{"489231":{"#nid":"489231","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Arson, Suryanarayana win sought-after CAREER awards from NSF","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETwo assistant professors in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering have won one of the nation\u2019s premiere grants and the National Science Foundation\u2019s most prestigious award for junior faculty, the Early Career Development award.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EChloe Arson and Phanish Suryanarayana learned of their selection in early January for what are known simply as CAREER awards. The grants recognize the top educators and researchers in the country, those who \u201cexemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research,\u201d according to the NSF.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe CAREER award is really for you to lay out a plan for what you want to do in terms of research and education. It\u2019s supposed to be a landscape or a broad description of what kind of academic you want to be,\u201d Arson said. \u201cIt articulates what you already do with the academic objectives you want to pursue and provides a vision for the long term.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s really a great proposal to write in the sense that it\u2019s supposed to help you grow,\u201d she said. \u201cYou really reflect on what kind of professor you are, what\u2019s your style, what are really the essential things you want to do.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe CAREER award is $500,000 over five years, and the idea, the two scholars said, is to help them become leading experts in their fields and set them up for impactful careers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003EDamage and healing in rocks\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp\u003EArson\u2019s proposal focused on her work on damage and healing mechanics in rocks, work that has broad applications in energy production and underground waste storage systems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe extract oil and gas from rock. We produce geothermal energy by extracting hot liquids or using heat exchangers that are embedded in the soil. Waste is stored in the ground,\u201d Arson said. \u201cSo here I found that there was a natural contribution that a geotechnical engineer could make just because of the essential processes that were involved.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EArson said her work will address fundamental questions like why cracks and pores form in rocks in the first place, how long it takes for rocks to recover from extraction or storage operations, and how much energy healing requires. She\u2019ll be creating numerical models of how the fractures start and spread, and her findings will help develop ideal conditions for minimizing damage or maximizing healing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201c[This work is] important for the energy and environmental perspectives, but I think that the process of doing this research will teach us much more than that,\u201d Arson said. \u201cIf we understand better how healing occurs in certain kinds of crystalline materials, that knowledge could also be applied to the design of better concrete, better cements \u2014 and why not better ceramics that you could use to repair bones or for a variety of purposes?\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EArson\u2019s proposal also includes significant educational goals, including building international collaborations and engaging graduate students in debate and deliberation about the work they do, weighing the societal and environmental impact of their engineering solutions. She\u2019s also going to work on symbolic language, with the goal of removing an obstacle that prevents some students from succeeding.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOften the mathematical symbols are an obstacle for people who may be good conceptually but not so good formally,\u201d Arson said. \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to explore alternative ways to learn. So many times I see students who may not be really good test takers but who are really creative. Everything I proposed goes in that direction.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch5\u003ECharacterization and design of nanostructures\u003C\/h5\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESuryanarayana\u2019s proposal focused on nanostructures, extremely tiny materials that could have incredibly large implications for society. He plans to develop a theoretical and computational framework to help discover and describe new kinds of these atomic-scale structures.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe basic question is, how does one design such a nanostructure with the desired properties? The answer is, currently there does not exist any systematic approach, and therefore it is common to rely on empirical insight,\u201d Suryanarayana said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHis approach will use symmetry to speed up the process of designing small-scale structures so that they are well suited for a variety of applications \u2014\u0026nbsp;like curing diseases, purifying air and water, or converting renewable energy. It\u2019s the kind of work that simply can\u2019t be done now because of the huge number of potential ways to configure the structures.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u0027s a really hard problem because, how do we know what the shape should look like? How do we know where to place the atoms and which types of atoms?\u201d Suryanarayana said. \u201cThere are so many possibilities; it\u2019s basically infinite. One needs a systematic way of doing it.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESuryanarayana said the key to the computational system he\u2019s building is symmetry, which plays an essential role in determining the properties of nanostructures.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt turns out, most of the interesting nanomaterials and nanostructures have very high symmetry, either perfect, or just broken,\u201d he said. \u201cEven bio-structures like DNA and parts of viruses have helical symmetry. The idea is, can we use the notion of symmetry to discover new phenomena and design new materials suitable for technological applications?\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThose materials could have uses we can\u2019t even imagine yet, Suryanarayana said, including in medicine, where his work could eventually help scientists better understand viruses and develop cures for diseases.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMost of these biomolecules are at the nanoscale, so the code [I develop] based on the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics should be able to characterize them and study defects which gives rise to and\/or have implications for some kinds of diseases. Maybe then one can discover techniques that can help rectify that defect.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESuryanarayana said such applications are still closer to science fiction than reality, but that illustrates why he wanted to develop such a grand vision for his work.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIf this is successful, it would revolutionize many, many fields including nanoscience and nanotechnology. At the same time, that also makes it a very hard problem. My main motivation for picking it was because I thought it would have tremendous impact.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Civil engineering rising stars will study nanostructures, damage and healing in rocks"}],"uid":"27446","created_gmt":"2016-01-21 17:14:15","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:20:27","author":"Joshua Stewart","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2016-01-18T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2016-01-18T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"489211":{"id":"489211","type":"image","title":"Chloe Arson, Assistant Professor","body":null,"created":"1453482000","gmt_created":"2016-01-22 17:00:00","changed":"1475895245","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:05","alt":"Chloe Arson, Assistant Professor","file":{"fid":"204399","name":"arson-chloe_jhunt_h.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/arson-chloe_jhunt_h_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/arson-chloe_jhunt_h_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":174138,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/arson-chloe_jhunt_h_0.jpg?itok=J-ghE4Ou"}},"489221":{"id":"489221","type":"image","title":"Phanish Suryanarayana, Assistant Professor","body":null,"created":"1453482000","gmt_created":"2016-01-22 17:00:00","changed":"1475895245","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:54:05","alt":"Phanish Suryanarayana, Assistant Professor","file":{"fid":"204400","name":"suryanarayana-phanish_jhunt_h.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/suryanarayana-phanish_jhunt_h_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/suryanarayana-phanish_jhunt_h_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":160458,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/suryanarayana-phanish_jhunt_h_0.jpg?itok=pK0Dv-Jv"}}},"media_ids":["489211","489221"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/funding\/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503214","title":"NSF CAREER Program"},{"url":"http:\/\/ce.gatech.edu\/people\/Faculty\/6003\/overview","title":"Chloe Arson\u0027s Profile"},{"url":"http:\/\/ce.gatech.edu\/people\/Faculty\/5831\/overview","title":"Phanish Suryanarayana\u0027s Profile"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.nsf.gov\/awardsearch\/showAward?AWD_ID=1552368\u0026HistoricalAwards=false","title":"Arson\u0027s CAREER Award Details"},{"url":"http:\/\/nsf.gov\/awardsearch\/showAward?AWD_ID=1553212\u0026HistoricalAwards=false","title":"Suryanarayana\u0027s CAREER Award Details"}],"groups":[{"id":"1253","name":"School of Civil and Envrionmental Engineering"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"9413","name":"CAREER Award"},{"id":"169836","name":"Chloe Arson"},{"id":"4776","name":"civil and environmental engineering"},{"id":"1786","name":"nanostructures"},{"id":"107","name":"Nanotechnology"},{"id":"7842","name":"NSF CAREER Award"},{"id":"169837","name":"Phanish Suryanarayana"},{"id":"171591","name":"rock damage"},{"id":"171592","name":"rock healing"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39451","name":"Electronics and Nanotechnology"},{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"},{"id":"39471","name":"Materials"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:joshua.stewart@ce.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJoshua Stewart\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWriter\/Editor\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESchool of Civil and Environmental Engineering\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["joshua.stewart@ce.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}