Baratunde A. Cola is a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received his degrees from Vanderbilt University and Purdue University, all in mechanical engineering, and was a starting fullback on the Vanderbilt football team as an undergrad. Cola has received a number of prestigious early career research awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientist and Engineers (PECASE) in 2012 from President Obama for his work in nanotechnology, energy, and outreach to high school art and science teachers and students; the AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science in 2013; and the 2015 Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In addition to research and teaching, Cola is the founder and CEO of Carbice Corporation, which sells a leading thermal management solution for the global electronics industry.

A 2019 inductee to the National Academy of Engineering, Ahuja has more than 35 years of research and development experience in aircraft noise research, acoustics facilities design, flow control, state-of-the-art instrumentation, and advanced signal processing. During his employment of 13 years at Lockheed Georgia Company in various capacities, including the head of the Aeroacoustics Research and acting manager of the Advanced Flight Sciences Department, he was the principal investigator and/or the program manager on several successfully completed projects funded by Lockheed, the U. S. Air Force and NASA. He joined the faculty of Georgia Institute of Technology as a Senior Faculty Research Leader in March 1989. He recently served in the capacity of the director of Georgia Tech Ireland. Ahuja is a former associate editor of the AIAA Journal and also a former Chairman of the AIAA Aeroacoustics Technical Committee. Ahuja has authored or co-authored over 180 technical articles or reports on a range of topics including acoustic shielding, fan noise, active flow control, flow/acoustic interactions, jet noise, cavity noise, automobile noise, sonic boom research, psychoacoustics, high-temperature fiber optics strain gauges, acoustic transducers, active noise control, tilt rotor noise, source separation, acoustic fatigue, duct acoustics, computational aeroacoustics, innovative flow visualization techniques, tornado signatures, rapid charging of batteries and others. The international media, including CNN and Beyond 2000, has covered his work.

Thadhani joined the faculty in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech in September, 1992. His research focuses on studies of shock-induced physical, chemical, and mechanical changes for processing of novel materials and for probing the deformation and fracture response of metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites, subjected to high-rate impact loading conditions. He has developed state-of-the-art high-strain-rate laboratory which includes 80-mm and 7.62-mm diameter single-stage gas-guns, and a laser-accelerated thin-foil set-up, to perform impact experiments at velocities of 70 to 1200 m/s. The experiments employ time-resolved diagnostics to monitor shock-initiated events with nanosecond resolution employing piezoelectric and piezoresistive stress gauges, VISAR interferometry, Photonic-doppler-velocimetry, and high-speed digital imaging, combined with the ability to recover impacted materials for post-mortem microstructural characterization and determination of other properties. He has built computational capabilities employing continuum simulations for design of experiments and development and validation of constitutive equations, as well as for meso-scale discrete particle numerical analysis (using CTH and ALE3D codes) to determine the effects observed during shock compression of heterogeneous materials, using real microstructures.

Mary Lynn Realff is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). She received her BS Textile Engineering from Georgia Tech and her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Polymer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Her current research is focused on Effective Team Dynamics for both undergraduate and graduate students. The Effective Team Dynamics Initiative develops curriculum and workshops that enable students to gain the competencies to work effectively in teams and for faculty to gain the competencies to guide students through challenging team dynamics is making a positive impacts at Georgia Tech.