ATLANTA, November 12, 2008 - John C. Crittenden, Ph.D., an accomplished expert in waste management, pollution prevention and sustainable and environmental engineering, will join the Georgia Institute of Technology as a Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) Eminent Scholar in Sustainable Systems. He is also slated to fill the Hightower Chair in Sustainable Systems pending Board of Regents approval.

Upon arrival, Dr. Crittenden will serve as director of Georgia Tech's Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems.

"It's an honor to welcome Dr. Crittenden to Georgia Tech where he joins a leading group of students and faculty members," said Georgia Tech's Interim President Gary Schuster. "He is a world-renowned teacher and leader at the forefront of sustainability research. His reputation and leadership in this area will reinforce and enrich our efforts in sustainability, an area of critical importance to the Institute and the state."

Dr. Crittenden has received multiple awards for his research in the treatment and removal of hazardous materials from drinking and groundwater. He also has designed and received copyrights on computer software programs that analyze various pollution and absorption methods.

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers' (AIChE) Centennial Celebration Committee recently named Crittenden as one of the leading 100 Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era.

Crittenden joins Georgia Tech as a professor holding an appointment in Civil and Environmental Engineering. In this position, he will lead the creation of an integrated initiative in Sustainable Urban Systems and conduct research in related nanotechnology and computational science.

Currently, Crittenden is working with a group of academic institutions on developing an assessment tool for educational programs outlining the interconnected nature of social decision making, regional development, material flows, energy use and local, regional and global environmental impacts.

"Urban sustainability is a vital component of the future, especially in Georgia," said C. Michael Cassidy, president and CEO of the Georgia Research Alliance. "As our state's capital continues its evolution into a global metropolis, we are lucky to have Dr. Crittenden, an internationally recognized expert in this field, as a GRA Eminent Scholar."

In the private sector, Crittenden has served as a consultant to companies, universities and cities in Germany, Japan and across the United States. He is also part owner of Superior Engineering Technologies, a company which he expects to continue growing in Georgia.

"As director of the Brooks Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, I will build on the enormous momentum that Georgia Tech has developed in this area," Crittenden said. "I have a long-term goal to engineer the anthrosphere [the part of the environment that is made or modified by humans for use in human activities] to exist within the means of nature. That is, humans should only use resources that nature can provide and generate wastes that nature can assimilate. With the tremendous intellectual capital that Georgia Tech can use to tackle this problem, we can make substantial progress toward realizing this goal. We will be only limited by our imagination."

Crittenden is active in an array of national organizations. He serves on the Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education as well as the Engineering Advisory Board for the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Engineering Committee for the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology. Crittenden is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has received the AEESP Landmark Achievement Award and the ASCE Huber Research Prize. He also has authored more than 100 research papers garnering more than 2,300 citations.

Prior to coming to Georgia Tech, Crittenden was the Richard Snell Presidential Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Arizona State University.

He received his Bachelor's and Ph.D. degrees in Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

About GRA
A model public-private partnership between Georgia universities, business and state government, the Georgia Research Alliance helps build Georgia's technology-rich economy in three major ways: through attracting Eminent Scholars to Georgia's research universities; through helping create centers of research excellence and through converting research into products, services and jobs that drive the economy. To learn more about GRA, visit www.gra.org.

About Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premiere research universities. Ranked seventh among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, Georgia Tech's more than 19,000 students are enrolled in its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech is among the nation's top producers of women and minority engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute.