It’s no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention that the world faces significant challenges in the decades ahead. Growing population, a changing climate, radical advances in technology, crumbling or inadequate infrastructure, to name but a few.
For our students and scientists, however, the exciting and energizing reality is that many of the solutions to these and other global issues will come from the civil and environmental engineers who are today learning, working and leading in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech.
To answer the call of service from our global society, we’ve started to think differently about our work, including shedding the traditional boundaries between civil and environmental engineering disciplines.
That is freeing us to consider new ideas, new collaborations, new sources of inspiration, and new areas of inquiry.
Now we like to think of our contributions to society in three broad, cross-cutting research areas: Sustainable Communities, Resilient Infrastructure Systems, and Smart Cities.
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We are harnessing the potential of data to:
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This is where we’re working at the front lines of the world’s grand challenges, at the intersection of social and economic systems, the built environment, and our natural world. By no means do these areas cover the full tapestry of creativity and impact that constitute our research endeavors. But these three broad areas represent the interdisciplinary focus of our scientific work.
It’s work that crosses traditional boundaries to develop new knowledge, technology and innovations, and ultimately, to invent a future where our global society thrives.