A regional consortium led by the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Georgia, and Georgia State University, in collaboration with the Georgia Mining Association, will host an inaugural workshop on Georgia partnerships for Essential Minerals (GEMs). The one-day workshop is planned for Thursday, Feb. 1, at the University of Georgia Hotel and Conference Center and is expected to be the first in a series of critical mineral conversations hosted in rotation by the partner institutions. The event will bring together 40 participants from academia, industry, and government to discuss the opportunities and challenges around critical mineral supplies in the state and in the nation. 

The GEMs workshop is driven by the compelling needs around domestic critical mineral supply for the energy and transportation sectors, and by the potentially significant rare earth element resources available in the state of Georgia. The workshop will couple the research capabilities of the three Georgia R1 research universities and the mature mining industry in Georgia to solve the challenges around this issue. It will engage all stakeholders with interests in resource exploration, technology development, energy and environmental sustainability, economic development, regulatory compliance, and workforce development toward achieving national security independence for critical mineral supply. The first workshop will focus on the production of the critical mineral resource, rare earth elements (REE), from kaolin mine tailings, overburden, and other potential processing streams. Other areas of REE production may also be considered.

The goal of the workshop is to produce a statement of outcomes regarding the current state of knowledge, opportunities, challenges, and possible pathways for GEMs. It will also serve as a catalyst to drive conversations among the key stakeholders to make an impact in GEMs, including developing university-industry-government partnership grants, internships, sponsored research, and training opportunities for the current and next generation of Georgia residents. These relationships will play an important role in creating reliable domestic supplies of critical minerals. 

If you are interested in participating in the workshop, or have any other questions, please reach out to the Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute via email at comments@energy.gatech.edu or Professor Paul Schroeder at the University of Georgia by email at schroe@uga.edu.

Four faculty members have been selected for the second cohort of the Faculty Executive Leadership Academy (FELA) program, which is designed to identify and develop senior faculty members for leadership. The new cohort includes:    

• David Ballantyne, Professor and Associate Chair for Academic Programs, School of Physics  

• Martha Grover, Professor and Associate Chair for Graduate Studies, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and ADVANCE Professor in the College of Engineering  

• Aaron Levine, Professor, School of Public Policy, and Associate Dean for Research and Outreach, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts  

• Han Zhang, Steven A. Denning Professor of Technology and Management, Scheller College of Business

This program will build on the Fellows’ previous leadership experiences by providing access to senior leadership and their decisions; creating opportunities for them to interact with academic leaders from across the nation; offering close, and accessible mentoring with a cohort learning model; and participating in the formulation of project-based solutions and policies related to real problems and ongoing issues. FELA is led by former provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs Rafael Bras. 

“More than ever before, the health and future of higher education depends on good, experienced leaders with a broad understanding of many issues,” said Bras. “FELA is designed as an immersive program to develop that experience and understanding. Georgia Tech is investing in its future by developing the leadership talents of its senior faculty.” 

This cohort of FELA Fellows will serve a two-year term beginning in July 2024. During their FELA experience, Fellows will rotate every six months into one of the four Executive Leadership Team offices – the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, Office of the Vice President for Research, and Office of the Vice President for Administration and Finance. In addition to shadowing and project work during these rotations, Fellows will participate in regular cohort meetings with Bras for leadership guest speakers, case studies, and role play activities to further ground their experience.  

“Georgia Tech fosters the careers of thousands of the brightest faculty minds in higher education,” said Steve McLaughlin, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs. “These four new members of our Faculty Executive Leadership Academy represent those who wish to step forward as future leaders and learn what it takes to support the work of a university on an executive level. We look forward to working alongside them in the coming months.” 

Learn more about the FELA program and members of the first and second cohorts. 

New research from Dylan Brewer, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech's School of Economics, and Samantha Cameron, an alumna of the School and Ph.D. student at the University of California-Davis, suggests that pausing recycling programs may not have long-term effects on recycling habits.   

Their new paper, published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, is "the first empirical test of the hypothesis that recycling habits will degrade if recycling programs are not maintained," the researchers said. 

Brewer and Cameron examined a natural experiment in New York City, where the government paused the recycling program from 2002 to 2004. By comparing recycling rates in New York City to rates in Massachusetts and New Jersey, where recycling continued uninterrupted, the researchers found that "from 2006 to 2008, [NYC] recycling rates were unaffected by the pause. The finding of a quick rebound in recycling is consistent with persistent skills and habits in recycling." 

Recycling is often unprofitable, so this is a valuable insight for policymakers weighing the management and continuity of recycling programs during economic fluctuations. 

While cities maintain recycling programs during unprofitable periods for many reasons — it preserves environmental benefits and can prepare for future program profitability despite potential short-term financial strains — Brewer and Cameron's study shows that continuing programs over concerns that workers and people using the service will lose their recycling skills may be unfounded.  

Still, there are some caveats. NYC is unique in many ways, including a 1989 law making recycling mandatory. However, a closer look by the researchers showed that law enforcement did not heavily influence the return to recycling. Instead, habit and skill retention, pause duration, continuous waste collection programs — NYC still collected paper, metal, and organic material during the pause — and the simplicity of recycling processes played pivotal roles. Still, the researchers recommend further exploration to understand habit persistence in recycling behaviors across diverse settings. 

"Our results are relevant to policymakers considering whether to discontinue an unprofitable arm of a municipal recycling program," Brewer and Cameron conclude. "This natural experiment suggests that recycling rates can recover quickly, at least when the pause is short, and other municipal waste services continue. The quick recovery implies that policymakers need not be concerned that recycling rates will take a long time to rebuild." 

“Habit and Skill Retention in Recycling” was published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management in November 2023. It is available at https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22554  

Georgia Tech engineers are working to make fertilizer more sustainable — from production to productive reuse of the runoff after application — and a pair of new studies is offering promising avenues at both ends of the process.

In one paper, researchers have unraveled how nitrogen, water, carbon, and light can interact with a catalyst to produce ammonia at ambient temperature and pressure, a much less energy-intensive approach than current practice. The second paper describes a stable catalyst able to convert waste fertilizer back into nonpolluting nitrogen that could one day be used to make new fertilizer.

Significant work remains on both processes, but the senior author on the papers, Marta Hatzell, said they’re a step toward a more sustainable cycle that still meets the needs of a growing worldwide population.

“We often think it would be nice not to have to use synthetic fertilizers for agriculture, but that’s not realistic in the near term considering how much plant growth is dependent on synthetic fertilizers and how much food the world’s population needs,” said Hatzell, associate professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. “The idea is that maybe one day you could manufacture, capture, and recycle fertilizer on site."

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.

Georgia Tech materials engineers have unraveled the mechanism that causes degradation of a promising new material for solar cells — and they’ve been able to stop it using a thin layer of molecules that repels water.

Their findings are the first step in solving one of the key limitations of metal halide perovskites, which are already as efficient as the best silicon-based solar cells at capturing light and converting it into electricity. They reported their work in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

“Perovskites have the potential of not only transforming how we produce solar energy, but also how we make semiconductors for other types of applications like LEDs or phototransistors. We can think about them for applications in quantum information technology, such as light emission for quantum communication,” said Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena, assistant professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and the study’s senior author. “These materials have impressive properties that are very promising.”

Get the full story on the College of Engineering website.