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.

 Xing Xie is the Carlton S. Wilder Assistant Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he was a post-doctoral scholar at California Institute of Technology. He received his B.S. (2006) and M.S. (2008) degrees in Environmental Science & Engineering from Tsinghua University, and a second M.S. degree (2012) in Materials Science & Engineering and a Ph.D. degree (2014) in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Stanford University. His research focuses on the applications of innovative materials for sustainable and reliable water and energy. He has worked on many projects related to water treatment and reuse, microbial detection and quantification, energy and resource recovery, energy storage, etc. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles with more than 6,000 citations