The Strategic Energy Institute and the Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center at Georgia Tech are proud to announce the winners of the James G. Campbell Fellowship and Spark Awards for 2024. 

Michael Biehler, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, has been selected as the recipient of the 2024 James G. Campbell Fellowship. The Fellowship is an annual award given to a Georgia Tech graduate student studying renewable energy systems. Candidates are nominated by their advisors in recognition of their exceptional academic achievements in the field of renewable energy.

Biehler’s research leverages multi-modal machine learning to tackle critical challenges in manufacturing, such as enhancing energy efficiency in manufacturing processes. He is advised by Jianjun (Jan) Shi, Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and Professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. 

“I consider this award an incredible honor, and the support means a lot to me, especially with the recent arrival of our second daughter—it will make a significant difference for us,” says Biehler. 

The Annual Spark Award recognizes current graduate students who have exhibited outstanding leadership in promoting student engagement with energy research at Georgia Tech, with evidence of broader impacts and service/leadership. The Spark Award recipients for 2024 include Georgia Tech graduate students Richard Asiamah, Erik Barbosa, Keun Hee Kim, Sanggyun Kim, and Erin Phillips. 

Richard Asiamah is a third-year Ph.D. student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). His research focuses on power systems optimization, emphasizing the efficient integration of renewable energy resources into the electricity grid. Asiamah has recently worked as a graduate electrical engineering intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and is currently serving as the president of the ECE Graduate Students’ Organization. 

Erik Barbosa is pursuing a doctorate in mechanical engineering and works under Akanksha Menon, assistant professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. His work in the Water Energy Research Lab focuses on utilizing inorganic salt hydrates to develop thermochemical energy storage, ranging from the material level to system scale, to decarbonize heat for building applications. Barbosa has been actively engaged with mentoring undergraduate students and high schoolers by exposing them to innovative technologies that decarbonize energy. 

Keun Hee Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in the Woodruff School. Kim’s research focuses on developing solid polymer electrolytes and artificial interlayers for lithium metal batteries, and synthesizing oxygen evolution reaction and oxygen reduction reaction catalyst materials for proton exchange membrane fuel cells and water electrolyzers.

Sanggyun Kim​ is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in materials science and engineering, advised by Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, assistant professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. Kim’s research focuses on understanding the complex interfacial interactions between hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite films and newly designed charge transport layers in perovskite solar cells (PSCs). His goal is to drive progress in solar energy technology by integrating novel polymer- and molecule-based interlayers, improving the efficiency and stability of PSCs to support more sustainable photovoltaic solutions.

Erin Phillips is a doctoral student in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Her research addresses difficulties associated with lignin valorization, which includes controlling the isolation of lignin from the original irregular lignocellulose structure and depolymerizing lignin into aromatic monomer units via mechanocatalysis. These aromatics can further be valorized as renewable sources for the creation of biofuels and other green chemicals. Phillips is currently serving as the president of the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) student chapter at Georgia Tech. 

As greenhouse gases accumulate in the Earth’s atmosphere, scientists are developing technologies to pull billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and inject it deep underground. 

The idea isn’t new. In the 1970s, Italian physicist Cesare Marchetti suggested that the carbon dioxide polluting the air and warming the planet could be stored underground. The reality of how to do it cost-effectively and safely has challenged scientists for decades. 

Geologic carbon storage — the subterranean storage of CO2 — comes with significant challenges, most importantly, how to avoid fracturing underground rock layers and letting gas escape into the atmosphere. Carbon, a gas, can behave erratically or leak whenever it’s stored in a compressed space, making areas geologically unstable and potentially causing legal headaches for corporations that invest in it. This uncertainty, coupled with the expense of the carbon capture process and its infrastructure, means the industry needs reliable predictions to justify it. 

Georgia Tech researcher and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Felix J. Herrmann has an answer. His lab, Seismic Laboratory for Imaging and Modeling (SLIM), uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to create algorithms that monitor and optimize carbon storage. The algorithms work as “digital twins,” or digital replicas of underground systems, facilitating the safe, efficient storage of CO2 underground.

“The trick is you want the carbon to stay put — to avoid the risk of, say, triggering an earthquake or the carbon leaking out,” said Herrmann, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “We’re developing a digital twin that allows us to monitor and control what is happening underground.”

Predicting the Best Place

Waveform Variational Inference via Subsurface Extensions with Refinements (WISER) is an algorithm that uses sound waves to analyze underground structures. WISER runs on AI, enabling it to work more efficiently than most algorithms while remaining computationally feasible. To improve accuracy, WISER makes small adjustments using sound wave physics to show how fast sound travels through different materials and where there’s variation in underground layers. This helps to create detailed, reliable images of underground areas for better predictions of carbon storage. 

WISER allows researchers to work with uncertainties, which is vital for understanding the risk of these underground storage projects.

Scaling the Algorithm

While Herrmann’s lab has been working to apply neural networks to seismic imaging for years now, WISER required them to increase the networks’ scale. Making multiple predictions is a much larger problem that requires a bigger, more potent network, but these types of neural networks only run on graphics processing units (GPUs), which are known for speed but are limited in memory.

To optimize the GPU, Rafael Orozco, a computational science and engineering Ph.D. student, created a new type of neural network that can train with very little memory. This open-source package, InvertibleNetworks, enables the network to train on very large inputs and create multiple output images conditioned on the observed seismic data.

WISER’s fundamental innovation is for the lab’s next concept: creating digital twins for carbon storage. These twins can act as monitoring systems to optimize and mitigate risks of carbon storage projects. 

Devising the Digital Twin

Digital twins are dynamic virtual models of objects in the real world, capable of replicating their behavior and performance. They rely on real-time data to evolve and have been used to replicate factories, cities, spacecraft, and bodies, to make informed decisions about healthcare, maintenance, production, supply chains, and — in Herrmann’s case — geologic carbon storage.

Herrmann and his team have developed an “uncertainty-aware” digital twin. That means the tool can manage risks and make decisions in an uncertain, unseen environment — because it’s been designed to recognize, quantify, and incorporate uncertainties in CO2 storage.

Probing the Unseen

Subsurface conditions are diverse and complex, making the management of greenhouse gas storage a delicate process. Without careful monitoring, the injection of CO2 can increase pressure in rock formations, potentially fracturing the cap rock that is supposed to keep the gas underground.

“The digital twin addresses this through simulations in tandem with observations,” said Herrmann, whose team linked two different scientific fields — geophysics and reservoir engineering — for a more comprehensive understanding of the subsurface environment. Specifically, they combined geophysical well observations with seismic imaging.

Geophysical well observation involves drilling a hole in the subsurface in a geological area of interest and collecting data by lowering a probe into the borehole to take measurements. Seismic imaging, on the other hand,  uses acoustic waves to create images based on the analysis of wave vibrations.

“Bridging the gap between different fields of research and combining various data sources allows our digital twin to provide a more accurate and detailed picture of what’s happening underground,” Herrmann said. 

To integrate and leverage these diverse datasets built from observations and simulations, the team used advanced AI techniques like simulation-based inference and sequential Bayesian inference, a method of updating information as more data becomes available. The ongoing learning allows researchers to quantify uncertainties in the subsurface environment and predict how that system will respond to CO2 injection. The digital twin updates its understanding as new data becomes available.

Making Informed Decisions

Herrmann’s team tested the digital twin, simulating different states of an underground reservoir, including permeability, which is the measure of how easily fluids flow through rock. The goal was to find the maximum injection rate of CO2 without causing fractures in the cap rock.

“The work highlights how dynamic digital twins can play a key role in mitigating the risks associated with geologic carbon storage,” said Herrmann, whose research group is supported in part by large oil and gas companies, including Chevron and  ExxonMobil. “Companies are now in the process of starting large offshore projects for which the digital twin is being developed.”

But there is still plenty of work to be done, he added. For instance, the digital twin can monitor the subsurface and provide critical information about that uncertain environment. It can inform. But it still needs adjustments by humans for each new CO2 injection site, and Herrmann and his team are working on further developing the technology — giving the digital twins the ability to quickly replicate themselves so they can be deployed massively and quickly to meet the demands of mitigating climate change.

“Our aim is to make them smarter,” Herrmann said. “To make them more adaptable, so they can control CO2 injections, become more responsive to risks, and adapt to a wide range of complex situations in real time.”

The aviation industry’s commitment to meaningful carbon reduction underscores the need for investing in Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), which provides the most promising solution to achieving net-zero carbon by 2050. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), with the right policy measures and financial instruments in place, SAF could help the industry achieve 65% of this reduction. As a key transportation center in the U.S., the Southeast holds immense potential to become a hub for SAF production and adoption.

This prospect was the focus of a recent workshop organized by three Georgia Tech units – the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business and its initiative, the Drawdown Georgia Business Compact; the School of Public Policy; and the Strategic Energy Institute; along with the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office. The workshop gathered together multiple stakeholder groups representing federal, state, and local government, industry, academia, and the aviation sector to chart a path forward for the Southeast.

Read more on the Drawdown GA Business Compact Website

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a syndicate of eight Southeast universities — with Georgia Tech as the lead — a $15 million grant to support the development of a regional innovation ecosystem that addresses underrepresentation and increases entrepreneurship and technology-oriented workforce development. 

The NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Southeast Hub is a five-year project based on the I-Corps model, which assists academics in moving their research from the lab to the market. 

Led by Georgia Tech’s Office of Commercialization and Enterprise Innovation Institute, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub encompasses four states — Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Alabama. 

Its member schools include:

• Clemson University 
• Morehouse College 
• University of Alabama 
• University of Central Florida 
• University of Florida 
• University of Miami 
• University of South Florida 

In January 2025, when the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub officially launches, the consortium of schools will expand to include the University of Puerto Rico. Additionally, through Morehouse College’s activation, Spelman College and the Morehouse School of Medicine will also participate in supporting the project. 

With a combined economic output of more than $3.2 trillion, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub region represents more than 11% of the entire U.S. economy. As a region, those states and Puerto Rico have a larger economic output than France, Italy, or Canada. 

“This is a great opportunity for us to engage in regional collaboration to drive innovation across the Southeast to strengthen our regional economy and that of Puerto Rico,” said the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s Nakia Melecio, director of the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub. As director, Melecio will oversee strategic management, data collection, and overall operations​. 

Additionally, Melecio serves as a national faculty instructor for the NSF I-Corps program. 

“This also allows us to collectively tackle some of the common challenges all four of our states face, especially when it comes to being intentionally inclusive in reaching out to communities that historically haven’t always been invited to participate,” he said. 

That means bringing solutions to market that not only solve problems but are intentional about including researchers from Black and Hispanic-serving institutions, Melecio said. 

Keith McGreggor, director of Georgia Tech’s VentureLab, is the faculty lead charged with designing the curriculum and instruction for the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub’s partners. 

McGreggor has extensive I-Corps experience. In 2012, Georgia Tech was among the first institutions in the country selected to teach the I-Corps curriculum, which aims to further research commercialization. McGreggor served as the lead instructor for I-Corps-related efforts and led training efforts across the Southeast, as well as for teams in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Republic of Ireland. 

Raghupathy “Siva” Sivakumar, Georgia Tech’s vice president of Commercialization and chief commercialization officer, is the project’s principal investigator. 

The NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub is one of three announced by the NSF. The others are in the Northwest and New England regions, led by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively. The three I-Corps Hubs are part of the NSF’s planned expansion of its National Innovation Network, which now includes 128 colleges and universities across 48 states. 

As designed, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub will leverage its partner institutions’ strengths to break down barriers to researchers’ pace of lab-to-market commercialization. 

"Our Hub member institutions have successfully commercialized transformative technologies across critical sectors, including advanced manufacturing, renewable energy, cybersecurity, and biomedical fields,” said Sivakumar. “We aim to achieve two key objectives: first, to establish and expand a scalable model that effectively translates research into viable commercial ventures; and second, to address pressing societal needs.

"This includes not only delivering innovative solutions but also cultivating a diverse pipeline of researchers and innovators, thereby enhancing interest in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta, is a proponent of the Hub’s STEM component. 

“As a biology major-turned-congresswoman, I know firsthand that STEM education and research open doors far beyond the lab or classroom.,” Williams said. “This National Science Foundation grant means Georgia Tech will be leading the way in equipping researchers and grad students to turn their discoveries into real-world impact — as innovators, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. 

“I’m especially excited about the partnership with Morehouse College and other minority-serving institutions through this Hub, expanding pathways to innovation and entrepreneurship for historically marginalized communities and creating one more tool to close the racial wealth gap.” 

That STEM aspect, coupled with supporting the growth of a regional ecosystem, will speed commercialization, increase higher education-industry collaborations, and boost the network of diverse entrepreneurs and startup founders, said David Bridges, vice president of the Enterprise Innovation Institute. 

“This multi-university, regional approach is a successful model because it has been proven that bringing a diversity of stakeholders together leads to unique solutions to very difficult problems,” he said. “And while the Southeast faces different challenges that vary from state to state and Puerto Rico has its own needs, they call for a more comprehensive approach to solving them. Adopting a region-oriented focus allows us to understand what these needs are, customize tailored solutions, and keep not just our hub but our nation economically competitive.” 

Deepakraj Divan has been appointed to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Electricity Advisory Committee (EAC) by U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. Divan is a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the Center for Distributed Energy.The EAC was established to enhance leadership in electricity delivery modernization and provide senior-level counsel to the DOE on ways in which the nation can meet many of the challenges associated with the rapidly unfolding energy transition.

The group reports to the DOE’s Assistant Secretary for Electricity and consists of 40 members representing a cross-section of energy stakeholders, including from utilities, industry, regional entities, industry, cyber security experts, natural gas sector and others.

Divan is the sole representative from academia and advanced research on the EAC.

“I am honored by this appointment to the EAC and look forward to providing inputs to ensure that the U.S.takes a holistic view on the highly disruptive energy transition, one that provides abundant, economical and equitable energy to meet our near-term and long-term energy needs, but where our sustainability and climate goals are also met,” Divan said. “Rapid development, deployment and scaling of globally competitive new technologies are a key element of this. I look forward to working with the DOE and other EAC members on these critical issues over the next two years.”

During his two-year term, Divan will advise the DOE on key issues related to current and future electric grid resilience, security, reliability, sector interdependence, and policy issues of concern.

The EAC periodically reviews and makes recommendations on DOE electric grid-related programs and initiatives, including electricity-related research and development programs and modeling efforts. The committee also helps to identify emerging issues, address the growing interdependence of and risk to critical and defense critical electric infrastructure, and help ensure national policy and programs are aligned to manage and prosper from the ongoing energy transition.

Divan is highly-respected for his expertise, having been active in grid related research and entrepreneurship for over 40 years. He is well-recognized in the field, including as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Engineering’s Transformative Science & Technology Committee, a past member of the NASEM Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, the 2021 NASEM Committee on the Future of Electric Power in the US, and is the recipient of the 2024 IEEE Power Engineering Medal.

His research focuses on advanced power electronics and grid related research, and the acceleration of deep-tech to market, especially in grid related areas.

He is also the coauthor of a new book – ‘Energy 2040: Aligning Innovation, Economics and Decarbonization’ by Divan and Sharma, that provides a holistic view of the energy transition, identifies major challenges (especially with the grid), and shows a path forward. 

A newly designed soil-powered fuel cell that could provide a sustainable alternative to batteries was recognized as an honorable mention in the annual Fast Company Innovation by Design Awards.

Terracell is roughly the size of a paperback book and uses microbes found in soil to generate energy for low-power applications. 

Previous designs for soil microbial fuel cells required water submergence or saturated soil. Terracell can function in soil with a volumetric water content of 42%

Terracell placed in Fast Company’s list of the best sustainability-focused designs of 2024.

Researchers at Northwestern University lead the multi-institution research team that designed Terracell.

Josiah Hester, an associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing who previously worked at Northwestern, directs the Ka Moamoa Lab, where the project was conceived. 

The team includes researchers from Northwestern, Georgia Tech, Stanford, the University of California-San Diego, and the University of California-Santa Cruz.

Their research was published in January in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies. The researchers will also present this work at the ACM international joint conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (Ubicomp), Oct. 5-9.

According to the Fast Company website, the Innovation by Design Awards recognize “designers and businesses solving the most crucial problems of today and anticipating the pressing issues of tomorrow.” Winners are published in Fast Company Magazine and are honored at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in the fall.

“Terracell could reduce e-waste and extend the useful lifetime of electronics deployed for agriculture, environmental monitoring, and smart cities,” Hester said. “We were honored to be recognized for the design innovation award. It is a testament to the promise of sustainable computing and our hope for a more sustainable world.”

For more information about Terracell, see the story featured on Northwestern Now, or visit the project’s website.

In 2024, more than one in five cars sold is an electric vehicle (EV). Intergovernmental agencies estimate that by 2035, half of all new cars sold globally will be EVs. 

While more EVs on the road sounds like great news for the environment, it could lead to complications. The electric grid is not yet ready to support the EV influx, and unaddressed capacity limitations could threaten the future of the EV industry. 

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a device to help avoid grid overload: a revolutionary EV smart-charging system. 

Read the story here.