The most recent round of Sustainability Next Research Seed Grants has been awarded to 15 transdisciplinary teams featuring 36 collaborators from across Georgia Tech and beyond. The teams span 21 units from six of Georgia Tech’s seven Colleges, including Schools, research centers, and Interdisciplinary Research Institutes, as well as organizations external to Georgia Tech.

The seed grant program, administered by the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS), reaches faculty members from a diverse array of disciplines due to the generous support provided by broad-based partnerships in addition to the funds provided by the Sustainability Next committee. This year’s partners are the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the College of Design, BBISS, the Renewable Bioproducts Institute, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and the Institute for Data Engineering and Science.

The goal of the program is to nurture promising research areas for future large-scale collaborative sustainability research, research translation, and/or high-impact outreach; to provide mid-career faculty with leadership and community-building opportunities; and to broaden and strengthen the Georgia Tech sustainability community as a whole. The call for proposals was modeled after the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research’s Moving Teams Forward and Forming Teams programs.

This year’s seed grant awards align with the four main thematic areas in which BBISS aims to enhance Georgia Tech’s research to address some of our most pressing sustainability challenges:

  • AI and Sustainability, and the Sustainability of AI Infrastructure.
  • Climate Science, Technology, and Solutions.
  • Healthy Environments and Sustainable Resource Use.
  • Resilience and Regeneration.

2026 Seed Grants

You can read the full announcement here.

Forming Teams:

Moving Teams Forward:

2025 Seed Grants

You can read the full announcement here.

Forming Teams:

Moving Teams Forward:

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)

Moving Teams Forward

Forming Teams

Joint Initiative

2023 Seed Grants

Moving Teams Forward

Forming Teams