Nga Lee (Sally) Ng, Love Family Professor with joint appointments in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, is AGU's 2023 Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award recipient.

The Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award is presented annually and recognizes excellence in research and leadership in the atmospheric and climate sciences from honorees between eight and 20 years of receiving their PhD.

Being selected as a Section Honoree is bestowed upon individuals for meritorious work or service toward the advancement and promotion of discovery and solution science. AGU, the world's largest Earth and space science association, annually recognizes a select number of individuals as part of its Honors and Recognition program.

The Atmospheric Sciences Section studies the physics, chemistry, and dynamics of the atmosphere. Ng received the Ascent Award for advancing the fundamental understanding of organic aerosol measurement, sources, chemistry, trends, and impacts in Earth’s atmosphere.

Ng earned her doctorate in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and was a postdoctoral scientist at Aerodyne Research Inc. She joined Georgia Tech as an assistant professor in 2011.

Her research focuses on the understanding of the chemical mechanisms of aerosol formation and composition, as well as their health effects. Her group combines laboratory chamber studies and ambient field measurements to study aerosols using advanced mass spectrometry techniques.

Ng currently leads the establishment of the Atmospheric Science and Chemistry mEasurement NeTwork (ASCENT), a new comprehensive, high-time-resolution, long-term measurement network in the U.S. for the characterization of aerosol chemical composition and physical properties. Ng is the inaugural editor-in-chief of the American Chemical Society's (ACS)  ACS ES&T Air, a new journal that will publish novel and globally relevant original research on all aspects of air quality sciences and engineering.

Honorees will be recognized at AGU23, which will convene more than 25,000 attendees from over 100 countries in San Francisco and online everywhere on 11-15 December 2023. This celebration is a chance for AGU’s community to recognize the outstanding work of our colleagues and be inspired by their accomplishments and stories.

Alumnus Honors 
Ng is joined in receiving AGU23 accolades by Georgia Tech School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences alumnus Vernon R. Morris (EAS PhD 1991), who receives this year's AGU Lifetime Achievement Award for Diversity and Inclusion.

Morris is professor and director of the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at Arizona State University, and an atmospheric scientist who studies the chemical evolution of atmospheric particulate during transport and residence in the lower troposphere and its implications to aerobiology, climate, and cloud processes. He has guided the research for more than 150 students at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school levels, published over 75 refereed papers, book chapters, and the scientific publications, ranging from quantum chemistry to the aerosol processes in tropical Africa.

AGU (www.agu.org) is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in the Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, we advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct.

Gigatons of greenhouse gas are trapped under the seafloor, and that’s a good thing. Around the coasts of the continents, where slopes sink down into the sea, tiny cages of ice trap methane gas, preventing it from escaping and bubbling up into the atmosphere.

While rarely in the news, these ice cage formations, known as methane clathrates, have garnered attention because of their potential to affect climate change. During offshore drilling, methane ice can get stuck in pipes, causing them to freeze and burst. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill is thought to have been caused by a buildup of methane clathrates.

But until now, the biological process behind how methane gas remains stable under the sea has been almost completely unknown. In a breakthrough study, a cross-disciplinary team of Georgia Tech researchers discovered a previously unknown class of bacterial proteins that play a crucial role in the formation and stability of methane clathrates.

A team led by Jennifer Glass, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Raquel Lieberman, professor and Sepcic-Pfeil Chair in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, showed that these novel bacterial proteins suppress the growth of methane clathrates as effectively as commercial chemicals currently used in drilling, but are non-toxic, eco-friendly, and scalable. Their study, funded by NASA, informs the search for life in the solar system, and could also increase the safety of transporting natural gas.

The research, published in the journal PNAS Nexus, underscores the importance of fundamental science in studying Earth’s natural biological systems and highlights the benefits of collaboration across disciplines.

“We wanted to understand how these formations were staying stable under the seafloor, and precisely what mechanisms were contributing to their stability,” Glass said. “This is something no one has done before.”

Sifting Through Sediment

The effort started with the team examining a sample of clay-like sediment that Glass acquired from the seafloor off the coast of Oregon.

Glass hypothesized that the sediment would contain proteins that influence the growth of methane clathrate, and that those proteins would resemble well-known antifreeze proteins in fish, which help them survive in cold environments.

But to confirm her hypothesis, Glass and her research team would first have to identify protein candidates out of millions of potential targets contained in the sediment. They would then need to make the proteins in the lab, though there was no understanding of how these proteins might behave. Also, no one had worked with these proteins before.

Glass approached Lieberman, whose lab studies the structure of proteins. The first step was to use DNA sequencing paired with bioinformatics to identify the genes of the proteins contained in the sediment. Dustin Huard, a researcher in Lieberman’s lab and first author of the paper, then prepared candidate proteins that could potentially bind to the methane clathrates. Huard used X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of the proteins.

Creating Seafloor Conditions in the Lab

Huard passed off the protein candidates to Abigail Johnson, a former Ph.D. student in Glass’ lab and co-first author on the paper, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Georgia. To test the proteins, Johnson formed methane clathrates herself by recreating the high pressure and low temperature of the seafloor in the lab. Johnson worked with Sheng Dai, an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, to build a unique pressure chamber from scratch.

Johnson placed the proteins in the pressure vessel and adjusted the system to mimic the pressure and temperature conditions required for clathrate formation. By pressurizing the vessel with methane, Johnson forced methane into the droplet, which caused a methane clathrate structure to form.

She then measured the amount of gas that was consumed by the clathrate — an indicator of how quickly and how much clathrate formed — and did so in the presence of the proteins versus no proteins. Johnson found that with the clathrate-binding proteins, less gas was consumed, and the clathrates melted at higher temperatures.

Once the team validated that the proteins affect the formation and stability of methane clathrates, they used Huard's protein crystal structure to carry out molecular dynamics simulations with the help of James (JC) Gumbart, professor in the School of Physics. The simulations allowed the team to identify the specific site where the protein binds to the methane clathrate.

A Surprisingly Novel System

The study unveiled unexpected insights into the structure and function of the proteins. The researchers initially thought the part of the protein that was similar to fish antifreeze proteins would play a role in clathrate binding. Surprisingly, that part of the protein did not play a role, and a wholly different mechanism directed the interactions.

They found that the proteins do not bind to ice, but rather interact with the clathrate structure itself, directing its growth. Specifically, the part of the protein that had similar characteristics to antifreeze proteins was buried in the protein structure, and instead played a role in stabilizing the protein.

The researchers found that the proteins performed better at modifying methane clathrate than any of the antifreeze proteins that had been tested in the past. They also performed just as well as, if not better than, the toxic commercial clathrate inhibitors currently used in drilling that pose serious environmental threats.

Preventing clathrate formation in natural gas pipelines is a billion-dollar industry. If these biodegradable proteins could be used to prevent disastrous natural gas leaks, it would greatly reduce the risk of environmental damage.

“We were so lucky that this actually worked, because even though we chose these proteins based on their similarity to antifreeze proteins, they are completely different,” Johnson said. “They have a similar function in nature, but do so through a completely different biological system, and I think that really excites people.”

Methane clathrates likely exist throughout the solar system — on the subsurface of Mars, for example, and on icy moons in the outer solar system, such as Europa. The team’s findings indicate that if microbes exist on other planetary bodies, they might produce similar biomolecules to retain liquid water in channels in the clathrate that could sustain life.

“We’re still learning so much about the basic systems on our planet,” Huard said. “That’s one of the great things about Georgia Tech — different communities can come together to do really cool, unexpected science. I never thought I would be working on an astrobiology project, but here we are, and we’ve been very successful.”

Citation: Dustin J E Huard, et al. Molecular basis for inhibition of methane clathrate growth by a deep subsurface bacterial protein, PNAS Nexus, Volume 2, Issue 8, August 2023.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad268

Funding: National Aeronautics & Space Administration, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund

Georgia Tech co-authors included Zixing Fan, Ph.D. student, and two undergraduates, Lydia Kenney (now a Ph.D. student at Northwestern University) and Manlin Xu (now a Ph.D. student in the MIT-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program). Ran Drori, associate professor of chemistry at Yeshiva University, also contributed.

Natalie Stingelin, chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Materials Science and Engineering, has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences (EURASC). The honor is bestowed upon the most distinguished European scholars and engineers for their research and contributing to the development of advanced technologies. Each honoree also displays a strong commitment to promoting science and technology in Europe.

Stingelin is recognized for her significant contributions in the broader areas of polymer physics, functional macromolecular materials, and organic electronics and photonics as well as her strong devotion and conviction to generating a notable impact on the wider engineering field as a role model for women in STEM.

Read the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Each year, exposure to airborne particulate matter known as PM2.5 (particles with a diameter smaller than 2.5 micrometers) leads to millions of premature deaths worldwide. Organic aerosols are the dominant constituents of PM2.5 in many locations around the world. Historically, the chemical complexity of organic aerosols has made it difficult to gauge their toxicity level.

But a study led by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology has advanced understanding of both the chemical composition of PM2.5 and the reaction of alveolar cells of the lungs exposed to this pollution, highlighting the growing threat posed to human health.

Published in Environmental Science and Technology, the study shows that oxidized organic aerosols (OOA) are the most toxic type of organic aerosols in PM2.5.

“Oxidized organic aerosols are the most abundant type of organic aerosols worldwide,” said Nga Lee (Sally) Ng, Love Family Professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “For example, when wildfire smoke reacts in the atmosphere, it generates OOA.”

Measurement Techniques

As the researchers used advanced techniques such as mass spectrometry to analyze the chemical composition of PM2.5 in Atlanta, Georgia, they simultaneously measured the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in alveolar cells resulting from pollution exposure.

ROS are molecules that can cause oxidative stress and damage to our cells, potentially leading to various health problems, including cardiopulmonary diseases.

To understand the mechanisms behind PM2.5-induced oxidative stress, the researchers employed cellular assays, which allowed them to measure both chemically and biologically generated ROS.

The study revealed that highly unsaturated species containing carbon-oxygen double bonds and aromatic rings within OOA are major drivers of cellular ROS production, advancing understanding of the chemical features of ambient organic aerosols that make them toxic.

Wildfires Are Growing Source

As the contribution from fossil-fuel sources to organic aerosols formation has declined in the United States in recent decades due to reduction strategies, the relative importance of other sources has increased, said Fobang Liu, lead author of the study.

“For example, biomass burning is expected to become a more important source of OOA with the increasing trend of wildfires,” added Liu, a former postdoctoral researcher in Ng’s lab at Georgia Tech who is now an associate professor at Xi’an Jiaotong University in China.

A major chemical characteristic of OOA formed from biomass burning is the high fraction of oxygenated aromatic compounds. “Hence, this work highlights that organic aerosols can become more toxic in the future,” he said.

Continued Collaboration

According to the researchers, their findings underscore the need for continued collaboration among the fields of atmospheric chemistry, toxicology, epidemiology, and biotechnology to tackle the global air pollution crisis.

“OOA are a surrogate of secondary organic aerosols. Secondary organic aerosols  are ubiquitous and abundant in the atmosphere, we need to understand their sources and chemical processing when formulating effective strategies to mitigate PM2.5 health impacts,” said Professor Ng.

“Future work should continue to investigate the health impacts of different PM2.5 components, particularly secondary organic aerosols formed from precursors emitted during incomplete combustion processes of fossil and biomass fuels,” she said.

Different regions may have varying types of organic aerosols due to diverse emission sources and atmospheric conditions. Therefore, long-term measurement of organic aerosol types over a wide range of geographical areas will be important to advance understanding of health impacts, the researchers emphasized.

Such work is being conducted by the Atmospheric Science and Chemistry mEasurement NeTwork (ASCENT), a $12 million advanced aerosol measurement network of 12 sites around the United States that is led by Professor Ng.

CITATION: Fobang Liu, Taekyu Joo, Jenna C. Ditto, Maria G. Saavedra, Masayuki Takeuchi, Alexandra J. Boris, Yuhan Yang, Rodney J. Weber, Ann M. Dillner, Drew R. Gentner, Nga L. Ng., “Oxidized and unsaturated: key organic aerosol traits associated with cellular reactive oxygen species production in the southeastern United States,” Environmental Science and Technology, 10.1021/acs.est.3c03641, 2023

A new $20.5 million Department of Energy project will establish a direct air capture hub in northern Mobile County, Alabama. 

Carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary pollutant from emissions past and present, stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, leading to climate change and its many consequences. Cleaning up these legacy emissions is an essential step in the creation of a sustainable, low-carbon economy. Direct Air Capture (DAC) is an innovative solution that captures CO2 directly from the air and reduces its levels in the atmosphere. The CO2 is then stored safely and securely or utilized to make value-added products.

The Georgia Institute of Technology collaborated with the Southern States Energy Board and its partners in the deployment of a direct air capture hub in Mobile County, Alabama. Known as the Southeast DAC (SEDAC) Hub, the project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management and will deploy cutting-edge DAC technologies to capture CO2 from the air. Steered by Joe Hagerman, director of NEETRAC, and Matthew Realff, professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, David Wang Sr. Fellow, and initiative lead for circular carbon economy at the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI), the team will serve the educational, workforce, and community development functions in the project that is led by the Southern States Energy Board. Other partners include 8 Rivers, Aircapture, Crescent Resource Innovation, ENTECH Strategies, Mitternight, RTI International, the University of Alabama, and the University of South Alabama. Stakeholders include Southern Company and its Alabama Power Company subsidiary, Tenaska Sequestration Solutions, and the Mobile Chamber of Commerce, among many others.  

“We are thrilled to partner with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Southern States Energy Board in the SEDAC Hub project,” said Tim Lieuwen, SEI executive director, Regents’ Professor, and David S. Lewis Jr. Chair. “The project is important to the decarbonization efforts in the Southeast and will further amplify the Southeast’s leadership in the clean tech economy.”

Georgia Tech’s role will be supported by the Georgia Tech Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education (SCoRE) and the Direct Air Capture Center (DirACC). Led by Jennifer Hirsch, adjunct associate professor in the School of City and Regional Planning, and senior director of Serve-Learn-Sustain at Georgia Tech, SCoRE engages faculty, students, and staff in long-term, strategic research and education collaborations with community partners, focusing on sustainability and connecting the historically underrepresented communities and students in the Atlanta region, the state of Georgia, and the Southeast. DirACC is the culmination of more than a decade of research at Georgia Tech to develop and evaluate materials, contactors, and processes that extract carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. DirACC creates a forum for collaborative research on negative emission technologies and DAC, bringing together researchers from across the Institute working in energy, sustainability, policy, and related fields. DirACC is jointly led by Christopher Jones, professor and John F. Brock III School Chair in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Realff.

Mobile County is an ideal location to support the initial phases of a DAC hub. It is home to industrial facilities, large tracts of available land, and appropriate subsurface geology to support the creation of a sustainable, CO2-based economy. In addition, numerous opportunities exist to employ the region’s skilled workforce in pursuit of a variety of jobs beyond permanent storage in subsurface reservoirs (e.g., CO2 to fuels). The SEDAC Hub will not only help reduce local emissions, but also help create a carbon reduction ecosystem in the area — and the Gulf South more broadly.  

The project team has established robust community outreach and a two-way engagement program that includes a community advisory board composed of diverse local stakeholders; industry partners interested in decarbonization; and local community colleges, universities, and trade schools. The board will provide input to achieve community-supported DAC growth and guide the development of SEDAC’s community benefits plan.  

Visit the Project Page to learn more about the project and the team members.

Energy Research at Georgia Tech

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the top public research universities in the U.S., developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. Georgia Tech has researchers working across the energy value chain and leads in scientific leadership in basic and applied science in carbon capture, industrial decarbonization, and related social sciences. Georgia Tech is consistently rated among the top universities in the nation for graduation of underrepresented minorities in engineering, physical sciences, and energy-related fields. Serving as a regional resource to help communities understand how they can transition to a clean energy economy, Georgia Tech is the southeastern leader in achieving regional impact through education and contributions to the community.

The water coming out of your faucet is safe to drink, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely clean. Chlorine has long been the standard for water treatment, but it often contains trace levels of disinfection byproducts and unknown contaminants. Georgia Institute of Technology researchers developed the minus approach to handle these harmful byproducts.

Instead of relying on traditional chemical addition (known as the plus approach), the minus approach avoids disinfectants, chemical coagulants, and advanced oxidation processes typical to water treatment processes. It uses a unique mix of filtration methods to remove byproducts and pathogens, enabling water treatment centers to use ultraviolet light and much smaller doses of chemical disinfectants to minimize future bacterial growth down the distribution system.

“The minus approach is a groundbreaking philosophical concept in water treatment,” said Yongsheng Chen, the Bonnie W. and Charles W. Moorman IV Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Its primary objective is to achieve these outcomes while minimizing the reliance on chemical treatments, which can give rise to various issues in the main water treatment stream.”

Chen and his student Elliot Reid, the primary author, presented the minus approach in the paper, “The Minus Approach Can Redefine the Standard of Practice of Drinking Water Treatment,” in The American Chemical Society.

The minus approach physically separates emerging contaminants and disinfection byproducts from the main water treatment process using these already proven processes:

• Bank filtration withdraws water from naturally occurring or constructed banks like rivers or lakes. As the water travels through the layers of soil and gravel, it naturally filters out impurities, suspended particles, and certain microorganisms.
• Biofiltration uses biological processes to treat water by passing it through filter beds made of sand, gravel, or activated carbon that can support the growth of beneficial microorganisms, which in turn can remove contaminants.  
• Adsorption occurs when an adsorbent material like activated carbon is used to trap contaminants.
• Membrane filtration uses a semi-permeable membrane to separate particles and impurities from the main treatment process.

The minus approach is intended to engage the water community in designing safer, more sustainable, and more intelligent systems. Because its technologies are already available and proven, the minus approach can be implemented immediately.

It can also integrate with artificial intelligence (AI) to improve filtration’s effectiveness. AI can aid process optimization, predictive maintenance, faulty detection and diagnosis, energy optimization, and decision-support systems. AI models have also been able to reliably predict the origin of different types of pollution in source water, and models have also successfully detected pipeline damage and microbial contamination, allowing for quick and efficient maintenance.

“This innovative philosophy seeks to revolutionize traditional water treatment practices by providing a more sustainable and environmentally friendly solution,” Chen said. “By reducing the reliance on chemical treatments, the minus approach mitigates the potential risks associated with the use of such chemicals, promoting a safer water supply for both human consumption and environmental protection.”

CITATION: Elliot Reid, Thomas Igou, Yangying Zhao, John Crittenden, Ching-Hua Huang, Paul Westerhoff, Bruce Rittmann, Jörg E. Drewes, and Yongsheng Chen

Environmental Science & Technology 2023 57 (18), 7150-7161

DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c09389

The Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) of the Georgia Institute of Technology is excited to welcome Laura Taylor as the interim director of the Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center (EPICenter).

Taylor is currently serving as chair of the School of Economics in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining the faculty in 2018, she was the director of the Center for Environmental and Resource Economic Policy at North Carolina State University and associate director of the Environmental Policy Program at Georgia State University (2001 – 2015).

Taylor has extensive experience measuring the broader economic benefits associated with improved air, water, and ecosystem quality and is an elected fellow and past president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. She has held numerous advisory board positions, including the environmental economics subcommittee of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s science advisory board and the legislative research commission advisory subcommittee on offshore energy exploration for the North Carolina General Assembly.

“I’m excited about Laura Taylor’s experience and her vision for deepening engagement of EPICenter with the academic units and faculty on campus,” said Tim Lieuwen, professor and David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and executive director of SEI. “EPICenter exists to connect the deep expertise and convening power of Georgia Tech to real-world problems faced by regional decision-makers, and she has a wealth of experience in this applied mission.”

Taylor’s research has received funding from a variety of sources, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Interior, and the National Science Foundation. Her current research focuses on the economics of environmental management and includes topics at the intersection of energy systems and human health, exploration of household responses to water conservation policies, and benefits of hazardous waste site cleanup for neighboring communities.

“I am thrilled to lead the Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center,” Taylor said. “With the rapid advances in clean energy in the Southeast and across the nation, I look forward to engaging the research faculty across Georgia Tech and amplifying the strong energy policy research that’s happening here.”

About EPICenter

Operating as a division of the Strategic Energy Institute, EPICenter was created to provide an unbiased and interdisciplinary framework for stimulating innovation in energy policy and technology for the Southeast. Based out of the campus of Georgia Tech, the center draws upon regional and national expertise within academia, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and research facilities.

Researchers from Georgia Tech's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering received a $2.1 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to investigate contaminants in drinking water.

The EPA is funding the research on the occurrence and concentration of pathogens and disinfection by-products and the environmental conditions favorable to their growth in drinking water distribution systems.

Carlton S. Wilder Associate Professor Ameet Pinto, the project's principal investigator, said disinfection is used to kill microorganisms to make drinking water safe for consumption.  Yet, disinfecting to kill microorganisms can also result in formation of harmful disinfection by-products.

“Our key project goal is to shine a light on when, where, and why pathogens and disinfection by-products occur and co-occur in drinking water systems across the country,” Pinto said. “This will help water utilities better navigate the tradeoff of managing microbiological and chemical risks in drinking water and thus enhance the reliability of safe drinking water supply to their consumers.”

According to the EPA, opportunistic pathogens such as Legionella pneumophila, nontuberculous mycobacteria, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa can grow in drinking water systems and pose potential risks to public health. The occurrence of these and other microbial pathogens is also associated with contaminated storage facilities and other problems in water distribution systems such as backflow and low-pressure incidents.

If left untreated, these contamination events can lead to outbreaks of gastrointestinal, respiratory, and other waterborne illnesses. The disinfectants used to control these pathogens can cause additional problems by reacting with natural organic matter, bromide, and other contaminants to form disinfectant by-products, which also have the potential to be harmful to human health.

Georgia Tech is one of four institutions selected by the EPA to receive nearly $8.5 million in grant funding, along with the University of Minnesota, Michigan State University, and the University of Texas. The Georgia Tech team includes Turnipseed Family Chair & Professor Ching-Hua Huang and Assistant Professor Katy Graham.

The Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) hosted the third annual Energy Storage Grand Challenge Summit this summer. The three-day event was sponsored by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Electricity and organized by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The summit engaged a diverse set of energy storage stakeholders to discuss how the DOE continues to formulate strategies and pathways to accelerate energy storage innovation and deployment over the next decade and beyond.

In his keynote address, Gene Rodrigues, assistant secretary for Electricity at the DOE, shared the agency’s strategic priorities and invited stakeholders and participants to own the challenge together by focusing on partnerships and practical, cost-effective solutions for energy storage. The event consisted of tours of the local “living labs,” including the Georgia Power microgrid in midtown Atlanta and the Georgia Power Smart Neighborhood, presentations from DOE’s national labs, and panel discussions with industry experts. Discussion topics included the science underpinning energy storage, storage innovation deep dives, accelerating long-duration energy storage with public-private partnerships, and more. The event was attended by more than 200 people.

With the expansion of battery and electric vehicle manufacturers in Georgia and neighboring states, Georgia Tech is playing an integral role in developing the technologies that enable equitable, lower-cost, and cleaner generation, storage, distribution, and utilization of energy. By hosting events like this, SEI continues to strengthen partnerships with industry, national labs, government decision makers, and local communities.

“Georgia Tech has longstanding expertise in energy storage research and commercialization, with researchers working across the battery value chain from solid state batteries to new battery chemistries, polymer electrolytes, flow batteries, and much more,” said Tim Lieuwen, executive director of SEI, Regents’ Professor, and David S. Lewis Jr. Chair in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering. “This is substantiated with the formation of the Georgia Tech Advanced Battery Center at Georgia Tech this fall.”

The newly formed Center acts as the focal point at Georgia Tech to enhance interactions between industry, researchers, and students in the area of energy storage. It is led by co-directors Matthew McDowell, professor, Woodruff Faculty Fellow, and initiative lead for energy storage at SEI and Georgia Tech's Institute of Materials; and Gleb Yushin, professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. A key goal of the Center is to construct a battery manufacturing facility at Georgia Tech that will serve as a research and development and workforce training resource for the region.

“Georgia Tech has a wealth of talent in energy storage R&D, and we are excited to further engage with companies and government to develop and deploy advanced battery technologies,” said McDowell. “We are accelerating our research, education, and training to help achieve massive electrification of our society.”