field continues to grow.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: Inside Higher Ed
Cold War Espionage Paid Off—Until it Backfired, East German Spy Records Reveal

August 1, 2017

Kristie Macrakis, professor in the Georgia Tech School of History and Sociology, was quoted in an article in Science “Cold War espionage paid off — until it backfired, East German spy records reveal.”

Excerpt:

Historian Kristie Macrakis of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who has spent more than a decade studying Stasi databases — including the one used in the current study — agrees. “I was really excited that someone crunched these numbers,” she says. “They basically quantified what I did [already] in a qualitative way.” Macrakis, who has argued that East German industrial espionage was ultimately a failure, says the next step is to look at how the stolen technology was integrated into individual East German firms, who often requested — and received — the stolen information.

For the full article, read here.

Published in: Science
Selected New Books on Higher Education

August 1, 2017

Karen Head’s book “Disrupt This! MOOCs and the Promises of Technology” was among the “Selected New Books on Higher Education” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Head is an associate professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Published in: The Chronicle of Higher Education
Bowl Him a Chinaman

August 1, 2017

Professor Emeritus John Garver in the Ivan Allen College Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech was interviewed about the Doklam standoff for Outlook India.

I believe China’s strategy is to win without fighting. To build gradually a position of overwhelming strength, compelling India to recognize the untenability of trying to contain China. For example, by building roads to the Siliguri Corridor, undoing India’s special relations with Bhutan, extending rail to Kathmandu, anti-access submarines to Pakistan etc. I seriously doubt the United States, let alone Japan, actually entering a China-India conflict. They will maintain a pro-India neutrality only. This is the point underlined in commentaries in the Chinese media as well. The bottomline of the Chinese view is clear: India is unable to contain China in South Asia and India ultimately recognizes and accepts this reality.

Read the article here.

Published in: Outlook India
Panel Assessing Whether ICANN’s US Jurisdiction Hurts Accountability, Domain Name Owners

July 31, 2017

The Internet Governance Project blog, directed by Milton Mueller, professor in the Ivan Allen College School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech, was quoted in the July 31, 2017, edition of the Washington Internet Daily on whether “U.S. foreign policy hampers internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) from approving registries and accrediting registrars, and what impact jurisdiction has on delegation of country code top-level domain names (ccTLDs).”

Farzanah Badiei, Executive Director of Internet Governance Project, was quoted in the same article.

Excerpt:

The Internet Governance Project (IGP) highlighted these issues in April comments and a July 20 blog. It said as part of its foreign policy, the U.S. imposes sanctions on other countries that when applied to domain name registrars and registries “can hamper access to the domain name system by innocent users and businesses.” The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) maintains a list of designated nationals U.S. persons can’t transact with, IGP said. Without a general license, even those not listed often can’t freely transact with U.S. persons but must get an OFAC license, it said. That involves a long process and ICANN doesn’t commit itself to applying for a license for registrars, it said.”

U.S. laws such as 1914’s Trading With the Enemy Act, the Cuban Assets Control Regulation and
Iranian Sanctions and Transaction Regulation govern many aspects of transactions between those countries and the U.S., IGP wrote. The U.S. also can enforce sanctions through executive orders that could affect domain name system (DNS) customers, it said: Use of executive orders can create uncertainty as presidential administrations change.

Asked whether the subgroup is likely to act given the few responses, IGP Executive Director Farzanah Badiei said: “We can take concrete actions and advocate for resolving the issues ... or at least express them and establish that they are valid issues that ordinary customers of DNS face.” Actions could include changing ICANN policies, clarifying complicated OFAC issues for DNS users and seeking a general OFAC license, said Badiei, a panel member. ICANN jurisdictional issues should be resolved through legal or policy solutions that come from within the organization, she said. Changing ICANN’s jurisdiction or making it an international body, as some prefer, “is not the answer.”

Full Article may be located on the Washington Internet Daily site *Subscription required

Published in: Washington Internet Daily
Why Zuckerberg and Musk Are Fighting About the Robot Future

July 28, 2017

Ian Bogost, professor in the Georgia Tech School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was mentioned in an article in The Atlantic “Why Zuckerberg and Musk Are Fighting about the Robot Future”

Excerpt:

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are having a spat about whether or not artificial intelligence is going to kill us all.

Musk, the chief of Tesla and SpaceX, who has longstanding worries about the potentially apocalyptic future of artificial intelligence (AI), recently returned to that soapbox, making an appeal for proactive regulations on AI. “I keep sounding the alarm bell,” he told attendees at a National Governors Association meeting this month. “But until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react.”

In a Facebook Live broadcast, Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, offered riposte. He called Musk a “naysayer” and accused his doomsday fears of unnecessary negativity. “In some ways I actually think it is pretty irresponsible,” Zuckerberg scolded. Musk then retorted on Twitter: “I’ve talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: The Atlantic
This Standoff is China Telling India to Accept Changing Realities

July 21, 2017

Professor Emeritus John Garver wrote an article entitled, “This Standoff is China Telling India to Accept Changing Realities," for the South China Morning Post.

From Beijing’s perspective, New Delhi is colluding with Japan and the US to stifle China’s natural and rightful rise to a position manifesting “the China Dream” and to which China’s glorious history entitles it. The appropriate response for India would be, Beijing believes, to credit China’s reassurances of non-threat and friendship, partner with China on the BRI and to deal with regional security issues.

Read Dr. Garver's article here.

Published in: South China Morning Post
China’s Hukou System: An Interview with Fei-Ling Wang

July 19, 2017

Fei-Ling Wang, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech was interviewed by alumna Priyanka Juneja. The article entitled, “China’s Hukou System,” was published by the Diplomat Magazine.

Excerpt:

The promised hukou reform was a major part of the new reform proposal. They [China’s government] want to speed up urbanization, and allow more people from the countryside to live in the cities. They are hoping to use increased urbanization as an engine to drive more growth – people move to cities they buy a house, buy cars, buy services, goods, and so on, so forth.

Read the full article here.

Published in: The Diplomat
Bioinformation Wants to Be Free and Responsible

July 19, 2017

Margaret Kosal, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs was cited in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.

Excerpt:

“Sometimes a seemingly innocuous project can take on more malevolent overtones,” Dr. Kosal explains. “For example, a biotech company in southeast Asia decided to engineer a more potent form of the botulinum toxin. From a commercial point of view this makes sense, as less of the product would be needed to have the same effect in cosmetic and medical treatments. Unfortunately, from a biosecurity standpoint, this means the potency of a potential biological weapon increased.”

Read the complete article here.

Published in: Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News
‘Game of Thrones’ Among the Medievalists

July 14, 2017

Richard Utz, professor and chair in the Ivan Allen College School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech, authored the “‘Game of Thrones’ Among the Medievalists” making the case that trying to turn the globally popular television show into a means of encouraging future medieval scholars is misguided.

Excerpt:

Clearly, an impactful cultural phenomenon like GoT deserves to be read as a self-standing cultural artifact, not as a derivative of its potential medieval models or a pretext for sustaining an academic discipline. So far, too often, medievalists have shown a narrowly parasitic relationship with medievalist and neomedievalist cultural productions.

Read Utz's full commentary

Published in: Inside Higher Ed
Game of Thrones Is Even Changing How Scholars Study the Real Middle Ages

July 14, 2017

On Sunday, July 16, HBO broadcast the first episode of season seven of the show, Game of Thrones (GoT). Last year at least 23 million Americans watched each episode of season six, and the program was seen in more than 170 countries.

Richard Utz, a scholar of medieval studies and professor and chair in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication in Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College, was quoted in this article in Time on the impact of the show in higher education. He specializes in the study of literature, film, media, and communication. His research also focuses on the reception of medieval culture in post-medieval times.

Excerpt:

When the next season of the hit HBO series Game of Thrones starts on Sunday, it will be a short one, with the last episode of this batch scheduled to air on Aug. 27. That fact may frustrate some eager to find out who will win the Iron Throne, but it’s good news for a particular subset of fans. After all, September is back to school season. As TIME first reported, Harvard will offer an undergraduate medieval studies course inspired by Game of Thrones this fall and Boston College is offering a graduate-level one in spring 2018 — just the latest examples of similarly themed courses offered at American schools ranging from the University of California, Berkeley to Virginia Tech, as well as universities overseas… “Most [institutions] would say that they don’t have to pay you $120,000 a year to talk about Game of Thrones,” echoes Richard Utz (Georgia Tech), President of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism, who argued on Friday in an Inside Higher Ed op-ed that medieval studies departments should beware of relying too heavily on Game of Thrones (which is, after all, still just a work of fantasy) as a recruitment tool. Those within the field disagree over whether it’s proper to contextualize the original medieval texts within anything but their own original medieval world, and traditionally the answer has been that it is not.

Read the full article

Published in: Time
Writing for Wider Audiences: Structural Challenges for Scholars

July 13, 2017

Ian Bogost, professor in the Georgia Tech School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was mentioned in an article in Inside Higher Ed “Writing for Wider Audiences: Structural Challenges for Scholars”

Excerpt:

“When it comes to writing for wider audiences, what are the key challenges that scholars face? In these pages, Christopher Schaberg and Ian Bogost recently listed 10,ranging from academics’ lack of knowledge of the publishing world to their seemingly “jerky” attitudes.

While Schaberg and Bogost recognize that writing for nonacademic audiences “isn’t for everyone.” Our ongoing research on the perceptions and activities of U.S. faculty highlights that, in reality, these activities are for hardly anyone. In order to address the challenges for scholars in writing for broader audiences, we must first recognize and contend with the major structural barriers that prevent scholars from doing so.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: Inside Higher Ed
Farmer Tales: Concrete Jungle

July 10, 2017

Carl DiSalvo, an associate professor in the Digital Media Program in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication in the Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, was mentioned in “Farmer Tales: Concrete Jungle” for Creative Loafing.

Excerpt:

Science tells us that we homo sapiens have been walking on this spinning dust ball for about 200,000 years, yet the first farms didn’t pop up until only 10 or 15,000 years ago. So what’s with the gap? How did our species survive for all those millennia without farmers to grow our food? The answer, of course, is foraging: the ancient process of gleaning naturally growing fruit and nuts from the land. And here in our little "city in a forest," which boasts the densest tree coverage of all major US cities, the practice remains alive and well. At the heart of this pre-agricultural revamp is Concrete Jungle, an Atlanta nonprofit that pairs foraging with farming to benefit some of the most at-risk members of our community… The organization is also pushing the bounds of technology. Through an official partnership with Georgia Tech, they’ve explored the use of drones, virtual tree mapping and various sensors to indicate when a tree is ready for picking. “Collaborating with Concrete Jungle is some of the most exciting and inspiring design work we get to do,” says Tech professor Carl DiSalvo, Ph.D., who heads up the partnership. “Concrete Jungle is all about new ways that we can care for each other.” DiSalvo believes this kind of compassionate research and design is exactly the kind that public institutions like his should be taking on. “It’s important to do because it’s never going to be done by corporate design studios, not even those focused on innovation,” he says. “Because it’s not about making technology for commercialization, it’s about designing so that we can better care for our communities.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: Creative Loafing
Olympic Medal, Earned; Glory, Denied; Future, Uncertain

July 7, 2017

Chaunté Lowe, an alumna of the School of Economics (B.S. 2008) in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech, is a four-time Olympic competitor and now she has become an Olympic bronze medalist. She was featured in “Olympic Medal, Earned; Glory, Denied; Future, Uncertain” by The New York Times.

Excerpt:

“To watch as Chaunté Lowe took her high jumps at the Prefontaine Classic here in late May was to see a great athlete with a busted wing … If Lowe’s athletic clock is ticking down, if she competed in her final Olympics last summer in Rio de Janeiro, she can draw comfort in what happened in November … She read a news report: Three Olympians — two Russians and a Ukrainian — who had finished in front of her in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing failed retroactive doping tests. She had moved from sixth to third place. She had become an Olympic bronze medalist. It was her first medal … She sprinted, triple-jumped, hurdled and scored in the classroom, too. At Georgia Tech, she finished with a 4.0 grade-point average. Her coach there, Nat Page, became a surrogate father. When she married Mario Lowe, Page walked her down the aisle.”

For the full article, read here.

Published in: The New York Times
ICANN Ignores Data Protection Experts as It Considers EU Privacy Rules, Privacy Advocates Say

June 27, 2017

Milton Mueller, professor in the School of Public Policy in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech, and Peter Swire, a Scheller professor with courtesy appointment in School of Public Policy, were quoted in “ICANN Ignores Data Protection Experts as It Considers EU Privacy Rules, Privacy Advocates Say” for Washington Internet Daily.

Excerpt:

ICANN “better be” thinking about how to comply with the GDPR, wrote Professor Milton Mueller for the Internet Governance Project. “Everyone knows ICANN’s Whois policies (see 1703100062), which require registries and registrars to provide indiscriminate public access to personal data about domain name registrants, violate European privacy laws.” This didn’t matter much previously because data protection laws “didn’t have much teeth when it came to ICANN and the domain name industry,” he said. Under the GDPR, such violations could result in fines of up to four percent of an organization’s revenue, he wrote. “Real money is on the table.”

Mueller slammed ICANN for listening only to registries and registrars, not privacy advocates or noncommercial domain name users, in dealing with data protection issues. Tuesday’s panel includes only lawyers representing top level domain registries, platform providers and internet service providers, and a law enforcement representative, he said. Although Mueller, a longtime player in ICANN’s noncommercial community, and others argued for a registrant or privacy activist on the panel, the request was denied, he said. This was “a deliberate decision to prevent the Whois/privacy problem from being discussed in a balanced and fair way,” he wrote. ICANN didn’t comment.

The panel’s organizer wrote Monday that he doesn’t “know where the crazy notion comes from that all contracted parties (registries and registrars) would be plotting a scheme together with ICANN to play down the effects of the GDPR.” The session’s point is to help registries and registrars determine how to deal with the regulation, not to hear presentations from panelists, Peter Vergote, legal and corporate affairs director at DNS Belgium, the .be registry, wrote on Mueller’s blog. “It’s the audience that is playing the lead.”

“I have had privacy concerns about the WHOIS process since it was established,” emailed Peter Swire. As lead privacy official in the Clinton administration, he suggested more privacy-protective approaches to the Commerce Department officials working on ICANN’s creation, but those approaches weren’t adopted, he said. “I believe the stricter fines under GDPR are getting ICANN’s attention.” The organization would benefit from “careful attention” to insights from privacy experts, he added.

For the full article, read here.

Published in: Washington Internet Daily
The App That Does Nothing

June 14, 2017

Ian Bogost, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, wrote “The App That Does Nothing” for The Atlantic.

Excerpt:

Binky is an app that does everything an app is expected to do. It’s got posts. It’s got likes. It’s got comments. It’s got the infinitely scrolling timeline found in all social apps, from Facebook to Twitter, Instagram to Snapchat.

I open it and start scrolling. Images of people, foods, and objects appear on and then vanish off the screen. Solar cooker. B.F. Skinner. Shoes. Marmalade. Sports Bra. Michael Jackson. Ganesha. Aurora Borealis. These are “binks,” the name for posts on Binky.

For the full article, read here.

Published in: The Atlantic
These Georgia Tech Students Won Toyota’s Mobility Challenge For Wheelchair-Geared Taxi App

June 13, 2017

Sally Xia, graduate student in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was featured in “These Georgia Tech Students Won Toyota’s Mobility Challenge For Wheelchair-Geared Taxi App” for Hypepotamus

Excerpt:

When you bring together a fresh perspective and new technologies, solutions to old problems emerge. That’s the idea behind the Next Generation Mobility Challenge, which was co-created by Toyota to inspire young people to develop mobility solutions for social equity and inclusion problems. Improved and streamlined transportation, according to Toyota, can solve social impact problems in communities and around the world.

A team of Georgia Tech students developed one such solution — and took home the winning spot in the Challenge — for an app-based taxi service specifically geared towards people in wheelchairs. Called ParaPickup, the app is reminiscent of the popular Uber or Lyft ridesharing services, but would have all the necessary equipment needed to efficiently pick up those in wheelchairs.

For the full article, read here.

Published in: Hypepotamus

Recent Press Coverage

With Just 1 Plant Under Construction, Nuclear Renaissance Stalls

A Googler's Would-Be Manifesto Reveals Tech's Rotten Core

Why Killing Terrorist Leaders Doesn't Necessarily Wipe Out Their Organizations

The New Wave in Digital Humanities.

Cold War Espionage Paid Off—Until it Backfired, East German Spy Records Reveal

Selected New Books on Higher Education

Bowl Him a Chinaman

Panel Assessing Whether ICANN’s US Jurisdiction Hurts Accountability, Domain Name Owners

Why Zuckerberg and Musk Are Fighting About the Robot Future

This Standoff is China Telling India to Accept Changing Realities

China’s Hukou System: An Interview with Fei-Ling Wang

Bioinformation Wants to Be Free and Responsible

‘Game of Thrones’ Among the Medievalists

Game of Thrones Is Even Changing How Scholars Study the Real Middle Ages

Writing for Wider Audiences: Structural Challenges for Scholars

Farmer Tales: Concrete Jungle

Olympic Medal, Earned; Glory, Denied; Future, Uncertain

ICANN Ignores Data Protection Experts as It Considers EU Privacy Rules, Privacy Advocates Say

The App That Does Nothing

These Georgia Tech Students Won Toyota’s Mobility Challenge For Wheelchair-Geared Taxi App

Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Georgia Institute of Technology

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