The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) recently reinitiated its Technical Fellows program to recognize research excellence among its most senior researchers. GTRI Director Tom McDermot announced four new fellows including Dr. Michael Rodgers, principal research scientist in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). The GTRI Technical Fellows program based on peer review and a proposal to further research objectives. It includes funding for $25K each year for two years to pursue a strategic research topic.
Dr. Rodgers' fellowship is with GTRI's Aerospace, Transportation and Advanced Systems Laboratory (ATAS). To enhance the productivity of Georgia's agribusiness and the competitiveness of Georgia's food processing industry, ATAS conducts significant research on food quality and safety while minimizing environmental impacts by applying computer vision, robotics, plant ergonomics, biosensors and flexible computing and information systems technologies through the Food Processing Technology Division. The lab conducts air quality and transportation research related to monitoring and reducing the environmental impact of vehicular emissions. It also conducts modeling and simulation of complex dynamic systems. A current example is an integrated model capturing interactions between air, rail, highway and maritime shipping modalities.
Dr. Rodgers' research interests include modeling and simulation of vehicle activity and emissions, statistical analysis of vehicle emissions data, environmental policy analysis, laboratory and field measurements of gaseous and particulate pollutants including vehicle remote sensing and instrumented vehicles. He serves as the director of the Georgia Tech Air Quality Laboratory, holding academic and/or research appointments in CEE as well as Georgia Tech's Schools of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and Public Policy. Dr. Rodgers has a long and distinguished record in air quality research. He has serves as principal investigator on research projects totaling more than $20 million since 1988 including multiple projects on field and laboratory measurements of pollutants and instrument development and intercomparison.
Current activities include managing projects with GRASP (Georgia Rural Aerosol Sampling Program) and ON-RAMP (On-Road Ammonia Measurement Program), programs that focus on particulate emissions, conversion and fate. In the area of mobile source emissions, Dr. Rodgers directs Georgia Tech's efforts in vehicle remote sensing and model validation and serves as co-principal investigator on the development of the MEASURE model. Dr. Rodgers serves on the EPA's Mobile Source Technical Advisory Subcommittee and Emissions Modeling Workgroup, the U.S. Technical Advisory Group to the International Standards Organization, ASTM International's Committee D-22 on the analysis of atmospheres, as well as numerous other technical and policy advisory committees.
Other GTRI Technical Fellows named in this intial group include John Wandelt (ITTL), John Schultz (STL), and Phil West (ELSYS). Congratulations to all of these deserving researchers.