The 2023 recipient is Christiane Amanpour.

The entire campus community is invited to attend a fireside chat on Monday, April 24, in the Atlantic Theater in the John Lewis Student Center. CNN correspondent Tom Foreman will moderate the chat. 

Ask questions prior to the event by emailing events@gatech.edu.
For more information and to RSVP, visit the Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage webpage.

The Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage was first awarded in 2011 and is funded in perpetuity by a grant from the Wilbur and Hilda Glenn Family Foundation. 

The outside ceremony is a rain or shine event. All ceremonies will be live streamed and will also be available for viewing after the event.

General information can be found at commencement.gatech.edu.

The outside ceremony is a rain or shine event. All ceremonies will be live streamed and will also be available for viewing after the event.

General information can be found at commencement.gatech.edu.

The outside ceremony is a rain or shine event. All ceremonies will be live streamed and will also be available for viewing after the event.

General information can be found at commencement.gatech.edu.

Join with your questions!  Register below.     

When: Monday, May 15, 2023

Time: 11:00am-12:00pm

In person: Bill Moore Student Success Center, Clary Theater
Hybrid option may be available.

Registration: https://b.gatech.edu/41FqHgL

Zoom link: https://gatech.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gFRBw_31ROKIZFI5Gka2JQ#/

One faculty member, staff member, student, and campus unit who have advanced the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Georgia Tech will be recognized at the 2023 Diversity Symposium in September.

2023 Diversity Champion Awards recipients should have demonstrated one or more of the following within the past three (3) years:

• Commitment to research and/or activities that engage and challenge racism and expand diversity, equity, and inclusion at Tech
• Leadership in building a culture of inclusion and belonging among all members of the GT campus community
• Scholarship or work that advances a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence at Georgia Tech
• Organized, conducted, and/or supported programs, events, and activities that promote an understanding of different cultures, and create an environment where everyone feels a sense of belonging at Tech

Nominations are due no later than Friday, July 21.

For eligibility criteria or more information about the award, visit diversity.gatech.edu/about/awards-recognition/diversity-champion-awards

Nominate a Diversity Champion!

Do you have last minute co-op or internship registration questions? Join this session to have your questions answered and ensure that you followed the right steps to register.

Register to Attend at https://gatech.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Q-HSjBPsR_2YT-JGpeYrUA

Do you have last minute co-op or internship registration questions? Join this session to have your questions answered and ensure that you followed the right steps to register.

Register to Attend at https://gatech.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__xpNclqpSieMBzqZgE8RXg

Parents and guests may attend to celebrate their student's entry into Georgia Tech.
Tickets are not required.

All graduate students are invited to attend the Graduate SGA Fall Picnic on Tech Green after Convocation, starting at 4:30 p.m.

Related Links

• Oxford Program
• Pacific Program

Connect to Community
The week will be filled with opportunities to meet and connect with your fellow Yellow Jackets. Look for nightly social events like the Yellow Jacket MegaMixer powered by PlayFair, a silent disco, outdoor movie night, and more. Residents will have several chances to build community with their hallmates. Additionally, there will be programs and events throughout the week for transfer, upperclass, and graduate students to enjoy, as well as events for specific groups.

Explore Campus & Resources
This is the perfect time to get to know our beautiful campus and all the helpful resources we have to offer. Plan to attend helpful workshops from student groups and campus departments on everything from time management and nutrition to how to play American football or build robots. Students should also make time for the self-guided Traditions Tour that guides you to the most notable places at Georgia Tech. Beyond campus, there will be shuttles to nearby stores and Atlanta points of interest to help you further explore and find what you need.

Registration is not required to attend GradExpo. 

RSVP to Event on Engage

Email weekofwelcome@gatech.edu if you have any questions

Learn more about nearly 130 international education possibilities offered at Tech. This event is a great way to speak with our entire team of advisors for Faculty-Led Programs, Exchange Programs, Global Internship & Research Programs, Scholarships, and more. You’re bound to discover the experience that is right for you!

Education Abroad Fair Webpage

Take over the Library for a night of fun filled with entertainment, snacks, video games, trivia, arts and crafts, and free giveaways.

We'll also have a live DJ from WREK 91.1, private room karaoke, sci-fi and fantasy movies, team trivia (with prizes), board and video games, personalized posters in the Multimedia Scholarship Commons, and the Robert C. Williams of Papermaking for hands-on paper arts activities. This is one party you will not want to miss before classes start!

Thank you to our partners:

• Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking
• Office of International Education 
• LGBTQIA Resource Center
• Office of Undergraduate Education

The 2023 class of Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems Graduate Fellows are:

• Aminat A. Ambelorun - Ph.D. student, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, College of Sciences, Advisor: Alex Robel
• Min-kyeong (Min) Cha - Ph.D. student, School of Public Policy, Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, Advisor: Daniel Matisoff
• Allannah Duffy - Ph.D. student, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, Advisor: Srinivas Garimella
• Eric Greenlee, Ph.D. student, School of Computer Science, College of Computing, Advisor: Ellen Zagura
• Spenser Wipperfurth, Ph.D. student, Ocean Science and Engineering, organized by the Schools of Biology, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, MBA, Scheller College of Business, Advisor: Kevin Haas

Additional information about the BBISS Graduate Fellows Program, and about the first class of BBISS Graduate Fellows is available at https://research.gatech.edu/sustainability/grad-fellows-program.

Data from 800 neighborhoods in the Atlanta metropolitan area between 2007 and 2016 revealed that major investors bought homes in majority-minority neighborhoods far from downtowns and in lower-income areas. These homes were often undervalued because of their minority populations, but they remained desirable and offered good market value.

The neighborhoods where investors bought up real estate were predominantly Black, effectively cutting Black families out of home ownership. Collectively, Black people lost more than $4 billion in home equity over a 10-year period because of investors, according to the research.

“That $4 billion refers to the home values that would have gone to individual homebuyers if these large institutional investment firms hadn’t purchased those properties,” said Brian An, assistant professor in the School of Public Policy. “This is a very conservative, lower estimate than what the actual effect probably is.”

An presented his findings in the paper, “The Influence of Institutional Single-Family Rental Investors on Homeownership: Who Gets Targeted and Pushed Out of the Local Market?,” published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research in June.

The Shrinking Homebuyer Market

Owning a home is one of the main ways for the American middle class to accumulate wealth. Despite this, home ownership declined by 5.5.% between 2007 and 2016. Who owns these homes is even more divided based on race. From 2015 to 2019, homeownership among Black families in the U.S. was 41.7% and for white families 71.7%.

Simultaneously, large private investment firms started buying single-family homes often to flip the houses and rent them at higher rates. Although smaller investment groups often buy homes, the major impact on the market comes from large private institutions.

Analyzing the Data

Investors have long been suspected of buying up substantial portions of the housing market, but determining just how many has been challenging. An used transaction data like buyer names and mailing addresses to determine who property owners were. With a natural language processing tool called OpenRefine that cleans and clusters messy textual data, he combed through millions of observations.

An then analyzed the data with the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI), a measure of market concentration that can determine the diversity of buyers.

“It means how many properties they are purchasing in one neighborhood,” An said. “For example, let's say there were 500 purchases in the year for single-family houses, then essentially, how many are these large investment firms collectively purchasing? If it’s 500, that is low HHI, meaning a lower market concentration. If it’s only two firms, that’s an extremely high market concentration.”

Using these methods and measures, An showed that, on average, neighborhoods experienced an increase of large investor purchases from nearly 0% in 2007 to over 12% in the peak year, 2013. Investors acquired up to 76% of for-sale, single-family homes in some neighborhoods.  

Institutional investments primarily affected Black families, according to one of An’s models. Results indicated this negative effect is much worse for Black homeownership and totally absent for white homeownership. Whether this is because investment firms mostly purchase in Black neighborhoods or if Black homeowners are specifically targeted is unclear. Regardless of the reasoning, large investors decrease homeownership for anyone in areas they buy out, but especially for Black people.

“Real estate industry stakeholders say these big firms own no more than 3% of total single-family housing stock in the United States, so there is no way that they can suppress home ownership more,” An said. “But if you look at the neighborhood dynamics, there is a lot more concentration in certain neighborhoods that really drives down home ownership.”

An, B.Y. (2023). The Influence of Institutional Single-Family Rental Investors on Homeownership: Who Gets Targeted and Pushed Out of the Local Market? Journal of Planning Education and Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X231176072

Next-generation smart assistants aren’t on the market yet, but the research necessary to create them is underway now. This includes efforts to develop smart assistants that are proactive —that is, the system could anticipate the user’s wants and needs, and even assist and mediate social interactions between users and their support networks. But with the design of systems that seek to enhance the abilities of older adults as they experience cognitive decline, a broad range of ethical issues arises.

Researchers from the NSF AI Institute for Collaborative Assistance and Responsive Interaction for Networked Groups (AI-CARING) saw a need to outline some of these issues up front, with the hope that designers will consider them when developing the next generation of smart assistants. The team’s article, “Ethical Issues in Near-Future Socially Supportive Smart Assistants for Older Adults,” was published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society.

“We're trying to provide a landscape of the ethical issues designers need to take into account long before advanced smart assistant systems show up in a person’s home,” said Jason Borenstein, professor of ethics and director of Graduate Research Ethics Programs in the School of Public Policy and the Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Education at Georgia Tech. “If designers don't think through these issues, then a family might set a relative up with a system, go home, and trust that their relative is safe and secure when they might not be.”

According to the AI-CARING researchers, when a person relies on an AI system, that person becomes vulnerable to the system in unique ways. For people with age-related cognitive impairment who might use the technology for complicated forms of assistance, the stakes get even higher, with vulnerability increasing as their health declines. Systems that fail to perform correctly could put an older adult’s welfare at significant risk.

“If a system makes a mistake when you’ve relied on it for something benign — like helping you choose the movie you’re going to watch — that’s not a big deal,” said Alex John London, lead author of the paper and K&L Gates Professor of Ethics and Computational Technologies at Carnegie Mellon University. “But if you’ve relied on it to remind you to take your medicine, and it doesn’t remind you or tells you to take the wrong medicine, that would be a big problem.”

According to the researchers, to develop a system that truly prioritizes the user’s well-being, designers should consider issues such as trust, reliance, privacy, and a person’s changing cognitive abilities. They should also make sure the system supports the user’s goals rather than the goals of an outside party such as a family member, or even a company that might seek to market products to the user.

A system like this would require a nuanced and constantly evolving model of the user and their preferences, incorporating data from a variety of different sources. For a smart assistant to effectively do its job, it might need to share some of the main user’s information with other entities, which can expose the user to risk.

For example, a user might want the physician’s office to know that they would like a doctor’s appointment. But depending on the person, they may not want that information shared with their children, or only with one child and not another. According to the researchers, designers should consider methods of sharing personal information that also uphold the user’s ability to control it.

Over trust and under trust of the system’s abilities are also important issues to consider. Over trust occurs when people project onto a technology abilities that it doesn’t have, which could put them at risk when the system fails to deliver in a way they anticipated. Under trust can be an issue as well, because if a system can help a person with an important task and the person chooses not to use the system, they also could be left without help.

“The goal of our analysis is to point out challenges for creating truly assistive AI systems so that they can be incorporated into the design of AI from the beginning,” London said. “This can also help stakeholders create benchmarks for performance that reflect these ethical requirements rather than trying to address ethical issues after the system has already been designed, developed, and tested.”

According to Borenstein, when smart assistants are created and introduced into homes, the primary user’s well-being and goals should be the foremost concern.

“Designers are certainly well-intended, but all of us can benefit from the exchange of ideas across disciplines, and from talking with people with different perspectives on these kinds of technologies,” Borenstein said. “This is just one piece of that puzzle that can hopefully inform the design process.”

Citation: A. J. London, Y. S. Razin, J. Borenstein, M. Eslami, R. Perkins and P. Robinette, "Ethical Issues in Near-Future Socially Supportive Smart Assistants for Older Adults," in IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society.

DOI: 10.1109/TTS.2023.3237124

Georgia Tech is bringing together the finest minds and voices to explore artificial intelligence — the opportunities, the risks, and above all the ethical and responsible stewardship of AI. To see our presenters and register to attend Avant South on Sept. 28 – 29, visit avantsouth.com.

Visit the Student Media suite on the second floor of the John Lewis Student Center and find a way to get involved!

Rev. Dr. Jennifer Hasler received her B.S.E. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Arizona State University in August 1991. She received her Ph.D. in computation and neural systems from California Institute of Technology in February 1997, and she received her Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in 2020. Her ordination service was held on December 17, 2021. 

Dr. Hasler is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Atlanta is the coldest climate in which Dr. Hasler has lived.

Dr. Hasler founded the Integrated Computational Electronics (ICE) laboratory at Georgia Tech, a laboratory affiliated with the Laboratories for Neural Engineering.

Dr. Hasler is a member of Tau Beta P, Eta Kappa Nu, and the IEEE.

Dr. Garbers is an international education professional with 12 years of experience in higher education. She has expertise in program development of service learning, research, and internship based programs with special focus on capacity building and partnerships in global research and internships. And she is highly skilled in multiple modes of teaching and course delivery and is an accomplished leader in intercultural communication that includes students, faculty, executive administration, corporate leaders and other key stakeholders.

Mary Lynn Realff is the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Programs in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia and also Cox Faculty Fellow, Co-Director of the Center for Women, Science, and Technology, and a Fellow of the Center for Deliberate Innovation. Dr. Realff (GT BS Textile Engineering 1987) has served on the faculty at Georgia Tech for 29 years and is currently leading the Effective Team Dynamics Initiative.

Dr. Realff is a transformational leader with a passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion. She led efforts at Georgia Tech and in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) to change policies and practices to increase diversity. She has been integral in setting organizational strategies across Georgia Tech, the National Science Foundation and the Center for Puppetry Arts. She served as the Vice President of Leadership and Diversity in ASME where the resulting policies and training have influenced the diversity and inclusion strategies of a wide range of professional societies. She has the energy to initiate and the dedication to sustain innovative education programs at the graduate, undergraduate and K-12 levels.

Dr. Realff is the founding director of the Effective Team Dynamics Initiative (ETD) which delivers on the vision that Georgia Tech will be a community where everyone's unique contributions are recognized. ETD cultivates a supportive, productive, and harmonious learning community grounded in strengths-based collaboration. Her operational leadership and strategic oversight has resulted in the initiative impacting 6500 undergraduate and graduate students and 1600 post docs, faculty, and staff in just the past five years. The initiative partnered with the Center for Teaching and Learning to develop the curriculum and train faculty and staff as certified facilitators to deliver its content. Dr. Realff has disseminated this program to other institutions. She directs an NSF sponsored grant in innovation in graduate education which draws on best practices in team work to develop leaders in engineering practice. She has revamped the MSE UG lab experience and MSE curriculum with an emphasis on integrating assessment and including post-doc and graduate student development.

Dr. Realff is a dedicated educator who listens to and advocates for students and has been honored for her teaching and mentoring at Georgia Tech. Her leadership and teaching excellence have been recognized through the Undergraduate Research Mentor Award, Atlanta Partners for Education Business School Partnership Award, CETL/AMOCO Junior Faculty Teaching Award, Outstanding Faculty Award, ANAK Award, CETL Educational Partnership Award, and MSE Faculty Teaching Award. Her service has been recognized through the ASME Dedicated Service Award and the Georgia Tech Diversity Champion Award. In 2007, she was named Fellow of ASME. She earned her B.S. degree in Textile Engineering at Georgia Tech and her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Polymer Science & Engineering at MIT.

She lives in Atlanta with her husband (a Professor at Georgia Tech). They have two children: a son who lives in Japan and a daughter that lives in Wisconsin.

Reception for women faculty and staff hired in 2022 or 2023

This study, recently published in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) publication Cityscape, contradicts a widely held assumption among critics of the subsidy that widely documented increases in nearby property values accompanying LIHTC projects mask damage to other properties. The researchers found no such effect. 

“This research is significant as it challenges the stigma often associated with affordable housing,” said An. “This pernicious fear of property value decline has been a major source of opposition to affordable housing projects in many communities.” 

The federal tax credit is designed to encourage private investors to develop affordable housing for low-income households. To better understand its impacts, researchers consulted HUD data on LIHTC properties in Los Angeles, as well as proprietary data on home sales. 

They analyzed property values in neighborhoods before and after the introduction of affordable housing developments and compared the changes to those in similar neighborhoods without low-income housing development. Their results showed no significant decrease in property values following the establishment of these developments, regardless of the characteristics of the neighborhood or LIHTC project. 

In fact, the research confirms previous studies showing that developments supported by the tax credit broadly increase nearby property values. After completion of mixed developments including both market-rate and subsidized units, surrounding property values rose by 5.4% compared to comparable neighborhoods without tax-subsidized development. Fully subsidized developments boosted property values by 3.2%, the researchers found. 

“From a policy perspective, the key takeaway is that LIHTC developments, in addition to creating and preserving badly needed housing that is affordable to low-income households, consistently have positive effects on surrounding property values,” the authors wrote in the paper. “A ‘bad’ place for such properties to be developed does not exist, nor does a ‘bad’ type of LIHTC development exist. Regardless of the development’s size or neighborhood in which it is placed into service, a LIHTC property is likely to have a positive spillover effect on its neighborhood.” 

The authors noted that some of the conclusions could be specific to Los Angeles, which suffers from an extreme lack of affordable housing. They also noted that rising property values can be beneficial for homeowners, but often can push rental rates out of reach for many existing residents. The researchers are examining these issues in a follow-up study. 

"Factors Affecting Spillover Impacts of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Developments: An Analysis of Los Angeles,” was published in the July edition of Cityscape, a publication of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research. It is available at https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/cityscape/vol25num2/article13.html. 

An is one of seven co-authors on the paper, including Raphael W. Bostic, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. 

The study was funded by JP Morgan Chase & Co. JP Morgan Chase had no role in the research. One of the co-authors, Andrew Jakabovics, is an employee of Enterprise Community Partners — a firm with a subsidiary involved in low-income housing tax credits. The study's data, however, was independently sourced.

The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

ABSTRACT: 

Modeling for Energy Resilience | How DOE uses simulation to model and manage everything from the power grid to the strategic petroleum reserve.  

The US Department of Energy’s responsibilities run the gamut from managing the nuclear stockpile and the strategic petroleum reserve to running the power grid in 36 states to performing basic and applied research to protect national security, ensure stable power sector operations and accelerate the clean energy transition.  

Leveraging the power of DOE’s computing infrastructure, including the world’s fastest supercomputer, simulation models are used to accelerate advancements in nearly every field of research across DOE. Through a series of examples highlighting grid management, cybersecurity, cavern modeling and fundamental physical phenomena, this keynote will illuminate how DOE applies modeling and simulation to both research and operations.   

BIO: 

Ann Dunkin currently serves as Chief Information Officer at the U.S. Department of Energy, where she manages the Department’s information technology (IT) portfolio and modernization; oversees the Department’s cybersecurity efforts; leads technology innovation and digital transformation; and enables collaboration across the Department.  

She served in the Obama Administration as CIO of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Prior roles include Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, Dell Technologies; CIO, County of Santa Clara, CA; CTO, Palo Alto Unified School District, California; and various leadership roles at Hewlett Packard focused on engineering, research and development, IT, manufacturing engineering, software quality, and operations. 

Ann is a published author, most recently of the book Industrial Digital Transformation, and a frequent speaker on topics such as government technology modernization, digital transformation, and organizational development.  

Ann received the 2022 Capital CIO Large Enterprise ORBIE Award, and she has been given a range of previous awards, including DC’s Top 50 Women in Technology for 2015 and 2016, ComputerWorld’s Premier 100 Technology Leaders for 2016, StateScoop’s Top 50 Women in Technology list for 2017, FedScoop’s Golden Gov Executive of the Year in 2016 and 2021, and FedScoop’s Best Bosses in Federal IT 2022.  

Ms. Dunkin holds a Master of Science degree and a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering degree, both from the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is a licensed professional engineer in the states of California and Washington. In 2018, she was inducted into Georgia Tech’s Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni. 

Helping to examine the state’s place in the national landscape, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts hosted the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Bluestein at the Bill Moore Student Success Center on Sept. 14 as part of the Meg and Sam Flax Lecture Series on Public Policy. Bluestein has covered Georgia politics for more than 20 years and has documented the state's shift from Republican stronghold to its current battleground status.  

He believes Georgia could be the center of attention for years to come. Starting with the 2024 election cycle, he urged everyone, especially students, to take advantage of this unique learning opportunity.  

"Georgia is going to remain the center of the white-hot national spotlight for the next decade,” he said. “Students here at Georgia Tech who are studying public policy or whatever it may be can see how what they're doing is implemented on a national scale." 

Why Georgia? 

Bluestein explained how independent voters and those continuing a "split-ticket" trend across the state have decided recent elections, primarily the 2020 presidential election, a race that helped decide control of the U.S. Senate, and the most recent gubernatorial race. With this trend likely to continue, Bluestein, who wrote a book chronicling the events surrounding the 2020 election in Georgia, told the audience how that has affected candidates' view of the state heading into the future.  

"Every Republican and most Democrats say there is really no path to victory for any Republican candidate without winning Georgia. So, whether you like it or not, we're about to be the center of national attention, even more than we already are, which is hard to believe." 

Addressing the students in the audience, he went on, "That's the beauty of where you are. You'll have a chance in the coming months and years to work for candidates, campaigns, and causes. Be directly involved if you want. Cover them for the media. But also go to their rallies and events –– candidates you like and candidates you don't like. You'll be on the ground level to be able to see these candidates up close and personal." 

Politics on Campus 

Like any campus around the country, Georgia Tech's student body is made up of Republicans, Democrats, independent voters, and those who stay out of the political fray. While politics can involve disagreement, the Institute has received recent praise for its efforts to protect freedom of expression for all on campus.  

Associate Professor Richard Barke believes the Institute’s policies and efforts in this regard empower students to seek out differing viewpoints and to learn from one another. 

“Any institution of higher learning has an obligation, both legal and intellectual, to encourage diverse political views to be held, discussed, and respected. It also must do something that no other institution can do: challenge students to test ideas, whether their own or those of others. At Georgia Tech we take these duties seriously,” he said. “Our students learn how political processes work, not which political values are superior or which outcomes should be dictated by individual preferences. They can, and do, use this knowledge to analyze and promote policies across the political spectrum.”  

Second-year public policy student Luis Salazar attended Thursday's seminar and sees events such as this as a way to engage with his fellow Yellow Jackets about real-world issues.  

"This is a place to come together, and the Institute's reputation makes it the perfect place for professionals and experts to interact with students who want to be involved in the political process. I appreciate how Tech facilitates these debates and conversations," he said.  

Countless questions remain unanswered for both parties ahead of 2024, but Bluestein emphasized that, as candidates vie for the approval of young voters, students will have the power to make their voices heard. 

"You'll be in the middle of it here at Georgia Tech. Smart candidates will come to college campuses to try to attract young voters, not just to vote but to work on their campaigns. Students and faculty here will have a chance to ask questions that other folks might not be asking about, whether it be about higher education funding, student policies, student debt relief, or any other issues that are top of mind,” he said.  

The first true litmus test for the state in the upcoming election will take place on March 12 during Georgia's primary elections. 

Participant solutions seek to fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals curated by the United Nations as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

Teams will be made up of 1-4 members, and each track will accept a submission of either a 3-5 page policy paper, or a 1-2 minute video demoing a technical solution submission.

Note: participants have the option to submit both tech & policy implementations for their solution.

Our participation tracks include: Equitable Communities, Healthy People and Planet, Quality Education and Economic Growth, and Global Partnership and Responsible Technology.

APPLY: https://lu.ma/ImpactHack

For more info, visit our website at www.impacthackatl.com/

“AI systems are value-laden because they're human creations,” says Justin Biddle, the director of Georgia Tech’s Ethics, Technology, and Human Interaction Center (ETHICx) and an associate professor in Georgia Tech's School of Public Policy, where he teaches a course on AI ethics and policy. He specializes in the ethics of emerging technology and collaborates with scientists and engineers at Georgia Tech to design ethical AI systems.

He shared five of the most pressing AI ethics concerns the experts are debating today and the first steps we can take to address them.

Read the full article here: https://iac.gatech.edu/ai-ethics

Master's College of Computing
Bachelor's Ivan Allen College
Bachelor's College of Design

All ceremonies will be live streamed and will also be available for viewing after the event.

General information can be found at commencement.gatech.edu.

 All ceremonies will be live streamed and will also be available for viewing after the event. 

General information can be found at www.commencement.gatech.edu.

Master's Ivan Allen College
Master's College of Design
Master's Scheller College of Business
Bachelor's Scheller College of Business
Bachelor's College of Sciences
Bachelor's College of Engineering

All ceremonies will be live streamed and will also be available for viewing after the event.

General information can be found at commencement.gatech.edu.

The 2024 recipient is the Honorable Robert Benham. 

Learn more and RSVP at ivanallenprize.gatech.edu. 

The Ivan Allen Jr. Prize for Social Courage was first awarded in 2011 and is funded in perpetuity by a grant from the Wilbur and Hilda Glenn Family Foundation. 

If you would like to submit questions for the panelists prior to the event, use the question submission form via Qualtrics: https://gatech.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0Pa6Vltl3CanNhc. All questions will be asked anonymously. 

Have Questions?
Email Amara Anderson, the Honors Program coordinator, at aanderson75@gatech.edu.

About the Panelists

Dr. Jairo Garcia is an expert in urban sustainability and climate change. Dr. Garcia is the CEO of Urban Climate Nexus, the North America Curator for United Nations Habitat, a Sustainable Development Goals Educator Fellow, and long-term collaborator and lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and The Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Garcia is the former Director of Climate Policy with the City of Atlanta and the lead author of Atlanta’s Climate Action Plan. He received the 2017 Individual Climate Leadership Award by the EPA, and the 2021 Green Ring Award by the Climate Reality Project for this demonstrated an exceptional commitment to climate communications and climate action activism. His areas of research are in urban climate vulnerabilities with a focus on urban heat and food security.

Dr. Daniel Matisoff teaches and conducts research in the areas of public policy, energy policy, and corporate sustainability. His research focuses on the effectiveness and efficiency of comparative approaches to addressing environmental problems and the adoption and diffusion of energy technologies and policies. He currently is a fellow with the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainability, and is affiliated with the Strategic Energy Institute and Center for Urban Innovation. He has participated in over $4 million of sponsored research through the National Science Foundation, the European Union Center for Excellence, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Georgia Department of Transportation, and the National Electric Energy Testing Research and Applications Center. His recent research has resulted in publications in the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Environmental and Resource Economics, Energy Economics, Environmental Science and Technology, Energy Policy, and Business Strategy and the Environment, among other outlets. His current research interests include: evaluating the effectiveness of voluntary eco-labeling programs; the effectiveness of incentives for solar electricity; the adoption of smart grid technologies and policies; and the impact of large-scale solar adoption on consumer rates and bills.

Dr. Thomas Orlando is a Regent’s Professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Georgia Tech. He received his PhD from the State University of New York-Stony Brook and had postdoctoral appointments at Associated Western Universities, the Solid State Sciences Division of Sandia National Labs, and the Institut fur Physikalische Chemie at Universität Wien. His research focuses on electron- and photon-stimulated interface and surface processes, environmental chemistry and planetary surface science, and biophysical chemistry.

The event will be held in the Atlantic Theater in the John Lewis Student Center from 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. and there will be free donuts and coffee following the event.