Billyde Brown is a Senior Research Faculty and Education and Workforce Development (EWD) Director at the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute (GTMI), one of eleven interdisciplinary research institutes at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Brown also serves as a Manufacturing Advisor at the Georgia MBDA (Minority Business Development Agency) Business Center where he connects minority-owned business clients with resources and expertise at Georgia Tech and provides assistance with prototyping and engineering services.

Brown’s overall role at GTMI is to create strong partnerships among industry, government, and academia in the area of manufacturing research, development, and deployment, while acquiring and managing sponsored research programs. Brown is currently the Principal Investigator of an Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI BioFabUSA) funded project to develop a wireless sensor system for real-time in-situ monitoring of critical quality attributes including pH, glucose, lactate, and protein biomarkers in human mesenchymal stem cell expansion bioreactors.

In regard to EWD, Brown manages a Manufacturing Certificate program and proctors a Manufacturing Seminar Course for the Georgia Tech College of Engineering while hosting a 10-week GTMI Lunch and Learn Lecture Series each semester with high profile industry, government, and academic speakers to share advanced manufacturing knowledge within a global community. Brown also coordinates an annual 10-week Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) summer program called REVAMP (Research Experiences for student Veterans in Advanced Manufacturing and entrePreneurship) sponsored by the National Science Foundation that maintains target demographics of 50% student veterans and 40% underrepresented minorities with STEM majors.

Brown has strong expertise in several technical areas including electrochemical biosensors for bioprocess monitoring, thin-film manufacturing (CVD, PVD, ALD, AJP), nanomaterial synthesis and characterization, and electrochemical energy storage. Brown has over 20 peer-reviewed publications and is a regular reviewer of high impact factor peer reviewed journals. He earned his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from NC State University and Duke University, respectively.

Dylan Brewer joined the faculty at the School of Economics in 2019. He received his PhD in Economics with a dual major in Environmental Science and Policy from Michigan State University in May 2019 as well as a Master of Arts degree in Economics from the same institution in 2016. Prior to his graduate studies, Dylan completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in Economics and International Relations at the University of Virginia in 2014. Dylan's research uses the tools of applied econometrics and machine learning to answer questions in energy and environmental economics. He has published research on household energy consumption, the economics of thermostat settings, recycling, electricity demand, machine learning methodology, and air quality among other topics. He teaches courses on environmental economics at the graduate and undergraduate level, and his Principles of Microeconomics course has won awards at Georgia Tech.

Dr. Bert Bras has been a Professor at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology since September 1992. From 2001 to 2004, he served as the Director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Sustainable Technology and Development. 

In 2014, he was named a Brook Byers Professor of Sustainability. He was named the Associate Chair for Administration for the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech in 2016 and briefly served as Interim School Chair in 2018. 

Dr. Bras’ 25-year career as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology equips him with considerable expertise in sustainable design and manufacturing that has taken him through many areas of industry, from automotive to alternative energy.

He holds an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Twente (Netherlands) and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the University of Houston. Prior to completing his Ph.D., he worked at the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands (MARIN).