Portrait of Sam Litchfield, Research Engineer at GTRI

Portrait of Sam Litchfield

Samuel Litchfield, research engineer at the Cybersecurity, Information Protection, and Hardware Evaluation Research (CIPHER) lab of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), leads the Cybersecurity of Critical Infrastructure Research Initiative at the Strategic Energy Institute. Litchfield serves as the associate director of research initiatives at the Institute for Cybersecurity and Resilient Infrastructure Studies (ICARIS), a joint research collaboration between Georgia Tech and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory whose mission is to deliver the technologies, test beds, and talent necessary to secure the nation’s critical infrastructure.

Litchfield received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Georgia Tech in computer engineering. Focused on cybersecurity since 2012, he has worked in cyber-physical system security, network protocol reverse engineering, and large-scale systems vulnerability assessments. Below is a brief Q&A with Litchfield where he discusses his research focus areas and how it influences the cybersecurity initiatives at Georgia Tech.

  • What is your field of expertise and at what point in your life did you first become interested in this area?

My field of expertise is cybersecurity of critical infrastructure and embedded systems. I started getting into it first in my undergraduate coursework when I learned about overlaps between control theory, computer architecture, and networking. These overlaps create critical infrastructure.

  • What questions or challenges sparked your current energy research? What are the big issues facing your research area right now?

A lot of my day-to-day at work is focused on national security. That comes from both being at GTRI and generally looking at cybersecurity questions.  

When you start applying cybersecurity to critical infrastructure, you very quickly run into national security questions like how to keep the lights on and how to keep water flowing and keep people living their lives — basically how to prevent devices or pieces from getting compromised and how to keep these systems moving/working despite people trying to break them. How do we keep the overall infrastructure working in the face of threats even if some elements are compromised? What modifications do we need to make to these sometimes decades-old systems, and what new security primitives can we invent to minimize those modifications? An example is a water system supplying water to your municipality — it is dependent on unobstructed electricity to keep its pumps moving — figuring out how to model those cross-system dependencies is an active area of my research topics as well.

  • What interests you the most leading the research initiative on cybersecurity of critical infrastructure? Why is your initiative important to the development of Georgia Tech’s energy research strategy?

In addition to the above questions and figuring out how we approach this sort of research topics, one thing I always find super interesting is coming to a new domain, energy in this case, and figuring out how to use existing domain-specific tools to augment system security, or how those tools might find application in cybersecurity. Aiding PI to PI interactions to get real impacts on systems as a whole and convening researchers whose topic areas don’t traditionally overlap together and identifying projects that can come out of that interaction keeps me going.

Georgia Tech is already a leader in power engineering and cybersecurity separately. Bringing those two large pieces of campus together is going to be truly pivotal for Georgia Tech as an institution. There are other domains with leaders in those fields that we can hopefully bring more to the forefront as we combine them with security.

  • What are the broader global and social benefits of the research you and your team conduct on the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure?

There are two basic benefits — one from the United States national security perspective — to keep the infrastructure secure and raise the bar on the effort and cost it takes to compromise systems or use them as a lever in international conflicts. The next one is increasing the security of systems by increasing their resilience for run of the mill things like storms, wildfires, and large climate events. This will become more relevant as climate change increases severe weather events. Another global benefit I could think of is removing energy security from the field of national security levers — see Germany’s natural gas dependence during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

  • What are your plans for engaging a wider Georgia Tech faculty pool with the broader energy community?

Cybersecurity touches on multiple domains and increasing faculty engagement by getting domain experts to talk to security experts is important. Internally, I’m hoping to build an infrastructure security community across schools that’s invested in forming collaborations between areas and subjects that might not traditionally overlap. Externally, I am planning to build a portfolio of events that engages and brings together community members around Georgia, from manufacturers to utility asset owners to external policymakers and regulators.

  • What are your hobbies?

Physically, when I'm not sitting at a desk, I like to go climbing in gyms or hike through the Appalachians when it’s not July in Georgia . Outside of that, I do a lot of recreational programming at home, and I play some tabletop games with friends.

  • Who has influenced you the most?

My graduate advisor Raheem Beyah set a good example of how to be passionate about my research, both in terms of technical expertise on how to formulate research questions in a tangible and approachable way and engaging with the people doing the research.

Another is one of my current bosses, Anita Pavadore, in terms of raising the bar on the quality of what I do, from interacting with others to executing research.

News Contact

Priya Devarajan || Research Communications Program Manager || SEI || RBI

Portrait of Matthew Realff, Professor at Georgia Tech

Portrait of Matthew Realff

Matthew Realff, professor and David Wang Sr. Fellow in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, leads the Circular Carbon Economy Research Initiative in the Strategic Energy Institute and the Next Generation Refineries Research Initiative in the Renewable Bioproducts Institute at Georgia Tech. Realff co-directs the Direct Air Capture Center (DirACC), which coordinates research across the Institute aimed at the removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. 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.

• What is your field of expertise and at what point in your life did you first become interested in this area?

My background is in chemical engineering with a focus on process design and simulation, which is part of the field of process systems engineering. I have been interested in this general topic since first setting foot on the campus of Imperial College London in 1982, and subsequently pursued it as my Ph.D. topic. I first started thinking about direct air capture of CO2 in 2011 and about circular carbon from CO2 in 2016.

• What questions or challenges sparked your current energy research? What are the big issues facing your research area right now?

I believe that managing CO2 emissions will be the biggest challenge of the next 50 to 100 years. We will need to have negative emissions, as we are emitting too much, and pulling CO2 directly out of the atmosphere will be required because we are going to continue to emit. Creating technological solutions to provide negative emissions is one of the biggest challenges, as they need to be cost-effective and environmentally and socially less damaging than the emissions they capture. The biggest issue facing my research is understanding the phenomena that are involved in direct air capture and translating that understanding into engineered systems that are low-cost, have low environmental impact, and are socially beneficial.

• What interests you the most leading the research initiative on circular carbon economy? Why is your initiative important to the development of Georgia Tech’s energy research strategy?

The circular carbon economy is a systems problem in the broadest sense. This means that we must embrace a multidisciplinary approach to synthesize effective solutions. I want to emphasize the word “effective” here — we must embrace a wide range of measures of performance from energy efficiency to social justice because without improving along many dimensions we will be unlikely to be successful. It is this multidimensional, multidisciplinary research effort that interests me, as I love to find ways to bring people together to synthesize different knowledge into effective solutions. Georgia Tech is a world leader in direct air capture technology — as demonstrated by our new Direct Air Capture Center (DirACC). Our advances in this topic area can provide a base from which to develop approaches to carbon utilization, and other research efforts in electro, bio, and thermo chemical technologies can enable closed pathways using carbon as an energy carrier.

• What are the broader global and social benefits of the research you and your team conduct on circular carbon economy?

One vision for our energy and material systems is to have a much greater local production and consumption of energy using renewable resources. A circular carbon economy based on CO2 from the air; water from local sources including the air; and solar, wind, or biomass-based energy could be local and would have many transactions between local parties. This could serve to not only reduce global emissions but also to provide more opportunities for communities to benefit from the production of energy as opposed to having many transactions that transfer money outside of the community.

• What are your plans for engaging a wider Georgia Tech faculty pool with the broader energy community?

DirACC is one way we hope to connect faculty to the ecosystem of companies that are developing and deploying DAC technology. We hope that the challenges that these companies are articulating can be translated into research topics for the faculty affiliated with the center. The Department of Energy’s efforts to establish the DAC Hubs provides us with other opportunities to engage faculty around social and environmental justice issues associated with deploying energy technologies such as direct air capture. I hope that faculty will see themselves participating in these efforts and reach out to be included in the network of researchers on these topics.

• What are your hobbies?

My main hobby is playing a card game called Magic: The Gathering. I have played this since 1994 and have enjoyed many friendships formed as a dueling wizard. I also enjoy reading, particularly science fiction and steampunk literature, as well as history.

• Who has influenced you the most?

Professor Roger Sargent at Imperial College was one of the founders of the field of process systems engineering. His speech on elevation to the position of professor at Imperial in 1963 has had a profound impact on the direction of my research and educational activities.

News Contact

Priya Devarajan || Research Communications Program Manager SEI || RBI

Headshot graphic of professor Deepak Divan

Headshot graphic of professor Deepak Divan

Professor Deepakraj Divan has been named the recipient of the 2024 IEEE Medal in Power Engineering, a distinguished honor presented annually by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

The prestigious award recognizes individuals for their, “outstanding contributions to the technology associated with the generation, transmission, distribution, application, and utilization of electric power for the betterment of society.”

Divan, holding the John E Pippin Chair and serving as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is being honored for his significant contributions to advanced power conversion technologies for the modern electric power grid. He will be celebrated during the IEEE Vision, Innovation, and Challenges Summit and Honors Ceremony in Boston on May 3, 2024.

With over 40 years of experience in academia and industry, Divan is a globally recognized authority in power electronics, power systems, smart grids, and distributed control of power systems. He is currently the director of the Center for Distributed Energy at Georgia Tech, leading advanced research and technology development aimed at transforming electricity delivery and utilization.

His extensive portfolio includes over 85 issued and pending patents, as well as 400 refereed publications. Through his research and entrepreneurial endeavors, he has played a pivotal role in advancing power grid monitoring, analytics, and optimization.

He is a member of the of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the National Academies Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, and the National Academies (NASEM) Committee on the Future of Electric Power in the United States. Additionally, Divan is a Fellow of IEEE and has previously served as the president of the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He has been honored with the IEEE William E Newell Field Medal and IEEE Hingorani Custom Power Medal.

As the International Chair of the IEEE Empower a Billion Lives (EBL) recurring global competition, Divian actively contributed to the development of scalable energy access solutions. His expertise was recognized at the White House Electrification Summit in 2022, and he has shared insights on electric grids worldwide, with notable appearances including the 2016 Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference (or COP 22) meeting in Morocco and the United Nations Global Solutions Summit in 2023.

Divan is an established entrepreneur, having started several companies, including Varentec, which was funded by leading green-tech Venture Capital firm Khosla Ventures and renowned investor Bill Gates. He has founded or seeded several other new ventures including GridBlock, GigaGrid, Soft Switching Technologies, Innovolt, and Smart Wires, which together have raised >$500M in venture funding.

He is the first member of the Georgia Tech faculty to be honored with the IEEE Medal in Power Engineering, an accolade that has been presented since 2010.

News Contact

Dan Watson
 

Winners of the EGHI/GT Hackathon stand together at Tech Square ATL Social

Students tackled climate change in the Fall 2023 Emory Global Health Institute (EGHI) /Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) Global Health Hackathon, Nov. 11, at Tech Square ATL Social. Competing for cash prizes and a spot in GT Startup Launch, first place went to Team iManhole. The team created an integrated system that gathers real-time data from manholes and uses machine learning algorithms to predict flooding to manage traffic and evacuation routes.

“The effects of climate change are felt in every country with the brunt and burden of an unmanaged climate crises threatening to set back global health progress by eroding decades of poverty eradication and health equity efforts worldwide,” said Dr. Rebecca Martin, EGHI director of Emory Global Health Institute.  “Students are an important partner in our work as a global community to mitigate the impacts of climate change on health, safety, and security.”

The EGHI/GT Global Health Hackathon is a partner event between EGHI and CREATE-X. It provides multidisciplinary student teams from Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology an opportunity to create technology-based product solutions for global health problems. The target for this fall’s event was creating solutions that address urban flooding, urban heat, or global sea level rise in densely populated, low-resource urban settings. Prizes included $4,000 and a golden ticket into CREATE-X Startup Launch for first place winners, $3,000 for second place winners, $2,000 for third place winners, and $500 each for two honorable mention winners.

“This hackathon continues to be a wonderful partnership between our two institutions that gives these talented students the platform and support to put forward solutions to the most pressing issues we face today,” Rahul Saxena, director of CREATE-X, said. “Each hackathon, I’m increasingly impressed with their ingenuity and their dedication to build something of impact.”

Check out the event program on the EGHI website and see photos from the event on the CREATE-X Flickr account. The full list of the winners of this year’s event includes:

1st Place: iManhole

An integrated system that gathers real-time data from manholes and uses machine learning algorithms to predict flooding to manage traffic and evacuation routes

Team Members: Imran Shah, Leonardo Molinari, and Jiaqi Yang 

2nd Place: Canopy

A climate-tech software platform for democratizing climate analytics using machine learning for urban development planning.

Team Members: Deesha Panchal, Kruthik Ravikanti, Vaibhav Mishra, Nicholas Swanson, Jennifer Samuel, and Vaishnavi Sanjeev

3rd Place: Floodwise

A package of effective simulations and an informed chatbot that help facilitate wise decisions during floods.

Team Members: Ansh Gupta, Dimi Deju, Mukund Chidambaram, and Sahit Mamidipaka 

Honorable Mention

Conquering Heat Islands

Process and hardware that uses excess solar power to mine crypto

Team Members: Rida Akbar, DJ Louis, Edward Zheng, Dmitri Kalinin, and Jade Bondy         

Real-Time Computational Modeling of Urban Flooding and Evacuation in Local Atlanta Communities

Integrated system to gather real-time data from manholes and use machine learning algorithms to predict flooding and optimize traffic/evacuation.

Team Members: Imran Shah, Leonardo Molinari, and Jiaqi Yang

News Contact

Breanna Durham

Marketing Strategist

breanna.durham@gatech.edu

Amy Stone on site during construction of The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta, Georgia.

When Amy Stone first arrived on the Georgia Tech campus in 2006 to pursue a bachelor's degree in architecture, she was in awe of her surroundings. Seventeen years later, the soon-to-be triple Jacket and mother of three leaves behind her own stamp on the Institute's future.

When Amy Stone first arrived on the Georgia Tech campus in 2006 to pursue a bachelor's degree in architecture, she was in awe of her surroundings. Seventeen years later, the soon-to-be triple Jacket and mother of three leaves behind her own stamp on the Institute's future.  

While she didn't realize how much time she'd spend at Tech after arriving as a transfer student, Stone knew instantly that she had found a home here.  

"I remember driving up to Georgia Tech and just being wowed by the beauty of the campus and its history and feeling like this place was special,” she said. “This green urban campus in the middle of a city has so much to offer. I kept coming back for the quality of the education, and I love to see how the campus has gotten more beautiful, advanced, and innovative by improving upon itself." 

Among the transformative projects completed during Stone's time on campus is The Kendeda Building for Innovative and Sustainable Design — a building she had a hand in designing as a member of the project team. 

"It's such an honor as a student to be able to put my own thumbprint on this campus that has given me so much. I'm so proud of the outcome and that it can be used as an example, as a learning lab, and an educational opportunity to show this is what sustainability looks like," she said. 

As construction crews continue their work on the early stages of Tech Square Phase 3, Stone sees another dream project come to fruition, having worked on the concept phase of the high-rise towers. The Scheller and George Towers will add more than 400,000 square feet of new space for research and collaboration and, to Stone, signify an ongoing commitment to the Institute putting its mission statement into action. 

"There is something so ambitious and beautiful about this project, continuing to connect a green, urban campus to these dense buildings that are reaching up and stating to the skyline, 'We are Georgia Tech,'" she said of the towers, which are expected to be completed in 2026.  

Stone has seen the campus grow through the years alongside her growing family, which now includes three kids. After completing her first degree, she and her husband, Lorrin, welcomed their first two children. When she returned to Tech to pursue a master's degree in architecture, her children were there to lend a helping hand.  

"I was hauling them to student meetings, and they were meeting me in the studio between classes. They have been on campus more times than they recognize, and they are just growing as this campus grows. They have watched me do homework, they have been a part of my group assignments and group calls, and I feel it's only fitting that they are here at Commencement at the final moment with me," she said.  

That teamwork played a key role in Stone's final semester of her master's program in 2020, when her backyard became her lab due to the pandemic.  

"I built my model for my final project with my son and my daughter breaking bricks and gluing them to the side of a facade," said Stone, who was pregnant with the couple's third child at the time. "I got to bring in small hands to help with projects and explain to them what I was doing and why I was doing it in a way that they don't normally get to see. We learned a lot during the pandemic, but that's what we do at Georgia Tech. We innovate, we learn, we adapt." 

Intrigued by the intersection of architecture and business, Stone was drawn to the Scheller College of Business, where she will receive her MBA, bringing an end to her educational journey with her family at her side. After taking time to enjoy the holidays and complete a Half Ironman triathlon, Stone will be teaching an architecture course at Kennesaw State University in the spring. 

News Contact

Steven Gagliano - Institute Communications

Photo collage of Jordan Hale, Jake Churchill, Henry Kantrow, Betina Arkhurst, Andrew Hill, Jacob Tjards, Emily Marshall

Photo collage of Jordan Hale, Jake Churchill, Henry Kantrow, Betina Arkhurst, Andrew Hill, Jacob Tjards, Emily Marshall

 

The Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) of Georgia Tech is excited to announce that Bettina Arkhurst is the 2023 recipient of the James G. Campbell Fellowship Award. Arkhurst’s commitment to academics, research, and community service has been recognized by the award committee. She is a Ph.D. candidate advised by Katherine Fu, professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

Arkhurst holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech. Her research seeks to understand how concepts of energy justice can be applied to renewable energy technology design to better consider marginalized and vulnerable populations. She strives to create frameworks and tools for mechanical engineers to apply as they design energy technologies for all communities.

As an energy equity intern at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Arkhurst has worked with colleagues to better understand the role of researchers and engineers in the pursuit of a more just clean energy transition. She is also a leader in the Woodruff School’s graduate student mental health committee, which seeks to improve the culture around graduate student mental health and well-being. Additionally, Arkhurst is working with the Georgia Tech Center for Sustainable Communities Research and Education (SCoRE) to develop a course on community engagement and engineering that will launch in Spring 2024.

The Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center (EPICenter) and the Strategic Energy Institute are proud to announce the 2023 Spark Award recipients: Jake Churchill, Jordan R. Hale, Andrew G. Hill, Henry J. Kantrow, Emily Marshall, and Jacob W Tjards. The award honors outstanding leadership in advancing student engagement in energy research.

Churchill is a master’s student in mechanical engineering advised by Akanksha Menon, assistant professor in the Woodruff School. Working with Menon in the Water-Energy Research Lab, his research focuses on coupling reverse osmosis desalination with renewable energy and storage technologies to provide clean, sustainable, and affordable water in the face of growing global water stress. Churchill has led the Georgia Tech Energy Club’s Solar District Cup team for three years, guiding students interested in solar energy careers. He has also been involved with several SEI initiatives, including EPICenter’s high school summer camp, Energy Unplugged. He is currently facilitating a student-led study to quantify the benefits of cleaning photovoltaic panels using the rooftop array at the Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Lab.

Hale is pursuing a Ph.D. in chemistry, specializing in theoretical and computational chemistry under Joshua Kretchmer, assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His current research focus is utilizing various quantum dynamics formalisms and unique computational techniques to identify the microscopic mechanisms of electron transport in perovskite solar cells. Hale has mentored high school students, teaching them the fundamentals of computational chemistry and various programming skills. Additionally, he has been actively engaged with undergraduate students from other universities both in and out of Georgia through the Summer Theoretical and Computational Chemistry workshop.

Hill is a Ph.D. candidate in the Soper Lab in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His research is focused on the activation of strong chemical bonds using Earth-abundant metals for energy conversion and storage. He has taken an active leadership role on campus, in part through service as the president of the Georgia Tech Chemistry Graduate Student Forum.

Marshall is a second-year graduate student working for Alan Doolittle, professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She uses specialized molecular beam epitaxy techniques to grow high-quality III-nitride materials for next-generation power, radio frequency, and optoelectronic devices. Her current research focuses on improving the fundamental understanding of the scandium catalytic effect to optimize the growth of scandium aluminum nitride, a material that shows great promise for applications in future power grids. In addition to her research, Marshall is committed to teaching, having volunteered for five semesters serving her fellow students as a peer instructor at the Hive Makerspace and currently training junior members of her lab to grow semiconductors via molecular beam epitaxy. After earning her master’s and Ph.D., she hopes to continue teaching, mentoring, and connecting others across the world in an effort to bring about a brighter future.

Kantrow is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, co-advised by Natalie Stingelin and Carlos Silva. His research seeks to understand the photo physics of semiconducting polymers operating in dynamic dielectric environments and to provide material design guidelines for solar fuel technologies. He is an active student leader in the Center for Soft Photo-Electrochemical Systems, where he also serves on the energy justice committee. He served as the secretary of the Association for Chemical Engineering Graduate Students (AChEGS) in 2022 and continues to mentor first-year graduate students in AChEGS and through the Pride Peers Program at Georgia Tech.

Tjards is a graduate research assistant at Georgia Tech’s Sustainable Thermal Systems Laboratory. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech in 2021 before beginning his Ph.D. program, where he is studying energy systems. Tjards’ research is focused on modeling new manufacturing processes of drywall and aluminum to reduce water consumption during production. Additionally, he is working on a new technique for water purification. While in school, he has been a teaching assistant and instructor for the undergraduate mechanical engineering course on energy systems analysis and design (ME 4315). In his free time, Tjards enjoys Formula 1 racing, Georgia Tech baseball games, and woodworking.

News Contact

Priya Devarajan | Research Communications Program Manager, SEI

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Georgia Tech researchers will help the state develop its first climate action plan.

Georgia Tech researchers have spent years diving deep into climate solutions for Georgia. Now, the state Department of Natural Resources’ Environmental Protection Division has tapped them to help develop the state’s first climate action plan. 

The plan will help the state compete for up to $500 million in federal funding for climate mitigation efforts under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Under a contract with the agency, the Georgia Tech team will work with partners across Georgia to help the state develop its greenhouse gas inventory, develop a plan to address the most important immediate opportunities the state can take to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and potentially help develop policies and programs to reach those goals. 

“Georgia Tech and our academic, business, and community partners from across the state are uniquely suited to help Georgia identify implementation-ready solutions that can significantly reduce emissions and have beneficial impacts on Georgia communities,” said Marilyn A. Brown, Regents’ Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy.

“As part of our work with Drawdown Georgia, we already have been deeply involved in identifying climate pollution reduction strategies to drive economic and employment growth, improve air quality, deliver benefits to under-resourced residents, and protect the environment. That work gives us a great head start in providing the state the information it needs to develop Georgia’s first climate action plan,” Brown said.

Georgia Tech-Built Emissions Tracker Key Component

Drawdown Georgia is an initiative of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation to accelerate progress toward net zero greenhouse gas emissions in Georgia. Brown led the interdisciplinary science and policy team that helped develop the plan’s recommendations. 

Central to the project is the climate emissions tracker developed at Georgia Tech as part of that project. The tool provides monthly insights into carbon emissions across Georgia’s 159 counties, providing more timely, accurate, and cost-effective data than the traditional tools used in other climate planning efforts. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reviewed the tracker and gave special permission for the state to use it, said William J. Drummond, associate professor in the School of City & Regional Planning and co-principal investigator on the project.

Many other states will instead have to use more traditional bottom-up inventories that take longer to create and are not as frequently updated, he said.

“The work we have done has been peer-reviewed and published, and so it has a level of authoritativeness that other states may not enjoy,” said Drummond, who led the tracker’s development. “We are uniquely positioned to identify actionable solutions for Georgia, help the state meet its incredibly tight timeline, and give Georgia a competitive advantage that other states just can’t match.” 

The Atlanta Regional Commission, which received separate funding to make a plan specific to metro Atlanta, also will use the tracker in its work. 

State Plan Due in March

The state’s priority plan is due in March, with the full plan due a year later. 

“The Georgia Environmental Protection Division is excited to work with Georgia Tech in the development of the state's first climate action plan and appreciates all the work that Georgia Tech and other Drawdown Georgia partners have done to lay the groundwork for this project,” said DeAnna Oser, assistant branch chief of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s Air Protection Branch.

The effort is focused on implementation-ready solutions. Brown said proposals could include projects that advance transportation electrification, energy-efficient housing, climate-smart agriculture, forest management, and urban tree canopies, among other opportunities.

She said it is exciting to see the years of work her team has put into climate mitigation practices and policies to help move Georgia closer to being climate-neutral. 

“We’ve always hoped that this work would have real policy impacts that will help improve our environment, economy, and society,” Brown said. “It’s exhilarating to see the state recognize and incorporate our work, and I look forward to seeing where it leads.”

News Contact

Michael Pearson
Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Default Image: Research at Georgia Tech

Researchers have documented for the first time the stresses that build up around solid-state battery electrolytes, helping set the stage for the development of improved and more efficient batteries. Scientists have long thought that stresses can build up around dendrites, thin metallic projects that can ultimately short out solid-electrolyte batteries, but they haven’t been precisely measured.

A team of scientists at Georgia Tech, Brown University, Nanyang Technological University, and MIT have measured the mechanical stresses that develop in dendrites – solving a long-standing hypothesis that high stresses can be developed around dendrites. Dendrites pierce through solid electrolytes, eventually crossing from one electrode to the other and shorting out the solid-state battery cell.

Georgia Tech Professor Christos Athanasiou and the multidisciplinary team used photoelasticity to measure the stress on batteries caused during the battery cycle. In their paper, Operando Measurements of Dendrite-Induced Stresses in Ceramic Electrolytes using Photoelasticity, they managed to overcome challenges associated with measurements of easy to break, very tiny solid electrolyte samples. The samples thickness was about 10 times smaller than the average diameter of human hair.

The team used an old - and almost forgotten - principle of photoelasticity to directly measure the stress fields during cell operation. Photoelasticity’s contactless nature also allows for the stresses to be directly measured and visualized at the dendrite tips. By shining light through the material under a special photoelastic microscope, it revealed intricate stress fields. In this case, the stress revealed from passing light through the electrolyte appeared at the tip of the propagation dendrite.

This advanced experimental setup has set the stage for profound exploration of stresses developed during battery operation across various electrolytes and conditions, revealing critical data on loading conditions and the dynamics of lithium metal penetration events.

This is just one example where creative, yet simple experimentation, can lead to fundamental discoveries. The Daedalus Lab at Georgia Tech, inspired by the ingenuity of its namesake, the mythical Greek inventor, is dedicated to decarbonizing the future through the development and promotion of sustainable materials and structures, utilizing innovative experimental approaches and artificial intelligence.

News Contact

Kelsey Gulledge

JuanpBablo CIrrea-Baena in a lab holding a chip

Juan-Pablo Correa-Baena leads the Materials for Solar Energy Harvesting and Conversion research initiative for the Institute for Materials (IMat) and Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech. In this role, he is working to create a community around solar energy harvesting and conversion at Georgia Tech. He aims to integrate photovoltaic, photodetectors, and related devices into IMaT-related research; energize research in these areas at Georgia Tech at large; and consolidate the expertise of the many research groups working on or around photovoltaics/photodetectors that will allow researchers to target interdisciplinary research funding opportunities. He is also an assistant professor and the Goizueta Junior Faculty Rotating Chair in the School of Materials Science and Engineering.

In this brief Q&A, Correa-Baena discusses his research focus, how it relates to materials research, and the impact of this initiative.

What is your field of expertise and at what point in your life did you first become interested in this area?

I am an expert in materials for energy harvesting and conversion. I first became interested in this topic when I was an undergraduate student and started thinking about the future of energy production. 

What questions or challenges sparked your current materials research?

I was born and raised in a country where fossil fuels dominate the energy production landscape, yet where renewables are readily available. Colombia is a large producer of oil but also boasts a huge potential for solar energy production. This juxtaposition always puzzled me growing up. As a researcher in this field, I want to ensure that all countries around the world have access to solar energy, by helping lower deployment cost. 

Why is your initiative important to the development of Georgia Tech’s Materials research strategy?

There is a growing need to expand our research footprint at Georgia Tech with regard to photovoltaics. This is especially important with the impact of the photovoltaic industry presence in Georgia. My initiative is focusing on galvanizing activities around photovoltaic research at Georgia Tech that can benefit our footprint globally as well as locally with industry partners.

What are the broader global and social benefits of the research you and your team conduct?

The main benefit of the research we do is to the photovoltaic industry, which we hope to engage through cutting-edge research at Georgia Tech.

What are your plans for engaging a wider Georgia Tech faculty pool with IMat research?

I am planning to organize an internal workshop, as well as a session on photovoltaics in the Next Generation of Energy Materials Symposium to be held in March 2024 at Georgia Tech. In addition, as part of my efforts to engage the Georgia Tech community at large, I am working to create a website that will connect the Georgia Tech community working towards advancing photovoltaic capabilities for future manufacturing advancements. 

News Contact

Amelia Neumeister

3D Graphic of a Server Room

In keeping with a strong strategic focus on AI for the 2023-2024 Academic Year, the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS) has announced the winners of its 2023 Seed Grants for Thematic Events in AI and Cyberinfrastructure Resource Grants to support research in AI requiring secure, high-performance computing capabilities. Thematic event awards recipients will receive $8K to support their proposed workshop or series and Cyberinfrastructure winners will receive research support consisting of 600,000 CPU hours on the AMD Genoa Server as well as 36,000 hours of NVIDIA DGX H-100 GPU server usage and 172 TB of secure storage.

Congratulations to the award winners listed below!

 

Thematic Events in AI Awards

Proposed Workshop: “Foundation of scientific AI (Artificial Intelligence) for Optimization of Complex Systems”
Primary PI: Peng Chen, Assistant Professor, School of Computational Science and Engineering

Proposed Series: “Guest Lecture Seminar Series on Generative Art and Music”
Primary PI: Gil Weinberg, Professor, School of Music

 

Cyber-Infrastructure Resource Awards

Title: Human-in-the-Loop Musical Audio Source Separation
Topics: Music Informatics, Machine Learning
Primary PI: Alexander Lerch, Associate Professor, School of Music

Co-PIs: Karn Watcharasupat, Music Informatics Group | Yiwei Ding, Music Informatics Group | Pavan Seshadri, Music Informatics Group

Title: Towards A Multi-Species, Multi-Region Foundation Model for Neuroscience
Topics: Data-Centric AI, Neuroscience
Primary PI: Eva Dyer,
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering

Title: Multi-point Optimization for Building Sustainable Deep Learning Infrastructure
Topics: Energy Efficient Computing, Deep Learning, AI Systems OPtimization

Primary PI: Divya Mahajan, Assistant Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Computer Science

Title: Neutrons for Precision Tests of the Standard Model
Topics: Nuclear/Particle Physics, Computational Physics

Primary PI: Aaron Jezghani - OIT-PACE

Title: Continual Pretraining for Egocentric Video
Primary PI: : Zsolt Kira, Assistant Professor, School of Interactive Computing
Co-PI: Shaunak Halbe, Ph.D. Student, Machine Learning

Title: Training More Trustworthy LLMs for Scientific Discovery via Debating and Tool Use
Topics: Trustworthy AI, Large-Language Models, Multi-Agent Systems, AI Optimization
Primary PIs: Chao Zhang, School of Computational Science and Engineering
 & Bo Dai, College of Computing

Title: Scaling up Foundation AI-based Protein Function Prediction with IDEaS Cyberinfrastructure
Topics: AI, Biology
Primary PI: Yunan Luo, Assistant Professor, School of Computational Science and Engineering        

  • Christa M. Ernst

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Christa M. Ernst - Research Communications Program Manager
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