The peak of the severe weather season is nearing its end, but in Georgia, it's been a quieter period than residents have become accustomed to in years past, devoid of the flurry of tornado warnings, heavy rain bands, and thunderstorms. Zachary Handlos, director of the B.S. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences degree program, explains that the region lacked a major component of the severe weather formula.
For an active season, four key ingredients typically exist:
1. Moisture
2. A mechanism to lift air upward
3. Instability
4. Wind Shear
Despite drought conditions persisting throughout the state, there is sufficient moisture in the air, carried by warm air from the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, to create favorable conditions for severe weather. Instability is created as the air warms, and wind shear is created by the changing direction and speed of the wind.
According to Handlos, what was missing this season was a consistent lifting mechanism.
"We've been stuck with high-pressure systems for most of the season. The air in these systems spirals clockwise instead of counterclockwise and spins away from the center, causing the air above it to sink, which in turn suppresses or shuts off any cloud or precipitation formation. So, even if all the other factors aligned, there would've been nothing to lift that air into creating those storms," he said.
The lingering high-pressure systems over Georgia are the result of the state’s location relative to the jet stream, which Handlos describes as an interstate highway for storms. The jet stream is a fast current of air above the Earth's surface that brings storm activity with its movement. This season, the stream moved through the Midwest, resulting in record precipitation in the region, while a drought rages on in the Southeast. As of May 4, Illinois had confirmed 119 tornadoes in 2026, which began with a historically busy early season.
"If you didn't pay attention to any other part of the country (outside of Mississippi recently), you'd think it was the most boring severe weather season because there was very little activity in Georgia.But if you live along that jet stream line between Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois, and southern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and southern Michigan, that has been the active area of severe weather."
While it has been a uniquely quiet season in Georgia, Handlos says that as it ends, the region can expect a typical summer.
"No matter if it's an El Niño or La Niña or neither, the quintessential Atlanta summer is one where, most days, you wake up, and it's warm and humid out in the morning with clear skies. Then, it's hot and just awful in the afternoon before you start to see the puffy cumulonimbus clouds pop up, and sometimes you get hit with a thunderstorm. For what feels like about three straight months, if you live here, you don't even need to look at the weather forecast to know what the weather will be like outside here until we get to the fall,” he said.
A quiet spring season could be a precursor to a brewing “super El Niño” at summer's end, experts predict. The potential pattern could cause a drastic rise in sea temperatures in the Pacific Ocean, and the disruption of weather systems could increase the likelihood of precipitation and severe weather in the Southeast. The increased precipitation could be a welcome sight for the region, lessening drought concerns and reducing the likelihood of wildfires.
Christopher Zuo never thought of himself as someone mosquitoes singled out. They bit him from time to time, he said, but no more than anyone else who spent a lot of time outdoors.
“I don’t know if I would say I’m prone,” Zuo said. “I do get bitten, but I also think that’s partly because I’m just outside a lot more.”
However, that assumption did not hold up once he stepped inside a sealed mosquito chamber as part of a Georgia Tech research study.
Zuo, a Georgia Tech alum and co-author on the study, worked alongside Georgia Tech faculty member David Hu and researchers in Hu’s fluid dynamics lab — and co-authors Chenyi Fei, Alex Cohen, Jorn Dunkel from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — on a multi-year effort to understand how mosquitoes locate people. Using high-speed cameras, careful controls, and mathematical modeling, the research examined how mosquitoes respond to carbon dioxide and visual cues. To confirm whether the data reflected real-world behavior, the team needed a human subject.
Zuo volunteered.
Before entering the chamber, he knew the mosquitoes were safe. They had been raised in a laboratory environment and were carefully controlled, making the experiment safer than being outdoors during peak mosquito activity.
“We knew exactly how all of these mosquitoes were reared, so we knew they’re disease-free,” he said. “Honestly, even if I got bitten 100 plus times, the actual danger that I was in was very little.”
Wearing a mesh suit, Zuo stood nearly motionless inside the chamber while mosquitoes were released and flew freely around him. Any movement could disrupt the data, so remaining still was critical even as mosquitoes gathered close to his face and upper body.
The response was immediate.
“You release the mosquitoes, and they’re already on top of you,” Zuo said. “Almost felt like it was instant.”
What surprised him most was not the bites but the sound.
“I didn’t realize how loud they were,” he said. “When they’re flying around your head, it’s that annoying buzzing sound. I didn’t realize how annoying it can get with just enough mosquitoes flying around.”
The experience was not limited to a single trial. Zuo entered the chamber multiple times as the research progressed, testing different variables including posture, clothing, and body positioning. In some experiments, he was required to hold his arms extended so cameras could capture a consistent silhouette.
“It felt more like an exercise at the gym,” Zuo said. “I was very much more focused on keeping my arms up and being as still as possible.”
Across those repeated interactions, patterns emerged that closely matched what the data predicted. Mosquitoes found him quickly, clustered in specific areas, and lingered only when certain conditions aligned.
“And once the conditions were right,” Zuo said, “they stayed.”
Zuo’s role helped bridge the gap between abstract modeling and human experience. It also challenged common assumptions about mosquito behavior that many people take for granted.
What follows are some of the most common mosquito myths, and what the Georgia Tech research and Zuo’s firsthand experience actually showed.
Myth: Mosquitoes swarm because they are following each other.
Reality: Mosquitoes respond independently to the same cues, which creates the appearance of swarming.
Trajectory data collected during the experiments showed no evidence that mosquitoes were coordinating or communicating with one another. Zuo explained that what people often describe as swarming is the result of multiple mosquitoes responding simultaneously to the same environmental signals. When carbon dioxide and a clear visual target are present, many mosquitoes converge on the same area independently. Zuo compared it to people arriving separately at the same crowded place because something there is attractive, not because they are following the crowd.
Myth: Mosquitoes randomly target different parts of the body.
Reality: In this study, mosquitoes concentrated near the head and shoulders, but only for the species observed, which is present in parts of the Southeast.
The Georgia Tech experiments focused on Aedes aegypti (dengue or yellow fever mosquito), a species found in parts of Georgia and other areas of the southeastern United States. Within that species, both trajectory data and Zuo’s experience inside the chamber showed mosquitoes repeatedly clustering near the head and shoulders rather than distributing evenly across the body. Zuo observed this pattern while standing still in the mesh suit, as mosquitoes returned again and again to his upper body. The study also confirmed previous biting studies showing that Aedes aegypti mosquitoes target the upper body, while other mosquitoes might focus on other areas. Researchers linked the behavior to carbon dioxide released through breathing near the mouth and nose, paired with a strong visual target. Zuo emphasized that other mosquito species behave differently and that these findings should not be applied to all mosquitoes.
Myth: Carbon dioxide alone explains why mosquitoes find people.
Reality: Carbon dioxide and visual cues work together, and neither is enough on its own.
Zuo described experiments that isolated carbon dioxide using inanimate objects before introducing a human subject. Carbon dioxide alone helped mosquitoes locate the general area of a target but did not consistently keep them there. Visual cues alone helped mosquitoes recognize an object but did not hold their attention. When both signals were combined, mosquito behavior changed significantly. The research showed the response was nonlinear, meaning the combined effect was stronger than simply adding the two cues together.
Myth: Once mosquitoes find a target, they always stay nearby.
Reality: Mosquitoes do not linger unless conditions align.
The data showed that mosquitoes often passed by targets unless both carbon dioxide and visual signals were present at the same time. Zuo observed that once those conditions aligned during the mesh suit experiments, mosquitoes stayed close and returned repeatedly to the same areas. Without the full set of cues, they were less likely to remain focused on a target.
Myth: All mosquitoes behave the same way.
Reality: Mosquito behavior varies by species and environmental conditions.
Aedes aegypti, Zuo described, are capable of feeding in well-lit conditions rather than relying solely on dusk. He contrasted this with Anopheles (marsh) mosquitoes, which require darker conditions and are closely tied to light and dark cycles during experiments. Zuo emphasized that the findings reflect the behavior of a single species and that different mosquito species respond to different cues.
While the Georgia Tech research explains how mosquitoes locate people, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) outlines steps people can take during mosquito season to reduce the risk of bites.
The CDC recommends using Environmental Protection Agency-registered insect repellents on exposed skin and wearing loose-fitting, long-sleeved shirts and long pants. Clothing and gear can also be treated with permethrin, which is designed for use on fabrics and not directly on skin. The agency also advises controlling mosquitoes indoors and outdoors by eliminating standing water and keeping window and door screens in good repair. The CDC notes that mosquitoes can bite during the day or night, depending on the species, and encourages precautions whenever mosquitoes are active.
Institute Communications
]]>The seed grant program, administered by the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS), reaches faculty members from a diverse array of disciplines due to the generous support provided by broad-based partnerships in addition to the funds provided by the Sustainability Next committee. This year’s partners are the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the College of Design, BBISS, the Renewable Bioproducts Institute, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and the Institute for Data Engineering and Science.
The goal of the program is to nurture promising research areas for future large-scale collaborative sustainability research, research translation, and/or high-impact outreach; to provide mid-career faculty with leadership and community-building opportunities; and to broaden and strengthen the Georgia Tech sustainability community as a whole. The call for proposals was modeled after the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research’s Moving Teams Forward and Forming Teams programs.
This year’s seed grant awards align with the four main thematic areas in which BBISS aims to enhance Georgia Tech’s research to address some of our most pressing sustainability challenges:
The 2026 Sustainability Next Seed Grant awards are:
Forming Teams:
Moving Teams Forward:
Amino acids also play a critical role commercially where they are manufactured and added to pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements, cosmetics, animal feeds, and industrial chemicals — an energy-intensive process leading to greenhouse gas emissions, resource consumption, and pollution.
A landmark new system developed at Georgia Tech could lead to an alternative: a commercially scalable, environmentally sustainable method for amino acid production that is carbon negative, using more carbon than it emits.
The breakthrough builds on a method that the team pioneered in 2024 and solves a key issue – increasing efficiency to an unprecedented 97% and reducing the bioprocess cost by over 40%. It’s the highest reported conversion of CO2 equivalents into amino acids using any synthetic biology system to date.
Published in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology, the study, “Cell-Free-Based Thermophilic Biocatalyst for the Synthesis of Amino Acids From One-Carbon Feedstocks,” was led by Bioengineering Ph.D. student Ray Westenberg and Professor Pamela Peralta-Yahya, who holds joint appointments in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. The team also included Shaafique Chowdhury (Ph.D. ChBE 25) and Kimberly Wennerholm (ChBE 23); alongside University of Washington collaborators Ryan Cardiff, then a Ph.D. student and now a Chain Reaction Innovations Fellow at Argonne National Laboratory, and Charles W. H. Matthaei Endowed Professor in Chemical Engineering James M. Carothers; in addition to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Synthetic Biology Team Leader Alexander S. Beliaev.
"This work shifts the narrative from simply reducing carbon emissions to actually consuming them to create value,” says Peralta-Yahya. “We are taking low-cost carbon sources and building essential ingredients in a truly carbon-negative process that is efficient, effective, and scalable.”
The work builds on the cell-free technology the team used in their earlier study. “Previously, we discovered that a system that uses the machinery of cells, without using actual living cells, could be used to create amino acids from carbon dioxide,” Peralta-Yahya explains. “But to create a commercially viable system, we needed to increase the system’s efficiency and reduce the cost.”
The team discovered that bits of leftover cells were consuming starting materials, and — like a machine with unnecessary gears or parts — this limited the system’s efficiency. To optimize their “machine,” the team would need to remove the extra background machinery.
"Leftover cell parts were using key resources without helping produce the amino acids we were looking for,” says Peralta-Yahya. “We knew that heating the system could be one way to purify it because heat can denature these components.”
The challenge was in how to protect the essential system components from the high temperatures, she adds. “We wondered if introducing enzymes produced by a heat-loving bacterium, Moorella thermoacetica, might protect our system, while still allowing us to denature and remove that inefficient background machinery.”
The results were astounding: after introducing the enzymes, heating and “cleaning” the system, and letting it cool to room temperature, synthesis of the amino acids serine and glycine leaped to 97% yield — nearly three times that of the team’s previous system.
To make the system viable for large-scale use, the team also needed to reduce costs. “One of the most costly components in this system is the cofactor tetrahydrofolate (THF),” Peralta-Yahya shares. “Reducing the amount of THF needed to start the process was one way to make the system more inexpensive and ultimately more commercially viable.”
By linking reaction steps so waste from one step fueled the next, the team devised a method to recycle THF within the system that reduces the amount of THF needed by five-fold — lowering bioprocessing costs by 42%.
“This decrease in cost and increase in yield is a critical step forward in creating a method with real potential for use in industry and manufacturing,” Peralta-Yahya says. “This system could pave the way for moving this carbon-negative technology out of the lab and onto the continuous, industrial scale."
Funding: The Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E); U.S. Department of Energy; and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research Program.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.5c00352
]]>Selena Langner
College of Sciences
Georgia Institute of Technology
Reliable energy is required to keep safe in cold winters and hot summers, making it a matter of national security. There are also vying economic policies to consider, political and financial incentives to navigate, and questions of social and economic inequality.
Experts in Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts examine the challenges we face with the U.S. energy transition, and work to help make it safe, fair, and effective for all.
Read the article on the Ivan Allen College website.
]]>In the International Disaster Reconnaissance (IDR) course, students now use Filio, a platform built by School of Computing Instruction Senior Lecturer Max Mahdi Roozbahani, to capture immersive 360° media, photos, and video that transform real disaster sites in India and Nepal into living digital classrooms.
Offered by the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and taught by IDR director and Regents’ Professor David Frost, the course pairs traditional fieldwork with Roozbahani’s expertise in immersive technology and data-driven learning, transforming on-the-ground observations into reusable, interactive educational resources.
Disasters are not only physical events; they are also information events, Roozbahani says. Effective response and long-term resilience depend on the ability to observe, record, and communicate critical data under pressure. Georgia Tech’s IDR course pairs structured on-campus preparation with international field experiences, enabling students to study the cascading effects of major disasters, including how local building practices, governance, and culture shape damage and recovery.
“When students step into a disaster zone, they learn quickly that resilience is a systems problem: physical, social, and informational. Our job in computing is to help them capture and reason about that system responsibly,” Roozbahani said.
During spring break last year, the cohort traveled along the Teesta River corridor in Sikkim, India. The region is shaped by steep terrain, fast-moving water, and critical infrastructure in narrow valleys.
The visit followed the October 2023 glacial lake outburst flood from South Lhonak Lake, which destroyed the Teesta III hydropower dam and impacted downstream towns, including Dikchu and Rangpo. Field stops across India included Lachung, Chungthang, Dikchu, Rangpo, Gangtok, and New Delhi.
Students explored both upstream and downstream consequences.
Upstream, the team examined how steep terrain and river confinement amplify flood forces, creating cascading risks for infrastructure. Using Filio’s interactive 360° media, students captured conditions in Lachung and Chungthang, allowing viewers to explore the landscape through a 360° photo and 360° video that reveal how topography and river dynamics intensify disaster impacts.
They studied community-scale effects downstream, including damaged buildings, disrupted access, and prolonged recovery timelines.
Rangpo offered a glimpse of recovery in motion, with materials staged for rebuilding bridges and roads essential to commerce and emergency response.
Students documented their field experience using Filio, an AI-powered visual reporting platform developed by Roozbahani through Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X ecosystem. Filio captures high-resolution photos, video, and 360° immersive media, preserving both the facts and the context of disaster sites; what the site felt like, what was lost, and what communities prioritized in recovery.
“A 360° capture lets students return months later and ask better questions. That second look is where learning accelerates,” Roozbahani said.
Supported by alumni and faculty mentors, including Tech alumnus Chris Klaus and Georgia Tech mentor Bill Higginbotham, the platform is evolving into a reusable educational library for future courses on immersive technology, responsible AI, and global resilience.
The course concluded in Kathmandu, Nepal, where students examined how heritage, governance, and the everyday use of public space shape resilience.
Through Filio’s immersive documentation — including a 360° photo and 360° video from Kathmandu — the focus broadened from hazard impacts to cultural context, highlighting how recovery is not only about rebuilding structures, but also about preserving identity, memory, and community.
Frost and Roozbahani envision the IDR immersive media library as a reusable resource for students even when they cannot travel, supporting future courses on immersive technology, responsible AI, and global resilience. Spring 2026 cohorts will continue to build on this foundation by documenting, analyzing, and sharing insights that can improve education and real-world disaster response.
In the International Disaster Reconnaissance (IDR) course, students now use Filio, a platform built by School of Computing Instruction Senior Lecturer Max Mahdi Roozbahani, to capture immersive 360° media, photos, and video that transform real disaster sites in India and Nepal into living digital classrooms.
]]>The Department of Energy Office of Science recently released two reports through its Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program. The reports were produced by workshops that brought together researchers from universities, national labs, government, and industry to set priorities for scientific computing.
Professor Felix Herrmann served on the organizing committee for the Workshop on Inverse Methods for Complex Systems under Uncertainty. Assistant Professor Peng Chen joined Herrmann as a workshop participant, contributing expertise in data science and machine learning.
Inverse methods work backward from outcomes to find their causes. Scientists use these tools to study complex systems, like designing new materials with targeted properties and using past wildfires to map vulnerable areas and behavior of future fires.
The ASCR report highlighted Herrmann’s work on seismic exploration and monitoring through digital twins. Founded on inverse methods, digital twins upgrade from static models to virtual systems that accurately mirror their physical counterparts.
Digital twins integrate real-time data sources, including fluid flows, monitoring and control systems, risk assessments, and human decisions. These models also account for uncertainty and address data gaps or limitations.
The DOE organized the workshop to support the growing role of inverse modeling. The group identified four priority research directions (PRDs) to guide future work. The PRDs are:
“A digital twin is a system you can control, like to optimize operations or to minimize risk,” said Herrmann, who holds joint appointments in the Schools of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Computational Science and Engineering.
“Digital twins give you a principled way to consider uncertainties, which there are a lot in subsurface monitoring. If you inject carbon dioxide too fast, you will will increase the pressure and may fracture the rock. If you inject too slow, then the process may become too costly. Digital twins help us make balanced decisions under uncertainty.”
Supercomputers, algorithms, and artificial intelligence now power modern science. However, these tools consume enormous amounts of energy. This raises concerns about how to sustain computing and scientific research as we know them in the decades ahead.
Professors Rich Vuduc and Hyesoon Kim co-authored the report from the Workshop on Energy-Efficient Computing for Science. At the three-day ASCR workshop, participants identified five key research directions:
“I’m cautiously optimistic about the future of energy-efficient computing. The ASCR report says, from a technological point of view, there are things we can do,” said Vuduc.
“The report lays out paths for how we might design better apps, hardware systems, and algorithms that will use less energy. This is recognition that we should think about how architectures and software work together to drive down energy usage for systems.”
]]>The Department of Energy Office of Science recently released two reports through its Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program. The reports were produced by workshops that brought together researchers from universities, national labs, government, and industry to set priorities for scientific computing.
]]>As artificial intelligence (AI) drives explosive growth in data centers, communities across the U.S. are facing rising electricity costs, new industrial development, and mounting strain on an aging power grid.
At Georgia Tech, several faculty members are approaching these sustainability challenges from different but complementary angles: examining how data center policy affects local communities, modeling how AI-driven demand reshapes regional energy systems, and building tools that help the public understand the tradeoffs embedded in grid planning. Together, their work highlights how better data, thoughtful policy, and public engagement can guide more resilient and equitable decisions in an AI-powered future.
AI’s Hidden Footprint: How Data Centers Reshape Communities
Ahmed Saeed studies the infrastructure most people never see. An assistant professor in the School of Computer Science and a Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Faculty Fellow, Saeed focuses on how data centers — the backbone of modern AI — are built, operated, and regulated, and what their growth means for host communities.
“Data centers are the infrastructure for our digital life, so more of them are necessary to keep doing what we’re doing,” he said.
Data center energy consumption could double or triple by 2028, accounting for up to 12% of U.S. electricity use, according to a report by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. U.S. spending on data center construction jumped nearly 70% between May 2023 and May 2024, according to the American Edge Project.
Georgia is an AI data center hub, ranked fourth globally, with $4.6 billion in AI-related venture capital invested across 368 deals, the American Edge Project reported. At a recent town hall in DeKalb County, Georgia, Saeed helped residents connect AI’s promise to its local consequences. Training large AI models can require tens of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs) running for days or weeks, driving an unprecedented wave of data center construction. AI-focused chips, he noted, can consume 10 to 14 times more power than traditional processors.
That demand often shows up as pressure on local infrastructure. Communities are increasingly concerned about electricity and water use, grid upgrades, and who ultimately pays. In Virginia, Saeed pointed to a legal dispute in which consumer advocates warned that data centers could raise electricity bills by 5% in the short term and up to 50% over time, while utilities argued those investments were inevitable and could benefit customers in the long run.
Environmental concerns add another layer. Saeed cited controversies over water use and backup diesel generators in states, including Georgia and Tennessee, alongside a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling that tightened generator regulations. While diesel generators are clearly harmful, he cautioned that long-term, rigorous evidence linking data centers to regional health impacts remains limited.
Saeed’s research aims to reduce those impacts directly. By optimizing how workloads are scheduled across large server fleets, his team has demonstrated power savings of 4 – 12%, a meaningful gain if U.S. data centers approach projected levels of up to 12% of national electricity use by 2028.
For Saeed, data centers are akin to highways: essential to modern life, disruptive to nearby communities, and shaped by policy choices. The question, he argues, is not whether AI infrastructure should exist, but how transparently and fairly it is built.
Economist Probes the Energy Costs of the AI Boom
While headlines often frame AI as an energy crisis, Georgia Tech environmental and energy economist and BBISS Faculty Fellow Tony Harding is focused on measuring its real — and uneven — impacts. Harding, an assistant professor in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, uses economic modeling to examine how AI adoption affects energy use, emissions, and local communities.
In recent work published in Environmental Research Letters, Harding and his co-author analyzed how productivity gains from AI could influence national energy demand. Their findings suggest that, at a macro level, AI-related activity may increase annual U.S. energy use by about 0.03% and CO₂ emissions by roughly 0.02%.
“Those numbers are small in the context of the overall economy,” Harding said. “But the impacts are highly uneven.”
That unevenness is evident in where data centers are built. While Northern Virginia remains the country’s top data center hub, with 343 operational data centers, states like Georgia, which currently has 94 operational data centers, are rapidly attracting facilities due to reliable power and favorable tax policies.
Harding’s latest research focuses on local effects, asking why data centers cluster in urban areas, how they influence housing markets, what happens to electricity prices, and whether they exacerbate water stress. Early evidence suggests large facilities can increase local electricity rates, contributing to public backlash and regulatory response. In Georgia, the Public Service Commission has begun requiring new, high power draw customers (like data centers) to cover more of the costs associated with grid expansion.
Harding’s goal is to give policymakers better evidence to design incentives and guardrails. “To manage these technologies responsibly,” he said, “we need a clear picture of their intended and unintended consequences.”
Gamifying a Strained and Aging Power Grid
Daniel Molzahn is tackling another side of the problem: how to modernize an aging power grid under growing demand. Electricity demand is expected to rise about 25% by 2030, driven by data centers, electric vehicles, and broadscale electrification. At the same time, much of the U.S. electricity grid is nearing the end of its lifespan, with many transformers being decades old.
To make these challenges tangible, Molzahn, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, developed a browser-based game with a group of students through Georgia Tech’s Vertically Integrated Projects program called Current Crisis. Players take on the role of a utility decision-maker, balancing reliability, wildfire risk, renewable integration, and affordability.
The game grew out of Molzahn’s National Science Foundation CAREER award and reflects his belief that complex systems are best understood experientially. Its initial focus is wildfire resilience, modeling how grid infrastructure can both spark and suffer damage from fires.
But resilience comes at a cost. Burying power lines, for example, reduces wildfire risk but dramatically increases expenses. Players must confront the same tradeoffs utilities face: improve reliability or keep rates low.
Molzahn hopes the game will help students and the public grapple with the realities of planning future power systems. “These choices aren’t abstract,” he said. “They shape affordability, resilience, and our path toward a cleaner grid.”
The project now involves nearly 40 students from across campus, supported by Sustainability NEXT funding and a collaboration with Jessica Roberts, former BBISS Faculty Fellow and director of the Technology-Integrated Learning Environments (TILES) Lab in the School of Interactive Computing.
“As a learning scientist, I look at how to engage people with science and scientific data and get people having conversations they might not otherwise have,” says Roberts, who hopes the seed grant helps the team determine first that they are going in the right direction and, second, how to broaden the impact.
One student, Stella Quinto Lima, a graduate research assistant in Human-Centered Computing, has made the game the focus of her doctoral thesis. Through the game, she wants players to notice their misconceptions about the power grid, energy use, and AI, and to use critical thinking to identify, question, and possibly undo those misconceptions.
“I hope that we can really engage adults and help them see it’s not black and white. The game is not only about power grids, but how AI affects the grid, how it affects our lives, and how it will impact our future.”
The team plans to expand the game’s features, use it in outreach programs, and analyze player decisions as a source of data to study energy-system decision-making.
“We want to change the conversation about power and power grid stability, reliability, and sustainability, Roberts said, “and find a way to get this message to a larger public.”
]]>What does it mean to design systems that endure even after major disruptions? This question framed the 2026 Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Sustainability Showcase, where conversations over two days spanned the Georgia coast, wildfire modeling, AI data centers, infrastructure, community engagement, and the joy of working for a more sustainable and resilient world. Across disciplines and scales, a unifying theme emerged: resilience is not a single solution. It is a systems-level challenge requiring integration across science and technology, policy, communities, and human experience.
From Coastlines to Communities
The showcase opened with a keynote from President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough on wildlife management and resiliency along Georgia’s coast. The conversation that followed between Clough and BBISS Executive Director Beril Toktay highlighted the interconnection between public policy, wilderness conservation, community leadership, and scientific research. The session highlighted not only the urgency of protecting fragile ecosystems, but also that resilience works best when it is community-focused and community-driven.
Subsequent panels continued this systemic perspective. Sessions on community engagement, biotechnology-derived, climate-resilient plants, the flood resilience of Georgia coastal communities, wildfire prediction and prevention, and infrastructure resilience analytics all emphasized that resilience depends on the synthesis of many disciplines.
Across sessions, researchers emphasized that infrastructure resilience must include governance frameworks informed by good science, community engagement based on trust, and sustained collaboration that seeks to constantly improve the science, policy, and stakeholder relationships. The researchers demonstrated that they understand their role to be greater than merely modeling risk, but as collaborators who translate research into practical solutions that communities can adopt, maintain, and trust.
AI Data Centers: A New Resilience Frontier
Day two shifted attention to data centers, which are emerging as a critical resilience frontier. As artificial intelligence systems scale rapidly, so does the infrastructure that powers them, as well as the growing realization that digital systems are physical systems. Conversations examined the feedback loops that play a significant role in determining environmental impacts, such as chip architecture, AI workloads, data center sustainability, appropriate AI usage, and who makes the decisions on data center infrastructure development.
One of the most fascinating sessions came from Alexandria Smith, assistant professor in the School of Music at Georgia Tech. She presented an artistic yet algorithmic composition that sonified data from AI data centers. Through translating kilowatt-hour usage and interconnection data into immersive soundscapes, she reframed data centers not as static input-output machines, but as adaptive, living systems. Drawing inspiration from Physarum polycephalum, a slime mold without a brain or nervous system known for its innate problem-solving abilities, she invites the listener to imagine infrastructure that senses, adapts, and self-optimizes.
Campus as a Living Laboratory
In her session, Professor Jennifer Chirico, associate vice president of Sustainability, highlighted Georgia Tech’s 2024 Climate Action Plan, focusing on building energy efficiency, renewable integration, materials management, and mobility transitions. The plan frames the Georgia Tech campus as a test bed for resilience strategies — an ecosystem where research, operations, and policy intersect. Chirico highlighted several examples where the alignment between research and implementation was essential in moving projects from modeling to pilot projects to sustained institutional change.
Finding Joy in Climate Action
Rebecca Watts Hull, Matthew Realff, and Christie Stewart led an interactive discussion inspired by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s framework for accelerating long-term climate action. Participants were asked three simple questions: What are you good at? What work needs doing? What brings you joy? Sustainability and climate research are fields often defined by serious urgency, crisis narratives, and burnout. This session offered a personal framework for resilience where emotional sustainability, professional fulfillment, and joy matter just as much as the motivation to drive a mission ever forward.
Building a Shared Vision
The Sustainability Showcase concluded with a facilitated visioning session led by Kristin Janacek, associate director for Interdisciplinary Research Impact, and Beril Toktay. In small groups, leaders, researchers, and community members worked to define what resilience looks like for them.
After the conversations, several themes emerged:
Over two days, it became clear that Georgia Tech is not approaching resilience as a narrow technical problem. It is approaching it as a systems challenge — one that spans coastlines, campuses, disciplines, data centers, the Appalachian Mountains, data models, the arts, and human relationships. Designing systems that endure requires more than innovation. It requires collaboration, stewardship, and a shared commitment to long-term impact. The conversations launched at this year’s BBISS Sustainability Showcase laid the foundation for continued coordination and ambitious action in the months ahead.
]]>The Eshelby Mechanics Award was established in 2012 in memory of Professor John Douglas Eshelby to promote the field of mechanics, among young researchers. The award will be formally presented at the 2026 Applied Mechanics Division Awards Banquet during the ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition in November.
Athanasiou and his team advance the fundamental mechanics and physics of materials and translates these insights into systems-level design strategies that address global challenges in resource efficiency and sustainable development. His research integrates advanced experimental methods capable of capturing material behavior under realistic operational conditions, mechanics-based design principles, and tailored AI- and physics-informed modeling frameworks.
Together, these efforts enable the development of life-cycle-efficient, cost-effective materials and structures for applications ranging from sustainable packaging to aerospace systems and space construction. His recent work published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) introduced a bioinspired framework to improve plastic recycling while addressing a foundational mechanics question: how can we build reliable structures from inherently variable materials?
Athanasiou is also the recipient of the 2024 NSF CAREER Award and the ASME Orr Early Career Award, and is a Climate Tech Fellow at the New York Climate Exchange.
]]>The interactive dashboard compiles and visualizes data gathered by Matisoff, along with Program and Operations Manager Michael Morley, offering a comprehensive view of SAF production, feedstock availability, and policy trends.
EPIcenter Research Associate Yang You has designed the dashboard to translate complex datasets into policy-relevant insights for decision-makers. By organizing key metrics into interactive visuals, the dashboard helps stakeholders assess market readiness and identify regulatory actions that could accelerate SAF adoption.
Emphasizing the importance of data-driven insights, Matisoff said, “The Department of Energy has a Grand Challenge to produce 3 billion gallons a year of Sustainable Aviation Fuel by 2030, and 35 billion gallons a year by 2050. By compiling and visualizing SAF data, we can help policymakers and researchers understand progress towards these goals, where the key opportunities and bottlenecks are – and how to move forward effectively”.
Why SAF Matters
While aviation only accounts for about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is a rapidly growing share, and decarbonizing this sector is considered one of the most challenging aspects of the energy transition. Produced from renewable feedstocks, sustainable aviation fuel offers a pathway to reduce lifecycle emissions from air travel without requiring major changes to aircraft or infrastructure. However, SAF production and deployment face hurdles related to cost, supply chain development, and policy support.
EPIcenter’s Director Laura Taylor highlighted the dashboard’s role in addressing these challenges:
“Sustainable aviation fuel is a cornerstone of decarbonizing air travel, but the market is complex and rapidly evolving. The dashboard provides clarity by organizing the relevant data in a way that’s accessible and actionable for decision-makers.”
“This tool is meant to bridge analysis and action,” said You. “By visualizing SAF production, capacity, and offtake dynamics, the dashboard allows policymakers and stakeholders to see where the market is moving, where gaps remain, and how targeted infrastructure investments or supportive policies could unlock scale.”
The EPIcenter SAF Dashboard is intended as a resource for industry leaders, policymakers, and researchers working to accelerate SAF adoption. By providing transparent, data-driven insights, Georgia Tech aims to support informed decisions that advance innovation and sustainability in aviation.
To explore the dashboard and learn more about Georgia Tech’s work on sustainable aviation fuel, visit EPIcenter’s SAF page.
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