Rosario A. Gerhardt joined the faculty of Georgia Tech as associate professor in January 1991. She was promoted to full professor in 2001. Prior to coming to Georgia Tech she worked as an assistant research professor at the Center for Ceramics Research at Rutgers University from 1986-1990 and as a post-doctoral research associate at Rutgers for two years and at Columbia University in New York City for one year. She also worked as an ASEE/NASA Faculty Fellow at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL during summer 1995 and as a visiting professor at the Center for Nanomaterials Science (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN during the 2007-2008 academic year. She regularly interacts with researchers at various industrial companies and national laboratories. Her research work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA and various industrial companies.
Gerhardt's research focuses on determining structure-property-processing relationships in a wide range of materials. Most recently, her research group has focused on making and characterizing polymer and ceramic composites containing conducting and semiconducting nanofillers and on the synthesis and assembly of nanoparticles into thin films useful for use as transparent electrodes, solar cell components, microwave heatable inserts, conductive paper, etc. Over the years, she has worked with a variety of ceramic materials such as dielectric insulators, ionic conductors and ceramic superconductors in bulk and thin film form, as well as with intrinsic conducting polymers. Her work also extends onto non-electronics related materials such as fiber and particulate reinforced composites and metallic alloys that are used for wear applications and as components in the hot-sections of gas turbine engines. Most of her work has dealt with the electrical and microstructural characterization of materials using impedance and dielectric spectroscopy, resistivity measurements, and structural characterization via microscopic techniques such as optical, SEM, TEM and AFM, and x-ray and neutron scattering methods. More recently, her group has also added various optical spectroscopy techniques to their repertoire of characterization methods (FTIR, UV-Vis and Raman).
Gerhardt is a fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACeRS) and a member of the Materials Research Society(MRS), the IEEE/Dielectrics Division and Instrument and Measurement Division, the Metallurgical Society(TMS), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Society for Non-Destructive Testing (ASNT), the International Microelectronics and Packaging Society(IMAPS) and the Microscopy Society of America(MSA). She is also a member of Sigma Xi, Keramos and Tau Beta Pi. She has been active as an executive officer of the Electronics Division of the American Ceramic Society, having served as Chair of that division during the 2000-2001 year and on other capacities since then. She also serves as the faculty advisor for the Student Chapter of ACeRS and MRS at Georgia Tech and has been co-organizer of numerous symposia both at ACerS, MRS and other societies. She is a member of the National Research Council Associateship Panel Review Program. She is the author or co-author of over 200 refereed publications and has served as research advisor to more than 40 graduate students. Gerhardt and one of her students recently received one of the 2011 ASNT fellowship awards.
One of Gerhardt’s long term research goals is to establish that electrical measurements can be used as a non-destructive method for microstructural characterization at all length scales. She was the leading organizer of a symposium series on the same subject at the Materials Research Society Meetings during the 1995, 1997 and 2001 Fall Meetings from which three proceedings books were published (MRS Proc. Vols. 411, 500 and 699). In addition, she teaches a graduate course at Georgia Tech (MSE7140) where she covers the theory and applications of impedance spectroscopy from the microstructural point of view. She is currently writing a textbook on this subject, which is due to be published in 2013. She is also the editor of a recent book entitled “Properties and Applications of Silicon Carbide” that was published by In-Tech publications in 2011
Advanced Characterization; Ceramics; Conducting Polymers; Plasmonics; Nanostructured Materials; Printing Technology; Nanocellulose Applications; Films & Coatings; Biomaterials
Russell Gentry is professor of architecture and civil engineering (by courtesy) and a licensed structural engineer. He teaches graduate courses in building structures, computationally-driven fabrication and construction, and building integration. He is affiliated with the design computing faculty in the School of Architecture and the structural engineering and mechanics of materials faculty in the School of Civil Engineering.
Gentry is the chair of ASTM D30.10, Composites for Civil Structures and an expert on the development of test methods for composite materials. He is a fellow of the International Institute for Fiber Composites (IIFC). He is the Georgia Tech principal investigator on the NSF-sponsored international initiative to develop alternative uses for decommissioned composite wind turbine blades.
Gentry is the acting director of the Digital Building Laboratory (DBL), an applied research lab in the College of Design, focusing on computational design, building information modeling, and information technology in the AEC industry. He serves as the associate dean for faculty in the College of Design.
Building Technologies
Professor Nagi Gebraeel is the Georgia Power Early Career Professor and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He received his MS and PhD from Purdue University in 1998 and 2003, respectively.
Dr. Gebraeel's research interests lie at the intersection of Predictive Analytics and Machine Learning in IoT enabled maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) and service logistics. His key focus is on developing fundamental statistical learning algorithms specifically tailored for real-time equipment diagnostics and prognostics, and optimization models for subsequent operational and logistical decision-making in IoT ecosystems. Dr. Gebraeel also develops cyber-security algorithms intended to protect IoT-enabled critical assets from ICS-type cyberattacks (cyberattacks that target Industrial Control Systems). From the standpoint of application domains, Dr. Gebraeel has general interests in manufacturing, power generation, and service-type industries. Applications in Deep Space missions are a recent addition to his research interests, specifically, developing Self-Aware Deep Space Habitats through NASA's HOME Space Technology Research Institute.
Dr. Gebraeel leads Predictive Analytics and Intelligent Systems (PAIS) research group at Georgia Tech's Supply Chain and Logistics Institute. He also directs activities and testing at the Analytics and Prognostics Systems laboratory at Georgia Tech's Manufacturing Institute. Formerly, Dr. Gebraeel served as an associate director at Georgia Tech's Strategic Energy Institute (from 2014 until 2019) where he was responsible for identifying and promoting research initiatives and thought-leadership at the intersection of Data Science and Energy applications. He was also the former president of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Quality and Reliability Engineering Division, and is currently a member of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), and IISE (since 2005).
Data Mining; Sensor-based prognostics and degradation modeling; reliability engineering; maintenance operations and logistics; System Design & Optimization; Utilities; Cyber/ Information Technology; Oil/Gas
Lauren Garten joined the School of Material Science and Engineering as an assistant professor in Fall 2021. Her group focuses on developing new materials for energy and electronic applications, particularly at the nexus between ferroelectricity, ferromagnetism, electronics, and photovoltaics.
Lauren received her B.S. in ceramic engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology. She then went on to earn a Ph.D. in material science from the Pennsylvania State University for her work on ferroelectric, piezoelectric, and dielectric synthesis and characterization with Prof. Susan Trolier-McKinstry. She then became a post-doc at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory working on metastable materials for energy applications. After a very short stint as a material scientist at Sandia National Laboratory, she won the NRC Research Associateship from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Math which was hosted at the U.S. Naval Research Lab (NRL). She then received the Jerome and Isabella Karle Distinguished Scholar Fellowship from NRL to work on lead-free multiferroic materials and devices.
Electronics, Energy Harvesting, Energy Storage, Solar
Dr. Garimella began at Tech in August 2003 as an Associate Professor and Director of the Sustainable Thermal Systems Laboratory. Prior, he was an Associate Professor at Iowa State University, an Assistant and Associate Professor at Western Michigan University, a Research Scientist at Battelle Memorial Institute, and a Senior Engineer at General Motors.
Michael’s love of design at all scales is evident in his teaching, research and practice.
He is a registered architect, director of the Modern Cities Europe Program, and creative director at Gamble + Gamble Architects in Atlanta. From 2015 to 2022, he directed the Master of Architecture program in the School of Architecture. His design-driven research operates at a variety of scales, from house to city, with emphasis on innovation, alternative energy, and building technology pursued within the context of a larger concern for the creation of healthy, well-conceived environments. He has received numerous awards for excellence in design and scholarship. www.gg-architects.com
Michael was the first point of contact for the $30 million Living Building gift, a.k.a. Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design (KBISD), and actively participated in pre-planning and fund acquisition, design competition and team formation, all the way through building execution, implementation and certification. He also led a series of interdisciplinary design studios that paralleled the effort, and chaired the Academic and Research Council connected to the project. He is co-author of the novel organizational structure of the living building workgroups, now tested, and currently serves as chair of the KBISD advisory council and leads the Living Building Pilot Project Program, comprised of faculty, researchers and students from across campus, now in round three of funding.
Michael’s research has received grants from The Alcoa Foundation, The Kendeda Foundation, Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development, the National Endowments of the Arts, and received First Prize for Research in an international competition sponsored by the Environmental Design and Research Association. Gamble has published essays on the design of the public realm in Harvard Design Magazine with W. Jude Leblanc.
Tom Fuller is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Georgia Tech. Dr. Fuller received a BS from the University of Utah in Chemical Engineering in 1982. Dr. Fuller then served for five years in the U.S. Navy working as a Nuclear Engineer. In 1992 he obtained a Ph.D. from UC, Berkeley also in Chemical Engineering.
Subsequently, Dr. Fuller developed advanced lithium batteries while working as a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He then moved to United Technologies. He was responsible for technology development, design, assembly, and test of cell stacks for UTC Fuel Cells.
His research group at Georgia Tech is focused on durability challenges for electrochemical systems. For the last eight years Dr. Fuller has been a Technical Editor for the Journal of the Electrochemical Society. In 2009 Dr. Fuller was named a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society.
Electric Vehicles; Energy Storage; Hydrogen; Modeling; Materials Failure and Reliability; Energy Conversion; Energy Storage; Batteries; fuel cells