Kalaitzidou joined Georgia Tech as an assistant professor in the G.W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering in November of 2007. She also holds an adjunct appointment in the School of Materials Science and Engineering. She obtained her Ph.D. in manufacturing and characterization of polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) from Michigan State University and worked as a post-doctoral researcher on mechanics of soft materials in the Polymer Science and Engineering Department at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She was promoted to professor in 2019 and was also named a Rae S. and Frank H. Neely Professor in the same year. In November 2019 Kalaitzidou was named the Associate Chair for Faculty Development.

Ryan Lively was born in 1984. He spent approximately 16 years in Gainesville, FL and attended almost every home football game at The Swamp. He enrolled at Georgia Tech in 2002 as an eager Chemical Engineering student and has been a Yellow Jacket at heart ever since. During his studies at Georgia Tech, Ryan worked on research projects as diverse as ab initio quantum mechanical methods to estimate molecular binding energies, fresh Georgia peach preservation, composite spinneret design, dual-layer hollow fiber membrane spinning, and sorbent-loaded fiber spinning. Ryan introduced a rapid temperature swing adsorption (RTSA) approach for post-combustion CO2 capture, which was successfully demonstrated by adapting knowledge developed in membrane science to design unique nanoscale composite adsorbent/heat exchangers. After his Ph.D. (awarded in 2010), he spent almost 3 years as a post-doctoral research engineer at Algenol Biofuels, where he published 25 papers and filed two U.S. patent applications. His work at Algenol focused on developing energy-efficient liquid and vapor separation systems for downstream biofuel purification. 

He is now the Thomas C. DeLoach Professor in the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His current research seeks to revolutionize fluid separation processes critical to the global energy and carbon infrastructure. He has a specific focus on membrane- and adsorbent-based science and technology to address some of the most difficult chemical separations. His group’s research activities range from fundamental material science and discovery to translational engineering applications focusing on making and testing separation devices. 

Ryan has received a variety of awards for his research efforts including the 2020 Allan P. Colburn Award from AIChE, and the 2022 Curtis W. McGraw Award from ASEE. He is currently an Editor for the Journal of Membrane Science and is the Secretary of the North American Membrane Society. He is the Director of the Center for Understanding & Controlling Accelerated and Gradual Evolution of Materials for Energy (UNCAGE-ME), an Energy Frontier Research Center of the US Department of Energy. He has over 160 publications in the field of separations including articles in Science, Nature and other impactful venues.

Peralta-Yahya has been part of Georgia Tech since 2012. Her diverse research group composed of chemists, biologists, and chemical engineers works in the area of engineering biology, drawing from principles of biochemistry and engineering to build systems for chemical detection and production. Specifically, her group focuses on the development of G protein-coupled receptors for biotechnology and biomedical applications, and the engineering of biological systems for the production of fuels and functionalized plant natural products. Early on, her work was recognized with several awards including a DARPA Young Faculty Award, a DuPont Young Professor Award, a Kavli Fellowship by the US Academy of Science, and an NIH MIRA award. Her group’s key accomplishments are 1) the standardization of GPCR-based sensors in yeast to reduce the cost and accelerate the pace of drug discovery for these receptors, which are the target of over 30% of FDA approved drugs, and 2) the development of advanced biofuels, including pinene, which, when dimerized, has sufficient energy content to power rockets and missiles.  Today, her group is funded to work on these and other cutting edge areas – including how to power a rocket returning from Mars and how to make synthetic cells learn without evolution – by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and NASA.

Dr. Realff’s broad research interests are in the areas of process design, simulation, and scheduling. His current research is focused on the design and operation of processes that minimize waste production by recovery of useful products from waste streams, and the design of processes based on biomass inputs. In particular, he is interested in carbon capture processes both from flue gas and dilute capture from air as well as the analysis and design of processes that use biomass.

After completing his Ph.D. studies in 1976, Professor Arduengo began his professional career at the DuPont company as a member of the research staff. Within a year, he accepted a position on the chemistry faculty at the University of Illinois. Dr. Arduengo returned to DuPont in 1984 to pursue applications for a previously unknown type of phosphorus compound (ADPO) that had been discovered by his research group at Illinois. In 1999 Professor Arduengo resumed his work in academe with research groups in Germany and the United States. He is Professor of the Practice in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Saxon Professor Emeritus in organic chemistry at the University of Alabama. 

Professor Arduengo's research in the area of main group chemistry has produced many scientific "firsts," including the discovery of the first planar T-shaped bonding arrangement at phosphorus centers. Further work in this area at DuPont uncovered a previously unrecognized "edge inversion process" that operates at main group element centers and explains many apparent anomalies in main group element chemistry. Dr. Arduengo's interest in and study of compounds with unusual valence allowed him to synthesize the first stable crystalline carbene in 1990. 

This carbene research not only represents a milestone in chemistry, but this science also has led to a rapidly increasing variety of commercial applications. "We're looking into uses in direct catalysis, for crosslinking polymers, and for transition metals catalysis in which carbenes can be incorporated as ligands." "We've added a new tool to the chemist's repertoire which we can take off the shelf and use at will to follow imaginative ideas in new directions." 

Recently, the Arduengo Group research has joined the efforts of the Medicines for All Institute and participates in BARDA programs to develop modern, sustainable technology that facilitates repatriation of essential chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing to U.S. shores. 

His research earned him an Alexander von Humboldt senior research prize and the 1996 Gold Medal for 'Excellence in Main Group Chemistry' from the International Council on Main Group Chemistry. In 2007 Professor was elected Fellow in The American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Professor Arduengo trained as a traditional synthetic organic chemist, but has continually sought collaborations with experts in inorganic chemistry, polymer and material science, and recently through his carbene chemistry, bioorganic catalysis in order to broaden the scope and impact of his scientific interests. As a result, he is recognized in his own right as an expert such diverse areas. Work from the arduengo group has yielded approximately 150 publications and patents including articles intended to stimulate the interest of the young and lay-public in science. 

He values teaching and quality science education, and even from his industrial positions, Professor Arduengo has actively maintained a strong commitment to the preparation of future generations of scientists by holding lectures and demonstrations for elementary and high school classes and his supervision of a dozen post-doctoral co-workers. 

Professor Arduengo leads research groups in the United States and Germany and provides his co-workers with opportunities to study abroad. This bi-national research program fosters a broad training experience with industrial interactions in both Germany and the United States. Professor Arduengo is a strong advocate of international research and training experiences and regularly hosts U.S. undergraduate and graduate students in laboratories in Germany. During these semesters abroad students experience everyday life and culture in Germany in addition to conducting research in a foreign research environment. Professor Arduengo provides instruction in a variety of subjects in Chemistry as well as German language instruction so that students are able to stay on track toward their degrees with no lost time.

The Gutekunst Lab is interested in pushing the limits of complexity in macromolecular systems using innovative concepts from synthetic organic chemistry. 

Specific projects in the lab will explore the design of novel monomers for the construction of functional polyamides, the development of small molecule reagents for the dynamic modulation of branched polymer architectures, and the investigation of new concepts for creating covalent bonds in challenging contexts. Each of these research projects will enable the generation of new functional materials with structures or assemblies that were previously inaccessible for study. 

Prospective students will obtain extensive training in synthetic organic chemistry, as well as polymer synthesis and characterization.

John R. Reynolds is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology with expertise in polymer chemistry and serves as a member of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE). His research interests have involved electrically conducting and electroactive conjugated polymers for over 30 years with work focused to the development of new polymers by manipulating their fundamental organic structure in order to control their optoelectronic and redox properties. His group has been heavily involved in developing new polyheterocycles, visible and infrared light electrochromism, along with light emission from polymer and composite LEDs (both visible and near-infrared) and light emitting electrochemical cells (LECs). Further work is directed to using organic polymers and oligomers in photovoltaic cells.  Reynolds obtained his M.S. (1982) and Ph.D. (1984) degrees from the University of Massachusetts in Polymer Science and Engineering, he has published over 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers, has 15 patents issued and ~25 patents pending, and served as co-editor of the “Handbook of Conducting Polymers” which was published in 2007.  He was awarded the ACS Award in Applied Polymer Science in 2012.  He serves on the editorial board for the journals ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, Macromolecular Rapid Communications, Polymers for Advanced Technologies, and the Journal of Macromolecular Science, Chemistry.