For Immediate Release
October 26, 2005

New Leadership: Gisele Bennett Named Director of Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory at Georgia Tech Research Institute

Gisele Bennett has been named director of the new Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory (EOSL) at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) in Atlanta. The new lab was created to highlight GTRI’s broad expertise and experience in electro-optical systems.

Gisele Bennett is the new director of the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek 300 dpi JPG version

Director of GTRI’s Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center (LandMARC) and a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Bennett brings to the job an appreciation for GTRI’s existing customers and a vision for developing new research areas where the lab can apply its expertise.

“EOSL has core research technologies that have high potential for growth,” said Bennett. “We are going to continue to be the research resource for our existing customers in areas such as optical sensing and systems design, and for our future customers in such areas as medical imaging and optical communication. We’ll continue to grow our work with the Department of Defense, and we’ll have new customers at the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and industry.”

EOSL conducts research in broad areas involving electro-optical systems, including remote sensing, modeling and analysis, integrated sensing systems, optical device technology, LIDAR system design and measurement, microelectronics, nanotechnology, solid state lighting, performance support systems, sensor data collection and analysis – and even education.

New research areas, including optical communication and medical imaging, will build on the expertise developed for Department of Defense programs over the years.

“We’ve got significant programs in multi-spectral imaging and hyper-spectral imaging, and we’ve got some of the leading experts in modeling atmospheric turbulence and electro-optical systems,” Bennett noted. “Medical imaging can involve optical systems for looking into the human body where there is a lot of scattering of the signal. Our expertise in atmospheric scattering and modeling can be applied to this kind of imaging.

Bennett, who holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, founded LandMARC in 2000 as a multidisciplinary center which now has more than $12 million in direct research. The center focuses on condition based maintenance; RF and optical tagging, tracking and visibility, and performance support technology. The work led to two national awards for the Electronic Performance Support System and RFID utilization.

She is a member of the IEEE, Optical Society of America (OSA), SPIE International Society for Optical Engineering and International Society for Logistics (SOLE).

GTRI Director Stephen Cross praised Bennett’s vision for EOSL.

“The vision she has communicated has created real excitement in that lab,” he said. “Gisele is well known in the campus community and has been involved in leadership positions both on campus and at the national level. We expect great things from EOSL.”

The new lab was created out of the former Electro-Optics, Environment and Materials Laboratory (EOEML). A second lab, the Health and Environmental Systems Laboratory, was created at the same time.

RESEARCH NEWS & PUBLICATIONS OFFICE
Georgia Institute of Technology
75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30308 USA

MEDIA RELATIONS CONTACTS: John Toon (404-894-6986); E-mail: (john.toon@edi.gatech.edu); Kirk Englehardt (404-385-0280); E-mail: (kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu) or Jane Sanders (404-894-2214); E-mail: (jane.sanders@edi.gatech.edu).

TECHNICAL CONTACT: Gisele Bennett (404-894-0155); E-mail: (gisele.bennett@gtri.gatech.edu).

WRITER: John Toon