July 15, 2021

Georgia Tech’s impact reaches every industry, every part of the globe, and every aspect of people’s lives through the work of our esteemed alumni. The Georgia Tech Alumni Association has announced this year's class of 40 Under 40, a group of distinguished honorees who have made significant contributions in their fields at an early age and are changing the world for the better.

In its second year, the 2021 class includes five graduates of the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering: Barry Givens (ME 08), Arkadeep Kumar (MS ME 14, PhD ME 18), Carly Queen (ME 09, MS CE 16, M CRP 16), Seth Radman (ME 17), and Mike Weiler (BME 10, MS ME 12, PhD BioE 15).

Those nominated must have completed at least one semester at Georgia Tech, be under the age of 40 as of June 30, 2021, and have made an impact in their profession or community, spanning all industries and sectors. A committee of 21 faculty, staff, and volunteer leaders, who collectively represented all Georgia Tech colleges, scored each nominee using a 25-point rubric.

Managing Partner | Collab Capital
Managing Director | Techstars

Givens has built a successful career as a technology entrepreneur and investor. And he’s done it while building an ecosystem for the next generation of Black technology founders. At his startup Monsieur, he developed an automated bartending machine that’s used in movie theaters, arenas, and hotels around the country. After five years, he exited the business in 2017, licensing his IP to a larger beverage manufacturing company. He became the managing director for the Techstars Social Impact Accelerator in Atlanta, investing in 20 companies over the past two years. At the same time, he joined forces with two other Black entrepreneurs to launch a $50 million venture fund specifically for Black founders. Collab Capital is the first of its kind, and Givens hopes it will serve as the foundation for Atlanta becoming the go-to place for Black entrepreneurs to launch innovative businesses.

“My education gave me the tools to design and build the prototype for my startup Monsieur in my garage with no investment needed. But the most important thing I took away from my GT experience is the confidence that I could do and/or learn anything,” Givens says.

Fun fact: He didn’t really start eating vegetables until he was 25.

Technologist R&D Engineer | Applied Materials Inc.

Kumar’s research involves next generation semiconductor nano-manufacturing, pushing the limits of materials engineering, and enabling technologies for AI and big-data economy. Kumar is passionate about making manufacturing more energy-efficient and cost-effective to make it more sustainable for the planet and reduce its impact on the environment. Under a ITRI-Rosenfeld Postdoctoral Fellowship, he conducted research at the Lawrence Berkeley National lab on the nexus of water and energy, looking at urgent societal problems in water treatment and clean energy. Combining his expertise from his PhD on solar cells and postdoc fellowship, he joined Applied Materials to solve the critical challenges in semiconductor manufacturing. In response to the PPE shortages at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kumar initiated a collaboration with Tech alumni and current students across multiple time zones to develop an open-source face shield design and train artisans in India to fabricate the face shields. In 2021, Kumar was recognized for his achievements and leadership in manufacturing engineering by the Society of Manufacturing Engineer’s Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award.

“I found a great network of friends and support [at Georgia Tech]. I co-founded the Asha for Education Georgia Tech student chapter during my time at GT, which has continued as a philanthropic organization,” Kumar says.

Fun fact: Kumar’s first name “Arkadeep” means the light from the sun—the literal translation in the Bengali language (his mother-tongue) means the sun’s light in dawn, which brings light from the darkness. Kumar’s PhD research at Tech was on solar cells as clean energy.

Sustainable Transportation Specialist | AECOM

Queen leads AECOM’s Multimodal Transportation Safety Team in Georgia. In this role, she directs transportation planning and engineering efforts focused on reducing pedestrian and cyclist crashes, injuries, and fatalities across the state. Queen’s community service spans more than a decade and includes numerous leadership roles on nonprofits. While a student at Tech, she served as the founding president of Students Organizing for Sustainability. In graduate school, she was vice president of outreach and communications for the Women’s Transportation Seminar and Institute of Transportation Engineers. She received an Outstanding Service Award from Georgia Tech’s School of City and Regional Planning. She has continued serving in leadership roles post-graduation, including serving on the Generation Green Board of the Georgia Conservancy, Young Professionals in Transportation Atlanta, and Groundwork Atlanta, where she’s in her fifth year as president of the Board of Directors.

Under her leadership, Groundwork Atlanta launched AgLanta Grows-a-Lot, a program converting vacant lots to farms and gardens in Atlanta’s low food-access areas and a Proctor Creek Trash Traps pilot project, testing technologies for preventing litter in creeks from reaching larger water bodies. The project was the winner of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper’s 2020 River Sustainability Award.

“My Georgia Tech classmates and fellow alumni connected me to an internship opportunity where I have since launched my career,” Queen says.

Fun fact: At the time, Queen was the only woman in the Georgia Tech Off Road club and drove in the SAE Mini Baja East Competition during her sophomore year at Georgia Tech.

Head of Product Strategy | Ultimate Guitar

While at Georgia Tech, Radman founded the company Crescendo, an interactive music trainer like Guitar Hero, but for real instruments. The Crescendo app gained more than 1 million users in its first two years and was featured as Apple’s App of the Day in over 100 countries. Last year, Crescendo was acquired by Ultimate Guitar, the world’s largest online guitar community, making Radman's company the first exit from Tech’s CREATE-X program. Now, with more than 300 million users, Crescendo has helped musicians of all ages boost their confidence and improve faster using technology. In addition to Crescendo and other startups, Radman has been instrumental in building and growing the startup ecosystem in Atlanta. He serves as a startup coach through the CREATE-X Startup Launch program, and he is an advisor for more than 100 companies founded by Georgia Tech students and alumni.

“While building my startups, I’ve experienced countless failures and had to keep pushing to find a solution to the obstacles in my way. Like my classmate and friend Nick Selby said, ‘This is Georgia Tech. We can do that.’ My Georgia Tech education helped me become a more confident and resilient person. I would not be who I am today without it, guaranteed,” Radman says.

Fun fact: In addition to being an avid rock climber, Radman plays saxophone in a blues funk rock band called The Vinyl Suns.

Cofounder and CEO | LymphaTech

Weiler cofounded LymphaTech, a Georgia Tech spinout company focused on improving the standard care of lymphedema, a swelling disease that is commonly a result of cancer therapy but can also be caused by mosquito-transmitted parasites. During his seven years as CEO, Weiler has been the primary inventor on nine patents to develop technology to automate and digitize measurements for lymphedema evaluation and treatment. LymphaTech’s software enables custom-fitted medical compression garments to enhance treatment for the disease. Weiler has led the company to sign partnerships with the two largest medical compression manufacturers to use the technology as a platform for sizing, fitting, and ordering custom medical compression garments for patients. In partnership with the Gates Foundation, the technology has also been included as an evaluation tool for the Global Program to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis.

“During grad school at Georgia Tech, I was a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a graduate of the NSF Innovation Corps, and a TI:GER Fellow. The TI:GER program was particularly instrumental in my career, as it provided an opportunity to learn the fundamentals of business model generation and customer discovery applied to my dissertation research. The final business plan that we created in the TI:GER program is very similar to the business plan that LymphaTech still follows today,” Weiler says.

Fun fact: Weiler and his wife, who also has her bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD from Georgia Tech, have six degrees from the Institute between them. They also attended the same middle and high schools.