Environmental Engineering Faculty
The following is the list of faculty associated with Environmental Engineering.
The list is organized displaying full time tenure and tenure track faculty, research and other general faculty and faculty associates that contribute to the programs mission.
Full time Tenure and Tenure track Faculty
Aral,Mustafa M - Professor
Research Interests: Large scale environmental simulations in surface water and groundwater; environmental exposure analysis; exposure-dose reconstruction; health risk assessment.
Bergin,Michael H - Associate Professor
Research Interests: Air pollution; formation, transport, and deposition of aerosols; influence of aerosols on climate; air/snow exchange of aerosol chemical species; paleoclimate studies based on ice core chemistry; fog/cloud formation and chemistry; microcontamination in industrial processes.
Fritz,Hermann Marc - Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Tsunamis, bores, non-linear and breaking waves, Subaerial and submarine landslides and oceanic volcano island collapses, Hurricane storm surges and coastal flooding Hydropower, wave and tidal energy Hydraulic, coastal, marine and offshore structures, River engineering, sediment transport and morphologic processes, Advanced whole field multi-dimensional laser measurement techniques, Numerical simulation of multiphase flows, Natural hazard mitigation and risk analysis, Natural and man-made hazards.
Haas,Kevin A - Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Dr. Haas' research interests include coastal engineering, numerical modeling of nearshore circulation, sediment transport in coastal regions, hydrodynamics of rip current systems, utilizing video for field and laboratory observations of waves and currents, modeling and field observations of morphodynamic evolution, sediment and contaminant transport in tidal marshes and extracting energy from waves and currents.
Huang,Ching-Hua - Associate Professor
Research Interests: Transformation and fate of emerging contaminants in natural and engineered aquatic systems; Surface reactions and catalysis involving natural minerals and novel nanomaterials; Chemistry of emerging disinfection by-products in water treatment systems; Physicochemical water treatment processes; Fundamental reaction activity, kinetics and mechanisms in environmental systems; Development and applications of novel analytical techniques for emerging environmental contaminants.
Hughes,Joseph Blake - School Chair and Professor
Research Interests: Environmental biotechnology and in particular, determining how novel metabolic capabilities of living organisms can be harnessed to improve environmental quality; nanotechnology in environmental systems.
Kim,Jaehong - Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Physicochemical processes for water and wastewater treatment; ozone disinfection by-products; membrane processes (microfiltration, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and reverse osmosis); desalination; emulsion liquid membrane application.
Konstantinidis,Kostas T - Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Environmental microbiology and genomics. Computational approaches for studying the ecology and evolution of microorganisms. Development of genomic and proteomic techniques to investigate and quantify in-situ important microbial-mediated processes. Population and single-cell genomics. Assessing the extent and value of biodiversity within natural assemblages of Bacteria and Archaea. Biotechnological applications of microbial functional diversity. Environmental relevance of microbial diseases.
Loeffler,Frank E - Carlton Wilder Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering
Research Interests: Microbial detoxification, bioremediation applications, novel bacteria, and environmental genomics.
Mulholland,James A - Professor
Research Interests: Combustion byproduct formation and control; incineration; thermochemistry of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and chlorinated aromatic species; molecular modeling; spatio-temporal analysis of ambient air pollutants.
Pavlostathis,Spyros G - Professor
Research Interests: Environmental biotechnology and bioprocesses for bioremediation of contaminated natural systems and treatment of industrial wastewaters; bioavailability, fate and biotransformation of recalcitrant organic compounds in natural systems; biological decolorization, biotransformation and fate of textile dyes; kenetics and modeling of reductive biotransformation and anaerobic treatment processes.
Pennell,Kurt D - Professor
Research Interests: (1) Fate and transport of environmental contaminants, including pathogens, nanomaterials, volatile organic contaminants (VOCs), and non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) in porous media. (2) Development and testing of remediation technologies for restoration of aquifers, surface soils and sediments contaminated with chlorinated solvents, such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE), and strongly-sorbed compounds, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). (3) Effects of chronic exposure to persistent environmental pollutants on human health, specifically oxidative stress and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease is particularly interesting from an environmental perspective because less than 10% of the cases are attributed to genetic factors, and because as the population ages and life expectancies increase, neurodegenerative diseases will become far more prevalent.
Russell,Armistead G - Georgia Power Distinguished Professor
Research Interests: Air Pollution Modeling, Aerosol Dynamics, Atmospheric Chemistry, Combustion Emissions Control, Control Strategy Design, Computer Modeling, Numerical Methods.
Spain,Jim C - Professor
Research Interests: Environmental distribution, persistence, and biodegradation of chemical pollutants; Green chemistry synthesis of organic compounds by biocatalysis; Biodegradation pathways in bacteria for application to bioremediation; Environmental biotechnology related to marine, freshwater and subsurface ecosystems; Evolution and adaptation of microbial communities; Biochemistry, ecology, and molecular biology of environmentally relevant microbes; Discovery and characterization of bacteria that degrade synthetic organic compounds; Photobiological hydrogen production by cyanobacteria.
Webster,Peter J - Professor
Research Interests: Low frequency atmospheric and ocean dynamics
Ocean-atmosphere interactions
Wave propagation through complex flows
Work,Paul A - Associate Professor
Research Interests: Dr. Work's research interests include coastal engineering, water waves, sediment and contaminant transport, beach nourishment, ports and harbors, coastal and riverine flooding, and other applications of environmental fluid mechanics. His projects often combine field observations and numerical modeling tools, and have been supported by a variety of sponsors, including the U.S. Geological Survey, NOAA’s Sea Grant program, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Office of Naval Research.
Yiacoumi,Sotira - Professor
Research Interests: Interfacial and colloidal phenomena in environmental systems; sorption of metal ions from aqueous solutions; sorption/desorption of organic compounds from aqueous solutions by natural particles; colloidal particle interactions in aquatic systems; bubble interactions in gas/liquid reactive systems; influence of sorption rates on particle flocculation kinetics.
Research and other general Faculty
Fan,Maohong - Senior Research Scientist
Research Interests: Applications of nanostructured materials and combined nano-bio technologies in environmental engineering and energy production; Identification and removal of conventional and emerging contaminants in water and wastewater, and pollutants in air; Green chemicals manufacturing processes; Environmental sensors; Production and separation of chemicals from biorenewable resources; Characterization and utilization of waste materials.
Odman,Mehmet T - Principal Research Engineer
Research Interests: Air pollution meteorology and atmospheric chemistry
Odman,Mehmet T - Principal Research Engineer
Research Interests: Air quality modeling: local, urban, regional and global scales
Odman,Mehmet T - Principal Research Engineer
Research Interests: Computational fluid dynamics in environmental applications
Odman,Mehmet T - Principal Research Engineer
Research Interests: Numerical methods and algorithms, high performance computing
Odman,Mehmet T - Principal Research Engineer
Research Interests: Visualization, decision support and expert systems
Ritalahti,Kirsti - Research Scientist II
Research Interests: I design molecular tools to independently track different microbial populations important in bioremediation approaches. Of particular interest are the Dehalococcoides organisms present in a dechlorinating consortium, which Georgia Tech licensed to Regenesis for bioremediation applications. The assays that I have developed are being used by Microbial Insights for routine characterization of groundwater and sediment microbial communities. I also provide departmental support and training for designing primers and probes for environmental quantitative PCR (qPCR) applications. I am currently designing a short-course in the use of quantitative PCR to train faculty and students interested in using these techniques for their research. Additional targets for qPCR are currently being investigated using microarray technology and a collaboration with the University of Toronto.
Tsouris,Costas - Affiliate
Research Interests: Chemical and environmental multiphase transport processes; effects of electric and magnetic fields on transport phenomena and phase equilibria; separations enchanced by electric and magnetic fields; sequestration.
Zhu,Guangxuan - Senior Research Scientist
Research Interests: Analytical chemistry and applied spectroscopy; analytical instrumentation and method development for environmental engineering; application of advanced techniques to analysis of trace metals and organic pollutants.