The Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) at Georgia Tech concluded its third cohort of Energy Faculty Fellows in August, welcoming a diverse group of researchers for a 10-week summer fellowship. The program is designed to advance energy innovation and collaboration by supporting cross-institutional partnerships and facilitating dialogue on regional, national, and global energy priorities.

The program intends to build research partnerships between Georgia Tech and other academic institutions — specifically, emerging research institutions including R2 universities, minority-serving institutions, historically Black colleges and universities, and primarily undergraduate institutions.

“The Energy Faculty Fellows program is a key part of our five-year strategy to expand collaboration and strengthen workforce development in energy research,” said Christine Conwell, SEI’s interim executive director. “The cross-institutional collaborations foster broader engagement across the energy sector and help connect diverse research communities to meet the demands of the evolving energy landscape.”

During the fellowship, participants engage in joint research with their Georgia Tech hosts and their research teams, gaining hands-on experience and insights. These experiences not only enrich their immediate projects but also contribute to strengthening research systems at their home institutions.

The program continues to advance workforce development in the energy sector by involving undergraduate researchers in its core activities. Students work closely with fellows on applied research, enabling them to explore potential career paths and evaluate their interest in contributing to the future of energy innovation.

Here is the 2025 cohort of SEI’s Energy Faculty Fellows, in their own words.

Fellow: Jamal Mamkhezri, Associate Professor of Economics, New Mexico State University
Host: Laura Taylor, Professor, School of Economics, and Director, Energy Policy and Innovation Center, Georgia Tech

Jamal Mamkhezri, 2025 SEI Energy Faculty Fellow presents his research work from the 10-week program.

Over the past 10 weeks, I have worked closely with my host, Laura Taylor, and a talented group of students on projects that spanned a wide range of energy topics — from peer-to-peer energy trading and battery storage in wholesale markets to the impacts of energy prices on retail spending, EV charging infrastructure, electricity outages and crime, and the potential of small modular reactors. My own research during this period focused on two key areas: analyzing the impact of data center expansion on wholesale electricity prices and evaluating how utility-scale solar projects influence property and farmland values across the Southeast. 

The biggest takeaway from this experience has been the power of interdisciplinary collaboration, combining economics, policy, and engineering perspectives with students and faculty. It sparked richer questions and solutions than what I would have developed on my own. 

To my peers back home: Embrace cross-disciplinary hubs like SEI to elevate your research and connections.

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Fellow: Judy Jenkins, Professor of Chemistry, Eastern Kentucky University
Host: Erin Ratcliff, Professor, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Tech

Judy Jenkins, 2025 SEI Energy Faculty Fellow presents her research work from the 10-week program.

I started the fellowship with two goals — to collaborate with Erin Ratcliff and her group while at Georgia Tech, and to build the foundation for continued collaboration after I return to Eastern Kentucky University. These goals have been realized, and so much more. The Ratcliff group and the whole SEI team welcomed me into the Georgia Tech energy community and supported this partnership every step of the way. 

I particularly enjoyed getting to work alongside graduate students and postdocs in the Ratcliff group. While they were much more familiar with the chemical system of interest, I had more experience in some of the techniques. Together we made a great team! Getting to spend 10 weeks with them helped me move from general ideas for collaboration to a much more specific and nuanced understanding of the ways we can work together going forward. 

Outside of the lab, I appreciated the way the SEI team introduced us to their initiatives more broadly. I have a much better understanding of the scope of the Institute and the ways different people are working together.

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Fellow: Cody Gonzalez, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Texas at San Antonio
Hosts: Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb, Harris Saunders Jr. Chair and Professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering; and Hailong Chen, Associate Professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Tech
Undergraduate Student: Rebecca Lima, University of Texas at San Antonio

Cody Gonzalez, 2025 SEI Energy Faculty Fellow presents his research work from the 10-week program.

During my fellowship, I collaborated with Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb and Hailong Chen on two research fronts: lead zirconate antiferroelectrics and stress-potential coupling in solid-state batteries. 

Rebecca Lima, an undergraduate student from my university, was able to join the research through the SURE program and was able to achieve highly oriented lead zirconate films with promising applications in energy storage and actuation, with help from Nazanin’s Ph.D. student, Milan Haddad. 

In Chen’s lab, alongside postdoctoral researcher Zhantao Liu, we advanced solid-state cell characterization for improved capacity and self-sensing. Lima also led a battery coating workshop as a knowledge exchange between Georgia Tech and UTSA.

During the 10 weeks, I also began discussions with Tequila Harris on studying how manufacturing methods affect battery anode coatings, with plans to use her pilot-scale, roll-to-roll facility for future testing and collaboration.

Working in the Advanced Research Institute (ARI) in The Kendeda Building with Shannon Yee provided critical support and equipment for electrochemical cell characterization. Through networking within Kendeda, I also got an opportunity to participate in weekly brainstorming sessions on topics like clean water and robotics.

Looking ahead, I plan to integrate Bassiri-Gharb’s expertise in antiferroelectric synthesis and piezo force microscopy with my background in electrochemical cell fabrication to pursue electrochemical strain microscopy. This will enable direct strain measurement from ionic currents, advancing high-capacity batteries and ultra-dense electrochemical actuators for precision applications like telescope mirror alignment.

I'm grateful to my colleagues at UTSA for encouraging me to apply and sharing their positive experiences at Georgia Tech. My time here has been incredibly rewarding — working alongside outstanding collaborators has strengthened my research and expanded both my network and ideas. The Energy Faculty Fellows program has already led to new proposals and co-authored papers, and I’ve encouraged others to apply. Collaborating across disciplines — from materials science and electrochemistry to advanced manufacturing — has opened up exciting opportunities to tackle real-world challenges in energy and beyond.

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Fellow: Hossein Taheri, Associate Professor of Manufacturing Engineering, Georgia Southern University.
Host: Jin-Yeon Kim, Senior Research Scientist, Georgia Tech Research Institute

Hossein Taheri, 2025 SEI Energy Faculty Fellow presents his research work from the 10-week program.

Over the past 10 weeks, I collaborated with my Georgia Tech host Jin Yeon Kim on two key research projects. The first evaluated advanced nondestructive testing (NDT) methods — like PAUT and MCT — for assessing quality in metal additive manufacturing. The second explored acoustic-based NDT techniques to assess the operational health of lithium-ion batteries, particularly in electric vehicle applications. As demand for battery-powered technologies grows, ensuring safe and reliable operation through in-situ monitoring is critical. These efforts have laid a strong foundation for future proposals and joint publications.

The biggest takeaway has been the value of cross-institutional collaboration in advancing interdisciplinary research. Working with researchers at Georgia Tech deepened my technical expertise and showed how partnerships can accelerate innovation. 

To my peers at Georgia Southern: Seek out collaborations beyond your institution. They can lead to new ideas, stronger research impact, and more opportunities for funding, publication, and student development. Collaboration is not only beneficial but is essential for addressing today’s engineering challenges.

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Two Georgia Tech researchers in the College of Engineering have been named finalists for the 2025 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists. Their discoveries, which could create cleaner industrial processes and safer, more reliable batteries, have important potential impacts for daily life. 

The Blavatnik Awards are presented by the Blavatnik Family Foundation and are administered by the New York Academy of Sciences. They honor the most promising early-career researchers in the U.S., across life sciences, chemistry, and physical sciences, and engineering. The awards are among the most prestigious and competitive in science.  

This dual recognition underscores Georgia Tech’s growing national leadership in high-impact, interdisciplinary research. 

Ryan Lively, Thomas C. DeLoach Jr. Endowed Professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, is recognized in the Chemical Sciences category for pioneering scalable technologies that will reduce industrial carbon emissions and energy use. He develops new materials that can capture carbon and separate chemicals, using much less energy than conventional methods. His innovations could make industry cleaner and play a key role in addressing climate change. 

Matthew McDowell, Carter N. Paden Jr. Distinguished Chair in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering holds a joint appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. Recognized in the Physical Sciences and Engineering category for groundbreaking battery research, he and his team develop new materials to make batteries last longer and store more energy. He has discovered ways to visualize how battery materials change during use — insights that help improve the performance and safety of future energy technologies. 
 
This year’s 18 finalists were selected from 310 nominees. On Oct. 7, 2025, three laureates will be announced at a gala at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. Each laureate will receive $250,000, the largest unrestricted scientific prize for early-career researchers in the U.S.  

 

 

 

Electric vehicles. Rooftop solar. Cycling to work. Knowing where to start when reducing your personal carbon footprint can be daunting. But a new tool from Georgia Tech makes it easier for anyone to figure out how they can help address climate change.

The Drawdown Georgia Solutions Tracker is a digital dashboard that enables everyday Georgians to see how effective various technologies could be for each county. The tracker analyzes public data for 16 solutions — from planting trees to public transit — that can lower greenhouse gas emissions. The tracker is equally essential for policymakers and business leaders, enabling them to identify opportunities to propose legislation or adjust operations to reduce carbon emissions.

To use the tracker, viewers click on a solution to see its impact. Then, they specify a particular county, and the data is tailored to the most relevant metric. For example, if someone picks “plant-based diet” as a solution, they can see how many vegan restaurants are already in their county. The tracker also contrasts the climate solution with a relevant area that might benefit if the solution is implemented. For the plant-based example, the tracker compares it to urban density. 

This tracker is one of the many initiatives of Drawdown Georgia, one of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation’s key funding initiatives based on research conducted by Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, the University of Georgia, and Emory University. Drawdown Georgia's goal is to reduce Georgia’s carbon impact by 57% by 2030 and to accelerate Georgia’s progress toward net-zero greenhouse emissions. 

Drawdown Georgia also developed a carbon emissions tracker that shows carbon emission levels by county. The dashboard was a success, but the Drawdown Georgia team wanted to create a more proactive tool. The Solutions Tracker was designed so that anyone could make smalldaily changes to improve the climate — not just track it.

“We began the Drawdown Georgia project with the goal of cutting state pollution significantly,” said Marilyn Brown, Regents' Professor and the Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy. "To get Georgians involved, we decided to focus on local and regional opportunities to reduce emissions.”

Drawdown Data

The data combines federal and state sources from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the Department of Agriculture. Some solutions may seem obvious, like planting trees, but others are more niche. For example, decomposing trash often produces methane gas, which means that landfills contribute to greenhouse gas emissions — important information for policymakers to consider when developing carbon reduction strategies. 

The researchers hope everyone will use the tracker. Politicians and policymakers can find new ideas for legislation or the adoption of these solutions. Business leaders can find opportunities to hit their decarbonization goals. Georgians can use the tracker to figure out which solutions are most sustainable for their lives. Even scientists can learn which methods to home in on for their research. Since the tracker is available via Creative Commons, anyone can use the data to build their own tools or models. 

The tracker is already having a real-world impact. Brown and the Drawdown Georgia team have collaborated with the state of Georgia and the 29-county metro Atlanta area on their carbon action plans. They’ve also partnered with 75 businesses on carbon action plans and other solutions through the Drawdown Georgia Business Compact, managed by the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business in the Scheller College of Business. As these stakeholders ask questions about different climate solution impacts, the team has expanded the tracker accordingly. They’ve also recently redesigned the user interface to make it even more accessible for everyday users.

From improved public health to business opportunities, the state requires reduced greenhouse gases, and Georgia Tech is not only tracking emissions but helping to fix the problem, too.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded School of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Professor & Regents’ Entrepreneur Rampi Ramprasad a $2 million grant to advance research at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and polymer science. He and a multidisciplinary team of Georgia Tech researchers will design next-generation polymer-based packaging materials that can easily be recycled or biodegraded at the end of their use. The project addresses one of the most pressing challenges in global sustainability: plastic waste.

Read more on the Georgia Tech Materials Science and Engineering Newspage

This study examines how short-term variability in wind power—known as wind intermittency—affects real-time electricity system imbalances in U.S. regional power markets. The authors, Victoria Godwin and Matthew E. Oliver of the Georgia Institute of Technology and EPIcenter affiliates, analyze data from four major system operators: Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), New York ISO (NYISO), Southwest Power Pool (SPP), and PJM Interconnection. They focus on Area Control Error (ACE), a real-time metric used by grid operators to measure the mismatch between electricity supply and demand, adjusted for frequency deviations. Maintaining ACE near zero is essential for grid stability.

The authors find that a doubling of hourly wind generation variance increases average hourly ACE by 2% in BPA, 3.7% in NYISO, and 11.4% in SPP—equivalent to 1.2 MW, 1.8 MW, and 9.35 MW increases in system imbalance, respectively. PJM shows no significant effect, likely due to less granular data. They also show that sudden increases in wind generation are more likely to cause oversupply (positive ACE), while sudden drops lead to undersupply (negative ACE), confirming asymmetric operational impacts.

Read Full Story on the EPIcenter Website

Overly acidic soils can mean the difference between feeding a region and famine. Each crop needs the right soil pH to thrive, and acidic conditions, produced primarily by industrial emissions and application of fertilizers, can harm growing conditions. It has recently been estimated that sub-Saharan Africa, for example, loses billions of dollars annually in crop yield because of poor agricultural conditions. But there is a possible solution — and it could even help the Earth’s climate. 

For centuries, farmers have neutralized soil acidity with a practice called liming. It involves mixing crushed calcium- or magnesium-rich rocks, known as limestone, into the soil to balance pH. But liming has long been an assumed tradeoff in which removing acid also meant increasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

New research from Georgia Tech shows that the opposite may be true. Agricultural liming can actually reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide and improve crop yield. 

“The current thinking about liming is that farmers must choose between doing something that could benefit them economically or reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” said Chris Reinhard, an associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “But this is often a false choice. They can do both.”

The researchers published a new framework for the potential role of liming in food security and greenhouse gas mitigation in August in the paper, “Using Carbonates for Carbon Removal,” in Nature Water. 

Collecting Carbon Data

The framework is based in part on ongoing work Reinhard and his collaborators are pursuing on the impacts of agricultural liming in the Upper Midwest’s Corn Belt for a Department of Energy study. With funding from the Grantham Foundation, they’re now turning their attention to local farms in southern Georgia and North Carolina. 

For each farm, the researchers measure data that most farmers would collect already, like soil pH and nutrients. But the team also tracks more specialized measurements, including trace elements and greenhouse gas fluxes in the soil. All this data is matched to a high-resolution, machine learning grid of the farm’s geography to determine exactly which crops might benefit. 

The researchers are using the data to build a computer model that predicts how carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will move through any particular soil system. Liming won’t universally absorb carbon dioxide — or if it does, there may be an occasional time delay between carbon emissions and absorption — which is why the researchers factor soil, crop rotation, climate, and other management practices into their calculations.

“Our goal is to develop a way that farmers can monitor and plan cheaply, and largely through techniques they are already using, so we don't have to send out a whole team to gather data,” Reinhard said. “We are trying to develop a predictive model architecture for planning agricultural practice across scales, but it’s important that the techniques required on the field are actually feasible for farmers.”

This data could be pivotal for farmers, and it could also help policymakers as they address farming subsidies and foreign aid funding. Globally, food-insecure regions like sub-Saharan Africa could become more self-sufficient with more liming. Farmers in parts of the U.S. could also improve their yields and, in effect, their profits, if they limed more fields. 

The added benefit of lowering carbon could get even more farmers on board, and there is extensive exploration and implementation of agricultural practices already on voluntary and governmental carbon markets. Carbon dioxide is only one greenhouse gas that liming can lower; researchers are also exploring how liming can reduce methane and nitrous oxide — the latter of which is a key climate impact of human agriculture and is often considered a “hard-to-abate” emission. 

Liming may be a centuries-old practice, but its applications are potentially much wider than initially believed. In the future, farming may be part of the answer to reducing carbon emissions, instead of part of the problem.