Blair Brettmann received her B.S. in chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin in 2007. She received her Master’s in chemical engineering practice from MIT in 2009 following internships at GlaxoSmithKline (Upper Merion, PA) and Mawana Sugar Works (Mawana, India). Blair received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering at MIT in 2012 working with the Novartis-MIT Center for Continuous Manufacturing under Professor Bernhardt Trout. Her research focused on solid-state characterization and application of pharmaceutical formulations prepared by electrospinning. Following her Ph.D., Brettmann worked as a research engineer for Saint-Gobain Ceramics and Plastics for two years. While at Saint-Gobain she worked on polymer-based wet coatings and dispersions for various applications, including window films, glass fiber mats and architectural fabrics. Later, Brettmann served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Institute for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago with Professor Matthew Tirrell. Currently, Brettmann is an assistant professor with joint appointments in chemical and biomolecular engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech.

Jason Azoulay is an organic, organometallic and polymer chemist and internationally recognized leader in developing emerging semiconductor materials and devices. He has made significant contributions to the fields of polymer chemistry and materials science,bridging fundamental chemistry with real-world applications. His work focuses on the design, synthesis and characterization of advanced functional materials across numerous technology platforms, with an emphasis on organic semiconductors and conjugated polymers.

Azoulay co-directs the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics, and his lab adds great strength to Georgia Tech’s leadership in soft-matter and hybrid optoelectronics. His work also complements numerous efforts at Georgia Tech that develop and apply advanced functional materials. 

Thadhani joined the faculty in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech in September, 1992. His research focuses on studies of shock-induced physical, chemical, and mechanical changes for processing of novel materials and for probing the deformation and fracture response of metals, ceramics, polymers, and composites, subjected to high-rate impact loading conditions. He has developed state-of-the-art high-strain-rate laboratory which includes 80-mm and 7.62-mm diameter single-stage gas-guns, and a laser-accelerated thin-foil set-up, to perform impact experiments at velocities of 70 to 1200 m/s. The experiments employ time-resolved diagnostics to monitor shock-initiated events with nanosecond resolution employing piezoelectric and piezoresistive stress gauges, VISAR interferometry, Photonic-doppler-velocimetry, and high-speed digital imaging, combined with the ability to recover impacted materials for post-mortem microstructural characterization and determination of other properties. He has built computational capabilities employing continuum simulations for design of experiments and development and validation of constitutive equations, as well as for meso-scale discrete particle numerical analysis (using CTH and ALE3D codes) to determine the effects observed during shock compression of heterogeneous materials, using real microstructures.

Mary Lynn Realff is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). She received her BS Textile Engineering from Georgia Tech and her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Polymer Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Her current research is focused on Effective Team Dynamics for both undergraduate and graduate students. The Effective Team Dynamics Initiative develops curriculum and workshops that enable students to gain the competencies to work effectively in teams and for faculty to gain the competencies to guide students through challenging team dynamics is making a positive impacts at Georgia Tech.