Ellen is Director of the Master of Science in Urban Design degree, an authority on sustainable suburban redevelopment, and a leading urbanist. Author of over 100 articles, she is co-author with June Williamson of the retrofitting suburbia book series documenting successful retrofits of aging big box stores, malls, and office parks into healthier and more sustainable places. Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs, (Wiley, 2009, 2011) received a PROSE award as the best architecture and urban planning book of 2009 and has been featured in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Harvard Business Review, NPR, PBS, TED and other prominent venues. Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges (Wiley, 2020) expands on the first book examining how new retrofits are helping communities disrupt automobile dependence, improve public health, support an aging population, leverage social capital for equity, compete for jobs, and add water and energy resilience. 

Ellen serves on several national boards and committees, is former Chair of the Board of the Congress for the New Urbanism, lectures widely and conducts community workshops. In both her teaching and research she focuses on helping communities address new challenges that they were never designed for – whether that’s through her unique database of successful suburban retrofits or studio classes on anticipating autonomous vehicles, coping with climate change or suburban blight. She taught at UVA and MIT before joining Georgia Tech as Architecture Program Director from 2000-2009.

Dr. Manos Antonakakis (PhD’12) is an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and an adjunct faculty member in the College of Computing (CoC), at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is responsible for the Astrolavos Lab, where students conduct research in the areas of Attack Attribution, Network Security and Privacy, Intrusion Detection, and Data Mining. In May 2012, he received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.

Before joining the Georgia Tech ECE faculty ranks, Dr. Antonakakis held the Chief Scientist role at Damballa. He currently serves as the co-chair of the Academic Committee for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG). In his tenure at Georgia Tech ECE, Dr. Antonakakis has raised several tens of millions in research funding as Primary Investigator from government agencies and the private sector. He is the author of several U.S. patents and more than 20 academic publications in top academic conferences. He has served as a program committee member for all top tier security conferences.

Omar I. Asensio is an Associate Professor in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy and the Director of the Data Science & Policy Lab at Georgia Tech. During the 2023-2024 academic year, he was a fellow at the Institute for Business in Global Society at Harvard Business School. Professor Asensio’s research focuses on climate and electrification strategies at the intersection of technology, AI, and sustainability. He employs large-scale data, field experiments, and human-in-the-loop AI systems to address innovation challenges in energy systems, transportation, and human mobility. He contributed to the zero emission vehicles (ZEV) policy guidance for COP26 and the Glasgow Climate Pact.

Prof. Asensio is a member of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) New Voices 2021 cohort, which recognizes early- to-mid career leaders for exceptional contributions to science, engineering and medicine. He is a two-time former chair of the Natural Resource, Energy, and Environmental Policy section of APPAM, and is the recipient of the 2023 Faculty Excellence in Research Award from the Ivan Allen College. At Georgia Tech, he is a Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Fellow and a faculty affiliate of the Institute for Data Engineering & Science (IDEaS), the Machine Learning Center, and the Strategic Energy Institute (SEI).

Professor Asensio has received multiple awards for his research, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS) Emerging Scholar Award, and the Research Impact on Practice Award (RIPA) from the Academy of Management’s Organizations & the Natural Environment Division (ONE-NBS). His work has been published in leading journals such as Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability, and PNAS. 

Professor Asensio’s research and teaching have been supported by awards from the National Science Foundation, Microsoft, ESRI, the U.S. State Department’s Diplomacy Lab, and the U.S. Department of Energy. His work has informed policy advisory communications for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the UK government, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the IndiaAI initiative. His research has been featured in popular press, including Bloomberg, Scientific American, Motor Trend, Fast Company, NPR’s All Things Considered, Yahoo! News, The Huffington Post, and the Washington Post.

Dr. Asensio serves as Associate Editor of Data & Policy journal published by Cambridge University Press. He earned his doctorate in Environmental Science & Engineering with specialties in Economics from UCLA.

Matthew E. Oliver hails from Memphis, TN. He received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Memphis in 2008, and his PhD in Economics from the University of Wyoming in 2013.  His primary fields of expertise are energy economics, environmental and natural resource economics, and industrial organization and regulation. Dr. Oliver’s research interests focus primarily on the regulation of energy resources and energy infrastructure. Much of his past work has dealt with natural gas markets and interstate pipelines. More recently, his research has focused on the market effects of rapid deployment of renewable energy technologies (e.g., wind and solar photovoltaics). Additionally, he has published (and ongoing) research on other topics such as the links between energy resource development, environment, and economic growth, and the economics of climate change. Since joining Georgia Tech in 2013, Dr. Oliver has taught various courses in energy and environmental economics, microeconomics, and macroeconomics.

Education:

• Ph.D., University of Wyoming
• B.A., University of Memphis

Areas of
Expertise:

• Energy Economics

Anjali Thomas is an Associate Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and Director of the Nunn School Program in Global Development. Her research focuses on the political economy of development, and employs quantitative analyses of data derived from India and other developing country contexts. Her specific substantive interests include the politics of service provision, democratic institutions and the link between climate change and local level politics. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgia Tech, Anjali was a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She obtained her Ph.D. from New York University in 2010.

Pavadore is the division chief of the Embedded System Vulnerability Division within GTRI's Cybersecurity, Information Protection, and Hardware Evaluation Research Laboratory (CIPHER). Pavadore founded the Embedded System Vulnerability Division in 2010 and is responsible for the group's strategic planning, technical leadership, business development, and operations. 

Pavadore, who has been with GTRI since 1985, has expertise in vulnerability analysis of military communications systems. Her division performs cyber vulnerability assessments and has a strong background in reverse engineering and vulnerability analysis of embedded system software, hardware, and communication protocols. She is the primary author on more than 50 technical publications and has presented at multi-national conferences. Pavadore holds an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tech.

Rebecca Watts Hull is assistant director, faculty development for sustainability education initiatives for the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), with a courtesy appointment in the School of History and Sociology. Rebecca works with faculty to incorporate Education for Sustainable Development into their course design and teaching practices. She partners with other units to lead strategic initiatives related to sustainability education, including Sustainability Next’s Education for Sustainable Development implementation plan. Prior to her current role, Rebecca served as a Service Learning and Partnerships Specialist with the Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain (SLS), and she continues to collaborate closely with Georgia Tech's community-based learning initiatives. She facilitates the "Scaling up Sustainability Across the Curriculum Community of Practice" of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) which supports collaboration among sustainability education professionals at dozens of colleges and universities. Rebecca also serves on AASHE's Advisory Council and STARS Steering Committee. Before her work at Georgia Tech, Rebecca held sustainability and educational leadership roles in the public, private and nonprofit sectors with responsibilities that included faculty development, science and environmental curriculum design, and community-based environmental education and advocacy. Rebecca earned an M.S. and Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in History and Sociology of Technology and Science, focusing her research on social movements and organizational change, and holds an M.S. in Natural Resources and Environment from the University of Michigan. She has taught Sustainability Leadership at Emory University, Environment and Sustainability Studies at Agnes Scott College, and American Environmental History, Social Movements, Community Organizing, and Organizing for Social Change at Georgia Tech.

Margaret E. Kosal's research explores the relationships among technology, strategy, and governance. Her research focuses on two, often intersecting, areas: reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and understanding the role of emerging technologies for security. Her work aims to understand and explain the role of technology and technological diffusion for national security at strategic and operational levels. In the changing post-Cold War environment, the most advanced military power no longer guarantees national or international security in a globalized world in which an increasing number of nation-states and non-state actors have access to new and potentially devastating dual-use capabilities. The long-term goals of her work are to understand the underlying drivers of technological innovation and how technology affects national security and modern warfare. She is interested in both the scholarly, theoretical level discourse and in the development of new strategic approaches and executable policy options to enable US dominance and to limit the proliferation of unconventional weapons. On the question of understanding the impact of emerging technology on national and international security her research considers what role will nanotechnology, cognitive science, biotechnology, and converging sciences have on states, non-state actors, balance of power, deterrence postures, security doctrines, nonproliferation regimes, and programmatic choices. Through examination of these real applications on the science (benign and defensive) and potential (notional) offensive uses of nanotechnology, she seeks to develop a model to probe the security implications of this emerging technology. The goal of the research is not to predict new specific technologies but to develop a robust analytical framework for assessing the impact of new technology on national and international security and identifying policy measures to prevent or slow proliferation of new technology - the next generation “WMD” - for malfeasant intentions. Kosal is the author of Nanotechnology for Chemical and Biological Defense (Springer Academic Publishers, 2009), which explores scenarios and strategies regarding the benefits and potential proliferation threats of nanotechnology and other emerging sciences for international security. She is also Director of the Sam Nunn Security Fellows Program and Co-Director of the Program on Emerging Technology within the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy (CISTP).  Kosal was recently appointed Adjunct Scholar to the Modern War Institute at the US Military Academy/West Point. From 2012-2013, she as a senior advisor to the Chief of Staff of the US Army as part of his inaugural Strategic Studies Group (SSG). Before joining the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, she was Science and Technology Advisor within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). Kosal also served as the first liaison to the Biological and Chemical Defense Directorate at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). She has been recognized for her leadership across the U.S. federal government, specifically for efforts to coordinate across the DoD as part of the interagency Nonproliferation and Arms Control Technology Working Group, reporting to the National Security Council (NSC), and as member of the interagency federal group charged with leading the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). Kosal was nominated to and led the U.S. involvement in the NATO Nanotechnology for Defense Working Group. Her awards include the 2015 CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award, 2014 Georgia Tech Junior Faculty Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award, 2012 Ivan Allen Jr Legacy Award, 2010 INTAGO Faculty Award, CETL Class of 1969 Teaching Scholar, the OSD Award for Excellence, 2007 UIUC Alumni Association Recent Alumni Award, the President’s Volunteer Service Award, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Defense Policy Fellow, and the Society of Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines Dissertation Research Award. Currently, she serves on the editorial board of the scholarly journals Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, the Journal of Strategic Security, the Journal of Defense Management, and Global Security: Health Science and Policy. Education: Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign B.S., Chemistry, University of Southern California Awards and Distinctions: Senior Adjunct Scholar to the Modern War Institute at the U.S. Military Grand Challenges Faculty Fellow, AY2015-2016 & AY 2016-2017 2015-2016 CETL Class of 1969 Teaching Scholar 2015 CETL/BP Junior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award Gold Star Award in Recognition of the Highest Level of Accomplishment in Research, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Dean Griffith Teaching Recognition – “Thank a Teacher” Award 2014 Georgia Tech Junior Faculty Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award Ivan Allen Jr. Legacy Faculty Award, 2012 INTAGO Faculty of the Year, 2010 Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence, 2007 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Recent Alumni Award, 2007 President’s Volunteer Service Award, 2007 American Associatio for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Fellowship, 2005-2007 American Chemical Society’s Chemical and Engineering News Top 2002 Supramolecular Chemistry research paper Areas of Expertise: Biotechnology Emerging Technology Military Nanotechnology National Security Nonproliferation Nuclear Weapons Terrorism US Foreign & Defense Policy

Biography:

William J. (Bill) Drummond is an associate professor in the College of Design at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, Georgia), and directs the Georgia Tech Master of Science degree in Geographic Information Science and Technology.

He graduated from Duke University summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, majoring in history. He then earned a Master of Divinity degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a biblical studies Master of Theology degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. After serving for two years as minister of a North Carolina Presbyterian church, he earned a PhD in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

He has taught at Georgia Tech since 1987. Over the last several years his courses have included climate change planning, land conservation, sustainable urban development, socioeconomic GIS, programming for GIS, and PhD quantitative research methods.

His current research includes work on population forecasting with advanced time-series models, the relationship between urban form and greenhouse gas emissions, and new methods of estimating building-level and neighborhood-level greenhouse gas emissions.

In his spare time he enjoys running, church activities, and, of course, ACC basketball.

Teaching Interest:

I teach primarily methods and geographic information systems classes, including Socioeconomic GIS, Climate Change Analytics, and a PhD-level statistics class. On occasion I teach Land Conservation, Introduction to Climate Change Planning, and Sustainable Urban Development.

Research Interest:

My primary research interest is in climate change mitigation. I work on climate-related projects funded by the U.S Department of Energy, the Atlanta Regional Commission, the state of Georgia Environmental Protection Division, and the Ray C. Anderson Foundation.

List of Recent Scholarly Work:

My recent scholarly products have been tools and analyses related to climate change.  I am the lead developer for the Drawdown Georgia GHG Emissions Trackers (https://drawdownga.org/tracker), which estimate local GHG emissions at the county and municipal level across the state of Georgia.  I provided technical analyses for the state of Georgia's first climate action plan (https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-03/georgia_psverp.pdf) and the Atlanta Regional Commission's Comprehensive Climate Action Plan (not yet publicly available).

Degrees with Year of Award:

Ph.D., December 1989.  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Doctor of Philosophy, Department of City and Regional Planning.  Advisor: Edward J. Kaiser
    
Th.M., May 1980.  Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia.  Master of Theology.
    
M.Div., May 1979.  Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts.  Master of Divinity, summa cum laude.
    
A.B., May 1975.  Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.  Bachelor of Arts (History), summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.

Subhro Guhathakurta is the Harry West Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning. He joined Georgia Tech in 2011 as the director of the Center for Geographic Information Systems, which was renamed the Center for Spatial Planning Analytics and Visualization (CSPAV), and then the Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics (CURA), under his leadership. He was named chair of the School of City & Regional Planning in 2018 and completed his term in 2021.

Professor Guhathakurta was previously associate director of the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University (ASU) and among the founding faculty members of ASU’s School of Sustainability. He was instrumental in developing the Urban Modeling and Simulation Lab in ASU’s College of Design. He is an author of 6 books and monographs and over 75 scientific papers. His editorial contributions include books such as "Integrated Urban and Environmental Models: A Survey of Current Applications and Research" (Springer-Verlag, 2003), "Visualizing Sustainable Planning" (Springer 2009), and “The Routledge Handbook of International Planning Education” (Routledge 2019). He was a Co-Editor of the Journal of Planning Education and Research (2012-2016) and is serving on editorial boards of several leading planning journals including the Journal of American Planning Association (JAPA). Prof. Guhathakurta is a recipient of the Mercator Professorship by DFG (German National Science Foundation) to conduct research in visualizing unstructured data at the Technische Universität, Kaiserslautern, Germany. He has held visiting appointments at the Center for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at the University College London; the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore; the Center for Sustainable Urban and Regional Futures at the University of Queensland in Brisbane; and served as a high-end expert for the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Tongji University, Shanghai, China.

Specialization Area: 

Geographic Information Science and Technology

Teaching Interest:

Professor Guhathakurta's recent teaching roles have primarily focused on the Ph.D. program, where he routinely teaches the course on “urban and regional theory” (CP8300). This class discusses the foundational theoretical propositions of urban growth and development through the lens of emerging urban issues and policy. He has also taught "Introduction to Urban Analytics," “Environmental GIS,” and “Introduction to Land use” in various years.

Research Interest:

As director of a research center (CURA), Prof Guhathakurta's research has involved leading multidisciplinary teams of academics, students, and practitioners to pursue externally funded research in the domains of spatial analytics, planning, and policy. These projects range in size and complexity from small ($50,000 and less) to large, multi-year ($1 million +), sponsored by various local, state, and federal agencies. These projects typically involve both discovery and fundamental contributions to the literature and application development (mostly software tools and data) that are used by stakeholders and other researchers.

List of Recent Scholarly Work:

1. Lieu S. J., Koo, BW, Huang, UJ, and Guhathakurta, S. (2026) Automated Detection and Classification of Bike Lanes Using Multimodal Imagery. Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment 41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rsase.2025.101817. 
2. Liu, K., Guhathakurta, S., Han, C., Hittinger, E., Phoung, S., & Williams, E. (2025). The Impact of Online Shopping on Retail Building Space and Energy Demand in the U.S. Energies, 18(23), 6178. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18236178.
3. Han, C., Lieu, S. J., Hwang, U., & Guhathakurta, S. (2025). Do streetscapes still matter for customer ratings of eating and drinking establishments in car-dependent cities? Journal of Urban Design, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/13574809.2025.2541953.
4. Han, C., Guhathakurta, S., Hittinger, E., Liu, K., Phoung, S., & Williams, E. (2025). Empirical assessment of the relationship between teleworking frequency and residential energy use in the US: multilevel modeling and time use comparisons. Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/ade3fa.  
5. Lieu S. J., Guhathakurta S. (2025). Exploring pedestrian route choice preferences by demographic groups: Analysis of street attributes in Chicago. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 195:104437. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2025.104437. 
6. Lieu, S. J., & Guhathakurta, S. (2025). A novel approach for estimating sidewalk width from street view images and computer vision. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 23998083251369602.