A $1 million award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will help researchers in Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering develop tactics to protect children from harmful emissions from controlled wildland burns. The initiative will provide equipment and new communications approaches in middle and high schools in Albany and Columbus, Ga., and Phenix City, Ala. Georgia Tech is focusing on the three cities because of their proximity to regular controlled burns, in addition to the communities’ lower socioeconomic statuses.

For the next year, the researchers will deliver daily fire impact forecasts to each school, while also installing air purifiers and low-cost air quality monitors. Data from those monitors will be broadcast in real-time inside and outside classrooms. The Georgia Tech team will also create new curricula for teachers and students that increase understanding of air pollutants, their sources, and mitigation measures. 

The Georgia Tech team consists of members in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE), School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS), and the Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain.

“Air pollution leads to more premature deaths than virtually all other environmental exposures. In the Southeast, prescribed burning is a major source of air pollution: it releases more particulate matter into the air than cars, trucks, factories, and power plants,” said Armistead (Ted) Russell, the Howard T. Tellepsen Chair and Regents’ Professor in CEE. “Children in areas that experience prescribed burning smoke are uniquely vulnerable. We are excited to work with schools to identify effective measures that can be used to help protect schoolchildren.”

Russell and his colleagues have decades of experience studying emissions. His previous studies found that prescribed burns led to highly elevated emissions in southern Georgia, especially during the peak burn period from January to April. The research showed that the highest levels of unhealthy emissions — primary and secondary particulate matter — occur during school hours when burns are most active. However, Russell also found that elevated levels linger into the evening, long after the fires are extinguished.

Russell also found a communications gap that helped him create the new initiative.

“Schools are very good at providing information to parents about health-related interventions. Families serve as important communication channels,” Russell said. “However, schools are infrequently used to disseminate information about fire emissions. Incorporating teachers and students into a communications strategy has the potential to reduce exposure to children and the school’s broader community.”

The award will allow Russell and CEE Principal Research Engineer Talat Odman to expand Georgia Tech’s Southern Integrated Prescribed Fire Information System (SIPFIS), which they helped create in 2015. The tool merges prescribed fire and air quality data into a common analysis framework, providing a unified prescribed fire database for the southern U.S. That data is primarily used by forest and air quality managers. SIPFIS will now be tweaked to also provide daily forecasts to the schools.

Forecast and information products and lessons learned from the one-year project will be shared with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its health partners.

The initiative will be coupled with outcomes from a $2.3 million Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program project that is currently being led by Odman. His team is measuring and modeling air quality impacts from prescribed burning at Fort Benning, which is adjacent to Columbus and across the border from Phenix City.

“By focusing on both the source of smoke, such as burns at Ft. Benning, and the effects on nearby schools, we can have a more complete understanding of the air quality impacts of prescribed fires,” said Odman. “This will allow us to develop strategies to minimize exposure to smoke, while also helping to protect the health of people and forests.”

The EPA and DoD projects will further a third project: Russell’s NASA-funded work that is utilizing satellite products in SIPFIS for predicting smoke impacts on air quality and health. 

ChBE and EAS Associate Professor Sally Ng, who researches airborne particles, is also on the Georgia Tech team and will lead the deployment of the low-cost sensors at the schools. Rebecca Watts Hull, a community engagement specialist with the Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain, is the fourth member of the team.   

“As wildfires become more frequent and severe, we are working to effectively communicate the risks of smoke exposure to impacted communities,” said Wayne Cascio, acting principal deputy assistant administrator for science in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. “We are seeing an increase in prescribed fires to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires; however, these are also a source of smoke exposure. The research we are funding will help develop strategies to prevent and reduce the health impacts of smoke from wildfires and prescribed fires.”

The project will begin in October.

The Goldia Mae Burchfield Memorial Scholarship is open for contributions again this year. It was established last year to support students in pursuit of their undergraduate degree. Ms. Burchfield, mother to Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems Financial Manager, Gay Burchfield, died of COVID-19 on June 8th, 2020, at the age of 80, in Starkville, Mississippi. She lived a life of service to those in her community, with a particular emphasis on education. 

The Burchfield family selected sophomore Catherine Shamanski in the College of Psychology to receive a $200 scholarship. Shamanski will serve as a Team Leader in a section of the GT-1000 class, helping incoming first year students to find their footing on campus.

Ms. Goldia was years ahead of her time. During the segregation era, her family moved from rural Mississippi to a larger town where she could pursue her high school education, which she completed in 1958. She wanted to join the military only to discover that women of color were not eligible to serve. She worked as a part-time custodian in a local bank for 35 years, as well as numerous odd jobs to care for her family and her community. She and her husband had several small businesses in their hometown, one of which was “Burchfield Recreation,” aka “The Pool Hall.” The pool hall also served as an ad-hoc after-school care for many families with working parents. Ms. Goldia provided meals, advice, and discipline, sometimes working extra odd jobs to finance those additional expenses. She would also put together care packages with stipends for the young people of her community who were college bound.  If asked what her greatest achievements were, she would say that she was a great mom, provided free meals to many, greeted everyone with a heartfelt smile, and genuinely cared for everyone she encountered.

Donations by check should be made payable to the Georgia Tech Foundation, Inc., with "Goldia Mae Burchfield Memorial Scholarship" noted on the check or in a separate note, and should be mailed to: Georgia Tech Foundation, Inc., 760 Spring Street, NW, Suite 400, Atlanta, GA 30308. 

On-line gifts can be made at https://development.gatech.edu, using the ‘GIVE NOW’ button and following directions provided. In the ‘Other Designation’ box, enter “Goldia Mae Burchfield Memorial Scholarship.” Each donor will be acknowledged by the Georgia Tech Foundation, and a list of all donors will be shared with the Burchfield family.

The Kendeda Building Advisory Board has awarded five micro research grants ($50 to $500) for sustainability related, small-scale, short term studies to be conducted by members of the Georgia Tech community. The request for proposals encouraged researchers to explore ways in which the Georgia Tech campus can continue to innovate, demonstrate, prove, and promote the adoption of best and next practices in regenerative design and operations. Researchers were also encouraged to use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for research design. All members of the Georgia Tech community were encouraged to apply. The program especially sought proposals from students and staff that had little or no prior research experience. The program has four objectives:

1. to expand scientific thinking and the understanding of the research process amongst those not (yet) directly involved in scientific research;
2. to bolster the use of the campus as a living laboratory;
3. to give voice to people and communities outside of research that have culturally novel perspectives on problems and their possible solutions, and to create new pathways for partnering with them; and
4. to seed novel ideas and nurture nascent investigators.

 The awardees are:

• Athena Verghis and Rishi Pathak – CEE Undergrads
  "Recognizing and Removing Invasive Plant Species Through Computer Vision and Deep Learning"
• Purna Pratiti Saha - ISyE Undergrad
  "Quantifying the Per-capita Single-use Waste Impact from Food and Beverage in GT Campus"
• Akhil Chavan and Lalith Polepeddi - Research Scientists, Global Change Program
  "Monitoring Biodiversity in the EcoCommons"
• Elliot Hodge - CHEM Undergrad
  "Edible Campus: A Model for Georgia Tech"
• Brooke Rothschild-Mancinelli, Rebecca Guth-Metzler, Katherine Nguyen, Aaron Silva Trenkle, and Michelle Wong – IBB Graduate Students
  "BBUGS Pollinator Garden"

All awardees will present their findings at the first micro-grants research conferenceto be held in the Fall 2021 semester.

For decades, the Georgia Institute of Technology has focused on advancing artificial intelligence through interdisciplinary research and education designed to produce leading-edge technologies. Over the next five years, Georgia Tech will make a substantial investment in AI that includes hiring an additional 100 researchers in the field, further solidifying its standing as a leader in the teaching and discovery of machine learning.

Today, Georgia Tech received two National Science Foundation (NSF) Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes awards, totaling $40 million. A third award for $20 million was granted to the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA), with Georgia Tech serving as one of the leading academic institutions.

“It is essential that we bring together our best minds to ensure that AI delivers on its promise to create a more prosperous, sustainable, safe, and fair future for everyone,” said Ángel Cabrera, president of Georgia Tech. “These NSF awards recognize Georgia Tech’s vast expertise in machine learning and AI and will help us further develop our resources and amplify our impact in these crucial fields.”

Chaouki T. Abdallah, executive vice president for Research at Georgia Tech, concurred, citing major efforts under development to help create a more robust and inclusive future of AI, both on campus and beyond.

“We are incredibly grateful to the NSF for their investment and excited for the opportunities made possible because of this research,” he said. “At Tech, our mission is to advance technology and improve the human condition, catalyzing research that matters. We invested in a unified approach to interdisciplinary research aligned with industry relevance and societal impact, and these awards demonstrate a clear return on that strategy.”

Collectively, NSF made a $220 million investment in 11 new NSF-led Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes.

“I am delighted to announce the establishment of new NSF National AI Research Institutes as we look to expand into all 50 states,” said National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “These Institutes are hubs for academia, industry, and government to accelerate discovery and innovation in AI. Inspiring talent and ideas everywhere in this important area will lead to new capabilities that improve our lives, from medicine to entertainment to transportation and cybersecurity, and position us in the vanguard of competitiveness and prosperity.”

Led by NSF, and in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Google, Amazon, Intel, and Accenture, the National AI Research Institutes will act as connections in a broader nationwide network to pursue transformational advances in a range of economic sectors, and science and engineering fields — from food system security to next-generation edge networks. In addition to Georgia Tech and GRA, the University of California San Diego, Duke University, Iowa State University, North Carolina State University, The Ohio State University, and University of Washington are the lead universities included in the 11 AI Institutes.

The AI Institutes at Georgia Tech

The three newly established Institutes will address societal challenges, including home care for aging adults; energy, logistics, and supply chains; sustainability; the widening gap in job opportunities; and changing needs in workforce development.

NSF AI Institute for Collaborative Assistance and Responsive Interaction for Networked Groups (AI-CARING) will seek to create a vibrant discipline focused on personalized, collaborative AI systems that will improve quality of care for the aging. The systems will learn individual models of human behavior and how they change over time and use that knowledge to better collaborate and communicate in caregiving environments. Led by Sonia Chernova, associate professor of interactive computing at Georgia Tech, the AI systems will help a growing population of older adults sustain independence, improve quality of life, and increase effectiveness of care coordination across the care network.

“The AI-CARING Institute builds on our existing strengths in AI and in technology for aging. It will create not only novel solutions, but a new generation of researchers focused on the interaction between the two,” said Charles Isbell, dean and John P. Imlay Jr. Chair in the College of Computing. “Our aim is to build cutting-edge technologies that improve the lives of everyone, and I can’t think of a better example than AI-CARING.”

NSF AI Institute for Advances in Optimization (AI4Opt) will revolutionize decision-making on a large scale – fusing AI and mathematical optimization into intelligent systems that will achieve breakthroughs that neither field can achieve independently. Additionally, it will create pathways from high school to undergraduate and graduate education and workforce development training for AI in engineering that will empower a generation of underrepresented students and teachers to join the AI revolution. Led by Pascal Van Hentenryck, A. Russell Chandler III chair and professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, AI4Opt will tackle use cases in energy, resilience and sustainability, supply chains, and circuit design and control.

“AI4Opt, with its focus on AI and optimization, will create new pathways for novel tools that allow better engineering applications to benefit society,” said Raheem Beyah, dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering and Southern Company Chair. “This will allow engineers to build higher quality materials, more efficient renewable resources, new computing systems, and more, while also reinforcing the field as a career path for diverse students. The new institute complements the College’s commitment to the integration of AI in engineering disciplines.”

NSF AI Institute for Adult Learning and Online Education (ALOE) will lead the country and the world in the development of novel AI theories and techniques for enhancing the quality of adult online education, making this mode of learning comparable to that of in-person education in STEM disciplines. Together with partners in the technical college systems and educational technology sector, ALOE will advance online learning using virtual assistants to make education more available, affordable, achievable, and ultimately more equitable. This Institute is led by the GRA, with support from Georgia Tech and the University System of Georgia (USG). Ashok Goel, professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, will serve as executive director.  

“Online education for adults has enormous implications for tomorrow’s workforce,” said Myk Garn, a GRA senior advisor, assistant vice chancellor for New Models of Learning at the USG, and ALOE’s principal investigator. “Yet, serious questions remain about the quality of online learning and how best to teach adults online. Artificial intelligence offers a powerful technology for dramatically improving the quality of online learning and adult education.”

The Future of AI at Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech is poised to strategically reimagine the future of AI. Currently, 66% of Georgia Tech undergraduate computer science students have an academic concentration in Intelligence, focusing on the top-to-bottom computational models of intelligence. The College of Computing’s recently launched Ph.D. program in machine learning pulls from faculty in all six colleges across the Institute, and many new courses are being developed that teach AI as a tool for science and engineering. Georgia Tech is exploring the potential creation of a school or college of AI within the next five years, further building on its expansive AI and machine learning footprint. The NSF AI Institutes awards will enable all AI-related academic programs to scale and further differentiate Georgia Tech as a leader in AI education.   

Additionally, the awards will expand and complement ongoing AI research efforts at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). In the last fiscal year, GTRI received millions of dollars in research awards from the Department of Defense and other sponsors for AI-affiliated research, and currently, many GTRI researchers are focused on AI-affiliated projects.

“As part of Georgia Tech, GTRI will greatly benefit from the advances in AI that will be achieved as a result of these NSF-funded Institutes, helping us further excel in our aim to deliver leading-edge AI research that benefits national security,” said Mark Whorton, GTRI’s chief technology officer. “GTRI is one of the nation’s leading institutes of applied research for national security specifically because of our deep engagement and close affiliation with the academic units of Georgia Tech. AI is a tool we use in conducting larger research objectives, and we believe strongly that these AI Institutes will enable GTRI to put more research into practice.”

“Georgia Tech has for decades now been pursuing new AI technologies, and now leads the way in AI that is responsible to the needs of the humans who use it,” Isbell said. “We have also worked hard to expand access to AI, especially for underrepresented groups. These Institutes will build on that history, expanding both our ability to create new technologies and to train the next generation of innovators. I look forward to watching them grow and develop.”

About the Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a top 10 public research university developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its nearly 40,000 students, representing 50 states and 149 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

About the National Science Foundation

The U.S. National Science Foundation propels the nation forward by advancing fundamental research in all fields of science and engineering. NSF supports research and people by providing facilities, instruments, and funding to support their ingenuity and sustain the U.S. as a global leader in research and innovation. With a fiscal year 2021 budget of $8.5 billion, NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities, and institutions. Each year, NSF receives more than 40,000 competitive proposals and makes about 11,000 new awards. Those awards include support for cooperative research with industry, Arctic and Antarctic research and operations, and U.S. participation in international scientific efforts.

About the Georgia Research Alliance


The Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) helps Georgia’s university scientists do more research and start more companies. By expanding research and entrepreneurship capacity at public and private universities, GRA grows the Georgia economy by driving more investment in the state, developing a high-tech workforce, and strengthening Georgia’s reputation for innovation. For 30 years, GRA has worked in partnership with the University System of Georgia and the Georgia Department of Economic Development to create the companies and jobs of Georgia’s future. Visit GRA.org for more information.

Contact: Georgia Parmelee | georgia.parmelee@gatech.edu | 404.281.7818

Georgia could reduce its carbon footprint by 50% by 2030 through the adoption of 20 high-impact climate solutions identified by the Drawdown Georgia research team, according to a new analysis led by Regents Professor Marilyn Brown of Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy.

The study results were published July 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Researchers at Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, and Emory University conducted the study, which the Ray C. Anderson Foundation funded.

The paper marks the first time the scientific team behind the Drawdown Georgia framework has published a combined analysis of the potential impact of the recommendations. The team’s solutions include proposals to boost solar farms, electric vehicle adoption, retrofitting buildings, implementing nature-based forestry solutions, and reducing food waste.

“This analysis validates the viability of the Drawdown Georgia roadmap and shows how the state, its businesses, and its people can benefit by being trailblazers,” said Brown. “Georgia can show the rest of the country how to scale key regional solutions that reduce carbon footprints in a way that is also friendly to the economy. These solutions also advance the public health, as well as equity in under-resourced communities.”

Synergistic Effects of Climate Change Reduction Efforts

The team’s analysis in PNAS examines the process used to evaluate the 20 solutions adopted by Drawdown Georgia and examines their impact as a synergistic whole, rather than adding up the effects from each solution independently. For instance, using solar power to generate electricity instead of burning coal cuts carbon and also magnifies the carbon-reduction impact of electric vehicles.

According to the analysis, were the 20 solutions implemented at an achievable pace, Georgia’s net greenhouse gas emissions would fall to 79 megatons in 2030 from the estimated 122 megatons emitted in 2020 and the estimated 156.5 megatons emitted in 2005. That is a 50% reduction from the benchmark year chosen by the United States under the Paris Agreement. A megaton is one million metric tons.

“Sustainable food, agriculture, and forestry systems are the backbone of Georgia’s rural economy and can offer a plethora of climate solutions to meet Georgia’s carbon reduction goals,” said Sudhagar Mani, a professor in the School of Chemical, Materials, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Georgia and a co-author of the study. “The Drawdown Georgia team worked collaboratively with stakeholders to identify solutions, such as composting and conservation agriculture that can rejuvenate Georgia’s soil as carbon sinks.”

The Potential Financial Benefits of a Green Economy

The research team concluded that the financial impact of reducing emissions to 79 megatons could range from possible costs of $148 million to potential savings of $1.3 billion. These estimates do not account for public health benefits, coastal land protection, or equity impacts such as solving food insecurity and energy poverty. They also may not capture all costs, such as “institutional or information barriers that would require significant costs to overcome” in some sectors, such as food waste and recycling, the authors warn.

However, strong financial incentives accompany the climate solutions, according to the paper. Georgia is already beginning to see the economic benefits of the transition to a green economy with the construction of new solar and battery manufacturing plants in the state. Effective policy, finance, and philanthropy will be cornerstones of success moving forward, Brown said.

Scaling all 20 proposed solutions is a big undertaking, but it would provide dramatic results, Brown said.

“If Georgia were to pursue the full technical potential for all 20 solutions, the state could achieve a net-zero carbon footprint in 2030, indeed possibly overshooting carbon neutrality by 11%,” the authors wrote in the paper. “Georgia stakeholders could then hypothetically sell carbon credits into carbon offset markets, helping other states meet their goals and collecting revenues to cover the cost of their drawdown investments.”

Drawdown Georgia: A Model for Other States

The paper also discusses how Drawdown Georgia serves as a framework for other states to create their own carbon footprint reduction plans, reflecting their unique resources, geography, weather, and culture.

“In doing so, we provide a replicable model that documents how subnational actors can evaluate high-potential emission reduction and carbon removal solutions while considering systems of solutions and taking into account social, ecological, and technical issues and priorities,” the authors wrote.

The Drawdown Georgia climate research team has been awarded a second grant focused on three interrelated activities. Co-principal investigator Beril Toktay, Brady Family Chair and faculty director of the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business in the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business, is leading the development of a Business Compact focused on leveraging the collective impact of the Georgia business community for a just, competitive, and sustainable decarbonization transition. Bill Drummond, associate professor in Georgia Tech’s School of City and Regional Planning, is developing software to estimate monthly county-level carbon emissions that will then be packaged in a publicly available, interactive dashboard. Brown is leading an effort to identify effective and equitable policies and financing to foster solution adoption.

In addition to Brown, Georgia Tech co-authors on the paper include Daniel Matisoff, associate professor in the School of Public Policy; Michael Oxman, managing director and professor of the practice in the Center for Sustainable Business; Regents Researcher Michael Rodgers, of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the School of Public Policy; Richard Simmons, director of the Energy Policy and Innovation Center and fellow in the Strategic Energy Institute; and Research Scientist Lalith Polepeddi of the Global Change Program.

In addition to Mani, Puneet Dwivedi, Jacqueline E. Mohan, and Jeffery D. Mullen of the University of Georgia, and Blair Beasley of Emory University co-authored the paper.

The paper, “A Framework for Localizing Global Climate Solutions and their Carbon Reduction Potential,” was published July 26. It is available at https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2100008118.

About the Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is a top 10 public research university developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition.

The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its nearly 40,000 students representing 50 states and 149 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. 

As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

The Ray C. Anderson Foundation has awarded a $300,000 grant to Emory University and its partners for the next phase of the Georgia Climate Project, a state-wide consortium of nine colleges and universities working to strengthen Georgia’s ability to prepare for and respond to a changing climate.

The Georgia Climate Project was founded in 2018 as a collaborative effort between Emory University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the University of Georgia. Its scope has since expanded to include Agnes Scott College, Columbus State University, Georgia Southern University, Georgia State University, Spelman College, and the University of North Georgia.

“This partnership is a great example of what can be accomplished when the colleges and universities of our great state work together toward a common goal,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “UGA is proud to be a part of this important effort to promote the wellbeing of our climate as well as the health, environment and economic vitality of Georgia’s communities.”

With this new grant, the project will engage a diverse network of experts to develop and disseminate knowledge on climate impacts and solutions through webinars, workshops, and an online Georgia climate information portal. Priority topic areas include advancing climate justice and racial equity, identifying opportunities for Georgia to build resilience to climate impacts, and supporting the work of Drawdown Georgia, a statewide carbon reduction roadmap. The project will also expand opportunities for student engagement on climate change through internships, coursework, and projects.

“As institutions of higher education, we’re always thinking about our students. How can they put their talents and their passions towards solutions to our biggest challenges, including climate change, while building valuable networks and skills that will serve them beyond their time at Georgia Tech,” said President Ángel Cabrera of Georgia Tech.

“The science is clear that climate change is affecting people in regions across the world, and that includes cities, towns, and rural areas throughout Georgia,” said Emory University President Gregory L. Fenves. “By continuing to partner with universities in the Georgia Climate Project, we can harness the expertise of our faculty and students so that our state can take on one of the defining challenges of our time.”

"As the Georgia Climate Project has already shown, there is so much value that comes from our higher education institutions collaborating on climate - value for students, faculty, businesses, policymakers, and all Georgians,” said John Lanier, Executive Director of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. “We hope this grant accelerates their work. Georgia is ready to lead on climate, and our colleges and universities have an opportunity to be at the forefront of that leadership."

More information about the Georgia Climate Project is available at GeorgiaClimateProject.org.

The inaugural class of seven Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Graduate Fellows was selected for a 2-year program of working, studying, and training as an interdisciplinary sustainability research team. Launching in the Fall of 2021 with funding provided by a generous gift from Brook and Shawn Byers and guidance from a Faculty Advisory Board, the BBISS Graduate Fellows will receive supplemental training in sustainability, team science, and leadership. They will apply their skills and talents, working directly with their peers, faculty, and external partners on a long-term, large team, sustainability relevant Vertically Integrated Project. They will participate in the organization and hosting of a seminar series in which they will invite and meet global leaders in sustainability, and they will have additional opportunities to develop professional networks, to publish, to draft proposals, to acquire knowledge, and to develop other skills critical to their professional success and relevant to their intellectual interests.

The first class of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems Graduate Fellows are:

• Bettina Arkhurst - Ph.D. student, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
• Katherine Duchesneau - Ph.D. student, School of Biological Sciences
• Marjorie Hall - Ph.D. student in History of Technology, School of History and Sociology, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
• Meaghan McSorley - Ph.D. student, School of City and Regional Planning, College of Design
• Udita Ringania - Ph.D. student, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
• Ioanna Maria Spyrou - Ph.D. student, School of Economics, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
• Yilun 'Elon' Zha - Ph.D. student, School of Architecture, College of Design, and Master of Science candidate in statistics, Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering

The Faculty Advisory Board for the BBISS Graduate Fellows is composed of the faculty who submitted the students' nominations. Nominations for Classes II and III of the BBISS Graduate Fellows program will open in Spring 2022 and Spring 2023. It is expected that 6 to 8 scholars will be selected for each year’s group.

The Faculty Advisory Board for the inaugural class are:

• Saad Bhamla
• Nisha Botchwey
• Shatakshee Dhongde
• Ellen Dunham-Jones
• Katherine Fu
• Joel Kostka
• Steve Usselman

Updates and outcomes will be posted to the BBISS website as the project progresses. Additional information is available at https://research.gatech.edu/sustainability/grad-fellows-program.

The Kendeda Building Advisory Board conceived of this pilot program in 2021. It will provide micro research grants ($50 to $500) to eligible participants to conduct limited, but novel, research experiments, design exercises, crafting of models or prototypes, or development and analysis of datasets. Research relevant to the topic of regenerative built environments is required. If you are thinking, “what is a regenerative built environment?”, then we recommend a review of www.livingbuilding.gatech.edu. The research must incorporate the campus itself or its operations. We encourage submittals that explore ways in which our campus can continue to innovate, demonstrate, prove, and promote the adoption of best and next practices in regenerative design and operations. In your proposal, define “regenerative” design and/or operations as it pertains to your proposed project. We encourage you to relate the project to one or more of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, https://sdgs.un.org/goals). Proposals are especially sought from staff and students at Georgia Tech that have not traditionally been directly involved in research, though proposals from all members of the Georgia Tech community are welcome.

Grant Size: Requests for funding are expected to range between $50 and $500

Proposal Due Date: Email a 2-page proposal by May 31, 2021 to Kamilah Roberts at kamilah.roberts@sustain.gatech.edu; subject line of the email should read "[Your name] - Proposal for Micro Research Grant."

Project Start Date: June 15, 2021

Eligibility: Georgia Tech enrolled students and current faculty and staff. Note: you do not need to be a professional researcher! You do need an interesting question and a plan to figure out how to answer it.

Program Contacts: Shan Arora (Kendeda Building, shan.arora@gatech.edu), Michael Chang (BBISS, chang@gatech.edu), Kim Cobb (EAS, kcobb@gatech.edu), Michael Gamble (ARCH, michael.gamble@design.gatech.edu), and Danny Johnson (Atlanta Regional Commission)

Inspiration: Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus and the Grameen Bank, who transformed communities and lives through microcredit - small loans that do not require collateral.

At the corner of Hemphill Avenue and Ferst Drive sits a lush, green, 8-acre treasure — a study in ecological sustainability, innovative pedagogy, and individual contemplation.

Known as the EcoCommons, the space is a far cry from the dated Beringause Building and surface parking lots that once occupied the area. It is an extension of 80 acres of greenspace throughout Georgia Tech’s campus that follow the original naturally occurring stream paths of this region before urbanization. These revitalized greenspaces are designed and engineered to reduce stormwater runoff while also supporting increased biodiversity and living-learning laboratories on campus. Within the most recently completed 8 acres of the EcoCommons are three distinct programmed areas — an area to engage, an area to learn, and an area to reflect.

Georgia Tech President Ángel Cabrera is already a frequent visitor. “In the Institute’s new strategic plan, we pledge to lead and inspire by example — to become a model of efficiency, sustainability, ethics, equity, and inclusion through deliberate innovation in all our practices,” he said. “The EcoCommons beautifully showcases each of these values.”

Read the full story and explore the EcoCommons.