Environment Research | Research News Center

Three men's individual portrait-style photos are arranged side by side, each showing a person from the shoulders up. The individuals wear collared shirts and appear in different lighting settings, including a dark background, a neutral studio backdrop, and a bright white background.

February 24, 2026

Understanding the Data Center Building Boom

7 min read

Explosive data center growth requires research to inform policies which manage the building of this critical infrastructure.

A view inside the Scholars Event Theater of a session of the Sustainability Showcase. A man speaks to a crowd while presenting slides on a large projection screen.

February 18, 2026

2026 BBISS Sustainability Showcase Recap: Resilience Is About Systems

4 min read

Across disciplines and scales, a unifying theme emerged: resilience is not a single solution. It is a systems-level challenge requiring integration across science and technology, policy, communities, and human experience.

February 17, 2026

Mapping Mountain Birds in a Changing World: Benjamin Freeman Awarded Sloan Fellowship For Mountain Bird Ecology Research

4 min read

The fellowship is one of the most competitive and prestigious awards available to early-career scholars.

February 13, 2026

Christos Athanasiou to Receive 2025 Eshelby Mechanics Award for Young Faculty

2 min read

The award recognizes early-career researchers who’ve made impactful contributions to the field of mechanics.

Students visited Lachung and Chungthang in Sikkim, India. Upstream in the Teesta Valley, students examined how steep terrain and river confinement amplify flood forces and how failures can cascade across an entire corridor of infrastructure.

January 22, 2026

AI Tool Turns Disaster Zones Into Living Classrooms

4 min read

An AI-powered tool is changing how researchers study disasters and how students learn from them.

January 15, 2026

Science for Public Good: Introducing the Community Engagement Graduate Fellows

4 min read

Four graduate students from the College of Sciences were selected for the new Community Engagement Graduate Fellowship, made possible through a gift from Google, to develop projects that positively impact the metro Atlanta area.

January 14, 2026

Meet the Expert: Daniel Matisoff

1 min read

Meet Daniel Matisoff: Professor of Public Policy and EPIcenter affiliate

Fuel Truck carrying Sustainable Aviation Fuel near an airplane

January 13, 2026

Georgia Tech Energy Policy and Innovation Center Launches Interactive Dashboard

2 min read

Georgia Tech’s Energy Policy and Innovation Center has collaborated with Dan Matisoff, EPIcenter’s faculty affiliate, to develop a new Sustainable Aviation Fuel Data Dashboard to provide clear, accessible insights into the rapidly evolving SAF market.

Artificial intelligence doesn’t just consume energy via data centers and hardware. It also increases productivity, which comes with its own energy and emissions costs.

November 13, 2025

AI Increases Productivity, And That Comes With Energy Costs

1 min read

Artificial intelligence doesn’t just consume energy via data centers and hardware. It also increases productivity, which comes with its own energy and emissions costs.

The Canada Jay is one of the birds struggling in the Pacific Northwest. (Credit: Mason Maron)

November 12, 2025

A 30-Year “Snapshot” of Pacific Northwestern Birds Shows Their Surprising Resilience

4 min read

After discovering a historic bird survey in the Pacific Northwest, Georgia Tech’s Ben Freeman located the original sites, repeating the surveys three decades later.

The Georgia Tech contingent gather for a group photo at the 2025 Georgia Resiliency Conference.

November 6, 2025

Georgia Tech Attendees Reflect on the Georgia Resiliency Conference 2025

5 min read

Faculty, administration, research fellows, students, collaborators, and Georgia Tech President Emeritus and keynote speaker G. Wayne Clough brought diverse perspectives to discussions ranging from coastal vulnerability to data-driven decision-making.

October 28, 2025

Community Spotlight - Ali Sarhadi

3 min read

Ali Sarhadi and his research team at GT's Climate Risk and Extreme Dynamics Lab are focused on a phenomenon called hurricane-induced compound flooding — hurricanes fueled by a warming climate.

Yurt-like test chambers in a natural boreal spruce bog in northern Minnesota (provided).

October 23, 2025

Peatlands’ ‘Huge Reservoir’ of Carbon at Risk of Release

3 min read

Researchers analyzed data from 10, yurt-like test chambers in a natural boreal spruce bog in northern Minnesota.

October 17, 2025

EAS Faculty Named to Endowed Positions

5 min read

Congratulations to Isaiah Bolden, Jennifer Glass, Alex Robel, and Yuanzhi Tang on their new endowed faculty professorships.

A lizard wearing one of the sensors, which weigh just three-hundredths of a gram each — the same as a two grains of rice. (Credit: Jon Suh)

October 15, 2025

Mapping Evolution: James Stroud Named 2025 Packard Fellow

4 min read

The award will support Stroud as he creates evolution’s first high-definition map — with the help of 1,000 backpack-wearing lizards.

The high impact between the metal balls in a ball mill reactor and the polymer surface is sufficient to momentarily liquefy the polymer and facilitate chemical reactions.

October 10, 2025

New Method Uses Collisions to Break Down Plastic for Sustainable Recycling

4 min read

Researchers have developed a method to break down PET, one of the world’s most widely used plastics, for sustainable recycling using mechanical forces instead of heat or harsh chemicals.

October 9, 2025

Storms Are Changing — Should the Hurricane Scale Change Too?

3 min read

Georgia Tech expert Zachary Handlos joins a growing conversation about whether the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale adequately reflects the full range of hurricane hazards in a changing climate.

Post-hurricane flooding inundates residential areas and transportation infrastructure, with low-lying terrain overwhelmed by storm surge and excessive rainfall.

October 9, 2025

Fixing Flooding for the Southeast’s Future

1 min read

Georgia Tech researchers are developing solutions to monitor and forecast flooding, as well as restore ecosystems to prevent future flooding. These efforts support communities’ resilience in the face of climate change and keep the U.S. secure.

cover of the 2023-2030 Sustainability Next Plan

October 7, 2025

BBISS Announces 2025 Sustainability Next Seed Grant Recipients

5 min read

The seed grant program reaches many faculty members from a diverse array of disciplines due to the generous support provided by broad-based partnerships in addition to the Sustainability Next funds.

Collage of four images taken at the New York Climate Exchange 2025 events with Georgia Tech participants.

October 3, 2025

Georgia Tech’s Growing Climate Innovation Footprint: Reflections from Climate Week NYC

5 min read

Across five New York Climate Exchange partner events, the Georgia Tech community demonstrated something essential: Georgia Tech bridges research and real-world impact where it matters most – in people’s lives.