During the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, Georgia Tech received a grant award, totaling $50,000, from the Truist Cares initiative on behalf of the Truist Charitable Fund designated to the COVID-19 Rapid Response Faculty Research Fund. This fund was created by the Office of the Executive Vice President (EVPR) to support the development of critical healthcare gear and research to help the hundreds of thousands of people expected to swamp hospitals with waves of critical COVID-19 illnesses during this pandemic.
The national spread of COVID-19 continues to cause a level of uncertainty that invariably leads to many questions, and as researchers the Georgia Tech (GT) community finds itself compelled to address those questions through a scientific lens. Currently, GT faculty are actively working on a range of efforts to support the state and federal government in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Examples include:
- Developing and sharing designs for local production of face masks
- Researching do-it-yourself formulations for sanitary wipes
- Sharing designs and manufacturing disposable parts for ventilators
- Modeling and data sharing to inform decision-makers
- Research into locally producing critical biochemical components needed for COVID-19 test kits
In addition to providing an immediate impact to the needs of our healthcare providers and communities, data will be collected and analyzed for more long-term projects, such as research on the pandemic’s impact on the workforce and future of work, limited societal interactions during social distancing, virtual interactions, global supply chain, online instruction, and computing infrastructure. Data will also be used to explore impacts, outcomes, and provide science-backed recommendations for improvements.
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