By Jerry Grillo

Minori Murachi is a young biomedical engineering student from Japan who dreams of helping humankind explore and colonize Mars. 

But first she has to build a resumé of research here on Earth, and her recent involvement in the Nakatani Research and International Experience for Students at the Georgia Institute of Technology is helping give her a head start on that.

“I’m aiming to become a researcher who is active overseas,” said Murachi, who is nearing the end of her five-week stint at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. “I particularly want to be involved in research and development in the United States.”

The Nakatani-Coulter BME partnership gave her a taste of in-depth, collaborative research with international partners, culminating with a symposium and competitive poster session in late March. It also exposed her to new cultural experiences and valuable networking opportunities, inspiring her to think even more deeply about a career in space exploration.

“Presently, we can get to Mars in a month or two, but the stress on the human body on the return from Mars is a problem, because the gravity environment is different from that of the Earth, and the human body is damaged by the effects of radiation and muscle atrophy,” Murachi said. “This is just one exciting area that I could help find solutions for with like-minded people I’ve met through the Nakatani program. There is a golden opportunity to explore myriad scenarios in cooperation with international engineers and scientists.”

Murachi is a first-year grad student at Doshisha University in Kyoto, where she’s studying materials science in a biomechanics lab. She was one of 11 students from Japan in the Nakatani program at Tech this semester.  

Launched in fall 2019 as a student exchange, the Nakatani program was put on hold along with almost everything else during the Covid-19 pandemic. So far, Japan has sent students to Georgia Tech, but no Tech students have engaged in research in Japan — yet.

“We anticipate that happening this summer,” said Coulter BME Professor Shuichi Takayama, director of the Nakatani program at Tech.

“Covid messed up most of the first two years, so we’re playing catching up,” said Georgia Tech Research Scientist Soojung Lee, program manager of the Nakatani Research and International Experience, who emphasized the importance of a tactile experience for participants, as opposed to a virtual one. 

The program is designed as a research experience for undergraduates, but it’s also much more than that, Takayama added: “The emphasis also is on creating some cultural experiences for these students visiting the U.S., and on making connections and collaborating.”

That’s where Nakatani mentors come in. They’re expected to fill multiple roles over the five- to six-week student exchange experience. In addition to teaching and fostering basic research skills, they also act as hosts and cultural tour guides, taking the students to family dinners, or barbecues at Stone Mountain, or hikes in Northeast Georgia.