CREATE-X Announces 2025 Jim Pope Fellows

CREATE-X is pleased to announce the next cohort of faculty members selected for the Jim Pope Fellowship for the upcoming academic year. The program provides faculty fellows with funds and education to serve as entrepreneurial instructors, mentors, and advisors to students participating in CREATE-X, Georgia Tech's entrepreneurial learning incubator.

Each fellow receives $15,000 in discretionary funds, which can be used to seek a partial reprieve from teaching for one semester. Fellows also receive mentorship, education on evidence-based entrepreneurship through courses, and opportunities to work with students launching startups.

The new Jim Pope Fellows are:

• Adam McCallum is a translational research advocate for the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. His work focuses on how metals function in our bodies, utilizing synthetic ligands as chemical tools to explore the biochemistry of metals in biological systems. He collaborates with faculty members, students, and researchers in BME to promote the translation and commercialization of biomedical technologies developed at Georgia Tech and Emory while also encouraging entrepreneurship. Adam earned his Ph.D. in chemistry, with a focus on organic chemistry, from Georgia Tech. He then pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at Emory in Dennis Liotta's lab, where he conducted drug design and discovery research to develop novel therapeutics for various clinical indications.
   
• Yue Chen is an assistant professor in the Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. He also is a member of the Discovery and Developmental Therapeutics Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute. His work addresses building the scientific and technical foundations for various robotic systems and applying them in the medical field. His lab is especially interested in designing, building, modeling, and controlling robots. Among these robots are a commercial robot arm and many custom-made robots, like tube robots, tendon-driven robots, catheters, and soft robots. He received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University, an M.S. in mechanical engineering from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and a B.S. in vehicle engineering from Hunan University. This year, he won the National Science Foundation CAREER Award and is developing a continuum robotic system that can efficiently perform procedures like radio frequency ablation while a patient is inside a magnetic resonance imaging scanner.
   
• Mioy Huynh is an academic professional in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry who earned his Ph.D. in physical and computational chemistry as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he studied proton-coupled electron transfer reactions. He has taught at Yale University, UCLA, and the Claremont Colleges. Huynh began his professional career in chemistry education as a lecturer and summer instructor at UIUC. After postdoctoral research at Boston University and the University of Wisconsin, he held lecturer positions in general and physical chemistry at Yale, UCLA, and the Claremont Colleges. 
   
• Cici McNamara is an assistant professor in the School of Economics. McNamara studied economics and English for her undergraduate studies, and then graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Ph.D.  in economics. McNamara’s research interests are in empirical industrial organization. She studies how policies influence the demand and supply of health care and what are the impacts of resulting changes on the market and patient outcomes. She is also a health economist, and her recent work has examined the effects of financial incentives and competition on healthcare market outcomes. Her research on health care consolidation has been integrated into the Vertically Integrated Project, and she was named an AcademyHealth Rising Star in Health Economics in 2023. Among her awards and fellowships, McNamara has also presented her work at numerous conferences and seminars, including the Allied Social Science Associations Annual Meeting, the American Health Economics Conference, and the International Industrial Organization Conference.
   
• Morvarid Rahmani is an associate professor of operations management in the Scheller College of Business. She received her Ph.D. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. She also received three master degrees, in industrial engineering, electrical engineering, and economics. Her research focuses on innovation and social sustainability, providing managers with insights to enhance work processes, drive successful innovation, and address social issues. Rahmani recently received the Best Paper Award from the journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) for her research on maximizing the social impact of nonprofit organizations on distressed individuals. She has also received the Brady Family Award for Faculty Teaching Excellence at the Scheller College of Business, the CTL/BP Faculty Teaching Excellence Award at Georgia Tech, and CIOS Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching Award, among other awards. Rahmani is the founding chair of the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship (TIE) Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM). She has also served as the Chair of the Technology, Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship (TIMES) Section of INFORMS and as a vice president of the Product Innovation and Technology Management (PITM) College of Production and Operations Management Society (POMS). 
   
• Jud Ready: Ready is a principal research engineer and the deputy director of Innovation Initiatives for the Georgia Tech Institute for Materials. He is also the associate director of External Engagements for the Georgia Tech Institute for Matter and Systems and has been an adjunct professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech for over 20 years. Ready has over 2,200 citations to his three dozen refereed publications and has been invited to over two dozen international conferences. He has 15 patents awarded in the United States, with many others pending. He has also served as an expert witness in criminal and civil cases, provided testimony to the Georgia State House Science and Technology Committee, and served on boards and committees. He has served as PI or co-PI for grants totaling over $20 million from various organizations, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, DARPA, NASA, NSF, NIST, industry, charitable foundations, private citizens, and the state governments of Georgia and Florida. His current research, with an emphasis on aerospace applications, focuses on energy capture, storage, and delivery enabled by nanomaterial design. His research has been included in missions to the International Space Station, low Earth orbit, and heliocentric orbit.
   
• Fan Zhang is an assistant professor in nuclear and radiological engineering and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. She received her Ph.D. in nuclear engineering and an M.S. in statistics from the University of Tennessee. Her research focuses on the cybersecurity of nuclear facilities, online monitoring and fault detection using data analytics methods, instrumentation and control, and nuclear systems modeling and simulation. She has developed multiple test beds using both simulators and physical components to investigate various aspects of cybersecurity and process health management. Her research also includes AI/ML, operation optimization, digital twins, predictive maintenance, autonomous controls, robotics, and XR. Zhang is a Georgia Tech College of Engineering Cybersecurity Fellow and has received several prestigious awards. She is the recipient of the 2021 Ted Quinn Early Career Award from the American Nuclear Society for her contributions to instrumentation and control and cybersecurity. In 2022, she was awarded the inaugural Distinguished Early Career Award from the U.S. DOE Office of Nuclear Energy. Additionally, Zhang was recognized as one of UT's 2023 Volunteer 40 Under 40 and is a Grainger Foundation Frontiers of Engineering Alumni.

The Jim Pope Fellowship spans three consecutive semesters. During the fall semester, faculty fellows learn principles of evidence-based entrepreneurship by attending a workshop and shadow teaching one of the CREATE-X courses, Startup Lab, which teaches undergraduates how to examine startup ideas through customer discovery, testing hypotheses, and constructing minimum viable products. 

In the spring semester, fellows scope an entrepreneurial project to implement within their home unit, such as creating entrepreneurial assignments within an established course, hosting workshops, or developing a new course that integrates entrepreneurship. 

Once the summer semester starts, the cohort works with student startups through CREATE-X Startup Launch, serving as mentors or coaches. After completing the program, fellows spend the next two years leading CREATE-X programs.

Since its creation, the Jim Pope Fellowship has supported 25 fellows, represented 11 Georgia Tech departments, secured $1 million in funding and facilities for makerspaces, and introduced 2,500 students to entrepreneurship.

Faculty members interested in getting involved with CREATE-X can participate as teachers or mentors in various programs such as Startup Lab, CREATE-X Capstone, Idea-to-Prototype, and Startup Launch. Faculty can also apply for the next cohort of the Jim Pope Fellowship when it opens in the spring. For additional information or inquiries, contact the director of CREATE-X, Rahul Saxena, at rahulsaxena@gatech.edu.