Dr. Emily D. Sanders is an Assistant Professor in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech. She obtained her Ph.D. at Georgia Tech in 2021, where she developed new topology optimization methods for design of tension-only cable nets, elastostatic cloaking devices, and multiscale structures and components. Dr. Sanders hold a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University and a master’s degree from Stanford University.

Dr. Bert Bras has been a Professor at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology since September 1992. From 2001 to 2004, he served as the Director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Sustainable Technology and Development. 

In 2014, he was named a Brook Byers Professor of Sustainability. He was named the Associate Chair for Administration for the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech in 2016 and briefly served as Interim School Chair in 2018. 

Dr. Bras’ 25-year career as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology equips him with considerable expertise in sustainable design and manufacturing that has taken him through many areas of industry, from automotive to alternative energy.

He holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Twente (Netherlands) and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of Houston. Prior to completing his Ph.D., he worked at the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN).

Dr. Christopher Saldaña began working at Georgia Tech in 2014. Prior, Dr. Saldaña previously held the Harold and Inge Marcus Career Professorship at the Pennsylvania State University and worked as a research engineer at M4 Sciences Corporation. Dr. Saldaña has also previously held visiting affiliations/positions with the US Air Force Research Laboratory, the Indian Institute of Science (Bangalore, India), Technische Universität Dortmund (Dortmund, Germany), Autodesk, and Sandia National Laboratories. He has received several awards, including an NSF CAREER award, the Robert J. Hocken SME Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer award and an R&D100 Technology Award. He serves as an Associate Editor for IISE Transactions (Design and Manufacturing) and serves on the Editorial Boards of Manufacturing Letters, Computer Aided Design and Applications, and the ASTM Journal of Smart and Sustainable Manufacturing.

Nick Sahinidis is the Butler Family Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. His current research activities are at the interface between computer science and operations research, with applications in various engineering and scientific areas, including: global optimization of mixed-integer nonlinear programs: theory, algorithms, and software; informatics problems in chemistry and biology; process and energy systems engineering. Sahinidis has served on the editorial boards of many leading journals and in various positions within AIChE (American Institute of Chemical Engineers). He has also served on numerous positions within INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences), including Chair of the INFORMS Optimization Society. He received an NSF CAREER award, the INFORMS Computing Society Prize, the MOS Beale-Orchard-Hays Prize, the Computing in Chemical Engineering Award, the Constantin Carathéodory Prize, and the National Award and Gold Medal from the Hellenic Operational Research Society. Sahinidis is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of AIChE and INFORMS.

An environmental psychologist and professor of architecture, Craig Zimring directs the SimTigrate Design Lab. He and his colleagues and students focus on how innovative, research-informed design can improve health and healthcare, and how research can be incorporated into classroom teaching, both to improve design and help students develop skills for practice. He has conducted over $7M in research with and for Mayo Clinic, Emory Healthcare, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Military Health System, HKS Architects, HDR Architects, and many others, including safety-net clinics and international providers of healthcare. He has published over 100 scholarly and professional publications and received 11 awards for his research. He has given numerous keynote and plenary addresses to organizations and meetings such as Australian Healthcare Week, Institute for Patient and Family-Centered Care, and Chinese Hospital Association. His Ph.D. and master's graduates serve in teaching and leadership positions in universities and practice.

He currently serves on the board of the Center for Health Design and has served on the boards of the Environmental Design Research Association, the National Academies’ Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment, the Joint Commission’s Roundtable on the Hospital of the Future and other organizations. In addition to his work on healthcare, Zimring served as a senior scientist in developing the 2010 New York City Active Design Guidelines and was a founding member of the Center for Active Design.

Professor Nagi Gebraeel is the Georgia Power Early Career Professor and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He received his MS and PhD from Purdue University in 1998 and 2003, respectively.

Dr. Gebraeel's research interests lie at the intersection of Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning in IoT enabled maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) and service logistics. His key focus is on developing fundamental statistical learning algorithms specifically tailored for real-time equipment diagnostics and prognostics, and optimization models for subsequent operational and logistical decision-making in IoT ecosystems. Dr. Gebraeel also develops cyber-security algorithms intended to protect IoT-enabled critical assets from ICS-type cyberattacks (cyberattacks that target Industrial Control Systems). From the standpoint of application domains, Dr. Gebraeel has general interests in manufacturing, power generation, and service-type industries. Applications in Deep Space missions are a recent addition to his research interests, specifically, developing Self-Aware Deep Space Habitats through NASA's HOME Space Technology Research Institute.

Dr. Gebraeel leads Predictive Analytics and Intelligent Systems (PAIS) research group at Georgia Tech's Supply Chain and Logistics Institute. He also directs activities and testing at the Analytics and Prognostics Systems laboratory at Georgia Tech's Manufacturing Institute. Formerly, Dr. Gebraeel served as an associate director at Georgia Tech's Strategic Energy Institute (from 2014 until 2019) where he was responsible for identifying and promoting research initiatives and thought-leadership at the intersection of Data Science and Energy applications. He was also the former president of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Quality and Reliability Engineering Division, and is currently a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and IISE (since 2005).

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. I received my Ph.D. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and held positions as a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Media Lab and as Assistant Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute prior to joining Georgia Tech. I direct the Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning (RAIL) lab, where we work on developing robots that are able to effectively operate in human environments. My research interests span robotics and artificial intelligence, including semantic reasoning, adjustable autonomy, human computation and cloud robotics. Please visit the RAIL lab website for a description of our latest projects.

Craig Forest is a Professor and Woodruff Faculty Fellow in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech where he also holds program faculty positions in Bioengineering and Biomedical Engineering. He conducts research on miniaturized, high-throughput robotic instrumentation to advance neuroscience and genetic science, working at the intersection of bioMEMS, precision machine design, optics, and microfabrication. Prior to Georgia Tech, he was a research fellow in Genetics at Harvard Medical School. He obtained a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in June 2007, M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 2003, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2001. He is cofounder/organizer of one of the largest undergraduate invention competitions in the US—The InVenture Prize, and founder/organizer of one of the largest student-run makerspaces in the US—The Invention Studio. He was a recently a Fellow in residence at the Allen Insitutte for Brain Science in Seattle WA; he was awarded the Georgia Tech Institute for BioEngineering and BioSciences Junior Faculty Award (2010) and was named Engineer of the Year in Education for the state of Georgia (2013). He is one of the inaugural recipients of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Grants, a national effort to invent the next generation of neuroscience and neuroengineering tools. In 2007, he was a finalist on the ABC reality TV show "American Inventor.”