Chen has an extensive research interests in environmental science and engineering. More specifically, he is a leading researcher in the environmental applications of nanomaterials and their potential fate, transport, transformation, bioaccumulation and toxicity in the environment. His interests in environmental nanomaterials dated back in his graduate research in 1992. He has also been active on algae based bio-renewable energy and sustainable urban development. Chen has been principle and co-principal investigators for 28 research projects (by June 2010) funded by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, Boeing and other organizations. The total funds are $7 million. He has also served as a review member or panel review member in the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy evaluation committee. He has also been invited to serve as an abroad review expert for the China Changjiang Scholars Program (which is to awarded to the top researchers in China). He has published more than 40 papers and two book chapters in this field.

Chen received his Ph.D in Nankai University, China. He joined the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering in May 2009.

Marilyn Brown is a Regents' and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy. She joined Georgia Tech in 2006 after a distinguished career at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she led several national climate change mitigation studies and became a leader in the analysis and interpretation of energy futures in the United States. 

Her research focuses on the design and impact of policies aimed at accelerating the development and deployment of sustainable energy technologies, with an emphasis on the electric utility industry, the integration of energy efficiency, demand response, and solar resources, and ways of improving resiliency to disruptions. Her books include Fact and Fiction in Global Energy Policy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), Green Savings: How Policies and Markets Drive Energy Efficiency (Praeger, 2015), and Climate Change and Global Energy Security (MIT Press, 2011). She has authored more than 250 publications. Her work has had significant visibility in the policy arena as evidenced by her numerous briefings and testimonies before state legislative bodies and Committees of both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.

Dr. Brown co-founded the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance and chaired its Board of Directors for several years. She has served on the Boards of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and the Alliance to Save Energy, and was a commissioner with the Bipartisan Policy Center. She has served on eight National Academies committees and is an Editor of Energy Policy and an Editorial Board member of Energy Efficiency and Energy Research and Social Science. She served two terms (2010-2017) as a Presidential appointee and regulator on the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public power provider. From 2014-2018 she served on DOE’s Electricity Advisory Committee, where she led the Smart Grid Subcommittee.

Fedorov's background is in thermal/fluid sciences, chemical reaction engineering as well as in applied mathematics. His laboratory works at the intersection between mechanical and chemical engineering and solid state physics and analytical chemistry with the focus on portable/ distributed power generation with synergetic CO₂ capture; thermal management of high power dissipation devices and electronics cooling; special surfaces and nanostructured interfaces for catalysis, heat and moisture management; and development of novel bioanalytical instrumentation and chemical sensors. Fedorov joined Georgia Tech in 2000 as an assistant professor after finishing his postdoctoral work at Purdue University.

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.

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.

Sheng Dai, Ph.D., P.E., earned his degrees from Tongji University and Georgia Tech. He worked as an ORISE postdoc at the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, and returned to Georgia Tech as a faculty member in 2015. He is currently an associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Ocean Science and Engineering. and holds a courtesy appointment at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Dai's group addresses emerging energy and environment challenges through studying subsurface geomechanics, geomaterials characterization, energy geotechnics, bio-inspired geotechnics, flow in porous media, and granular dynamics. His research has been funded by federal funding agencies (DOE, NSF, NASA, DOT), national labs (INL, NETL), and industry (AECOM, GTI, Leidos).  Dr. Dai has been recognized for his research and teaching, including being a recipient of the NSF CAREER award, the ORISE Fellowship, the Bill Schutz Junior Faculty Teaching Award, and the Class of 1969 Teaching Fellows at Georgia Tech.

He is an associated editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth and Advances in Geo-Energy Research, an editorial advisor of Geomechanics for Energy and Environment, and serves on the Pressure Core Advisory Board for U.S. Geological Survey, the GOM2 Marine Test Technical Advisory Committee for UT/DOE, the National Gas Hydrate Program for NETL, and the Task Force Leader of TC308 Energy Geotechnics of ISSMGE. 

Nian Liu began as an Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in January 2017. He received his B.S. in 2009 from Fudan University (China), and Ph.D. in 2014 from Stanford University, where he worked with Prof. Yi Cui on the structure design for Si anodes for high-energy Li-ion batteries. In 2014-2016, he worked with Prof. Steven Chu at Stanford University as a postdoc, where he developed in situ optical microscopy to probe beam-sensitive battery reactions. Dr. Liu 's lab at Georgia Tech is broadly interested in the combination of nanomaterials, electrochemistry, and light microscopy for understanding and addressing the global energy challenges. Dr. Liu is the recipient of the Electrochemical Society (ECS) Daniel Cubicciotti Award (2014) and American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Inorganic Chemistry Young Investigator Award (2015).

Tim Lieuwen is the executive vice president for research (EVPR) at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In this role, he oversees the Institute’s $1.4+ billion portfolio of research, economic development, and sponsored activities. This includes leadership of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), the Enterprise Innovation Institute, 11 interdisciplinary research institutes (IRIs), and related research administrative support units.

In his 25-plus years at Georgia Tech, Lieuwen earned his master's and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering (1996 and 1999, respectively) and has held multiple leadership positions. He has been the executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) and served as the interim chair of the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering in 2023.

Lieuwen has received numerous honors and recognition for his work in clean energy systems and policy, national security, and regional economic development. Additionally, he has been awarded the titles of Regents’ Professor and the David S. Lewis, Jr. Chair in AE. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.