For Immediate Release
August 9, 2005

Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) Creates New Research Labs to Highlight Capabilities, Develop Technical Preeminence

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has created two new research organizations: the Electro-Optical Systems Laboratory (EOSL) and the Health and Environmental Systems Laboratory (HESL). The new laboratory units were created July 1 from the former Electro-Optics, Environment and Materials Laboratory (EOEML).

Stephen E. Cross, Georgia Tech vice president and director of the Georgia Tech Research Institute, says the new research laboratories will allow the organization to highlight its strengths. Georgia Tech Photo: Nicole Cappello 300 dpi JPG version

Formation of the new laboratories will highlight research capabilities in their areas of specialization, position the labs for future growth and support GTRI’s goal of becoming technically preeminent in all major areas of its applied research activity. The change also recognizes the growing importance of health-related research and aligns GTRI with other major research initiatives at Georgia Tech.

“Splitting the old EOEML lab into two new organizations allows us to showcase the technical preeminence of our research in these areas,” said Stephen E. Cross, Georgia Tech vice president and director of GTRI. “The work we are doing in these areas is really top-notch, and we want to make that more visible to our stakeholders and others.”

Over the past several years, GTRI has expanded its activities in health and environmental research and demonstrated the connections between them, Cross noted. Expanding research in assistive technologies, the environment, indoor air quality, energy, food processing, material characterization and sustainability provide a foundation for HESL’s growth.

“We think of health and environmental systems together as addressing the quality of life,” Cross explained. “We will be able to work at the intersection between health and what we usually think of as the built environment: green buildings, smart and sustainable buildings and healthy environments.”

Cross expects the new labs will build industry-university collaborations similar to those developed by GTRI’s Food Processing Technology Division, which recently opened a new research building constructed with financial support from 18 companies that have an interest in collaborative research.

The future looks equally bright for EOSL. In October, GTRI won the contract to operate SENSIAC, a U.S. Department of Defense Information Analysis Center that focuses on sensing technology. GTRI has a long been a national leader in sensing technologies, including radio-frequency identification (RFID) applications, which have both civilian and defense uses.

Cross said inclusion of the word “systems” in the new lab names was a conscious effort to highlight another of GTRI’s strengths.

“One of the core capabilities of GTRI has always been systems engineering,” he noted. “We can look at a stakeholder’s problem and think about the issue in terms of systems. That means finding the best technical approaches to solving the problem and integrating two or more technologies to do it.”

Cross said GTRI wants to diversify its stakeholders while maintaining long-term trusted relationships with Department of Defense agencies. Future research may involve more private industry, along with such non-defense agencies as the National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

“We are committed to our current stakeholders, who count on us to help them realize their technical vision,” he explained. “We want to expand the technical impact we can have on their behalf. At the same time, we can expand our impact by diversifying the base of stakeholders.”

That expansion will likely involve GTRI in more campus-wide activities involving Georgia Tech’s academic colleges. Cross wants to expand those relationships, contributing GTRI’s experience in applied research and systems engineering to help Georgia Tech reach its goal of defining the technological university of the 21st century.

“One of the aspects making Georgia Tech unique is the panoply of work from the best basic research and the best graduate students and professors to the applied research that we do and the commitment to commercialization,” he added. “Georgia Tech really has all the pieces of this.”

Gisele Bennett, director of the Logistics and Maintenance Applied Research Center (LandMARC), has been appointed director of the new EOSL. Ken Johnson, who had been acting director of EOEML, will serve as acting director of HESL during a 90-day planning period to define the lab’s vision, strategy and organizational structure. An interim director will then be selected to serve while the search for a permanent lab director is conducted.

Beyond creation of the new labs, GTRI has also added two new units that were formerly part of Georgia Tech academic colleges. The new groups – the Air Quality Laboratory from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Environmental Resources Center from the School of Mechanical Engineering – will boost GTRI capabilities in environmental research.

For GTRI’s faculty and staff, the new EOSL and HESL should mean new career opportunities and more collaboration with researchers in Georgia Tech’s academic colleges.

“One of our goals is to create more opportunities for adjunct and joint appointments with the academic colleges,” Cross said. “These collaborations give us a stronger technical base with which to serve our stakeholders. And what we do in GTRI complements what is done in the rest of Georgia Tech.”

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

WRITER: John Toon