Faces of Research - Profile Article

Lu Gan joined the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor in January 2024. She leads the Lu's Navigation and Autonomous Robotics (Lunar) Lab at Georgia Tech, and is on the core faculty of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines. Her research interests include robot perception, robot learning, and autonomous navigation. Her group explores the use of computer vision, machine learning, estimation, probabilistic inference, kinematics and dynamics to develop autonomous systems in ground, air, and space applications.

She holds a B.S. in Automation from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, an M.S. in Control Engineering from Beihang University, and received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Robotics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Before joining Georgia Tech, she had a two-year appointment as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology and the Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies at Caltech.

Victor Fung is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering. Prior to this position, he was a Wigner Fellow and a member of the Nanomaterials Theory Insitute in the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A physical chemist by training, Fung now works at the intersection of scientific artificial intelligence, computing, and materials science/chemistry.

Richard Fujimoto is a Regents’ Professor, Emeritus in the School of Computational Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received the Ph.D. degree from the University of California-Berkeley in 1983 in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He also received an M.S. degree from the same institution as well as two B.S. degrees from the University of Illinois-Urbana. 

Fujimoto is a pioneer in the parallel and distributed discrete event simulation field. Discrete event simulation is widely used in areas such as telecommunications, transportation, manufacturing, and defense, among others. His work developed fundamental understandings of synchronization algorithms that are needed to ensure the correct execution of discrete event simulation programs on high performance computing (HPC) platforms. His team developed many new algorithms and computational techniques to accelerate the execution of discrete event simulations and developed software realizations that impacted several application domains. For example, his Georgia Tech Time Warp software was deployed by MITRE Corp. to create online fast-time simulations of commercial air traffic to help reduce delays in the U.S. National Airspace. An active researcher in this field since 1985, he authored or co-authored three books and hundreds of technical papers including seven that were cited for “best paper” awards or other recognitions. His research included several projects with Georgia Tech faculty in telecommunications, transportation, sustainability, and materials leading to numerous publications co-authored with faculty across campus.

Steven French is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Veracyte.. He brings more than 20 years of information and operational leadership experience in the life sciences and technology industries to his role at Veracyte. 

Prior to joining Veracyte in July 2022, Mr. French most recently served as President of a consultancy advising leading biotech companies on information technology strategy, cybersecurity, acquisitions and infrastructure integration, and business operations. He previously served as Chief Information Officer at Celularity, a clinical-stage biotechnology company. Prior to that, Mr. French was Vice President of Technology Development at Human Longevity, Inc., a San Diego-based venture focused on building a comprehensive database of human genotypes and phenotypes, where he developed and implemented the infrastructure for key data management strategies. Earlier, Mr. French was Co-Founder and Vice President of Strategy and Technology at Epic Sciences, a diagnostics company focused on advancing the treatment and management of cancer, where he established key strategies for information technology, software development, and quality systems. 

Mr. French holds a B.B.A. and an M.B.A from the University of San Diego.

Steven P. French is professor of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Institute of Technology. He joined Georgia Tech in 1992 as the director of the City Planning program and served in that position until August 1999. He was the director of the Center for Geographic Information Systems from 1997 through 2011. He served as associate dean for research for the College of Architecture (now the College of Design) from July 2009 through June 2013 and dean of the College of Design from July 2013-June 2021.

French’s teaching and research activities focus on sustainable urban development, land use planning, GIS applications, and natural hazard risk assessment. In addition to his administrative assignments, Professor French has regularly taught graduate courses in land use, planning, and GIS. He has graduated six Ph.D. students and advised more than 50 Masters students in City and Regional Planning. He has also served on numerous dissertation committees in Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Public Policy.

Over the past twenty-five years, French has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than seventy research projects. He has participated in a number of National Science Foundation projects dealing with flood and earthquake hazards and was the Social Science Thrust Leader for the Mid-America Earthquake Center, an NSF Engineering Research Center. He has extensive experience in building and managing multidisciplinary teams of social scientists, architects, engineers, and scientists. French is the author or co-author of more than 25 refereed journal articles and four books. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Planning Association, Journal of Planning Education and Research, Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association and Earthquake Spectra.

French holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Before coming to Georgia Tech, he taught for ten years at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo. In 1987-88, he served as the visiting professor of resources planning in the Civil Engineering Department at Stanford University. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and an associate member of the American Institute of Architects.

Jay Forrest is the Assistant Dean for Content Strategy & Development and the Content Management Group Chair. While maintaining effective stewardship of the collection’s budgets, Jay leads efforts to ensure that Library Collections align with Georgia Tech's research, teaching, and learning priorities and meet an evolving and growing university's needs, with diverse viewpoints, interests, abilities, and perspectives. 

His service and scholarship focus on collaborative preservation of the print scholarly record and on analytical techniques to evaluate and improve library effectiveness. 

Jay earned his A.B. from Duke University (Women's Studies|Comparative Area Studies), and holds master's degrees from Georgia State (Geography), Georgia Tech (City and Regional Planning; History and Sociology of Technology and Science), Florida State (Information Studies), and Kennesaw State (Software Engineering). His recent presentations include "Services for Shared Print Collections" (2018) and " Preserving Assets, Maximizing Investments: A Collaborative Model in Process-Focused Facility Design" (2016).

Faces of Research - Profile Article