Written by: Shweta Ram and Seungho Lee

What does it mean to design systems that endure even after major disruptions? This question framed the 2026 Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Sustainability Showcase, where conversations over two days spanned the Georgia coast, wildfire modeling, AI data centers, infrastructure, community engagement, and the joy of working for a more sustainable and resilient world. 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.

From Coastlines to Communities

The showcase opened with a keynote from President Emeritus G. Wayne Clough on wildlife management and resiliency along Georgia’s coast. The conversation that followed between Clough and BBISS Executive Director Beril Toktay highlighted the interconnection between public policy, wilderness conservation, community leadership, and scientific research. The session highlighted not only the urgency of protecting fragile ecosystems, but also that resilience works best when it is community-focused and community-driven.

Subsequent panels continued this systemic perspective. Sessions on community engagement, biotechnology-derived, climate-resilient plants, the flood resilience of Georgia coastal communities, wildfire prediction and prevention, and infrastructure resilience analytics all emphasized that resilience depends on the synthesis of many disciplines.

Across sessions, researchers emphasized that infrastructure resilience must include governance frameworks informed by good science, community engagement based on trust, and sustained collaboration that seeks to constantly improve the science, policy, and stakeholder relationships. The researchers demonstrated that they understand their role to be greater than merely modeling risk, but as collaborators who translate research into practical solutions that communities can adopt, maintain, and trust.

AI Data Centers: A New Resilience Frontier

Day two shifted attention to data centers, which are emerging as a critical resilience frontier. As artificial intelligence systems scale rapidly, so does the infrastructure that powers them, as well as the growing realization that digital systems are physical systems. Conversations examined the feedback loops that play a significant role in determining environmental impacts, such as chip architecture, AI workloads, data center sustainability, appropriate AI usage, and who makes the decisions on data center infrastructure development. 

One of the most fascinating sessions came from Alexandria Smith, assistant professor in the School of Music at Georgia Tech. She presented an artistic yet algorithmic composition that sonified data from AI data centers. Through translating kilowatt-hour usage and interconnection data into immersive soundscapes, she reframed data centers not as static input-output machines, but as adaptive, living systems. Drawing inspiration from Physarum polycephalum, a slime mold without a brain or nervous system known for its innate problem-solving abilities, she invites the listener to imagine infrastructure that senses, adapts, and self-optimizes.

Campus as a Living Laboratory

In her session, Professor Jennifer Chirico, associate vice president of Sustainability, highlighted Georgia Tech’s 2024 Climate Action Plan, focusing on building energy efficiency, renewable integration, materials management, and mobility transitions. The plan frames the Georgia Tech campus as a test bed for resilience strategies — an ecosystem where research, operations, and policy intersect. Chirico highlighted several examples where the alignment between research and implementation was essential in moving projects from modeling to pilot projects to sustained institutional change.

Finding Joy in Climate Action

Rebecca Watts Hull, Matthew Realff, and Christie Stewart led an interactive discussion inspired by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s framework for accelerating long-term climate action. Participants were asked three simple questions: What are you good at? What work needs doing? What brings you joy? Sustainability and climate research are fields often defined by serious urgency, crisis narratives, and burnout. This session offered a personal framework for resilience where emotional sustainability, professional fulfillment, and joy matter just as much as the motivation to drive a mission ever forward.

Building a Shared Vision

The Sustainability Showcase concluded with a facilitated visioning session led by Kristin Janacek, associate director for Interdisciplinary Research Impact, and Beril Toktay. In small groups, leaders, researchers, and community members worked to define what resilience looks like for them.

After the conversations, several themes emerged:

• Resilience must move from research to practical and community-based solutions to sustained action.
• Networks create opportunity but require long-term stewardship to endure.
• Choosing the right metrics to measure resilience will galvanize efforts to strengthen it.
• Community capacity is at least as important as built infrastructure.

Over two days, it became clear that Georgia Tech is not approaching resilience as a narrow technical problem. It is approaching it as a systems challenge — one that spans coastlines, campuses, disciplines, data centers, the Appalachian Mountains, data models, the arts, and human relationships. Designing systems that endure requires more than innovation. It requires collaboration, stewardship, and a shared commitment to long-term impact. The conversations launched at this year’s BBISS Sustainability Showcase laid the foundation for continued coordination and ambitious action in the months ahead.

Jennifer Chirico leads the energy and infrastructure initiative at Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute. She is a longtime Yellow Jacket, bringing more than 25 years of sustainability experience as the inaugural associate vice president of Sustainability at Georgia Tech. In this role, she oversees the Office of Sustainability and works across the Institute on emissions reductions, clean energy, water management, circular economy, sustainable technology, and strategy.

Chirico led the development and publication of the Institute’s first Climate Action Plan and co-led Tech’s sustainability plan, Sustainability Next. She is LEED Green Associate (Leed GA) accredited and holds certifications in the Carbon Disclosure Project, the Global Reporting Initiative, WaterSense, climate action planning, and Home Energy Survey Professional.

She holds a Ph.D. in public policy from Georgia Tech, a master’s in public health with a major in environmental health, and a bachelor’s degree in management from Georgia Tech. She has published books and written numerous chapters on sustainability related to systems thinking, net zero strategies, adaptive management, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals on leadership for the collective well-being.

Below is a brief Q&A with Chirico in which she discusses her focus areas and how her work at Georgia Tech influences the energy and infrastructure initiative here.

• 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 sustainability, with a focus on the intersection of environmental, social, and economic systems. Although I began my career in finance, I discovered my passion for sustainability during a year I spent working abroad in New Zealand in 2000. That experience opened my eyes to the importance of balancing economic development with environmental stewardship and social responsibility. When I returned to the United States, I pursued a master’s degree in environmental health, followed by a Ph.D. in environmental policy. Over the past 25 years, I’ve dedicated my career to advancing sustainability and creating meaningful impacts. I continue to be inspired by the tangible, positive results that emerge when organizations integrate sustainability principles into their decision-making.

• What questions or challenges sparked your current work at Georgia Tech? What are the big issues facing the campus infrastructure right now as it relates to energy?

One of the most pressing challenges today is strengthening resilience for our infrastructure, well-being, and natural resources. As our environment continues to change, the ability to both mitigate impacts and adapt effectively is essential to our success. In my work, I am committed to advancing a healthier, safer, and more sustainable campus. Much of my work focuses on planning, reporting, and guiding efforts to build a stable, reliable, and clean energy infrastructure. A major part of this involves balancing firm energy sources with intermittent renewable sources in a way that ensures both reliability and sustainability. Georgia Tech has already made meaningful progress by installing over 1 megawatt of solar capacity and piloting the Stryten battery storage system. These projects demonstrate what is possible. We still have a long way to go to reduce our emissions and scale clean energy solutions across campus. Continuing to strengthen our energy resilience and expand renewable integration will be critical to meeting our long‑term goals.

• What interests you the most about leading the energy and infrastructure initiative? Why is your initiative important to Georgia Tech’s energy goals? 

What interests me most is the opportunity to collaborate with some of the nation’s top energy researchers to identify the most resilient, scalable, and forward‑thinking energy solutions for our campus. I’m particularly passionate about bridging the gap between research and operations to support turning innovative work into tangible, real‑world applications that strengthen Georgia Tech’s infrastructure. Building strong partnerships across academics, operations, and industry is central to this effort. When these groups work together, we can accelerate progress, pilot new technologies, and create a living-learning campus that demonstrates what a resilient, low‑carbon future can look like.

• What are the broader regional, global, and social benefits of the energy and infrastructure initiative at Georgia Tech?

It creates benefits that reach far beyond our campus. By implementing clean, resilient energy systems, we contribute to regional progress in the Southeast. Our campus can serve as a model and test bed, demonstrating scalable solutions and sharing best practices with peer institutions, local governments, and industry partners. Globally, our research and operational innovations support the broader transition to cleaner, more reliable energy systems. And socially, these efforts promote healthier communities, reduce environmental burdens, and help prepare a skilled workforce for the rapidly growing energy sector.

• What are your hobbies? 

My favorite hobbies are hiking, reading, yoga, and paddleboarding. I also love spending time in nature and with family and friends.

An estimated 4 million Americans have glaucoma, a group of eye diseases that can lead to irreversible blindness. Now, Georgia Tech is home to a Glaucoma Research Fund that will support cutting-edge work to understand and advance treatments for the disease.

The new initiative was sparked by ongoing research at Georgia Tech — and a Yellow Jacket connection: when Postdoctoral Research Fellow Hannah Youngblood’s work on exfoliation glaucoma (XFG) was featured by the BrightFocus Foundation, it caught the attention of Jennifer Rucker, an Alabama resident who was diagnosed with XFG several years ago.

Excited that the research could change outcomes for people like her — and proud that it’s happening at her husband Philip Rucker’s, EE 72, alma mater — Jennifer Rucker reached out to Youngblood and her advisor, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor and Kelly Sepcic Pfeil, Ph.D. Chair Raquel Lieberman. 

“As the wife of a Georgia Tech graduate and an individual with pseudoexfoliation glaucoma, I was inspired to support the scientists whose efforts may help me and others,” Jennifer Rucker says. What followed was a meaningful dialogue and a shared sense of purpose — and the creation of the Georgia Tech Glaucoma Research Fund (Wreck Glaucoma! Fund). 

“It meant so much that Jennifer took the initiative to reach out to learn more about our research,” says Lieberman. “Moments like this remind me how deeply meaningful it is to connect with people in the broader community who are navigating glaucoma. Opportunities for such personal connections are rare, but they inspire and further motivate us to achieve our lab’s mission to improve the lives of individuals suffering from blindness diseases.”

A Personal Connection

Youngblood’s interest in glaucoma research also stems from a personal connection: her father was diagnosed with glaucoma as a young adult. Now, Youngblood studies the genetic and molecular factors behind XFG in the Lieberman research lab. 

“XFG is an aggressive form of the disease with no known cure,” Youngblood says. While scientists know that XFG is the result of abnormal accumulation of proteins in the eye, current treatments only address symptoms rather than treating the root cause of the disease.

“We know XFG is driven by protein buildup, but we still don’t know why it happens,” she explains. “My work studying specific genetic variants aims to uncover this.” 

The Genetics of Glaucoma

In particular, Youngblood is researching the role of LOXL1, a protein that plays a role in soft tissue throughout the body, including the eyes.

“Research has shown that people with variants in the genes responsible for this protein are more likely to have XFG,” she says. “That made me curious to see if the variants might be impacting the structure of the LOXL1 protein itself and how those variants might lead to disease.”

Youngblood is currently testing her theory in the lab. “My hope is that new insight into proteins like LOXL1 will bring us closer to treatments that address XFG at its source,” she says. “The new Georgia Tech Glaucoma Research Fund is a tremendous step forward in making that hope a reality.”

Support the Georgia Tech Glaucoma Research Fund

Please visit the Glaucoma Research Fund support page to give to this specific program. To discuss additional philanthropic opportunities, please contact the College of Sciences Development Team: development@cos.gatech.edu

Your investment ensures that these scholars and researchers have world-class resources, facilities, and mentors to excel in this critical work. Thank you for helping us shape the future.

Today, Velocity Startups joins Georgia Tech’s comprehensive commercialization ecosystem, solidifying the Institute’s role as a national leader and premier hub for research commercialization and startup growth. Velocity Startups serves as a bridge between early-stage startup founders who are focused on scaling their businesses and readying themselves for late-stage accelerators such as the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Engage, Fusen, and Atlanta Tech Village within the City of Atlanta. 

To support emergent startups, the early-stage accelerator will establish a collaborative facility at The Biltmore in Atlanta’s Tech Square, the national innovation district and dedicated area in the city that fosters community growth and meaningful innovation at the heart of the city’s tech scene. 

“Atlanta is where innovation becomes opportunity, and Velocity Startups will make that journey even faster,” said Donnie Beamer, senior technology advisor in the Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation. “By connecting entrepreneurs to the critical resources they need to scale, we are fueling more startups, creating more jobs, and driving economic growth. Ultimately, this will secure Atlanta’s place as a top global destination for innovation, investment, and entrepreneurial success.”

As an early-stage accelerator, Velocity Startups provides resources — including mentorship support, space, tools, networks, and infrastructure — to Georgia Tech students, faculty, researchers, and the greater Atlanta community, bridging the gap from spinoff to viable startup. At Georgia Tech, many startups that complete the CREATE-X Startup Launch program and present at the Demo Day event will gain access to Velocity Startups. The accelerator will also offer strategic programming, funding, and access to Georgia Tech’s research resources and serve as a coordinating entity for Metro Atlanta’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, engaging more than 50 colleges and advocating for policies that support startup success. 

“Velocity Startups represents a pivotal step in bringing together the resources, expertise, and entrepreneurial spirit within our ecosystems as we look to further establish Atlanta as a top national tech hub. By uniting these elements, Velocity Startups will help startups scale from their first customer to long-term growth,” said Raghupathy “Siva” Sivakumar, vice president of commercialization and chief commercialization officer at Georgia Tech and president of Georgia Advanced Technology Ventures. “This accelerator enables the communities at Georgia Tech and beyond to translate groundbreaking research into high-impact ventures.”

Velocity Startups is a subsidiary of Georgia Advanced Technology Ventures and will operate in partnership with the City of Atlanta. A national search is currently underway for a director to lead the accelerator. 

For additional information about Velocity Startups, visit commercialization.gatech.edu/velocity.

One of Georgia Tech’s newest undergraduate degree offerings — a B.S. in Astrophysics — welcomed its first students in August. 

The astrophysics program, which includes both a major and a minor, introduces students to the fundamental physical processes and laws that govern the cosmos. This foundational curriculum is complemented by training in computational and data analysis techniques.

“Our new undergraduate program is forward-facing, focusing on the future of astronomy and astrophysics as well as how big data and computing are driving innovation and discovery,” says Program Director David Ballantyne, associate chair for Academic Programs and professor in the School of Physics. 

Designed for students interested in research or non-research career paths, the B.S. in Astrophysics was created in response to growing student demand for courses and research opportunities in the field. 

“Astrophysics is a great major at Georgia Tech because it teaches the critical thinking and technical skills students need not just for astrophysics but also for a wide variety of STEM-related careers,” adds Paul Sell, program advisor, senior academic professional in the School of Physics, and director of the Georgia Tech Observatory.

More than two dozen students have already declared the astrophysics major or minor; these numbers are expected to grow as more students learn about the program.  

Third-year student Ishita Chintala switched her major from general physics to astrophysics in order to move closer to her childhood dream of working in the space industry.

“Astrophysics brings a certain kind of magic into my life; a kind of magic that helps me not only understand the world around me, but also helps me understand my place in the universe,” she explains. 

Students enrolled in the program will have the opportunity to engage directly with the work taking place at the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (CRA). Established in 2008, the CRA includes more than a dozen faculty and research scientists with expertise spanning high-energy astrophysics, extrasolar planets, gravitational-wave astronomy, and astroparticle physics.

Access to undergraduate research opportunities, including those offered by CRA faculty, is one reason for Marshall Honaker’s enthusiasm about the major. 

“I’m most excited about getting hands-on research experience and taking advanced astrophysics classes that dive deeper into topics like cosmology and stellar evolution, especially at Georgia Tech,” says Honaker, a first-year student from Warner Robins, Georgia. He aims to pursue a research career to increase our understanding of the universe.

Andrew Heller, a first-year student from Tucker, Georgia, chose the astrophysics major because of his curiosity about and desire to advance our knowledge of everything beyond Planet Earth. 

“As an astrophysics major, I'm very interested in participating in multi-messenger astronomy,” says Heller, referring to a key research focus of the CRA. “The ability to discover different things about an event or object by studying it with different wavelengths or particles is super exciting!”

Undergraduate students interested in declaring the astrophysics major or minor should follow the standard major change or the minor addition/change process.

Georgia Tech’s Jaden Wang (Zhuochen Wang) has been awarded a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunity (NSTGRO). The grant supports graduate students who “show significant potential to contribute to NASA’s goal of creating innovative new space technologies for our nation’s science, exploration, and economic future.”

Wang, who is a Ph.D. student in the School of Mathematics and a master’s student in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, will focus on developing mathematically-backed landing solutions for spacecraft. 

“I first became interested in powered descent problems during my Fall 2024 internship with NASA’s Human Landing System at Marshall Space Flight Center,” he says. “With my mathematical background in optimization and topology, and my passion for space exploration, I saw this research topic as a perfect fit when my co-advisor Dr. Panagiotis Tsiotras suggested it.”

Wang is co-advised by School of Mathematics Professor and Hubbard Research Fellow John Etnyre alongside Panagiotis Tsiotras, who holds the David and Andrew Lewis Endowed Chair in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering and is also associate director at the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines.

In addition to his Georgia Tech advisors, Wang will collaborate with a NASA Subject Matter Expert, who will connect him with the larger technical community. He will perform part of the research as a visiting technologist at multiple NASA centers, giving him the opportunity to work with leading engineers and scientists and share his research results directly with the NASA community.

From abstractions to space exploration

“NASA’s upcoming missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond need technology that allows spacecraft to land precisely at their intended sites,” says Wang. “My research will focus on the last stage of landing, called powered descent. This stage powers up engines, which guide the spacecraft into a safe landing using a pre-designed trajectory that autopilot follows.”

This means that researchers need to figure out the correct thrust, direction, and timing to reach a landing spot — all while navigating a landing that uses as little fuel as possible.

“A common approach is to treat this as an optimization problem: minimizing fuel consumption with rigid-body physics as constraints to determine the best thrust profile,” Wang explains. “This can work well, but it has drawbacks. It assumes that there is no uncertainty in the system (for example, that the thrust of the engines is applied perfectly) and it simplifies the motion of the spacecraft by treating it as though it’s traveling through flat space instead of on a true curved geometry. Both shortcuts introduce errors  — our research aims to address these gaps.”

To improve landing precision, Wang will develop a curved-space geometric mathematical model, which takes into account the curved-space geometry of spacecraft motion rather than assuming flat space. To find a fuel-efficient landing trajectory, Wang will develop the model around optimal covariance steering, a stochastic control problem that both minimizes fuel costs while keeping the uncertainty of the spacecraft's exact landing spot within a safe amount.

It’s a problem that leverages his experience in theoretical math and his background in aerospace engineering. “I’m incredibly honored that NASA finds this research exciting and is supporting my pursuit of it,” he says. “There are so many fascinating engineering problems that could benefit from deeper theoretical scrutiny, especially using abstract machineries not typically covered in an engineering curriculum. I hope this inspires more theoretical researchers and graduate students to explore bridging these gaps.”

A recently awarded $20 million NSF Nexus Supercomputer grant to Georgia Tech and partner institutes promises to bring incredible computing power to the CODA building. But what makes this supercomputer different and how will it impact research in labs on campus, across disciplinary units, and across institutions? 

Purpose Built for AI Discovery

Nexus is Georgia Tech’s next-generation supercomputer, replacing the HIVE. Most operational high-performance computing systems utilized for research were designed before the explosion in Machine Learning and AI. This revolution has already shown successes for scientific research and data analysis in many domains, but the compute power, complex connectivity, and data storage needs for these systems have limited their access to the academic research community. The Nexus supercomputer design process retained a robust HPC system as a base while integrating artificial intelligence, machine learning and large-scale data science analysis from the ground up.

Expert Support for Faculty and Researchers 

The Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS) and the College of Computing house the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Science and Engineering (ARTISAN) group. This team has collective experience in working with national computational, cloud, commercial and institutional resources for computational activities, and decades of experience in scientific tools that aid in assisting both teaching and research faculty. Nexus is the next logical step, bringing together everything they’ve learned to build a national resource optimized for the future of AI-driven science.

Principal Research Scientist for the ARTISAN team, Suresh Marru, highlighted the need for this new resource, “AI is a core part of the Nexus vision. Today, researchers often spend more time setting up experiments, managing data, or figuring out how to run jobs on remote clusters than doing science. With Nexus, we’re flipping that script. By embedding AI into the platform, we help automate routine tasks, suggest optimal ways to run simulations, and even assist in generating input or analyzing results. This means researchers can move faster from question to insight. Instead of wrestling with infrastructure, they can focus on discovery.”

An Accessible AI Resource for GT & US Scientific Research

90% of Nexus capacity will be made available to the national research community through the NSF Advanced Computing Systems & Services (ACSS) program. Researchers from across the country, at universities, labs, and institutions of all sizes, will have access to this next-generation AI-ready supercomputer. For Georgia Tech research faculty and staff, the new system has multiple benefits:

• 10% of the time on the machine will be available for use by Georgia Tech researchers
• Nexus will allow GT researchers a chance to try out the latest hardware for AI computing
• Thanks to cyberinfrastructure tools from the ARTISAN group, Nexus will be easier to access than previous NSF supercomputers

Interim Executive Director of IDEaS and Regents' Professor David Sherrill notes, "Nexus brings Georgia Tech's leadership in research computing to a whole new level. It will be the first NSF Category I Supercomputer hosted on Georgia Tech's campus. The Nexus hardware and software will boost research in the foundations of AI, and applications of AI in science and engineering."

In the first town hall with its new Dean, College of Lifetime Learning colleagues came together to explore a central question: what does it mean to learn, and how can that spirit shape the way we work?

Bill Gaudelli, Ed.D., joined the College Aug. 1 as the inaugural dean. He brings more than 35 years of experience as an educator, researcher, and academic administrator to this role. 

Rather than beginning with charts or plans, the Dean opened with two polls. The first asked: What did you learn? What did you notice about your learning? How did you feel before, during, and after? The second posed a broader challenge: What is a learning organization? Colleagues shared learning experiences that ran along a fairly common path: anticipation, uncertainty, frustration, and, ultimately, accomplishment. 

“Not one of you said I had no emotional response to the learning. Not a person. There was joy. There was a lot of laughter. And everyone had something to share because that is how fundamental learning is,” Dean Gaudelli observed. “And so, as a learning organization. We've got to think about how we meet the moment and the learner in a context that's totally new. We've got to figure that out in a new space, using new tools, recognizing that the desire to learn is permanent in humans.”

With these shared experiences in mind, Gaudelli introduced the concept of a learning organization, drawing from Peter Senge’s landmark work The Fifth Discipline. He outlined the five disciplines (personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, and systems thinking) and invited colleagues to see them not as abstract theory, but as a practical framework for how the College might operate.

Becoming a learning organization, Dean Gaudelli said, is not a label but a way of working: embracing curiosity, being adaptable, questioning assumptions, and understanding that the whole is stronger than its individual parts. “If we’re going to promote learning in the world, then we have to be learning ourselves,” he noted. That means committing to continuous improvement, viewing mistakes as opportunities, and aligning every role with a shared purpose.

This vision brings to life the College’s mission to support learning across the lifespan and positions the College to respond to a rapidly changing educational landscape. By building systems and culture that make learning continuous, collaborative, and transformative, Gaudelli sees an opportunity to lead not just in what the College teaches, but in how it works together.

Dr. Roslyn Martin, Director of Professional Education Programs for the College and GTPE , later reflected on the meeting. “It was powerful to reflect on the learning journey and experience the process organically to deepen our understanding,” she shared. “And I’m excited about this pivotal chapter for Georgia Tech, as the College creates more impactful learning experiences and pathways to transformative education for communities around the globe!”

In the months ahead, the College will begin crafting a new strategic plan rooted in these ideas. Gaudelli encouraged everyone to take an active role in shaping the future. His closing challenge: learn something new in the coming month, and not for the skill alone, but for the insight into how you learn. That awareness, he said, is the foundation for building a true learning organization.