Resilience hubs are trusted, community-serving facilities designed to support residents and coordinate communication and resources in everyday life; and before, during, and after disruptions. Environmental disruptions such as hurricane damage, coastal erosion, flood damage, extreme heat, and wildfire destruction are occurring more frequently and with greater economic costs. 

On November 21, 2024, a team from Georgia Tech met with nine other organizations at the Penn Center on St. Helena Island in South Carolina to work towards developing targeted resilience strategies to cope with environmental disaster events. More specifically, the Penn Center workshop’s overall goal was the co-creation of paths toward building community-led and -engaged, scientifically supported resilience hubs, addressing the unique challenges faced by coastal and inland vulnerable communities in the Southeastern United States.

A common definition of community resilience is “the sustained ability of a community to use available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations.”

Part of the process to build these action research partnerships and resilience plans is to bring together community leaders, government representatives, and an interdisciplinary team of researchers—many of whom are from Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech researchers bring expertise from science, engineering, design, humanities, and social sciences.

As part of the workshop, 15 Georgia Tech architecture students presented their design models for a multipurpose 20,000 square-foot building designed for the Penn Center campus which is steeped in African American history.

Some of the researchers at Georgia Tech attending the workshop and supporting the development of Southeastern community-focused resilience strategies included: 

• Sofía Pérez-Guzmán, assistant professor in the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering; 
• Allen Hyde, associate professor in the School of History and Sociology, and faculty member of the Institute for People and Technology; 
• Danielle Willkens, associate professor in the School of Architecture and faculty member of the Institute for People and Technology; 
• Alexander Robel, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; 
• Jennifer Hirsch, director of the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education at Georgia Tech;  
• Valerie M. Thomas, Anderson-Interface Chair of Natural Systems and professor in the H. Milton School of Industrial and Systems Engineering with a joint appointment in the School of Public Policy; 
• Joe F. Bozeman III, assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering with a joint appointment in the School of Public Policy; 
• Russell Clark, lead principal investigator of the Coastal Equity and Resilience Hub and senior research scientist at the Institute for People and Technology; 
• Nicole Kennard, assistant director for community-engaged research in the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems; and 
• Jung-Ho Lewe, senior research engineer in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering.

Participating partner organizations in addition to the Penn Center include:

• 7 Dimensions Outreach
• Atlanta Preservation Center
• Center for Sustainable Communities 
• Coastal Conservation League 
• Community Church Atlanta
• Furman University
• Gullah Geechee Futures Project
• University of South Carolina: Arnold School of Public Health, the EJ Strong Program, and the Department of Environmental Health Science
• Willson Center for Humanities and Arts at the University of Georgia

This work is supported by a Georgia Tech Sustainability Next research seed grant. The seed grant program is administered by the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBIS) in collaboration with the Renewable Bioproducts Institute (RBI), the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI), and the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). The program nurtures promising areas for future large-scale collaborative sustainability research, research translation, and high-impact outreach; provides mid-career faculty with leadership and community-building opportunities; and broadens and strengthens the Georgia Tech sustainability community as a whole.