Aaron Stebner

Aaron Stebner

Aaron Stebner

Associate Professor, School of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering

Aarn Stebner works at the intersection of manufacturing, machine learning, materials, and mechanics. He joined the Georgia Tech faculty as an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering in 2020.

Previously, he was the Rowlinson Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the Colorado School of Mines (2013 – 2020), a postdoctoral scholar at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (2012 – 2013), a Lecturer in the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University (2009 – 2012), a Research Scientist at Telezygology Inc. establishing manufacturing and “internet of things” technologies for shape memory alloy-secured latching devices (2008-2009), a Research Fellow at the NASA Glenn Research Center developing smart materials technologies for morphing aircraft structures (2006 – 2008), and a Mechanical Engineer at the Electric Device Corporation in Canfield, OH developing manufacturing and automation technologies for the circuit breaker industry (1995 – 2000).

aaron.stebner@gatech.edu

404.894.5167

MSE Profile Page

  • Stebner Lab
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Additive manufacturing
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Energy
    • Materials & Manufacturing
    • Materials and Nanotechnology
    • Nanomaterials
    • Sustainable Manufacturing

    IRI Connections:

    Yan Wang

    Yan Wang

    Yan Wang

    Professor, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

    Wang's research is in the areas of design, manufacturing, and Integrated computational materials engineering. He is interested in computer-aided design, geometric modeling and processing, computer-aided manufacturing, multiscale simulation, and uncertainty quantification.

    Currently, Wang studies integrated product-materials design and manufacturing process design, where process-structure-property relationships are established with physics-based data-driven approaches for design optimization. The Multiscale Systems Engineering research group led by him develops new methodologies and computational schemes to solve the technical challenges of high dimensionality, high complexity, and uncertainty associated with product, process, and systems design at multiple length and time scales.

    Computational design tools for multiscale systems with sizes ranging from nanometers to kilometers will be indispensable for engineers' daily work in the near future. The research mission of the Multiscale Systems Engineering group is to create new modeling and simulation mechanisms and tools with underlying scientific rigor that are suitable for multiscale systems engineering for better and faster product innovation. Our education mission is to train engineers of the future to gain necessary knowledge as well as analytical, computational, communication, and self-learning skills for future work in a collaborative environment as knowledge creators and integrators. 

    yan.wang@me.gatech.edu

    404.894.4714

    Office Location:
    Callaway 472

    ME Profile Page

    Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Advanced Composites
    • Advanced Manufacturing
    • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
    • Computational Materials Science
    Additional Research:
    Computer-aided engineering and design and manufacturing, modeling and simulation, nanoscale cad/cam/cae, product lifecycle management, applied algorithms, uncertainty modeling, multiscale modeling, materials design

    IRI Connections:

    Christopher Muhlstein

    Christopher Muhlstein

    Christopher Muhlstein

    Associate Professor, School of Materials Science and Engineering
    Associate Director, MPRL

    Muhlstein has worked as an engineering consultant at Exponent, Inc. (Failure Analysis Associates). In September, 2002 he joined the faculty in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University and was tenured and promoted to associate professor in 2008.

     Muhlstein’s research focuses on understanding the mechanisms of fracture and fatigue in bulk and thin film materials. Muhlstein is a member of Alpha Sigma Mu and Keramos honor societies and an NSF CAREER award recipient. In 2007 he was also named the Corning Research Faculty Fellow in Materials Science and Engineering at The Pennsylvania State University. 

    christopher.muhlstein@mse.gatech.edu

    404.385.1235

    Office Location:
    Love 274

    MSE Profile Page

  • Mechanical Properties Characterization Facility
  • Research Focus Areas:
    • Biobased Materials
    • Biochemicals
    • Biorefining
    • Biotechnology
    • Materials and Nanotechnology
    • Pulp Paper Packaging & Tissue
    • Sustainable Manufacturing
    Additional Research:
    Fracture and Fatigue; Thin Films; Polymeric Composites; Advanced Characterization; Nanomaterials; Structural Materials; Paper & Board Mechanics; Biomaterials; Nanocellulose Applications; Biocomposites; New Materials

    IRI Connections:

    Kyriaki Kalaitzidou

    Kyriaki Kalaitzidou

    Kyriaki Kalaitzidou

    Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Professor, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
    Associate Chair for Faculty Development, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
    IMat Initiative Lead | Circularity of Biopolymers

    Kalaitzidou joined Georgia Tech as an assistant professor in the G.W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering in November of 2007. She also holds an adjunct appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. She obtained her Ph.D. in manufacturing and characterization of polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) from Michigan State University and worked as a post-doctoral researcher on mechanics of soft materials in the Polymer Science and Engineering Department at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was promoted to professor in 2019 and was also named a Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Professor in the same year. In November 2019 Kalaitzidou was named the Associate Chair for Faculty Development.

    kyriaki.kalaitzidou@me.gatech.edu

    404.385.3446

    Office Location:
    MARC Building Room 38

  • ME Profile Page
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Biobased Materials
    • Biochemicals
    • Biorefining
    • Biotechnology
    • Materials and Nanotechnology
    • Pulp Paper Packaging & Tissue
    • Sustainable Manufacturing
    Additional Research:
    Additive/Advanced Manufacturing; multifunctional materials; Nanocomposites; Polymers; Surfaces and Interfaces; Manufacturing; Mechanics of Materials; Biomaterials

    IRI Connections:

    Ryan Lively

    Ryan Lively

    Ryan Lively

    Professor
    Thomas C. DeLoach Jr. Endowed Professorship

    Ryan Lively was born in 1984. He spent approximately 16 years in Gainesville, FL and attended almost every home football game at The Swamp. He enrolled at Georgia Tech in 2002 as an eager Chemical Engineering student and has been a Yellow Jacket at heart ever since. During his studies at Georgia Tech, Ryan worked on research projects as diverse as ab initio quantum mechanical methods to estimate molecular binding energies, fresh Georgia peach preservation, composite spinneret design, dual-layer hollow fiber membrane spinning, and sorbent-loaded fiber spinning. Ryan introduced a rapid temperature swing adsorption (RTSA) approach for post-combustion CO2 capture, which was successfully demonstrated by adapting knowledge developed in membrane science to design unique nanoscale composite adsorbent/heat exchangers. After his Ph.D. (awarded in 2010), he spent almost 3 years as a post-doctoral research engineer at Algenol Biofuels, where he published 25 papers and filed two U.S. patent applications. His work at Algenol focused on developing energy-efficient liquid and vapor separation systems for downstream biofuel purification. 

    He is now the Thomas C. DeLoach Professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His current research seeks to revolutionize fluid separation processes critical to the global energy and carbon infrastructure. He has a specific focus on membrane- and adsorbent-based science and technology to address some of the most difficult chemical separations. His group’s research activities range from fundamental material science and discovery to translational engineering applications focusing on making and testing separation devices. 

    Ryan has received a variety of awards for his research efforts including the 2020 Allan P. Colburn Award from AIChE, and the 2022 Curtis W. McGraw Award from ASEE. He is currently an Editor for the Journal of Membrane Science and is the Secretary of the North American Membrane Society. He is the Director of the Center for Understanding & Controlling Accelerated and Gradual Evolution of Materials for Energy (UNCAGE-ME), an Energy Frontier Research Center of the US Department of Energy. He has over 160 publications in the field of separations including articles in Science, Nature and other impactful venues.

    ryan.lively@chbe.gatech.edu

    (404) 894-8795

    Website

  • Research Website
  • Google Scholar

    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Biobased Materials
    • Biochemicals
    • Biorefining
    • Biotechnology
    • Fuels & Chemical Processing
    • Hydrogen Production
    • Materials for Energy
    • Pulp Paper Packaging & Tissue
    • Renewable Energy
    • Sustainable Manufacturing
    Additional Research:
    Biofuels; Carbon Capture; Separations Technology; Membranes; Adsorbents;Polymers; Microporous Materials

    IRI Connections:

    Chaitanya Deo

    Chaitanya Deo

    Chaitanya Deo

    Professor

    Dr. Deo came to Georgia Tech in August 2007 as an Assistant Professor of Nuclear and Radiological Engineering. Prior, he was a postdoctoral research associate in the Materials Science and Technology Division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He studied radiation effects in structural materials (iron and ferritic steels) and nuclear fuels (uranium dioxide). He also obtained research experience at Princeton University (Mechanical Engineering), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories.

    chaitanya.deo@nre.gatech.edu

    (404) 385.4928

    Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Algorithms & Optimizations
    • Computational Materials Science
    • Conventional Energy
    • Materials for Energy
    Additional Research:
    Nuclear; Thermal Systems; Materials In Extreme Environments; computational mechanics; Materials Failure and Reliability; Ferroelectronic Materials; Materials Data Sciences

    IRI Connections:

    Pamela Peralta-Yahya

    Pamela Peralta-Yahya

    Pamela Peralta-Yahya

    Associate Professor, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry

    Peralta-Yahya has been part of Georgia Tech since 2012. Her diverse research group composed of chemists, biologists, and chemical engineers works in the area of engineering biology, drawing from principles of biochemistry and engineering to build systems for chemical detection and production. Specifically, her group focuses on the development of G protein-coupled receptors for biotechnology and biomedical applications, and the engineering of biological systems for the production of fuels and functionalized plant natural products. Early on, her work was recognized with several awards including a DARPA Young Faculty Award, a DuPont Young Professor Award, a Kavli Fellowship by the US Academy of Science, and an NIH MIRA award. Her group’s key accomplishments are 1) the standardization of GPCR-based sensors in yeast to reduce the cost and accelerate the pace of drug discovery for these receptors, which are the target of over 30% of FDA approved drugs, and 2) the development of advanced biofuels, including pinene, which, when dimerized, has sufficient energy content to power rockets and missiles.  Today, her group is funded to work on these and other cutting edge areas – including how to power a rocket returning from Mars and how to make synthetic cells learn without evolution – by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and NASA.

    pperalta-yahya@chemistry.gatech.edu

    404.894.4228

    Office Location:
    MoSE 2100P

    Chem & BioChem Profile Page

  • Peralta-Yahya Group
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Biobased Materials
    • Biochemicals
    • Biorefining
    • Biotechnology
    • Chemical Biology
    • Pulp Paper Packaging & Tissue
    • Renewable Energy
    • Sustainable Manufacturing
    Additional Research:
    Bio-Inspired Materials; Biofuels; Cell biophysics; Cellular Materials; Biochemistry; Biomanufacturing; Energy; Biomaterials

    IRI Connections:

    Thomas Fuller

    Thomas Fuller

    Thomas Fuller

    Professor

    Tom Fuller is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Georgia Tech. Dr. Fuller received a BS from the University of Utah in Chemical Engineering in 1982. Dr. Fuller then served for five years in the U.S. Navy working as a Nuclear Engineer. In 1992 he obtained a Ph.D. from UC, Berkeley also in Chemical Engineering. 

    Subsequently, Dr. Fuller developed advanced lithium batteries while working as a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He then moved to United Technologies. He was responsible for technology development, design, assembly, and test of cell stacks for UTC Fuel Cells. 

    His research group at Georgia Tech is focused on durability challenges for electrochemical systems. For the last eight years Dr. Fuller has been a Technical Editor for the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. In 2009 Dr. Fuller was named a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society.

    tom.fuller@chbe.gatech.edu

    (404) 894-2898

    ChBE Profile

  • Website
  • Google Scholar

    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Energy Generation, Storage, and Distribution
    • Energy Utilization and Conservation
    • Hydrogen Utilization
    • Materials for Energy
    Additional Research:
    Electric Vehicles; Energy Storage; Hydrogen; Modeling; Materials Failure and Reliability; Energy Conversion; Energy Storage; Batteries; fuel cells

    IRI Connections:

    Carsten Sievers

    Carsten Sievers

    Carsten Sievers

    Professor, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
    RBI Initiative Lead: Maximizing the Value of Products from Plastics Upcycling

    Sievers’ research interests are in heterogeneous catalysis, reactor design, applied spectroscopy, and characterization and synthesis of solid materials. Combining these interests he seeks to develop processes for the production of fuels and chemicals. His research program combines fundamental and applied research.

    In fundamental studies, a suite of analytical and spectroscopic techniques (e.g. IR, NMR) is used to gain knowledge on structure-reactivity relationships of heterogeneous catalysts. Moreover, surface reactions are studied on a molecular level to identify reaction pathways over different catalysts. Information obtained from these studies provides the foundation for designing innovative catalysts.

    Applied studies focus specific catalytic processes. For these projects, continuously operated flow reactor systems are designed. Different catalysts are tested for reactivity, selectivity and stability and the influence of the operating conditions is investigated. Catalyst deactivation is studied in detail to develop suitable regeneration methods or to avoid deactivation entirely by improved catalyst design. Specific projects include hydrodeoxygenation of pyrolysis oils, selective hydration of polyols, conversion of sugars into lactic acid and ethylene glycol, and selective oxidation of methane.

    An important goal of Sievers’ research is to enable technology for utilization of alternative resources in order to reduce the current dependence of oil. Among these biomass is a particularly promising candidate because it is renewable and can be produced CO2 neutral.

    Sievers has contributed to 80 peer reviewed publications on heterogeneous catalysis in petroleum refining (isobutane/2-butene alkylation, fluid catalytic cracking, hydrotreating), alkane activation, supported ionic liquid as catalysts for fine chemical synthesis, and biomass processing.  He is Director and Past President of the Southeastern Catalysis Society, former Program Chair and Director of the ACS Division of Catalysis Technology & Engineering, former Director of the AIChE Division of Catalysis and Reaction Engineering, and Editor of Applied Catalysis A: General.

    carsten.sievers@chbe.gatech.edu

    404.385.7685

    Office Location:
    ES&T 2218

    ChBE Profile Page

  • Sievers Research Group
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Biobased Materials
    • Biochemicals
    • Biorefining
    • Biotechnology
    • Fuels & Chemical Processing
    • Hydrogen Production
    • Materials for Energy
    • Pulp Paper Packaging & Tissue
    • Sustainable Manufacturing
    Additional Research:
    Biomass; Biofuels; Catalysis; Advanced Characterization; Gasification; Biorefining; Lignin Upgrading; Catalysis; Energy & Water; Separation Technologies; Chemical Feedstocks; Sugars; Lignin & Hemicellulose

    IRI Connections:

    Hailong Chen

    Hailong Chen

    Hailong Chen

    Associate Professor, Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
    BBISS Co-lead: Clean Energy Resources

    The research in Chen Group is cross-disciplinary, bridging mechanical engineering, chemistry, and materials science, focusing on electrochemical energy storage related materials and devices, as well as functional and structural metals/alloys. The technical expertise of the group include development and application of advance in situ characterization methods for energy storage devices, computation-aided materials design and novel synthesis methods for nanostructured materials.

    hailong.chen@me.gatech.edu

    404.385.5598

    Office Location:
    Love 329

    nanoACES

  • ME Profile Page
  • BBISS Initiative Lead Project - Sustainable Resources for Clean Energy
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Materials and Nanotechnology
    • Materials for Energy
    Additional Research:
    Materials Design, in situ characterization, energy conversion and Storage, batteries, and functional materials

    IRI Connections: