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Brown, Engle, Nemirovski Elected to National Academy of Sciences

admin — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 16:20:38 +0000

Brown, Engle, Nemirovski Elected to National Academy of Sciences admin Wed, 06/18/2025 - 12:20

Scientific endeavors across Georgia Tech are broad, deep, and varied — a fact underscored last week when the National Academy of Sciences announced three Tech scholars among its newest members.

Marilyn Brown is one of the nation’s top analysts of clean energy policy; Randall Engle is a leader in understanding individual differences in memory and attention; and Arkadi Nemirovski has helped shape the field of continuous optimization.

Each now joins an elite group of the nation’s foremost scientists in a historic moment for the Institute: It’s the first time three scientists from Tech have been elected to the Academy in a single year.

“The election of Georgia Tech faculty members from across multiple disciplines into the National Academy of Sciences is extraordinary,” said Rafael L. Bras, provost, executive vice president for Academic Affairs, and K. Harrison Brown Family Chair. “We are incredibly proud and congratulate Professors Brown, Engle, and Nemirovski on this well-deserved honor. This distinction is a testament to their significant contributions and an honor that recognizes that critical research happens at the intersection of disciplines.”

Election to the National Academy of Sciences is among the highest honors a scientist can receive, recognizing “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research,” as the Academy puts it. It has been reserved for just 2,403 people in the United States. Nominations for new members can come only from current Academy members.

“In the hierarchy of scientific acknowledgment, the only things higher are the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Nobel Prize,” said Engle, professor in the School of Psychology. “In my wildest dreams, I never imagined it for myself.”

Engle studies the nature of working memory and its relationship to attention control. At its most basic, his work focuses on how people differ in their ability to concentrate on a single task. Understanding these differences helps us understand why individuals’ cognitive performance varies.

Engle came to Georgia Tech in 1995 to lead the School of Psychology. After 13 years, he stepped down to create the Georgia State University/Georgia Tech Center for Advanced Brain Imaging. His work has been influential in social and developmental psychology, emotion, and psychopathology, among other areas. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“I don’t know of any successful scientists who do what we do for the glory. We are driven by questions and are so fortunate to have jobs where people actually pay us to spend our lives looking through the metaphorical microscope,” Engle said. “At the same time, we all love having our work acknowledged and respected by our scientific heroes. That is what this feels like: People who I have read about in my field since I was an undergraduate are saying that my work has value.”

Like Engle, Nemirovski expressed surprise at his election to the Academy, despite more than five decades of contributions to optimization theory and algorithms.

“While I respect my professional achievements, I do not value them as matching the honor,” said Nemirovski, who came to Georgia Tech in 2005 and is the John Hunter Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Yet he is credited with several significant achievements in the field of convex optimization — the Ellipsoid algorithm (with D. Yudin), mirror descent, interior point methods for nonlinear convex problems (with Y. Nesterov), and robust optimization (with A. Ben-Tal) — and in non-parametric statistics (with A. Juditsky).

In fact, Nemirovski credited his collaborators with helping him build an impactful career.

“The excellent professional training I got under supervision of Professor Eugene Shilov at the Department of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, and the honor and privilege to communicate and, in many cases, to collaborate with outstanding colleagues — Boris Polyak, Rafail Khasminskii, Yuri Nesterov, Aharon Ben-Tal, Anatoli Iouditski, Alexander Shapiro, David Donoho, Stephen Boyd — their influence made me what I am as a professional,” he said.

Nemirovski also is a fellow of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Brown has established herself as an international leader in the analysis of clean energy policies. She’s a pioneer in incorporating behavioral and social science principles into complex energy-engineering models that are used to evaluate policy proposals and to assess opportunities such as the size of the energy-efficiency gap in the United States.

She developed an approach as a regulator of the Tennessee Valley Authority that characterizes energy efficiency in terms of a power plant — in essence, the size, cost, and reliability of the plant that would not have to be built if companies took steps to conserve energy. She also developed carbon accounting methods at Georgia Tech that were applied to the first carbon footprint assessments of the nation’s largest 100 metropolitan areas.

“Being elected to the National Academy of Sciences is a great honor,” said Brown, Regents Professor and Brook Byers Professor in Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy. “It is also a great testament to the outstanding faculty and students across Georgia Tech, who are fostering the kind of sustainable energy systems and policies that will help the world step back from the brink of climate disaster.”

Brown arrived at Georgia Tech in 2006 after establishing herself at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a national leader in the analysis and interpretation of energy futures in the United States. A year later, she and her co-authors won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III Assessment Report on Mitigation of Climate Change.

Earlier this year, Brown also was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

“Colleagues like Professors Brown, Engle, and Nemirovski are what makes Georgia Tech such a special place,” Bras said. “They are true scholars and dedicated teachers, and they are examples to their students, their friends, and colleagues. We all rejoice with them.”

Summary sentence

Election to the Academy is among the highest honors a scientist can achieve.

Summary

Brook Byers Professor, Marilyn Brown is among 3 Georgia Tech faculty elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Election to the Academy is among the highest honors a scientist can achieve.

Scientific endeavors across Georgia Tech are broad, deep, and varied — a fact underscored last week when the National Academy of Sciences announced three Tech scholars among its newest members. Marilyn Brown is one of the nation’s top analysts of clean energy policy; Randall Engle is a leader in understanding individual differences in memory and attention; and Arkadi Nemirovski has helped shape the field of continuous optimization. Each now joins an elite group of the nation’s foremost scientists in a historic moment for the Institute: It’s the first time three scientists from Tech have been elected to the Academy in a single year.

Brook Byers Professor Brown Among Four GT Faculty Elected to National Academy of Engineering

admin — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:16:41 +0000

Brook Byers Professor Brown Among Four GT Faculty Elected to National Academy of Engineering admin Wed, 06/18/2025 - 11:16

Four Georgia Institute of Technology faculty members have been elected as new members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Marilyn Brown, Thomas Kurfess, Susan Margulies, and Alexander Shapiro join 83 other new NAE members for 2020 when they are formally inducted during a ceremony at the academy’s annual meeting on Oct. 4 in Washington, D.C.

Election of new NAE members, the culmination of a yearlong process, recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to "engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature" and to "the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education."

“It’s the honor of a lifetime to be recognized by the National Academy of Engineering for the impact we’ve have on understanding lung injuries in the critical care unit and traumatic brain injuries in children,” said Margulies, chair of the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University and, with Brown, one of just three women on the Georgia Tech faculty accorded NAE membership – one of the highest professional distinctions an engineer can receive.

“Our work is deeply collaborative, and I am grateful to the engineers, scientists, physicians, and patients who are partners in our journey,” Margulies added.

Margulies, a researcher in the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Tech and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Injury Biomechanics at Emory, was elected, “for elaborating the traumatic injury thresholds of brain and lung in terms of structure-function mechanisms,” according to the NAE announcement.

Using an integrated biomechanics approach, Margulies’ research program spans the micro-to-macro scales in two distinct areas, traumatic brain injury and ventilator-induced lung injury. Her work has generated new knowledge about the structural and functional responses of the brain and lungs to their mechanical environment. Margulies came to Georgia Tech in 2017 from the University of Pennsylvania, where she’d been a professor of bioengineering, and had earned her Master of Science in Engineering and Ph.D. in Bioengineering.

Brown, a Regents and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy, was co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 (for co-authorship of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group III Assessment Report on Mitigation of Climate Change, Chapter 6).

She joined Georgia Tech in 2006 after a career at the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she led several national climate change mitigation studies and became a leader in the analysis and interpretation of energy futures in the United States. Her research at Tech focuses on the design and impact of policies aimed at accelerating the development and deployment of sustainable energy technologies, emphasizing the electric utility industry. She was elected to NAE “for bridging engineering, social and behavioral sciences, and policy studies to achieve cleaner electric energy.”

Brown, who earned her Ph.D. at the Ohio State University, co-founded and chaired the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance, served two terms as a presidential appointee on the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority – the nation’s largest public power provider – and also served two terms on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee, where she led the Smart Grid Subcommittee.

“The most rewarding feature of my career has been working toward solutions with colleagues across disciplines,” Brown said.

Shapiro is the Russell Chandler III Chair and professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, where his research is focused on stochastic programming, risk analysis, simulation-based optimization, and multivariate statistical analysis.

In 2013, he was awarded the INFORMS Khachiyan Prize for lifetime achievements in optimization. He received the 2018 Dantzig Prize from the Mathematical Optimization Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Since earning his Ph.D. in applied mathematics-statistics from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 1981, Shapiro has made substantial contributions to the fields of optimization and large-scale, stochastic programming, and he was elected to NAE “for contributions to the theory, computation, and application of stochastic programming.”

Kurfess is professor and HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, where he has helped guide the evolution of technology as a pioneer in the digital transformation of manufacturing.

Improving manufacturing technology is a pursuit that has roots in his childhood. “I grew up in my father’s machine shop,” said Kurfess, who has a special fondness for mom-and-pop operations. He was elected by the NAE “for development and implementation of innovative digital manufacturing technologies and system architectures.”

“I’m proud that the work we do has a positive impact on small and medium-sized enterprises, which are about 99% of the manufacturing operations, as well as large operations,” said Kurfess, who earned all of his degrees at MIT. “Our work targets people who are implementing the digital thread in manufacturing, and what the digital thread will do is make sure those smaller enterprises, those mom and pops, can have access to the latest and greatest technologies.”

Research News
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Media Relations Contact: John Toon (404-894-6986) (jtoon@gatech.edu).

Writer: Jerry Grillo

Summary sentence

Marilyn Brown, Thomas Kurfess, Susan Margulies, and Alexander Shapiro join 83 other new National Academy of Engineering members for 2020.

Summary

Engineers Without Borders Project Installs 100 Clean Cookstoves in Nicaragua

admin — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:16:41 +0000

Engineers Without Borders Project Installs 100 Clean Cookstoves in Nicaragua admin Wed, 06/18/2025 - 11:16

In 2013, Georgia Tech student Heidi Vreeland visited the community of Nuevo Amanecer, a small neighborhood in rural Nicaragua. While there, Vreeland was struck by how damaging the method of cooking with an open fire could be to people’s respiratory health, exposing them to high levels of smoke, particulate matter, and carbon monoxide. This led to the beginning of a project to give the people of Nuevo Amanecer clean cookstoves, a project that’s been the work of Georgia Tech’s Engineers Without Borders (EWB) for almost eight years now.

The project, funded in part by the Georgia Tech Student Foundation and Parents Fund, has led to the installation of nearly 100 clean cookstoves in Nuevo Amanecer over the last two years. The stoves use a combustion chamber and chimney that filters and redirects smoke away from the users. This technology has also led to a marked improvement in the community’s air quality.

While the EWB team wanted to be able to visit Nuevo Amanecer in person to help install the stoves, they had to work remotely and find partners that could get the equipment there. In 2019, political instability kept them from being able to travel safely. Instead, they worked with Rayo de Sol, a local NGO; Poleña, a stove manufacturer; and EWB field engineers in Nicaragua to make sure that their project came to fruition. This partnership also helped them throughout 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic prevented students from visiting the community for a second summer.

Proleña and Rayo de Sol effectively managed the stove installation and surveyed community members to determine their satisfaction and use habits. The EWB field engineers conducted air quality tests in the community to ensure that the new stoves were producing lower smoke emissions than traditional open fires. Back in Atlanta, EWB members at Tech analyzed the air quality data.

Working remotely also caused the EWB team to emphasize community relations. They made YouTube videos about the project, outlining best practices with the stove to share with the Nuevo Amanecer community. They also stayed in contact with members of the community via WhatsApp, checking in to see how the stoves were working and learn about life in Nicaragua.

While EWB’s goal of installing 100 cookstoves has almost been met and their time with the project draws to a close, members of the team still plan on maintaining the connections they made with the people of Nuevo Amanecer. Pending Covid-19 restrictions, a team plans on flying there in August to help monitor and evaluate the status of the stoves.

“It is not only rewarding to be able to apply skills I hope to use in my future career towards something I care so much about, but also being able to see and hear how your efforts are making a positive impact in the community,” said Sophie Zhang, a member of the project’s finance team. “Working on this project has shown me that change is made through passion and drive, and it has been wonderful working with people on campus who share that enthusiasm.”

Learn more about EWB’s Nicaragua project on Instagram (@ewbgtnicaragua) and Facebook.

Summary sentence

The projects has lasted eight years and already led to improvements in air quality.

Summary

The project, funded in part by the Georgia Tech Student Foundation and Parents Fund, has led to the installation of nearly 100 clean cookstoves in Nuevo Amanecer over the last two years.

Keywords

ewb

engineers without borders

Nicaragua

service

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Campus and Community

Brook Byers Professor Weissburg Wins $3M Grant to Bring Biologically Inspired Design to High Schools

admin — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 15:11:41 +0000

Brook Byers Professor Weissburg Wins $3M Grant to Bring Biologically Inspired Design to High Schools admin Wed, 06/18/2025 - 11:11

The way a ladybug folds its wings can help aerospace engineers design more compact satellites. Studying how ants dig tunnels could help us create our own tunnels more efficiently.

The idea of using nature’s examples to develop products and designs that benefit society is the cornerstone of a new project at Georgia Tech that aims to get more high school students interested in engineering.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the $3 million effort will put high school engineering teachers in research labs at Georgia Tech for five weeks. The teachers will be embedded with engineers and scientists, working at the forefront of what’s called biologically inspired design, and creating a curriculum for the teachers to use in their classrooms.

“Lots of people think animals and what they do is insanely cool — and the internet agrees — which means we can engage interest in engineering by making a link to biology as a way to solve engineering challenges,” said Marc Weissburg, project leader and professor in the School of Biological Sciences. “The act of trying to see how an animal might help find a solution to a problem is a very creative process. It challenges the notion that engineering is boring. High school engineering experiences vary widely, but they generally do not include the most cutting-edge topics, like bio-inspired design, which gets people really excited,” he said.

For the next four years, Weissburg will collaborate with researchers Meltem Alemdar, Michael Helms, Roxanne Moore and Michael Ryan at Georgia Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing. They’ll create and assess units for 10th, 11th and 12th graders that explore bio-inspired design in the context of problems that are relatable to teenagers.

In particular, the researchers see their approach as a way to reach girls, who may not have considered engineering as a potential career. Weissburg pointed to data from the Center for Digital Education that showed 24% of male high school students expressed interest in engineering. For young women, the number was just 11%.

“Too often, engineering is depicted as applied math and science, which completely neglects how human-centered engineering is,” said Weissburg, who also co-directs the Center for Biologically Inspired Design at Georgia Tech and is a Brook Byers Professor.

The project will generate a curriculum with design and build exercises, background materials for teachers, examples to spark discussion, tests, and other resources that can be used by teachers across the country. Researchers will examine how well the curriculum engages students, particularly those from groups underrepresented in engineering.

“States have different standards, and teacher goals and classes have to be responsive to their unique student audience,” Weissburg said. “Our series of resources, all of which will be online, will allow teachers to easily slot in material that fits for them. It will allow them to talk to us and each other about best practices.”

The research team has partnered with Gwinnett County Public Schools to identify the first group of teachers they’ll invite to participate. Weissburg said that will happen in late Spring 2020.

“Bio-inspired engineering is a unique way of thinking, and so we have to help the teachers understand how to encourage this in their students.”

Summary sentence

Four-year project will bring teachers into Georgia Tech labs and create new curriculum materials for them to use in class.

Summary

The way a ladybug folds its wings can help aerospace engineers design more compact satellites. Studying how ants dig tunnels could help us create our own tunnels more efficiently.

Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the $3 million effort will put high school engineering teachers in research labs at Georgia Tech for five weeks.

Georgia Tech to Launch State’s First Sustainability Master’s Program

admin — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 14:39:46 +0000

Georgia Tech to Launch State’s First Sustainability Master’s Program admin Wed, 06/18/2025 - 10:39

The Georgia Institute of Technology is launching a new Master of Science in Sustainable Energy and Environmental Management (MSEEM) — the only graduate degree in Georgia fully dedicated to sustainability issues.

The highly technical, science-based, and interdisciplinary program — approved by the Board of Regents on Feb. 12, 2019 — will prepare students to deliver fact-based policy expertise through robust analytical techniques and a deep understanding of energy and environmental issues and sustainability practices.

“This professionally focused degree will allow Georgia Tech to educate the next generation of sustainability leaders in corporate, government, and non-governmental organizations,” said Rafael L. Bras, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs and K. Harrison Brown Family Chair. “Georgia Tech is proud to deliver innovative, affordable, and top-quality education in high-demand areas such as sustainability to meet the needs of our evolving workforce."

When the program begins in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts' School of Public Policy in August 2019, MSEEM students will study topics such as sustainable energy and voluntary environmental commitments, cost-benefit analysis, utility regulation and policy, Earth systems, economics of environmental policy, big data and policy analytics, climate policy, and environmental management.

They also will learn analytical techniques used to estimate and evaluate sustainability metrics, be able to expertly assess the context of energy and environmental problems, and understand environmental ethics and its implications for sustainability practice.

The program will combine professional instruction from the nationally-ranked School of Public Policy with Georgia Tech’s top-notch engineering, business, and planning faculties to educate professionals who can lead organizations toward policies consistent with a sustainable future.

“This unique interdisciplinary program takes an innovative and integrative approach to sustainability that epitomizes the commitment of the School of Public Policy to collaborate across disciplines to educate future policy analysts and leaders and turn ideas into solutions to public problems,” said Kaye Husbands Fealing, professor and chair of the school.

Faculty will be drawn from across the Georgia Tech campus, including from the School of Public Policy, the Scheller College of Business, the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the School of City and Regional Planning.

Guest lecturers from Atlanta’s corporate community, government agencies, NGOs and research organizations also will participate — helping connect MSEEM students to the state of the practice and to job opportunities.

MSEEM students also will have access to Georgia Tech’s summer Program on Sustainable Development and Climate Change in Venice, Italy. The 5-week, 6-credit program features courses in climate policy and sustainable development and provides a multi-disciplinary learning experience that combines classroom lectures, guest speakers and instructional field trips.

“The world’s energy economy is undergoing transformational change, and as the public and private sectors strengthen their commitment to green practices, the need will increase for well-trained policy experts able to design, implement, and manage responses to sustainability issues. This program will provide such leaders,” said Marilyn A. Brown, Regents’ Professor and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy.

The MSEEM program is designed to serve a broad range of students interested in sustainability issues. Students can complete the degree on campus or online as a full-time student. Students also have the option to enroll part-time and complete their degree online. The program is designed to serve working professionals and others who want to participate part-time and earn their degree over several years.

In addition to the master’s degree, Georgia Tech is also offering a Certificate in Sustainable Energy and Environmental Management. This 12-credit hour SEEM Certificate can be completed in one or two semesters and can be earned on its own or in combination with the master’s degree.

Applications are being accepted through June 15 for the inaugural class of MSEEM students, who will begin study in August 2019.

A generous philanthropic gift has enabled Georgia Tech to offer five fully funded MSEEM fellowships to the program each year for the first three years of the program.

For more information on these programs, visit https://cepl.gatech.edu/mseem, or https://cepl.gatech.edu/cseem.

Summary sentence

The degree program will help educate the next generation of sustainability leaders for corporations, government, and non-governmental organizations.

Summary

The Georgia Institute of Technology is launching a new Master’s of Science in Sustainable Energy and Environmental Management (MSEEM) — the only graduate degree in Georgia fully dedicated to sustainability issues.

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Brown, Engle, Nemirovski Elected to National Academy of Sciences

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Brook Byers Professor Brown Among Four GT Faculty Elected to National Academy of Engineering

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Engineers Without Borders Project Installs 100 Clean Cookstoves in Nicaragua

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Brook Byers Professor Weissburg Wins $3M Grant to Bring Biologically Inspired Design to High Schools

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Georgia Tech to Launch State’s First Sustainability Master’s Program

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