Sustainability Next Seed Grants

Applications are open for the Spring 2026 Sustainability Next Seed Grant Program

Submission deadline: February 16, 2026

Applications are now open for the Sustainability Next Seed Grant Program, administered by BBISS. These seed grants support interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research in climate and sustainability. Projects should align with at least one of the following priority themes:
• AI & Sustainability
• Climate Science, Technology, and Solutions
• Healthy Environments & Sustainable Resource Use
• Resilience & Regeneration
• Commercializing Sustainable Technologies

Funding Categories:
• Forming Teams – for building new collaborations and developing roadmaps
• Moving Teams Forward – for advancing established teams toward major external funding opportunities

Eligibility: Any Georgia Tech faculty is eligible to serve as PI; external collaborators encouraged, especially community-based, nonprofit, and government partners.

At least 30% of funded projects will be transdisciplinary and will include collaboration with non-university partners. These grants aim to strengthen Georgia Tech’s leadership in sustainability research, foster innovative partnerships, and position teams for future large-scale funding.

Please find all the details on InfoReady.

2025 Seed Grants

You can read the full announcement here.

Forming Teams:

Developing a Sustainable and Ethical Electric Vehicle Ecosystem Workforce for the Future Through Cross-Sector Partnerships. Principal Investigators (PI): Joe Bozeman. Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI): Jennifer Hirsch.
Unlocking Circularity at Scale: Platform-Based Solutions for Advancing Material Reuse and Supply Chain Resilience. Principal Investigator: Marco Ceccagnoli. Co-PIs: Matthew Realff, Patricia Stathatou, Christos Athanasiou.
OpenGUARD: Geospatial Utility Aggregations with Robust Differential Privacy. PI: Patrick Kastner. Co-PI: Juba Ziani.
Regenerative Framework: A Transdisciplinary Model for Urban Climate Resilience and Soil Health. PI: Jenny McGuire. Co-PI: Nicole Kennard.
Guiding Transportation With Community Action Through Research, Education, and Service (GT-CARES). PI: Rounaq Basu. Co-PIs: Ruthie Yow, Sofía Pérez-Guzmán, Rebecca Watts Hull.
Co-optimizing Design and Coordination for Sustainable Multi-Robot Construction. PI: Edvard Bruun. Co-PI: Harish Ravichanda.
Campus as Material Ecology: Building Transdisciplinary Circular Systems for Plastic Tracking, Transformation, and Community Engagement. PI: Hyojin Kwon. Co-PIs: Michael Best, Russ Clark, Tim Trent, Meisha Shofner.
Sonifying Climate Infrastructures: Community Outreach and Education With Shade Synthesizer. PI: Heidi Biggs. Co-PIs: Clint Zeagler, Alexandria Smith.
Building a Georgia Tech Research Partnership for Community-Based Food System Resilience. PI: Johannes Milz. Co-PIs: Xin Chen, Inge Rocker, Sofía Pérez-Guzmán, Nicole Kennard.

Moving Teams Forward:

Are Data Centers the New Landfills? Social, Economic, and Environmental Tradeoffs. PI: Allen Hyde. Co-PIs: Josiah Hester, Cindy Lin, Nicole Kennard, Joe Bozeman, Elora Raymond, Tony Harding, Jung-Ho Lewe.
Game-Based Learning in Energy Systems: A Rigorous Evaluation of Current Crisis. PI: Jessica Roberts. Co-PI: Daniel Molzahn.
Strategic Application of Antibiotic-Independent Therapy to Treat Coral Disease Outbreaks. PI: Lauren Speare.
Advancing Water Reuse Through Research, Education, and Community Partnerships in Atlanta, Georgia. PI: Katherine Graham. Co-PIs: Amanda Nolen, Yeqing Kong.
Assessing the Accuracy and Reliability of Low-Cost Particulate Matter (PM) Sensors Across Diverse Ambient Environments. PI: Nga Lee (Sally) Ng. Co-PI: Ted Russell.
Developing a Georgia Community Center Into a Sustainability Hub. PI: Ashutosh Dhekne, Co-PIs: Umakishore Ramachandran, Danielle Willkens, Ruthie Yow.
What, When, Where of Air Pollution: PM2.5 and How It Impacts Health. PI: Shuichi Takayama. Co-PI: Nga Lee (Sally) Ng.
Enabling Communities to Baseline the Performance of Energy Systems. PI: Jung-Ho Lewe. Co-PIs: Scott Duncan, David Solano Sarmiento, Danielle Willkens, Anna Tinoco-Santiago.

2024 Seed Grants

College of Sciences Climate Frontiers Symposium Grantees (Co-funded by COS, BBISS, and SEI)

Climate Solutions in the Most Biodiverse Regions on Earth: Testing Whether Warming Temperatures have set in Motion an “Escalator to Survival” in Tropical Rainforests; Benjamin Freeman (BIOL), James Stroud (BIOL), Saad Bhamla (ChBE), Amirali Aghazadeh (ECE).
•    Macro- and Microscale Drivers of Coral Reef Resilience in a Changing Climate; Isaiah W. Bolden (EAS), Lauren Speare, (BIOL and CMDI).
•    A Workforce and Community-Engaged Team Building Approach for Lithium-Ion Battery Recycling in the U.S. Southeast: Addressing Social and Ecological Implications; Joe Bozeman (CEE and PP), Jennifer Hirsch (SCoRE).
•    Building Coastal Resilience: Science-based Adaptive Solutions to Mitigate Hurricane-Induced Compound Flooding in the Southeast U.S.; Ali Sarhadi (EAS).

ORNL Southeastern Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Partnership Grantees (Co-funded by BBISS, and SEI)

Unlocking Clean Hydrogen Market Potential and Analysis of Hydrogen-based Micro Combined Heat and Power in Southeast; Brian An (PP), Constance Crozier (ISyE), Srinivas Garimella (ME).
GT-ORNL Collaboration on Southeastern Climate Mitigation and Adaptation: A Climate Atlas for the U.S. Southeast; Iris Tien (CEE), Allen Hyde (HSOC) and Anthony Harding (PP).

Moving Teams Forward

Towards a Center on Inclusive (and Effective) Climate Communication; Bruce Walker (Psych), Susan Lozier (EAS), Claire Arthur (Music), Jessica Roberts (IC), Carrie Bruce(IC), Amy Bower (Woods Hole Oceanographic Inst).
Moving Teams Forward to Building a Path Towards Community-Owned Resilience Hubs for Equitable Climate Adaptation and Mitigation: An Interdisciplinary and Community-Engaged Approach; Sofia Perez-Guzman (CEE), Allen Hyde (Hist&Soc), Danielle Willkens (Arch), Alexander Robel (EAS), Jennifer Hirsch (SCoRE), Valerie Thomas (ISYE), Joe Bozeman (CEE), Nicole Kennard (BBISS), Jung-Ho Lewe (AE).
A Digital Twin for Atlanta: Towards a Building Energy Demand / Mobility Nexus; Patrick Kastner (Arch).
“Moving Team Forward” Sustainable Development in Africa: Cropland Expansion, Fire, Climate Change, and Economic Solutions; Yuhang Wang (EAS), Olga Shemyakina (Econ), Kexin Rong (CS).
Interdisciplinary Program in Transportation; Adjo Amekudzi-Kennedy (CEE), Alexander Robel (EAS), Christopher Wiese (Psych), Kurt Wiesenfeld (Physics), Nimisha Roy (Comp Inst).
Enabling Disadvantaged Communities to Baseline the Performance of Residential Energy Systems; Jung-Ho Lewe (AE), Scott Duncan (AE), David Solano (AE).

Forming Teams

Identifying and Amplifying Georgia Tech’s Research Strengths in Conserving Georgia’s Biodiversity in the Face of Rapid Global Change; Jenny McGuire (Biol/EAS), James Stroud (Biol), Emily Weigel (Biol), Lauren Speare (Biol), Saad Bhamla (ChBE), Matthew Swarts (GTRI), Allen Hyde (Hist&Soc), Jennifer Hirsch(SCoRE).
UrbAdapt CA4: Urban Climate Adaptation for Indigenous Households in Guatemala; Alberto Fuentes (INTA), Gregory Randolph (City Planning), Joshua Ayers (City Planning), Erick Calderón (World Vision Intl), Sara Sywulka (World Vision Intl).
Mitigating the Risk of Life Threatening Power Outages During Extreme Weather; Constance Crozier (ISYE), (Brian) Yeokwang An (Pub Policy), Hiba Baroud (Vanderbilt).
A Sustainability Data Dashboard for the GT Library Media Bridge, Yanni Loukissas (LMC), Emily Weigel (Biol), Alison Valk (Library), Jason Wright (Library), Charles Bennett (Library), Atlas Coltrain (LMC) (Co-funded by IPaT & BBISS).

Joint Initiative

Modeling the Dispersal and Connectivity of Marine Larvae with GenAI Agents; Annalisa Bracco(EAS), Jacob Abernethy (CS), Xing Zhou (EAS), Renzhi Wu (CS), Guanghui Wang (CS) (Co-funded by IDeAS & BBISS).

2023 Seed Grants