Opening the event, Ameet Pinto, BBISS faculty director for Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration, noted that many critical infrastructure systems are facing unprecedented challenges. Aging assets, climate-related impacts, severe weather events, and growing demands on energy and water systems are testing the resilience of infrastructure that communities depend on. At the same time, infrastructure systems increasingly generate vast amounts of operational data through sensors, meters, and monitoring technologies. The opportunities for AI technologies to transform this data into actionable information and inform policy are just beginning to be explored.

Turning Infrastructure Data into Action

Molzahn's presentation focused on the electric grid and the ways AI-enhanced optimization can support smarter infrastructure management. He described the ongoing transition from large, centralized power plants to more distributed systems that incorporate renewable energy, battery storage, electric vehicles, and other distributed energy resources. While these technologies create opportunities for cleaner and more resilient energy systems, they also introduce new layers of complexity for planners and operators.

Among the examples Molzahn shared was research examining how electric vehicle charging could affect emergency evacuations during disasters such as wildfires. Traditional evacuation planning focuses on optimizing transportation networks for rapidly moving vehicles away from danger. However, with more EVs on the roads, consideration must be given to ensure that EVs will have sufficient charge to travel a safe distance when an evacuation order is given without overloading the electrical grid. By linking transportation and power-system models, researchers are demonstrating how planning strategies can significantly reduce stress on infrastructure while supporting faster evacuations.

Wildfire mitigation was another major focus. In recent years, several devastating wildfires have been linked to electricity infrastructure, prompting utilities to increasingly rely on Public Safety Power Shutoffs during high-risk conditions. Molzahn discussed how machine learning and optimization tools can help utilities make these difficult decisions more quickly by balancing ignition risk and minimizing customer outages.

He also highlighted emerging cybersecurity concerns associated with the trend towards more distributed energy resources. Decentralized and digitally connected energy infrastructure, such as internet-connected solar and battery systems, can be more vulnerable than legacy centralized energy sources. AI is playing an important role in identifying potential vulnerabilities.

Practical Applications in the Water Sector

Loe offered examples of how AI is already being deployed by water utilities and municipalities. One pressing challenge involves identifying lead service lines. New federal regulations require utilities to locate and replace lead service lines, but many organizations lack complete records identifying pipe materials. Loe described how utilities can combine statistical sampling and machine learning models to estimate which service lines are most likely to contain lead. Rather than excavating thousands of suspect locations, utilities can use AI to narrow the search, reducing costs while still meeting regulatory requirements and maintaining confidence in the results.

Loe also explained the overarching challenges of maintaining aging water infrastructure. Utilities across the country have significant backlogs of aging pipes that need replacement but lack the resources to replace every asset at once. Machine learning models can predict which pipes are most likely to fail, while optimization tools can prioritize and package disparate replacement jobs into efficient and practical construction projects for which funding can more easily be obtained. This approach allows organizations to move beyond simple age-based replacement strategies and incorporate factors such as risk, community priorities, paving schedules, traffic impacts, and equity considerations.

The Human Element

Although the discussion centered on AI, both speakers repeatedly emphasized that people remain critical to successful implementation. Panelists and audience members also discussed the importance of keeping "humans in the loop" since utility systems directly affect public safety. AI may generate recommendations, identify risks, or highlight priorities, but engineers, operators, and planners should remain responsible for evaluating those recommendations and making final decisions.

Workforce development emerged as another important theme. Both the water and energy sectors face challenges replacing experienced workers as many long-time professionals approach retirement. AI offers opportunities to preserve and transfer institutional knowledge that could enable smaller workforces, but both speakers stressed that future professionals will need expertise that spans engineering, data science, computing, and domain knowledge.

Looking Ahead

The discussion demonstrated that infrastructure resilience is increasingly both a physical and digital challenge. From wildfire management and grid reliability to lead service line replacements and predictive maintenance, AI and digital twins are enabling new opportunities to improve how critical systems are planned, operated, and maintained. However, better algorithms alone will not be enough to counter our aging infrastructure, climate impacts, cybersecurity risks, and rising resource demands. The thoughtful integration of advanced tools and human expertise and judgment built on a foundation of public trust offers the most effective solutions for keeping essential systems running.

Next in the Insights Series 

On October 14, BBISS will hold the next Insights Series at the John Lewis Student Center in the Rafael Bras Meeting Room. The topic will be “AI for Climate Resilience.” This session will explore how artificial intelligence is being leveraged to address pressing sustainability challenges and strengthen communities, infrastructure, and environmental systems in a changing climate. The program will open with an update from Jennifer Chirico on the Georgia Tech Climate Action Plan. Presentations from leading researchers will follow, including Suhas Jain, Ali Sarhadi, Abigale Stangl, and Iris Tien, followed by an interactive panel discussion. Breakfast will be served. Registration is required.

Ahmadi and Brown find that neighborhoods with higher shares of Black residents experience higher energy burdens, even after accounting for factors such as income, renter status, and housing characteristics. In this study, energy burden refers mainly to the share of household income spent on electricity, gas, and water. The authors estimate that an approximately 11 percentage-point increase in a neighborhood’s Black population share is associated with about a 1 percentage-point increase in household energy burden, equal to an average annual increase of about $785 in utility costs. These findings suggest that unequal energy burdens are tied not only to household finances, but also to the lasting effects of segregation and discrimination. 

Read Full Story on the EPIcenter Page

When Chevron reported its highest quarterly profit in six years on July 31, 2026, it was just one detail in a larger picture: Analyst firm Wood Mackenzie estimates the global oil and gas industry is on course for a cash windfall of US$495 billion in 2026. That’s profit above and beyond what the industry expected before the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began.

Three separate bills seeking to tax those profits are now in Congress, and President Donald Trump has even said the oil companies are “making too much money.”

As an applied microeconomist, I am often asked how taxes affect economic activity. Economists have long held a more nuanced view of windfall taxes than either side of the current debate suggests. Advocates often make overly optimistic revenue projections, and opponents often overstate how much such a tax might discourage investment. A 1980s U.S. windfall-tax experiment is instructive on both counts.

Read Full Story on The Conversation

The Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI), the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI), and the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute are racing to close the gap between what America invents and what it can build at scale. 

The cells that keep vaccines working for decades have long remained a mystery deep within human bone marrow. A new study watched them move, settle, and survive in a living human tissue model, revealing a surprisingly dynamic world that could reshape how scientists think about immunity, aging, cancer, and vaccine protection. 

For decades, immunologists have known that the body's most durable defenses depend on plasma cells, the antibody-producing cells responsible for long-term immune memory. Long after an infection has passed or a vaccine has been administered, these cells continue releasing protective antibodies, sometimes for decades. 

How does Atlanta's local food ecosystem function today? How do the people working inside it envision its future? And where are the opportunities for transformation?

Those three questions drive the systems and network mapping research of Nicole Kennard, a research scientist and assistant director for Community-Engaged Research at Georgia Tech’s Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS). Within a systems map, Kennard charts intersecting food challenges and the intervention strategies that could address them. A companion social network map reveals the relationships that already exist across the food ecosystem and who needs to be brought together to create change. Both feed into the Atlanta Food System Research Network, an effort to increase coordination and build teams around the food system's most stubborn, systemic challenges.

The mapping regularly shows one significant gap: One in eight metro Atlantans are struggling to access food. Although more local farmers are growing good food, there is a “missing middle layer” of infrastructure connecting that food to those who need it, according to Atlanta’s 2026 Climate Resilience Action Plan. Food produced by smaller farms often can’t enter traditional supply chains due to small quantities, so new models are needed to move that food in ways that people can access it within their everyday routines. A summer research trip through France, Belgium, and the U.K. provided her with fresh models for closing that gap.

"I learned a lot from these models that I'm trying to bring back to Atlanta for my systems mapping research," Kennard said. "One of the biggest issues is we're missing that middle layer — better ways to distribute local food so it's reaching all neighborhoods equitably, and it's actually accessible."

It's not Kennard's first time working on food systems abroad. After graduating from Georgia Tech with a degree in materials science and engineering and running a student-led hydroponics project that grew food for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, she spent nearly four years in the U.K. as a Fulbright Scholar, earning a master's in sustainable agriculture and food security at Newcastle University before completing a Ph.D. in chemistry and biosciences at the University of Sheffield in 2023. That background, she said, is part of what draws her to the field. "Food is the great connector."

Bringing Ideas Home From Europe

This summer, Kennard split her time between France, Belgium, and a return visit to Sheffield. At Georgia Tech-Europe, the institute's Metz campus, she met with Paul Voss, director of academic programs, to explore future partnerships around sustainable entrepreneurship and research, potentially bringing BBISS-affiliated faculty and coursework to the campus.

In Montpellier, she presented her work to three organizations clustered on a single campus: INRAE (France's National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment), L'Institut Agro Montpellier, and CIRAD, the country's international agricultural development research arm, along with MOISA, an interdisciplinary CIRAD-affiliated research unit focused on sustainable food systems. There, she encountered a "right-to-food" pilot in which Montpellier residents, half of whom live in poverty, pay a voluntary monthly amount on a sliding scale, from as little as 1 euro to 150 euros, and all receive a flat 100 euros back, redeemable at a handful of partner supermarkets. She also saw "social grocery stores" reaching rural areas through mobile markets, and digital platforms, letting neighbors pool their money to buy directly from local farmers.

Kennard also attended the European Ecological Economics Society Conference in Belgium, where she presented her food systems mapping research and learned about other local food models, specifically farmer-based cooperatives.

In Sheffield, Kennard gave a talk on community-engaged research methods and came away with insights from their local food network, ‘ShefFood,’ which is community-led rather than run by the university or city (though both have seats on its board). Leadership rotates every couple of years to keep it grounded in the community it serves.

From Campus to Community

Kennard's Atlanta work leans heavily on the students and community partners building it with her. This semester, she is working with incoming computer science Ph.D. student Tristan Daniel to automate her network map, scraping newsletters, news articles, and annual tax filings to keep the map's data updated in near-real time. Rhutvi Ahir, a master’s student in city and regional planning, has been working on integrating the systems map into a publicly available and interactive online platform.

Last semester, through a BBISS 2025 Sustainability Next Seed Grant project, Kennard, along with principal investigators Johannes Milz, Ingeborg Rocker, and Carl DiSalvo, professor in the School of Interactive Computing, convened 16 community and civic partners for a participatory design workshop mapping how food moves across metro Atlanta and where better data sharing could prevent waste. Drawing on feedback from that session, DiSalvo’s team is now exploring tools such as digital maps that show where surplus food, refrigerated trucks, and distribution sites are located, as well as a dedicated messaging system to coordinate what is now handled through ad hoc texts and calls.

This fall, DiSalvo’s graduate students in the interdisciplinary M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction program — from computing, design, and social science backgrounds — will turn those concepts into early prototypes to test with partners, giving students experience designing technology for real community needs rather than just commercial products.

DiSalvo says the core issue isn’t only a lack of food, but the difficulty of coordinating people, resources, and logistics at scale. “There’s so much need with food insecurity, and resources as well. It’s a coordination challenge. Most people didn’t get into this because they love logistics; they have a commitment to feeding people,” he said.

He credits Kennard with helping position Georgia Tech as a hub for food systems and community-engaged sustainability research. “Nicole’s work is important — not just her food systems research, but also the oversight she gives to community-based research. It’s amazing we have her as a colleague.”

DiSalvo isn't the only faculty collaborator. Sofía Pérez-Guzmán, an assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a BBISS Faculty Fellow, has partnered with Kennard to survey Atlanta residents in West End and citywide about how they access food. Their next step: building a tool based on what they learned.

"We're designing a decision-making tool that helps connect food locally, from producers to distributors and food access points in the community," Pérez-Guzmán said.

Not every connection requires a grant or a formal project. Through the networks she is building and her continued engagement, Kennard has linked a local consulting group with a co-op needing strategic guidance and introduced a farmers market organizer to a food rescue partner. Community partner Fresh Harvest even referenced her food system network map in a recent presentation to WABE radio. According to Kennard, it generated a lot of buzz, underscoring the appetite that Atlantans have for a shared picture of the food distribution ecosystem.

Two Maps, One Goal

Both of Kennard's maps are expected to go live by the end of the summer. The network map identifies the organizations working in the space and how they connect. The systems map, still being finalized, distills her interviews and engagement work into nine key thematic areas emerging as priorities for the city, along with competing visions of what a more resilient food system could look like.

The maps also anchor the research network Kennard co-leads with Emory University Associate Professor Emily Burchfield and agrifood systems researcher Kate Mundon-Dixon. The network has held two gatherings so far, one at a local hydroponic farm, where attendees added their own connections to the map. The network’s active listserv now includes more than 55 organizations.

For Kennard, the goal was never a single map or tool. It was building the foundation and the infrastructure that let everyone else act together. "I wanted to create this foundational research so that the academics and partners most poised to address specific challenges can create those teams and move forward together," she said.

She added that while most of her work is Atlanta-focused, it has implications for regional food access across Georgia. “A key insight that came from my systems mapping work is the need to connect rural and urban growers to move forward a statewide agenda for a resilient food system,” Kennard said. “My colleague at Emory, Emily Burchfield, is doing a lot more of the rural engagement, and we hope to align our work later.”

Everybody in Atlanta's food space is doing amazing work, she added, noting that, "If we can better align and coordinate under a shared vision and strategy, then we can actually move the needle on systems change, instead of just a few isolated things happening in different neighborhoods.”

At the heart of the new lab is the miniTrashpresso, a compact recycling and manufacturing system developed by the sustainability technology company Miniwiz. The machine can take used plastics and other waste materials, process them locally, and transform them into new products in less than five minutes. By bringing manufacturing and recycling together in a single system, the Trash Lab aims to give the Georgia Tech community a way to explore sustainable design, material reuse, and the future of circular manufacturing.

“The launch of IPaT’s new Trash Lab represents an exciting step forward for sustainability at Georgia Tech,” said Jennifer Chirico, associate vice president of Sustainability. “As a living-learning lab, it provides students and researchers with hands-on opportunities to work alongside campus operations, turning used plastics into valuable new products and creating innovative solutions that support a more circular campus.”

A Makerspace Focused on Circular Innovation

The Trash Lab expands Georgia Tech’s growing network of makerspaces and innovation environments by focusing specifically on waste recovery and reuse. Instead of treating used plastics as disposable materials, the lab encourages users to view them as valuable resources that can be transformed into new products.

The miniTrashpresso represents the latest generation of recycling technology developed by Miniwiz. The company originally launched the world’s first mobile recycling line, known as the Trashpresso, to support communities that lacked access to traditional recycling infrastructure. The newer miniTrashpresso is smaller, more energy-efficient, and more portable, making it suitable for campuses and community-based applications.

The modular system uses industrial equipment, including shredders, presses, and heating technologies, to process materials on-site. Advanced heat-induction presses and specialized molds can quickly transform recovered plastics into new objects and components. The system can also be integrated with AI-powered waste-tracking tools and robotic automation technologies that help identify, sort, and process materials more efficiently.

For IPaT leaders, the Trash Lab represents more than the addition of specialized equipment.

“Community resilience and people-centered sustainability are core research areas within IPaT,” said Michael Best, executive director. “Our new Trash Lab will allow the entire Georgia Tech community to not only think about upcycling and plastic reuse but to make and do innovative projects that directly demonstrate sustainable futures.”

Turning Trash Into a Resource

Miniwiz founder Arthur Huang, who developed the miniTrashpresso system, describes upcycling as a practice rooted in centuries of human ingenuity.

“Upcycling is actually recycling old material and turning that into something new,” Huang said.

Throughout history, societies have reused existing materials in construction, manufacturing, and everyday life. According to Huang, modern waste streams, particularly plastic packaging and electronic waste, represent an enormous and often untapped source of raw materials.

The miniTrashpresso was designed around that idea. Rather than transporting waste long distances to centralized facilities, the system enables materials to be processed where they are collected. By reducing transportation needs and creating opportunities for local manufacturing, decentralized recycling systems can help lower the environmental footprint associated with traditional waste management.

Miniwiz estimates that using recycled materials can reduce embedded energy consumption by 60% to 80% compared with using raw materials. The company has developed more than 1,200 upcycled materials and products from everyday waste streams, including plastics, food packaging, coffee cups, and electronic waste.

Since its introduction, Miniwiz technology has been deployed in communities, campuses, and organizations worldwide, including projects in Taiwan, Italy, Singapore, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates. According to Huang, Georgia Tech is installing and operating North America’s first miniTrashpresso recycling machine from Miniwiz.

Building a Community Around Sustainability

The new facility is also intended to serve as a gathering place for interdisciplinary collaboration. Students interested in sustainability, materials science, engineering, design, manufacturing, and public policy will have opportunities to experiment with new ideas while working with researchers and campus partners.

“When Michael Best first pitched the idea of the Trash Lab, I expected there to be interest in a space like this given the general momentum toward sustainable practices on campus, but the level of excitement from students, staff, and faculty has been outstanding,” said Tim Trent, IPaT’s lab director for the Trash, Craft, Prototyping, and Usability Labs.

“This is an opportunity to create a gathering point for sustainability initiatives, act as a catalyst for partnerships, and help strengthen the many amazing networks and projects already present on campus,” he said. “The IPaT Innovation Labs have a continuous focus on supporting the overall Georgia Tech research enterprise, and I’m happy we are adding another piece to the portfolio.”

As the Trash Lab opens its doors, members of the Georgia Tech community will be invited to explore how waste materials can be reimagined as resources, prototypes, and products. By combining makerspace culture, advanced recycling technology, and sustainability research, the lab offers a tangible demonstration of how circular economy principles can move from theory into practice.

For Georgia Tech, the Trash Lab is not simply a place to recycle plastic. It is a space where innovation, design, and sustainability intersect, helping transform discarded materials into opportunities for learning, discovery, and impact.
 

---

For more information about the Trash Lab, contact the IPaT Innovation Labs at ipat-labs@groups.gatech.edu.

But recent research from Georgia Tech’s School of Economics in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts suggests adding an asterisk to earlier research that makes that conclusion, saying previous studies failed to account for one simple fact: people adapt. 

Georgia Tech economist Bobby Harris used a massive database of Fitbit step count data to measure how temperature shapes physical activity and found that extreme heat cuts step counts by 6% when compared to ideal weather. And while residents of the warmest regions cut their activity by an average of only 354 steps on days over 100 degrees, those living in the coldest regions cut theirs by 1,081, according to Harris’ analysis. 

To be fair, cold bites, too. On days that stay below freezing, people take roughly 1,000 fewer steps. That’s a 12% drop, enough to pack on a pound over the course of a typical Madison, Wisconsin winter, Harris found. 

But as the climate grows warmer, how humanity will respond to warmer temperatures remains a significant concern. In fact, earlier research projected that, by 2050, temperature-driven declines in physical activity could contribute to 500,000 premature deaths a year worldwide and annual productivity losses topping $2.4 billion. 

Projections like those typically assume everyone responds to heat the same way, with no capacity to adapt, Harris said.  

Read Full Story on the IAC News Page
 

The CAREER Award is NSF’s most prestigious honor for early-career faculty, recognizing researchers who demonstrate the potential to become leaders in both research and education.

Mahajan received the award for her research on designing energy-efficient, adaptive artificial intelligence (AI) datacenters through a cyber-physical approach that jointly considers AI software, computing hardware, and the physical state of the underlying infrastructure.

As AI models continue to grow in scale and complexity, they place increasing demands on every layer of datacenter infrastructure—from accelerators, memory, and networking to power delivery, cooling, and security. Yet these systems are often designed and optimized one layer at a time, limiting overall efficiency and adaptability.

Mahajan’s research reimagines AI datacenters as cyber-physical systems in which software, hardware, and physical operating conditions continuously inform one another.

“AI infrastructure should be designed around the real-time condition of the hardware, not just its specifications,” Mahajan said. “By making AI systems aware of the physical state of the infrastructure, we can build datacenters that are more efficient, adaptive, and resilient at scale.”

Read Full Story on the ECE News Page

The committee, convened through the National Academies' project Future of Battery Technology Options for Defense Applications, will identify the strengths and weaknesses of future battery technologies, including an examination of performance, safety, and manufacturability across technology and manufacturing readiness levels. The committee will also identify gaps where research investments could potentially improve battery capabilities across technology and manufacturing readiness levels, creating opportunities to leverage commercially available technologies.

With a joint appointment in MSE and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, McDowell is internationally recognized for his research on batteries and energy storage materials. His work focuses on understanding how materials change during battery operation and using that knowledge to develop safer, more efficient, and more sustainable energy storage systems. McDowell is also co-director of the Georgia Tech Advanced Battery Center. He leads research spanning solid-state batteries, lithium-ion and sodium-ion technologies, and next-generation energy storage materials. “I am very thankful to be selected, and I look forward to working with colleagues on developing recommendations to advance battery technologies in support of our country," said McDowell.

Read Full Story on the MSE Newspage

This award is part of NASA’s Space Technology Research Grants Program, which supports groundbreaking projects with the potential to transform space science and technology.

Through the three-year, $750,000 award, Mazumdar and her research team will develop laser-based methods to simultaneously measure temperature, chemical species, gas velocity, and other properties in the gases surrounding heat shield materials.

“We aim to implement our measurement techniques in arc jet or plasma jet facilities, like the ones at NASA, to assist with the evaluation of thermal protection systems for next-generation spacecraft,” Mazumdar said.

The project uses ultrafast lasers, which produce extremely short, high-intensity pulses. These pulses allow researchers to study the behavior of molecules on extremely short timescales and measure properties that can improve understanding of the gases surrounding a spacecraft during atmospheric entry.

Mazumdar said she and her students are excited about this project and hope it will help NASA develop new heat shields for spacecraft traveling to destinations such as Mars, Venus, and Titan.

Read Full Story on the ME Webpage

Read more.

Established in 2014, the BBISS Faculty Fellows program brings together distinguished faculty from across Georgia Tech to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, strengthen the sustainability research community, and advance the Institute's mission of generating real-world impact through research, education, and engagement. Serving three-year terms, fellows act as strategic advisors, community ambassadors, and thought leaders within the broader sustainability ecosystem. Building on this foundational vision, the BBISS Faculty Fellows program has evolved to meet the dynamic needs of modern sustainability leaders. The newly revamped program emphasizes active leadership development, offering tailored networking opportunities, connections with broader sustainability networks, and focused training to help fellows grow as influential voices in their respective fields. Through these enhancements, the BBISS Faculty Fellows program aims to empower early-career researchers to maximize their reach, elevate their research, and innovate transformative sustainability solutions.

The 2026 cohort represents a wide range of expertise spanning AI and sustainability, sustainable finance, computational materials discovery, infrastructure systems, environmental chemistry, urban resilience, and community-engaged research.

The 2026 BBISS Faculty Fellows are:

• Heidi Biggs, Assistant Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.
• Jennifer Bowen, Assistant Professor, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, College of Sciences.
• Gaurav Doshi, Assistant Professor, School of Economics, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.
• Xindi He, Assistant Professor, Scheller College of Business.
• Guoxiang (Emma) Hu, Assistant Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering.
• Suhas Jain, Assistant Professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering.
• Patrick Kastner, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, College of Design.
• Cindy Kaiying Lin, Assistant Professor, School of Interactive Computing, College of Computing.
• Julia Yang, Assistant Professor, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, College of Engineering.

Collectively, their research addresses the sustainability of interconnected human, natural, and engineered systems, encompassing topics such as watershed resilience, resource stewardship, carbon cycling, circular materials management, and evidence-based environmental decision-making. Their diverse expertise fosters new interdisciplinary collaborations that accelerate the development of practical, scalable solutions for communities, industries, and ecosystems.

“We are delighted to welcome this exceptional group of faculty leaders to the BBISS community,” said BBISS Executive Director Beril Toktay. “Their expertise, creativity, and commitment to sustainability will help expand opportunities for collaboration and accelerate the impact of sustainability research across Georgia Tech and beyond.”

A new study led by Francesca Storici, a professor in the School of Biological Sciences and faculty member of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience, has uncovered an unexpected feature of human DNA linked to gene activity and the physical organization of DNA. The findings, published in Cell, could change how scientists think about DNA organization, transcription, and genome function. 

Through a Next Gen STEM (NGS) NASA Aerospace Skilled Technical Workforce Hubs (NAS_Hub) grant award, Georgia Tech will play a central role in addressing a critical labor shortage in the booming aerospace industry and enhance the state’s role as an aerospace industry leader in the global space economy.

Beginning this fall, the three-year, $1.5 million award will establish the Southeast Space Technology & Aerospace Readiness Skills (SE-STARS) Hub. The hub will expand opportunities for training and workforce readiness in high-demand technical careers in aerospace.
The SE-STARS Hub includes the Georgia Space Grant Consortium (GSGC), Georgia Tech’s Space Research Institute (SRI), the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI), the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), Georgia Southern University, Georgia College and Career Academies, Georgia Aerospace & Defense Alliance (GADA), and select Georgia aerospace employers to support the growing aerospace industry and NASA missions.

Aerospace products are Georgia’s No. 1 export and the state has more than 800 companies supporting aviation, manufacturing, research, maintenance, repair, and operations.  Many aerospace and engineering positions rely on skilled technical workers whose training pathways do not require a four-year, or advanced degree. There are significant gaps in technical roles such as machinists, electronics technicians, test operators, and systems integrators. These shortages are driven by an aging workforce and a projected national shortfall of at least one million skilled technical workers by 2030. (National Academics of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, 2025). The gap also stems from the rapid pace of technological advancement, where even current skills can quickly become obsolete if not constantly renewed.  All this combines to create an urgent need for training to support new and sustainable aerospace career pathways. 

Stephen Ruffin, interim chair of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and GSGC director will serve as the principal investigator (PI).  Jud Ready, executive director of SRI; Lori Skillings, GSGC; Hossein Taheri, Georgia Southern University; and Steven Ferguson, GTMI, will serve as co-PIs. Jeffrey McNabb, a research engineer in Georgia Tech’s Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ASDL), will serve as the program manager, leading day-to-day operations and coordinating the project team.

"This initiative strengthens Georgia's position as a leader in aerospace innovation and manufacturing while providing new opportunities for students and industries across the state," said Ruffin.

Coordination between public education systems, industry, and workforce agencies can sometimes be limited. SE-STARS will act as a "hub" to bridge these gaps, connecting Georgia Tech and its specialized research institutes with TCSG’s 22 colleges and 88 campuses to provide statewide access to training.
“Another advantage of the program is the stronger network it creates,” said Ruffin. “Each organization in the SE-STARS team has unique capabilities but together we will strengthen the technical workforce pipeline across Georgia and the broader Southeast.”

The SE-STARS team will collaborate with industry partners to develop curriculum aligned with workforce needs. “The easily ported curricula we develop will be tailored for other institutions to adopt directly, creating a consistent foundation of skills and competencies that employers can universally expect from program graduates across Georgia,” Ready said.

Students will access training through a statewide network of technical colleges serving as regional instructional nodes, which offer flexible online options and hands-on paid apprenticeships to ensure broad geographic reach. 

The program also reaches K-12 and adult learners through career academies and specialized STEM labs, creating a structured, sustainable transition from early education to high-demand aerospace credentials. GTMI will support this work through its Advanced Manufacturing Pathways Program, which connects industry-informed training with pathways into high-demand advanced manufacturing careers.

“Georgia's expanding aerospace and space sectors are creating high-paying jobs and driving economic growth,” said Ruffin. “This program will help develop the skilled workforce needed to support that growth and Georgia’s competitiveness in the space economy.” 

Few neuroscientists would dispute that the brain relies on prediction. From houseflies evading swatters to humans catching baseballs, living things are constantly anticipating what comes next. Understanding how the brain generates those predictions could help explain one of neuroscience's most enduring questions: how the brain builds internal models of the world that allow us to learn, adapt, and anticipate what comes next.

“Without actively predicting the world, we cannot survive,” says Farzaneh Najafi, an assistant professor in the School of Biological Sciences and a faculty affiliate of Georgia Tech's Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society. “There is quite some sensory-motor delay in the processing. We can’t just sit there, wait for the brain to process our environment, and then react.”

Part of the puzzle may lie in signals known as neural ramps. Almost like a drumroll leading up to a big reveal, neurons in some areas of the brain have shown gradual increases in activity immediately before a stimulus appears. For decades, researchers have interpreted this ramping activity as a neural signature of prediction, reflecting anticipation of an upcoming event.

Recently published in Science Advances, a new study from Najafi’s lab reveals these signals may not be “predictions” at all, but instead a way neurons track elapsed time.

“Surprisingly,” says Najafi, “the very first study from my lab called the Predictive Processing Lab showed that no, these are not prediction signals.”

The finding challenges a long-standing interpretation of one of neuroscience's most studied signals and reveals that the search for predictive neurons may lead to different circuits — or require different experiments to uncover. 

As manufacturing systems become more connected, the cyberthreat grows with them. Saman Zonouz has spent years documenting how vulnerable smart manufacturing environments are. He’s an associate professor in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where he co-leads the Cyber-Physical Security Lab with Raheem Beyah, Georgia Tech’s provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. 

Instead of becoming steadily stickier as they are pulled apart, soft hydrogels first become less adhesive and then more adhesive as the pulling speed increases, revealing a previously unknown "sweet spot" where detachment is easier. The discovery challenges a long-held assumption in adhesion mechanics and reveals a new physical mechanism that governs how soft materials attach and detach.

"We expected the adhesion to increase continuously with pulling speed, as predicted by classical theories," said Yuhang Hu, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. "Instead, we found the exact opposite over a broad range of speeds. That told us there had to be a completely different physical process at work."

Read the full story.

Georgia Tech will play a key role in the newly announced Genesis Mission, a national initiative harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to propel scientific discovery and address challenges in health, energy, manufacturing, infrastructure, and national security. The White House announced the first Genesis Mission projects on July 22 as part of a more than $5 billion investment in AI-enabled science and technology. 

"One of the goals of the program is to give students the time and support needed to make meaningful progress on their dissertation research while helping them understand the broader policy, economic, and societal implications of their work," said Laura Taylor, director of EPIcenter.

The stipends enable participants to focus exclusively on clearly defined research goals. The program also supports peer discussions, communication training, and interdisciplinary learning opportunities designed to strengthen both their research and professional development.

This year's cohort explored topics ranging from electricity markets and air pollution to critical mineral supply chains and grid modernization, highlighting the breadth of energy-related research taking place across Georgia Tech.

Exploring Complex Energy Challenges

Ana Mazmishvili, who studies environmental and energy economics, used the summer to examine how climate policies affect communities across state lines.

"My research measures who is actually exposed to pollution from power plants when some states adopt climate regulations to cut emissions while neighboring regions do not," Mazmishvili said. "Because air doesn't stop at state borders, the key question is what happens once the pollution is emitted, and who ends up breathing it."

Her work focuses on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a cap-and-trade program in the Northeast, and investigates whether the benefits and burdens of emissions reductions are distributed equitably between regulated and neighboring states.

Mazmishvili said the program provided valuable time to focus on her job-market paper, a central component of her dissertation.

"The regular meetings with the program director and other fellows create useful accountability checkpoints and let me hear perspectives from people in very different fields," she said. "We're also learning how to make academic research understandable to a general audience, a skill I expect to use well past this summer."

Industrial and systems engineering doctoral student Faeze Fahimi Aghda spent the summer developing an optimization model for the U.S. gallium supply chain, a critical component of many advanced technologies.

Her research uses mathematical modeling to examine where and when domestic gallium processing facilities should be established under the threat of supply disruptions.

"Working on my research through EPIcenter has taught me to look at my problem from a policy point of view rather than focusing only on the math," Fahimi Aghda said. "The feedback within the meetings helped me improve my model."

Ryan Anthony, in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, explored how one of the largest oil shocks in U.S. history affected electricity customers and whether utility ownership influenced the impact on consumers.

"So far, my research suggests that it mattered a lot,” Anthony said. “Municipal utilities held rates down and absorbed many of the costs, while private, investor-owned utilities passed more costs through to their customers."

Anthony said the program provided critical support for the archival research required for the project.

"My project depends on data that only exists in old government reports, and that kind of archival work is difficult to fund," he said. "EPIcenter gave me the time and space to do it properly."

Connecting Research to Real-World Impact

For Samin Alipour, the summer provided an opportunity to explore how electric grids can adapt to growing numbers of distributed energy resources.

"Most electric distribution systems were built like one-way roads, carrying power from a substation to homes and businesses," Alipour said. "Rooftop solar, batteries, and electric vehicles are turning those roads into two-way systems."

Her research examines how these emerging technologies can be coordinated to increase grid flexibility and clean energy adoption while maintaining safety and reliability and ensuring that costs and benefits are distributed fairly.

With support from EPIcenter, Alipour focused on the economic and policy dimensions of those challenges. "I did not want my research to remain only a technical model," she said. "The program has helped me connect the technical results of my dissertation to economic value, reliability, equity and compensation policy."

One study developed during the summer was accepted for presentation at a specialized power systems conference, an achievement Alipour credits in part to the opportunity to focus on the broader implications of her work.

Building the Next Generation of Energy Scholars

Beyond advancing individual research projects, the Summer Research Program encourages students to engage with colleagues from different disciplines and develop skills for communicating complex ideas to broader audiences.

“Through regular cohort meetings, participants build a community of accountability, discuss research challenges, explore interdisciplinary energy topics, and develop communication skills,” said Gil Gonzalez, program support coordinator for EPIcenter. “Students also write a research-focused blog post for EPIcenter and present their work at the program's fall workshop, which allows them to share their research with the broader Georgia Tech energy community.”

As EPIcenter continues to support interdisciplinary energy scholarship at Georgia Tech, the Summer Research Program equips future leaders with the tools to address complex energy challenges through technological innovation, informed policy, and economic analysis.

Read more »

Join Georgia Tech undergraduate Harrison Burnside on this latest episode of Engineered at Tech as he tours Katherine Graham's lab and discovers how to track pathogens in the Chattahoochee River. The goal is to help local agencies pinpoint sources of pollution in rivers and reservoirs to protect public health. 

Watch the video on the COE News page

Launched in 2025, INNS serves as a hub for neuroscience and neurotechnology research, connecting researchers across disciplines to advance discovery, innovation, and societal impact.

“A core part of INNS's mission is helping people find one another, connect around shared interests, and build something bigger than they could accomplish alone,” says Executive Director Christopher Rozell. “Simon has spent his career bringing together people, perspectives, and disciplines to tackle complex challenges. I can't think of a better person to help lead our interdisciplinary research efforts and support the next generation of collaborative neuroscience research.”

A longtime leader in Georgia Tech's neuroscience community, Sponberg helped shape the institute's early foundations through the Neuro Next Initiative, which evolved into INNS. As associate director, he will help guide research strategy, foster new collaborations, and support interdisciplinary work across the neuroscience ecosystem.

“Neuro-related research touches so many fields that we inevitably have a problem of finding all the potential right people and opportunities to tap into,” he said. “A core responsibility of this role is helping catalyze the ideas of new teams of talented researchers, educators, and trainees from inception to realization.”

Sponberg is the Glen Robinson Professor in Complex Systems with appointments in the School of Physics and the School of Biological Sciences, where he directs the Agile Systems Lab. His work also connects him to the Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB) and the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM), underscoring the cross-disciplinary approach that defines both his research and leadership.

Since joining Georgia Tech in 2014, he has built a highly collaborative research program spanning neuroscience, biology, physics, engineering, and robotics while helping foster interdisciplinary connections across campus. He currently leads a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) that brings together neuroscientists and engineers from five universities to understand how brains achieve fast, flexible perception and decision-making in complex sensory environments. He also co-leads the Integrative Movement Sciences Institute, an NSF Biological Integration Institute focused on understanding movement and muscle function across scales.

His contributions have been recognized through numerous honors, including a Young Investigator Award from the International Society for Neuroethology, a Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship in the Neurosciences, and the Leddy Family Dean’s Faculty Excellence Award.

As associate director, Sponberg will focus on helping researchers identify new opportunities for connection and collaboration. In addition to overseeing seed funding programs, he hopes to create pathways for researchers to build teams, access support resources, pursue ambitious interdisciplinary research ideas, and team with Georgia Tech’s undergraduate and graduate neuroscience degree programs.

“I look forward to being a resource for our community when people are looking for help in building teams or finding opportunities to support their ideas,” he said. “Bring your best ideas and please reach out if you want to talk about ideas in the interdisciplinary neuro space that you want to see realized.”
 

Counterfeit and out-of-spec components are entering U.S. defense supply chains through thousands of small and midsized suppliers that make up the lower tiers of the industrial base. Researchers at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI) say the fix isn't just better parts, but better proof: verified digital records, secured against tampering, that travel with each component from raw material to installation.   

The U.S. has seen its printed circuit board market share plummet to 4% while becoming dangerously dependent on foreign rare earth processing. Now, with global supply chains fracturing, defense industrial capacity under pressure, and adversaries looking to dominate advanced production, the country is in a race to rebuild — and to rebuild smarter. 

The Air Quality Index (AQI) measures how clean or polluted the air is. A healthy AQI is between zero and 50, but when wildfire smoke blows in and settles over cities, the AQI can reach levels of 500 or more. Poor air quality changes where and how people spend their time and money, reduces productivity (even for those working indoors), and increases healthcare costs.

“Environmental regulations like the Clean Air Act dramatically improved our air quality over the past 40 years, but as wildfire season becomes the new normal, wildfire smoke is eroding those gains,” Wichman said. According to recent research, wildfire smoke has erased about a quarter of the progress made over previous decades, and more than half in many western states. 

Read Full Story on the IAC News Page

--Written by Anne Wainscott-Sargent

From a single Atlanta church to a growing network across the Southeast, Georgia Tech engineer Sofía Pérez-Guzmán is connecting communities and researchers to support resilience in extreme weather events. 

For researchers in Georgia Tech's Cyber-Physical Security (CPSec) Lab, however, the vulnerabilities behind many of these incidents are far from new.

Associate Professor Saman Zonouz leads the CPSec Lab and has studied programmable logic controllers (PLCs) for years. These devices automate critical infrastructure, including water treatment facilities, power grids, manufacturing plants, and transportation systems. The lab’s work has revealed widespread internet exposure and software vulnerabilities that leave many industrial control systems vulnerable to cyberattacks.

"Out of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors defined by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, four are considered lifelines," Zonouz said. "Of those four, communications, energy, transportation, and water, the water sector is the most vulnerable, which is why it is so often targeted."

PLCs serve as the brains of industrial operations, monitoring sensors and controlling equipment that keep essential services operational.

"Imagine you have a thermostat that controls the temperature of your house. That is a type of controller," Zonouz explained. "The professional version does the same thing in industry."

When these controllers are directly accessible from the internet, attackers can exploit them to disrupt operations, manipulate industrial processes, or interfere with the systems that deliver essential services. Controllers may be intentionally exposed to allow operators to monitor equipment remotely. They can also be unintentionally accessible online because of configuration errors.

However, internet exposure is only part of the problem.

The CPSec Lab maintains a collection of PLCs that researchers reverse engineer to better understand their firmware, communication protocols, and security weaknesses. Their research has found that many controllers contain vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit once they gain access.

"Not only can the attackers see the house they want to rob, but the doors are also left unlocked," Zonouz said.

In 2024, Zonouz and his collaborators presented PLCHound at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), introducing an automated system that identifies internet-connected PLCs hidden within massive internet-scale datasets collected by services such as Shodan and Censys. The work was led by Ph.D. student Ryan Pickren. Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Raheem Beyah, Assistant Professor Frank Li, and Research Scientist Animesh Chhotaray are co-authors of the study. 

Rather than relying on traditional scanning techniques, PLCHound identifies subtle network signatures that reveal industrial devices that prior methods often missed. Using the system, the researchers conducted one of the largest studies of publicly reachable PLCs from major manufacturers.

Their findings showed that previous estimates undercounted the number of internet-accessible industrial controllers by as much as 37 times. Even more concerning, nearly 96% of the identified devices exposed protocols linked to recently disclosed critical vulnerabilities.

The researchers did more than document the problem. After identifying exposed devices, the team launched a large-scale notification campaign, contacting more than 7,000 industrial operators to alert them that their systems appeared vulnerable. The effort enabled many organizations to investigate and address security issues before they could be exploited.

The recent attacks on municipal water systems reinforce concerns researchers have raised for years: many critical infrastructure operators continue to rely on operational technology designed primarily for reliability and performance rather than for cybersecurity.

Improving those defenses, Zonouz said, will require more than simply patching individual vulnerabilities.

The researchers cite the energy sector as a model. Compared with other critical infrastructure sectors, electric utilities generally operate under more mature cybersecurity requirements and undergo routine compliance audits, providing organizations with greater visibility into the devices connected to their networks and the risks they pose.

Implementing those improvements will not be easy. Many municipal water utilities operate with limited budgets and aging infrastructure, leaving little funding available for cybersecurity investments. As attacks on critical infrastructure become more frequent, the researchers argue that gaining visibility into operational technology assets and strengthening oversight are essential first steps to protect the systems communities rely on every day.

The CPSec Lab is a collaborative laboratory within the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy as well as the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

With a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and as a former trainee in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB), it’s no surprise that Georgia Tech alumnus and serial entrepreneur Chris Lee loves numbers. One in four. Eighty percent. Five times.  

Recycled materials promise a cleaner future, but recycled content alone does not necessarily make a product sustainable. At Georgia Tech’s Daedalus Lab, assistant professor, National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient, and Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems Faculty Fellow Christos Athanasiou and postdoctoral researcher Danqi Sun are working to provide greater certainty to designers and engineers by rethinking how materials are tested for their fracture characteristics. Their article in Science Advances details a new testing protocol that reduces cost, increases speed, and simulates real-world conditions.

Materials shape nearly every part of modern life, from packaging and consumer products to bridges and medical devices. Choosing the right material involves balancing durability, cost, manufacturability, and environmental impact. Yet those decisions are not always guided by a clear understanding of how materials age and fail under real-world conditions, especially for recycled materials like plastics.

One way that materials frequently fail is by cracking. A small crack can begin almost invisibly. Over time, it can spread from regular wear and tear and exposure to common environmental factors like moisture, temperature fluctuations, or even dirt. Eventually, the crack expands, and the part fails. Engineers have studied fracture for more than a century, but connecting the science of cracking to practical decisions about sustainability remains a major challenge.

The characteristics of recycled plastics often vary from those of the same material in unrecycled, or virgin, form. Products made from recycled plastics may be sold with sustainability claims under the assumption that they will perform as if they were made with virgin material. However, premature failure requiring repair or replacement can quickly change the sustainability equation as well as the acceptance of recycled materials by manufacturers and consumers.

Beyond Conventional Fracture Testing

Materials rarely fail due to a single factor. They may be exposed to several factors simultaneously, such as mechanical loading, chemical environments, temperature changes, moisture, and time. Traditional fracture protocols test one specimen at a time under carefully controlled laboratory conditions, which bear little resemblance to the real world. To move beyond this limitation, Sun developed an in-situ, high-throughput platform capable of studying how materials degrade and fail under more realistic conditions.

The platform changes conventional fracture testing in three important ways. First, it can test multiple specimens simultaneously rather than one at a time. By monitoring samples in parallel, testing time can be reduced by more than 60%. Second, it allows materials to be tested in realistic environments. In this study, researchers examined virgin and recycled plastics in alkaline environments that resemble conditions encountered in applications like landfill liner membranes and geotextiles. Third, the platform incorporates an imaging technique known as photoelasticity, which reveals the formation of stress fields that form around the origin of a newly developing crack. This allows researchers to see cracks develop earlier than before, giving them a clearer picture of the forces that drive crack growth.

The researchers have made the technology available for licensing through Georgia Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing. “Our goal was to make fracture testing not only faster but also more informative,” Sun said. “By combining high-throughput testing, realistic environments, and full-field stress imaging, we can better understand how materials fail under conditions closer to real-world applications.”

An Honest View of Sustainability

Recycled plastics are often viewed as a greener choice. But according to the study, it’s not always so straightforward. If a recycled product fails prematurely and needs to be replaced frequently, its environmental and economic costs can increase despite its recycled content. As Athanasiou puts it, “Failing materials don’t just break products. They can break sustainability promises.”

For example, comparing virgin polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with recycled PET (rPET) in applications such as landfill geotextiles, the researchers discovered that rPET showed lower resistance to environmental stressors, particularly in alkaline conditions over a pH of 9. In this application, specifying rPET over virgin PET would likely eliminate all of the presumed economic and environmental advantages of using a recycled material.

“Recycling is essential, but recycled content alone does not tell the full story. If a material fails too soon, the environmental benefits can disappear,” Athanasiou said.

From Cracks to Circularity

For the researchers, the significance of the work extends beyond recycled plastics. The broader goal is to provide a fast, affordable, and realistic platform for evaluating the sustainability of any material choice. Because current testing protocols are costly, not widely available, and limited in the information they yield, engineers, manufacturers, and policymakers often have little choice but to continue to specify non-recycled materials because they will perform as expected. Having cheap and accurate data on recycled materials will help to accelerate their adoption because matching the engineering properties of recycled materials to their most appropriate applications will become more obvious.

The researchers also hope to expand the platform to simulate even more complex environments and apply it to a wider range of materials. Because the system generates large amounts of detailed data, it may enable opportunities to use computational modeling or artificial intelligence to digitally simulate mechanical testing, driving down costs and expanding availability even more.

The larger vision is a future in which sustainability is judged not by labels or assumptions, but by evidence for how a material performs, how long it lasts, how it fails, and what it costs society and the environment over its full lifetime.

Please visit the Daedalus Lab YouTube channel to see an explainer video about this new testing protocol: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zmRhiRIiAkQ

Read the paper here: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeh0456

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation CAREER Award No. 2338508.

When most people think of hurricanes, they picture howling winds tearing off roofs and snapping trees. But for Ali Sarhadi, a Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Faculty Fellow, assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and director of the Climate Risk and Extreme Dynamics Lab, the real killer is often less visible. “People think that hurricanes are about wind, but sometimes that’s not the whole story,” he said. “The majority of fatalities are coming from the water, not the wind.”

Supported by two Sustainability Next Seed Grants, Sarhadi’s work draws on climate science, fluid physics, engineering, and artificial intelligence. He’s using AI-powered, physics-informed models to better anticipate water hazards that can cripple cities and power grids in both coastal and inland communities.

Rethinking Hurricane Risk

Sarhadi focuses on compound flooding, the dangerous interaction between storm surge, torrential rainfall, and river flooding that increasingly defines hurricanes. He points to Hurricane Mitch, which hit Central America in 1998, as a stark example, noting that more than 12,000 people died, “all from freshwater flooding — none from wind,” he said.

His work has shown how climate change and sea-level rise are reshaping flood risk from storms like Hurricane Sandy, which devastated New York and New Jersey in October 2012. In the current climate, a Sandy-level natural disaster has a recurrence period of roughly once every 150 years. But that is changing fast. “Because of climate change and sea-level rise, by the middle of this century, the same level of flooding is likely to occur once every 60 years. By the end of the century, that goes up to once every 30 years,” he says. “Hurricane Sandy caused about $70 billion in damage. Imagine experiencing that kind of destruction every 30 years.”

Since 1970, Sarhadi notes, damage from tropical cyclones has increased by about 380% globally, a trend driven by the combined effect of stronger storms and more people and infrastructure being located in harm’s way.

Physics-Informed AI: Street-Level Flood Warnings

While storm forecasting has improved dramatically in recent decades, Sarhadi argues, “We’re in good shape in terms of track forecasting, and we’re getting better at rapid intensification forecasting. But what is missing is the hazard part, and specifically the water part. That’s the number one killer.”

His lab is developing AI models tightly coupled with physics-based simulations to forecast hurricane-induced flooding at unprecedented resolution.

Using Hurricane Sandy as a test case, his team showed that by integrating physics-based surge and rainfall models with generative AI, they could forecast building-level flood depths three to five days before landfall. “We could predict that a storm was surge-dominant and estimate how much flooding could happen at the level of each building with an accuracy beyond 90%,” he says.   

Those extra days, and that level of granularity, could give emergency managers and local leaders the information they need to order earlier evacuations, pre-stage resources, and protect critical infrastructure. “We hope by combining AI and physics-based models we can come up with faster, more accurate modeling, first, to save lives, and then to minimize the economic damage,” Sarhadi says.

Targeting Georgia’s Coastline 

Although much of the public’s attention focuses on the Gulf Coast and megacities on the Eastern Seaboard, Georgia’s coastline is also highly vulnerable to surge and compound flooding. Sarhadi is collaborating with Georgia Tech for Georgia’s Tomorrow to model risk in places like Savannah and the surrounding coastal region. “We’re working to come up with good long-term solutions for protecting coastal communities and infrastructure,” he says.

Events like Hurricane Helene in 2024, which triggered extended blackouts in Georgia and lethal flooding in western North Carolina, underscore how far inland these risks can reach. “People think hurricanes are just a problem for coastal areas,” Sarhadi says. “But even if you are far from a coastline, you can be at risk when saturated soils, torrential rain, and river flooding combine.”

Building Climate-Resilient Power Grids and Cities

Sarhadi’s work doesn’t stop at forecasting. A central focus of his research is climate-resilient infrastructure, particularly the power grid. His team is exploring digital twin modeling — virtual replicas of energy and infrastructure systems. “When you have a digital twin of your grid, you can run that hurricane through it and identify which substations or power lines are more vulnerable,” he says, explaining that this knowledge could trigger utility crews to fix or reinforce power lines ahead of storms.

Looking decades ahead, these tools could help utilities and planners prioritize where to upgrade aging infrastructure as hurricanes intensify and water levels rise. “We know hurricanes are getting more intense, and our infrastructure is aging,” Sarhadi said. “By combining engineering, climate science, and AI, we’re trying to design better adaptation plans so our communities and power systems are more resilient in the future.”

Lindsey will support BBISS’s research, education, and partnership activities across Georgia Tech and beyond. Working closely with BBISS leadership, faculty, staff, students, and external partners, he will coordinate Institute programs, support leadership operations, facilitate stakeholder engagement, and help ensure smooth day-to-day operations.

Andrew brings more than four years of experience in project management, operations, communications, compliance oversight, and organizational improvement in higher education and nonprofit settings. Most recently, he served as project intake and communications specialist at Kennesaw State University. Before that, Lindsey spent nearly four years with the Southern States Police Benevolent Association, first as project coordinator and later as project manager.

Lindsey’s background also includes experience in higher education instruction and mentoring. As a teaching assistant with Georgia Tech’s Grand Challenges program, he worked directly with student teams tackling complex societal issues, providing guidance on research development, collaborative problem-solving, and project execution.

He earned a B.A. in history, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Georgia in 2021, and completed a Master of Public Administration in 2025.

“Andrew’s experience supporting complex projects, improving organizational processes, coordinating across diverse stakeholder groups, and commitment to mission-driven work make him a strong addition to the team,” said BBISS Director of Business Administration Kristina Chatfield.

Read more »

Read more »

School of City and Regional Planning Assistant Professor Rounaq Basu knows it, too. So he and his students (supported by the Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics) created the Cool Routes app to help people in Atlanta find the most shaded — and most importantly, the coolest — paths if they have to walk or bike outside.

Describing Atlanta’s latest heatwave, “This is great for research, but not so great for residents,” Basu said. “I like to walk and bike everywhere, and it’s too hot. I need to know where the shaded paths are!”

The Cool Routes app currently covers 10 cities in the U.S., including Atlanta. Users choose a city from a dropdown menu, provide a trip start and destination, tell the app whether they’re walking or biking, and select route preferences. The app then generates up to three routes to the user’s destination, allowing them to compare how much cooler one route is from another. Further refinement of routes is offered after that.

Learn more >>

The SCC is home to seven student engineering competition teams and provides workspace, tools, and resources to help students apply classroom learning to real-world engineering challenges.

In his new role, Simmons will provide strategic leadership and operational oversight for student competition teams, facilities, staff, budgets, sponsorships, and safety programs. He also will teach and mentor students through engineering design and experiential learning courses, helping connect classroom instruction with project-based experiences.

“Richard brings a unique combination of industry experience, research leadership, and deep commitment to student success,” said Carolyn Seepersad, Eugene C. Gwaltney, Jr. School Chair. “As an accomplished engineer and a Georgia Tech alumnus, he understands the value of experiential learning and is well-positioned to lead the Student Competition Center.”

Simmons, ME 1993, joined Georgia Tech in 2016 after spending the first 20 years of his career leading research, technology, and business development initiatives in the automotive industry, energy sector, and federal government. After graduating from Tech, he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from Purdue University and later became a licensed professional engineer.

Over the past decade, Simmons has held several leadership and research positions within Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute, including founding director of the Energy Policy and Innovation Center and, most recently, director of Research and Studies. He has also taught a variety of courses at the Woodruff School, including ME 2110, Capstone Design, Energy Systems, and Renewable Energy.

Read Full Story on the ME News Page

Blending engineering challenges, field experiences, and team-based design projects, the weeklong program in June gave students a dynamic introduction to energy, sustainability, and engineering innovation and a rare opportunity to engage directly with the technologies, infrastructure, people, and ideas that help power the world.

“Our goal is to get outside of the classroom, have fun, and demonstrate how a STEM education can literally help turn on lightbulbs,” said SEI’s director of Research and Studies, Rich Simmons, who also directs Energy Unplugged. “Through hands-on learning, field trips, and real-world experiences, these creative students are learning that everyone can play a role in our energy future. Along the way, they are gaining a deeper understanding of the tradeoffs and challenges engineers face and learning from experts about pathways to an energy career.”

Mousetrap-Powered Cars
Putting those ideas into practice from day one, the camp began with an engineering challenge in which students designed and constructed mousetrap-powered cars. Using the stored potential energy of a mousetrap spring to propel their vehicles, participants explored how energy is converted from one form to another and identified sources of friction and inefficiency that affect the distance traveled. The activity encouraged students to think like engineers, iteratively testing and refining their designs to improve results.

Engineering Optimization and Tradeoffs
Similar problem-solving skills were put to the test during an RC car optimization challenge. Equipped with a battery-powered vehicle and energy-monitoring systems, students were tasked with completing a driving course while maximizing their score by balancing speed, energy consumption, safety, and cargo capacity. Participants had the option to add weights and tennis balls to increase potential points, but doing so increased the risk of penalties from dropped cargo, missed obstacles, or vehicle rollovers. The exercise highlighted the tradeoffs engineers routinely face when optimizing systems under competing constraints.

“The overall interest in green energy among youth is increasing, so having demonstrations and experiments as well as some high-level lectures on the actual science was a great way to engage the students,” said student assistant William Nudd, a senior in mechanical engineering who assisted with the camp. “When I was in their shoes, I had never attended a physics class, so the camp was definitely getting them a step ahead and did a great job introducing and showcasing key concepts related to energy: How does my home get electricity? Where does energy come from? How do power plants operate?”

Trivia, Demos, and Scavenger Hunts
Additional activities throughout the week included energy-themed trivia competitions, a steam engine demonstration, a solar microgrid exercise, and a campus scavenger hunt. Together, they reinforced classroom concepts through interactive learning and encouraged students to connect technical principles with practical applications.

Field Trips to Power Plants
While these activities taught foundational concepts, a highlight of the camp was a series of field trips that allowed students to observe large-scale energy infrastructure in operation. Participants toured the Georgia Power McDonough-Atkinson Plant, where they learned how combined-cycle power plants generate electricity using both gas and steam turbines to improve efficiency. Students also visited the Morgan Falls hydroelectric facility, getting an up-close view of the massive generators and equipment used to convert the energy of flowing water into electricity.

Campus Tours
In addition to exploring regional energy infrastructure, students were introduced to Georgia Tech’s innovation ecosystem through visits to campus makerspaces and research facilities, including the Flowers Invention Studio and The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design. Students explored one of the nation’s most advanced examples of sustainable building design during a guided tour of The Kendeda Building, which generates 200% of the energy it consumes. Here they learned how energy efficiency, renewable generation, and resource conservation can be integrated into the built environment.

Final Projects 
To bring together the concepts explored throughout the week, students worked in teams on a final design challenge centered around a solar-powered disaster relief trailer on loan from the Footprint Project. Equipped with photovoltaic panels and battery storage, the trailer was originally designed to provide off-grid power during emergencies. Students were challenged to identify additional uses for the system during periods when disaster response was not required. Many teams proposed sustainable food truck businesses powered by the trailer’s solar energy system.

Teams also evaluated cooking technologies such as pressure cookers and slow cookers, comparing energy consumption, power requirements, efficiency, and operating costs. Students examined how energy demand aligned with available solar generation and battery storage while conducting economic analyses to determine business viability and profitability. The project integrated engineering, economics, and sustainability principles while encouraging creative thinking and collaborative problem-solving. 

“Energy Unplugged is an inspiring demonstration of how hands-on engineering experiences can spark curiosity and passion in the next generation of STEM leaders,” said student assistant Alvaro Hucker, a senior mechanical engineering student. “Working with this group and seeing the fun they were having brought back fond memories of my own childhood. It was an amazing experience.”

Student Contributors: Alvaro Hucker, Senior, Mechanical Engineering and William Nudd, Senior, Mechanical Engineering.

Georgia’s $41 billion forest products industry needs a transformation, and a Georgia Tech research team is reimagining how pulp mills use energy and what they can make from their byproduct streams. 

The Petit Center is made possible by a transformational commitment from technology entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Georgia Tech alumnus Parker H. "Pete" Petit.

Since 1980, Petit has provided significant philanthropic support across campus, including the naming of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB), one of Georgia Tech’s 11 Interdisciplinary Research Institutes. IBB is an interdisciplinary hub for transforming biological discovery into real-world health impact, bringing together engineers, scientists, and clinicians to accelerate innovations in diagnostics, therapeutics, medical devices, and biomanufacturing. With more than 300 interdisciplinary faculty researchers, 13 research centers, and 1,300 trainees making unprecedented discoveries and generating innovative technologies, IBB is a catalyst for innovative bioengineering and bioscience research. 

The success of IBB led Petit to make his latest investment, which will build on Georgia Tech’s broader commitment to medical innovation: applying engineering, computing, AI, biosciences, and systems thinking to health challenges that require more than any one field can solve. The Petit Center’s work will strengthen the tools, partnerships, and research pathways needed to help more discoveries move from the lab toward real-world patient care. 

A key goal of the Petit Center will be to use AI to build more precise models of how disease works in the body. Its first research initiative will focus on creating virtual models of human cells. Led by Jeffrey Skolnick, Regents’ Professor and Mary and Maisie Gibson Chair and GRA Eminent Scholar in Computational Systems Biology in the School of Biological Sciences, researchers will use those models to study how diseases progress and to identify treatments that may work best for individual patients. 

By modeling disease at the cellular level, researchers can test ideas faster, uncover links among different diseases, and focus on therapies most likely to help patients based on their unique biology. The work could expedite the discovery of new therapies for some of the hardest-to-treat diseases, including pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. 

“Medical innovation is one of the fastest-growing areas in Georgia Tech’s research, and Pete Petit’s commitment will help us further shape the future of medicine," said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “This new research center will find new ways to harness the power of AI to accelerate critical medical discoveries and move them into clinical settings so patients can get the care they need. We’re deeply grateful for Pete's support, and we’re excited to get started.”

The Parker H. Petit Center for AI-Driven Health Innovation will operate under the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS) and bring together researchers from across Georgia Tech to advance AI-driven approaches to human health. Researchers affiliated with the Petit Center will work across fields and with clinical and healthcare organizations to help close the gap between discovery and practical use. Over time and with additional investments, the Petit Center’s work will expand into areas such as cancer biomarker discovery, healthy aging, advanced cellular therapies, and AI-supported healthcare systems. 

"Georgia Tech has the expertise to redefine what is possible in healthcare through AI," said Skolnick. "By combining advanced computational methods with biological and medical insights, we can create powerful new approaches to predicting disease, identifying treatments, and improving patient outcomes." 

Petit’s commitment will support advanced computing infrastructure, graduate and postdoctoral fellowships, seed research grants, and annual programs that will bring together leading researchers from around the world working at the intersection of AI and health. 

Petit hopes this investment will inspire others to support interdisciplinary research at the Institute. "Georgia Tech has long demonstrated its ability to solve complex challenges," said Petit. "I believe artificial intelligence will fundamentally reshape healthcare, and I am excited to support a center that can help accelerate discoveries to improve and save lives." 

This transformative commitment is included in Transforming Tomorrow: The Campaign for Georgia Tech and is propelling the comprehensive campaign’s success.  

Lindsey will support BBISS’s research, education, and partnership activities across Georgia Tech and beyond. Working closely with BBISS leadership, faculty, staff, students, and external partners, he will coordinate Institute programs, support leadership operations, facilitate stakeholder engagement, and help ensure smooth day-to-day operations. 

Andrew brings more than four years of experience in project management, operations, communications, compliance oversight, and organizational improvement in higher education and nonprofit settings. Most recently, he served as project intake and communications specialist at Kennesaw State University. Before that, Lindsey spent nearly four years with the Southern States Police Benevolent Association, first as project coordinator and later as project manager.

Lindsey’s background also includes experience in higher education instruction and mentoring. As a teaching assistant with Georgia Tech’s Grand Challenges program, he worked directly with student teams tackling complex societal issues, providing guidance on research development, collaborative problem-solving, and project execution. 

He earned a B.A. in history, graduating magna cum laude from the University of Georgia in 2021, and completed a Master of Public Administration in 2025. 

“Andrew’s experience supporting complex projects, improving organizational processes, coordinating across diverse stakeholder groups, and commitment to mission-driven work make him a strong addition to the team,” said BBISS Director of Business Administration Kristina Chatfield.

That dichotomy is part of what drives the field of synthetic biology: where scientists apply engineering principles to learn from and carefully adapt nature’s biological systems to address human problems. By understanding biological systems, scientists can carefully redirect them when natural processes cause harm.

This principle has shaped my work as a biomedical engineer for over two decades. My lab studies how to program cells in order to better understand their behavior and ultimately use them as medicine. The goal is not to discard or replace nature, but to learn from biological principles and use that knowledge to responsibly help society.

Researchers announced on July 2, 2026, that they had created the first synthetic cell built from purified, nonliving components.

The lab’s cell-like system, dubbed SpudCell, raises key questions: What does it take to build a cell from scratch? If scientists assemble something that feeds, grows, copies genetic material and divides, have they created life?

How to Create Cells From Scratch

Natural cells are astonishingly complicated. Researchers want to use synthetic cells to learn more about how life works, and they are doing this by rebuilding some of life’s basic features in a simpler, more understandable form.

Earlier designs of minimal cells, used to test which components are necessary for lifelike behavior, began with existing living cells and reduced the size of their genomes. A minimal cell is useful because it is simple, but that simplicity comes at a cost. It may reveal which parts are needed for lifelike behavior, but it usually lacks the autonomy, resilience, metabolism and evolutionary capacity of natural cells.

Instead, synthetic cells are built through a bottom-up engineering approach. Scientists start with a simplified compartment – a kind of biological “box” – and ask what must be added for it to behave more like a living cell. A membrane separates the inside from the outside. Genetic material stores instructions. Molecular machinery reads those instructions to make molecules. Energy sources power reactions. Other components can allow growth, division and adaptation.

A useful way to think about synthetic cells is to compare them with technologies society already depends on. The radio wasn’t invented all at once. Engineers learned how to combine an antenna, tuner, amplifier, power source and speaker to convert invisible electromagnetic waves into sound. A car is not just a metal shell; it becomes transportation only when a frame is connected to wheels, brakes, steering, an engine, and transmission and control systems. A computer began with switches and strings of ones and zeros that could be assembled into circuits capable of storing and processing information.

Similarly, SpudCell was assembled from the bottom up with purified, nonliving parts. Researchers used lipid molecules to create a cell-like membrane, DNA molecules to store genetic instructions, purified enzymes to copy and read those instructions, and other molecular machinery to help build proteins and other molecules from small chemical building blocks, such as amino acids and nucleotides.

SpudCell is exciting scientists because it appears to bring several features of life together in one system. The researchers describe it as capable of feeding, growth, genome replication, genetically encoded division and something close to evolution. These features resemble a biological cell cycle.

Close to Life, But Not Quite

While SpudCell is an important milestone in the field, it stops short of being a fully synthetic living cell. A membrane-bound compartment containing DNA is not automatically a living cell, just as a pile of car parts is not a car.

SpudCell can carry out several life-like processes, but it is not independent. It still relies on carefully controlled laboratory conditions and on researchers to supply its molecular machinery. It doesn’t reliably pass on its genetic material or spontaneously evolve the way natural cells do.

To approach life, a synthetic cell must coordinate many processes at once. NASA describes life as a “self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution,” meaning it must independently use energy, copy information, grow, divide, respond to its surroundings and persist over time. Natural cells do this with extraordinary reliability because they are the products of billions of years of evolution.

SpudCell still falls short of that standard. It depends on researchers to continuously supply it with the molecular machinery to function and to physically help it divide. It also cannot reproduce indefinitely outside a carefully controlled laboratory environment. In other words, SpudCell may have been built rather than born, but it is not yet autonomous life.

That limitation does not make the achievement unimportant. In fact, it is scientifically valuable precisely because it exposes what is still missing to create life. Which parts are essential? Which processes must be coordinated? How much complexity is necessary before chemistry begins to look like biology?

Why Create Synthetic Cells?

Those questions have practical importance. Answering them can help scientists and engineers design safer biological systems for a wide range of industries.

Synthetic cells allow scientists to more cleanly test how the surrounding membrane separates the inside of a cell from its environment, how genetic instructions are read, how energy is used, and how growth and division are coordinated. These cell-like systems could eventually become simplified test beds for studying biological circuits, disease mechanisms and the origins of life.

They could also help scientists build safer systems for making medicines, fuels or materials, detecting environmental toxins, or delivering therapies without relying on fully living organisms.

More broadly, synthetic biology connects medicine and biotechnology: Viruses can be redesigned into vaccines or gene therapy, immune cells can be reprogrammed to recognize cancer, and microbes can be engineered to make useful molecules, such as insulin, or detect pollutants.

Similarly, researchers could use synthetic cells to deliver a drug only to diseased tissue, or create microbial systems that detect toxins or pathogens in water. They can also act as simplified biological factories that can make medicines without requiring a fully living organism, or as biosensors providing early warning of dangerous threats, such as bioweapons.

Creating Life Responsibly

The philosophical question “Is SpudCell alive?” may not have a simple yes or no answer.

Depending on whether your definition of life emphasizes metabolism, reproduction, evolution, autonomy or cellular organization, the boundary between living and nonliving can look very different.

Life is not defined by one property alone. Viruses contain genetic information but depend on host cells to reproduce. Mitochondria perform essential metabolism but cannot live independently outside of cells. A seed can remain dormant for years before resuming growth.

When synthetic biology is guided by a strong sense of responsibility, scientists can learn how to redirect harmful processes, build safer tools and help society. This requires not only asking whether biological systems can be built, but also whether their creation should be controlled, where they should function and what safeguards are needed.

Over the past two decades, scientists have built many kinds of biological kill switches – that is, genetic circuits that can shut down engineered cells under specific conditions. Some researchers have made cells dependent on a specific nutrient. Others have created cells that can survive only in a particular environment or activate self-destructive pathways when conditions change.

Kill switches are not magic off buttons and do not replace careful regulation, physical containment or public oversight. But they are an important example of synthetic biology’s moral compass: to not only build useful biological tools, but to build them with safety, accountability and humility in mind.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB) is pleased to announce new leadership and membership for its External Advisory Board, which provides strategic guidance to help advance the institute's mission of accelerating interdisciplinary research and innovation. 

For years, scientists studying the human gut have relied on a material that most people would never expect: a jelly made from mouse tumors. Called Matrigel, it is used to grow tiny, patient‑derived versions of the intestine that help researchers understand disease, test new drugs, and explore future therapies. However, since this material comes from animal tissue, it’s unpredictable, difficult to control, and limits medical applications. 

Colleagues and friends remember Shelton as a dedicated mentor, collaborator, and educator, whose curiosity, generosity, and sense of humor left a lasting impression on students and peers.

“Sam exemplified the very best of Georgia Tech, and his legacy will continue to inspire generations of engineers and educators,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive vice president for Research at Georgia Tech. “I am deeply grateful for his friendship, mentorship, and leadership. My heartfelt condolences go to his family, and to the many students, colleagues, and friends whose lives he touched.”

A nationally recognized leader in energy systems, Shelton founded SEI as an interdisciplinary organization that brought together engineers, researchers, policy experts, and industry leaders to advance high-impact energy solutions. That vision remains central to SEI’s mission and continues to guide its work today.

“Sam was the quintessential engineer and innovator, whose vision was always accompanied by the development and demonstration of actual products instead of leaving them as promising concepts,” said Srinivas Garimella, Hightower Chair in the College of Engineering and professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. “He had the rare ability to see through nebulous ideas and claims and get to the fundamental engineering truths. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to seek his advice, which he freely gave. I will miss his friendship and counsel very much.”

During a career of more than 35 years, Shelton made lasting contributions to sustainable energy and engineering innovation. His work spanned combustion research, solar energy technologies, and offshore wind systems. He secured more than $30 million in research funding, held eight patents, founded two energy-focused companies, and helped translate research into real-world energy solutions.

In addition to his research, Shelton was deeply committed to education. During his academic career, he developed undergraduate and graduate courses in energy technology, teaching both in person and online. His Energy 101 course reached tens of thousands of learners through a massive open online course platform, covering topics such as energy supply, independence, economics, and society’s energy demands.

“When I first started at SEI in 2016, Sam and I would meet for lunch to discuss the latest research, consider how far we've come since the Carter administration, and grapple over the world’s energy problems,” said Rich Simmons, SEI’s director of Research and Studies. “Sam was genuine and objective, not working backward from a preconceived notion, but working forward with an open mind to understand, appreciate, and apply the first and second law. He was also colorful and witty! We are all privileged to pay these lessons forward to future energy students.” 

Beyond academia, Shelton’s engineering expertise reached a global stage as the designer of the Olympic torch for the 1996 Atlanta Games, an enduring symbol of innovation recognized worldwide. “The Olympics represented world peace, mankind coming together, and overcoming adversity. It was an amazing event to think about, to witness, to live through, and be a part of helping to create it,” Shelton said in a 2016 interview.

Shelton is survived by his daughters, Suzie and Stacy, three granddaughters, and a wide network of students, colleagues, and collaborators. His legacy continues through the programs he built, partnerships he fostered, and the people he helped.

A memorial service celebrating Shelton’s life will be held Aug. 1 at 1 p.m. at The 57th Fighter Group Restaurant in Atlanta. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, memorial gifts be directed to Roll Call, Georgia Tech’s Fund for Excellence. Donations may be made at gtalumni.org/SamShelton.

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

Superfund sites are highly contaminated areas designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for hazardous waste cleanup. Superfund Research Centers are coordinated research programs — not physical buildings — designed to address complex environmental health problems, reduce exposure to contaminants, and improve public health. Fewer than 24 exist nationwide.

A Community Asking Questions for Decades

For generations, residents of the city of Brunswick and Glynn County have lived near former industrial facilities that produced or used chemicals such as toxaphene, PCBs, and mercury. Many have long suspected that these contaminants were affecting their health, yet lacked scientific evidence to validate their concerns.

That began to change in 2023, when Emory University researchers launched the Glynn County human exposure study at the invitation of residents. The study found elevated levels of legacy pollutants in the blood of many participants, confirming what community members had feared.

“I want more neighbors to have the opportunity to be tested and to learn about the project,” said resident Semona Holmes. “Because now more folks are saying, ‘I want to be tested.’”

Others on the coast echoed the need for continued investigation. “Exposure isn’t always uniform,” said Brunswick resident Michael Staley. “Some residents may have higher levels depending on their proximity, diet, or occupation. I hope this gives our neighbors a clearer understanding of how our communities are affected, because often regular people feel uncertain and overlooked.”

Residents have repeatedly asked for more testing, more transparency, and more opportunities to understand what is in their soil, water, and bodies. “I would like to see an expansion of the exposure study because the soil needs to be tested,” said Larry Owens, who lives near the Hercules-Pinova site, a former chemical plant that closed in 2023.

Another resident, John Freeman, emphasized the need for broad participation. “They need to make sure everybody in our neighborhood knows they are going to be doing research so that everybody will have the chance to come out and get tested and see what’s in their bodies.”

Building on Community Momentum

The new Superfund Research Center will expand this work significantly. Led by Emory University in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Georgia, Morehouse School of Medicine, Spelman College, and Texas Tech University, the center will focus on five major research areas:

• Human health research — evaluating links between chemical exposures and metabolic diseases.
• Toxicity testing — assessing how contaminants harm health.
• Environmental sampling — identifying soil, water, and other exposure pathways.
• Extreme weather modeling — studying how storms and flooding move hazardous chemicals.
• Remediation research — evaluating low‑impact cleanup strategies suitable for sensitive coastal ecosystems.

“By combining cutting-edge exposure science and health research with direct community partnerships, the center will translate complex environmental data into practical information that supports healthier decisions for families, clinicians, and policymakers,” says Dana Barr, professor of environmental health at Emory University and director of the Superfund Research Center.

Barr credited community leadership for the center's existence. “This project is a direct consequence of community support in many forms. We would not be here without your efforts, and we know what that means: We must keep community voices at the forefront of our work, and we need to deliver.”

Community Voices at the Heart of the Work

Residents say the exposure study empowered them to speak up and demand answers.

“After I learned my numbers showed contamination, I started coming to the community meetings,” said Jocelyn Farmer, a fenceline resident. “I wanted to learn more about the study and about my neighborhood.”

Another resident, Eugene Smiley, said that “everyone who lives in this neighborhood should have their blood tested. Yes, I think they should come back and give people a chance to get tested so that we all are aware of what chemicals are in our bodies.”

For many in this coastal Georgia area, the new center represents long-awaited recognition.

“We’ve been living here a long time, and we’ve been exposed to it,” said Victoria Mackey. “If this study had not happened, we would not have known. Now we have chemical awareness. There are generations that have been exposed to these chemicals. The expanded exposure study is needed.”

Community partners also see the center as a turning point.

The research involves working with Healthy Coastal Neighborhoods, a community-driven coalition working at the intersection of environmental quality and public health in Glynn County, Georgia. The coalition brings together community groups, researchers, and residents to address the toxic legacy that has affected coastal Georgia communities for decades. The coalition issued a local news release announcing the new research center on June 10.

“We are honored and truly humbled to be partners in this project,” said Jill Gambill, executive director of the CEAR Hub and senior research associate for the Institute for People and Technology at Georgia Tech-Savannah. “The residents of Glynn County have been asking hard questions about their health and environment for a long time. This center is our opportunity to put Georgia Tech's resources and expertise to work directly for the community.”

Investing in Education, Engagement, and Local Capacity

Funded at approximately $15 million over five years, the center will also support:

• Community engagement programs.
• Youth educational outreach.
• Improvements to the Healthy Coastal Neighborhoods’ Seafood Smart website.
• A community advisory group.
• Training for local healthcare providers.

“The issue of industrial contamination is inherently complex, and this Superfund Research Center offers a rare opportunity to address it from multiple angles,” says Noah Scovronick, deputy director of the center. “Just as important, the center supports community-led efforts to raise awareness and reduce exposures.”

A Model for the Nation

Although the center’s work is focused on Glynn County, its findings will have national relevance. Communities across the country face similar challenges with legacy pollutants, and the center’s research aims to provide actionable insights for reducing exposure and improving public health.

“Even after production stops, these chemicals can continue entering people’s bodies through lingering exposure pathways,” says Melanie Pearson, associate professor in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. “Understanding how that happens is essential to reducing risk. Partnering with affected residents strengthens the science and ensures it leads to meaningful, real-world benefits.”

Communities across Georgia and the nation are navigating a range of economic and energy-related pressures. Gas prices, inflation, and the rapid growth of data centers are shaping the cost of goods and services, influencing everyday household financial decisions.

At the same time, ongoing geopolitical tensions are driving fluctuations in global oil markets and fuel prices. The expansion of AI data centers is also increasing demand for land, power, and water resources. And conflicts involving energy infrastructure in parts of the Middle East and Europe have affected supply stability.

Responding to these challenges requires careful analysis of emerging trends, supported by strong research in policy and economics. Faculty Affiliates of Georgia Tech’s Energy Policy and Innovation Center study these complex, interconnected issues affecting energy systems, costs, and access. They analyze emerging trends, evaluate policy options, and identify practical pathways forward.

Read Full Story on the EPIcenter News Page

T1D is caused by the autoimmune destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells, requiring individuals to manage their blood glucose levels through lifelong insulin therapy. Transplanting pancreatic islets has long been investigated as a potential curative treatment, but long-lasting success in extrahepatic sites has been limited—particularly when islets are transplanted beneath the skin—due to poor blood vessel formation, immune rejection, and cellular stress following transplantation.

Vlahos’ research addresses these limitations by combining synthetic biology and tissue engineering in a new way: engineering cells to actively reshape their local environment after transplantation to make it more hospitable for the graft. Rather than relying solely on biomaterials or porous structures to support transplanted cells, the project focuses on programming the cells themselves to sense stress and respond dynamically.

Read the full story.

The workshop is part of Georgia Tech’s Advanced Manufacturing Pathways (AMP) program, a collaboration between the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI) and Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), which connects rural educators with hands-on manufacturing training. This particular training was delivered through a partnership between GTMI, STEM@GTRI — GTRI’s K-12 outreach program — and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, leveraging the facilities and expertise of the Montgomery Machining Mall to provide teachers with direct experience in modern manufacturing. Building on GTRI’s Rural Computer Science Initiative, the program expands access to high-skill, high-wage career pathways across rural communities. The initiative is supported through state funding.

The workshop comes at a time when demand for skilled manufacturing workers continues to grow nationwide, particularly in roles requiring precision, technical expertise, and problem-solving.

Read the full story on the Georgia Tech Research news site. 

Bruce brings more than two decades of senior executive experience at the intersection of global partnerships, institutional growth, and cross-sector collaboration spanning academia, philanthropy, government, and industry. Most recently, he served as senior expert and strategic advisor to the C-Suite at Conservation International on AI-enabled sustainability innovation. Before Conservation International, Weinelt served as Vice President of Global Growth at Schmidt Futures, where he founded the Global Growth function and served as chair of the Quad Fellowship.

Earlier, Weinelt spent a decade at the World Economic Forum, most recently as co-head of Partner Development for North America and Europe and a member of the North America Executive Team. He also led the Forum's multiyear Digital Transformation initiative, advising six national governments on digital readiness. In addition, he served as head of the Global Future Council on Space, shaping global space governance through frameworks such as the Space Sustainability Rating. He is a regular speaker and contributor to global media and convenings and has contributed to publications including Klaus Schwab's The Fourth Industrial Revolution.

“Bruce is a rare hire for an academic institution,” said Beril Toktay, executive director of BBISS, Regents’ Professor, and Brady Family Chair in the Scheller College of Business. "He has built and scaled global partnerships at the highest levels of philanthropy, multilateral diplomacy, and the private sector. His combination of strategic experience, fundraising track record, and convening power across sectors is exactly what BBISS needs as we move into our next chapter.”

Weinelt holds MBAs from the Mason School of Business at the College of William & Mary and IESE Universidad de Navarra. He completed an Executive Education in Global Leadership program offered by Columbia University, Wharton, INSEAD, and the China Europe International Business School, tailored to World Economic Forum Leadership.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino likened the scale of each game to that of a Super Bowl. The success of a tournament that large will rely heavily on technology, affecting everything from the players on the pitch, all the way to viewers at home.

On top of the state-of-the-art technology used at many large events, this World Cup will also see the debut of new technology. At the center of much of it will be electrical and computer engineering.

Experts from the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) weigh in on how the field is enabling the technology behind the world’s largest sporting event.

Read Full Story on the ECE News Page

The workshop is part of Georgia Tech’s Advanced Manufacturing Pathways (AMP) program, a collaboration between the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI) and Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), which connects rural educators with hands-on manufacturing training. This particular training was delivered through a partnership between GTMI, STEM@GTRI — GTRI’s K-12 outreach program — and the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, leveraging the facilities and expertise of the Montgomery Machining Mall to provide teachers with direct experience in modern manufacturing. Building on GTRI’s Rural Computer Science Initiative, the program expands access to high-skill, high-wage career pathways across rural communities. The initiative is supported through state funding.

The workshop comes at a time when demand for skilled manufacturing workers continues to grow nationwide, particularly in roles requiring precision, technical expertise, and problem-solving.

Inside the Machine Shop 

The training took place June 3 – 5 in the Montgomery Machining Mall, where staff provided access to facilities, equipment, and technical expertise that made the immersive learning experience possible.

Teachers designed and manufactured a metal meat tenderizer and a metal coaster etched with both the Georgia Tech logo and their name. For many, this was their first exposure to advanced manufacturing tools and processes, and a glimpse into high-skill, high-wage careers within reach for their students.

“Many of these teachers have never been exposed to any advanced manufacturing,” said Sean Mulvanity, a program manager for STEM@GTRI and project lead for this workshop. “By the time they walk out of here, they’ve actually created and manufactured physical items they can take back to their students.” Unlike traditional professional development, the workshop places teachers directly in the machine shop, working on heavy equipment. 

For AMP program leaders, this pilot was a way to build momentum for school districts that may add advanced manufacturing courses and to make the machine shop feel less intimidating in the process. 

“One of the biggest misconceptions about modern manufacturing is that it is inaccessible or limited to specialized factory environments,” said GTMI Deputy Director Steven Ferguson. “Today’s manufacturing combines hands-on skills, digital technologies, AI, and problem-solving in ways that are relevant to students across many career pathways. By giving teachers direct experience in the machine shop, we help them bring that excitement back to their classrooms and show students that they can design, build, and innovate in their own communities.”

From the Shop Floor to the Classroom 

One of the workshop participants is James Beveridge, who teaches computer science for grades 6-12 in the Chattahoochee County School District, a small, rural district south of Columbus. He has participated in multiple Georgia Tech-led training programs, and he runs a full computer science pathway for 450 middle and high school students. This fall will mark his third year in the Rural Computer Science Initiative and teaching computer science after two decades in industry.

Beveridge had some informal experience with tools growing up — his father taught him basic carpentry and welding — but he had never done formal machining work before the AMP workshop.

“Working with metal is different than working with wood, obviously, but it’s been really interesting to see the precision involved,” he said. “With wood, you can be off by a sixteenth of an inch, and nobody cares. When you’re machining metal parts, it has to be very, very precise. Learning to use the precision measuring tools has been eye-opening.”

For Beveridge, one of the biggest benefits of his ongoing work with Georgia Tech through the Rural Computer Science Initiative and related programs is that he never leaves empty-handed.

“Every time I come up here to learn something new, they send me home with the equipment to teach it with,” he said. “The first time, I left with a classroom set of robots so my students could learn to program. Another time, it was a more advanced humanoid robot with artificial intelligence. Now, I’m going back with new skills in machining and a physical project I can show my students.”

Another participant, Juone Brown, teaches high school computer science and AI to students at Dooly County High School in Vienna, Georgia. This is her second year in the rural computer science partnership and her fourth year teaching at Dooly. Previously, Brown was a professor for 25 years at Fort Valley State University. 

Like Beveridge, Brown has no formal machining background but said the way workshop instructors broke down each step — especially the math behind the cuts — made the work feel approachable.

“It has been fantastic and really well-paced,” she said. “We all come from different backgrounds, but the way they present the information makes it click. We know the math, but when you’re on the machine, and they show you easier ways to get the cut you need, it’s very encouraging.”

She’s already thinking about how to translate that feeling for her students, many of whom prefer building things to writing code. “I’m always telling them that skills pay the bills,” Brown said. “A lot of my students are hands-on. Now I can connect what we’re doing in class to real parts and jobs.”

Bringing Advanced Manufacturing to More Georgia Classrooms 

After the workshop, teachers are expected to integrate machining concepts into existing courses or help build new manufacturing pathways at their schools.  

AMP program leaders intentionally kept this pilot cohort small. The team plans to repeat the workshop several times over the coming year, expanding to more schools and districts across Georgia, building local champions who can help launch advanced manufacturing programs in their communities.

About the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI)

The Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI) convenes industry leaders, government partners, and top researchers to collaborate on the grand challenges facing manufacturing today: accelerating technology development and deployment; creating, maintaining, and filling quality jobs; ensuring global competitiveness; and advancing economic and environmental stability. 
Our vision is to ensure rapid innovation that secures U.S. dominance in advanced manufacturing. Through the design and development of artificial intelligence systems, secure digital manufacturing, additive and subtractive processes, and large-scale production enterprises, GTMI stands at the forefront of manufacturing innovation — leveraging state-of-the-art facilities, including the Advanced Manufacturing Pilot Facility, to turn research breakthroughs into market-ready solutions. 

About the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 3,000 employees, supporting eight laboratories across more than 20 locations nationwide and performing more than $919 million in problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.

Zhang joins a select group of past recipients whose work has shaped modern understanding of energy systems and thermal sciences. The medal is considered one of the most prestigious awards presented by ASME.

“I feel deeply honored to be listed alongside distinguished scholars in the field of thermodynamics research and education, including some of my own teachers and mentors,” Zhang said.

ASME recognized Zhang for his “pioneering study of radiative thermal power generation and electroluminescent refrigeration, especially on the application of second-law analysis to these systems while accounting for photon entropy and chemical potential.”

Read Full Story on the ME Newspage