Dr. Helena Mitchell, executive director of Georgia Tech’s Center for Advanced Communications Policy (CACP), was named a Regents' Researcher by the University System of Georgia. This highest of research honors, given by the Board of Regents of the state of Georgia, celebrates Dr. Mitchell’s scientific accomplishments and contributions to her field of research. Dr. Mitchell was recruited to Georgia through the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar program that spans educational, community and business environments. Her areas of specialty include broadband and wireless communications, educational technologies, regulatory and legislative policy, emergency/public safety communications, and universal service to vulnerable, rural and inner city populations.
In addition to being executive director for CACP, Dr. Mitchell is a Principal Research Scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Public Policy within Ivan Allen College. Dr. Mitchell is the first in the Ivan Allen College to be awarded the title of Regents' Researcher. In tandem, she is currently the Principal Investigator for the following grants and contracts:
• Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Wireless Technologies (Wireless RERC) funded by the U.S. Department of Education since 2001 to research, evaluate and develop innovative wireless technologies and products that meet the needs, enhance independence and improve the quality of life and community participation of individuals with disabilities.
• Wireless Emergency Alerts: Optimizing Ability of message Receipt by People with Disabilities funded in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate. The project’s objectives are to maximize WEA message diffusion to deaf and hard of hearing citizens by developing a prototype signaling system designed around the needs of this population; and to conduct focus group and survey research to better understand how people with disabilities and those with access and functional needs respond to WEA messages.
• IPAWS Alerts for People with Disabilities or Language Differences funded in 2013 by FEMA’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Project Management Office to supply evidence based, unbiased technical and policy options and recommendations on emergency communications, notifications, warnings and alerts that can contribute to advancing the goals of the IPAWS program.
