Georgia Tech Student Leads Study That Finds Flowing Water on Mars

Antoine Chaya holds the position of senior director of strategic accounts for Oracle Corporation. Prior to his employment with Oracle, Antoine Chaya graduated with a PhD in information technology management from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The Georgia Institute of Technology recently made headlines when a PhD candidate from the school led a study that enabled NASA to establish evidence for the presence of flowing water on Mars.

Lujendra Ojha established the possibility of flowing water on Mars as an undergraduate at the University of Arizona. After analyzing images obtained through the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment equipment, Ojha noticed lineated signatures left by hydrated salts. During the planet’s warm seasons, these signatures are present, but in the cold seasons, they disappear. This led Ojha, NASA, and other scientists working on the study to conclude that salt water flows on Mars perennially.

With this discovery, Georgia Tech aims to develop technologies that will help put humans on Mars, and to create instruments that could assist in determining the presence of life.                            

Innovations from the Georgia Tech 2015 Ideas to Serve Competition

A senior director at the Oracle Corporation, Dr. Antoine Chaya is responsible for overseeing strategic accounts from the firm’s Atlanta offices. Prior to joining Oracle, Dr. Antoine Chaya earned a PhD and an MBA at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The Georgia Institute of Technology consistently ranks among the leading technological and business schools in the nation. In addition to academic excellence, Georgia Tech also strives to cultivate a sense of social responsibility in the student body by sponsoring events such as the Ideas to Serve (I2S) Competition. The I2S Competition is designed to encourage students to apply their unique skill sets to solve pressing social issues. The Competition is just one of the reasons Georgia Tech students continue to be a driving force in technological and commercial innovation.

The projects and the awards follow one of two tracks: the Ideas track for early-stage prototypes and the Advanced track for more developed products. This year’s top Ideas track award went to the Smile Bright team, which demonstrated a new toothbrush designed to help individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities improve their autonomy and dental hygiene. The top prize in the Advanced track went to Vayando, a travel-planning platform that connects tourists with foreign micro-entrepreneurs, paving the way for small business success in developing countries. The two teams received first-place prizes of $5,000 and $2,500, respectively.