Andy Sun is an Affiliate Associate Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Sun has a wide range of interests in both theory and applications of deterministic optimization and optimization under uncertainty.

• On the deterministic side, Dr. Sun's recent research has focused on solving nonconvex optimization problems with a network structure, e.g. optimizing network flows with a nonconvex flow law, nonconvex quadratic programming on a graph, consensus optimization, and market matching. Dr. Sun has also been working on developing distributed algorithms for solving these nonconvex problems with convergence guarantees. Dr. Sun is also very interested in the problem of certifying the existence and uniqueness of solutions of polynomial systems with network structures using complex analysis and algebraic geometric methods. Dr. Sun has recently been interested in optimization with dynamical constraints, again with connection to network flow problems, where the flows are described by ODEs or PDEs.
• On the uncertainty side, Dr. Sun has developed the first efficient algorithm for solving two-stage robust optimization problems that are much faster than Benders decomposition, cutting plane methods for multistage robust linear optimization much scalable than duality approach, models for decision-dependent uncertainty, and recently a fast exact algorithm (SDDiP) for multistage stochastic integer programming. His team is working toward developing efficient algorithms for multistage robust and stochastic programs with integer decisions.
• On the application side, Dr. Sun has extensively worked on core optimization problems for electric power system operations and planning, and collaborated with major utility companies and system operators in the US. Dr. Sun's work on robust optimization for the Unit Commitment problem and strong convexification for optimal power flow problems have attracted substantial interests and follow-up research both in industry and academia.

Dr. Sun got his undergraduate degree from Tsinghua University in Beijing (major in Electronic Engineering), master degree in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT (working on analog computation and analog integrated circuit design), and doctoral degree in Operations Research from MIT. After PhD, Dr. Sun did a one-year postdoc at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY.

Awards and Honors

• Student Award: Alvaro Lorca, INFORMS George B. Dantzig Dissertation Award, Finalist 2017
• INFORMS Energy, Natural Resources, and Environment (ENRE) Best Paper in Energy, First Place 2017
• INFORMS Energy, Natural Resources, and Environment (ENRE) Best Paper in Energy, Second Place 2016
• INFORMS Junior Faculty Interests Group (JFIG) Paper Competition, 3rd Place. 2014
• Student Award: Hongfan Chen, INFORMS Undergraduate Research Award, First Place 2014

Aaron D. Levine is Associate Dean for Research and Outreach in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and Professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. He also holds an appointment as a Guest Researcher in the Division of Reproductive Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a member of the leadership team for the NSF Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT), leading ethics and policy research for the center. He seved as Co-Director for CMaT's Engineering Workforce Development activities from 2017 to 2022. His research focuses on the intersection between public policy and bioethics. Much of his work has examined the development of stem cell science, particularly research using human embryonic stem cells, and the translation of novel cell therapies. He also writes extensively on the oversight of contentious areas of medicine, such as assisted reproductive technology. In 2012, he received a NSF CAREER award to examine the impact of ethical controversy on graduate science education and the development of scientific careers.  He serves as Vice-Chair for Bioethics on the International Society for Cell & Genel Therapy’s Committee on the Ethics of Cell and Gene Therapy and recently completed a three-year term as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities. He is also a long-time member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Aaron has a long-standing interest in science communication and is the author of Cloning: A Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Publications, 2007), an accessible introduction to the science of cloning and embryonic stem cells and the ethical and policy controversies this science inspires. He was an AAAS Leshner Leadership Institute Public Engagement Fellow for 2019-2020. You can follow Aaron on twitter at @aarondlevine.

He completed his Ph.D. in Public Affairs at Princeton University, where his dissertation research examined the impact of public policy on the development of human embryonic stem cell science.  He also holds an M. Phil. from the University of Cambridge, where, as a Churchill Scholar, he studied computational biology at the Sanger Centre and developed algorithms to help analyze the human genome sequence, and a B.S. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar.

Prior to joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 2001 as a Professor, Yogendra Joshi held academic positions at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. He also worked in the semiconductor assembly industry on process thermal model development. He was named to the McKenney/Shiver Chair in 2004.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1984
• M.S., State University of New York, Buffalo, 1981
• B. Tech., Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, 1979

Teaching Interests

Professor Joshi's teaching interests encompass core mechanical engineering subjects at both undergraduate and graduate levels. These include materials behavior, thermodynamics, and micro/nanoscale materials science. He emphasizes foundational understanding and practical application, aiming to equip students with the skills to analyze and solve complex engineering problems related to materials and manufacturing processes.

Research Interests

Professor Joshi's research focuses on understanding the microstructural behavior of materials under various conditions to inform the design of advanced materials and manufacturing techniques. His work integrates experimental and theoretical approaches to study deformation, damage, and reliability of heterogeneous materials, including composites and nanostructured systems, with the goal of improving performance and durability.

Recent Publications

• AM Muslu, Y Joshi, Unlocking the Potential of Integrated Cooling and Power Delivery in Multi-chip Power Electronics Packages with Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces (TPMS), International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 255, 127866, 2026
• Y Joshi, S Graham, S Kumar, Device-and System-Level Thermal Packaging for Electric-Drive Technologies (Final Technical Report), National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV …, 2025
• YK Joshi, AH Smith, RC Eden, SK De, Three Decades of Thermal Management Research at DARPA, Journal of Electronic Packaging 147 (3), 030802, 2025
• M Belinson, JM Brown, Y Joshi, Modelling Transient Pressure and Temperature Signatures in Gasketed Outdoor Digital Displays, International Electronic Packaging Technical Conference and Exhibition 89299 …, 2025
• U Kemerli, G Moreno, R Chaudhary, S Narumanchi, Y Joshi, Thermal Performance of Triply Periodic Minimal Surface Lattice Structures in Single-Phase Dielectric Fluid Cooling of Power Electronics, ASME Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 147 (11), 111501, 2025

Nancey Green Leigh is a Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning and adviser for the economic development planning, working with masters and doctoral students. Maintaining an active research program, Leigh is currently leading a project entitled "Workers, Firms and Industries in Robotic Regions," funded by the National Science Foundation's Robotics Initiative. She previously led a large scale research effort by three universities focused on sustainable industrial systems for urban regions. Both of these efforts as well as other funded research (brownfields, urban land and manufacturing, resilient infrastructure) contribute to Leigh's long term focus on advancing sustainable development for local and regional economies. As Associate Dean for Research, Leigh is focused on strengthening the research impact of the College of Design. She develops and administers competitive initiatives to support individual and collaborative research by college faculty and affiliated researchers. She oversees the college's seven major research units. She also is engaged in building research connections within Georgia Tech between the College of Design, other colleges and Interdisciplinary Research Institutes, as well as to external funders and collaborators in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Leigh has published more than 60 articles and four books, Routledge Handbook of International Planning Education (2019 with S.P. French, S. Guhathakurta, and B. Stiftel), Planning Local Economic Development, 6th edition (2017 with E.J. Blakely) adopted for courses in a wide array of universities; Economic Revitalization: Cases and Strategies for City and Suburb (2002 with J. Fitzgerald); and Stemming Middle Class Decline: The Challenge to Economic Development Planning (1994). She was co-editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research from 2012 to 2016, and was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners in 2008.

Chloé Arson is a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Cornell University and an adjunct faculty in the Schools of CEE and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). She earned her Ph.D. at Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (France) in 2009. She was an assistant professor at Texas A&M University from 2009 to 2012. Then, she worked as an assistant professor (2012-2016), associate professor (2016-2022) and professor (2022-2023) in the Georgia Tech School of CEE. Arson joined the faculty at Cornell University in Summer 2023.

Research 

Dr. Arson’s expertise is damage and healing rock mechanics, micro-macro modeling of porous media, and computational geomechanics. Her group develops numerical tools to assess the performance and environmental impacts of underground storage and rock fracturing, explain the formation of soil by rock weathering, and design sustainable bio-inspired geotechnical systems. Lately, Arson started investigating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize subsurface exploration and enhance multi-scale geomechanical models.

Javier  Irizarry is a Professor, Director of CONECTech Lab, and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Outreach in the Georgia Tech School of Building Construction. As Associate Dean, Javier Irizarry has oversight of programs and initiatives for the College in the areas of academic affairs and outreach. In this role, Javier oversees the development and continuous improvement of academic offerings in the College through assessment and accreditation. Javier also oversees the College’s recruitment activities such as the pre-college summer program and is focused on addressing issues of diversity and inclusion in the College of Design academic disciplines.  

A pioneer of research on Uncrewed Aerial System applications in the built environment, Javier is Director of the CONECTech Lab at Georgia Tech, which aims to establish the Construction 4.0 framework for developing next-generation technology-enhanced solutions for construction problems. He has over 20 years of academic and industry experience and has authored over 100 academic articles. His research has been nationally and internationally recognized and focuses on construction information technologies including virtual and augmented reality, reality capture technology, and Uncrewed Aerial Systems application in the AEC domain. Javier is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) as well as a FAA Licensed Drone Pilot.

Research Interests:

Professor Irizarry’s research focuses on construction information technologies including virtual and augmented reality, reality capture technology, and Uncrewed Aerial Systems application in the AEC domain.

Teaching Interests:

Professor Irizarry’ teaching is focused on technology applications in the AEC domain at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Irizarry also teaches traditional construction management topics including construction safety, and project management. 

Educational Background:

• Ph.D. (Civil Engineering), Purdue University, May 2005
• Masters in Engineering Management, Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico, May 2000
• B.S. (Civil Engineering), University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, May 1995

Recent Scholarly Output:

1. Haonan Qi, Zhipeng Zhou,Javier Irizarry, Xiaopeng Deng, Yifan Yang, Nan Li, and Jianliang Zhou (2024) “Modification of HFACS model for path identification of causal factors of collapse accidents in the construction industry”Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management Journal, DOI 10.1108/ECAM-02-2023-0101
2. Paes, D., Irizarry, J., Billinghurst, M., and Pujoni, D. (2023) “Investigating the relationship between Three-Dimensional Perception and Presence in Virtual Environments” Applied Ergonomics 109 (2023) 103953.
3. Arantes, E., Andery, PRP., Andrade F., Paes, D., and Irizarry, J. (2022) “Development and analysis of an automated performance code checking workflow” Ambiente Construido.
4. Mark Kahoush, Yosuke Yajima, Seongyong Kim, Jingdao Chen, Jisoo Park, Steven Kangisser, Javier Irizarry, Yong K Cho (2022) Analysis of Flight Parameters on UAV Semantic Segmentation Performance for Highway Infrastructure Monitoring Computing in Civil Engineering 2021
5. Ruiz, R.D.B., Lordsleem Jr., A.C., Rocha, J.H.A. and Irizarry, J. (2021), “Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) as a tool for visual inspection of building facades in AEC+FM industry”, Construction Innovation, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/CI-07-2021-0129

Pascal Van Hentenryck is an A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. Prior to this appointment, he was a professor of Computer Science at Brown University for about 20 years, he led the optimization research group (about 70 people) at National ICT Australia (NICTA) (until its merger with CSIRO), and was the Seth Bonder Collegiate Professor of Engineering at the University of Michigan. Van Hentenryck is also an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University.

Van Hentenryck is a Fellow of AAAI (the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) and INFORMS (the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science). He has been awarded two honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Louvain and the university of Nantes, the IFORS Distinguished Lecturer Award, the Philip J. Bray Award for teaching excellence in the physical sciences at Brown University, the ACP Award for Research Excellence in Constraint Programming, the ICS INFORMS Prize for Research Excellence at the Intersection of Computer Science and Operations Research, and an NSF National Young Investigator Award. He received a Test of Time Award (20 years) from the Association of Logic Programming and numerous best paper awards, including at IJCAI and AAAI. Van Hentenryck has given plenary/semi-plenary talks at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (twice), the International Symposium on Mathematical Programming, the SIAM Optimization Conference, the Annual INFORMS Conference, NIPS, and many other conferences. Van Hentenryck is program co-chair of the AAAI’19 conference, a premier conference in Artificial Intelligence.

Van Hentenryck’s research focuses in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Operations Research. His current focus is to develop methodologies, algorithms, and systems for addressing challenging problems in mobility, energy systems, resilience, and privacy. In the past, his research focused on optimization and the design and implementation of innovative optimization systems, including the CHIP programming system (a Cosytec product), the foundation of all modern constraint programming systems and the optimization programming language OPL (now an IBM Product). Van Hentenryck has also worked on computational biology, numerical analysis, and programming languages, publishing in premier journals in these areas.

Van Hentenryck runs the Seth Bonder summer Camp in Computational and Data Science for middle- and high-school students every summer. 

Robert Harris' background is in semiconductors and microelectronics. He serves as research faculty at the Georgia Tech Research Institute in the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory and teach in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech. His research focus is on photonic integrated circuits, heterogeneous integration, electronic warfare, and RF electronics.

Dimitri Mavris is a Regents’ Professor, Boeing Professor of Advanced Aerospace Systems Analysis, and an S.P. Langley Distinguished Professor. He also serves as the director of the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL) and executive director of the Professional Master’s in Applied Systems Engineering (PMASE). Dr. Mavris received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His primary areas of research interest include: advanced design methods, aircraft conceptual and preliminary design, air-breathing propulsion design, multi-disciplinary analysis, design and optimization, system of systems, and non-deterministic design theory. Dr. Mavris has actively pursued closer ties between the academic and industrial communities in order to foster research opportunities and tailor the aerospace engineering curriculum towards meeting the future needs of the US aerospace industry. He has also co-authored with his students in excess of 1,000 publications. During his tenure at Georgia Tech, Dr. Mavris has chaired and served in several Technical and Program Committees for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and served on the AIAA Board of Directors and Institute Development Committee. He is the President of the International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences (ICAS). He is the Georgia Tech technical point of contact for the FAA Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet Fuels & Environment (ASCENT), the Georgia Tech site director for the FAA Partnership to Enhance General Aviation Safety, Accessibility, and Sustainability (PEGASAS), and the principal investigator for the Airbus/Georgia Tech Center for MBSE-enabled Overall Aircraft Design and the Siemens Center of Excellence for Simulation and Digital Twin.

Bernard Kippelen was born and raised in Alsace, France. He studied at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg where he received a Maitrise in Solid-State Physics in 1985, and a Ph.D. in Nonlinear Optics in 1990. From 1990 to 1997 he was Charge de Recherches at the CNRS, France. In 1994, he joined the faculty of the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona. There, he developed a research and teaching program on polymer optics and plastic electronics. In August 2003, Dr. Kippelen joined the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology where his research ranges from the investigation of fundamental physical processes (nonlinear optical activity, charge transport, light harvesting and emission), to the design, fabrication and testing of light-weight flexible optoelectronic devices and circuits based on nanostructured organic materials. He currently serves as director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, and as co-president of the Lafayette Institute, a major optoelectronics commercialization initiative that is based at Georgia Tech-Lorraine in Metz, France. He currently holds 25 patents and has co-authored over 270 refereed publications and 14 book chapters. His publications have received over 20,000 citations and his h-index is 73 (Google Scholar). He served as chair and co-chair of numerous international conferences on organic optoelectronic materials and devices and as deputy editor of Energy Express. He was the founding editor of Energy Express.