Fan Zhang, an assistant professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering’s Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics (NREMP) program, has been named to the American Nuclear Society’s (ANS) 40 Under 40 list.

The list, published in the November issue of Nuclear News magazine, recognizes early career professionals who have made significant contributions to the nuclear field and are poised to shape its future. The 40 honorees are featured in a special section highlighting their accomplishments, leadership, and impact on the industry.

Zhang said the ANS recognition is both meaningful and motivating.

“It’s a humbling reminder that the work I’m passionate about—making nuclear systems safer, more efficient, and more secure—matters to the broader community,” she said. “It motivates me to give back and keep mentoring and inspiring the next generation and make a global impact.”

Zhang directs the Intelligence for Advanced Nuclear (iFAN) Lab, where her research primarily focuses on nuclear cybersecurity, robotics, anomaly detection, digital twin, machine learning and artificial intelligence.

“We create solutions to make nuclear systems safer, more efficient and secure,” she said.

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The Strategic Energy Institute and the Energy, Policy, and Innovation Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology have announced the recipients of this year’s James G. Campbell Fellowship and Spark Awards.

Kristian Lockyear, a doctoral student in the Sustainable Systems Thermal Lab, received the Campbell Fellowship, which recognizes a Georgia Tech graduate student conducting outstanding research in renewable energy systems. Candidates are nominated by their advisors for exceptional academic achievement in the field.

Lockyear’s research, advised by Professor Srinivas Garimella in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, centers on developing a biomass-powered adsorption cooling system to address food supply shortages in the cold chain and enable vaccine delivery to remote regions. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Georgia Tech and is committed to advancing sustainable cooling technologies that improve access in developing areas and promote global energy equity.

The Spark Award honors Georgia Tech graduate students who have demonstrated exceptional leadership in advancing student engagement with energy research, along with a strong record of service and broader impact. This year’s recipients are Daksh Adhikari, John Kim, Douglas Lars Nelson, Alex Magalhaes, Anna Raymaker, and Talia Thomas. “This year saw one of the largest pools of applications for the annual awards,” said Jordann Britt, SEI’s program coordinator, who led the selection process. “Awardees were thoughtfully chosen based on research excellence, a strong record of service, and projects demonstrating broader impact on advancing renewable energy. Through these scholarships, we hope to encourage and support students as they grow into future leaders in the energy industry.”

Daksh Adhikari is a second-year doctoral student in mechanical engineering working in the MiNDS Lab. His research focuses on increasing the adoption of two-phase thermal management techniques in artificial intelligence data centers to reduce water consumption. Adhikari is developing machine learning-based control systems to manage the unstable regions inherent in two-phase cooling processes. Outside of the lab, he enjoys playing guitar and exploring scientific topics related to space.

John Kim is a doctoral candidate in public policy, advised by Professor Daniel Matisoff. His research examines the distributional effects of environmental and energy infrastructure challenges, with a focus on grid resilience, public safety, and environmental justice. Kim’s broader research agenda includes analyzing inequities in power grid restoration, the economic impacts of EPA Superfund cleanups, and the socioeconomic drivers of electric vehicle adoption.

Douglas Lars Nelson is a fifth-year doctoral candidate at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, advised by Professor Matthew McDowell. His research uses advanced characterization techniques to quantify degradation in next-generation battery materials, contributing to the development of safer, high-energy batteries. Nelson earned his undergraduate degree in materials science and engineering from Clemson University.

Alex Magalhaes is a master’s student in computational science and engineering, advised by Professor Qi Tang. His research centers on developing scalable, high-fidelity numerical algorithms to simulate plasma confinement and equilibrium in nuclear fusion reactors. Magalhaes holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Wesleyan University and previously worked as a data scientist at Quantiphi. He plans to pursue a doctorate in computational plasma physics. In his free time, he enjoys rock climbing, which he’s done at Yosemite and Grand Teton National Park.

Anna Raymaker is a doctoral student in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, advised by Professor Saman Zonouz. Her research focuses on securing critical infrastructure by identifying and mitigating cyber risks in systems, such as maritime networks and distributed energy resources. Raymaker leads a U.S. Department of Energy-aligned initiative to locate exposed solar inverters worldwide and assess their impact on operational power grids. She currently serves as president of the Graduate Student Association for the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy.

Talia Thomas is a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering working in the McDowell Lab. Her research focuses on sustainable carbon materials for next-generation lithium- and sodium-ion batteries by using biomass precursors such as lignin and cellulose to develop high-performance anodes. Thomas also integrates life cycle and techno-economic assessments to evaluate scalability and environmental impact. She is an active leader in the graduate community, organizing initiatives that promote inclusion and student engagement. Before graduate school, she worked as a maintenance engineer at Dow and as a chemistry research associate at Zymergen.

 

Written by: Katie Strickland.

Ann Dunkin joined the Georgia Tech Strategic Energy Institute (SEI) as a distinguished external fellow in April. Before that, she served as the chief information officer at the U.S. Department of Energy, where she managed the department’s information technology portfolio and modernization; oversaw its cybersecurity efforts; led technology innovation and digital transformation; and enabled collaboration across the agency. Dunkin also served in former President Barack Obama’s administration as chief information officer of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

Other previous roles include chief strategy and innovation officer at Dell Technologies; chief information officer for the County of Santa Clara, California; chief technology officer for Palo Alto Unified School District in California; and leadership positions at Hewlett Packard focused on engineering, research and development, IT, manufacturing engineering, software quality, and operations. 

Dunkin is a published author, most recently of the book Industrial Digital Transformation, and a frequent speaker on topics such as government technology modernization, digital transformation, and organizational development. She received the 2022 Capital CIO Large Enterprise ORBIE Award and has earned numerous honors, including Washington, D.C.’s Top 50 Women in Technology for 2015 and 2016; Computerworld’s Premier 100 Technology Leaders for 2016; StateScoop’s Top 50 Women in Technology list for 2017; FedScoop’s Golden Gov Executive of the Year in 2016 and 2021; and FedScoop’s Best Bosses in Federal IT 2022.  

Dunkin holds a master of science degree and a bachelor of industrial engineering degree, both from Georgia Tech. She is a licensed professional engineer in California and Washington state. In 2018, she was inducted into Georgia Tech’s Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni. 

Below is a short Q&A with Dunkin reflecting on how the Institute influenced her career.

• How did your Georgia Tech education shape your approach to leadership and innovation throughout your career?

  My Georgia Tech education instilled the core ideas and values that we see in our graduates today, and that made me successful in my career. You can’t graduate from Georgia Tech without learning how to be part of a team and to lead through influence, which may be the hardest part of leadership. It’s far easier, although less effective, to lead through authority. In addition, the concept of grit has informed my approach to my roles — that my team and I will work hard together to find solutions to difficult challenges and that no challenge is too hard if we set our minds to accomplishing it. This may seem like an unusual connection to innovation, but it’s not. A lot of people think that innovation is about a light bulb going off in your head with a great idea. Sure, that happens sometimes. But the idea is only the spark of innovation. Innovation is about the hard work to turn an idea into reality — and that’s why it takes grit. You have to do the work and not be discouraged by setbacks.  

• What does it mean to you to return to Georgia Tech as a distinguished external fellow?

  First, coming back to Georgia Tech feels like the ultimate full circle moment. It’s an honor to be invited back as a distinguished external fellow and a distinguished professor of the practice. It shows that the leadership team at Georgia Tech, one of the best engineering institutions in the world, respects the work that I’ve done in my career. Second, this is an exciting opportunity to shift gears in my career, continue to do interesting work, and contribute at a high level. I’m excited to be here and look forward to what we’re going to accomplish together. 

• What aspect of your collaboration with the SEI are you most passionate about?

  There are so many things that it’s hard to identify just one. The SEI is at the center of the future of energy, working to solve difficult problems to ensure that we have abundant, affordable, clean energy. During my time at the Energy Department, I developed a strong interest in energy technology, including next-generation nuclear, fusion, and battery technologies. I’m also interested in grid resilience, particularly permitting, planning, and cybersecurity. I hope to help the SEI deepen collaboration with the Energy Department’s labs and to engage other partners as well.

• How do you see the SEI influencing the energy landscape of our nation?

  The SEI has the ability to influence at a level that exceeds its size. It can drive collaboration between Georgia Tech, national labs, and the private sector on critical issues in the energy sector from research to implementation. I like that the SEI embraces its role as a convener, bringing all the parties together to make something happen.

Georgia Tech researchers have developed a mathematical formula to predict the size of lakes that form on melting ice sheets — discovering their depth and span are linked to the topography of the ice sheet itself. 

The team leveraged physics, model simulations, and satellite imagery to develop simple mathematical equations that can easily be integrated into existing climate models. It’s a first-of-it’s-kind tool that is already improving climate models.

“Melt lakes play an important role in ice sheet stability, but previously, there were no constraints on what we would expect their maximum size to be in Antarctica,” says study lead Danielle Grau, a Ph.D. student in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. “I was intrigued by the idea of quantifying how much of a role we could expect them to play in the future.”

The paper, “Predicting mean depth and area fraction of Antarctic supraglacial melt lakes with physics-based parameterizations,” was published in Nature Communications. In addition to Grau, the research team includes School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Professor Alexander Robel, who is Grau’s advisor, and Azeez Hussain (PHYS 2025).

Their predictions show that the majority of these lakes will be less than a meter deep and span up to 40% of the ice sheet surface area.

“Many models don’t include any data about lakes on the surface of ice sheets, while others simulate these melt lakes growing until the ice collapses,” Robel says. “Our results show that the reality is somewhere in between — and that the maximum size of these lakes can be predicted using these new equations. This gives us real, concrete numbers to use in climate models.”

From summer project to satellite discovery 

Grau first started working on the project as an undergraduate student when she applied for a Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates program hosted by the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Inspired by terrestrial lake research, Grau and Robel investigated the “self-affinity” of the Antarctic ice sheet — a property associated with surface roughness across various scales. For example, a landscape like Badlands National Park, with many rolling hills of a wide range of sizes, would have a different self-affinity than a flat prairie with three large volcanoes.

“A previous study had used this property to predict the size of terrestrial lakes and ponds, and we were curious if we could use a similar approach for supraglacial lakes in Antarctica,” Grau says. “Establishing that the Antarctic ice sheet also has this property was the first step in pursuing this research in more depth.” 

The mathematics of melt

Grau continued the investigation as a Ph.D. student in Robel’s lab. Together, they unraveled the physics of how meltwater moves across the ice surface, designing a ‘glacier in a computer’ that mimics meltwater accumulation and movement across various topographies.

“We designed an algorithm and integrated it into a model that the GT Ice & Climate Group has used in the past,” Grau says. “From that, we were able to see how lakes would form on different surfaces across thousands of scenarios. This was the foundation for the mathematical equations I developed, which can predict the lake depth and lake surface area based on the self-affinity property.”

To check their results, Grau enlisted the help of Hussain — then an undergraduate in the School of Physics — to examine satellite data from the Landsat satellite program (which captures detailed photography of the Earth’s surface from space) to measure existing supraglacial lakes and surface topography. 

“It was exciting to see how our predictions lined up with what we were seeing in the satellite imagery,” Robel explains. “This shows that our solution is a concrete avenue for climate models to realistically incorporate supraglacial lakes.”

Grau is already working to incorporate the team’s equations into an atmospheric model used by NASA in addition to an ice sheet model developed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Dartmouth College. 

“By turning complicated models and satellite data into simple predictive equations, we’re giving climate models a new lens to see the future,” she says. “It’s a small piece of the puzzle,  but one that helps us understand how ice sheets respond to a warming world.”

 

Funding: NASA Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction Program

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61798-8 

Researchers at Georgia Tech have analyzed the seasonal differences of sulfate aerosols — a major pollutant in the United States — to examine the long-term impact from sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emission reductions since the enactment of the Clean Air Act amendments in 1990. 

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Professor Yuhang Wang and his team studied the factors affecting SO₂ and sulfate concentrations during winter and summer in the “Rust Belt” — from New York through the Midwest — and the Southeast regions of the U.S. over two decades (2004 to 2023). Supported by the National Science Foundation and Georgia Tech’s Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, the team also developed an ensemble machine learning approach to project seasonal patterns until 2050. 

“Power plants, particularly those burning coal and oil, are a major source of SO₂ emissions in these regions,” says Wang, who co-authored, with Ph.D. students Fanghe Zhao and Shengjun Xi, the study recently published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters. 

Seasonal differences in atmospheric chemistry 

In the U.S., the chemistry in the atmosphere varies among the seasons. During summer, solar radiation from ample sunlight activates oxidant reactions that produce hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) in the atmosphere. The supply of H₂O₂ is determined by the amount of emitted air pollution, and once in the atmosphere, H₂O₂ can oxidize SO₂ quickly into sulfate aerosols in the aqueous phase. 

Sulfate aerosols from the oxidation of SO₂ contribute to the formation of particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5). Particulate sulfate poses significant environmental and public health risks, including air pollution, acid rain, and circulatory and respiratory issues. 

“The supply of H₂O₂ in summer is eight times greater than in winter — a huge difference — which means sulfate concentrations are generally higher in summer and a reduction in SO₂ emissions leads to a proportional decrease in sulfate concentrations,” explains Wang. “When SO₂ emissions exceed the available supply of H₂O₂ in winter, the reduction in sulfate concentrations can be much smaller because of a ‘chemical damping’ effect that causes sulfate levels to decline more slowly than SO₂ emissions.” 

Narrowing the disparities between seasonal sulfate levels 

The study’s two-decade observations revealed distinct patterns in the reduction of SO₂ emissions and sulfate concentrations during winter and summer. 

While SO₂ emissions significantly decreased in both seasons­ over time — primarily from the Clean Air Act and more power plants transitioning from coal to natural gas — the reduction of sulfate concentrations initially showed large seasonal differences. However, over the past decade, the disparity between winter and summer sulfate levels narrowed as SO₂ emissions decreased.

According to Wang, the seasonal disparity of sulfate was caused by changing chemical regimes in winter over time. Although the lower supply of H₂O₂ remained stable in winter, SO₂ wintertime emissions were higher from 2004 to 2013, then dropped below the level of H₂O₂ after 2013 — reaching parity with the levels of reduced SO₂ emissions in the summer. 

“When you have this complexity of atmospheric chemistry, there is a non-linear effect in winter — as SO₂ emissions decreased, sulfate aerosol production efficiency increased until 2013, then flattened as of today. The reduction in sulfate aerosols initially lagged behind the decrease in SO₂ emissions but eventually caught up as a result of sustained air quality control efforts,” says Wang. “Conversely, there is a simple, linear effect in summer — the more SO₂ emissions, the more sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere — and if you reduce one, the other is reduced by the same proportion.”

Decades-long full impact 

From now until 2050, the researchers’ machine learning projections indicate a continuing decrease of winter and summer sulfate levels, which are currently around 20 percent, as SO₂ emission controls achieve comparable efficacy across the seasons. 

“We’re now seeing the full impact from the Clean Air Act,” concludes Wang, “and the nation’s sustained effort in pollution reduction is key to improving air quality and health outcomes.”