Dr. Chen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering. Previously he was a Research Scientist at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Chen’s research is in the multidisciplinary fields of computational mathematics, data science, scientific machine learning, and parallel computing with various applications in materials, energy, health, and natural hazard. Specifically, his research focuses on developing fast, scalable, and parallel computational methods for integrating data and models under high-dimensional uncertainty to make (1) statistical model learning via Bayesian inference, (2) reliable system prediction with uncertainty quantification, (3) efficient data acquisition through optimal experimental design, and (4) robust control and design by stochastic optimization.

Xiaoming Huo is an A. Russell Chandler III Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. Dr. Huo's research interests include statistical theory, statistical computing, and issues related to data analytics. He has made numerous contributions on topics such as sparse representation, wavelets, and statistical problems in detectability. His papers appeared in top journals, and some of them are highly cited. He is a senior member of IEEE since May 2004. 

Richard Fujimoto is a Regents’ Professor, Emeritus in the School of Computational Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of California-Berkeley in 1983 in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He also received an M.S. degree from the same institution as well as two B.S. degrees from the University of Illinois-Urbana. 

Fujimoto is a pioneer in the parallel and distributed discrete event simulation field. Discrete event simulation is widely used in areas such as telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing, and defense, among others. His work developed fundamental understandings of synchronization algorithms that are needed to ensure the correct execution of discrete event simulation programs on high performance computing (HPC) platforms. His team developed many new algorithms and computational techniques to accelerate the execution of discrete event simulations and developed software realizations that impacted several application domains. For example, his Georgia Tech Time Warp software was deployed by MITRE Corp. to create online fast-time simulations of commercial air traffic to help reduce delays in the U.S. National Airspace. An active researcher in this field since 1985, he authored or co-authored three books and hundreds of technical papers including seven that were cited for “best paper” awards or other recognitions. His research included several projects with Georgia Tech faculty in telecommunications, transportation, sustainability, and materials leading to numerous publications co-authored with faculty across campus.

Steven P. French is professor of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Institute of Technology. He joined Georgia Tech in 1992 as the director of the City Planning program and served in that position until August 1999. He was the director of the Center for Geographic Information Systems from 1997 through 2011. He served as associate dean for research for the College of Architecture (now the College of Design) from July 2009 through June 2013 and dean of the College of Design from July 2013-June 2021.

French’s teaching and research activities focus on sustainable urban development, land use planning, GIS applications, and natural hazard risk assessment. In addition to his administrative assignments, Professor French has regularly taught graduate courses in land use, planning, and GIS. He has graduated six Ph.D. students and advised more than 50 Masters students in City and Regional Planning. He has also served on numerous dissertation committees in Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Public Policy.

Over the past twenty-five years, French has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than seventy research projects. He has participated in a number of National Science Foundation projects dealing with flood and earthquake hazards and was the Social Science Thrust Leader for the Mid-America Earthquake Center, an NSF Engineering Research Center. He has extensive experience in building and managing multidisciplinary teams of social scientists, architects, engineers, and scientists. French is the author or co-author of more than 25 refereed journal articles and four books. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association and Earthquake Spectra.

French holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before coming to Georgia Tech, he taught for ten years at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo. In 1987-88, he served as the visiting professor of resources planning in the Civil Engineering Department at Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and an associate member of the American Institute of Architects.

As Director of Activities for three of Tech's Interdisciplinary Research Institutes: the Strategic Energy Institute, the Renewable Bioproducts Institute, and the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems, I'll help bring together researchers from different disciplines to address topics of strategic importance. Each interdisciplinary research group mobilizes faculty to address the needs of external stakeholders (federal, state, and local entities, corporations, foundations, and communities) by fostering an Institute-wide innovation ecosystem around a specific focus.

Dr. Nicole Kennard is a Research Scientist II within BBISS and serves as the Assistant Director for Community-Engaged Research. She supports faculty across the university in building meaningful and co-creative research partnerships with local communities to address pressing sustainability and societal challenges. She works closely with the Center for Sustainable Communities Research & Education (SCoRE) to provide trainings for GT researchers to work with communities in research partnerships.

Kennard also leads her own community-engaged research in sustainable food systems. Her work focuses on building resilient, community-focused food systems and uplifting local agriculture, agroecology, and food sovereignty as solutions to the complex, intertwined challenges of food insecurity, climate change, and land degradation. She uses a combination of quantitative methods (lifecycle assessment, mapping, soil health and ecosystem service assessments) and qualitative methods (in-depth interviews) to support this systems-level research. She is currently working with local partners to build a food systems map for the City of Atlanta.

Kennard holds a PhD in Chemistry and Biosciences from the University of Sheffield (Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures); an MSc in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security from Newcastle University (U.S. Fulbright Scholar); and a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dori Pap is the Managing Director of the Institute for Leadership and Social Impact (formerly the Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship). She directs the Leadership for Social Good Study Abroad Program in Central and Eastern Europe, coordinates the Impact Speaker Series, runs the annual Ideas to Serve student social innovation competition, and teaches courses on social entrepreneurship. 

Outside Tech, Dori serves on the board of Global Growers Network, a nonprofit organization that connects the agricultural talent of the refugee community in and around Atlanta to opportunities in sustainable agriculture. She is a board member for the Center for Civic Innovation, an organization that works at the frontline of civics education and advocacy, and she serves on the board of the Georgia Social Impact Collaborative. Dori is a triple Yellow Jacket and is currently pursuing her doctorate degree at the Institute for Higher Education at UGA.

Shatakshee Dhongde is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Economics at Georgia Tech. She obtained her PhD. from the University of California, Riverside. She is also a research affiliate with the Institute of Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her research has focused on the economics of poverty. Poverty is a multidimensional concept and is often not captured by income levels. Her papers measure poverty in its many forms and have been published in leading economics journals. In particular, her research on measuring multidimensional poverty in the United States has been highlighted in the national media, including NPR. She was awarded the Nancy and Richard Ruggles Prize for young researchers by the International Association of Review of Income and Wealth (IARIW). She serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice.

Dr. Ameet Pinto is an Environmental Engineer and Carlton S. Wilder Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Ameet is a Chemical Engineer from the Institute of Chemical Technology (University of Mumbai) with post-graduate degrees in Environmental Engineering from the University of Alaska (2005) and Virginia Tech, USA (2009). Before joining Georgia Tech in 2021, he was an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University (2016-2021) and Lecturer/Senior Lecturer (2012-2015) at the University of Glasgow. Ameet’s research focuses on microbial ecosystems at the interface of infrastructure and public/environmental health with a focus on the engineered water cycle. The overall research goal is to characterize and manipulate microbial communities to (1) protect and improve public and environmental health and (2) improve functional reliability and economic feasibility of water infrastructure. To do this, his research group develops and applies state-of-the-art microbial molecular and sensing tools and modelling approaches to monitor and manage the microbiology of the engineered water cycle. Ameet also serves as the Editor for Water Research (the premier journal for the engineering, science, and technology for water quality management) and as the Secretary of the Microbial Ecology and Water Engineering (MEWE) Specialist Group of the International Water Association.