Valerie Thomas

Valerie Thomas

Valerie Thomas

Anderson-Interface Chair of Natural Systems
Professor
RBI Initiative Lead: Sustainability Analysis

Valerie Thomas is the Anderson-Interface Chair of Natural Systems and Professor in the H. Milton School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, with a joint appointment in the School of Public Policy. 

Dr. Thomas's research interests are energy and materials efficiency, sustainability, industrial ecology, technology assessment, international security, and science and technology policy. Current research projects include low carbon transportation fuels, carbon capture, building construction, and electricity system development. Dr. Thomas is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the American Physical Society. She has been an American Physical Society Congressional Science Fellow, a Member of the U.S. EPA Science Advisory Board, and a Member of the USDA/DOE Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee. 

She has worked at Princeton University in the Princeton Environmental Institute and in the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, and at Carnegie Mellon University in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy.

Dr. Thomas received a B. A. in physics from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cornell University.

valerie.thomas@isye.gatech.edu

(404) 894-0390

ISyE Profile

  • Website
  • Research Focus Areas:
    • Biobased Materials
    • Biochemicals
    • Biorefining
    • Biotechnology
    • Gigatechnology
    • Hydrogen Storage & Transport
    • Hydrogen Utilization
    • Pulp Paper Packaging & Tissue
    • Renewable Energy
    • Social & Environmental Impacts
    • Sustainable Engineering
    • Sustainable Manufacturing
    • Use & Conservation
    Additional Research:

    Hydrogen Transport/Storage; Biofuels; ClIMaTe/Environment; Electric Vehicles; System Design & Optimization; Energy and Materials Efficiency; Sustainability; Industrial Ecology; Technology Assessment; Science and Technology Policy


    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:

    Trisha Sisk

    Trisha Sisk

    Trisha Sisk

    Director of Activities & Engagement, BBISS, RBI, and SEI

    As Director of Activities for three of Tech's Interdisciplinary Research Institutes: the Strategic Energy Institute, the Renewable Bioproducts Institute, and the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, I'll help bring together researchers from different disciplines to address topics of strategic importance. Each interdisciplinary research group mobilizes faculty to address the needs of external stakeholders (federal, state, and local entities, corporations, foundations, and communities) by fostering an Institute-wide innovation ecosystem around a specific focus.

    trisha.sisk@gatech.edu

    University, College, and School/Department

    IRI Connections:

    Andrew Medford

    Andrew Medford

    Andrew Medford

    Assistant Professor

    Dr. Medford is interested in leveraging materials informatics, statistics, and machine learning to maximize the practical impact of fundamental atomic-scale simulations in the field of surface science and catalysis. His research areas include heterogeneous catalysis, oxide surface chemistry, density functional theory, kinetic models, uncertainty quantification, and Bayesian optimization and inference.

    andrew.medford@chbe.gatech.edu

    (404) 385-5531

    Website

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Biobased Materials
    • Biochemicals
    • Biorefining
    • Biotechnology
    • Fuels & Chemical Processing
    • Hydrogen Production
    • Hydrogen Utilization
    • Materials & Manufacturing
    • Pulp Paper Packaging & Tissue
    • Sustainable Manufacturing
    Additional Research:
    Catalysis, Biochemicals, Biorefining, Chemistry, Sugars, Molecular Simulations, Computational Biology

    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:

    Joe F. Bozeman III

    Joe F. Bozeman III

    Joe Bozeman

    Assistant Professor
    SEI Lead: Ethics in Energy Transition

    joe.bozeman@ce.gatech.edu

    Departmental Bio

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Energy & Water
    • Energy Utilization and Conservation
    • FEWS
    • Food-Energy-Water-Transportation-Systems (FEWTS)
    • Infrastructure Ecology
    • Policy & Economics
    Additional Research:

    industrial ecology; climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies; sociodemographic impacts of the food-energy-water nexus; ethical applications in energy and environmental systems; urban carbon management strategies; life cycle assessment; scenario analysis; and survey administration; addressing the complex and ‘wicked’ challenges of our time


    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: