Georgia Tech alum Miriam Guthrie (EAS 2025) answers a reader question about her experiences as a meteorologist intern at The Weather Channel and shares advice on how to prepare for a career in meteorology. Here is an excerpt of her response: 

“A passion for weather is important [and] I would suggest really focusing on your math and science classes to prepare for the right school. When you're taking those hard math classes and you feel like you want to give up, remembering why you're passionate about this is really gonna help.

“I decided to go to Georgia Tech because it's a really good school for math and science, and I knew that that was something that I wanted to pursue. 

“My time at the Weather Channel so far has been awesome. I love teaching people about the weather, and it's been exciting the past few days with the first hurricane of the year, Hurricane Erick, just with the chaos of it all. It's a fun job, but it is a chaotic kind of fun.”

The Weather Channel

Imagine your memories, way of thinking, and who you are being saved into a computer system. Not as a backup, but as a fully conscious version of yourself. Without a body, but with a mind. Sounds like science fiction? That’s exactly what mind uploading to a computer is. It’s an attempt to create a digital existence that can last forever.

In a virtual world where physics operates on different principles, a digital consciousness could eat virtual food, fly, travel to planets, or pass through walls. 

Limitations? Only those imposed by technology and the current state of knowledge. Associate Professor Dobromir Rahnev from the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Psychology does not rule out this possibility.

“Theoretically, mind uploading is possible. However, we are currently very far from this goal,” he writes in The Conversation.

Holistic News

We may never agree on what AGI or “humanlike” AI means, or what suffices to prove it. As AI advances, machines will still make mistakes, and people will point to these and say the AIs aren’t really intelligent. Anna Ivanova, an assistant professor in the School of Psychology at Georgia Tech, was on a panel recently, and the moderator asked about AGI timelines. “We had one person saying that it might never happen,” Ivanova told me, “and one person saying that it already happened.” So the term “AGI” may be convenient shorthand to express an aim—or a fear—but its practical use may be limited. In most cases, it should come with an asterisk, and a benchmark.

IEEE Spectrum

In an article published by Eos, Jean Lynch-Stieglitz, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, comments on a new study published in Nature which found that a major part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) was warmer during the peak of Earth’s last ice age than previously thought.

According to Lynch-Stieglitz, the findings give scientists an additional benchmark with which to test the accuracy of climate models. “Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) circulation is a good target, and the more that we can refine the benchmarks…that’s a really good thing,” she said. “This is another really nice dataset that can be used to better assess what the Last Glacial Maximum circulation was really doing.”

Eos

For their leadership across various industries and positive contributions to their communities, 12 Georgia Tech alumni are among Georgia Trend’s 100 Most Influential Georgians for 2026. The list includes two College of Sciences alumni, Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera (M.S. PSY 1993, Ph.D. PSY 1995) and President and Dean of Morehouse School of Medicine Valerie Montgomery Rice (CHEM 1983).

Georgia Tech News Center