Turgay Ayer is the Virginia C. and Joseph C. Mello Chair and a professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. Ayer also serves as the research director for healthcare analytics and business intelligence in the Center for Health & Humanitarian Systems at Georgia Tech and holds a courtesy appointment at Emory Medical School.

His research focuses on healthcare analytics and socially responsible business analytics with a particular emphasis on practice-focused research. His research papers have been published in top tier management, engineering, and medical journals, and covered by popular media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, U.S. News, and NPR.

Ayer has received over $2.5 million grant funding and several awards for his work, including an NSF CAREER Award (2015), first place in MSOM Responsible Research in Operations Management (2019), first place in the MSOM Best Practice-Based Research Competition (2017), INFORMS Franz Edelman Laureate Award (2017), and Society for Medical Decision Making Lee Lusted Award (2009).

Ayer serves an associate editor for Operations Research, Management Science, and MSOM, and is a past president of the INFORMS Health Application Society. He received a B.S. in industrial engineering from Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Munmun De Choudhury is an Associate Professor at the School of Interactive Computing in Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. De Choudhury is renowned for her groundbreaking contributions to the fields of computational social science, human-computer interaction, and digital mental health. Through fostering interdisciplinary collaborations across academia, industry, and public health sectors, Dr. De Choudhury and her collaborators have contributed significantly to advancing the development of computational techniques for early detection and intervention in mental health, as well as in unpacking how social media use benefits or harms mental well-being. De Choudhury's contributions have been recognized worldwide, with significant scholarly impact evidenced by numerous awards like induction into the SIGCHI Academy and the 2023 SIGCHI Societal Impact Award. Beyond her academic achievements, Dr. De Choudhury is a proactive community leader, a persistent contributor to policy-framing and advocacy initiatives, and is frequently sought for expert advice to governments, and national and international media.

David Peeler is a research scientist and a recent graduate from Georgia Tech having completed a bachelor's degree in computer science in May 2022. His research interests lie in machine learning, mobile (Android) development, and STEM education. Currently, he is supporting the TechSAge D2 fall detection project detecting and reporting user falls from wheelchairs. He is also supporting STEM @ GTRI's rural education project giving 1000+ hours of direct instruction and curriculum development of different topics of computer science to high schoolers.

Dr. Jon Duke is the director of the Center for Health Analytics and Informatics at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and a principal research scientist at the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing. He began working at Georgia Tech in 2016. His career before Tech was entirely in medical environments, both as a physician and a researcher.  

At Georgia Tech his research focuses on advancing techniques for identifying patients of interest from diverse data sources with applications spanning research, quality, and clinical domains. 

Dr. Duke has led over $21 million in funded research for industry, government, and foundation partners. Dr. Duke’s research focuses on advancing techniques for identifying patients of interest from diverse data sources with applications spanning research, quality, and clinical domains.  He led the Merck-Regenstrief Partnership in Healthcare Innovation and was a founding member of OHDSI, an open-source international health data analytics collaborative.  In addition to numerous peer-reviewed publications, his work has been featured in the lay media including the New York Times, NPR, and MSNBC.  Dr. Duke completed his medical degree at Harvard Medical School and a master's in human-computer interaction at Indiana University.

Brad Fain, principal research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) and at the Center for Advanced Communications Policy (CACP), has been appointed as executive director of CACP. The appointment was announced on January 2, 2019 by Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Dean Jacqueline Royster.

Housed in the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy, CACP focuses on key issues that influence the development, implementation and adoption of communications technologies. CACP work includes assessment of policy issues and production of regulatory filings, identification of future options for innovation, and articulation of a clearer vision of the ever-changing technology landscape. The Center’s research addresses a wide range of advanced communications policy issues and related technology applications, particularly in the wireless and new technology arenas.

Fain brings to bear more than twenty-five years of experience in human performance. He directs Georgia Tech’s HomeLab research initiative and leads a team that is pioneering research into issues and products design to assist with successful aging in place. He joined Georgia Institute of Technology in 1992 and has extensive experience developing technologies, evaluation processes, and curriculum in the field of accessible design. He has also led or assisted in a variety of research programs on the design of fixed and rotary wing crew interfaces, and he currently leads a project to build a virtual reality usability testbed for first responder technologies enabled by FirstNet for the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). He has performed over one hundred accessibility evaluations for national and international customers in twenty projects. He has executed over two hundred consumer product evaluation projects. He pioneered the development of Consumer Product Integration (CPI) as a design process for the realization of products with universal design features.

Fain led the National Council on Disability’s (NCD) universal design research program. The focus of the research program was to determine the impact of Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act on the design and procurement of electronic and information technologies. Fain’s report contained universal design policy recommendations that were endorsed by the NCD and sent to the president of the United States for consideration. He conceived and led the development of an information portal containing information pertaining to the design and procurement of accessible electronic and information technologies. The Accessibility Assistant (http://accessibility.gtri.gatech.edu) is the culmination of eight years of accessibility research at Georgia Tech and serves over 1,500 visitors monthly.

Fain has also led the technical portion of the EAC’s Military Heroes Initiative to search for new technologies that would allow recently wounded soldiers to place a private and secure vote. He served as the technical director of the EAC’s Accessible Voting Technology Initiative (AVTI) to develop technologies solutions that facilitate accessible voting for the general population. The AVTI resulted in the development of a voting system test bed used to conduct accessibility research for ballot design and novel hardware design. He also led a NIST research grant to determine best practices for quantifying and certifying the accessibility and usability of new voting systems. Fain served as the technical director for the Information Technology and Technical Assistance Training Center (ITTATC) project. He led the needs assessment and technical assistance portions of the ITTATC project and has developed materials to support accessibility curriculum development efforts. He led the development of the Accessibility Evaluation Facility to support independent third-party evaluations of electronic and information technology accessibility and usability. In addition, he led the development of training materials to educate designers and accessibility specialists in the measurement of accessibility. In 2004, Fain modified the AEM to measure ease of use for special populations and, as a result, GTRI was named as the national test lab for the Arthritis Foundation’s Ease of Use Commendation Program.

Andrea Grimes Parker is an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University and at Morehouse School of Medicine. Dr. Parker holds a Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing from Georgia Tech and a B.S. in Computer Science from Northeastern University. She is the founder and director of the Wellness Technology Lab at Georgia Tech. Her interdisciplinary research spans the domains of human-computer interaction and public health, as she examines how social and interactive computing systems can be designed to address health inequities. Dr. Parker has published widely in the space of digital health equity and received several best paper honorable mention awards for her research. Her research has been funded through awards from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Aetna Foundation, Google, and Johnson & Johnson. 

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.

Christine Robinson comes to IPaT with over 20 years of executive administrative experience. As a former USG employee, she worked at Georgia State University in the Andrew Young School for Policy Studies Dean’s Office as the administrative specialist. She also served as one of the former Directors of The Non-Profit Leadership Alliance at Georgia State. Christine relocated to Atlanta from Charlotte, NC and enjoys writing poetry and creating custom candles. Christine joined IPaT’s administrative team to assist with the day-to-day operations of the unit, direct support of unit management including coordinating calendars, meetings and assisting with events and procurement.