Phanish Suryanarayana and Chloé Arson, assistant professors in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, have both been granted CAREER awards. This award is among the most prestigious a junior faculty member can receive. 

Given by the National Science Foundation, CAREER awards go to newer faculty members who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research, education and blending these two fields. Awardees are given yearly grants in order to further their research efforts.    

Phanish Suryanarayana joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 2011, after completing his Ph.D. in aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology. His research interests are in multiscale modeling, ab-initio calculations, density functional theory, continuum mechanics and smart materials.  

Suryanarayana’s CAREER grant will be used to develop an inexpensive high-fidelity computational framework for the discovery of nanostructures with unprecedented properties that can be tailored to technological applications. Current experimental and computational techniques typically rely on empirical insight, which makes the process both costly and protracted. Through his research, Suryanarayana hopes to accelerate this process, thus making it more readily available. By increasing accessibility, he aims to incorporate multidisciplinary nanotechnology-related curriculum into K-12, undergraduate and graduate education. 

Chloé Arson, meanwhile, joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 2012 after receiving her Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering at École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. Her research focuses on the theoretical and numerical modeling of damage and healing in rock, as well as the impacts of rock microstructure on macroscopic properties.

Arson’s project will focus on enhancing engineers' understanding of the formation and healing of rock fractures as they pertain to underground energy and waste storage systems. Some objectives of this CAREER award include understanding and predicting changes in rock fractures; developing numerical models of fracture networks; formulating and assessing innovative models of fracture damage and healing; and interpreting rock deformation and fluid flow instabilities resulting from fracture damage and healing.  

This CAREER grant will also be used to enhance educational advancements by integrating graduate-undergraduate mentoring opportunities with training in geotechnology design and research. 

Arson and Suryanarayana will each be awarded $500,000 over five years to support their research.