Dr. Spyros G. Pavlostathis is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Engineering at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA. A recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship, Dr. Pavlostathis completed his MS and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at Cornell University after obtaining his Diploma in Agricultural Engineering at the Agricultural University of Athens, Greece. He is also the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the Hellenic Open University, Greece. Dr. Pavlostathis is a Board Certified Environmental Engineer Member of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES), and a Fellow of International Water Association (IWA), Water Environment Federation (WEF), and American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).

Dr. Pavlostathis is internationally recognized for his research and expertise in the areas of environmental biotechnology and bioprocess engineering. His recent research focused on bioenergy production via co-digestion of high-strength waste and municipal sludge, as well as bioelectrochemical systems for hydrogen production and the upgrade of anaerobic digestion biogas. His research was funded by NSF, EPA, USDA, DOE, USGS, DOD, SERDP, EPRI, NY State ERDA, State of Georgia TIP, as well as numerous industrial foundations, municipalities and companies. Dr. Pavlostathis has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and authored over 250 publications including books or book chapters. Dr. Pavlostathis has organized or chaired over 50 conferences and conference sessions and frequently serves as a consultant, invited speaker and panelist on behalf of city, county, state and federal agencies in the US and abroad. An active member of several professional organizations, Dr. Pavlostathis has served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Environmental Engineering, Water Science & Technology, Biotechnology Letters, Journal of Hazardous Materials, Water Environment Research, Water Quality Research Journal, and Environment International.

Dr. Pavlostathis is the recipient of numerous fellowships, awards and distinctions. Throughout his academic career, Dr. Pavlostathis has been a dedicated educator of future environmental engineers, teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Committed to the mission of teaching, he was actively engaged in the development of curriculum and was involved in the advisement of both graduate and undergraduate engineering students. In recognition of his experience and high standing in the education of aspiring engineers he has been invited to give over 50 short courses and lectures both nationally and worldwide. He has served abroad as an evaluator of engineering curricula and programs, as well as an external thesis reviewer. Through his research activities, he has mentored 23 post-doctoral fellows and visiting scholars, 17 Ph.D. and 25 MS students, who have gone on to work in consulting, state and federal regulatory agencies, as well as academia, and provided many research opportunities for undergraduate students.

Research

• Environmental biotechnology and bioprocess engineering for the bioremediation of contaminated natural systems and the treatment of industrial and municipal wastewater
• Fate and biotransformation of recalcitrant organic compounds and emerging environmental contaminants
• Disinfectant-induced antibiotic resistance
• Bioenergy and biofuels from biomass and waste streams
• Microbial fuel cell and bioelectrochemical technology
• Kinetics, modeling and simulation of biotransformation and biotreatment processes

Education

• Ph.D.: Environmental Engineering (Major)/Biochemical Engineering (Minor), Cornell University, 1985
• M.S.:  Environmental Engineering (Major)/Agricultural Waste Management (Minor), Cornell University, 1982
• Diploma: Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Athens, Greece, 1974

Distinctions & Awards

(2013 onwards)

• Georgia Institute of Technology/School of Civil & Environmental Engineering – Sustained Research Award (2013)
• Association of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AEES), Georgia Institute of Technology – Outstanding Faculty Award (2014)
• Co-advisor, Georgia Institute of Technology/AEES Best Ph.D. Thesis Award (P. Sun; 2014)
• Co-advisor, ACS/Division of Environmental Chemistry – Graduate Student Best Paper Award (P. Sun; 2014)
• Honorary Professorship in Innovative Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, Chinese Ministry of Education (111 Program); Tongji University, College of Environmental Science & Engineering, Shanghai, P. R. China (2014 – 2017)

Seymour E. Goodman, Ph.D., joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 2000 as Professor of International Affairs and Computing and Co-Director of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center, jointly in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the College of Computing. Prof. Goodman's research interests include international developments in the information technologies (IT), technology diffusion, IT and national security, critical infrastructure protection, and related public policy issues. Areas of geographic interest include the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, South and East Asia, and parts of Africa. Earlier research had been in areas of statistical and continuum physics, combinatorial algorithms, and software engineering. He is the author or co-author of about 150 publications in these subjects, and serves in various editorial capacities for several academic journals, including contributing editor for International Perspectives for the Communications of the ACM since 1990. He has served on numerous study and advisory committees for the ACM, the Departments of Commerce, Defense, and State, the US Congress, and the National Research Council. Prof. Goodman's work has been supported by almost three dozen funding sources, most recently by multi-year grants from the National Science Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. He teaches several undergraduate and graduate courses in science and technology and national and international security.  In 2010, he was appointed to the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council of the National Academies. Secondary research interests include the impact of S&T on the American Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War. Prof. Goodman was an undergraduate at Columbia University and obtained his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.

Maryam Saeedifard received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran, in 1998 and 2002, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Toronto, Canada, in 2008, all in electrical engineering.

From 2007 to 2008, she was with ABB Corporate Research Center, Dattwil-Baden, Switzerland, working in the power electronic systems group. She joined Purdue University in January 2010, where she served as an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Since January 2014, she has been on the ECE faculty at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Her main research focus has been in the area of Power Electronics and Applications of Power Electronics in Power Systems and Transportation Systems. She has served on the technical program committees of the IEEE Power Electronics Society, IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC), and IEEE Industrial Electronics Conference (IECON). She is an editor for IEEE Trans. on Sustainable Energy, IEEE Trans. on Power Delivery, and IEEE Trans. on Power Electronics.

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.

Seung Woo Lee joined the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in January of 2013. Lee received his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at MIT, focusing on designing high-energy and high-power density nanostructured electrodes for electrochemical energy storage devices, and synthesizing catalysts for electrochemical energy conversion of small molecules such as methanol oxidation and O2 reduction. He conducted his postdoctoral research in designing electrodes for lithium rechargeable batteries and catalysts for solar energy storage in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry at MIT.