Kevin Caravati

Kevin Caravati

Kevin Caravati

GTRI Liaison for Sustainability Research
Principal Research Scientist
Manager, Energy and Sustainability Research Program

Mr. Caravati is a Principal and Founder of Applied Plasma Arc Technologies, LLC and a Senior Research Scientist and Professional Geologist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the applied research arm of the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Geology from the University of Dayton, Ohio, and a Master of Science in Geology-Hydrogeology track from the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. He earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration (International Business) from the Stetson School of Business and Economics at Mercer University in Atlanta. He began work with GTRI in 2002.

Mr. Caravati served as a Hydrogeologist, Project Manager, and Project Director for a wide range of water resources and water quality projects in the United States, Mexico and England. He has led numerous water resource investigations that included delineating watersheds using aerial imagery and GIS tools, well installation and testing programs, monitoring and field data collection programs, and developing ground water flow and contaminant transport models for predictive studies. Since 2008, he served as Director of the Environmental Safety and Occupational Health Programs at GTRI, and as Program Manager for environmental engineering research for a global services provider. Mr. Caravati also served as a research lead in Georgia Tech’s Plasma Arc Research Facility. 

Mr. Caravati’s areas of research include the design and prototyping of dry sanitation systems; testing of chemical and biological sensor systems for environmental applications; modeling of renewable energy systems for rural areas; water supply and wastewater studies for sustainability and energy efficiency; and water resource investigations for rural watersheds in developing countries. He serves as a Research Advisor to Georgia Tech’s Engineering Students Without Borders chapter, and in 2007 he led or participated in projects in Angola, Bolivia, and Yellowstone National Park, and served in an advisory capacity for projects in Kenya, Japan, Korea, Guam, and Ireland.

kevin.caravati@gtri.gatech.edu

(404) 407-8058

Departmental Bio

Research Focus Areas:
  • Renewable Energy
Additional Research:
Solar

IRI Connections:

Laurence Jacobs

Laurence Jacobs

Laurence Jacobs

Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and School of Mechanical Engineering
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, College of Engineering

Laurence J. Jacobs is associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, professor of civil and environmental engineering, and professor of mechanical engineering. Jacobs received his Ph.D. in engineering mechanics from Columbia University and joined the faculty of Georgia Tech in 1988. Prior to receiving his Ph.D., he worked for two years in the aerospace industry and for one year as a structural engineer.

Professor Jacobs’ research focuses on the development of quantitative methodologies for the nondestructive evaluation and life prediction of structural materials. This includes the application of nonlinear ultrasound for the characterization of fatigue, creep, stress-corrosion, thermal embrittlement and radiation damage in metals. His work in cement-based materials includes the application of linear and nonlinear ultrasonic techniques to quantify microstructure and progressive micro-cracking in concrete.

Jacobs’ publications have been cited more than 4900 times with an h-index of 39 (Google Scholar), 31 (Scopus) or 28 (Web of Science) and he is a Fellow of the ASME. Professor Jacobs’ research has been funded by DOE, NSF, ONR, AFOSR, DARPA, NASA, US DOT, Georgia DOT, Exxon-Mobil, EPRI, Sandia National Lab and GE. He has been the PI or co-PI on over $8M worth of contracts since 1990. Jacobs has graduated 16 Ph.D. students (5 women and 2 African Americans) and 65 M.S. thesis students.

laurence.jacobs@coe.gatech.edu

404.894.2344

Office Location:
Mason 2132A

CEE Profile Page

Google Scholar

Research Focus Areas:
  • Materials and Nanotechnology
Additional Research:
Acoustics and dynamics, structural health monitoring, structural materials

IRI Connections:

Rampi Ramprasad

Rampi Ramprasad

Rampi Ramprasad

Michael E. Tennenbaum Family Chair, Materials Science and Engineering
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Energy Sustainability

Ramprasad joined the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech in February 2018. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he was the Centennial Term Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Connecticut. He joined the University of Connecticut in Fall 2004 after a 6-year stint with Motorola’s R&D laboratories at Tempe, AZ. Ramprasad received his B. Tech. in Metallurgical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, an M.S. degree in Materials Science and Engineering at the Washington State University, and a Ph.D. degree also in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Ramprasad’s area of expertise is in the development and utilization of computational and data-driven (machine learning) methods aimed at the design and discovery of new materials. Materials classes under study include polymers, metals and ceramics (mainly dielectrics and catalysts), and application areas include energy production and energy storage. Prof. Ramprasad’s research has been funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Army Research Office (ARO), and Toyota Research Institute (TRI). He has lead a ONR-sponsored Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) in the past to accelerate the discovery of polymeric capacitor dielectrics for energy storage, and is presently leading another MURI aimed at the understanding and design of dielectrics tolerant to enormous electric fields.

Ramprasad is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, and the recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and the Max Planck Society Fellowship for Distinguished Scientists.

rampi.ramprasad@mse.gatech.edu

404.385.2471

Office Location:
Love 366

MSE Profile Page

  • Ramprasad Group
  • University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Computational Materials Science
    • Use & Conservation
    Additional Research:
    Data Analytics; Materials discovery; Energy Storage; Modeling; Electronic Materials; Electronics

    IRI Connections:

    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:

    Aaron Levine

    Aaron Levine

    Aaron Levine

    Associate Professor
    Guest Researcher, Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

    Aaron D. Levine is Associate Dean for Research and Outreach in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and Professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. He also holds an appointment as a Guest Researcher in the Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a member of the leadership team for the NSF Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT), leading ethics and policy research for the center. He seved as Co-Director for CMaT's Engineering Workforce Development activities from 2017 to 2022. His research focuses on the intersection between public policy and bioethics. Much of his work has examined the development of stem cell science, particularly research using human embryonic stem cells, and the translation of novel cell therapies. He also writes extensively on the oversight of contentious areas of medicine, such as assisted reproductive technology. In 2012, he received a NSF CAREER award to examine the impact of ethical controversy on graduate science education and the development of scientific careers.  He serves as Vice-Chair for Bioethics on the International Society for Cell & Genel Therapy’s Committee on the Ethics of Cell and Gene Therapy and recently completed a three-year term as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. He is also a long-time member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

    Aaron has a long-standing interest in science communication and is the author of Cloning: A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Publications, 2007), an accessible introduction to the science of cloning and embryonic stem cells and the ethical and policy controversies this science inspires. He was an AAAS Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellow for 2019-2020. You can follow Aaron on twitter at @aarondlevine.

    He completed his Ph.D. in Public Affairs at Princeton University, where his dissertation research examined the impact of public policy on the development of human embryonic stem cell science.  He also holds an M. Phil. from the University of Cambridge, where, as a Churchill Scholar, he studied computational biology at the Sanger Centre and developed algorithms to help analyze the human genome sequence, and a B.S. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar.

    aaron.levine@pubpolicy.gatech.edu

    404-385-3329

    Office Location:
    DM Smith 216

    Website

  • Related Site
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Policy & Economics
    • Regenerative Medicine
    Additional Research:
    The impact of ethical controversy on scientific research, with a particular emphasis on emerging biomedical technologies.Recent work has focused on a range of issues related to stem cell policy (including state-level science policy and the rise of unproven stem cell therapies) as well as the oversight of assisted reproduction.

    IRI Connections:

    Yogendra Joshi

    Yogendra Joshi

    Yogendra Joshi

    John M. McKenney and Warren D. Shiver Distinguished Chair, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
    Professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

    Prior to joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 2001 as a Professor, Yogendra Joshi held academic positions at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. He also worked in the semiconductor assembly industry on process thermal model development. He was named to the McKenney/Shiver Chair in 2004.

    yogendra.joshi@me.gatech.edu

    404.385.2810

    Office Location:
    Love 338

    ME Profile Page

  • Microelectronics & EmergingTechnologies Thermal Lab
  • Google Scholar

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Conventional Energy
    • Electronic Materials
    • Electronics
    • Micro and Nano Device Engineering
    • Miniaturization & Integration
    • Nanomaterials
    Additional Research:
    Thermal SystemsSystem Design & Optimization

    IRI Connections:

    Nancey Green Leigh

    Nancey Green Leigh

    Nancey Green Leigh

    Professor; School of City & Regional Planning
    Associate Dean for Research; College of Design

    Nancey Green Leigh is a Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning and adviser for the economic development planning, working with masters and doctoral students. Maintaining an active research program, Leigh is currently leading a project entitled "Workers, Firms and Industries in Robotic Regions," funded by the National Science Foundation's Robotics Initiative. She previously led a large scale research effort by three universities focused on sustainable industrial systems for urban regions. Both of these efforts as well as other funded research (brownfields, urban land and manufacturing, resilient infrastructure) contribute to Leigh's long term focus on advancing sustainable development for local and regional economies. As Associate Dean for Research, Leigh is focused on strengthening the research impact of the College of Design. She develops and administers competitive initiatives to support individual and collaborative research by college faculty and affiliated researchers. She oversees the college's seven major research units. She also is engaged in building research connections within Georgia Tech between the College of Design, other colleges and Interdisciplinary Research Institutes, as well as to external funders and collaborators in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Leigh has published more than 60 articles and four books, Routledge Handbook of International Planning Education (2019 with S.P. French, S. Guhathakurta, and B. Stiftel), Planning Local Economic Development, 6th edition (2017 with E.J. Blakely) adopted for courses in a wide array of universities; Economic Revitalization: Cases and Strategies for City and Suburb (2002 with J. Fitzgerald); and Stemming Middle Class Decline: The Challenge to Economic Development Planning (1994). She was co-editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research from 2012 to 2016, and was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners in 2008.

    ngleigh@design.gatech.edu

    404.894.9839

    Office Location:
    Architecture-East Building, 209

    Website

    Google Scholar

    University, College, and School/Department
    Research Focus Areas:
    • Collaborative Robotics
    • Policy & Economics
    • Use & Conservation
    Additional Research:

    economic development; robots & AI impact on workers; firms & regions; City and Regional Planning; System Design & Optimization; Design Sciences


    IRI Connections:

    Chloé Arson

    Chloé Arson

    Chloe Arson

    Adjunct Professor

    Chloé Arson is a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Cornell University and an adjunct faculty in the Schools of CEE and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). She earned her Ph.D. at Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (France) in 2009. She was an assistant professor at Texas A&M University from 2009 to 2012. Then, she worked as an assistant professor (2012-2016), associate professor (2016-2022) and professor (2022-2023) in the Georgia Tech School of CEE. Arson joined the faculty at Cornell University in Summer 2023.

    chloe.arson@ce.gatech.edu

    404.385.0143

    CEE Profile Page

    Research Focus Areas:
    • Computational Materials Science
    • Geosystems
    Additional Research:
    Numerical modeling, geomaterials, bio-inspired materials

    IRI Connections: