She will serve as interim until a permanent director is named in summer 2019. Current Executive Director Norman Marsolan announced his retirement in late 2017, and Dr. Cross also announced earlier this year he would be stepping down from his current position and resuming his duties as Professor at Georgia Tech.
“With the process of naming my successor under way and Norman’s timeline of retirement, we all felt Meisha would bring stability and continuity as these transitions begin,” Dr. Cross said. “Meisha is a highly talented and well respected member of the Georgia Tech community and we are very excited to have her in this role. I am pleased that she has agreed to serve in this role and appreciate her willingness to take on this important leadership position at this time.
Marsolan echoed Cross’ sentiments, and said Shofner had his full endorsement.
"I have worked with Meisha since 2010 and have been impressed with her knowledge and leadership skills, so much so that I appointed her associate director in 2015. Meisha being chosen for this role will prove to be rewarding both for our partners in industry and government and our staff and affiliated faculty and RBI Fellows. She understands RBI and our mission. She knows our partners and has a fresh outlook to advance the Institute."
Dr. Shofner completed her post-doctoral training at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin and her Ph.D. in Materials Science from Rice University. Prior to beginning graduate school, she was employed as a design engineer by FMC in the Subsea Engineering Division, working at two plant locations (Houston, Texas and the Republic of Singapore). Following post-doctoral research training at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Meisha joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 2005.
At Georgia Tech, her research group is concerned with structure-property relationships in polymer nanocomposite materials and with producing structural hierarchy in these materials for structural and functional applications.
"Dr. Shofner has the skills and vision to build on the established strengths of RBI in pulp and paper, and broaden its mission through strategic industry-university partnerships in areas that address societal challenges including critical usage of materials, natural resources, food security, and energy," said Dr. Naresh Thadhani, Professor and Chair of GT's School of Materials Science and Engineering.
Shofner was recently selected for the 2017-18 cohort of the Emerging Leaders Program and received the Hesburgh Award Teaching Fellows Program in 2014.
]]>The meeting will open Tuesday, March 6 at 1 p.m., with sessions continuing until 5 p.m. A poster session and reception will be held from 5 to 6:30, with a seated dinner to follow from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday will kick off with breakfast at 8 a.m., with sessions ending at 1 p.m.
You may register for the conference beginning Jan. 18 by clicking here.
The conference and poster session will be held in the Global Learning Center located in Midtown Atlanta. Tuesday's dinner will be held in the adjacent Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center.
The first day of the conference will consider “Transformative Opportunities for Tomorrow’s Bioproducts Manufacturing.” The second day will be devoted to “Manufacturing Design for Advanced Chemicals and Materials,” comprised of two sessions—The Promise of Smart Manufacturing, and Material and Chemical Design for New Products. Experts, faculty and students will engage the audience in discussing these topics.
“This conference is being designed to explore the application of new tools to long-standing challenges,” said RBI Executive Director Norman Marsolan. “We want to explore how those tools can lead the existing and emerging bioproducts industry into a vibrant and as yet unimagined future.”
About 45 graduate Fellows supported by RBI's unique endowment are expected to participate in this year’s poster competition. Conference participants will have an opportunity to meet these students and discuss with them how their research could be valuable or made more relevant to their companies.
Throughout the two days, there will be ample time for networking and discussion with expert researchers, students, and industry peers. The conference is also a prime opportunity to learn more about Georgia Tech’s innovation and commercialization centers and how they can support business and industry strategies. RBI serves as a portal into pertinent research capabilities and services available across campus.
The 2017 conference attracted a record number of industry and business leaders from a wide range of arenas, including energy, pulp & paper, biochemicals, materials science and bioprocessing, as well as government and academic representatives — more than 160 during the two-day event. The meeting serves as a development opportunity as well for young to mid-level professionals. There is no registration fee.
More information will be released in the coming weeks and can be found at the 2018 conference page.
Rooms are available at a preferred rate through Feb. 28 for conference guests at the Hilton Garden Inn Midtown, located just a 10 minute walk from the conference venue. Many hotels in the Midtown area also offer Georgia Tech preferred rates. Please be sure to specify “Georgia Tech” when you call to make your reservation.
For hotel and other travel and accommodations inquiries, please contact Dione Morton.
For any other questions regarding the conference, please contact Kelly Smith, RBI's marketing and communications manager.
]]>The opening address will be delivered by John Williams, CEO of Domtar, a company on the forefront of the effort to convert sustainable wood fiber into useful products on which people rely every day. His keynote address, "The Building Blocks of Our Industry's Future," will outline Domtar's evolving strategy of looking differently at trees — to recognize them as nature’s biorefineries. Williams will also discuss approaches to promoting improved understanding of the industry throughout the general public.
This year’s conference will focus on the current state of science in raw biomaterials as society addresses critical social, economic and environmental concerns and development priorities. Introducing the People, Technologies and Ideas which make up RBI, an array of research faculty, RBI Fellows and Georgia Tech leadership will discuss the advancements being developed to address the needs of a growing population and reduce the reliance on non-renewable resources.
“Advancing our understanding of the drivers of global grand challenges and potential remedies for them requires contributions from the full range of fields represented at RBI,” said Norman Marsolan, RBI’s executive director. “It also requires partnerships with the people and organizations that support our research and work with us to translate these advances into real-world applications. This conference offers two days of discourse and dialogue regarding the challenges and opportunities in the rapidly-evolving world of bioproducts.”
This year, RBI’s fourth-year students will present the results of their endowment-sponsored research. Our faculty will share their innovative ideas and most recent endeavors in a variety of areas. We will also introduce new faculty who have recently joined Georgia Tech to offer intriguing possibilities for forest bioproducts. In addition, plenary sessions will cover an overview of the RBI Endowment portfolio, the implications and opportunities inherent for companies in the recently awarded “Rapid Acceleration of Process Intensification Deployment” (RAPID) and closing the conference, a discussion regarding the future of manufacturing, led by panel of five Georgia Tech Interdisciplinary Research Institute directors.
Nearly 40 of RBI’s Fellows, Ph.D. students sponsored by RBI’s endowment, will participate in this year’s poster competition. Attendees will have an opportunity to meet these students during lunch and an evening reception to discuss with them how their research could be valuable or made more relevant to their companies.
The conference is also a prime opportunity to learn more about Georgia Tech’s innovation ecosystem, which encourages cross-disciplinary research partnerships in order to advance progress and solutions on issues of significance. Our industry partners will hear in detail about commercialization centers and how they can provide insights, techniques and tools to support business and industry strategies with RBI serving as a portal into pertinent research, capabilities, services, and scholarship being conducted on campus.
Full details about the conference can be found on RBI's conference website.
]]>RBI's own Preet Singh, a professor of materials science and engineering, is part of team recognized.
The work developed a new steel to reinforce concrete bridge piles in marine environments that withstands corrosion and lasts well beyond the expected 100-year lifespan of the structures. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, or AASHTO, named it one of the group’s 2016 Sweet Sixteen high-value research projects.
“The new goal of the Federal Highway Administration and Georgia DOT is to have a design life for bridges of 100 years or more. Current steel reinforcing in piles in marine environments totally corrodes in less than 40 years,” said School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Emeritus Lawrence Kahn, who led the effort along with Professor Kimberly Kurtis.
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