Current and former Yellow Jackets were in South Carolina, sharing the latest in solid-state sensors, actuators, and microsystems research, as well as honoring former ECE Professor Oliver Brand with a scholarship in his name.
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The 2026 Hilton Head Workshop wasn’t just a forum for the latest in solid-state sensors, actuators, and microsystems research; it was also a celebration of a colleague who meant so much to the field.
Amongst the normal programming for the five-day multidisciplinary workshop held in the Sonesta Resort on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, was the announcement of the inaugural Oliver Brand Scholarship Award.
The award was established in memory of Brand, a former professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and executive director of the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (now the Institute of Matters and Systems, or IMS), who passed away in 2023.
Presented annually for an outstanding paper by a student or postdoctoral researcher, the award's inaugural recipient was ECE Ph.D. student Mojtaba Hassani.
"Oliver Brand was a deeply respected member of the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and microsystems community and a true fixture of the Hilton Head Workshop — this was his community,” Associate Professor Azadeh Ansari said. “He spent more than two decades at Georgia Tech, led some of its most impactful research infrastructure, and contributed to everything from resonant MEMS sensors to the fight against COVID-19."
"He was a leader, a mentor, and a friend to so many of us. Losing him in 2023 left a profound void. The Oliver Brand Scholarship, made possible by his devoted friends and colleagues, ensures that his name and spirit live on in the next generation of researchers — and that is exactly the kind of legacy he deserves."
Like previous years, the 2026 Hilton Head Workshop showcased Georgia Tech’s impact on the field. Former and current Yellow Jackets were heavily involved, from researchers sharing their findings to the leadership running the event.
The workshop has been held biennially since 1984, bringing together up to 500 participants from academia, industry, and government, with the goal of fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and discussing advances in microfabrication technologies for various applications.
"Georgia Tech has always had a strong presence at Hilton Head," Ansari said. "With so many of our MEMS and microsystems faculty, students, and alumni attending year after year, it has always felt like a second home for our community.”
Four Georgia Tech students shared papers: mechanical engineering Ph.D. student Emmett Freeman, and ECE Ph.D. students Hassani, Shubham Sahasrabudhe and Tanya Chauhan.
Oliver Brand was an ECE Professor, executive director of the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (now the Institute of Matters and Systems), and a respected member of the microelectromechanical systems and microsystems community.
ECE Ph.D. student Mojtaba Hassani was awarded the inaugural Oliver Brand Scholarship Award.
- Towards Advanced Motion Control Systems For Micro-Scale Magnetic Drillers Inside Viscoelastic Media, Emmett Z. Freeman1, Pranjal Chatterjee1, Tony H. Wang1, Angela Huang1, Kimberly Hoang2, and Azadeh Ansari1 (1 Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and 2 Emory University, USA)
- Resonant Temperature Sensor With >1000 Ppm/°C Tcf For Extreme-Temperature Operation, Mojtaba Hassani1, Tanya Chauhan1, James Lambert2, Mina Rais-Zadeh2, and Azadeh Ansari1 (1 Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, and 2 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA)
- Performance Characterization Of A Heavily-Doped Silicon Distributed Lamé Resonator For Reconfigurable TCMO And OCMO Applications, Shubham Sahasrabudhe1 and Farrokh Ayazi1,2 (1 Georgia Institute of Technology, USA and 2 StethX Microsystems Inc., USA)
- A Wide-Bandwidth Frequency Shifting Resonant Pressure Sensor, James L. Lambert1, Tanya Chauhan2, Seyyed M. Hassani Gangaraj2, Azadeh Ansari2, and Mina Rais-Zadeh1 (1 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA, and 2 Georgia Institute of Technology, USA)
Additionally, IMS Senior Research Engineer Billyde Brown presented a poster titled, “Georgia Tech Institute for Matter and Systems Core Facilities Overview and Quantitative Lateral Flow Assay Optimization to Lower Disease Detection Limits.”
IMS also had a booth at the event.
Ansari will take over as the technical program committee chair for the 2028 Hilton Head Workshop. She follows two Georgia Tech alumni, Swami Rajaraman (Ph.D. EE ’09) and Jenna Chan (Ph.D. ECE ’13), who served in the position for the 2024 and 2022 Workshops, respectively.
"I have attended every Hilton Head Workshop since 2014 — first as a graduate student presenting my own work, and later with the joy of watching my own students take the stage,” Ansari said. “This workshop has been a constant highlight of my academic journey, and becoming the 2028 Technical Chair is deeply meaningful to me. Hilton Head is technically excellent, but what makes it truly unique is its warmth — it is one of the most welcoming and collaborative communities in our field. I am honored and humbled to help shape that experience for the next generation of researchers."
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