Brian Stone is a Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he teaches in the area of urban environmental planning and design. Stone’s program of research is focused on the spatial drivers of urban environmental phenomena, with an emphasis on urban scale climate change, and is supported by the National Science Foundation, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He is Director of the Urban Climate Lab at Georgia Tech. Stone’s work on urbanization and climate change has been featured on CNN and National Public Radio, and in print media outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is author of The City and the Coming Climate: Climate Change in the Places We Live (Cambridge University Press), which received a Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award. Stone holds degrees in environmental management and planning from Duke University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Perry Yang is an Associate Professor and Director of Eco Urban Lab of the School of City and Regional Planning and the School of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Perry’s work focuses on promoting ecological and energy performance of cities through urban design. He has been awarded prizes in international competitions continuously from 2005 in Asian cities, including the 2009 World Games Park at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, a project opened in July 2009 and featured by CNN as an “eco- friendly” venue. His urban design work was published in the January 2010 issue Ecological Urbanism at WA (World Architecture), a leading architecture journal by Tsinghua University. He has been involved in smart city projects in Japan from 2016 to 2020, including one of Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic sites at Urawa Misono, in collaboration with Global Carbon Project (GCP) and the University of Tokyo. Prior to joining the Georgia Tech faculty, he was a Fulbright Scholar and SPURS Fellow at MIT from 1999 to 2000, and an Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the National University of Singapore from 2001 to 2008.
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Evan Mallen is a graduate of the City & Regional Planning doctoral program, where he studied Environmental Planning and Climate Change. He teaches Urban Environmental Planning & Design and created the inaugural Sustainable Cities Studio. Evan continues his research with Georgia Tech’s Urban Climate Lab where he focuses on urban heat island mitigation and public health response with international public, private, and academic collaborators. His research focuses on accessible heat vulnerability and mortality modeling to help municipalities better protect vulnerable populations and enhance environmental justice through reduced inequities in heat exposure. Currently, he works as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Teaching & Learning leading the Graduate Teaching Fellows program and the Tech to Teaching Capstone. Evan is also the program co-coordinator for the Georgia Tech University Center of Exemplary Mentoring managing the Sloan Foundation Fellowship program in the Colleges of Engineering and Computing.
Evan holds a BS in Physics and a Master of Urban Planning both from the University of Michigan, where he later served as a research associate with the Great Lakes Climate Adaptation Assessment for Cities and the Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments. At Georgia Tech, Evan strives to enhance sustainability curriculum in partnership with the Center for Serve-Learn-Sustain and the Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development (RCE) Greater Atlanta. In Atlanta, Evan regularly contributes to local sustainability planning initiatives through public lectures, workshops, and advisory committees, collaborating with groups such as Trees Atlanta, Central Atlanta Progress, the Urban Catalyst Lab, and Atlanta’s emerging Urban Ecology Framework.
Contact: esmallen@gatech.edu
Elora Raymond is an Assistant Professor in the School of City and Regional Planning in the College of Design at Georgia Tech. She studies the financialization of housing and property in land, patterns of displacement and dispossession through housing, and racial segregation. Her climate-change oriented research examines housing and real estate finance processes during the disaster recovery process, including work on the rise in evictions following hurricanes and major flooding events, and ongoing projects on the influence of mortgage finance, investment, and eviction processes on displacement and migration following hurricanes in the panhandle of Florida and in Puerto Rico.
Her work has been featured in Cityscape, JPER, Urban Geography, Housing Studies, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Community and Economic Development Discussion Paper Series. My research has been featured in the Economist, New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Bloomberg’s Businessweek, NPR’s Morning Edition, ABC’s Good Morning America, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Univision, and Radio New Zealand, among other news outlets.
Jairo Garcia is the former Director of Climate Policies and Renewables with the City of Atlanta and author of Atlanta’s Climate Action Plan. He teaches Sustainable Urban Development, Sustainable Cities Studio, and Introduction to Land Use Planning in the School of City and Regional Planning, and Climate Policy in the School of Public Policy. His work focuses on urban sustainability and climate policies with an emphasis on mobility, urban food systems, and equity. In 2017, he received the National Individual Climate Leadership Award conferred by the EPA and C2ES. This award recognized his leadership in addressing climate change and engaging organization, peers, and partners. Jairo holds a BSEE degree, an MSc in Computer Networks Management, an MSc in Sustainability Management, and a Doctoral degree in Educational Technology and Sustainability.
Contact: jairo.garcia@design.gatech.edu
Sarah Al-Khayyal is a Graduate student in the school of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech. While earning a Bachelor’s in Sustainable Development from Columbia University, Sarah took a particular interest in the potential for public spaces to build resiliency, equity, and sustainability across sectors. She seeks to build a career working at the intersection of climate change mitigation, human centered design, and urban streetscape interventions. Equipped with a creative mind and critical eye, Sarah strives to steward place and shepherd change. As a Graduate Research Assistant with the Urban Climate Lab, Sarah hopes to empower and enable communities to implement key climate resilience measures.
Contact: sarahak@gatech.edu
Orion Allgaier is a graduate student in the School of City and Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds a Bachelor of Science in environmental public health from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where he later served as the Lead Researcher for the Watershed Institute and as a Planning Intern for Eau Claire County. In these positions, Orion spearheaded the county’s campaign to achieve carbon neutrality and 100% renewable energy by 2050, completed a community-scale greenhouse gas assessment, and developed a framework for the county’s Renewable Energy Action Plan (REAP). He intends to devote his career to help communities transition away from fossil-fuel based economies, mitigate and respond to global climate change, and to bring numerous co-benefits including improved air and water quality, resilience of essential services, and economic development.
Contact: orionallgaier@gatech.edu
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