Tequila A. L. Harris is a Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, and is the director of the Highly Advanced Roll-to-Roll iManufacturing Systems (HARRiS) group. Her research focuses on investigating the fundamental science associated with manufacture of polymer thin films from fluids (e.g., solutions, dispersions, slurries, etc.) as they are coated onto permeable or impermeable surfaces to make components or devices. She explores the connectivity between thin film functionality, based on their manufacture or structure, and their life expectancy, to elucidate mechanisms by which performance or durability can be predicted. In addition to conducting computational analysis, developing analytical models and running experiments, Harris also develops new manufacturing technologies to fabricate thin films, in wide area or discrete patterns. Target applications are well-suited for a variety of industries including food, energy, electronic, and environmental systems to name a few. In conjunction with her research activities, she is committed to the education, mentoring, and advisement of students towards scholarly achievements. She has published over fifty peer-reviewed articles. Harris has several awards including the National Science Foundation's young investigator CAREER Award and the Lockheed Inspirational Young Faculty Award.

Professor Kurfess began his academic career at Carnegie Mellon University where he rose to the rank of Associate Professor. In 1994, he moved to the Georgia Institute of Technology where he rose to the rank of Professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering. In 2005, he was named Professor and BMW Chair of Manufacturing in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research. In 2012, he returned to Georgia Tech as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control.

During 2012-2013, Dr. Kurfess was on leave serving as the Assistant Director for Advanced Manufacturing at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President of the United States of America. In this position he had responsibility for engaging the Federal sector and the greater scientific community to identify possible areas for policy actions related to manufacturing. He was responsible for coordinating Federal advanced manufacturing R&D, addressing issues related to technology commercialization, identifying gaps in current Federal R&D in advanced manufacturing, and developing strategies to address these gaps. During  2019-2021 he was on leave serving as the Chief Manufacturing Officer and the Founding Director for the Manufacturing Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he was responsible for strategic planning in advanced manufacturing.

Professor Kurfess has served as a special consultant of the United Nations to the Government of Malaysia in the area of applied mechatronics and manufacturing, and as a participating guest at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in their Precision Engineering Program. He has testified in a number of patent cases, including testifying at the International Trade Commission (ITC). He is currently the President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and also serves on the Board of Governors of ASME. He is the CTO of the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS) and serves on its Board of Directors. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), and on the Board of Trustees of the MT Connect Institute. He served on the Board of Directors for the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) and was the President of SME in 2018. He is an appointed member of the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Advisory Committee for Nuclear Security, and an appointed member of the Department of the Navy Science and Technology Board.

His research focuses on the design and development of advanced systems targeting the automotive sector (OEM and supplier) including vehicle and production systems. He has significant experience in high precision manufacturing and metrology systems. He has received numerous awards including a National Science Foundation (NSF) Young Investigator Award, an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowship Award, the ASME Pi Tau Sigma Award, SME Young Manufacturing Engineer of the Year Award, the ASME Blackall Machine Tool and Gage Award, the ASME Gustus L. Larson Award, an ASME Swanson Federal Award, and the SME Education Award. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the AAAS, the SME and the ASME.

Melkote began at Tech in 1995 as an Assistant Professor. Prior to this, he was a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he conducted research in Machining and Machine Tools Systems in the group led by the Late Professor Richard E. DeVor and Professor Shiv G. Kapoor

Dima Nazzal is a Principal Academic Professional in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. She is responsible for project-based learning in the Industrial Engineering undergraduate curriculum, including the capstone senior design course, and the cornerstone junior design course. She is also research director of the Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, she was Director of Research and Development at Fortna, Inc., an Engineering Design and Consulting company. 

Research: Her research focuses on modeling, design, and control of discrete event logistics systems, including healthcare delivery systems, manufacturing systems, and distribution systems. Her recent work has focused on election voting systems, higher education response to COVID-19, understanding and driving higher childhood vaccination rates in developing countries, modeling of collaborative robots in distribution systems; scheduling and dispatching policies in semiconductor manufacturing, and energy systems development. She has worked with companies, non-governmental organizations, and healthcare providers, including ExxonMobil, Emory University, Samsung, Emory University, Gates Foundation, and Walt Disney World. See here for relevant publications. 

Teaching: Dr. Nazzal enjoys teaching courses in manufacturing, warehousing, and facility logistics system design and operations, as well as advising senior design teams. She is the recipient of multiple teaching awards including the Georgia Tech Women in Engineering Outstanding Teacher Award in 2015, and the Most Outstanding Faculty Member Award from the University of Central Florida IIE Student Chapter in 2011. 

She received her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech in 2006, her M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida, and her B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Jordan.

Jye-Chyi (JC) Lu is a professor in in the Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) at Georgia Tech (GT).

Dr. Lu is active in promoting research, education and extension-service programs with focus on engineering statistics and analytics areas. Dr. Lu received a Ph.D. in statistics from University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1988, and joined the statistics faculty of North Carolina State University, where he remained until 1999 when he joined GT-ISyE. He has 82 journal publications in engineering and statistics journals. Twenty seven Ph.D. students has graduated under his supervision.  His research has been supported by many NSF awards and industry grants. He serves as an associate editor (AE) for the Journal of Quality Technology and had served as AEs for Technometrics and IEEE Transactions on Reliability.  He is a Fellow in the American Statistical Association, and has been INFORMS Quality, Statistics and Reliability section chair.

Christos Alexopoulos is the Associate Chair for Graduate Studies as well as a Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. 

Dr. Alexopoulos' research interests center on applied probability, statistics, and optimizations of stochastics systems. His recent work involves problems related to the optimal design of telecommunications and transportation networks.

William Singhose grew up mostly in Oregon and Washington. He went to the University of Oregon for two years before transferring to the Mechanical Engineering department at MIT. 

Singhose then went to Stanford to to pursue his Masters in Mechanical Engineering in 1992. He then worked at Convolve, Inc. for 2 1/2 years before returning to MIT to work on a Ph.D. He finished his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in June 1997, completing his thesis on Command Generation for Flexible Systems. 

Singhose joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 1998 as an assistant professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering. He is now a full professor.

Raghu Pucha obtained his Ph.D. in 1995 from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He held post-doctoral research positions at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and Purdue University, West Lafayette before coming to Georgia Tech in 2000. 

His research focuses on developing upfront computational tools for the design, analysis and manufacturing of composite materials. His research contributions in composite materials include (i) Special purpose finite elements for design and delamination failure analysis of fiber reinforced laminated composites (ii) Microstructure simulations for impact damage analysis of composites (iii) Design, analysis and optimization tools for advanced composites in electronics applications. His current research includes design and analysis of nano-filler composites for structural, electronics and bio applications. 

Dr. Pucha teaches computer graphics, CAD/CAE and design courses.

Dr. Liang began at Tech in 1990 as an assistant professor. Previously, he was an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University. He was named to the Bryan Professorship in 2005. He was President of Walsin-Lihwa Corporation in 2008-2010.