Housing and transportation are top priorities for many city mayors, policymakers and public policy researchers—including Brian An, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy. But in February 2021, soon after Winter Storm Uri wreaked havoc in Texas, an eight-hour power outage at his Atlanta home became an epiphany.
“While housing stability had long been on my mind, losing power drove home the importance of another piece of urban infrastructure: reliable access to electricity,” says An, an EPIcenter faculty affiliate and co-director of the Center for Urban Research. “It sparked my interest in studying the intersection of energy and urban policy to help make cities and communities not only socially equitable but also resilient to extreme weather.”
Read Full Story on the EPIcenter News Page
]]>Housing and transportation are top priorities for many city mayors, policymakers and public policy researchers—including Brian An, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy. But in February 2021, soon after Winter Storm Uri wreaked havoc in Texas, an eight-hour power outage at his Atlanta home became an epiphany.
“While housing stability had long been on my mind, losing power drove home the importance of another piece of urban infrastructure: reliable access to electricity,” says An, an EPIcenter faculty affiliate and co-director of the Center for Urban Research. “It sparked my interest in studying the intersection of energy and urban policy to help make cities and communities not only socially equitable but also resilient to extreme weather.”
]]>News Contact: Priya Devarajan, Research Communications Program Manager
]]>See a curated list of Georgia Tech experts available to comment on the World Cup here.
As Atlanta welcomes the world for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the promises are familiar: millions of visitors, global attention, economic growth, and a chance to showcase the city on one of the biggest stages in sports.
But Georgia Tech experts say the real question is not whether the tournament will generate activity — it is who benefits from it and what remains after the final match is played.
Mega-events have long been sold as catalysts for transformation. The 1996 Olympics reshaped Atlanta’s physical landscape and helped position the city as a global destination. Thirty years later, the World Cup arrives at a very different moment.
“There are similarities,” said Emily Barrett, assistant professor in the School of City and Regional Planning. “Like the Olympics, the World Cup is an accelerator for infrastructure upgrades and public and private investment alike.”
Atlanta is seeing significant public investment in transportation improvements and billions of dollars in private development downtown. But today’s Atlanta is very different from Atlanta in the 1990s.
“Atlanta is no longer a city seeking recognition on the world stage,” Barrett said. “We are a thriving and growing city.”
That shifts the conversation from visibility to value.
“The open question is whether hosting mega-events makes the city work better for the people who live here,” Barrett added.
Assessing that value becomes more complicated when economic forecasts enter the conversation.
Large projections often dominate headlines, but Declan Abernethy, lecturer in the School of History and Sociology, cautions that economic impact estimates rarely tell the whole story.
“It is far easier to put out an economic impact projection compared to the difficulty of measuring impact,” Abernethy said.
While visitors will spend money on hotels, restaurants, transportation, and entertainment, he notes that much of that spending may not reach the community.
“When we look closely at that spending, we can see that much of the profit will be taken in by large corporations or FIFA in the immediate vicinity of Mercedes-Benz Stadium and not as much by Atlanta residents or small businesses,” he said.
According to Barrett, economic studies often overlook a critical question: What could alternative investments have accomplished?
“Economic studies rarely account for displacement costs, or whether the same public dollars could have generated similar or better outcomes if invested elsewhere,” she said.
The World Cup’s impact extends beyond economics; it will also test Atlanta’s infrastructure at a scale few events can match.
Michael Hunter, professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says the biggest challenge may be the volume of people moving through the city.
“There will be a number of pressure points. However, one of the most significant will be just the number of people,” Hunter said. “This event will attract significant crowds.”
Atlanta’s transportation agencies have spent years preparing, drawing on lessons learned from events including the Super Bowl, World Series, and major concerts. Still, capacity limits are unavoidable.
“There is only so much traffic that MARTA or any transit agency can handle,” Hunter said. “People need to understand that there will be congestion and longer wait times. The key is to be patient.”
The concern is whether those investments result in lasting improvements or merely support a few weeks of activity.
Abernethy argues that the World Cup should be viewed as part of a broader vision for Atlanta rather than a standalone catalyst.
“We are seeing the World Cup as a part of a longer-running and more cohesive vision for sport and economic development downtown,” he said. “Atlanta may not be repeating the same cycle nor cracking downtown’s development problem with the World Cup itself.”
Infrastructure challenges extend beyond transportation. Feeding hundreds of thousands of visitors while minimizing waste requires its own network of logistics, coordination, and planning.
Nicole Kennard, a research scientist at Georgia Tech’s Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, views the tournament as an opportunity to strengthen how food moves throughout the city.
“These large events are a really big opportunity for us to coordinate and test our infrastructure,” Kennard said. “We have to think critically about how to improve the infrastructure and ensure its resilience and efficiency.”
Working with organizations such as Second Helpings Atlanta, the official food rescue partner for the World Cup, Georgia Tech researchers are building technologies and tools to improve coordination among food rescue groups. The effort aims to keep surplus food out of landfills by quickly moving it from stadiums and vendors to local food organizations.
“It’s really a logistics problem, a data problem, and a coordination problem,” Kennard said. “The faster you can move food from the point of surplus directly to a pantry, the more likely it is to reach people who need it.”
Ultimately, Atlanta’s World Cup legacy may not be measured by attendance figures or visitor spending alone.
“How we evaluate success depends on what we choose to measure, and too often we focus on headline numbers instead of who actually benefits,” said Abernethy.
Kennard sees the tournament as a chance to build systems that outlast the event itself. “What we build for the World Cup could become critical infrastructure for future emergencies and disasters,” she said.
Atlanta already knows how to host a global event. Whether the investments, partnerships, and infrastructure created for the World Cup leave the city stronger after the crowds leave remains to be seen.
]]>Coca-Cola, a neighbor to Georgia Tech since 1920, expects to sell a building and adjacent land in a transaction valued at $31.3 million. The company chose to work directly with Georgia Tech on the planned transaction, reflecting the long-standing relationship between the two organizations and a shared commitment to Atlanta’s continued growth and innovation.
The expected sale includes a two-story brick building, part of Coca-Cola’s holdings since 1988, and an adjoining two-acre park along North Avenue.
“This strategic addition to our core campus will support our growth in enrollment and research activity for years to come,” said Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera. “I appreciate our long relationship with The Coca-Cola Company that allowed us to pursue this opportunity as we continue to invest in our campus, our neighborhood, and Atlanta’s innovation ecosystem.”
James Quincey, Coca-Cola’s executive chair and Georgia Tech’s 2020 Commencement speaker, said the company wanted the property to continue contributing to Atlanta’s innovation ecosystem.
“When we decided this space was no longer needed for our corporate campus, our goal was to work with Georgia Tech, as this site offers a great opportunity for them to expand,” Quincey said. “Coca-Cola has a long legacy of involvement and partnership with Georgia Tech, and we are excited to see them redevelop this important area in Atlanta.”
Georgia Tech will evaluate how the property can best support academic, research, and student needs as part of its long-term campus planning efforts. The acquisition represents a strategic step in ensuring Georgia Tech has the space needed to educate future leaders and advance research that strengthens Georgia’s economy.
About Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is one of the top public research universities in the U.S., developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition.
The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees, as well as professional development and K-12 programs for fostering success at every stage of life. Its more than 56,000 undergraduate and graduate students represent 54 U.S. states and territories and more than 146 countries. They study at the main campus in Atlanta, at instructional sites around the world, and through distance and online learning.
As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.
About The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is a total beverage company with products sold in more than 200 countries and territories. Our company’s purpose is to refresh the world and make a difference. We sell multiple billion-dollar brands across several beverage categories worldwide. Our portfolio of sparkling soft drink brands includes Coca-Cola, Sprite, and Fanta. Our water, sports, coffee, and tea brands include Dasani, smartwater, vitaminwater, Topo Chico, BODYARMOR, Powerade, Costa, Georgia, Fuze Tea, Gold Peak, and Ayataka. Our juice, value-added dairy, and plant-based beverage brands include Minute Maid, Simply, innocent, Del Valle, fairlife, and Santa Clara. We’re constantly transforming our portfolio, from reducing sugar in our drinks to bringing innovative new products to market. We seek to positively impact people’s lives, communities, and the planet through water replenishment, packaging recycling, sustainable sourcing practices, and carbon emissions reductions across our value chain. Together with our bottling partners, we employ more than 700,000 people, helping bring economic opportunity to local communities worldwide. Learn more at www.coca-colacompany.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
]]>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.
]]>Atlanta is consistently ranked among the top cities for congestion, but new projects and a commitment to improving transportation on campus and in the city have earned Georgia Tech several honors and a reputation as a transportation infrastructure leader.
Since the celebratory opening ride, led by Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera, in August 2025, the campus cycle track has signaled a new phase of transportation at Tech. Linking the Campus Recreation Center and Tech Parkway along Ferst Drive to Tech Square, the track was named among the Best New U.S. Bike Lanes of 2025 by PeopleForBikes.
The concept for the track, which promotes eco-friendly commuting options such as bicycles, e-bikes, scooters, and skateboards, and offers a dedicated, bidirectional path separated from vehicular traffic, was developed in a 2019 award-winning senior capstone project by a group of civil engineering students.
Recognizing the Institute's leadership in creating infrastructure and public spaces that support safe, sustainable, and accessible transportation options, Propel ATL awarded Tech a 2025 Institutional Leadership in Mobility Award.
Parking and Transportation Services (PTS), together with Planning, Design, and Construction, partners with Propel ATL to conduct monthly group rides and bike safety classes, and offers an online bike and scooter safety course, in which students receive a free helmet upon completion. To date, PTS has given hundreds of free helmets to students, and the next class will take place on Wednesday, March 18. These courses, along with the Georgia Tech Police Department’s efforts to educate the campus community on the safe use of micromobility, have helped Tech create a model for the city in micromobility safety and access.
The Institute has also been recognized by Georgia Commute Options as one of Metro Atlanta’s top 5 best workplaces for commuters. The group highlights Tech’s partnership with the Midtown Alliance as an example of how the Institute “plays a critical role in advancing sustainable commuting both on campus and across Midtown Atlanta” through subsidized transit passes, extensive bike infrastructure, on-site showers and changing areas for cyclists, a robust campus shuttle network, carpool and electric vehicle parking, and dedicated transportation staff who provide personalized commute support.
PTS is continually working to promote sustainable travel to and from campus, seeking input from the community through its annual Campus Commute Survey. The survey has become increasingly revealing as campus infrastructure changes, leading to the creation of new bike storage facilities, and the results will be used in the planning phase of future projects.
In 2024, Tech retained its status as a Gold-level Bicycle Friendly University, as issued by the League of American Bicyclists. The prestigious distinction, which Tech has held since 2016, is awarded to institutions that successfully promote and establish safe and accessible campus bicycling programs and amenities.
For five consecutive years, Georgia Tech has won Love to Ride’s Atlanta Bicycle “Biketober” Challenge, with employees cycling 22,132 miles in October 2025.
“Each of these honors and awards tells us that we are moving in the right direction and are doing our part to make it easier and safer to get to our campus and move throughout it,” said Lisa Safstrom, PTS transportation program specialist. “We know we are able to take on these projects and continue to step up our efforts, and that’s because of the expertise that exists on our campus and the input we receive from the community.”
Georgia Tech researchers say HPC and artificial intelligence (AI) advances this year are poised to improve how people power their homes, design safer buildings, and travel through cities.
According to Qi Tang, scientists will take progressive steps toward cleaner, sustainable energy through nuclear fusion in 2026.
“I am very hopeful about the role of advanced computing and AI in making fusion a clean energy source,” said Tang, an assistant professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE).
“Fusion systems involve many interconnected processes happening across different scales. Modern simulations, combined with data-driven methods, allow us to bring these pieces together into a unified picture.”
Tang’s research connects HPC and machine learning with fusion energy and plasma physics. This year, Tang is continuing work on large-scale nuclear fusion models.
Only a few experimental fusion reactors exist worldwide compared to more than 400 nuclear fission reactors. Tang’s work supports a broader effort to turn fusion from a promising idea into a practical energy source.
Nuclear fusion occurs in plasma, the fourth state of matter, where gas is heated to millions of degrees. In this extreme state, electrons are stripped from atoms, creating a hot soup of fast-moving ions and free electrons. In plasma, hydrogen atoms overcome their natural electrical repulsion, collide, and fuse together. This releases energy that can power cities and homes.
Computers interpret extreme temperatures, densities, pressures, and plasma particle motion as massive datasets. Tang works to assimilate these data types from computer models and real-world experiments.
To do this, he and other researchers rely on machine learning approaches to analyze data across models and experiments more quickly and to produce more accurate predictions. Over time, this will allow scientists to test and improve fusion reactor designs toward commercial use.
Beyond energy and nuclear engineering, Umar Khayaz sees broader impacts for HPC in 2026.
“HPC is the need of the day in every field of engineering sciences, physics, biology, and economics,” said Khayaz, a CSE Ph.D. student in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
“HPC is important enough to say that we need to employ resources to also solve social problems.”
Khayaz studies dynamic fracture and phase-field modeling. These areas explore how materials break under sudden, rapid loads.
Like nuclear fusion, Khayaz says dynamic fracture problems are complex and data-intensive. In 2026, he expects to see more computing resources and computational capabilities devoted to understanding these problems and other emerging civil engineering challenges.
CSE Ph.D. student Yiqiao (Ahren) Jin sees a similar relationship between infrastructure and self-driving vehicles. He believes AI will innovate this area in 2026.
At Georgia Tech, Jin develops efficient multimodal AI systems. An autonomous vehicle is a multimodal system that uses camera video, laser sensors, language instructions, and other inputs to navigate city streets under changing scenarios like traffic and weather patterns.
Jin says multimodal research will move beyond performance benchmarks this year. This shift will lead to computer systems that can reason despite uncertainty and explain their decisions. In result, engineers will redefine how they evaluate and deploy autonomous systems in safety-critical settings.
“Many foundational problems in perception, multimodal reasoning, and agent coordination are being actively addressed in 2026. These advances enable a transition from isolated autonomous systems to safer, coordinated autonomous vehicle fleets,” Jin said.
“As these systems scale, they have the potential to fundamentally improve transportation safety and efficiency.”
]]>Georgia Tech researchers say HPC and artificial intelligence (AI) advances this year are poised to improve how people power their homes, design safer buildings, and travel through cities.
]]>