Pardis Pishdad is a professor in the School of Building Construction in Georgia Tech's College of Design. She is the Director of the Smart Built Environment Eco-System (Smart Bees) Laboratory, which carries out research at the nexus of the cyber, physical, and behavioral systems.   

Pishdad’s research centers on innovative integrated strategies for sustainably creating and operating smart built-environments. She deploys life-cycle and holistic approaches to integrating Architecture/Engineering/Construction/Facility Management (AECFM) practices through the use of both innovative processes and technologies. Specifically, her research focuses on Innovative Project Delivery Methods (e.g., Integrated Project Delivery method (IPD), Flash Tracking, Lean), Digital Twin and Cyber-Physical Systems (e.g., Building Information Modeling (BIM), Internet of Things (IoT), Blockchain), Trust, and Supply Chain integration.

Pishdad holds a PhD degree in Environmental Design and Planning (Virginia Tech), three Master’s degrees in the fields of Civil Engineering (Virginia Tech), Design Studies on Project Management (Harvard), Architecture (University of Tehran), a Bachelor degree in Architectural Engineering (Azad University of Shiraz), a Diploma in Science from the National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (NODET).

Pishdad has been the recipient of numerous international, national, and regional awards for her excellence in research and teaching, namely: Construction Management Association of America National Educator of the Year Award (2018), Engineering News-Record (ENR) National Top 20 Under 40 Professionals (2018), ENR Southeast Young Professionals (2018), Construction Industry Institute (CII) National Outstanding Researcher Award (2016), Georgia Tech College of Design Outstanding Faculty Award (2016), Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) National Excellence Teaching Award (2014), ASC Regional Excellence Teaching Award (2013), and Virginia Tech VCEMP Alumni Award (2019), Georgia Tech  Provost Teaching Learning Fellow (2020-2022).

Her industry experience includes her employment with Turner Construction Company and Tishman Construction Corporation. Pishdad’s sponsored research projects—with the Construction Industry Institute (CII), The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), and The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT)—have kept her closely involved with industry professionals. Her research on Flash Tracking is integrated into practice by these sponsors.

Pishdad is currently the Academic Advisor for the Construction Industry Institute’s (CII) Community of Business Advancement (CBA) on Supply Chain Management. She is also appointed as the Vice Chair for 5D Modeling Estimating Taskforce of BIM Forum of BuildingSMART International. She had also served as the Academic Advisor to the Construction Management Association of America’s Board of Directors for two years 2016-2018.

Areas of Expertise

• Integrated Project Delivery (IPD)
• Flash Tracking
• BIM for Facility Management
• Internet-of-Things and Smart Built Environment
• Alternative Project delivery and contracting strategies
• Trust-building in construction contracting
• BIM 3D/4D/5D design
• Life cycle Cost Analysis and Machine Learning
• Lean construction

The Strategic Energy Institute and EPICenter are excited to welcome Andrea Pinabell as a 2023 External Fellow. Andrea will be working primarily with our EPICenter Director, Joe Hagerman, on the expansion of publicly-facing energy related knowledge and information, including hydrogen (with GTRI) and direct air capture of carbon dioxide (with the College of Chemical Engineering). This is primarily intended to expand the reach and opportunities across the HBCU and technical college network system (in close coordination with the EVPR’s office).

In addition, Andrea will work to explore the development and implementation of an urban design center focused on net zero low-income housing first within the English Ave corridor on Atlanta’s westside which is in early discussions with the College of Design, the award-winning GT solar decathlon team, and westside neighborhood partners including the Westside Future Fund and ANDP. All external fellows will help SEI and EPICenter bridge industry and academia in both a strategic and tactical manner to help GT have outsized impact. 

Andrea is well known on the Georgia Tech campus and has been involved in multiple activities across campus. A few highlights include:

• A member of the Strategic Energy Institute’s External Advisory Board for three years
• A member of the Ray C Anderson Center for Sustainable Business Advisory Board for four years
• Led the Swarm outreach and learnings from the Kendeda Building construction and launch highlighting the innovation coming from the construction sub partners.
• Participated in the founding and launch of the RCE Greater Atlanta
• Partner in Drawdown GA research and subsequent launch of Drawdown GA Business Compact
• Frequent speaker across campus on sustainability-related topics

Peralta-Yahya has been part of Georgia Tech since 2012. Her diverse research group composed of chemists, biologists, and chemical engineers works in the area of engineering biology, drawing from principles of biochemistry and engineering to build systems for chemical detection and production. Specifically, her group focuses on the development of G protein-coupled receptors for biotechnology and biomedical applications, and the engineering of biological systems for the production of fuels and functionalized plant natural products. Early on, her work was recognized with several awards including a DARPA Young Faculty Award, a DuPont Young Professor Award, a Kavli Fellowship by the US Academy of Science, and an NIH MIRA award. Her group’s key accomplishments are 1) the standardization of GPCR-based sensors in yeast to reduce the cost and accelerate the pace of drug discovery for these receptors, which are the target of over 30% of FDA approved drugs, and 2) the development of advanced biofuels, including pinene, which, when dimerized, has sufficient energy content to power rockets and missiles.  Today, her group is funded to work on these and other cutting edge areas – including how to power a rocket returning from Mars and how to make synthetic cells learn without evolution – by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and NASA.

Dr. Srinivas Peeta is the Frederick R. Dickerson Chair and Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also Principal Research Faculty at the Georgia Tech Research Institute. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. Dr. Peeta is a Distinguished Alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology (Madras) and an American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Fellow. He received his B.Tech., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology (Madras), Caltech, and The University of Texas at Austin, respectively. Prior to Georgia Tech, Dr. Peeta was the Jack and Kay Hockema Professor in Civil Engineering at Purdue University up to 2018. From 2006 to 2018, he served as the founding Director of the NEXTRANS Center, formerly the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT’s) Federal Region 5 University Transportation Center (UTC). He was also the founding Associate Director of USDOT’s Center for Connected and Automated Transportation (CCAT), the Region 5 UTC, from 2016 to 2018. Dr. Peeta was a past Chair (2007-2013) of the Transportation Network Modeling Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies.

Dr. Peeta has authored over 515 technical publications, including over 450 in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He has over 600 talks/lectures in several countries, including 165 invited talks. He has received over $56 million in research funding. Dr. Peeta is on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems, Transportmetrica B: Transport Dynamics, Journal of Blockchain and Intelligent Computing, Frontiers in Built Environments, and Transportation in Developing Economies. He is an Advisory Board member of Korean Society of Civil Engineering’s Journal of Civil Engineering. Some of his recognitions include the INFORMS Transportation Science Best Dissertation Award (1994), U.S. NSF CAREER Award (1997), ASCE Walter Huber Research Prize (2009), TRB Blue Ribbon Committee Award (2013), and several paper awards from conferences (ASCE, IEEE, TRB, ACM) and journals. Several of his students have received best dissertation/thesis awards from professional organizations such as CUTC, IATBR and COTA. His research interests broadly span transportation and infrastructure systems, and multiple methodological areas. His work in the area of dynamic traffic assignment represents a standard for research reference, and has guided the U.S. Department of Transportation’s development of a deployable architecture for real-time route guidance in large-scale transportation systems equipped with advanced information dissemination technologies.

Research

Professor Peeta’s research interests are multidisciplinary and span several methodological domains related to transportation and infrastructure systems, and the role of emerging technologies. His research focuses on the development of advanced optimization and control methods, AI/ML techniques, econometric and behavioral approaches, driving simulator-based environments, and system-of-systems paradigms for complex transportation systems. His research also explores the roles of autonomy, automation, connectivity, electrification, shared mobility, and information and communication systems for the movement of people and freight. His work includes modeling, analysis, and management of traffic and transportation networks, with an emphasis on dynamic traffic assignment, real-time traffic control, human-machine interactions, mixed-traffic environments, vehicle-human-infrastructure interactions, and intelligent transportation systems. The research integrates concepts from operations research, systems engineering, behavior and psychological theories, and transportation analytics to improve efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of transportation infrastructure.

Education

Ph.D. in Civil Engineering

The University of Texas at Austin

1994

M.S. in Civil Engineering

California Institute of Technology

1989

B.Tech. in Civil Engineering

Indian Institute of Technology – Madras

1988

Teaching

Professor Peeta’s teaching is centered on transportation systems engineering and operations research topics at both undergraduate and graduate levels. His instruction encompasses transportation systems analysis, traffic flow theory, transportation network modeling, transportation demand modeling, optimization techniques, and intelligent transportation systems. Professor Peeta emphasizes a rigorous quantitative approach and practical problem-solving skills in his courses, aiming to prepare students for analytical and decision-making challenges in transportation engineering. In recent years, his courses have had an additional focus on the roles of emerging transformative technologies and emerging AI/ML methods in transportation systems.

Distinctions & Awards

• 2026 Co-Editor-in-Chief, Transportation Research, Part B
• 2025 ACM SIGSPATIAL Best Paper Award; Spatial Intelligence for Smart and Connected Communities
• 2025 TRB AEP35 Best Paper Award; Committee on Effects of Information and Communication Technologies on Travel Choices
• 2024 Fellow, American Society of Civil Engineering

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.

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)

Jinho Park, Ph.D. is a Senior Research Scientist of  the Resilient Infrastructure and Supply Chain (RISC) Unit, the Cybersecurity, Information Protection, and Hardware Evaluation Research (CIPHER) Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). At the GTRI, he has been participating in several industry- and state-sponsored projects related to energy, environmental, and health technologies. Jinho has been working on design/synthesis/characterization of functional materials along with their applications toward energy storage systems (Li-ion batteries, all-solid state batteries, supercapacitors, and phase change materials), energy conversion systems (fuel cells, water electrolyzers, and ammonia cracking), multifunction sensors, etc. He is also involved in commercialization of for novel technologies through increasing their TRL/CRL as well as developing a commercialization roadmap.

Prior to joining the GTRI, he has worked in School of Chemistry and Biochemistry and School of Mechanical Engineering of the Georgia Tech as a graduate research assistant and a postdoctoral fellow, respectively, conducting researches in materials for advanced energy storage/conversion systems. Notably, he has worked with several automotive companies, such as General Motors, Toyota Motor Corp., and Nissan Motor Company for seeking to a high-performance fuel cell electrocatalysts and with Samsung Electronics for a research of a next-generation Li-ion battery.

Jinho Park holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science degrees in Chemical Engineering from Sogang University (Seoul, South Korea), a Master of Science degree in Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering from Washington University (St. Louis, Missouri), and Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, Georgia).

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

Dr. Joseph Oefelein is a professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech. in the fall of 2017, after a 17-year career at Sandia National Laboratories, Combustion Research Facility, where he served as a distinguished member of technical staff. Prior to this, he served as a research associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. He is actively engaged in research on a broad range of topics in simulation and modeling of advanced propulsion, power, and related systems. His expertise is interdisciplinary, with focus on the theory and analysis of complex fluid flows where turbulence interacts with a multitude of strongly coupled fluid dynamic, thermodynamic, transport, chemical, multiphase, and/or heat transfer processes. He is an expert in the area of supercritical fluid phenomena and has extensive experience in the development and application of the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) technique, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), and high-performance massively-parallel computing. He is active in a number of professional societies including The Combustion Institute, American Physical Society (APS), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE). He is an associate editor for the Journal of Propulsion and Power, and a member and past chair of the AIAA Propellants and Combustion Technical Committee. He also serves on the editorial board of The Combustion Institute and as an associate editor for the Proceedings of The Combustion Institute. Dr. Oefelein has been a principal investigator for a broad range of sponsored research projects funded by the United States  Department of Energy, Department of Defense (e.g., AFOSR, AFRL, DARPA, SERDP), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (e.g., MSFC, LaRC), and National Science Foundation. He has also established significant collaborations with key industry leaders in the aerospace and transportation sectors. The portfolio of projects involves research across a broad range of topics while also providing a crucial link between basic and applied research.

Teaching Interests

Professor Oefelein’s teaching interests encompass fundamental and advanced topics in aerospace engineering with a focus on combustion, propulsion, and fluid dynamics. He is dedicated to instructing both undergraduate and graduate students, emphasizing the underlying physical principles and practical applications within energy conversion and propulsion systems. His teaching approach aims to integrate theory and experiment, fostering a comprehensive understanding of aerospace propulsion phenomena.

Research Interests

Professor Oefelein’s research centers on combustion and propulsion sciences, particularly involving reactive flow dynamics and multiphase flow physics. His work includes high-fidelity simulations and experimental investigations to understand turbulent combustion, thermochemical processes, and fluid-structure interactions relevant to aerospace propulsion systems. This research seeks to advance knowledge of energy conversion mechanisms and contribute to the development of efficient and clean propulsion technologies.

Research

Lab/Collaborations:

• Ben T. Zinn Combustion Laboratory

Disciplines:

• Propulsion & Combustion

AE Multidisciplinary Research Areas:

• Large-Scale Computations, Data, and Analytics
• Sustainable Transportation and Energy Systems

Education

• Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 1997
• M.S. Mechanical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 1992
• B.S. Mechanical Engineering (Highest Honors), Rutgers University, 1989

Recent Publications

• Preethi V. Mysore, Joseph Oefelein, Evaluation of Wall Modeling Approaches for Transition of Hypersonic Boundary Layers, 2026
   DOI: 10.2514/6.2026-0944.
• Dhruv Purushotham, Chang Hyeon Lim, Adam M. Steinberg, Devesh Ranjan, Joseph C. Oefelein, Joint numerical and experimental investigation of turbulent mixing in a supercritical CO2 shear layer, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 2025 DOI: 10.1017/jfm.2025.71.
• Kyle A. Schau, Joseph C. Oefelein. Numerical Analysis of Wave Characteristics in a Methane-Oxygen Rotating Detonation Engine. AIAA Journal, 2022.
• Umesh Unnikrishnan, Joseph C. Oefelein, Vigor Yang. Subgrid modeling of the filtered equation of state with application to real-fluid turbulent mixing at supercritical pressures. Physics of Fluids, 2022.
• Guilhem Lacaze, Thomas Schmitt, Anthony Ruiz, Joseph C. Oefelein. Comparison of energy-, pressure- and enthalpy-based approaches for modeling supercritical flows. Computers & Fluids, 2019.