Dr. Bert Bras has been a Professor at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology since September 1992. From 2001 to 2004, he served as the Director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Sustainable Technology and Development. 

In 2014, he was named a Brook Byers Professor of Sustainability. He was named the Associate Chair for Administration for the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech in 2016 and briefly served as Interim School Chair in 2018. 

Dr. Bras’ 25-year career as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology equips him with considerable expertise in sustainable design and manufacturing that has taken him through many areas of industry, from automotive to alternative energy.

He holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Twente (Netherlands) and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of Houston. Prior to completing his Ph.D., he worked at the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN).

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.

Xu brings over 20 years of experience in managing laboratory paper machines and pilot testing equipment, along with a robust background in fluid mechanics, material science, and instrumentation development. His professional experience includes significant roles at International Paper, AstenJohnson, and Georgia Tech’s George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering

Xu's career is marked by innovative research and successful commercialization of new products and processes. At AstenJohnson, he served as a senior research scientist, specializing in forming and press fabrics used in the paper industry. His work led to the commercialization of several new forming and press products, and he managed pilot press stand at AstenJohnson and participated in papermaking trials at different pilot facilities to evaluate the performance of these fabrics.

Prior to AstenJohnson, Xu held positions at International Paper's Corporate Technology Center, where he managed the Microfinishing Lab and Humidity Resistant Liner Lab. His research provided critical insights that influenced the company’s major business decisions. He also developed various unique instruments for different paper mills at International Paper.

Xu earned his Ph.D. in paper science and mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech’s Institute of Paper Science and Technology. His doctoral research focused on the measurement of fiber suspension flow and forming jet velocity profile using Pulsed Ultrasonic Doppler Velocimetry (PUDV). He also holds a B.S. in Material Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

Chuanyi Ji received the B.S. (Honors) from Electronics Department Tsinghua University in 1983, the M.S. from Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania in 1986, and the Ph.D. from Electrical Engineering California Institute of Technology in 1992. She joined the faculty at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1991. She spent a sabbatical year at Bell-Labs Lucent in 1999, and was a visiting faculty at MIT in the fall of 2000. She is an Associate Professor at School of ECE Georgia Institute of Technology, which she joined in 2001. 

Research

• Large-scale data analytics, modeling and learning algorithms in a networked setting
• Both real-world application and methodology development, to quantify resilience, decision making and equity for energy networks and communities
• Work reported as among the pioneering research that learns from heterogeneous data on  operational energy grid, severe weather, and communities (join us)

Distinctions & Awards

• One of the favorite papers published in Nature Energy in the past five years, selected by the editors at Nature Energy, 2021
• Early Career Award, RPI 2000
• NSF Career Award, 1995
• Ming Li Scholarship, Caltech 1989
• Honor graduate, Tsinghua University, 1983

Seung-Joon Paik received his B.S. degree at the School of Electrical Engineering in 1999 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. His doctorate research focused on the design, microfabrication and testing of silicon microneedles for neurophysiologic applications, including microfluidic channels and microelectrodes. He was with Automation and Systems Research Institute in Seoul National University, as a postdoctoral associate from 2005 to 2007, where he developed sensors and systems of Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) for localization and locomotion of robots. After joining a spin-off company from the research lab, SML Electronics, Inc., in 2007, he led the process team for the 8-inch wafer-level packaging process and foundry manufacturing process of MEMS accelerometers and gyroscopes for mobile applications as a senior research engineer. In 2008, he joined the MicroSensors and MicroActuators Laboratory (MSMA Lab.) in Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia. He has led the BioMEMS research group at the MSMA Lab as a postdoctoral fellow. The BioMEMS research group is dedicated to developing micro/nano needles and biosensors for drug delivery and electrochemical sensing. In 2013, as a research engineer II at the Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology (IEN) in Georgia Tech, he oversees and coordinates lab sections for College of Engineering courses within IEN which provides instructions to students about CMOS transistor fabrication and MEMS fabrication. He has been teaching and mentoring junior-level research engineers and graduate students on design, analysis, micromachining processes, and technical writing and presentation at Seoul National University, SML Electronics, and Georgia Institute of Technology. In 2014, he also worked in Southern Polytechnic State University (currently, Kennesaw State University) as an adjunct professor and taught a course of Microelectronic Engineering and its labs.

He has published 65+ reviewed journal and conference papers, and invented 13+ patents in USA and Korea, and has been a reviewer for the following Journals – IEEE Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems (JMEMS); IOP Journals of Micromechanics and Microengineering, Nanotechnology, Material Science and Technology, Journal of Physics D, and Smart Materials and Structures; and Sensors and Actuators A: Physics. His current interests are in research and development for the micromachining of silicon and polymer materials and in biomedical applications of micromachined devices and also in inertial sensors, 3-D multi-chip packaging of MEMS devices, energy storage/conversion devices and nano-scale structures.