Dr. Omar I. Asensio is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the intersection of big data and public policy, with applications to energy systems and consumer behavior, smart cities, and machine learning in transportation and electric mobility. He directs the Data Science and Policy Lab at Georgia Tech, where he collaborates with the private sector and city governments on data innovations in policy analysis and research evaluation. He is a faculty affiliate at the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS), the Machine Learning Center, and the Strategic Energy Institute. Dr. Asensio’s research has been published in leading journals such as Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability, and PNAS. His work uses statistical and computational tools to advance our understanding of how large-scale civic data and experiments can be used to increase participation in civic processes, while addressing resource conservation and environmental sustainability. Dr. Asensio’s research also has been featured in policy advisory communications by the European Commission, NSF Public Affairs, the World Bank, and national governments — including the U.K., and the IndiaAI initiative.

Dr. Asensio is a member of the New Voices 2021-2023 cohort of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) 40-for-40 fellowship, and the ONE-NBS Research Impact on Practice award by the Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE) Division of the Academy of Management. Dr. Asensio serves as Associate Editor of Data and Policy journal published by Cambridge University Press. He holds a doctorate in environmental science and engineering from UCLA with field specialties in economics. He is a faculty participant in the Research University Alliance (RUA) Research Exchange and is engaged in multiple activities to increase the representation of women and under-represented students and professionals in STEM fields. 

Anjali Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and Director of the Nunn School Program in Global Development. Her research focuses on the political economy of development, and employs quantitative analyses of data derived from India and other developing country contexts. Her specific substantive interests include the politics of service provision, democratic institutions and the link between climate change and local level politics. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, Anjali was a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She obtained her Ph.D. from New York University in 2010.

I am an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech ISyE. My research concerns the control and operation of decarbonized power systems, particularly with the integration of flexible loads such as electric vehicles. I got my Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in the Energy and Power Group, and completed my postdoc in the GRIFFIN Lab at CU Boulder.

The Tong Lab tackles challenges in the interdisciplinary areas of bioresource engineering and sustainable chemistry. We develop innovative technologies for producing chemicals, materials, energy, and fuels from renewable resources.

Current research interests include:

• Functional biomaterials for high-efficiency circular economy
• Platform chemicals and hydrocarbon fuels from renewable resources
• Sustainable process control and modeling
• Nano-biomaterial synthesis and self-assembling
• Polymer degradation and recycling

Disciplines:

• Materials and Nanotechnology

• Energy and Sustainability

Baabak Ashuri is Professor in Schools of Building Construction, and Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Fellow of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems at Georgia Tech. His research/teaching occupy a distinctive position, bridging the fields of building construction, civil and environmental engineering, economics, and operations research. His work has focused on Quantitative Methods for Construction Engineering and Management with important contributions in the areas of construction analytics, innovative project delivery, and valuation of green-energy investments. He has 159 publications, including 44 refereed-journal papers, and secured $6.77M funding from NSF, FHWA, DOE, CII, GDOT, and Perkins+Will, to name a few. The impact of Dr. Ashuri’s research was recognized by several awards (CII/FIATECH Outstanding Early Career Researcher, ASCE Thomas Fitch Rowland, ASC National Research Faculty, DBIA Distinguished Leadership, and AASHTO High-Value Research “Sweet Sixteen”). Dr. Ashuri has chaired the ASCE Construction Research Council (CRC) and currently serves on the ASCE Construction Institute (CI) Board of Governors.

Dr. Haesun Park is a Regents' Professor and Chair in the School of Computational Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. She was elected as a SIAM Fellow in 2013 and IEEE Fellow in 2016 for her outstanding contributions in numerical computing, data analysis, and visual analytics. She was the Executive Director of Center for Data Analytics 2013-2015 and was the director of the NSF/DHS FODAVA-Lead (Foundations of Data and Visual Analytics) Center 2008-2014. She has published extensively in the areas of numerical computing, large-scale data analysis, visual analytics, text mining, and parallel computing. She was the conference co-chair for SIAM International Conference on Data Mining in 2008 and 2009 and an editorial board member of the leading journals in computational science and engineering such as IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis and Applications, and SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing. She was the plenary keynote speaker at major international conferences including SIAM Conference on Applied Linear Algebra in 1997 and 2015, and SIAM International Conference on Data Mining in 2011. Before joining Georgia Tech, she was a professor in Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities 1987- 2005 and a program director in the Computing and Communication Foundations Division at the National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA, U.S.A., 2003 - 2005. She received a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Computer Science from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY in 1987 and 1985, respectively, and a B.S. in Mathematics from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea in 1981 with the Presidential Medal for the top graduate.

Dr. Andre Calmon is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at Scheller College of Business, the co-director of Sustainable-X, and a Brook Byers Institute Faculty Fellow. Before joining Georgia Tech, he was an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at INSEAD.

Andre’s research uses data, analytics, and mathematical modeling to address sustainability and efficiency issues in innovative business models. More broadly, his research investigates how organizations can use analytics and business model innovation to generate positive social and environmental impact while increasing profits. His work has been published in premier management journals such as Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and Production and Operations Management.

Andre is a renowned educator, and his innovative pedagogy resulted in several award-winning new courses, case studies, and student-led ventures. In particular, the sustainability pedagogical material he developed was the Grand Prize winner of the Page Prize. Furthermore, Andre’s teaching fosters a “classroom-to-startup-to-research” pipeline, and much of his research examines new management challenges faced by startups founded by his former students.

Andre received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from MIT. He also holds an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Universidade de Brasília (UnB).