Prof. Craig R. Forest
Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Tech
Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience
Bio
Craig Forest joined Georgia Tech in August 2008 as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Forest also holds program faculty positions in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering. He conducts research on miniaturized, high-throughput robotic instrumentation to advance neuroscience and genetic science, working at the intersection of bioMEMS, precision machine design, optics, and microfabrication. Prior to Georgia Tech, he was a research fellow in Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He obtained a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in June 2007, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2003, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2001. He is cofounder/organizer of one of the largest undergraduate invention competitions in the US—The InVenture Prize, and founder/organizer of one of the largest student-run prototyping facilities in the US—The Invention Studio. He was a Sandia National Laboratories MEMS Fellow, NSF Graduate Research Fellow, was awarded the Georgia Tech Institute for BioEngineering and BioSciences Junior Faculty Award (2010) and was named Engineer of the Year in Education for the state of Georgia (2013). In 2007, he was a finalist on the ABC reality TV show “American Inventor.”
Teaching
Create X
CREATE-X is a Georgia Tech initiative to instill entrepreneurial confidence in students and empower them to launch real startups. The broader goal of this initiative is to provide the knowledge, skills, abilities, and experiences that will give Georgia Tech graduates the confidence to create their own future and confidently pursue entrepreneurial opportunities.
CREATE-X comprises the programmatic elements, LEARN, MAKE, LAUNCH. The CREATE-X initiative is unique because of the following core philosophies:
- Students explore entrepreneurship through the ultimate experiential learning mode – launching their own startups with seed funding, legal assistance, and intensive coaching.
- All key elements of CREATE-X are curricular -– students receive credit that counts toward graduation.
- The emphasis in CREATE-X programs is on “Deep Startups,” or in other words, startups that are likely to have long-term impact as opposed to only short-term gain.
Learn more at the Create-X website.
Capstone Design
The Capstone Design Course (ME 4182) is the final class for the Mechanical Engineering degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In the Capstone Design course, student teams systematically design, build, and report solutions for a variety of problems from industrial sponsors or their own imagination, culminating in the end-of-semester Capstone Design Expo.
Idea to Prototype
The Idea to Prototype (I2P) program, part of the CREATE-X initiative, offers undergraduate research course credit and financial support for student teams to advance their ideas for a potential value creating product by performing basic research, analysis, building, and testing–leading to a proof of concept prototype. Analogous to undergraduate research: students dive deep into a problem for one to two semesters with a mentor, enrolled in the research course 2699/4699 for credit and grade. Learn more at the I2P website.
Initiatives
Inventure Prize
The InVenture Prize @ Georgia Tech is a faculty-led innovation competition for undergraduate students at Georgia Tech. Students can work independently or in teams to develop and present inventions which will be judged by experts. The competitors will introduce their inventions in one or more preliminary rounds from which approximately 10 finalists will be selected to advance to a Final Round, which is hosted by David Pogue and shown live by Georgia Public Broadcasting. In this round, two winning inventions, either individuals or teams, will be selected and will receive the following:
- A cash prize of $15,000 for first place or $10,000 for second place.
- A free US patent filing by Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing (each valued at approximately $20,000) for both the first and second place winners.
- A People’s Choice Award of $5,000 selected by text voting during the event
- The Winner(s) of the InVenture Prize will automatically be accepted to the Summer ’12 Class of Flashpoint, a Georgia Tech startup accelerator program.
Invention Studio
The Invention Studio is a 2500-square-foot, $500,000 design/build/play space where Georgia Tech faculty, students, and staff can build working prototypes of inventions. Use of the studio space is free.
Learn more at the Invention Studio website.
