“It has been my greatest honor to serve this community and to witness the impact of our shared work,” Sugimoto said. “I leave with profound pride in what we have built together and unwavering confidence in the bright future ahead for the Carter School.”

During her time at Georgia Tech, Sugimoto has demonstrated an exceptional ability to lead academic organizations while fostering a culture of innovation and inclusion. Sugimoto led development efforts that helped the Carter School achieve a record as the second Georgia Tech school to meet its Transforming Tomorrow campaign goal. She also spearheaded a significant strategic and philanthropic initiative to name the School of Public Policy after former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn — a milestone supported by $10 million in development funds. Sugimoto also championed and oversaw the $26-million renovation of the D.M. Smith Building, preserving its historical character while updating infrastructure, accessibility, and sustainability. 

Her leadership has also resulted in substantial growth in student enrollment, national program expansion, the creation of four new interdisciplinary undergraduate minors, and expanded staff and organizational structures. In partnership with the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Sugimoto helped lead the establishment of the GTDC: Pathways to Policy program — a fully immersive, semester-long experience in Washington, D.C. available to the entire undergraduate community at Georgia Tech. She also oversaw the creation of the Center for Urban Research, a collaboration between Georgia Tech and the mayor’s office that brings together university, community, nonprofit, and municipal leaders to develop and evaluate solutions that address inequities in urban centers. These achievements reflect her deep understanding of how to bridge diverse academic fields to enhance the holistic student experience. 

“We are deeply grateful for Cassidy’s thoughtful and innovative leadership,” said Amanda Murdie, dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, Regents’ Professor, and Ivan Allen Jr. Chair. “She’s positioned the Carter School well to continue expanding and enhancing its human-centered, evidence-based teaching and research.”

As a past president of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics, Sugimoto has spent her career examining the "science of science" and the formal and informal ways in which knowledge is produced and disseminated. A socially engaged scholar, she has served as a consultant for funding agencies including the European Research Council and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and as a program director for the National Science Foundation. 

Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts will announce an interim chair of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy in the next few weeks. An international search for the next chair will launch in academic year 2026-2027.

Reliable energy is required to keep safe in cold winters and hot summers, making it a matter of national security. There are also vying economic policies to consider, political and financial incentives to navigate, and questions of social and economic inequality.

Experts in Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts examine the challenges we face with the U.S. energy transition, and work to help make it safe, fair, and effective for all.

• Challenge No. 1: Managing National Security — with Adam N. Stulberg, professor and chair of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs.
• Challenge No. 2: Confronting Inequality — with Bijesh Mishra, a postdoctoral scholar in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy.
• Challenge No. 3: Choosing the Right Economic Policies — with Bobby Harris, an assistant professor in the School of Economics.
• Challenge No. 4: Navigating Financial and Political Incentives — with Kate Pride Brown, a sociologist in the School of History and Sociology.

Read the article on the Ivan Allen College website.

According to the study, published in Energy Policy, widespread adoption of electric vehicles, or EVs, by 2035 would cut energy bills for U.S. households by more than 6% — including more than 4% at the gas pump. It also would drive oil imports down by 7% and increase exports by nearly 4%, the researchers say.

However, those benefits are imperiled by the repeal of national electric vehicle incentives and the recent decision by the federal government to roll back EV-boosting rules meant to increase vehicle fuel efficiency and reduce pollution, according to the study’s authors, Ph.D. candidate Niraj K. Palsule; Marilyn A. Brown, Regents’ Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems; and former graduate student Suprita Chakravarthy. Their study was conducted prior to the federal decisions.

“Proponents of eliminating fuel efficiency standards and other EV-boosting policies often frame those regulatory approaches as consumer-unfriendly, but our analysis shows that such policies have many long-term benefits, both for consumers and for the nation’s energy security,” Palsule said.

For more on the study, read the full story.

The report shows that between 2005 and 2024, statewide emissions fell by 33% while the carbon intensity of Georgia’s economy dropped by more than two-thirds.

The carbon intensity of the economy is a way of measuring the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced per dollar of Gross Domestic Product. A lower carbon intensity indicates a greener economy, signifying progress in decoupling economic growth from the creation of carbon emissions.

Net emissions fell from 141 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2005 to 92 megatons in 2024. Over the same period, Georgia’s gross domestic product surged from $389 billion to $883 billion, a 127% increase. The average carbon footprint per person declined by nearly half, from 15.8 to 8.2 metric tons per capita.

“This demonstrates that climate solutions and economic growth can go hand in hand,” said Marilyn A. Brown, Regents' Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the Carter School and lead author of the report. “By transforming our electricity system, improving efficiency, and harnessing the power of our forests and wetlands, Georgia has achieved steep emissions cuts while building one of the fastest-growing economies in the country. To stay on this path, we must now turn more attention to transportation, natural gas use, and agriculture.”

The report, From Peak to Progress: Shrinking the Carbon Intensity of Georgia’s Economy and Society. highlights sector-by-sector trends:

• Electricity: Retiring more than 5,000 megawatts of coal-fired power and adding 5,000 megawatts of solar capacity helped cut emissions from the grid by more than half — improving both air quality and public health.
• Land Sinks: Georgia’s 22 million acres of forests and coastal wetlands offset nearly 27% of the state’s emissions each year, making the state a national leader in natural carbon sequestration.
• Transportation: Now the largest source of emissions in Georgia, transportation produced nearly 60 megatons of CO2 equivalent in 2024. Freight growth and diesel fuel use remain major challenges, even as electric vehicle adoption has increased.
• Buildings & Industry: Cleaner electricity reduced emissions from homes and businesses, but rising direct use of natural gas has slowed progress.
• Agriculture: Emissions have held steady overall, with reductions from improved soil management practices offset by increases in emissions from energy use and manure management.

John A. Lanier, executive director of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation and a founding partner of Drawdown Georgia, said the findings show what is possible when Georgia embraces climate solutions.

“Georgia has proven that reducing emissions strengthens our economy, creates jobs, and spurs technological innovation. Continuing this momentum and remaining a leader for the South in delivering climate solutions that benefit our environment, our health, and our communities requires intention and political will – I hope we will make the right choices to keep moving forward,” he said.

William Drummond, associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of City and Regional Planning, and contributor to the report, emphasized the importance of continued monitoring to understand the trends. 

“Our Greenhouse Gas Emissions Tracker allows us to see where progress is being made and where challenges remain,” he said. “This kind of data is essential for policymakers, businesses, and communities to make informed decisions about the future of our state.”

A version of this story first appeared on the Drawdown Georgia website.

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Midjourney can produce text, images and videos far more quickly than any one person can accomplish by hand.

But as someone who studies the societal impacts of AI, I’ve noticed an interesting trade-off: The technology can certainly save time, but it does so precisely to the extent that the user is willing to surrender control over the final product.

For this reason, generative AI is probably most useful for things we care about the least.

Ceding Creative Control

Let’s use the example of AI image generators. You probably have a rough idea of how they work. Just type what you want – “a panda surfing,” “a piece of toast that is also a car” – and the generative tool draws it.

But this glosses over the countless possible iterations of the desired image.

Will the image appear as a watercolor painting or a pencil sketch? How lifelike will the panda be? How big is the wave? Is the toast-car parked or moving? Is there anyone inside of it?

When the images are generated, these questions have been answered – but not by the user. Rather, the generative AI tool has “decided.”

Of course, the user can be more specific: Imitate the style of Monet. Make the wave twice the height of the panda. Maybe the panda should look worried, since it isn’t used to surfing.

You can also pop open an image editor and modify the output yourself, down to the individual pixel. But, of course, drafting detailed instructions and revising the image take time, effort and skill. Generative AI promises to lighten the load. But as every manager knows, exercising control is work.

The Devil is In the Details

In all art and expression, power lies in the details.

In great paintings, not every brushstroke is planned – but each is carefully considered and accepted. And its overall effect on the viewer depends on all those considered brushstrokes together.

Filmmakers shoot take after take of the same scene, each subtly or radically different. Only a small fraction of that footage makes it into the final cut – the fraction that the editors feel does the job best. Great artists use their judgment to ensure every detail helps to achieve the effect they want.

Of course, there’s nothing new about putting someone else in charge of the details. People are used to delegating authority – even about matters of expression – to marketers, speechwriters, social media managers and the like.

Generative AI makes a new sort of contractor available. It’s always on call, and in certain ways it is very technically competent.

But compared with skilled humans, it has a limited ability to understand what you want. Moreover, it lacks intention, contemplation and the comprehensive mastery of detail that yield great expressive achievements – or even the comprehensive idiosyncrasy that spawns very unique ones.

Ask ChatGPT for a film script, plus casting and shooting instructions. It will give you neither Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece “The Godfather” nor Tommy Wiseau’s bizarre “The Room.”

You could, perhaps, approach a masterpiece, or a true oddity. But to do so, you’d have to exercise more and more time, more and more effort, and more and more control.

An Era of ‘Cheap Speech’

What generative AI makes possible, above all, is low-effort, low-control expression.

In the time I took to write and revise this article, I could have used ChatGPT to generate 200 grammatically correct, well-structured articles, and then I could have posted them online without even reading them. I wouldn’t have had to carefully parse each word and decide whether it really helped me make my point. I wouldn’t have even had to decide whether I agreed with any of the AI-generated write-ups.

This is not a merely hypothetical example. Low-quality, AI-generated e-books of ambiguous provenance are already making their way into online vendors’ catalogs – and into the libraries those vendors serve.

Similarly, using image generators, I could now flood the internet with superficially appealing images, dedicating only a fraction of a second to decide whether any of them express what I want them to express or achieve what I want them to achieve.

But in doing so, I would not just be skipping over drudgery. Writing, drawing and painting are not just labor but processes of considering, reviewing and deciding exactly what I want to put out into the world. By skipping over those processes, I surrender that decision-making process to the AI tool.

Some scholars argue that the internet has produced an era of “cheap speech.” People no longer have to invest a lot of resources – nor even face the judgment of their neighbors – to broadcast whatever they want to the world.

With generative AI, expression is even cheaper. You don’t even have to make things yourself to put them out into the world. For the first time in human history, the ability to produce writing, art and expression has been decoupled from the necessity of actually paying attention to what you’re making or saying.

When Intention and Effort Matter

I suspect that great art, journalism and scholarship will still demand great attention and effort. Some of that effort may even include custom-developing AI tools tailored to an individual artist’s concerns.

But unless people become much better at curation, great work will be increasingly difficult to locate amid the flood of low-effort content, which is also known as “AI slop.”

It’s appropriate that generative AI becomes more useful the sloppier its users are willing to be – that is, the less they care about the details.

I could end with some dire prognosis – that working artists and writers will be replaced with mediocre automation, that online discourse will get even stupider, that people will isolate themselves in personalized cocoons of AI-generated media.

All these things are possible. But it’s probably more useful to offer a suggestion to you, the reader.

When you need an image or a piece of writing, take a moment to decide: How important are the details? Would the process of making this yourself, or working with a collaborator or contractor, be useful? Would it yield a better output, or give me the chance to learn, or begin or strengthen a relationship, or help you reflect on something important to you?

In short, is it worth putting in real care and effort? The answer will not always be yes. But it often will.

Art, writing, films – these are not just products, but acts. They are things humans make, through a process of thousands of little decisions that encompass what we stand for and what we want to say.

So when it comes to art, expression and argument, if you want it done right, it’s probably still best to do it yourself.

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

In states where both medical and recreational marijuana are legal, fewer patients are filling prescriptions for medications used to treat anxiety. That is the key finding of my recent study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

I am an applied policy researcher who studies the economics of risky behaviors and substance use within the United States. My collaborators and I wanted to understand how medical and recreational marijuana laws and marijuana dispensary openings have affected the rate at which patients fill prescriptions for anti-anxiety medications among people who have private medical insurance.

These include:

• Benzodiazepines, which work by increasing the level of gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA, a neurotransmitter that elicits a calming effect by reducing activity in the nervous system. This category includes the depressants Valium, Xanax and Ativan, among others.
• Antipsychotics, a class of drug that addresses psychosis symptoms in a variety of ways.
• Antidepressants, which relieve symptoms of depression by affecting neurotransmitters such as serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine. The most well-known example of these is selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, or SSRIs.

We also included barbiturates, which are sedatives, and sleep medications – sometimes called “Z-drugs” – both of which are used to treat insomnia. In contrast to the other three categories, we did not estimate any policy impacts for either of these types of drugs.

We find consistent evidence that increased marijuana access is associated with reductions in benzodiazepine prescription fills. “Fills” refer to the number of prescriptions being picked up by patients, rather than the number of prescriptions doctors write. This is based on calculating the rate of individual patients who filled a prescription in a state, the average days of supply per prescription fill, and average prescription fills per patient.

Notably, we found that not all state policies led to similar changes in prescription fill patterns.

Why it Matters

In 2021, nearly 23% of the adult U.S. population reported having a diagnosable mental health disorder. Yet only 65.4% of those individuals reported receiving treatment within the past year. This lack of treatment can exacerbate current mental health disorders, leading to increased risk for additional chronic conditions.

Marijuana access introduces an alternative treatment to traditional prescription medication that may provide easier access for some patients. Many state medical laws allow patients with mental health disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, to use medical cannabis, while recreational laws expand access to all adults.

Our findings have important implications for insurance systems, prescribers, policymakers and patients. Benzodiazepine use, like opioid use, can be dangerous for patients, especially when the two classes of drugs are used together. Given the high level of opioid poisonings that also involve benzodiazepines – in 2020, they made up 14% of total opioid overdose deaths – our findings offer insights into potential substitution with marijuana for medications where misuse is plausible.

What Still Isn’t Known

Our research does not clarify whether the changes in dispensing patterns led to measurable changes in patient outcomes.

There is some evidence that marijuana acts as an effective anxiety treatment. If this is the case, moving away from benzodiazepine use – which is associated with significant negative side effects – toward marijuana use may improve patient outcomes.

This finding is critical given that about 5% of the U.S. population is prescribed benzodiazepines. Substituting marijuana has the potential to result in fewer negative side effects nationwide, but it’s not yet clear if marijuana will be equally effective at treating anxiety.

Our study also found evidence of a slight – albeit somewhat less significant – increase in antipsychotic and antidepressant dispensing. But it’s not clear yet whether marijuana access, particularly recreational access, increases rates of psychotic disorders and depression.

While we found that, overall, marijuana access led to increased antidepressant and antipsychotic fills, some individual states saw decreases.

There is a lot of variation in the details of state marijuana laws, and it’s possible that some of those details are leading to these meaningful differences in outcomes. I believe this difference in outcomes from state to state is an important finding for policymakers who may want to tailor their laws toward specific goals.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

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

Co-founded by Daniel Forcade and Hanna Bodnar, recent graduates of Georgia Tech’s Master of Science in Analytics program, Politheon is designed to overcome the limitations of standard artificial intelligence in providing businesses and other organizations with accurate and actionable information about legislative activity.

Bodnar credits the team's collaboration with Associate Professor Omar Asensio’s Data Science and Policy Lab in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy for helping shape the platform.

"Collaborating with Professor Asensio’s lab was pivotal," Bodnar said. "As engineers, we had to expand our perspective beyond the technical implementation and deeply understand how public policy researchers and practitioners interpret legislative data. That interdisciplinary feedback helped us design a system that is both technically rigorous and policy-aware."

Forcade agreed, saying it took the combined resources of CREATE-X and the collaboration with Asensio’s lab to make Politheon what it is.

“CREATE-X gave us the business foundation to build and scale, while our collaboration with Professor Asensio’s lab helped us strengthen the scientific rigor behind the system. In policy, it's incredibly important to have testing, validation, and empirical grounding behind what you build.”

When it comes to understanding the potential impact of sometimes obliquely written legislation, precision and insight are vital. Publicly available large language models often struggle in these environments, sounding authoritative but often hallucinating in place of facts and failing to reason out the hidden impacts of legislation. Politheon, however, offers a potential solution, Asensio said.

"This is a very exciting use case for agentic AI in the context of evidence-informed policy," he said.

The project originally started as the final project for Bodnar and Forcade’s analytics program. Forcade said their instructors encouraged them to apply to CREATE-X to take the project further.

Forcade said CREATE-X liked the idea but asked them to talk to more experts. Forcade and Bodnar then reached out to Asensio.

Asensio was enthusiastic and invited them to present at his lab, where his team spent two and a half hours offering Forcade and Bodnar intensive constructive feedback. The duo has been collaborating with the lab ever since.

Asensio noted that this kind of cross-pollination is an embedded feature of his lab.

"We often start with data or policy solutions to guide technical development, and not the other way around," Asensio said. "This means our technologists learn to do causal inference and policy impact evaluation, and our policy scholars learn to code and train models and algorithms as part of their work."

That focus on critical evaluation aligns seamlessly with the founders' technical training.

"My background in mathematics and Georgia Tech’s Analytics program gave me a strong foundation in statistical modeling and machine learning systems," Bodnar said. "The program emphasizes not just building models but evaluating them rigorously. That mindset shaped how we designed Politheon, especially how we validate outputs and measure accuracy in a space where precision really matters."

The platform is already demonstrating its capabilities. Recent agent outputs include a large-scale scan of more than 25,000 Oregon bills, drawn from a broader searchable database of over 1.6 million state and federal bills, identifying emerging trends in artificial intelligence regulation. The system has also delivered validated, cross-jurisdictional analysis of “buy-now-pay-later” legislation in New York and Congress, with findings reviewed by senior government affairs professionals, tracing how the issue emerged and how it evolved over time.

The startup recently secured $100,000 in funding which helped build complete, and near real-time, data coverage across the federal government and  all U.S. states.

“The raise enabled us to bring in the live data stream,” Forcade said. “With real-time coverage in place, we’re now advancing pricing discussions and pilot rollouts with multiple organizations.”

Ultimately, the platform is designed to provide clarity amid the noise of modern governance.

"Policy moves quickly, and missing a compliance date or legislative shift can be costly," Bodnar said. "Our goal is to surface what’s relevant, explain why it matters, and provide clear citations to the original bills so teams can make informed decisions with confidence.”

He replaces Richard Utz, who has been named interim dean of the College, effective April 20.

As interim associate dean for faculty development, Young will advise the dean, the College’s executive leadership team, and school/department chairs on matters related to faculty affairs. This position supports the needs of the faculty community and provides resources and leadership that promote the advancement of tenure-track, tenured, non-tenure-track, and research faculty.

Young has extensive experience in faculty affairs, specifically as chair of his School’s Promotion and Tenure Committee, chair of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts’ Promotion and Tenure Committee, and as the College’s representative on the provost’s Promotion and Tenure Committee.

Young will continue to co-direct the Center for European and Transatlantic Studies and serve as the director of the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy. He held a Jean Monnet Chair (2012-15), was chair of the European Union Studies Association (2015-17), and was co-editor of JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies (2017-22).  

Before joining Georgia Tech in 2011, he taught at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom and held research posts at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

Young has written five books, including Supplying Compliance with Trade Rules: Explaining the EU’s Responses to Adverse WTO Rulings (Oxford University Press, 2021), and has co-edited 15 other volumes. He has published almost a score of refereed journal articles — including in Global Environmental Politics, the Journal of Common Market Studies, and others — and more than 40 book chapters.

For more than half a century, Georgia natives President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter exemplified this work, forging a partnership in service that’s recognized around the world. It’s a legacy that will continue with the naming of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy.

The naming, first announced in April 2025, was formally celebrated at a ceremony on Nov. 13, 2025, at the newly renovated D.M. Smith building. A standing-room-only crowd, including President Ángel Cabrera, University System of Georgia Chancellor Sonny Perdue, former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, civil rights icon and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, members of the Carter family and other luminaries attended the event.

The milestone marked more than the honoring of a homegrown president and first lady by Georgia’s top public university. It serves as a profound statement of identity — a declaration that the School’s mission to create leaders who "ethically address societal problems" is indelibly linked with the Carters’ lifelong commitment to improving the human condition.

"Names matter,” said Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the Carter School. “When you evoke the Carter name, it means something. In that one word, you encompass decades of public service, values of humility, respect, faith, integrity, justice, a deep commitment to human rights and democracy.”

Georgia Tech Roots, Global Impact

The Carters’ connection to Georgia Tech is not merely symbolic. It’s foundational. Before James Earl Carter Jr. was a naval officer, a governor, or a president, he was a Georgia Tech student. Carter arrived in 1942 and attended for one year before moving on to the U.S. Naval Academy. 

While his time at Georgia Tech was brief, it was impactful, said the Carters’ fourth grandson, Josh Carter, ME 2006.

“Georgia Tech is where my grandpa learned to love engineering,” Josh Carter said. 

“And every time my grandpa talked about the Naval Academy, he always made a point to say that he got his start at Georgia Tech and left here to graduate from an easier school.”

A Shared Commitment to Problem-Solving

A problem-solver’s mindset winds through Jimmy and Rosalynn Carters’ careers in public service as well as through the Carter School’s core pillars of sustainability, equity, and innovation.

For instance, decades before "sustainability" became a global watchword, Carter framed the energy crisis as the "moral equivalent of war."

He formed the Department of Energy, oversaw the creation of the Superfund program to pay for critical environmental cleanups, and placed solar panels on the White House roof.

Today, Georgia Tech students and faculty champion sustainability through degree programs such as the Master of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Management and through projects such as the Drawdown Georgia research effort led by Regents’ Professor Marilyn A. Brown, whose team recently reported how Georgia has slashed its carbon output while significantly growing its economy.

Carter also possessed an unwavering commitment to equity, speaking out against racial discrimination and making civil and human rights a central tenet of U.S. foreign policy.

The School continues this legacy through programs such as the Center for Urban Research, which seeks to address socioeconomic inequities in urban areas. The Center was recently named the research lead for the city of Atlanta’s $5 billion neighborhood revitalization effort.

Carter also understood the growing importance of technology, becoming the first president to install computers in the executive offices, well before they became common in every household.

Today’s Carter School is nationally ranked for its programs in environmental policy, information and technology management, and public policy analysis. The school helps train tomorrow’s cybersecurity leaders to spot the impact of technological change on network security, develop experts in ethical frameworks for artificial intelligence systems, and more.

Globally, the School extends its reach through partnerships with universities around the world, including the University of Manchester, Colombia’s Universidad Externado, the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy in Japan, and KAIST, a South Korean university. 

These agreements help the School extend its reach and provide students and faculty to collaborate on research, academic programs, and more.

The First Lady's Enduring Policy Legacy

While the former president’s career garnered more attention, Rosalynn Carter’s life in public service was deeply impactful, as well. Her work gave a policy voice to millions of unseen and unheard Americans.

"My grandmother was more politically savvy than my grandfather,” Josh Carter said. “She was a strategist. She was his confidant. My grandmother was involved in just about every decision, peace deal, cease fire, and political triumph of my grandfather's life."

She became the first first lady since Eleanor Rooselvelt to testify before Congress as she fought to reduce the stigma of mental illness and create new programs to help those struggling with mental health. Her work on the President's Commission on Mental Health led directly to the landmark Mental Health Systems Act of 1980.

Perdue said he learned much about mental health need from Roslaynn Carter while visiting the couple during his time as governor.

“I know that we are glad that Georgia has made some progress in that group, but she laid that foundation,” Perdue said.

Rosalynn Carter also founded the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers, reframing the act of caregiving as a universal public policy challenge. 

"There are only four kinds of people in this world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers,” she said.

Her advocacy also helped lead to federal vaccine programs that have saved countless lives.

Today, the Carter School strives to continue this work by providing policymakers with rock-solid research on complex medical and social issues.

For instance, the Health Economics and Policy Innovation Collaborative, a partnership with the School of Economics, provides rigorous, data-driven analysis on everything from healthcare access to child well-being, applying that same blend of compassion and policy acumen Rosalynn Carter championed. Another example: Recent research published in JAMA Network Open that reveals a link between energy insecurity and mental health. Another paper brings attention to a potential housing crisis brewing in rural America.

Carrying the Legacy Forward

It is this dual legacy — Jimmy Carter’s engineering-forward approach to policy, and the  compassionate approach to public well-being he shared with his wife — that the Carter School now embodies. 

The School's home in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts drives the point home.

The College is named for former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr., a Georgia Tech graduate and another Southern political leader who championed desegregation. Allen’s calls for transformative urban leadership continue to shape the College’s mission today.

"Mayor Allen was a beacon of light for Jimmy and for me … standing up for what was good and what was right,” Rosalynn Carter said on receiving the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage with her husband in 2017.

Now, the Carters’ legacy of ethical public service, technological advancement, commitment to sustainability and human and civil rights serves as another guiding principle for Carter School students, faculty, and staff.

Their example serves as a model for the generations of leaders to come — leaders who will graduate from the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy ready to continue the work of translating technology, conviction, and compassion into a better world.

"They both led with humility and unshakable moral compass,” said President Ángel Cabrera. “And they showed us what true service looks like. I could not think of a better name to be associated with the school. This is a proud day for Georgia Tech.”

Interest in the Moon has been high – just in the past two years there have been 12 attempts to send missions to the Moon, nearly half of which private companies undertook. With so much activity, it’s important to start thinking about coordination and safety.

To some, this concern may seem premature. About 10 to 20 missions are headed to the Moon in the next few years – far short of the thousands of satellites operating in Earth’s orbit. And the area around the Moon, referred to as cislunar space, is very large. Earth’s orbital area is often considered to extend from near Earth out to geostationary orbit, where a spacecraft orbits at a speed that makes it appear stationary from the Earth’s surface.

Cislunar space extends from geostationary orbit out to the Moon – an area with a volume 2,000 times larger than Earth’s orbital area. This size discrepancy seems to suggest crowding around the Moon may not be an immediate concern.

However, missions tend to choose from a select set of stable orbits around the Moon, so the vastness of cislunar space may be misleading when thinking about whether missions will intersect. Also, most government sensors that track spacecraft aren’t capable of consistently detecting and monitoring objects so far away from Earth, partly due to the glare from the Moon itself.

That uncertainty, combined with the high cost of lunar missions, makes operators more likely to move their spacecraft to avoid a collision, even when the probability of a collision is quite low.

As an interdisciplinary team combining space policy and astrodynamics expertise, we’ve been studying how companies and space agencies could manage traffic in lunar orbit without unnecessary maneuvers. Our research, published in March 2025 in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, shows that due to the popularity of certain orbits and the uncertainties regarding each spacecraft’s location, potential collisions become an issue surprisingly quickly.

Our simulations show that with only 50 satellites in lunar orbit, each of those satellites will need to maneuver four times a year on average to avoid a potential crash – a significant cost in terms of fuel as well as potential disruption to mission objectives. Lunar orbit could easily reach that number of satellites within a decade if activity continues to increase.

Maneuvering Satellites

Countries’ reports on their current operations in lunar orbit seem to support our finding that congestion around the Moon is quickly becoming a significant issue. In 2023, the Indian Space Research Organization reported it had maneuvered its Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft three times in four years, even though only six spacecraft orbited the Moon in that time.

Better monitoring and coordination between different space agencies could prevent congestion and keep countries from having to regularly move their spacecraft.

Monitoring cislunar space is not just important for safety – it can also help support national security. Multiple countries have weapons that can destroy satellites, and some in the space community are concerned that space weapons could be placed in cislunar space to escape detection. The U.S. Space Force is considering the potential security dimensions of cislunar space.

The U.S. currently has significant gaps in its ability to monitor this region, and Mariel’s research suggests that developing this capability – referred to as cislunar space domain awareness – should be a priority for national security. Improved monitoring would help the U.S. military observe activity in cislunar space, gather intelligence and assess potential threats.

Solutions in Progress

Several research programs are experimenting in this area. The Air Force Research Laboratory is funding a program called Oracle that is developing multiple systems to improve the U.S. ability to monitor cislunar space.

The first Oracle satellite is expected to launch in 2027. It will be located at a Lagrange point, which is a spot between the Earth and the Moon where the gravitational pull of each object keeps the spacecraft in a stable position. From there, it can detect objects in cislunar space that sensors on Earth cannot see.

Improving monitoring is only one part of the solution. Entities sending missions to the Moon, including governments and companies, will need to share the locations of their operational missions and coordinate to avoid predicted collisions.

A NASA program dedicated to tracking and assessing lunar traffic is helping to facilitate this effort. The program compares individual operators’ information about their spacecraft’s current and future planned location to identify potential close approaches. In the future, this type of coordination could improve safety, when combined with sensor observations from systems like Oracle.

Countries and companies planning missions to the Moon could also try to coordinate before they launch their systems, so no missions end up operating too close together.

The Outer Space Treaty, a set of basic principles developed early in the space age, requires that countries avoid harmfully interfering with other countries’ activities, but the treaty doesn’t outline how to do this.

The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space formed a team in February 2025 that hopes to address these and other coordination issues on the Moon.

With government and commercial missions to the Moon increasing, and NASA’s next human mission to the Moon planned for early 2026, countries will need to work together to protect everyone’s interest in the Moon.

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

A new study from Georgia Tech’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy finds that incorporating convergence into empirical (data and observation-based) climate models drastically reduces estimated global income loss and inequality from climate change by 2100.

“Very few, if any, explicitly include this convergence effect,” said Anthony Harding, an assistant professor in the Carter School and author on the paper. “But it makes a huge difference.”
 

Main Findings

The study was published in Energy Economics by Harding and co-authors Juan Moreno-Cruz, Martin Quaas, Wilfried Rickels, and Sjak Smulders.

The researchers find that empirical models ignoring convergence can calculate average global income losses of up to 19% by the end of the century in one study, while allowing for convergence reduces these losses to around 8.5%.

Additionally, including convergence spreads the damage more evenly across all countries, resulting in more moderate estimated increases in global income inequality — around 8% by 2100 rather than the up to 118% increase that another empirical model suggested.  

Finally, accounting for convergence also predicts economic impacts from climate change that are more in line with what we expect: the more temperatures increase, the more economic damage is done. Without convergence, empirical models can predict exponential benefits for “winning” countries (such as large northern nations like Canada and Russia) that eventually outpace the losses to losing countries (which can only go to zero), causing it to look like climate change has a net economic benefit in the long run (it doesn’t).  

“This model consistently pushes countries back together in a way, so you don’t get that counterintuitive result,” Harding said. “Including convergence moderates the effects of climate change relative to models without convergence, but they are still large and require immediate action to address.”
 

Why Isn’t Convergence Always Accounted For?

Convergence is an economic theory, while empirical models are based on observable past data. This data is the only way we can forecast future trends, such as the economic impacts of climate change, but using the data alone is not enough.  

“When we use data to estimate a historical relationship between temperature and economic growth, we find evidence of convergence, but it doesn’t directly affect that estimated climate-economy relationship” Harding explained. “So, if you’re building a model about what predicts the relationship between temperature and economic growth, you wouldn’t think to include convergence because it doesn’t show up as meaningful in that backward-looking model.”  

However, it matters when projecting the effects of climate change in the future because convergence changes the persistence of climate change impacts. When temperatures increase, economic growth slows. But when growth slows, convergence offsets that, increasing growth and recovering some of those economic losses. Without convergence, those economic losses are never recovered.

When Harding and his colleagues incorporate convergence into the empirical model, they obtain results that are much closer to those from the more widely used theory-based integrated assessment models, thus calibrating the empirical model and pinpointing the discrepancy between the two.
 

Policy Impacts

Harding and his team are working on a second paper using this model to calculate the value of carbon sequestration. Right now, there are many different ways to predict the economic costs and benefits of capturing and storing carbon out of the air. The results range from a negative economic benefit up to a thousand dollars per ton of carbon, Harding said, which is a “massive, massive spread.”  

But having an accurate number is critical for policymakers determining the economic value of conservation efforts like forest protection and reforestation efforts, which naturally sequester carbon. As organizations and governments choose and build these models, Harding’s work shows how important considering convergence is.

“Distribution of climate damages in convergence-consistent growth projections” was published in Energy Economics. It is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2025.108705.

A new student-run undergraduate law review debuted Sept. 30 with two articles written by Georgia Tech students. The new annual publication will give students the opportunity to begin developing the kinds of skills that generations of law students have learned working on law reviews, said Andy McNeil, director of the Law, Science, and Technology Program in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy.

“While obviously this won’t be at the level or pace students will encounter in law school, this is a great next step for the students to focus not only legal research, but also the writing, editing, and verification of other sources that are so important in law school and beyond,” McNeil said.

Students will be responsible for selecting, writing, editing, and preparing articles for the publication. So far, about 20 students are working on the review, which will be published exclusively online.

The first two articles are "Monopoly in the Machines: How Antitrust Can Spur AI Innovation," by Aarush Maheswaran, and "From Guidelines to Battlegrounds: The Future of Checks and Balances," authored by Dean Evan

Very few universities without an affiliated law school publish undergraduate law reviews, according to McNeil, and none at other top STEM-focused schools without a law school.

“This law review will represent the kind of innovative edge, critical thinking, and unique approach to law, that Georgia Tech is known for,” said Sarah Weitz, a second-year Economics major from Alpharetta and the review’s editor-in-chief. “It demonstrates a commitment to expanding legal opportunities and its emerging leadership in the legal field.”

The review is the brainchild of fourth-year student Dean Evans, a mechanical engineering student from Augusta.

An Advantage for Prospective Law Students

“My hope is that this will become a platform for students to launch their academic writings and gain great experience for law school,” Evans said.

The effort wasn’t without challenges, he said.

“It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to coordinate,” he said. “Building it from scratch was difficult, but I think those lessons will be beneficial in the long run.”

Being on a law review staff while in law school has long been seen as a feather in the cap for students, said McNeil, who was lead articles editor while a law school student.

Years ago, it was common for the top 10% of students at top law schools to receive an automatic invitation to join the school’s law review. Now, many schools have moved to an even more competitive model where only the top 1% or 2% of students receive an automatic bid.  Other students who want to participate must submit an article to prove their writing prowess, McNeil said.

“For students who maybe don’t go to one of the top ten law schools, being on the law review is something that helps differentiate candidates and makes them stand out to potential employers,” McNeil said. “My hope is that this journal will help Georgia Tech students who want to go on to legal careers learn the skills they need to make a law review staff and go on to make an impact in the law and beyond.”

That’s how Weitz sees it.

“I’ve already learned so much, and I know this opportunity is going to be a big benefit in developing the necessary analytical writing, critical legal thinking, and collaboration skills for myself and my peers who hope to pursue law school,” she said. 

For more information about the undergraduate law review, visit the review’s website.

Although McNeil is advising the students, the review is not an official Georgia Tech publication and doesn’t reflect the viewpoints of Georgia Tech or the Carter School.

The good news is that the gap between what health scientists are studying and the actual worldwide disease burden has narrowed since 1999. That’s according to a new study from a global team of health policy researchers, including Georgia Tech’s Cassidy R. Sugimoto.

The bad news? The study shows the improvement was mostly accidental, and things are likely to start getting worse again — especially if the U.S. follows through on plans to cut global health research funding.

“Our current situation is going to lead to an increasing imbalance between the diseases burdening the world and the research that is produced,” said Sugimoto, the Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy.

To read more about the paper, published Aug. 27, 2025, in Nature Medicine, read our full story.

Andy McNeil, BSPP 2021, has been named the permanent director of the Law, Science, and Technology (LST) program in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy. 

Fortunately, some people make it their mission to bring down those barriers. Salimah LaForce, senior research scientist for Georgia Tech’s Center for Advanced Communications Policy (CACP), studies where information systems fail and where they can be improved. Her research shapes policies, tools, and educational resources to make sure everyone — not just the non-disabled — can access the same opportunities and protections.

“Technology works best when it works for everyone,” LaForce said. “There should be no sociodemographic or systemic barriers to accessing lifesaving information or having the tools you need to work and live well.” 

LaForce’s work spans the breadth of accessibility research. She makes recommendations on how emergency mobile alerts can be improved, accesses job outcomes for people with disabilities, and even designs virtual games that help older adults protect themselves in the face of disaster.

But how did a humanities enthusiast from California end up designing virtual reality (VR) studies in Atlanta? It’s a path that, while unexpected, ended up coming full circle.

Read the full article.

Harding is an alumnus of the School of Economics and returned to Georgia Tech after a postdoc at Harvard University. He studies the impact of innovative technology on climate change policy and governance, focusing on solar geoengineering. In the eight years he's been researching it, Harding said it's the scale of the conversation that's changed the most: not what the researchers are speaking about, but who they're speaking to. 

"A lot of people in the climate policy and academic realms were hesitant to talk about solar geoengineering, and I think that’s starting to change," Harding said. "There's definitely wider acceptance of at least talking about it, and in that way, pathways to having spaces to talk about it and research funds are opening up." 

As the idea of solar geoengineering picks up steam, Harding invites everyone to join the conversation, starting with learning about what it is, how it works, and whether or not this once-niche proposition really can save the world. 

What is Solar Geoengineering? 

The most commonly proposed method of solar geoengineering, which also goes by names such as solar radiation modification or climate intervention, uses sulfate aerosols. When injected into the Earth's stratosphere, they reflect a small amount of the sun's radiation — less than 1% — and reduce Earth's surface temperature. This option is the most popular, and the one Harding studies, because we have natural examples, he explained. Volcanoes release sulfates when they erupt, and the largest ones are strong enough to push them into the stratosphere.  

"So we have evidence from the past that if sulfate aerosols make it up to the stratosphere, there's a cooling effect," he said. "This natural analog gives us a bit more belief that it's going to work at least in some of the ways we expect it to in the real world and not just on a computer." 

The other two types of solar geoengineering researchers consider most seriously are marine cloud brightening to reflect incoming sunlight and Cirrus cloud thinning to let light escape more easily. Each one has pros and cons. For example, marine cloud brightening would only occur over the deepest and darkest parts of the ocean, Harding said, "which would have a non-uniform cooling effect and could lead to certain adverse outcomes. " 

Stratospheric aerosol injection has a more uniform distribution and cooling effect that better mimics the warming we're experiencing. However, it comes with its own concerns, one of which is that the cooling isn't permanent.  

"If something happened to stop the deployment of the aerosols, whether it was for political or technological reasons, we would bounce right back and experience a rapid heating that we've never experienced before, and could have catastrophic impacts," Harding said. 

What are the Costs and Benefits of Solar Geoengineering? 

This question is where Harding's research makes the most impact. As an economist, he examines the costs and benefits of solar geoengineering to highlight the tradeoffs involved. Harding has published articles on how solar geoengineering could impact other climate change mitigation policies, how it affects income inequality, and the value of reducing uncertainty around solar geoengineering. 

"Making it clear what the different tradeoffs are around climate policies is super important for informing decision-making," he said. "On one side, we have these really, at their core, basic scientific questions around whether solar geoengineering will work and if it can scale up. But it's also an interesting question from a governance and economics perspective. Solar geoengineering has global repercussions, the decision will affect the entire world. How do we develop governance structures, conversations, and inclusivity to ensure we're making a choice for the collective good?"  

For example, one of the downsides of using sulfate aerosols for solar geoengineering is negative health effects. But it also has the benefit of preventing temperature-related deaths. So, how do they compare? Harding's recently submitted paper, which is not yet peer-reviewed, finds that the benefits of reduced deaths outweigh the adverse health effects of solar geoengineering "by at least an order of magnitude — if not two orders of magnitude," he said.  

Harding notes that a more comprehensive comparison of risks and benefits is still required, but in the context of the two health impacts he examined, “Yes, it’s a concern, and something we should consider, but we need to put it in perspective that the benefits are significantly greater than that negative effect." 

Why is Solar Geoengineering Controversial? 

Uncertain health outcomes? Check. What else makes solar geoengineering so controversial that some academics want a ban on public funding, experiments, patents, deployment, and support for the technology in international institutions? 

There is a running theme in climate conversations that discussing adaptation policies reduces the focus on cutting emissions, Harding said, and the concerns around solar geoengineering are the same: not just that it will pull research funds from mitigation efforts, but that it will pull attention from dealing with the source of the warming as well. (His 2023 paper examines this problem.) 

Although he disagrees, others believe that researching solar geoengineering also makes it more likely that we deploy it, Harding explained. So, for those against the technology, disrupting research efforts to prevent the idea from moving further makes sense. 

What's Next? 

As with any unfamiliar and emerging technology, questions arise, such as, will this go horribly wrong and destroy the planet? Or, will it be the solution to all of our problems? 

"Putting my realistic hat on, it's probably somewhere in between," Harding said. "It's always hard to predict the future, but I can propose what I think is a realistic hope for where it can go." 

Harding anticipates more research and is hopeful for continued discourse between academics and the public. 

"The first and most important thing to do is make people aware of this technology and educate them about it," Harding said. "We have to understand how general people, outside of policymakers, feel about it — because that matters a lot." 

He also wants to see more serious international policy discussions around governing solar geoengineering to prevent a situation where one person or country deploys it independently. Whether it's a moratorium on its use or another agreement, international guidelines would help legitimize research without fears of a rogue actor, he explained. 

Final Takeaway 

To package it all up into a neat little tagline, "Solar geoengineering is a really new technology that could alleviate a lot of suffering in the case of climate change. But there's a lot of uncertainty, and it needs a lot more attention to quell any concerns about catastrophe," Harding said.  

"The most salient concern is that we put a lot of faith in solar geoengineering, invest a lot of resources, and slow down emissions cuts because we think we have a silver bullet. And then we get to 2080 and realize it doesn't work as expected. That's a very real concern. But the one that receives less attention is if we put solar geoengineering aside and don't spend the resources investigating it. Then we get to 2080 and realize, 'Wow, this technology could have worked and relieved a lot of suffering.' I think it's important to understand the flip side of that." 

The new offerings include the Minor in Collaborative Social Innovation, the Minor in Science Communication and Policy, and the Minor in Creative Writing.

Minor in Collaborative Social Innovation

This program, offered by the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, is designed to help prepare students to be “agents of change.” The project-based curriculum combines policy, design thinking, and team dynamics, and it complements any major.

“The Collaborative Social Innovation minor helps students move from idea to impact — preparing them to lead teams, create change, and design solutions that matter. It’s about turning your education into action,” said Ilya Gokhman, an academic professional in the School of Public Policy.

Students must take two or more courses with a micro focus, such as PUBP 1142 – Teams and Collaboration or PUBP 4140 – Foundations of Leadership. They also must select at least two courses with a macro focus, just as COE 1201 – Design Thinking and Innovation for Grand Challenges, PUBP 4200 U.S. Health Policy, or PUBP 4416 – Critical Issues in Science and Technology.

Minor in Science Communication and Policy

The Carter School is also partnering with the School of Literature, Media, and Communication (LMC) to offer the Science Communication and Policy minor. This program offers an in-depth look at how science is communicated to the public, how policy shapes research, and how science communication affects society. It’s open to students in all majors.

The interdisciplinary program is designed for humanities students interested in careers in health and science, media, technical communication, or public relations, as well as STEM majors seeking to develop their human-centered communication skills.

Students must take LMC 3310 – The Rhetoric of Scientific Inquiry and PUBP 4410 – Science, Technology, and Public Policy and also choose three electives from a list of courses that includes LMC 3412 – Communicating Science and Technology to the Public, LMC 3318 – Biomedicine and Culture, and LMC 4406 – Contemporary Issues in Professional Communication.

A unique feature of this minor is the optional study-abroad experience in Dublin, Ireland, on storytelling and AI in journalism, offered in partnership with CNN.

“This is an exciting opportunity for Georgia Tech students to learn how policy shapes and is shaped by how we talk about science and to learn how scientific advances are communicated by professionals to different public audiences,” said 
LMC Chair Kelly Ritter.

Minor in Creative Writing

Finally, LMC is offering another new minor, in Creative Writing, for students who are particularly interested in improving their communication skills for careers and life.

The minor is open to all Georgia Tech students except for those already majoring in LMC. The primary focus of the program is on poetry, but it also includes other genres.

Students must take LMC 3234 – Creative Writing; two writing electives, which include courses on poetry and stage and screen writing; and one literature elective, with options ranging from LMC 2060 – Introduction to Literary Studies to LMC 3214 – Science Fiction.

“This minor gives students the opportunity to showcase their skills in the literary arts and fosters a community of writers who will support and inspire them,” said JC Reilly, director of Creative Writing Curricula. “It’s a perfect outlet for students to embrace all aspects of their expressive selves.”

Other Notable Minors

IAC students also will have the opportunity to take the new Minor in Business of Sports and Entertainment offered by The Scheller College of Business and including classes taught by IAC faculty.

The minor is meant for those interested in careers in sports management, live events, media, or entertainment law, among others.

IAC courses available for credit as part of the program include HTS 2015 – History of Sports in America, HTS 3073 – Sociology of Sports, and HTS 3089 – Science, Technology, and Sports.

Also, the Carter School and the School of Economics also offer the fairly new Minor in Economics and Policy of Environmental Sustainability.

The minor is available to any student who wants to better understand how economics and policy shape our environment, climate, and energy resources.

Courses include the required PUBP 3600 - Sustainability, Technology, and Policy and ECON 4440 - Economics of Natural Resources and the Environment, as well as electives such as ECON 3300 – Economics of International Energy Markets, PUBP 3350 – Energy Policy, and INTA 3042 – Energy and International Security.

The new minors join 35 others offered by the Ivan Allen College, including the Minor in Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning launched last year in partnership with the College of Engineering. Other minors include Economics; Energy Systems; Film and Media Studies; History; International Business, Language, and Culture; and International Affairs.

Murdie, the new dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and an expert in international relations, also has extensively studied game theory and finds it incredibly relevant to her work in human rights and human security. Typically defined as the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions, game theory relies on understanding distinctively non-mathematical factors like psychology and cultural norms.

“To make a good game theory model, you have to understand the motivations of individuals, and you can't understand those motivations from only the sciences. You really need the humanistic side,” Murdie says. “If you're going to do anything as a game theorist, you must understand how humans function, and that's more than just the natural sciences or the social sciences. It’s inherently interdisciplinary.”

The liberal arts provide that understanding not just in game theory but in any discipline, says Murdie. “Liberal arts are the lifeline through which all other knowledge flows,” she says.

Interdisciplinary Lens

Murdie’s background in human rights gave her an early appreciation of how many research areas outside of international relations play a key role in improving lives worldwide.

“Coming from a human rights tradition, you always start with an interdisciplinary lens,” she says.

Murdie’s training and research have included a wide range of students, professors, and collaborators — from economics, law, history, sociology, business, statistics, and more. She says human rights and international affairs are not at all unique in demanding an interdisciplinary approach. Solving any complex problem requires knowledge of many direct and indirect factors.

To connect the dots, you need collaborators from a range of disciplines. And to trust and work with collaborators from each discipline, you need at least a basic, working level of knowledge about it, says Murdie.

“How do you respect someone else's method of inquiry and someone else's method of creation? That's something universities don't train students well for unless there’s a truly interdisciplinary focus,” she says.

Ivan Allen Advantage

Whether someone is launching a business, creating a new technology, or negotiating a treaty, connecting the dots is crucial to innovation, as well as staying more than a few steps ahead of AI and automation. The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts is perfectly positioned to make more of those connections as a liberal arts hub embedded within an institute making the latest breakthroughs in engineering, computing, and sciences, says Murdie, who joined Georgia Tech from the University of Georgia. She calls it the “Ivan Allen Advantage.”

“I think the Ivan Allen Advantage goes in two directions. I think in one direction, our advantage for all Tech students is that they need that liberal arts training in order to be better communicators and actually think about humanity and how technology can be used,” Murdie says. “And I think the Ivan Allen Advantage also is for those of us who are passionate about the liberal arts, who want to focus on the human condition. Doing so in an environment that is tech-informed leads to better student outcomes.”

The College is also well positioned (as a connector of dots) to channel faculty and student research expertise toward solving problems and improving lives, Murdie says. The Center for Advanced Communications Policy (CACP) and Center for Urban Research represent excellent examples of how the liberal arts can act as a hub and facilitator for tackling complex challenges, she adds.

Training for the Future

As AI and other technologies accelerate changes in nearly every aspect of our lives, the ability to be creative, lead complex teams, solve problems, and connect with others has never been more important. What better way to master those skills than to enhance your education with the study of literature, languages, history, and culture? Murdie asks.

“We're going to build the liberal arts into what it should be — the best place for people to get training for the future. But that training needs to be informed by technology, and it needs to be informed by the deep understanding of AI and machine learning,” Murdie says.

“If you’re an engineer who can't write or express ideas clearly, it's easier for your job to be taken by AI. It's our ability to be human that keeps us in the game.”

The Southern Company Foundation awarded a $2.5 million grant to the Georgia Tech Center for Urban Research to support Mayor Andre Dickens’ effort to address socioeconomic inequities in Atlanta neighborhoods.

“This investment is a major step forward in Mayor Dickens’ effort to improve the quality of lives of all Atlantans,” said David Edwards, the founding executive director of the Center for Urban Research and the policy advisor for neighborhoods in the City of Atlanta Office of the Mayor.

“My goal is to ensure that the city of Atlanta is the best city in the country to raise a child,” said Mayor Andre Dickens. “And we’re going to achieve that by ensuring every child in the city lives in a healthy, thriving, and accessible neighborhood. This investment by the Southern Company Foundation will help us ensure that we track and evaluate our progress against that goal. I am very appreciative of their willingness to support this critical work.”

What: The Center for Urban Research, hosted in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, is a collaboration between Georgia Tech and the mayor’s office. It brings together university, community, nonprofit, and municipal leaders to develop and evaluate solutions that address inequities in urban centers. Current projects include neighborhood improvement plans and climate-oriented engineering for housing and facilities on public land.

Why: The Center will use the $2.5 million from the Southern Company Foundation to evaluate and inform the mayor’s “Achieving Fairness of Place” initiative, which is investing in seven historically disinvested neighborhoods to improve outcomes in housing, education, health, and economic mobility.

How: The Center for Urban Research will develop an impact measurement strategy for the project and track the results of the investments. It will also lead the research, informing the work on the ground and conducting and supporting local and national work on issues related to place-based transformation and neighborhood health. The Center is collaborating with more than 40 researchers at colleges and universities across the region.

“With this funding, we hope to establish the Center as a leader in research, practice, and partnerships and use Atlanta as a blueprint of what can happen nationwide to address urban inequity,” said Ishita Chordia, the associate director of the Center.

“Policymakers in Atlanta and beyond desperately need research support,” added Center Co-Director Brian An, an assistant professor at the Carter School.

The Southern Company Foundation’s grant will allow the Center to create fellowships and build an interdisciplinary team of master’s and doctoral students from the Carter School, the School of City and Regional Planning, the College of Computing, and others to provide the research analytics that policymakers often don’t have the time or money to procure themselves, An said.

“We are pleased to support the mayor’s Fairness of Place initiative with the Center for Urban Research to conduct research and determine best practices in community transformation,” said Myra Bierria, president of the Southern Company Foundation.

“This initiative, taking shape in several economically disadvantaged communities to provide residents with access to quality housing, education, workforce development, and public spaces, aligns with our focus on elevating our communities for generations to come. This grant reflects our commitment to these efforts and supporting the Atlanta communities we are privileged to serve.” 

Nearly three decades ago, the United States government began relinquishing control over an obscure but crucial bit of internet bureaucracy: overseeing the assignment of the names and numbers allowing computers and networks worldwide to find and talk to one another. 

It was 2019. She had been struggling with neck pain for two years, but doctors kept telling her it was simply a byproduct of bending her neck while studying too hard.

Then her hands started going numb. Painful shocks would race down her arms. Joints began popping out of place. The discomfort kept her up at night.

“It was extremely painful, and most days I couldn’t move, yet I was always told, no, this is in your head,” said Lee, who applied to and was accepted to Georgia Tech even while attempting to figure out the mystery ailment disrupting her life. 

She tried to do what she’s always done: push through to achieve her academic goals. But, eventually, the weight of her illness became too much. In 2020, Lee had to put her Georgia Tech studies on hold, head home, and focus on finding out just what was happening to her body.

It took two years away from Georgia Tech, being shuffled from doctor to doctor, but she finally got an answer: hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and a trio of leaking heart valves — a combination Lee said has put her future at risk.

EDS is a connective tissue disorder that affects every part of the body, causing severe pain and mobility issues. One of 13 subtypes, the hypermobile form is the most common and often comes along with other health issues that significantly impact quality of life. 

Less than two months after her diagnosis, Lee began alternating between relying on a walker and wheelchair to help her move around. She was just 22.

Lee said her parents wanted her to stay home in Augusta so they could help take care of her. But to Lee, there was just one thing for her to do: come back to Georgia Tech and go after that degree.

"I live every day in excruciating pain,” Lee said. “But I won't let anybody or anything take my academic prowess away from me."

On Friday, a little less than three years after she returned to Georgia Tech to continue her studies, Lee will graduate with honors and a B.S. in Public Policy, having forged a love for health policy and advocacy in her time here.

One of her favorite professors, Andrew Buskell, remembers her as an outstanding — and inspiring — student.

“Despite all her hardships — debilitating fatigue, chronic pain, struggles with the healthcare system — Michelle was always present and always engaged,” Buskell said. 

“Present didn’t always mean in-person, though she would be in the classroom when she could,” Buskell said. “But she would also join from parking lots and waiting rooms where she was seeking emergency care. Once, she even joined from her hospital bed. No matter where she was located, her dedication to learning shone through.”

Lee is sticking around Georgia Tech for one more semester to finish her master’s degree in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy, in hopes of furthering her ability to shape health policy. She wants to continue making an impact for as long as she can.

"I want to cultivate a life for myself,” said Lee, who also works as an executive administrator at the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ Georgia office. “Whatever time I have left, that's not significant. It doesn't matter. What matters is what I can build in the time I do have.”

As something of an expert on overcoming adversity, Lee has advice for other Georgia Tech students going through rough times. You can do it, she says.

“Yeah, failure is an option. But is that really the route you're going to choose? Because ultimately everything in life is a choice. And you hold the power.”

Oh, and you better bet Lee will be at Commencement.

“You'd have to drag me kicking and screaming away,” Lee said.

“It’s truly humbling to be the first Ivan Allen College student to represent Tech at USG Recognition Day, especially as I know firsthand how many incredible, deserving students I’ve studied alongside,” Cotsman said.

Each institution in the University System of Georgia chooses one student to honor with the award each year.

“As you can imagine, the competition is tough at Georgia Tech,” said Shatakshee Dhongde, the associate dean for academic affairs in the Ivan Allen College. “Ashley’s strength as a candidate was the combination of using advanced machine learning and analytical models to inform policy. Her research experience shows how we can use technology to improve the human condition, and thus, she is a perfect representative of a Georgia Tech senior.”

Cotsman said she’s incredibly grateful for the mentors who encouraged her to explore the intersection of technology, machine learning, and smart policymaking. Alongside her public policy degree, she is completing a Minor in Applications of AI and Machine Learning. She also has worked in Associate Professor Omar Isaac Asensio’s Data Science and Policy Lab since she was a first-year student.

“This is a well-deserved recognition,” Asensio said. “Ashley has shown excellence in the classroom and multi-disciplinary research settings.”

Her stand-out achievements include co-authoring a journal article on the use of large language models to detect global service reliability issues in electric transportation policy, earning her a first-place award at the Georgia Tech Undergraduate Research Symposium, and a mention by Microsoft AI in a feature story on Azure cloud computing.

She also led a project using GPT-4 and prompt engineering to analyze the sea of sustainability reports published by organizations each year and help policymakers reduce evaluation costs. Cotsman presented her work at the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management Conference with support from a President’s Undergraduate Research Award.

In the Fall, Cotsman won a competitive Federal Jackets Fellowship to participate in the GTDC “study at home” semester in Washington. Alongside her classes and internship at the House Finance Committee, she researched and wrote an analysis of gender dynamics in policymaking spaces, examining the challenges, opportunities, and future for gender equity.

“This recognition is more than a personal honor; it marks a significant first for the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts,” Cotsman said. “It celebrates the growing impact of students whose work brings depth, context, and humanity to our world’s most pressing scientific challenges. I am honored to represent that legacy and hope this recognition affirms the enduring relevance of humanistic perspectives in building a better future.”

The cocktail hour and awards ceremony at the Georgian Terrace recognized graduates from each of the six Schools in Ivan Allen College and the three ROTC units. This year’s winners have forged exceptional careers in public health, policy, business, and the Armed Forces.

The event also included the Ivan Allen Jr. Legacy Awards, honoring a standout graduate student, undergraduate student, and faculty member, as well as the Dean’s Appreciation Award, celebrating extraordinary contributions to the College’s advancement, reputation, and mission.

2025 Dean’s Appreciation Award

This year’s recipient of the Dean’s Appreciation Award is Amy Phuong, a 2005 graduate of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and a 2014 MBA from the Scheller College of Business. Among Phuong’s many contributions to the Atlanta community is a clear dedication to her alma mater — she served as student body president in her senior year, is the chair of the Ivan Allen College Advisory Board, and has volunteered with the Nunn School and Georgia Tech Alumni Association boards, as well.

2025 Distinguished Alumni Awards

The 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award winners come from many backgrounds and careers but have one important thing in common: a dedication to service, leadership, and excellence in their fields.

Air Force ROTC: Maj. Gen. Kelly K. McKeague (Ret.)
B.S. Industrial Engineering 1981, M.S. Industrial Engineering, 1987

McKeague has served as director of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency since 2017, overseeing efforts to account for missing U.S. personnel from past conflicts. He leads research, recovery, and identification operations worldwide, ensuring the fullest possible accounting for families and the nation. 

Army ROTC: Brig. Gen. Tom Blackstock (Ret.)
B.S. Civil Engineering, 1987 

Over 38 years of service, Blackstock served in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, South Korea, Honduras, and the country of Georgia. He remains active in the Georgia Tech ROTC Alumni Network and the Ivan Allen College Alumni Leadership Team.

Navy ROTC: Maj. Gen. Larry Taylor USMC (Ret.)
B.S. Industrial Management, 1962 

In 2008-09, Taylor served as a State Department contractor in Iraq, managing a program for Civilian Police International. He is active with the Reserve Officers Association of the United States, the USO Council of Georgia, the Reserve Forces Policy Board, and the Marine Corps Coordinating Council of Greater Atlanta.  

John Wylder
B.S. Economics, 1973 

Wylder was a member of the first class to graduate with Economics degrees at Georgia Tech. Now retired, he worked with SunTrust Bank, Hewlett-Packard, PwC, and Microsoft during his career.

Wilson A. (Arnie) Garrett
B.S. History, Technology, and Society, 2024 

Garrett is a retired Air Force systems analyst with decades of experience in information technology. After failing to complete a computer science degree in 1982, Garrett returned to Georgia Tech after his retirement to earn a degree from the School of History and Sociology.

Jessica Cox
B.S. International Affairs, 2000 

Cox serves as director for defense plans and policy at the U.S. Mission to NATO, where she is responsible for advocating U.S. defense policy within the NATO alliance.

Molly Heacock
B.S. Science, Technology, and Communication 2010 

Heacock is the managing director and CEO-elect of UnTold, a public health nongovernmental organization supporting people affected by AIDS in East and Southern Africa.

Yvonne Ploder
B.S. International Affairs and Modern Languages — French, 2015

Ploder leads a Trust and Safety team at Snapchat, dedicated to maintaining platform safety and user protection in New York. 

Lynn Austin
Ph.D. Health Policy and Management, 2000 

Austin managed operations for organizations with budgets up to $5 billion over the course of her career, holding positions at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, among others. Since retiring she has provided executive coaching to more than 500 professionals.  

2025 Ivan Allen Jr. Legacy Awards

Sanghyun Han is a Ph.D. student in International Affairs, Science and Technology. He specializes in emerging technology, statecraft, international security, and political economy. He co-founded the STAIR (Science, Technology, And International Relations) workshop and was a research assistant at the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy.

Jinxia Loo is an undergraduate student majoring in History, Technology, and Society and minoring in Computer Science. They are a committed member of the Delta Phi Lambda Sorority, involved with undergraduate research and first-generation student initiatives, and have served as the president of Georgia Tech’s Asian American Student Association.

Janet Murray is the Distinguished Professor of Digital Media in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. She is a pioneer researcher and teacher in women’s studies, digital humanities, interaction design, and game studies. Throughout her career, Murray has focused on how changes in cultural narrative can expand our understanding of what it means to be human. Her best-known work is Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace.

Congratulations to our 2025 winners! 

“The Carter family is a true gem of Georgia, demonstrating what can be accomplished through a focus on public service, resilience, and a desire to improve the human condition,” said Cassidy Sugimoto, Tom and Marie Patton Professor and School Chair in the School of Public Policy. “We are grateful to have the opportunity to honor the Carters for their work since the founding of the Carter Center in 1982, focused on preventing and resolving conflicts, enhancing freedom and democracy, and improving health.”

“I am grateful to the Carter family, the Carter Center, and the Georgia Tech alumni and donors who supported this naming,” said Cabrera. “The Carter School will contribute to preserving the memory of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s extraordinary life of public service and will inspire and develop new generations of public leaders committed to Progress and Service.” 

Jimmy Carter, who attended Georgia Tech as a student in 1942, received the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Service and Progress at Georgia Tech in 2002 and the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage at Georgia Tech in 2017. The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, named for former Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. Allen who was known for his transformative urban leadership and socially and ethically conscious action.

“It’s a pleasure always to be associated with the Ivan Allen family in any way. We’ve been close to the family for a long time,” said Jimmy Carter at the award event in 2017. “In every respect, my heart is with Georgia Tech.”

“Mayor Allen was a beacon of light for Jimmy and for me and so many others actually in our whole country, standing up for what was good and what was right,” said Rosalynn Carter at the 2017 award event.

The School of Public Policy partnered with the Carter Center on the two-year naming process, and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were engaged and personally supportive.

“My family and I are honored by Georgia Tech’s naming of the School of Public Policy after my grandparents," said Jason Carter, grandson of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. "Georgia Tech was extremely important to my grandfather, and I am so glad that this institution chose to celebrate my grandparents' decades-long partnership of service.” 

"Georgia Tech always held a special place in President and Mrs. Carter's hearts. In fact, Mrs. Carter kept a Georgia Tech blanket draped across a chair in her office at The Carter Center — a sweet reminder of her very favorite Tech student — and it still sits there today," said Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander. "Georgia Tech played a formative role in their lives and it helped shaped their policy perspectives from the Governor's mansion to the White House and beyond. It is only appropriate that the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy will now bear their names."

The School of Public Policy in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts educates leaders who can ethically address societal problems through policy processes and generates knowledge that contributes to sustainability, creates a more equitable society, and serves to enhance innovation at the intersection of science and technology.

They are Margaret E. Kosal, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, and Juan D. Rogers, professor and associate chair in the School of Public Policy.

Rogers was selected for his contribution to “the development of new models and tools for impact assessment of R&D programs.” Kosal was chosen for her work helping develop “testable frameworks to explore the relationships between science, technology, and security and to explain their impacts on geopolitics,” according to the AAAS.

Founded in 1848, AAAS says it is the world’s largest general scientific society. It seeks to advance science through programs that include science policy as well as education and public engagement.

“This year’s class of fellows are the embodiment of scientific excellence and service to our communities,” said Sudip S. Parikh, the organization’s chief executive officer and executive publisher of Science journals. “At a time when the future of the scientific enterprise in the U.S. and around the world is uncertain, their work demonstrates the value of sustained investment in science and engineering.”

Kosal’s work focuses on explaining the intersection of emerging science and technology and security, especially in the areas of reducing threats from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the relationship of emerging science and technology and geopolitics.

“My research is driven by scholarly, theoretically grounded discourse and discovery; by a commitment to bridging the academic/scholarly-policy gap; and by a dedication to advancing and championing research by students and young scholars that bridges the physical, life and social sciences, and engineering,” Kosal said.

"I'm honored and humbled to be selected as a fellow and look forward to further work bridging across disciplines," Kosal said.

Rogers’ work addresses the design, implementation, and evaluation of public policies that focus on science and technology, especially the uses of science and technology to address special social or economic needs. He has developed models for the evaluation of research and development processes and a framework for public expenditure reviews, including public policy functional analysis, evaluation of the impacts of R&D policies and scientific research, and technology transfer and diffusion policies for science and technology.

“I feel honored and humbled to be recognized for my research work by AAAS,” he said. “It is very rewarding to see that others find value in my contributions and, at the same time, feel responsible for communicating the importance of the research enterprise in today's world.”

Rogers and Kosal join five other Georgia Tech faculty in being selected for the honor this year. AAAS also chose Krista S. Walton and Chaouki T. Abdallah in the College of Engineering, Wilbur Lam and Anant Madabhushi in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Daniel I. Goldman in the College of Sciences.

In all 32 other Georgia Tech faculty members are active AAAS fellows, according to the organization’s website. This includes four in the Ivan Allen College: Diana Hicks, Kaye Husbands Fealing, retired Associate Professor Cheryl Leggon, and Aaron Levine, all in the School of Public Policy.

For more information on the other Georgia Tech recipients, see the campuswide announcement. For more information on the AAAS and this year’s class of fellows, visit the AAAS website.

We’ll tackle these questions and more at The Future of the Humanities at Georgia Tech Workshop on April 4  — and we need your expertise. 

“The humanities are at the heart of Georgia Tech’s mission to develop leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition,” said John Lyon, Chair of the School of Modern Languages. “This workshop is an opportunity to bring together faculty, funders, and national leaders to ensure that the humanities continue to thrive at the Institute.”

This full-day event hosted by the Schools of History and Sociology, Literature, Media, and Communication, Modern Languages, and Public Policy will explore how to expand and strengthen the humanities at Tech through faculty research, external partnerships, and institutional support.

It will feature lightning-round presentations from Georgia Tech faculty, discussions with representatives from Schmidt Scientific, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Newberry Library, and a roundtable with humanities leaders from MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and more. A collaborative workshop will finish out the day, focusing on strengthening the institutional presence of the humanities at Georgia Tech. 

Join us to forge new opportunities in research, teaching, and beyond! Breakfast, lunch, and refreshments will be provided. Space is limited — please register by March 28.

The study indicates such policies are not only good for children but also could reduce the burden on child protection agencies — and maybe even ease the associated budgetary strain on governments.

“There are potentially vast implications for government budgets and other macroeconomic factors,” the authors wrote in their paper. “In addition to demonstrating possible cross-program interactions between family services and employment services, this work may in turn offer a more complete cost-benefit analysis of PFL programs.”

Read the full story at https://iac.gatech.edu/featured-news/2025/03/paid-family-leave-reduces-abuse-georgia-tech-study.

Mary Frank Fox, Dean’s Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Policy, received the award for outstanding achievement in advancing inclusion. 

Lindsey Rose Bullinger, an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy, received the award for outstanding achievement in early career research. 

Fox was the original co-principal investigator on Georgia Tech’s NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant, and is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and co-director of the Center for Study of Women, Science, and Technology. 

Bullinger’s research focuses on how public policies affect child and family health and well-being. Her research on the relationship between child and family welfare and issues such as opioid abuse, Medicaid expansions, and wages has been widely cited in publications such as The New York Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  

The awards will be formally presented April 26 at the Georgia Tech Faculty and Staff Honors Luncheon. 

Dean Kaye Husbands Fealing delivered her inaugural address, titled “Connecting: Developing Leaders Bridging Humanities, Social sciences, and Technology” via BlueJeans Events. She reflected on her first six months as dean and also outlined College priorities, including operations and governance, strategy and performance metrics.

She also focused on the College’s efforts to promote diversity and equity, to continue offering majors that are both intellectually enlightening and provide professional opportunities, and to grow in stature on campus and the wider community.

Watch the State of the College Address

Additional priorities included:

• Create a more inclusive culture and climate with attention to the health, safety, and well-being of our students, staff, and faculty.
• Create more opportunities for experiential learning for our students and to engage life-long learners.
• Create an incentive structure for fostering creativity and collaboration in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and at Georgia Tech.
• Develop and engage a comprehensive financial and fundraising plan.
• Initiate, complete, and implement the College’s strategic plan.

The dean shared several connection points where the College's curriculum and research bridge across two or more schools, including: computational social science; digital humanities; energy, environmental science, and sustainability; ethics and emerging technologies; gender studies; global development; global languages and cultures; health analytics, policy, and well-being; media studies; security issues, including cyber, economic, health, food, and international; science and technology policy and governance; and social justice.

Husbands Fealing, who assumed the role of dean in June 2020, highlighted the College’s strong recent growth. Graduate enrollment has almost tripled in the past three years, from 254 students in 2018-19 to 616 in 2020-2021. Undergraduate enrollment also has grown, from 583 in 2016-17 to 837 in 2020-21. The College also has shown the largest growth of any college on campus in credit hours offered for master’s courses, adding 823 hours since Fall 2017. The College also raised $4.1 million in fiscal year 2020, and sponsored research funding also reached a high that year, she noted.

The dean also noted the recent work of the College’s Diversity and Inclusion Council, composed of 32 faculty, staff, and students. The Council recently passed a set of bylaws and established five action groups examining culture and climate; communication and community engagement; curriculum; governance and membership; and recruitment and retention of faculty, staff, and students.

Additionally, she outlined how the College’s ongoing efforts to develop its new strategic plan are oriented around one question: What should be the purpose and potential of a liberal arts college at a technology-centered university in the 21st century? A 16-member study committee, which includes faculty, staff and students, is working to develop a study report. The committee is using the framework of National Academies studies to report findings, recommendations and conclusions that emphasize the College’s strengths and redefine its purpose and potential. The study report will be released in June 2021 to launch the strategic planning process in fall 2021.

The dean presented the newly-developed mission and values of Georgia Tech, and connected those values to her leadership philosophy and personal values. Husbands Fealing invited members of the college community to provide input on the unique contribution of the humanities and social sciences to the mission, vision, and goals of Georgia Tech. Community members can submit feedback to dean@iac.gatech.edu.

She ended the address by responding to questions on a variety of topics, including health and well-being, the role of the arts, budget outlook, development goals, career education for students, and how the College can become more agile regarding issues that reach beyond the classroom.

The 2021 Spring State of the College Address recording and presentation are available on the Strategy and Impact website.

When it comes to finding solutions to climate change, there’s no shortage of technologies vying for attention, from renewable energy to electric vehicles to nuclear energy. One such contender, solar geoengineering, is favored by proponents who say it could quickly cool the planet and give the world time to fully implement efforts to limit emissions and remove carbon from the atmosphere.  

The study, authored by Assistant Professor Ashley C. Bradford and recently published in Health Affairs, found that evictions in Tennessee rose 24.5 percent between 2005 and 2009 relative to other Southern states following the state’s 2005 decision to remove approximately 190,000 people from its Medicaid rolls.

More than 16.4 million people nationwide — 86 times the Tennessee figure from 2005 — have already been taken off Medicaid as states react to a federal law requiring them to return to normal operations after years of expanded eligibility meant to blunt the impact of the pandemic, according to KFF Health News. As many as 24 million people could eventually lose access to Medicaid, according to the outlet.

However, Bradford warns that many aspects of health care administration and the housing market have changed since 2005, so it’s hard to say whether that 24.5% figure in her paper will cleanly translate to the economic and policy environment of 2025. The populations involved in Tennessee’s downsizing and the current national rollbacks are also different, adding more uncertainty.

“I think it’s safe to say that we will see disruptions in housing, but we are not going to be able to see exactly how large those disruptions will be for a few years,” Bradford said.

https://youtu.be/V7YkDwvWgzA?si=FwPKLP24paa6i4_A

Transformed Health Care and Housing Landscapes May Shift Impact

Among other things, where Tennessee’s 2005 Medicaid changes primarily affected working-age childless adults, the researchers say that the current Medicaid rollback is expected to disproportionately affect immigrants and people with disabilities — populations whose budgets are often more sensitive to economic shocks like the loss of health insurance.

On the other hand, according to the researchers, the Affordable Care Act could also reduce financial shocks and evictions for some families. The program first offered health insurance plans — including low- and zero-premium options — in 2013, well after the period Bradford and her co-authors studied in Tennessee.

Another group expected to be affected, older adults, may be somewhat sheltered from evictions due to savings or Social Security income, according to Bradford and her co-authors, Mir M. Ali of the University of Maryland, College Park and Johanna Catherin Maclean of George Mason University.

The Link Between Medicaid Loss and Evictions

So, what precisely is the connection between loss of Medicaid and eviction?

In the Tennessee case, the loss of health coverage — which persisted for most families removed from Medicaid in Tennessee in 2005 — would likely have added more financial stress to already strapped budgets. It also may have led to a higher incidence of preventable health issues or the undertreatment of existing chronic health conditions that could have made it harder for people to keep working, according to the researchers. Either situation could be financially devastating, potentially resulting in eventual eviction.

Evictions, in turn, often force people into housing located in areas with fewer employment opportunities and higher crime, further elevating the financial stress on vulnerable populations, leading to a cycle that can lock people — especially those affected by health issues or substance misuse — into nearly inescapable poverty, according to the study authors.

“We know evictions are extraordinarily damaging to families and individuals and can cause generational impacts. So we really need to be able to intervene and help vulnerable people before they get into a cycle where they cannot get out of it on their own,” Bradford said.

Bradford said one policy that could help would be a strong, temporary eviction moratorium similar to the one imposed nationally by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. Policymakers could also consider financial assistance to those being removed from the Medicaid rolls to help them stay on their feet during the transition, she said.

Methodology and Limitations

To reach their conclusions in the recent paper, Bradford and her co-authors used data from the Eviction Lab at Princeton University. They examined county-level eviction data from Tennessee and compared it to those of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.

After controlling for variables such as whether political factors could have led to weakened rental protection laws, they found that the average annual eviction filings per Tennessee county increased by 27.6% as compared to counties in the other states in the U.S. Census Bureau’s South region. Eventual evictions increased by the slightly smaller 24.5% figure.

That works out to about 1,000 more annual evictions per Tennessee County than in other Southern states during the same period.

The study does have some limitations in addition to how much has changed since 2005, Bradford notes. She said the database has some gaps, lacks individual-level data, and does not track eviction notices or evictions overturned on appeal, although the latter is believed to be rare.

Probing Impact of Substance Abuse, Psychiatric Care Access, on Evictions

Bradford’s earlier research has examined the impact of evictions from other angles. In a 2019 paper published in Health Services Research, she also found that a 1% increase in the eviction rate is associated with an up to 0.596% chance of substance-related deaths for the average U.S. county.

In a 2023 study published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management with co-author Johanna Catherin Maclean, Bradford found that having ten additional psychiatric treatment centers in a county was associated with 2.1% fewer evictions.

The researchers hypothesized that increased access to psychiatric care improved the management of mental health disorders, which can lead to higher rates of employment and lower rates of activities likely to lead to eviction — such as nuisance behaviors or criminal activity.

It was one of the first papers to make a plausible link explaining the relationship between mental health treatment access and eviction, according to the researchers.

Bradford’s most recent paper, “TennCare Disenrollment Led to Increased Eviction Filings and Evictions in Tennessee Relative to Other Southern States,” was published on Feb. 5, 2024, in Health Affairs. It is available at https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2023.00973.

The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

Kang’s award-winning poster, Pushing Students At-Risk Up the Academic Ladder: Evaluating the Effects of the Summer Success Academy Bridge Program, was co-authored with her advisor, Dr. Ross Rubenstein, who is Professor and Dan E. Sweat Distinguished Chair in Educational and Community Policy in the Department of Public Management and Policy at Georgia State University. The findings suggest that intensive summer bridge programs can lead to short-term positive impacts on student success outcomes, with the strongest effects found for Black students and students from low-income households. This research represents the first chapter of Kang’s dissertation, Evaluating Equity and Access in Higher Education: Regression Discontinuity, Meta-Analysis, and Institutional-level Analysis.

Kang’s recognition at APPAM adds to a series of prestigious accolades. She was named a 2022 Entrepreneurship Policy Fellow by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a highly competitive honor awarded to only six public policy graduate students nationwide. She has also received the Coca-Cola Foundation’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Dean's Fellowship. With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Kang contributed to impactful research in the Research on Careers in Science (RoCS) Lab at Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy, focusing on expanding opportunities for underrepresented students in STEM education and addressing critical challenges in diversity and inclusion.

Kang graduated as Valedictorian with a Master of Public Policy from the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, where she was also honored with the Proud Alumni Award in 2020. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Economics and International Relations summa cum laude from Rhodes College. Before pursuing her Ph.D., she worked as a Senior Research Associate at the Korea Development Institute (KDI), focusing on regulatory policy. In this role, she served as a liaison to the OECD and was recognized with the Outstanding Paper for National Policy Contribution award from the South Korean government in 2019. Kang is currently on the job market for Fall 2024.

A new study from Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy, recently published in JAMA Network Open, shows that commercially insured patients living in states with legal cannabis sales filled fewer prescriptions for benzodiazepine-class anti-anxiety drugs, but turned in scripts for antipsychotic and antidepressants at rates higher than residents of states without legal cannabis access.

In one way, the news could be good: benzodiazepines are commonly misused, with sometimes fatal results. But the increase in antipsychotic and antidepressant prescriptions is uncharted territory, said Ashley Bradford, the lead researcher on the study and an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy.

“Does this reflect a social benefit with fewer people feeling anxious, or a social harm with fewer people treating their anxiety effectively and more people experiencing psychosis and depression?” Bradford said. “We can’t say. What we can say is that physicians and patients seem to be responding to cannabis access in clinically meaningful ways.”

The researchers analyzed prescription data from more than 10 million commercially insured patients and five classes of psychotropic drugs – benzodiazepines, antidepressants, antipsychotics, barbiturates, and sleep medications. They then used a synthetic control method to compare prescription fill rates in states with medical and recreational cannabis laws to those without.

 They found that in states where medical cannabis laws were in place, the prescription fill rate for benzodiazepines fell by 12.4% compared to states that did not allow any form of legal marijuana. Legal recreational marijuana caused a bigger drop: 15.2%.

However, in states with medical cannabis laws, the antidepressant prescriptions fill rate increased by 3.8% while fill rates for antipsychotics rose by 2.5%. Recreational cannabis availability resulted in an 8.8% increase in the antidepressant prescription fill rate, according to the study.

The impact of legal cannabis on barbiturates and sleeping medications was insignificant.

"This study suggests that cannabis laws may be significantly associated with the population-level use of prescription drugs to treat mental health disorders, although the associations vary by drug class and state,” the authors wrote in the paper. "Our results suggest that additional research is needed to assess whether changes in dispensing of (mental health drugs) are associated with differences in health care outcomes."

Previous studies focused primarily on the impact of medical and, to a lesser extent, recreational laws on prescription dispensing in the Medicaid and Medicare populations. This work reveals that commercially insured patients seem to respond to legal cannabis access in similar ways to those on Medicare and Medicaid.

The study also demonstrates the impact of different state laws, Bradford said. She said that the results suggest that researchers could identify which aspects of cannabis policies lead to socially optimal outcomes and help policymakers in each state tailor their laws to the outcomes they most care about.

“It’s important to remember that these results don’t tell us anything about the mental health outcomes of people who may be using cannabis instead of anxiety medications, or why prescriptions for these other drugs are increasing,” she said. “So, there’s room for a lot of future research here.”. 

The study, published Sept. 5, 2024, in JAMA Network Open, is available at https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.32021.

Georgia Tech will implement a new model for commencement ceremonies, effective Fall 2024. The Institute’s growing graduate student enrollment has resulted in an increase in the number of degrees that Georgia Tech awards each semester, as well as the required number of Commencement ceremonies.

To maintain a reasonable number of ceremonies and ceremony length, Georgia Tech will host a single Institute-wide Master’s ceremony followed by individual College ceremonies. Ph.D. and Bachelor’s ceremonies will remain unchanged. 

The Institute ceremony for Master’s graduates will be held at 9 a.m. at Bobby Dodd Stadium. Please visit the Institute Commencement website for more information.

All students eligible to graduate in Fall 2024 should have received an email in October with instructions to RSVP for both the Institute and College ceremony in Marching Order. Students may reserve up to five tickets for guests through this RSVP. All RSVPs must be submitted by Friday, Nov. 1 to guarantee participation. 

For more information, please visit commencement.iac.gatech.edu.

For example, when a study is women-led, it's more likely to include women as subjects — something that's critical to medical research. Unfortunately, Sugimoto finds, "without strong interventions, several generations will pass before men and women have equal opportunity to shape scientific knowledge." 

"It'll take us until the year 2158 at the rate we're going to reach parity in physics, and we're looking at more than a century before we have parity in the sciences," Sugimoto said in a presentation. "As a mother of two daughters, that's a little too long for me to wait."

So, why is women’s representation in research still so unequal, and what can we do to change it? In Sugimoto's new book Equity for Women in Science, she and co-author Vincent Larivière of the Université de Montréal explore the systemic barriers preventing the advancement of women in science. They examined millions of published papers and found:

• In fields where the most senior position is listed last on publications, the last author is a man 75% of the time. 
• When women are the last author, they select another woman for the first author position — a junior role important to career retention and advancement — 46% of the time. In comparison, men only select a woman 32% of the time. 
• Men are more likely to be funded than women and to receive greater amounts, with men securing $220,000 on average and women receiving $170,000. 
• Women are less likely to travel or move, two activities that are associated with a higher number of publications and citations.
• Articles written exclusively by women are less cited than articles written solely by men.

To combat this, Sugimoto and Larivière lay out 26 recommendations for scientists, universities, professional societies, and science communicators.

"When science is representative of the full population, the benefits of science will also extend to the fullest," they write. While that's not yet the case, these 26 action items can help us move closer to that goal.

Recommendations for scientists

1. Acknowledge the work of women scientists

2. Provide training and mentoring for women scientists

3. Be fair and transparent in the division of labor, authorship, and reward

4. Avoid gender segregation in meetings

5. Use research indicators responsibly

6. Demonstrate zero tolerance for harassment in science

7. Embrace plurality of career trajectories
 

Recommendations for Universities

8. Create more inclusive promotion and tenure guidelines and processes.

9. Make increases in women's authorship an institutional goal

10. Support women scientists and provide resources for success

11. Take care to avoid cultural taxation when increasing representation

12. Promote women and women's work

13. Reimagine the ideal worker

14. Support inclusive hiring practices

15. Take a firm stance on sexual harassment and gender discrimination
 

Recommendations for Professional Societies and Publishers

16. Evaluate and fund projects, not simply people 

17.; Monitor and report on gender indicators

18. Institute mandates that encourage gender equity and justice

19. Reduce bias in peer review

20. Create opportunities for greater visibility and mobility for women scientists

21. Increase transparency and fairness in peer review 

22. Adopt inclusive publication practices 

23. Create safe spaces for women

24. Increase the visibility of women scientists
 

Recommendations for Science Communicators

25. Amplify women scientists and their work

26. Provide opportunities and training for women in science communication

Equity for Women in Science was published by Harvard University Press in 2023.

Read more about the faculty members' long careers and legacies below. 
 

Peter Brecke

Associate Professor
Sam Nunn School of International Affairs

Associate Professor Peter Brecke’s Georgia Tech career spanned five decades, during which he worked on myriad research projects, including historical data science, social global modeling, computer-aided conflict early warning systems, a taxonomy of conflict, the empirical origins of democracy, and creation of a novel and deeply historical database of international trade.

Brecke was the author of numerous articles and research reports on the computer simulation of worldwide political and economic developments, and war and reconciliation, as well as early warning of conflicts.

His mentorship and his commitment to integrating diverse fields of study enriched the academic environment, providing students with new and evolving tools to tackle complex global challenges, said Nunn School Chair Adam N. Stulberg.

"Peter was a pillar of interdisciplinary innovation and a stalwart for infusing new tools into cutting-edge research and education,” Stulberg said. “He was an invaluable colleague who wore many hats during his long and productive career. Given his many contributions to our school, students across the Institute and Georgia Tech writ large will definitely miss Peter," Stulberg said.
 

Seymour E. Goodman

Regent’s Professor
Sam Nunn School of International Affairs

Regent's Professor Seymour E. Goodman had a profoundly impactful career at Georgia Tech, especially in international affairs and computing.

Goodman joined Georgia Tech in 2000 and worked extensively on issues related to information technologies and related public policy and societal issues, as well as technological developments and their influence on the conduct and outcomes of large-scale conflicts. One of the final assignments of his career was helping lead development of the curriculum for Georgia Tech's School of Cybersecurity and Privacy.

The author of more than 150 publications, Goodman made significant contributions to the understanding of technology's role in global security and national policy, said Nunn School Chair Adam N. Stulberg.

"Sy Goodman’s work exemplified the best of Georgia Tech’s commitment to interdisciplinary excellence," Stulberg said. "His research into global technology policy, critical infrastructure and societal resilience, and cybersecurity has been monumental across our campus, leaving a legacy that will be felt for years to come."
 

Cheryl Leggon

Associate Professor
School of Public Policy

Cheryl Leggon joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 2002, making her a member of the Ivan Allen College (IAC) community for 22 years. Throughout her time in the School of Public Policy, Leggon’s teaching and research focused on policies, programs, and practices to increase and enhance the participation of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and women of color in the science and engineering workforce. As an ADVANCE Professor in IAC, Leggon also worked to support a more accessible and inclusive workplace at Georgia Tech.

“Cheryl Leggon is a generous and valued colleague, both in her contributions to the School of Public Policy and the Georgia Tech ADVANCE Program,” said Mary Frank Fox, a Dean’s Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Policy. “In her teaching and research, Cheryl has brought strong and effective attention to the intersections of race, ethnicity, and gender that shape outcomes in science and engineering; and to fair access and opportunity in teaching and learning in the U.S. and globally.”

“I am grateful that my time at Georgia Tech overlapped with Dr. Leggon and for the sociological perspective she brought to the School,” said Cassidy R. Sugimoto, professor and Tom and Marie Patton Chair of the School of Public Policy. “It was clear that she is passionate about equity in science and engineering, and I am confident she will continue to pursue this work in her retirement.”
 

David Shook

Associate Professor of Spanish
School of Modern Languages

As a long-time member of the School of Modern Languages, David Shook taught courses ranging from elementary Spanish to Hispanic literature and developed seven new classes during his tenure. In his research, Shook explored language program development, teaching methodology, grammar acquisition through reading, and the use of literature for language acquisition.

Shook spent nearly half of his 34 years at the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts in prominent service roles such as the director of undergraduate studies, associate chair for undergraduate studies, and interim chair — on three occasions — in the School of Modern Languages. He also served as the College’s associate dean for undergraduate studies. He coordinated development of the School's graduate program and first Academic Program Review. He also served on committees such as the Promotion and Tenure Committee, the Instructional Center Renovation Committee, and several search committees.

However, "his service has been honorable and distinguished not only in quantity but also in quality," said John Lyon, Chair of the School of Modern Languages.

Shook will remain an Associate Professor Emeritus of Spanish in the School.

"For more than three decades, Dr. Shook has always been the go-to person in Modern Languages, not only for questions about Institute operations and difficult curricular decisions but also for issues of a more individual nature," added Cecilia Montes-Alcala, an associate professor of Spanish and the director of the Spanish Program.  

“If he did not have the answer, he would find it. We all sought his advice constantly, and his office was always busy. Yet, his door was nearly always open, and we knew we always had his undivided attention as he listened to and addressed each and every issue with patience, empathy, and care. Dr. Shook's contributions in administrative leadership have demonstrated a tangible and positive impact in shaping the trajectory of the School of Modern Languages in the last 30 years."

The Center boasts a network of affiliated urban studies scholars from Georgia State University, the University of Georgia, Kennesaw State University, Emory University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. Now, with a new co-director on board in Assistant Professor Brian Y. An, the School of Public Policy-housed Center wants to expand its footprint, becoming a national model for encouraging collaboration among researchers and policy practitioners in areas that affect the health of our cities.

“Our goal is for the Center to be at the heart of how urban studies scholarship can inform practice in urban management — housing, education, health, public infrastructure, energy, and sustainability — all the things that cities need to thrive,” said David Edwards, the Center’s founding director.

We asked Edwards and An to sit down for a conversation about the Center’s future. Their comments were edited for length and clarity.

What’s the mission of the Center for Urban Research?

David Edwards: Our goal is to connect urban studies research being done across the entire academic community and apply it to the problems facing our cities. The gap we're trying to fill is the inadequate job the public and nonprofit sectors do in leveraging academic expertise and research, and vice versa, with academics not always prioritizing the application of their work. We're trying to bridge this gap by providing a platform for collaboration in a sustainable way that drives real changes.

The genesis of this project came from conversations with former Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and Atlanta developer and civic leader Egbert Perry about closing racial equity gaps. When we discussed this with Georgia Tech, they were very supportive, and the School of Public Policy turned out to be the perfect place to house this work. School Chair Cassidy Sugimoto’s vision for increasing the visibility and impact of the School of Public Policy has been instrumental in making this happen.

Where do you think the Center has the greatest opportunity to make an impact?

Edwards: We’re already making an impact in areas such as tax policy, public safety, energy sustainability, public health, and next-generation transportation solutions. Every time we explore a new area, we find opportunities to use academic work that practitioners in the public and nonprofit sectors aren't aware of or aren't taking advantage of.

Brian Y. An: We see a growing need for data-driven, evidence-based research from public agencies and nonprofits alike. For example, Atlanta Housing wants to understand how their work impacts the community, particularly in areas such as affordable housing and economic development. We’ve also worked with Georgia state house members, a group of county chief appraisers, and the City of South Fulton, which wants to know how our research can inform their policies improving rental housing and neighborhood conditions. It’s through collaborations such as these that we can be at the forefront of providing relevant research and expertise that makes a positive impact on the lives of Georgia residents.

What are some of the challenges you face?

An: The research community is highly fragmented, with experts spread across different universities and departments, often competing for limited resources and status. However, we are building an extensive network that can pull resources from various institutions and the community in a unified direction. We want to make scholarly work more visible and accessible to practitioners and policymakers. That’s where our work can make a difference.

What’s on tap for the coming year?

Edwards: We’re planning to build a full-time staff whose job will be to connect academic work in urban studies with the practitioners in the field. The secret sauce is having a dedicated team that knows how to apply academic research and expertise into practice and sustain it over time. The team will likely be a mix of people who can bridge the academic and practitioner spaces effectively, not necessarily based on credentials but on capabilities.

What is your greatest ambition for the center?

An: As a primary researcher, I want the center to be a valuable and necessary resource for policymakers across Georgia and beyond. 

Edwards: Our ambitions are national. We want to create a model for how cities can address the legacy of racialized policies that have created segregation and social equity gaps in our cities. Atlanta is the right place to solve this problem because of its history, its leadership, and the impressive academic research being done here. We’re excited to showcase this kind of thinking with our upcoming first meeting of the Healthcare Initiatives Task Force, which we are assembling at the direction of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, a group that advises Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens. Led by Grady Health System CEO John Haupert, the task force will develop strategies that policymakers can use to improve education, public safety, economic mobility, and health for all. We dream of providing a blueprint that can be used across the country.

David Edwards, co-director of the Center for Urban Research and Senior Policy Advisor for Neighborhoods for Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, is the Center’s founding director. An is co-director of the Center and an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy. His work has been cited by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, WSB-TV, WABE, GPB, and the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

IAC Communications used AI tools to collect, analyze, organize, or generate content contained in this article.

“We are incredibly grateful to the individuals and organizations who have demonstrated their support for our students and research through their generous donations,” says Cassidy Sugimoto, school chair and Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Public Policy. “These gifts will allow us to provide transformative experience for our students and to continue to address the most pressing policy issues of the day.” 

The School also saw 100% participation in giving from its advisory board, an indication that its alumni and friends value the important work underway, Sugimoto adds.

A significant portion of the School’s $10-million goal was given to support the School’s efforts to develop future leaders in energy policy. One transformative gift, from Brook Byers and family, helped create the Byers Family Pathways to Policy Fellows program. These fellowships give graduate students invaluable experience through year-long internships in Washington while expanding the School’s network and reach in the nation’s capital. The program also gives crucial support for students to live in Washington for a year. Internship placements so far have included the U.S. Senate budget committee and the senate offices of Jon Ossoff and Bill Cassidy.

Additional funding was received to continue the sustainability-focused Master of Sustainable Energy and Environmental Management (MSEEM) fellowship program and other student support activities. In addition, Daniel Matisoff, professor in the School of Public Policy and director of the MSEEM program, received a gift from United Parcel Service (UPS) to partner with students to study policies and strategies that could help boost the use of alternative fuels.

The School received support for its Law, Science, and Technology program, including the Susan Van Acken Fund to support students interested in taking the LSAT and applying to law school; a fund to support intellectual property activity; and support for Georgia Tech’s successful Mock Trial team.

“It’s clear that donors and organizations recognize the vital teaching and research underway in Public Policy,” says Richard Utz, interim dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. “From AI ethics to science policy in Washington, Public Policy students and faculty are helping improve lives and keeping humanity at the center of technological innovation.”

To make a gift or commitment to the School of Public Policy or learn more about Transforming Tomorrow: The Campaign for Georgia Tech, visit transformingtomorrow.gatech.edu.

This year, we are proud to welcome 14 tenured/tenure-track faculty, 26 non-tenure-track faculty,  including Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellows and new cadre members in our ROTC programs, 10 research faculty, and three visiting faculty.

As McEver Professor, Hoffmann will be responsible for encouraging, cultivating, and supporting interdisciplinary exchanges among liberal arts and engineering scholars at Georgia Tech and beyond.

“I’m honored to be named the H. Bruce McEver Professor in Engineering and the Liberal Arts,” said Hoffmann. “This is a unique opportunity to further explore the intersections of engineering and the liberal arts and to advance holistic and innovative education across disciplines at Georgia Tech.”

The endowed professorship is supported by a generous gift from H. Bruce McEver, IE 1966, a longtime advisory board member and supporter of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. Professors Emeriti Steven Usselman of the School of History and Sociology and Kenneth Knoespel of the School of Literature, Media, and Communication previously held the position.

With a background that spans philosophy, public policy, and engineering, Hoffmann has consistently demonstrated a commitment to interdisciplinary research and education. 

His National Science Foundation-supported work on wicked problems — issues that are difficult to define, much less solve, because of their complexity and how people view them in different ways — led to the development of the Reflect! platform for deliberating on wicked problems.

Hoffmann also is an ethicist at the NSF-funded National AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (AI-ALOE), where he leads the “User-Engaged Design for Human Well-being” team.

As McEver Professor, Hoffmann will collaborate with faculty across the Georgia Tech campus to extend the Reflect! platform. While the current iteration is meant for use by culturally similar groups, Hoffmann plans to spend the next three years expanding its utility to culturally dissimilar groups. This will help a broader range of users understand and manage conflicts arising from different viewpoints, emotions, and identities.

Hoffmann also plans to develop a new engineering ethics class, in which students will combine their technical prowess with deliberative expertise to seek solutions to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. That work will be done in collaboration with stakeholders in communities worldwide where technologies proposed by engineering students would be deployed.

Hoffmann’s appointment to this position reinforces the Ivan Allen College’s commitment to integrating the humanities, social sciences, and STEM disciplines, said Interim Dean Richard Utz. 

“Effective problem-solving requires interdisciplinary collaboration, ensuring that scientific advancements are communicated clearly and policy decisions are equitable and accountable to all," Utz said. “Michael’s work to overcome the difficulties inherent in solving wicked problems exemplifies the value liberal arts disciplines can provide to our colleagues in the sciences and engineering.”

Cassidy R. Sugimoto, School chair and Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Public Policy, agreed, saying that Hoffmann’s scholarship exemplifies the School's dedication to interdisciplinary work.

“Michael’s ability to bridge the gap between technical and liberal arts disciplines aligns perfectly with our School's mission. His contributions will enhance our curriculum and expand the scope of research opportunities for our students,” Sugimoto said. “He is an excellent choice for this appointment.”

Why it matters: These fellowships, funded by a transformative gift from Brook Byers and family, aim to develop future leaders in energy policy. The recipients will gain invaluable experience through year-long internships in Washington while expanding the School’s network and reach in the nation’s capital. The program also gives crucial support for students to live in Washington for a year.

“One of my key missions is to highlight the critical role of data in shaping effective policy,” said Jazmin Lucio, who will be working on decarbonization policy in U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy’s office. “I believe that educated policymakers are essential for creating robust, evidence-based legislation. Through this fellowship, I aim to see legislation passed that is informed by my work, learn more about energy policy from the source, make bipartisan connections, and gain insights from productive activism."

Joining Lucio in Washington:

• Taylor Clarke: Focusing on environmental policy in the office of Sen. Jon Ossoff.
• Vincent Gu: Ph.D. student serving on the Senate Budget Committee, representing Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

“Working with the Senate Budget Committee offers unique opportunities to interact with various government agencies and understand the collaborative efforts on climate issues,” Gu said. “Through this fellowship, I hope to gain a deeper understanding of the technical requirements for implementing climate solutions like hydrogen and electric vehicles and the work needed to make them feasible."

The big picture: Energy policy expertise is critical as the nation and world navigates the climate crisis, and programs like this show Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy is delivering transformative learning experiences to prepare students for success.

“I am looking forward to what the next year holds and seeing what my peers will accomplish,” said Clarke. “Having adequate support for opportunities on the Hill is rare, so I am happy to see a program begin that can remove the cost barrier for passionate students.”

What they’re saying: “Georgia Tech students are problem solvers,” said Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Tom and Marie Patton Chair. “We're putting students in positions where they can work with national leaders in solving one of the most pressing problems of our time. We believe in education that makes a difference. This fellowship exemplifies our dedication to this value."

Georgia Tech's new GROWER VIP is creating the country's most comprehensive real-time power outage tracker for research use. The database will help researchers explore questions about the causes and effects of power outages and how policy interventions can help strengthen grid resilience. 
 

Matt Cox, a 2014 Ph.D. graduate of the School of Public Policy, played an instrumental role in advancing recent City of Atlanta legislation to help reduce energy burden among low-income residents. 

The School of Public Policy has hired Sergio Caltagirone, a senior cybersecurity practitioner, researcher, and educator with experience at the National Security Agency and Microsoft, to join its cybersecurity policy faculty. 

Quillen will complete his B.S. in International Affairs this spring and said participating in the inaugural cohort of the GTDC: Pathways to Policy program in Washington also helped solidify his aspirations to work in data visualization after graduation.

"Going into college, I had no idea what I wanted to do," Quillen said. “Coming to Tech and working as a researcher showed me my interest in data science, which I had never had exposure to previously. And that was further reinforced going to D.C., where it was such a great experience working on deeper data science and getting to see what it's really like to be in my field."

Merging STEM and Humanities

How exactly does data science tie into the liberal arts, and why is it such a critical skill for success?

"It's how you communicate to people," Quillen said. "People are often visual learners, so being able to show a piece of data concisely and how it's changed over time is a huge part of communicating to people on a variety of issues. It's a skill I really value having and is critical for informing people of the point of the research."

During the Pathways to Policy program, Quillen and his classmates worked full-time while taking classes at night. The internships vary based on interest, and Quillen split his time between two organizations at the National Defense University, conducting research at the College of International Security Affairs and creating data visualizations at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies. The visualizations he worked on used economic, societal, and political data to help the organization track trends in the region and inform where they could best focus and direct their work in the future. 

Quillen says international affairs is an “often misunderstood” field, so communicating data is an essential part of making an impact.

"The average American voter votes primarily on domestic issues and doesn't pay attention to many international issues. I'm biased because I'm an international affairs major, but I think that's a shame," Quillen said. "Creating good data visualizations is a huge part of informing the public about various issues and is why I respect the Center for Strategic International Studies. They do a great job of making interactive data displays to inform the average person about issues in international affairs and show that information in a way that's easy for anybody to understand."

Turning Passion Into a Career

The aptly named GTDC: Pathways to Policy emphasizes just that — that there are many different ways to have an impact and create change in the policy sphere. Quillen's research journey at Georgia Tech and semester in Washington helped him discover a unique interdisciplinary passion for data visualization and international affairs that he will take into his career.

After graduation, Quillen wants to move back to Washington and land a full-time job at the Center for Strategic International Studies, something he hopes the alumni networking and internship experiences on the GTDC program will help him achieve. 

"I never would have known about this without doing the research at Tech, and then it's just been further reinforced over time as I've gotten more experiences and exposure to the field," Quillen said. “I feel very lucky that I had the opportunities that I did to get exposed to all this."

Academic Excellence Award for Graduating Seniors

• School of Economics: Lindsey Alexander, B.S. Global Economics and Modern Languages
• School of History and Sociology: Emerson Barrett, B.S. History, Technology, and Society
• School of Literature, Media, and Communication: Emily Piper, B.S. Literature, Media, and Communication
• School of Modern Languages: Anaïs Acree, B.S. International Affairs and Modern Languages 
• School of Public Policy: Olivia Sanford, B.S. Public Policy and B.S. Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies 
• Sam Nunn School of International Affairs: Chase Fletcher, B.S. International Affairs, Navy ROTC 

Undergraduate Student Progress and Service Awards

• Andrew Berry, B.S. Economics and International Affairs
• James Connor, B.S. Public Policy and B.S. Computer Science

Outstanding Student Leadership Awards 

• Undergraduate Student Advisory Board President: Kaylin Nolan, B.S. International Affairs and Modern Languages
• Graduate Student Advisory Board President: Zhuoqi Helen Dong, Ph.D. International Affairs, Science, and Technology
• Ambassador: Jordan Artis, B.S./M.S. International Affairs

Buzz Award for Administrative Service

• Eve Pike, Assistant to the Chair, School of History and Sociology
• Kimberly Bass Seaton, Administrative Manager II, School of Modern Languages
• Yvette Mitchell, Administrative Professional III, School of Public Policy
• Allyson Tant, Financial Manager I, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs

Buzz Award for Impact to Our Community

• Cassidy Whittle, Communications Officer II, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
• Meenu Mukherji, Program and Operations Manager, School of Public Policy

Buzz Award for Student Services

• Davis Palubeski, Academic Program Manager I, School of Economics
• Sonya Boadu, Academic Advisor II, School of History and Sociology

Buzz Award for Spirit of Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

• Tracy Kincaid, Administrative Professional Senior, Navy ROTC
• Fariah Majmundar, Faculty Affairs Administrative Manager, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Distinguished Teaching Award

• Travis Denton, Academic Professional, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Amanda Weiss, Associate Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Mark Zachary Taylor, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy
• Eliza Markley, Lecturer, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs

Outstanding Achievement in Interdisciplinary Activities Award

• Allen Hyde, Associate Professor, School of History and Sociology
• Brian Y. An, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy

Faculty Excellence in Research Award

• Robert Gonzalez, Assistant Professor, School of Economics
• Todd Michney, Associate Professor, School of History and Sociology
• Carol Colatrella, Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Hongchen Wu, Assistant Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Robert Rosenberger, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy
• Mariel Borowitz, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs

Silver Star Awards

Honoring first-time grants of more than $50,000, distinguished grants, or prestigious fellowships

• Brian An, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy
• Mayra Pineda Torres, Assistant Professor, School of Economics
• Rachel Whitlark, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs

Gold Star Awards

Recognizing cumulative grants of $250,000 within five years of the first grant

• Mariel Borowitz, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
• Lindsey Bullinger, Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy
• Salimah LaForce, Research Scientist, Center for Advanced Communications Policy

Platinum Star Awards

Recognizing cumulative grants of $750,000 within five years of the first grant

• Margaret Kosal, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn of International Affairs

Million Dollar Club

Recognizing faculty who secure at least one million dollars in external research and have external funding in the current year

• Omar Asensio, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy
• Michael Best, Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
• Marilyn Brown, Regents’ Professor, School of Public Policy
• Jason Borenstein, Principal Academic Professional, School of Public Policy
• Sarah Farmer, Research Scientist I, Center for Advanced Communications Policy
• Brad Fain, Executive Director and Regents’ Researcher, Center for Advanced Communications Policy
• Ute Fischer, Research Scientist II, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Seymour Goodman, Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
• Allen Hyde, Assistant Professor, School of History and Sociology
• Natalie Khazaal, Associate Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Gordon Kingsley, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy
• Aaron Levine, Associate Dean for Research and Outreach, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
• Brian Magerko, Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Janet Murray, Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Nathan Moon, Principal Research Scientist, Center for Advanced Communications Policy
• Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Associate Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Philip Shapira, Part-time Professor, School of Public Policy
• Adam Stulberg, Sam Nunn School Chair and Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs

Congratulations to our 2023-24 winners, and all of the IAC community for another year of exceptional service!

The prestigious NSF program touts Nobel Prize winners and the founder of Google among itsalums. According to the website, “the program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines,” focusing on bringing more diversity and underrepresented groups to STEM. 

Menardi’s research focuses on issues of inequality in science, technology, and public health. As a research assistant at the Center for the Studies of Women, Science, and Technology, she studies scientific authors and knowledge production around women, science, and engineering. Outside the Center, her work examines HIV policy, testing technologies, and bioethics.

Menardi, who graduated from Georgia Tech with a B.S. in History, Technology, and Society and a B.S. in Public Policy, is no stranger to accolades. In 2023, she received the Bellon Award, the highest honor for undergraduates from the School of History and Sociology. She also received the 2024 Ivan Allen Jr. Legacy Award for Graduate Students at this year’s Distinguished Alumni Awards.

Menardi is one of 60 graduate students at Georgia Tech to receive the NSF fellowship this year. Their awards total more than $9.5 million in funding, the most Georgia Tech has ever had in the program.

Levine is one of 502 people named to the AAAS Fellows Class of 2023, an honor the society has been awarding scientists, engineers, and innovators since 1874 for achievements and efforts on behalf of the advancement of science and its applications. AAAS Fellows are recognized for outstanding contributions to research, teaching, technology, and science communication.

“I am deeply honored to receive this recognition from an organization that has supported and inspired me since I joined as a graduate student in 2006,” said Levine. “I am also encouraged by this acknowledgement that policy and ethics play a key role in bringing groundbreaking biomedical technologies to the people who need them.”

The organization chose Levine, who is also a professor in the School of Public Policy, for his contributions to biomedical research policy — including advancing understanding of how policy debates influence contentious areas of research. His work is at the intersection of ethics, policy, and biomedical research.

“I first became interested in bioethics and science policy while working on the human genome project and witnessing the ethical and policy issues that arose,” said Levine. “I believe addressing societal issues associated with emerging biomedical technologies is critical for these advances to reach their full potential.”

Levine’s work focuses on the development and oversight of  biomedical research and health care areas such as stem cell treatments, assisted reproductive technology, fetal tissue research, and CRISPR.

The author of Cloning: A Beginner’s Guide, an accessible introduction to the science of cloning and the ethical and policy controversies this science inspires, Levine also has a longstanding interest in science communication. He was a member of the 2019-20 cohort of AAAS’ Alan I. Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellows.

In addition to his duties in the School and College, Levine also leads ethics and policy research for the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT). From 2017 to 2022, he served as CMaT’s co-director for engineering workforce development, helping guide efforts to produce a diverse, well-trained workforce for the biomanufacturing industry.

Levine holds a Ph.D. in public affairs from Princeton University and a master of philosophy from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Churchill Scholar. He earned a bachelor of science in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar.

Georgia Tech faculty, staff, and students, as well as community organizers, K-12 teachers, and members of the public, are welcome to attend. The event will be held in person on Friday, April 12, from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., in the Technology Square Research Building (TSRB) at 85 5th Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30332. Advance and onsite registration are available. 

About David Sánchez 

Recognized around the world as one of the finest saxophonists of his generation, Sánchez merges jazz syntax with the musical dialects of his native Puerto Rico and other Caribbean sources. Bringing a mix of mainstream jazz with Pan-African influences to audiences around the globe, his original compositions, like the 2018 album Carib, are inspired by melodies and rhythms from the Afro-Puerto Rican and Haitian traditions. 

The minor’s Ivan Allen College track will give students the skills necessary to ethically and effectively use such tools in digital humanities and computational social sciences contexts, said Kaye Husbands Fealing, dean and Ivan Allen Jr. Chair in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

“Artificial intelligence and machine learning have important applications in nearly every social science and humanities discipline. So, it is essential for tomorrow’s leaders in these fields to have a strong foundation not just in how to use these tools, but also when and why, and to understand the difficult ethical and policy issues as we strive for outcomes that improve lives,” Husbands Fealing said.

In fact, the AI ethics and policy course is the only required course for all students taking the minor — whether they choose the Ivan Allen College track or the College of Engineering track, said Shatakshee Dhongde, associate dean for academic affairs in the Ivan Allen College who spearheaded the minor for the Ivan Allen College.

“The fact that every student seeking this minor will be required to take an Ivan Allen College policy course highlights the importance Georgia Tech places on graduating leaders with an understanding of the ethical implications of this ever-changing technology,” Dhongde said.

In addition to the ethics class, the Ivan Allen College track requires one course in probability and statistics, an introduction to AI and machine learning, and two electives. Students can choose from classes in linguistics, philosophy of computation, the role of technology such as AI in international affairs, and machine learning in economics.

“This is truly a collegewide minor with courses from several schools in the Ivan Allen College,” Dhongde said.

Ivan Allen College majors can also pursue the College of Engineering track, which provides additional exposure to the technical fundamentals of AI and machine learning and their applications in biomedical engineering, process engineering, mechanical engineering, and robotics.

“We wanted to ensure that this minor is not just about the technical aspects of creating or using an AI platform, but also about thinking through the ways in which AI can be used to meet global challenges,” Dhongde said.

The School of Public Policy has offered an AI Ethics and Policy course since 2023. Taught by Associate Professor Justin Biddle, the class prepares students to think critically about AI's impact on humanity and to contribute to AI governance and policy.

"AI systems are value-laden because they're human creations," Biddle said at the time. "Humans generate, design, develop, distribute, and monitor AI systems. Human decisions are made all along the way, and those human decisions, reflecting our values, impact AI systems in a very consequential way."

The minor is open to all students pursuing degrees from the Ivan Allen College or the College of Engineering. In addition to Public Policy, the School of Economics, the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, the School of Modern Languages, and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs will contribute to the minor.

Students from the College of Engineering, College of Computing, College of Design, and the College of Sciences participated in the third annual competition, which seeks to broadly advance IoT research on the Georgia Tech campus. The awards are presented with generous support of the School of Public Policy, Georgia Tech’s VentureLab, and Verizon.

Each of the Challenge category winners will receive scholarship awards totaling $12,000 to be divided among team members.

“These awards celebrate the hard work, ingenuity, and interdisciplinary approach that is vital in today’s technological landscape,” said Paul M.A. Baker, CDAIT’s chief operating officer. “This kind of innovative student research collaboration pushes us forward and keeps Georgia Tech at the forefront of innovation.”

The winner of the Policy/Civic Engagement category went to a team of two engineering students. They created Physioconnect, a wearable device that can track a new mom’s heart health. This device could let doctors catch and treat problems early and hopefully help reduce postpartum deaths.

The IoT Innovation category award went to a team of engineering and computing students who built an exoskeleton that uses stretchable skin sensors and deep-learning algorithms to help people lift heavy objects.

A team in Georgia Tech’s Smart Sea Level Sensors program won the Verizon Connectivity award for the redesign of water-level sensors to integrate with low-cost swarm satellites, making data collection much easier.

Honorable mentions went to a team who used virtual reality to teach people how to use industrial laser scanners and another team who used thermal displays as a new way to share information and emotions.

To see details of the projects and learn more about the IoT Challenge, CDAIT, and its host center, the Center for Advanced Communications Policy (CACP), visit the challenge website.

CDAIT and CACP are units of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

The research, published in Nature Sustainability, shows how community development block grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) generated an average of 5% to 11% energy savings in economically burdened households in Albany. The savings equate to the cost of roughly two months of groceries per household per year. 

"These housing participants who didn't come in thinking about energy efficiency saved anywhere from $75 to $482 per year in energy bills," Asensio said. "Those are meaningful savings that really impact people. So, we ended up finding very significant hidden social benefits from these policies that were previously unknown." 

https://youtu.be/eWqOFj9qRxw

The findings are surprising because HUD grants do not specifically target energy efficiency or sustainability measures in exchange for governmental assistance. Instead, they are given at the discretion of the local government to residents facing housing emergencies such as deteriorating roofs or broken HVAC systems in the hot summer. Because of the high amount of deferred maintenance in these homes, the fixes have a spillover effect of significantly reducing energy use — for example, by adopting more efficient technologies and bringing structures up to building codes — and saving money for people who receive them.  

The multidisciplinary research team in Asensio’s Data Science & Policy Lab, including current and former Public Policy students Olga Churkina and Becky D. Rafter and industrial engineering alumna Kira E. O'Hare, also found that the cost-effectiveness of housing-based interventions rivals standalone energy efficiency policies, offering a promising alternative for reaching marginalized communities.  

"For decades, we’ve struggled to get meaningful participation with conventional policies in these lower and moderate-income communities, including among renters and people in multi-family homes,” Asensio said. "Using housing block grants as an entry strategy to drive efficiency is an important policy innovation.” 

With support from the National Science Foundation, ESRI, Inc., and the Georgia Smart Communities Challenge, Asensio and his co-authors spent nearly four years collecting, cleaning, and combining Albany's previously siloed city data into one community analytics repository. They linked records for 5.9 million utility bills per month from 2004 to 2019, allowing them to see long-run impacts of policy intervention, energy consumption, and payments by household — an uncommonly granular level of data.  

"Overall, HUD-funded block grants in Albany reduced electricity use by 4.72 million kilowatt hours over the study period versus the control group," the researchers wrote. "The reduction in non-baseload emissions is equivalent to 3.70 million pounds of coal not being burned or the carbon sequestered by 3,695 acres of forest." 

Asensio's research is timely because the Southeast has some of the country's highest energy-burdened households. In the U.S., spending over 6% of net income on energy is considered a burden. In Albany, renters' and homeowners' energy costs can surpass ten or even 20% of household budgets, Asensio said, and many housing applicants are elderly and on fixed incomes.  

Unlike conventional energy initiatives that are reliant on self-selection, housing programs can provide a more equitable and localized strategy. That's because "most of the standalone policies for energy efficiency have two main outcomes," Asensio said. "First, the programs generally attract more affluent and informed homeowners, in which case, questions arise as to whether this might be a good use of public funds. Second, when these policies are restricted to certain income eligibility limits, we don't get enough participation from lower-income residents for a long list of reasons. So, reaching low- and moderate-income households has become a fundamental challenge." 

In contrast, housing block grants naturally target a broader range of residents with high energy burdens and help circumvent the problem of low participation. Rather than trying to market an energy-saving offer to people who aren't interested or are distrustful of the government, HUD grants have long waiting lists.  

"There are thousands and thousands of communities that look very much like Albany within and outside of major metro areas,” Asensio said. "This is a relatively untapped opportunity for driving energy efficiency within households who may not necessarily have an awareness of or interest in energy efficiency measures.”  

The paper, “Housing Policies and Energy Efficiency Spillovers in Low and Moderate Income Communities,” was published online in Nature Sustainability on March 18. It is available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01314-w. This work was partially supported by awards from the National Science Foundation (Award No. 1945332), ESRI, Inc., the Georgia Smart Communities Challenge, and the Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society at Harvard Business School. 

The study aligns with numerous other studies showing that race alone is a contributing factor to experiencing higher energy burdens. However, the Georgia Tech research findings include data showing that homes with children, older people, or those headed by women were even more at risk. Researchers also found that a 13% increase in an area’s Black population equated to an approximately 1% increase in energy burden. 

Households are often considered energy-burdened if they spend more than 6% of their monthly budget on energy, according to the report. 

“One thing that sets this Sierra Club report aside from other breakdowns of energy burden across the country is the meticulous description of the conditions and causes of high energy burdens among 33 energy-stressed Black households in Georgia, who were identified and interviewed by community organizations,” Brown said. 

Historical trends such as mortgage redlining, highway, and power plant placements, and the effect of deforestation and urban heat islands on urban, predominantly Black communities all play a role in contributing to the unusually high energy costs many Black Georgians end up paying, according to the report. 

“This isn’t an abstract thing. People are having to choose whether they cool their homes or put food on the table or buy medicine,” said Brown, also Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems. 

While the report—parts of which have been published in a peer-reviewed journal and another manuscript under review—makes no policy recommendations, the researchers note that changes to state and federal housing policies are urgently needed. 

“Implementing effective policy solutions would not only decrease high energy burdens, bill payment problems, and utility shut-offs, but would also promote the health, safety, and economic vitality of Black families, slash U.S. carbon emissions and build a stronger, more inclusive climate movement,” they wrote. 

The report, Energy Burdens of Black Households in Georgia” was published on March 14 by the Sierra Club, which funded the research. 

In addition to Brown, Ph.D. students Snehal Kale, Ryan Anthony, and Majid Ahmadi, and alum Ashley Hill, MSEEM 2022, co-authored the report. 

Individual team members also earned 15 independent awards — the highest number in a semester to date. 

Now, the spring season is starting just as strong.  

In January, the Mock Trial team took home first place at the 19th Annual Ramblin' Wreck Invitational hosted by Georgia Tech — a feat unmatched in the documented history of the team. Mock Trial’s B team, led by Jeremhy Cesar and Sanjeev Viswan, placed first with a 7-1 record and received an Honorable Mention for the Spirit of D.M. Smith Award, recognizing their commitment to honesty, civility, and fair play. The A team, captained by Maya Iyer and Lyla Zedell, secured the fourth-place spot with a 6-2 record.  

"This was truly one of the best and most impressive finishes for GT Mock Trial at our home invitational in one of the best fields we've ever brought in with last year's national champions and runners-up," said team co-coach Andy McNeil. "Our season continues with the Jackson Regional American Mock Trial Association Tournament at the Mississippi College of Law!" 

Jon Lindsay, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, wrote an article examining the relationship among cybersecurity, intelligence, and international relations.

In her article, Assistant Professor Nadiya Kostyuk from the School of Public Policy examined how cyber-capable militaries can affect relationships between allied countries.

To learn more about their research and the special edition, check out the original article on the special journal issue, published by the Georgia Tech College of Computing.

Twenty-two of the faculty members come from the School of Modern Languages. Thirteen of the faculty members are in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. Seven of those honored are in the School of History and Sociology. Four faculty members in the School of Economics and two faculty members in the School of Public Policy received awards, as well as a visiting lecturer with a joint appointment in Economics and Public Policy. One faculty member in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was also honored.

The Honor Roll is selected at the end of each term based on scores from the Course Instructor Opinion Survey (CIOS), in which students rate their instructors in areas such as their respect and concern for students, their level of enthusiasm about the course, and their ability to stimulate student interest in the subject matter.

The Fall 2023 honorees are:

• Keung Yoon Bae, Assistant Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Matthew Breece, Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Kemal Budak, Lecturer, School of History and Sociology
• Whitney Buser, Director of Master's Programs and Associate Director of Academic Programs, School of Economics
• Andrew Buskell, Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy
• Seung-Eun Chang, Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Carol Colatrella, Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Lionel Gall, Senior Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Alzbeta Hajkova, Postdoctoral Scholar, School of Public Policy 
• Zita Hüesing, Marion L. Brittain Fellow and Assistant Director of Writing & Communication, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Andrea Jonsson, Associate Professor and Director of French Program, School of Modern Languages
• Sophie Landrieux Kartochian, Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Masato Kikuchi, Associate Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Jessica Kim, Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Yongtaek Kim, Associate Professor and Director of the Korean Program, School of Modern Languages
• Yeqing Kong, Assistant Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Kathrin Koppe, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator of German Program, School of Modern Languages
• Christopher Lawton, Lecturer, School of History and Sociology
• Jong Hyun Lee, Senior Lecturer, School of Modern Languages 
• Chao Li, Senior Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Caroline Machado, Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• David Marcus, Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Kyoko Masuda, Associate Professor and Director of Japanese Program, School of Modern Languages
• Aki Matsushima, Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Mary G. McDonald, Professor and Homer C. Rice Chair in Sports and Society, School of History and Sociology
• Lee Oh, Senior Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Matthew Oliver, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Programs, School of Economics
• Yumi Parks, Visiting Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Sonia Serafin, Adjunct Instructor, School of Modern Languages
• Allegra Smith, Assistant Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Johnny Smith, Julius C. "Bud" Shaw Professor of Sports History, School of History and Sociology
• Aleksandra Starcevic, Visiting Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Lenny Stendig, Visiting Lecturer, School of Economics and School of Public Policy
• Satomi Suzuki-Chenoweth, Senior Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Samba Sy, Senior Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Charmaine Troy, Associate Director of First-Generation Student Initiatives, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Wendy Truran, Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Franziska Tsufim, Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Germán Vergara, Associate Professor, School of History and Sociology
• Christopher Vidmar, Visiting Assistant Professor, School of History and Sociology
• Dana Viezure, Lecturer, School of History and Sociology
• Qi Wang, Associate Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Katja Weber, Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
• Amanda Weiss, Associate Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Casey Wichman, Associate Professor, School of Economics
• Cameron Winter, Marion L. Brittain Fellow, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Hongchen Wu, Assistant Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Samuel Wunderly, Lecturer, School of Economics
• Lisa Yaszek, Regents’ Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Ida Yoshinaga, Assistant Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication

In addition, 10 Ivan Allen College faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and staff members were named to the Summer 2023 Honor Roll. They are among 49 others campuswide who made the honor roll.

Six of the honorees are from the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, including two faculty members and three Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellows. Amanda Blocker, an academic program manager in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, was also honored for GT1000.

Three faculty members on the Summer 2023 Honor Roll came from the School of Modern Languages, and one from the School of Public Policy.

The Summer 2023 honorees are:

• Amanda Blocker, Academic Program Manager, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Renee Buesking, Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Lee Hibbard, Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Zita Hüesing, Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Director of Writing & Communication, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Yongtaek Kim, Associate Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Michael Nitsche, Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication
• Yumi Parks, Visiting Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
• Chad Slieper, Co-Director of the Leadership in Progress and Service Quality Enhancement Plan and Director of the Law, Science, and Technology Program in the School of Public Policy
• Brigitte Stepanov, Assistant Professor, School of Modern Languages
• Ida Yoshinaga, Assistant Professor, School of Literature, Media, and Communication

The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts congratulates all of the outstanding instructors and scholars named to the Fall and Summer 2023 Honor Rolls on their dedication to providing our students with a welcoming, supportive learning environment and transformative learning experiences.

Pizzaro-Bore was among 116 graduate students from across Georgia Tech who competed at CRIDC this year. Students presented their research in front of their peers, as well as faculty and staff judges. The event also featured the first-event online poster competition.

Bore is writing her dissertation on federal workers' telework experiences during and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It is the organizational perspective that makes this question interesting, following the question, 'What can we learn about knowledge management, cooperation, collaboration, and work-life balance supportive cultures? What protocols or norms need to change for future telework design?'" Pizarro-Bore said.

CRIDC is a collaborative effort of the Graduate Student Government Association and the Graduate Career Development Team from the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate and Postdoctoral Education.

For more information on the event and awards, check out the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Education’s original story.

But that’s exactly what Jay Clayton, a professor at Vanderbilt University, achieved with his project examining how film, shows, and social media portray the risks and benefits posed by genetic science. 

Clayton recently visited Georgia Tech to share his experience and model of transdisciplinary collaboration among scholars in science, literature, and the social sciences. During his visit, he gave a talk and presided over a faculty workshop. 

“The discussions of his work at both events confirmed the strong interest and potential in future transdisciplinary efforts in the College and the Institute,” said Richard Utz, senior associate dean in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. “We should capitalize on the momentum these discussions indicate and follow Dr. Clayton’s example of linking our individual disciplines and their methodologies with those in other units, especially for the sake of our students, who crave experiential learning that not only increases knowledge, but also directly impacts policy and society.” 

The events were co-sponsored by the School of Literature, Media, and Communication; the School of Modern Languages; and the School of Public Policy. The events also brought together colleagues from Georgia Tech’s Center for Integrative Genomics. 

How the Humanities Can Inform Science Policy 

Clayton’s work, which attracted $8 million in National Institutes of Health funding, seeks to better understand how culture affects attitudes towards genetic privacy, demonstrating, Clayton said, “how humanists can collaborate with scientists to have tangible effects on public policy.” 

His team, which includes students in public policy, economics, anthropology, and other fields, examined hundreds of films and shows, including Blade Runner, X-Men films, and medical dramas, coding them for how they portrayed genetic research. They not only discovered changes in attitudes toward genetic privacy over the years but also successfully published 24 articles in refereed journals — most with undergraduate students as co-authors.  

The ongoing work has helped Clayton develop his problem-based approach to research, in which scholars from a variety of disciplines look to examine a single issue and share data but use their own research methods as they work toward synthesizing their conclusions and policy recommendations. 

The model is the subject of Clayton’s 2023 book, Literature, Science, and Public Policy: From Darwin to Genomics. 

Similarities to VIP 

Whereas the concept may be new to some in the liberal arts, it is likely more familiar to the Georgia Tech community. The Vertically Integrated Project program, founded at Georgia Tech in 2008, involves undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty in large-scale, multidisciplinary projects. 

Ivan Allen College students and faculty are involved with colleagues across campus in numerous VIP projects, including ones examining the intersection of art and AI, linguistics, and the interplay between sports and community transformation. 

You can learn more about VIP programs that are a good fit for Ivan Allen College students at the VIP website. 

The School of Literature, Media, and Communication; the School of Modern Languages; and the School of Public Policy are units of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. 

Two other appointees hold joint or courtesy appointments in the College. 

The new affiliates will serve as informal advisors helping guide the Center’s work, enhance opportunities for interdisciplinary research, and help connect faculty members and policymakers throughout the Southeast. 

Interim SEI director Laura Taylor, also the chair of the School of Economics, expects the program to “lead to more enrichment opportunities for students, and more awareness of the research intersections of energy technology, economics, and public policy,” according to SEI’s announcement of the appointments. 

The full-time faculty Ivan Allen College faculty members named to the program are: 

Economics: 

• Assistant Professor Dylan Brewer 

• Assistant Professor Guarav Doshi 

• Assistant Professor Tony Harding 

• Assistant Professor Bobby Harris 

• Associate Professor Matthew Oliver 

• Associate Professor Casey Wichman

Public Policy: 

• Associate Professor Omar Isaac Asensio 

• Regents’ Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems Marilyn A. Brown 

• Professor Daniel Matisoff 

Valerie Thomas, the Anderson-Interface Chair of Natural Systems and professor in the School of Industrial & Systems Engineering — and a joint appointee in the School of Public Policy — was also named to the program. Rounding out the IAC-affiliated appointments is Joe F. Bozeman III, who holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Public Policy. His primary appointment is assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. 

U.S. News & World Report recently ranked Georgia Tech as the top public university and No. 3 nationwide in energy and fuel research. 

The Midwest Caucus on Policy Administration presents the annual Herbert Simon Award to mid-career scholars who have made “a significant contribution to the scientific study of bureaucracy.” 

The commendation committee chose DeHart-Davis’ work because it “takes seriously both the pros and cons of organizational rules and their impact on bureaucratic performance,” they wrote. “Her research does an exceptional job of portraying bureaucracy as important and effective, but also urges the field to continue examining the factors that contribute to its significance to democratic governance.” 

DeHart-Davis is a professor of public administration and government at the University of North Carolina — Chapel Hill and the director of the university’s Local Government Workplaces Initiative. 

“While government rules tend to be construed as burdensome and rigid, my research focuses on how organizational rules benefit public organizations,” DeHart-Davis says. “I call effective organizational rules green tape — in contrast with red tape — and argue that good rules are indispensable for achieving public values such as equity, efficiency, transparency, and accountability.”

She is passionate about her research because rule design and implementation exert an “enormous influence” on how employees experience public sector work, DeHart-Davis says, and public employee experiences, in turn, affect public service delivery.

DeHart-Davis earned her Ph.D. from the School of Public Policy in 2000 and says the program laid the groundwork for her success.

“The rigor of both degrees, particularly around critical thinking, statistical analyses, and philosophy, allowed me to jump into academic research with both feet,” DeHart-Davis says. “I am indebted to my public policy professors, who held us all to high standards and taught me a love of scholarly research.”

DeHart-Davis will deliver the annual Simon Lecture on her work at the Midwest Political Science Association conference in April. 

He will work with Chad Slieper, who has been selected to co-lead Georgia Tech’s next Quality Enhancement Plan and will continue on at LST as co-director. 

McNeil’s responsibilities will include pre-law advising and coordinating student-centered events. He also will serve as the primary instructor for the Pre-Law Seminar class (PUBP3610). Slieper will focus on recruiting and overseeing the program’s part-time attorney faculty and coordinating course schedules. 

After graduating from Georgia Tech in 2001, McNeil attended Syracuse University College of Law. He graduated in 2005 and later joined the Atlanta home office of King & Spalding, focusing on intellectual property matters. His career also has included roles at Morris, Manning & Martin and co-founding a wholesale apparel company. McNeil serves as the primary legal advisor on a non-profit board focusing on children and veterans with physical disabilities. 

In 2007, he became co-coach of the Georgia Tech Mock Trial team, which routinely ranks among the nation’s most competitive squads.  

The APPAM Policy Council sets the organization’s policy and strategy. 

Bullinger was elected as an academic researcher. 

“It’s a great privilege to serve the APPAM community and perform the strategic work to advance its mission,” Bullinger said. “I am delighted to elevate my service to my ‘home’ organization, one that I care about so deeply.” 

 The council meets two times a year, and each member serves on at least one of APPAM’s committees. 

APPAM seeks to improve public policy and management through research, analysis, and education. It hosts an annual research conference, most recently held in Atlanta, publishes a peer-reviewed journal, and engages with policymakers and students. 

Bullinger’s research primarily focuses on how public policies affect children’s and families’ health and well-being, particularly those from low-income families. She has conducted extensive research on topics such as the effects of opioid treatment programs on child well-being, the impact of the minimum wage on child maltreatment and parenting behaviors, and the association of expanded child tax credit payments with child abuse and neglect-related emergency room visits. 

Her work has been published in numerous prestigious journals, including the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, JAMA Pediatrics, Health Affairs, the Journal of Health Economics, and Review of Economics of the Household, among others. 

She has received funding for her work from organizations, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, the Spencer Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts. 

The best way to deal with climate change is a heated topic of debate here on Earth — laws are created, nonprofits are formed, investments are made, and lobbyists have their say — but the concept also transcends terrestrial boundaries. As we navigate the complexities of shifting to a more sustainable world, it turns out there is a lot we can learn from and apply to our ventures in outer space.  

Researchers in the Ivan Allen College think big to explore questions of sustainability on Earth, in outer space, and on a cosmic scale.  

The Importance of Megaregions 

Brian Woodall, a professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, uses satellite data to rethink how we understand and address sustainability in our cities. He directs the Sustainable Megaregion Research Project with Mariel Borowitz, an associate professor in the Nunn School, and experts across Georgia Tech.  

The group uses data generated by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to draw definitive boundaries around Earth's megaregions — large, densely-populated areas such as the Boston-Washington corridor, Greater Tokyo, and the Amsterdam-Brussels-Antwerp triangle. Then, the researchers combine light emissions and other datasets to analyze CO2 emissions, urban buildup, green space, population density, transportation infrastructure, and more.  

"In this way, satellite data is critical in our efforts to fashion a comparative, time-sensitive, and data-driven system for delineating megaregion boundaries," Woodall said. "Then, we can assess their effectiveness in addressing sustainable development challenges." 

According to the project website, three-quarters of America's population and employment growth will occur in just eight to ten megaregions by 2050. To ensure sustainability in the face of climate threats, we must build resilience and protect critical infrastructure in these areas, the group says. 

Political Parallels 

However, whether it’s in megaregions or across international borders, it's no secret that humans don't always get along. Lincoln Hines, an assistant professor in the Nunn School, studies the politics of outer space with a focus on the Chinese space program. He says that comparing sustainability challenges on Earth to those in space — such as the 100 million+ pieces of space junk littering Earth's orbit — underscores the political nature of these problems and their international nature.  

"The politics of space sustainability largely reflect the politics of sustainability on Earth, as humans continue to confront difficult collective action problems in both domains," Hines explains. "Neither global warming nor space debris care for the human constructs of sovereignty and national borders." 

Tony Harding, an economist and assistant professor in the School of Public Policy, echoes this sentiment.  

"We have this public good, which is space and near Earth's orbit, where we put satellites. And because no one is in control and has property rights in that area, we end up with an overuse and a lot of space junk," he says. "This parallels the Tragedy of the Commons problem we see on Earth — we have issues with climate change because we're all contributing a small amount to the problem and not facing the full cost of it." 

Harding studies the costs and benefits of solar geoengineering, which uses atmospheric particles to reflect the sun's radiation to slow global warming. Whether it's adding sulfate to the skies or cleaning up Earth's orbit, an intergenerational perspective is helpful, he says.  

"Should we develop geoengineering technology so the next generation has the choice to use it? Should we leave them with millions of pieces of space debris just because we don't want to clean it ourselves?" 

Second Time's a Charm(?) 

Despite the growing space debris problem, Borowitz emphasizes that we can proactively address the challenges of space sustainability and learn from our mistakes on Earth.  

"It's still early on in space, so we have the opportunity to think about sustainability from the beginning and address these issues before the debris is completely out of control," she says. "We are on an unsustainable path at the moment, but we can adjust before anything goes wrong." 

She adds that as interest and activity on the moon ramp up, the same questions apply. Because the moon doesn't have wind or weather like we do on Earth, when something changes its surface it can stay like that for thousands of years.  

"So it's really another place where you've got to do it right the first time," Borowitz says. "This is the test, right? The test for humanity — can we do it differently?" 

Sustainability on a Cosmic Scale 

Chris Michaels, a Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Scholar in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication, thinks about space from a symbolic perspective: What would happen if we scale up our consciousness to the level of the cosmos? Michaels teaches a course on modern terraforms and says contemplating the vast reaches of space can challenge us to think about sustainability in new ways. 

"The idea of space serves as a new frontier to be explored and colonized. If humans can migrate to other planets and make them home, then sustainability on Earth may look quaint and outdated," he says. "Humans tend to experience time on an atomized scale around their individual lives and have trouble thinking as concretely about the long term. But imagine if humans had a life span of 500 years, or they thought and acted less as individuals and more as members of a human race that extends thousands or even millions of years into the future. Thinking and acting on this larger scale would better align us with the geological timescales of the Earth, where sustaining our lives goes hand in hand with sustaining the Earth." 

The sprawling expanse of space is more than just an escape route from our troubled planet, and pondering it helps us shift our perspective from that of the starring role in our little galaxy to a bit character in a much larger play. 

Traditional Inspiration, New Solutions 

From satellite-driven research to geopolitical challenges and cosmic contemplation, humans continue to look to the stars for inspiration and information on keeping our planet and its orbit healthy. 

When it comes to our mandate for more sustainable living, it's not just about protecting our home but how we fit into the wider universe. Becoming better caretakers of our planet connects us to our past and future, here on Earth and out among the stars. 

Read the full article on the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine website.

That kind of dedication to learning was quintessential Baker, as was his commitment to helping lift up those around him, especially junior researchers, said Victoria Razin, a senior research engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. She became a friend and mentee of Baker’s after working with him for a year on voting machine accessibility.

“Paul was an incredibly thoughtful researcher, a kind friend, and an incredible mentor who built up the people around him,” Razin said.

Baker, the senior director for research and strategic innovation at the Center for Advanced Communications Policy, passed away suddenly last week after a brief medical emergency, leaving behind an enormous void for his family, friends, and coworkers, as well as a tremendous legacy.

“Paul was like no one else I have met,” said Regent’s Researcher W. Bradley Fain, CACP’s executive director and Baker’s boss since 2019. “To be able to describe Paul succinctly is impossible.”

From Zoology to Technology Policy

After graduating from college with a degree in zoology, Baker worked as an environmental scientist, in real estate, and as a publisher, in addition to later academic roles at George Mason University and Saint Mary’s College. He joined Georgia Tech in 1999 as a visiting assistant professor, where he taught Research Design for the Policy Sciences, American Government, and more.

Two years later, he joined CACP as associate director for policy research and became director of research four years later. In 2011, he was named associate director of the Center for 21st Century Universities, where he oversaw strategic policy initiatives and managed the Center’s policy-focused sponsored research projects. After three years, he returned full-time to CACP, where he was appointed senior director for research and strategic innovation.

In 2020, he took on a new role when the Center for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies moved from GTRI to CACP. Paul became the organization’s chief operations officer, where he worked to further the Center’s mission to spur technology and policy innovation in the internet of things sphere.

“Paul was a wonderful advisor, helping me work through really complicated issues,” Fain said. “Every conversation was an opportunity for him to share knowledge.”

Kaye Husbands Fealing, dean and Ivan Allen Jr. Chair in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, said Baker was an accomplished researcher who was deeply committed to expanding technology and workforce accessibility for everyone.

“We worked together a few years ago on a project with my research assistant, Andrew Hanus, and Connie McNeely of George Mason University to broaden participation in STEM employment for people with disabilities, and he took the initiative to lead a workshop on how veterans could gain STEM skills. I will miss his keen insight, his passion for his scholarship, and his generosity.”

Regents’ Researcher Emeritus Helena Mitchell, former executive director of CACP, said Baker was the Center’s most published employee whose contributions at Georgia Tech and around the world will continue to be felt.

“He was an excellent researcher, a great networker, a man of passion, integrity, and knowledge,” she said.

She and Baker were close friends for over 20 years, frequently hanging out together before Baker moved to Canada to be with his husband. She said she will miss their wide-ranging discussions over cosmopolitans. 

“He’s like a brother to me,” she said. 

Promoting Equal Access

In each of his roles, Baker approached his work with enormous curiosity, rigor, and a genuine desire to leave the world a better place, said Nathan Moon, director of research at CACP, who worked with Baker for nearly two decades.

“Paul was committed to doing research that would promote equal access for all people,” Moon said.

It shows in his publishing record, where you’ll find papers such as “Wireless Technologies and Accessibility for People with Disabilities: Findings from a Policy Research Instrument,”; “E-Accessibility and Municipal Wifi: Exploring a Model for Inclusivity and Implementation,” and “Digital Tech for Inclusive Aging: Usability, Design and Policy.”

In the last few years, he worked with Moon to develop a new seminar course, Policy Innovation for Inclusive Technologies, as part of a grant to develop a new postdoctoral training program for scholars interested in disability and accessible technology policy.

They taught the course together in the recently concluded Fall semester.

“In addition to being an excellent researcher, Paul was a wonderful educator,” Moon said. “He loved teaching and had high hopes and expectations for students, just as he did for junior researchers.”

But Baker’s personality and approach to other people especially set him apart, Razin said.

He had a way of connecting with people that made them feel special. For instance, Baker was a Quaker who also practiced Buddhism. But he always took time to send holiday greetings in correct Hebrew to Razin, who is Jewish.

“That was so special,” she said.

Moon said Baker’s legacy will continue to motivate him and other research scientists at CACP and across Georgia Tech who were touched by Baker’s intellect, curiosity, and drive.

“I can say confidently that as both a research scientist and person, Paul left the world a better place than he found it. He was a good friend, and he’ll be missed.”

If any of these questions pique your interest, the new AI Ethics and Policy course in Georgia Tech's School of Public Policy should be on your radar. 

Associate Professor Justin Biddle will teach the newly developed class, in which he prepares students to think critically about AI's impact on humanity and contribute to AI governance and policy. 

"We're still in the very early stages of developing governance systems for AI, but one of the major public policy questions moving forward will be how to regulate AI. This is a discussion that students in the future will be contributing to, or should be contributing to, in a significant way," Biddle said.  

To do so, students need to understand not just the technology but the many consequences, intended or not, that its deployment has on society. The course will be discussion-based around scholarly articles and current events, while the final month of the class is devoted to project work and a research paper on the ethical design of an AI system. Because the class is currently categorized as a special topics course, it doesn’t satisfy any general education attributes such as ethics. However, Biddle hopes to change this in the future.

"AI systems are value-laden because they're human creations," Biddle said. "Humans generate, design, develop, distribute, and monitor AI systems. Human decisions are made all along the way, and those human decisions, reflecting our values, impact AI systems in a very consequential way."

Biddle studies the ethics of emerging technologies and said he's become increasingly interested in AI over the years because of the growing controversies around AI biases and how it can have disparate impacts on different population groups. 

"I started collaborating with scientists and engineers at Georgia Tech, thinking about ways that AI systems could be designed ethically and responsibly, in a way that promotes the benefits but also avoids some of the risks and harms that we were seeing with many AI systems," Biddle said.

Biddle is on the leadership team of the Ethics, Technology, and Human Interaction Center (ETHICx), a collaboration between the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and the College of Computing. He also works with the Georgia Artificial Intelligence Manufacturing Technology Corridor, a statewide initiative combining artificial intelligence and manufacturing innovations with transformational workforce and outreach programs.

As AI becomes increasingly pervasive in our lives — from recommending movies on Netflix to determining whether or not we get a job — it also opens the door for biases, misinformation, and unintended consequences to creep in. 

"You might get shortlisted for a job, or you might be tossed out based on a decision of an algorithm," Biddle said. "We're interacting with algorithms all the time. All of us are. So, one could make the case that this is a general literacy issue that all students should have."
 

Take the Course

PHIL 4803: Special Topics: AI Ethics and Policy

Instructor: Justin Biddle, School of Public Policy

Schedule: TR 5:00 to 6:15, Clough 129

Description: This course will explore the ethical and philosophical dimensions of artificial intelligence (AI). AI – and related fields of data science and machine learning (ML) – are transforming the world in which we live. They have the potential to bring tremendous benefits, but they also involve risks, including risks of privacy harms; human rights violations; social injustice and inequality; alienation, and – according to some – human extinction. In this course, we will examine conceptual tools and frameworks that deepen our understanding of the ethical and philosophical issues associated with AI; we will probe these tools and frameworks in the context of current cases and challenges (including discussions of social media, bias, misinformation, surveillance, autonomous vehicles, machine consciousness, and others), and we will explore policies and standards that help us to realize our shared goals and values. 

The plan will help the state compete for up to $500 million in federal funding for climate mitigation efforts under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Under a contract with the agency, the Georgia Tech team will work with partners across Georgia to help the state develop its greenhouse gas inventory, develop a plan to address the most important immediate opportunities the state can take to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and potentially help develop policies and programs to reach those goals. 

“Georgia Tech and our academic, business, and community partners from across the state are uniquely suited to help Georgia identify implementation-ready solutions that can significantly reduce emissions and have beneficial impacts on Georgia communities,” said Marilyn A. Brown, Regents’ Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy.

“As part of our work with Drawdown Georgia, we already have been deeply involved in identifying climate pollution reduction strategies to drive economic and employment growth, improve air quality, deliver benefits to under-resourced residents, and protect the environment. That work gives us a great head start in providing the state the information it needs to develop Georgia’s first climate action plan,” Brown said.

Georgia Tech-Built Emissions Tracker Key Component

Drawdown Georgia is an initiative of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation to accelerate progress toward net zero greenhouse gas emissions in Georgia. Brown led the interdisciplinary science and policy team that helped develop the plan’s recommendations. 

Central to the project is the climate emissions tracker developed at Georgia Tech as part of that project. The tool provides monthly insights into carbon emissions across Georgia’s 159 counties, providing more timely, accurate, and cost-effective data than the traditional tools used in other climate planning efforts. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reviewed the tracker and gave special permission for the state to use it, said William J. Drummond, associate professor in the School of City & Regional Planning and co-principal investigator on the project.

Many other states will instead have to use more traditional bottom-up inventories that take longer to create and are not as frequently updated, he said.

“The work we have done has been peer-reviewed and published, and so it has a level of authoritativeness that other states may not enjoy,” said Drummond, who led the tracker’s development. “We are uniquely positioned to identify actionable solutions for Georgia, help the state meet its incredibly tight timeline, and give Georgia a competitive advantage that other states just can’t match.” 

The Atlanta Regional Commission, which received separate funding to make a plan specific to metro Atlanta, also will use the tracker in its work. 

State Plan Due in March

The state’s priority plan is due in March, with the full plan due a year later. 

“The Georgia Environmental Protection Division is excited to work with Georgia Tech in the development of the state's first climate action plan and appreciates all the work that Georgia Tech and other Drawdown Georgia partners have done to lay the groundwork for this project,” said DeAnna Oser, assistant branch chief of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s Air Protection Branch.

The effort is focused on implementation-ready solutions. Brown said proposals could include projects that advance transportation electrification, energy-efficient housing, climate-smart agriculture, forest management, and urban tree canopies, among other opportunities.

She said it is exciting to see the years of work her team has put into climate mitigation practices and policies to help move Georgia closer to being climate-neutral. 

“We’ve always hoped that this work would have real policy impacts that will help improve our environment, economy, and society,” Brown said. “It’s exhilarating to see the state recognize and incorporate our work, and I look forward to seeing where it leads.”

Several Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts researchers participated in the annual conference, which this year focused on the power of interdisciplinary collaboration. 

Lindsey Bullinger, assistant professor in the School of Public Policy; David Edwards, executive director of the Center for Urban Research; and Professor Michael Best of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs served on the organizing committee. 

Among the IAC presenters were: 

• Edwards, who presented on “Closing Racial Equity Gaps by Improving the Health of Urban Neighborhoods” 

• Mayra Pineda-Torres, assistant professor in the School of Economics, who spoke about “The Economics of Reproductive Healthcare Access” 

• Shatakshee Dhongde, associate dean for academic affairs and associate professor in the School of Economics and Ph.D. student Roshani Bulkunde presented on multidimensional economic hardship in the U.S. during the Covid-19 pandemic as part of an interdisciplinary poster session. 

Ivan Allen College’s School of Economics and the School of Public Policy have both recently expanded capacity in health economics and policy — investing in new faculty and establishing the Health Economics and Policy Innovation Collaborative to promote interdisciplinary research in the subject. 

“Healthcare is an issue that affects everyone, and we’re excited to help lead the way in finding ways to encourage policies that improve access and health outcomes, bring down costs, and advance health equity,” said Aaron Levine, associate dean for research and outreach, who also attended the conference. 

For more information on HEPIC, visit the collaborative’s website. 

What’s your area of research and what led you to it?
As a climate scholar, I focus on the intersection of technology and public policy. I lead the Data Science & PolicyLab at Georgia Tech, where we use big data and field experiments to address challenges in energy, transportation, and human mobility. In recent years, we’ve leveraged generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to overcome research barriers in vehicle electrification and infrastructure. By putting humans in–the-loop during training and testing, our machine learning models have become highly accurate and scalable across languages and geographies. This work has led us to identify investment and operational barriers to electric vehicle charging in remote areas and urban centers, impacting sustainable business and policymaking on critical areas for innovation. My climate AI research on electrification and decarbonization is supported by Microsoft and the National Science Foundation.

Why is your area of research important for society?
I am fortunate to be one of 10 US scholars who contributed to the zero emission vehicles (ZEV) policy guidance for COP 26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact. We know that accelerating the switch from internal combustion to electric cars and trucks reduces emissions. However, we often forget about the enormous air quality and human health co-benefits associated with reduced air pollution, estimated to be worth hundreds of billions in value according to National Academies consensus reports.

Where are you from?
I grew up in Los Angeles, where I had the opportunity to learn from and connect with people and cultures from around the world. I speak Spanish and basic Greek. My family’s journey brought us to the US as political émigrés from Nicaragua following the Sandinista revolution.

What is something you like to do outside of your academic work?
Outside of my academic work, I’m a proud soccer dad. You’ll find me on the pitch, cheering on the Boston Bolts this season, as my son Milan has been invited to play for them, and I couldn't be more excited. I also enjoy exploring Boston by hopping on a water taxi and checking out the fish markets in Seaport.

What’s your favorite book, movie, or piece of art?
The Netflix algorithm says my favorite movie is La La Land. The algorithm thinks it knows me well because it keeps suggesting comedic tear-jerkers, but lately I’ve been trying to nudge it towards action films.

What will you be doing as a BiGS Fellow?
The federal government plans to invest $7.5 billion in a national network of EV charging points. This will bring a wealth of business and managerial decisions on electric mobility, including creative solutions for pricing externalities, smart grid integration, and understanding consumer behavior. Motivated by these policy drivers, my project explores how AI can be used to ensure a more equitable distribution of electric vehicle infrastructure and will evaluate policy effectiveness with massively distributed data.

What sort of impact would you like to have as a BiGS Fellow?
I'm thrilled to collaborate with the BiGS fellows and HBS on new products. I also welcome opportunities for broader scientific collaborations, especially cross-disciplinary ones that push the boundaries of large-scale distributed climate data and social science.

A version of this story first appeared in the Harvard Business School newsroom.

Maureen Linden, who holds a joint appointment with the Ivan Allen College’s School of Public Policy in the CACP and with the College of Design as executive director of the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation, received individual recognition as an Advocate for Accessibility. 

“It was an honor to be recognized and to share the award with so many members of the Georgia Tech community who work tirelessly to improve the experiences of people with disabilities,” said W. Bradley Fain, Regents’ Researcher and executive director of CACP. “Our mission to improve the lives of people with disabilities through policy and technological interventions motivates each and every one of us.” 

Fain said the award highlights the importance of policy interventions like Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act to the community of people with disabilities. 

“CACP will continue to conduct applied policy research to extend the reach of Section 504 and empower people with disabilities as they pursue their academic, career, and life goals,” he said. 

“The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts is committed to advancing scholarship and innovation that expands equitable access to resources, improves people's lives, and creates transformative, inclusive learning experiences for all of our students,” said Aaron Levine, associate dean for research and outreach in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and professor in the School of Public Policy. “The Center for Advanced Communications Policy does vital work in all of these areas, and we are proud to see their achievements recognized and honored.”

The family’s significant gift will support the GTDC: Pathways to Policy program and sustainable energy and environmental management studies, allowing for the creation of the Byers Family Pathways to Policy Fellowships. The fellowships will cover tuition for 18 public policy graduate students over three years and provide a stipend to support them during a year-long internship with a governmental, nonprofit, or private-sector organization in D.C.

“This gift is absolutely transformative,” said Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Public Policy. “This experience expands the School’s profile in D.C, but more importantly will allow these students to build networks, earn a seat at the table in Washington, and utilize the strong education they’ve received here at Georgia Tech in future policymaking.”

Like the existing GTDC program for Tech undergraduates, students chosen for the Byers Family Fellowship will benefit from opportunities to connect with alumni and policymakers in Washington, gain valuable work experience, integrate scholarship and policymaking, and explore public service as a possible career path.

The graduate program will focus on climate change, one of the greatest threats to global society.

“These public policy graduate students will bring their Georgia Tech training and discipline to government agencies, Congress, and administrations to advocate for innovation in regulations, legislation, and decisions that can have high-leverage effects in energy and sustainability going forward,” Byers said. “Our family has been very impressed with the achievements and impact of Professor Marilyn Brown and others at Tech.”

Graduate students in the School of Public Policy who are studying sustainable energy and environmental management issues will be eligible to apply for the highly selective fellowships beginning in January 2024.

For more information about making a gift in support of graduate fellowships, contact Senior Associate Vice President for Major Gifts and Next Generation Philanthropy Jim Hall at jim.hall@dev.gatech.edu.

More than two dozen Ivan Allen faculty members and Ph.D. students from three Schools will present papers, serve as panelists or panel chairs, or organize discussions.  Twenty-three School of Public Policy faculty members and students will take part in the three-day conference, which opens Nov. 9. Five faculty and students from the School of Economics are involved, as is one faculty member from the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. 

“APPAM’s fall research conference is widely regarded as the premier event for public policy scholars, so it’s exciting to see how much of our research will be showcased, from clean-energy policy to child and maternal welfare and housing issues,” said Cassidy R. Sugimoto, Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Public Policy. 

Assistant Professor Lindsey Rose Bullinger will be among the busiest, participating in four panels and chairing a fifth on, “Uncovering the Impact of Paid Family Leave on Gender Wage Gap, Parents and Firms.” 

Associate Professor Omar I. Asensio, will present three papers, chair one panel, serve as a panelist on another, and organize a session on “Innovation for Low-Carbon Transformations: Patents, Power and Leveraging Networks.” 

Additionally, Professor Daniel Matisoff will receive APPAM’s World Citizen Prize in Environmental Performance at the conference. The group recognized Matisoff for his research that “assesses pathways to achieve measurable but as-yet-unrealized gains in overall environmental performance.” It is the second time in three years that a Georgia Tech School of Public Policy faculty member has won the award. 

Outside the School of Public Policy, Dylan Brewer of the School of Economics will organize the “Electrification, Energy Efficiency, and the Energy Transition: Residential Energy Policies and Behavioral Responses” panel and present two papers. At the same time, his colleague, Daniel Dench, will co-present on one paper with Brewer and organize and chair a panel on “E-Cig and Tobacco Policy Implications.” 

Laura Taylor, chair of the School of Economics, will serve as a panelist on a “First-Gen Researchers” session. 

“I’m excited to see our faculty and students highlighting the intersections of economics and public policy at APPAM,” Taylor said. 

Anjali Thomas, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, is also chairing a panel on “Politics and Policymaking in India.” 

They will be joined by several other faculty members from other Georgia Tech units, including the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the Institute for Data Engineering and Science, the Scheller College of Business, and the School of City and Regional Planning. 

Last year, 16 School of Public Policy faculty members and students attended APPAM’s meeting in Washington. 

Kaye Husbands Fealing, dean and Ivan Allen Jr. Chair of Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, has received the 2023 Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from the American Economic Association (AEA).