Meisha Shofner

Meisha Shofner

Meisha Shofner

Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering

Meisha L. Shofner is a professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, joining the faculty following post-doctoral training at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and her Ph.D. in Materials Science from Rice University. Prior to beginning graduate school, she was employed as a design engineer at FMC in the Subsea Engineering Division, working at two plant locations (Houston, Texas and the Republic of Singapore), and she is a registered Professional Engineer in Georgia.

Shofner’s research area is processing-structure-property relationships of polymers and composites. Specifically, she designs processing strategies to attain hierarchical structures in these materials to improve properties and has discovered scalable processing methods to produce auxetic structures and tensegrity-inspired structures. Additionally, she works with bioderived materials to produce composites with reduced environmental impact.  

meisha.shofner@mse.gatech.edu

404.385.7216

Office Location:
MRDC 4409

Shofner Lab

  • MSE Profile Page
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Advanced Composites
    • Materials & Manufacturing
    • Materials and Nanotechnology
    • Renewable Energy
    Additional Research:

    Biomolecular-Solids; Biomaterials; Composites; Polymers; Nanomaterials; Biofuels; Structure-property relationships in polymer nanocomposite materials; producing structural hierarchy in these materials for structural and functional applications.


    IRI Connections:

    Kamran Paynabar

    Kamran Paynabar

    Kamran Paynabar

    Assistant Professor

    Kamran Paynabar is the Fouts Family Early Career Professor and Associate Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from Iran in 2002 and 2004, respectively, and his Ph.D. in Industrial and Operations Engineering from The University of Michigan in 2012. He also holds an M.A. in Statistics from The University of Michigan. His research interests comprise both applied and methodological aspects of machine-learning and statistical modeling integrated with engineering principles. He is a recipient of the INFORMS Data Mining Best Student Paper Award, the Best Application Paper Award from IIE Transactions, the Best QSR refereed paper from INFORMS, and the Best Paper Award from POMS. He has been recognized with the Georgia Tech campus level 2014 CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award and the Provost Teaching and Learning Fellowship. He served as the chair of QSR of INFORMS, and the president of QCRE of IISE.

    kamran.paynabar@isye.gatech.edu

    404.385.3141

    Office Location:
    Groseclose Building, Room 436

    Departmental Bio

  • Personal Website
  • Research Focus Areas:
    • Aerospace
    • AI
    • Automotive
    • Biobased Materials
    • Biochemicals
    • Biorefining
    • Biotechnology
    • Diagnostics
    • Pulp Paper Packaging & Tissue
    • Sustainable Manufacturing
    Additional Research:

    High-dimensional data analysis for systems monitoring, diagnostics and prognostics, and statistical and machine learning for complex-structured streaming data including multi-stream signals, images, videos, point clouds and network data with applications ranging from manufacturing including automotive and aerospace to healthcare.


    IRI Connections:

    Jeff Wu

    Jeff Wu

    Jeff Wu

    Coca-Cola Chair in Engineering Statistics and Professor

    C. F. Jeff Wu is the Coca-Cola Chair in Engineering Statistics and Professor in the H. Milton School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech.

    He was elected a Member of the National Academy of Engineering (2004), and a Member (Academician) of Academia Sinica (2000). A Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (1984), the American Statistical Association (1985), the American Society for Quality (2002), and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (2009). He received the COPSS (Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies) Presidents' Award in 1987, which was given to the best researcher under the age of 40 per year and was commissioned by five statistical societies. His other major awards include the 2011 COPSS Fisher Lecture, the 2012 Deming Lecture (plenary lectures during the annual Joint Statistical Meetings), the Shewhart Medal (2008) from ASQ, and the Pan Wenyuan Technology Award (2008). In 2016 he received the (inaugural) Akaike Memorial Lecture Award. In 2017 he received the George Box Medal from ENBIS. In 2020 he won The Class of 1934 Distinguished Professor Award and the Sigma Xi Monie A. Ferst Award both at Georgia Institute of Technology. He has won numerous other awards, including the Wilcoxon Prize, the Brumbaugh Award (twice), the Jack Youden Prize (twice), and the Honoree of the 2008 Quality and Productivity Research Conference. He was the 1998 P. C. Mahalanobis Memorial Lecturer at the Indian Statistical Institutes and an Einstein Visiting Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). He is an Honorary Professor at several institutions, including the CAS and National Tsinghua University. He received an honorary doctor (honoris causa) of mathematics at the University of Waterloo in 2008.

    He was formerly the H. C. Carver Professor of Statistics and Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan, 1993-2003 and the GM/NSERC Chair in Quality and Productivity at the University of Waterloo in 1988-1993. In his 1997 inaugural lecture for the Carver Chair, he coined the term data science and advocated that statistics be renamed data science and statistician to data scientist. Before Waterloo, he taught in the Statistics Department at the University of Wisconsin from 1977-1988. He got his BS in Mathematics from National Taiwan University in 1971 and Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of California, Berkeley (1973-1976).

    His work is widely cited in professional journals as well as in magazines, including a feature article about his work in Canadian Business and a special issue of Newsweek on quality. He has served as editor or associate editor for several major statistical journals like Annals of Statistics, Journal of American Statistical Association, Technometrics, and Statistica Sinica. Professor Wu has published more than 185 research articles in peer review journals. He has supervised 50 Ph.D.'s, out of which more than 25 are teaching in major research departments or institutions in statistics, engineering, or business in US/Canada/Asia/Europe. Among them, there are 21 Fellows of ASA, IMS, ASQ, IAQ and IIE, three editors of Technometrics, and one editor of JQT. He co-authors with Mike Hamada the book "Experiments: Planning, Analysis, and Optimization" (Wiley, 2nd Ed, 2009, 716 pages) and with R. Mukerjee the book "A Modern Theory of Factorial Designs" (Springer, 2006).

    jeff.wu@isye.gatech.edu

    404.894.2301

    Office Location:
    ISyE Main Building, Room 233

    Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Advanced Manufacturing
    • Bioengineering
    • Biotechnology
    • Energy

    IRI Connections:

    Sonia Chernova

    Sonia Chernova

    Sonia Chernova

    Associate Professor; School of Interactive Computing
    Director; Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning (RAIL) Lab

    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.

    chernova@cc.gatech.edu

    404.385.4753

    Personal Page

  • RAIL Lab
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Collaborative Robotics
    • Shaping the Human-Technology Frontier
    Additional Research:

    Robotics; Artificial Intelligence; Semantic Reasoning; Adjustable Autonomy; Human Computation and Cloud Robotics.


    IRI Connections:

    Victor Breedveld

    Victor Breedveld

    Victor Breedveld

    Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies
    Professor and Frank Dennis Faculty Fellow

    victor.breedveld@chbe.gatech.edu

    404.894.5134

    Office Location:
    Ford Environmental Science & Technology Building, Room 1222

    ChBE Profile

  • Website
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Biobased Materials
    • Bioengineering
    • Biomaterials
    • Biorefining
    • Biotechnology
    • Energy
    Additional Research:
    Biofuels; Papermaking, Coatings & Barriers; Films & Coatings; Biomaterials; Structure and Reheology of Complex fluids; Rheology of Bioengineering Materials

    IRI Connections:

    Bert Bras

    Bert Bras

    Bert Bras

    Associate Chair for Administration
    Brook Byers Professor
    Professor of Mechanical Engineering

    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).

    bert.bras@me.gatech.edu

    404.894.9667

    Office Location:
    MRDC, Room 3408

    Website

    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Additive manufacturing
    • Advanced Manufacturing
    • Aerospace
    • Automotive
    • Energy
    • Use & Conservation
    Additional Research:
    Electric Vehicles; Computer-Aided Engineering and Design and Manufacturing; Sustainable design; Design for recycling; Robust design

    IRI Connections:

    Christopher J. Saldaña

    Christopher J. Saldaña

    Christopher Saldaña

    Ring Family Professor
    Associate Professor

    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.

    christopher.saldana@me.gatech.edu

    404-385-3735

    Office Location:
    GTMI, Room 259

    Website

  • George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Materials & Manufacturing
    Additional Research:

    Additive/Advanced Manufacturing; Composites; Bio-Inspired Materials; Computer-Aided Engineering; Advanced Characterization


    IRI Connections:

    Nick Sahinidis

    Nick Sahinidis

    Nick Sahinidis

    Gary C. Butler Family Chair
    Professor

    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.

    nikos@gatech.edu

    (404) 894-3036

    Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)

    IRI Connections:

    Craig Zimring

    Craig Zimring

    Craig Zimring

    Professor, School of Architecture
    Director, SimTigrate Design Lab

    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.

    craig.zimring@design.gatech.edu

    404.894.3915

    Office Location:
    247 4th Street, #265

    Architecture Profile Page

  • SimTigrate Design Lab
  • Google Scholar

    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Lifelong Health and Well-Being
    • Smart Cities and Inclusive Innovation
    Additional Research:

    Active LivingEnvironmental PsychologyEvidence-Based DesignHealthcare Safety & EffectivenessPatient-Centered Care


    IRI Connections:

    Nagi Gebraeel

    Nagi Gebraeel

    Nagi Gebraeel

    Georgia Power Associate Professor

    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).

    nagi.gebraeel@isye.gatech.edu

    404.894.0054

    Office Location:
    Groseclose Building, Room 327

    Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Diagnostics
    • Energy
    • Machine Learning
    Additional Research:

    Data Mining; Sensor-based prognostics and degradation modeling; reliability engineering; maintenance operations and logistics; System Design & Optimization; Utilities; Cyber/ Information Technology; Oil/Gas


    IRI Connections: