Bobby Harris joined the faculty at the School of Economics in 2023. His research and teaching interests are in energy and environmental economics, industrial organization, and public economics. Much of his existing work has implications for climate policy and the energy transition.

Bobby holds a PhD in environmental economics from Duke University (2022) and undergraduate degrees in mathematics and economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2016). Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar with the Initiative on Equity in Energy and Environmental Economics at the Energy Institute at Haas at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Education:

• Ph.D., Duke University
• M.A., Duke University
• B.S., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Courses Taught:

• ECON-2106: Principles of Microeconomics
• ECON-4460: Public Economics
• ECON-4699: Undergraduate Research

Anthony Harding is an environmental economist with research interests at the intersection of innovative technologies and climate policy. He uses economic theory and applied econometrics to analyze the extent of socioeconomic risks from climate change, how policy and technologies can moderate these risks, and what impacts, intended or otherwise, policies may have. Before returning to Georgia Tech, Harding was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the School of Economics and a B.S. in Mathematics and Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Omar I. Asensio is an Associate Professor in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy and the Director of the Data Science & Policy Lab at Georgia Tech. During the 2023-2024 academic year, he was a fellow at the Institute for Business in Global Society at Harvard Business School. Professor Asensio’s research focuses on climate and electrification strategies at the intersection of technology, AI, and sustainability. He employs large-scale data, field experiments, and human-in-the-loop AI systems to address innovation challenges in energy systems, transportation, and human mobility. He contributed to the zero emission vehicles (ZEV) policy guidance for COP26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact.

Prof. Asensio is a member of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) New Voices 2021 cohort, which recognizes early- to-mid career leaders for exceptional contributions to science, engineering and medicine. He is a two-time former chair of the Natural Resource, Energy, and Environmental Policy section of APPAM, and is the recipient of the 2023 Faculty Excellence in Research Award from the Ivan Allen College. At Georgia Tech, he is a Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Fellow and a faculty affiliate of the Institute for Data Engineering & Science (IDEaS), the Machine Learning Center, and the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI).

Professor Asensio has received multiple awards for his research, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) Emerging Scholar Award, and the Research Impact on Practice Award (RIPA) from the Academy of Management’s Organizations & the Natural Environment Division (ONE-NBS). His work has been published in leading journals such as Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability, and PNAS. 

Professor Asensio’s research and teaching have been supported by awards from the National Science Foundation, Microsoft, ESRI, the U.S. State Department’s Diplomacy Lab, and the U.S. Department of Energy. His work has informed policy advisory communications for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the UK government, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the IndiaAI initiative. His research has been featured in popular press, including Bloomberg, Scientific American, Motor Trend, Fast Company, NPR’s All Things Considered, Yahoo! News, The Huffington Post, and the Washington Post.

Dr. Asensio serves as Associate Editor of Data & Policy journal published by Cambridge University Press. He earned his doctorate in Environmental Science & Engineering with specialties in Economics from UCLA.

Dr. Andre Calmon is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at Scheller College of Business, the co-director of Sustainable-X, and a Brook Byers Institute Faculty Fellow. Before joining Georgia Tech, he was an Assistant Professor of Operations Management at INSEAD.

Andre’s research uses data, analytics, and mathematical modeling to address sustainability and efficiency issues in innovative business models. More broadly, his research investigates how organizations can use analytics and business model innovation to generate positive social and environmental impact while increasing profits. His work has been published in premier management journals such as Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, and Production and Operations Management.

Andre is a renowned educator, and his innovative pedagogy resulted in several award-winning new courses, case studies, and student-led ventures. In particular, the sustainability pedagogical material he developed was the Grand Prize winner of the Page Prize. Furthermore, Andre’s teaching fosters a “classroom-to-startup-to-research” pipeline, and much of his research examines new management challenges faced by startups founded by his former students.

Andre received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from MIT. He also holds an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp) and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Universidade de Brasília (UnB).

Dylan Brewer joined the faculty at the School of Economics in 2019. He received his PhD in Economics with a dual major in Environmental Science and Policy from Michigan State University in May 2019 as well as a Master of Arts degree in Economics from the same institution in 2016. Prior to his graduate studies, Dylan completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in Economics and International Relations at the University of Virginia in 2014. Dylan's research uses the tools of applied econometrics and machine learning to answer questions in energy and environmental economics. He has published research on household energy consumption, the economics of thermostat settings, recycling, electricity demand, machine learning methodology, and air quality among other topics. He teaches courses on environmental economics at the graduate and undergraduate level, and his Principles of Microeconomics course has won awards at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Beril Toktay is Regents' Professor and the Brady Family Chairholder in the Scheller College of Business. She serves as Executive Director of the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems. A globally recognized leader in sustainable operations management, Dr. Toktay has dedicated her career to bridging academic excellence with real-world impact in sustainability research and education.

Since joining Georgia Tech in 2005, Dr. Toktay has established herself as an influential leader in sustainability scholarship and cross-institute initiatives. She founded the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business and co-created the Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain (SLS). Under her leadership as Executive Faculty Co-Director, the SLS team expanded sustainability-focused academic community engagement across Georgia Tech until its 2024 institutionalization as the Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education within BBISS. Most recently, she co-chaired Georgia Tech's Sustainability Next Strategic Plan Implementation Team, under which Georgia Tech recommitted to growing BBISS, elevated and restructured the Office of Sustainability, and launched the Sustain-X startup accelerator, educational innovation and transdisciplinary research seed grant programs, the Climate Action Plan, and the Sustainability Education Curriculum Committee.

A Distinguished Fellow of the INFORMS Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society, Dr. Toktay is internationally recognized for her research in sustainable operations management spanning circular economy models and climate mitigation strategies. Her circular economy research includes developing improved Extended Producer Responsibility cost allocation mechanisms recommended for adoption by the UK government. Her climate mitigation work features in a multi-university project that identified Georgia's top twenty decarbonization solutions, catalyzing the creation of the 70-member Drawdown Georgia Business Compact facilitated by the Ray C. Anderson Center.

Dr. Toktay serves on the boards of the New York Climate Exchange, Georgia Cleantech Innovation Hub, and Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability. Her former professional service includes VP for Marketing, Communications and Advocacy at INFORMS, Department Co-Editor for "Health, Environment, and Society" at Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and Area Editor for "Environment, Energy, and Sustainability" at Operations Research. She served as the Scheller College of Business ADVANCE Professor from 2012-2020.

Dr. Toktay’s research has earned recognition including being named among the World's Top Business and Management Scientists (Research.com, 2024),the  M&SOM Best Paper Award (2021), the M&SOM Responsible Research Award (2019), and the Management Science Best Paper in Operations Management Award (2015).

Her commitment to developing the next generation of sustainability leaders earned her Georgia Tech's Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Advisor Award (2018) and recognition as a E3 Impact Award Finalist (2019) by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce for Serve-Learn-Sustain's impact on Atlanta communities. She co-developed the Carbon Reduction Challenge, an interdisciplinary program that engages undergraduate students in climate intrapreneurship and which earned top ten finalist recognition from Reimagine Education among 1,184 projects from 39 countries.

Dr. Toktay holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research from MIT, an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University, and B.S. degrees in Industrial Engineering and Mathematics from Bogazici University.

Alex Oettl joined Scheller in 2009.  His research interests include the economics of innovation, knowledge spillovers, labor mobility, and economic geography.  His current work focuses on the production and diffusion of ideas at the individual, firm, and regional level.

Professor Oettl's research has been published in Management Science, Organization Science, Nature, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Economics and Statistics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Journal of Urban Economics, Research Policy, Journal of International Business Studies, profiled in multiple media outlets, and presented at business schools around the world. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a recipient of the Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship in Entrepreneurship Research.

Ioanna Maria Spyrou is a Ph.D. student in the School of Economics in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech. She is interested in environmental economics, policies that promote sustainability and optimal use of natural resources, and how sustainable development can be achieved by using state-of-the-art technological advances. Her current research concentrates on analyzing the impact of natural shocks, including climatological, hydrological, and agricultural, on children’s well-being. She holds degrees in Plant Protection (MS), Agriculture (BA) and Mathematics (BA) from Aristotle University, Greece, and Applied Mathematics and Statistics (MA) from City University of New York.

Advisor: Shatakshee Dhongde