Beril Toktay to Lead Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems

Following a nationwide search, Julia Kubanek, vice president for Interdisciplinary Research at Georgia Tech, has named Beril Toktay as the executive director of the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS). Toktay has served as BBISS interim executive director since September 2022.

“As interim executive director, Beril has built the BBISS community, broadened its scope, and developed new programming to grow cross-disciplinary collaboration, community-engaged research, and entrepreneurship,” Kubanek said. “Faculty and students from the liberal arts, social sciences, design, business, computing, and fundamental science are engaging with BBISS in greater numbers, complementing our engineering community’s involvement. These are areas of strength at Georgia Tech that will help amplify the impact of BBISS.”

Toktay is professor of operations management, the Brady Family Chair, and Regents' Professor at the Scheller College of Business. She is an internationally recognized sustainable operations management scholar whose work has been recognized with multiple best paper awards. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the INFORMS Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (MSOM)Society. Through initiatives such as the Drawdown Georgia Business Compact, she has helped translate research insights into actionable business initiatives while fostering regional economic development.

Her academic leadership includes serving as department co-editor for “Health, Environment, and Society” for MSOM, area editor for “Environment, Energy, and Sustainability” at Operations Research, and special issue co-editor on “Business and Climate Change” for Management Science, as well as “Environment” for MSOM. She serves on the board of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability and the board of directors of the New York Climate Exchange.

Toktay has been instrumental in advancing sustainability at Georgia Tech, serving as founding faculty director of the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business, co-architect of the Serve-Learn-Sustain initiative, and co-chair of the Sustainability Next Institute Strategic Plan Implementation Task Force. Her commitment to Ph.D. student success earned her the 2018 Georgia Tech Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Advisor Award. She also co-developed the Carbon Reduction Challenge, an award-winning interdisciplinary, co-curricular program that engages undergraduate students in climate intrapreneurship.

Toktay holds a Ph.D. in operations research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. in industrial engineering from Purdue University, and a B.S. in industrial engineering and mathematics from Boğaziçi University. She joined Georgia Tech in 2005 after serving as faculty at INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France.

Since assuming the interim role, Toktay has significantly strengthened BBISS by expanding the faculty leadership team, securing additional funding, establishing seed grant programs that have benefited over 100 researchers across all Colleges, and transforming the Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain into the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education.

"Energy and sustainability continue to be top Georgia Tech research priorities, for which we will need new funding strategies," said Tim Lieuwen, executive vice president for Research. "Philanthropy and business partnerships will grow in importance in the coming years. Beril has considerable experience and vision for maximizing these partnerships, which will serve BBISS and the Institute well into the future."

The Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems is one of Georgia Tech’s interdisciplinary research institutes. The vision of BBISS is to grow and mobilize Georgia Tech’s knowledge assets — people and research — to create a sustainable future for all. BBISS is a key partner in the implementation of Georgia Tech’s Sustainability Next 2023-2030 Strategic Plan, a consensus road map to advance Georgia Tech’s vision to address the biggest local, national, and global challenges of our time. BBISS relentlessly serves the public good, catalyzes high-impact research, develops exceptional leaders, and cultivates partnerships that translate knowledge into practice.

"I'm honored to lead BBISS and build on the momentum we've created to date,” Toktay said. “Our vision is to maximize the collective impact of Georgia Tech's remarkable sustainability research community across all colleges and disciplines. By catalyzing collaborative research and connecting our faculty with key external partners and communities, we are positioning Georgia Tech to be a global thought leader in sustainability and to drive meaningful solutions to some of our most pressing environmental and social challenges."

The campus community is invited to a reception celebrating Toktay's appointment on Thursday, May 1, 2025, at 4:30 p.m. at the Collective Food Hall in the Coda building. Contact Susan Ryan for details.