Faculty Affiliates
Charlotte Alexander, J.D.
Professor of Law and Ethics, Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business
Charlotte S. Alexander is Professor of Law and Ethics at the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business. Her scholarship focuses on the efficiency, transparency, and openness of the court system, with a particular interest in civil litigation. She uses empirical and computational methods to process large quantities of legal data and uncover patterns in case filing, progress, and resolution. She has an additional research interest in employment law and litigation.
Alexander received her B.A. from Columbia University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she was elected president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. After law school, she clerked for Judge Nancy Gertner of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, and then served as a Skadden Fellow and senior staff attorney at Georgia Legal Services’ Farmworker Rights Division.
Alexander’s work is published or forthcoming in a wide variety of peer reviewed and law journals, including Science, the N.Y.U. Law Review, Texas Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, American Business Law Journal, Industrial Relations, Yale Journal of Law and Technology, and the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Labor, and private foundations. In 2023, she worked as a Fulbright U.S. Scholar with the Justice Innovation Lab of the National Judicial Training College in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on projects involving court delays and access to justice.
Jeffery Cannon, PhD
Associate Scientist, Landscape Ecology, Jones Center at Ichauway
Dr. Jeffery Cannon is a Landscape Ecologist at the Jones Center at Ichauway. His lab focuses on landscape ecology of forest disturbance and restoration in pine systems of the U.S. and emphasizes technology application in forestry and natural resources. Current projects include (1) quantifying hurricane risk to forest resources through multi-scale studies of wind risk, (2) understanding overstory drivers of forest dynamics in longleaf and related systems, and (3) research to improve restoration outcomes in ponderosa pine and longleaf pine forests. Jeff holds a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Mississippi State University (2009), an M.S. in Biology from the University of Mississippi (2011), and a Ph.D. in Plant Biology from the University of Georgia (2015).
Dirk Joel-Luchini Colbry, PhD
Faculty, Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering
Dr. Dirk Colbry is faculty in the newly formed Department of Mathematics, Science and Engineering. An alumnus of MSU, Colbry has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and his principle areas of research include machine vision and pattern recognition (specializing in scientific imaging). Dr. Colbry also does research in computational education and high performance computing. From 2009 until 2015, Dr. Colbry worked for the Institute for Cyber Enabled Research as a computational consultant and Director of the HPCC. Dr. Colbry collaborates with scientists from multiple disciplines including Engineering, Toxicology, Plant and Soil Sciences, Zoology, Mathematics, Statistics and Biology. Recent projects include research in Image Phenomics; developing a commercially-viable large scale, cloud based image pathology tool; and helping develop methods for measuring the Carbon stored inside of soil. Dr. Colbry has taught a range of courses, including; communication “soft” skills, introduction to computational modeling, microprocessors, artificial intelligence, scientific image analysis, compilers, exascale programing, and courses in programming and algorithm analysis.
Jenny L. McGuire, PhD
Associate Professor, School of Biological Science, Georgia Tech
Jenny has been a Professor at Georgia Tech in August 2017. She uses both modern and paleontological specimens to identify how populations, species, and communities have responded to past climate change. Her goal is to identify strategies to conserve as much biodiversity as possible given rapidly shifting climates. She received her PhD from the Dept. of Integrative Biology at UC-Berkeley, and did postdoctoral research at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and at the University of Washington.
Supratik Mukhopadhyay, PhD
Professor, Department of Environmental Sciences, LSU
Supratik Mukhopadhyay is a Professor and AI Faculty Fellow at Louisiana State University (LSU) where he leads cutting-edge AI research across diverse domains, including drug discovery, climate change, agriculture, building and transportation, and education. He previously guided a team that reached the semifinals of the AI XPRIZE and is currently leading one of the top 20 global teams competing in the Wildfire XPRIZE. Mukhopadhyay is the co-founder of Electric, a startup leveraging video analytics and computer vision for forestry applications. He also serves as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Artificial Intelligence.
Steve Mussmann, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Computer Science, Georgia Tech
Steve is an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science at Georgia Tech. Prior to joining Georgia Tech in 2024, Steve was a machine learning researcher at Coactive AI and an IFDS postdoctoral fellow at University of Washington CSE with Kevin Jamieson and Ludwig Schmidt. Steve graduated with his PhD from Stanford University CS in 2021 advised by Percy Liang. His undergraduate degree is from Purdue University in 2015, and he has interned at Apple, Google, and Bloomberg.
Arthur Porto, PhD
Assistant Curator of Artificial Intelligence, Florida Museum of Natural History
Dr. Arthur Porto is the Assistant Curator of Artificial Intelligence at the Florida Museum of Natural History. His research integrates artificial intelligence and evolutionary biology, focusing on the development of AI-assisted tools for processing biodiversity data. He has held academic positions at Louisiana State University and completed postdoctoral fellowships at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Oslo. Dr. Porto has an extensive publication record and has been recognized with numerous grants and awards for his contributions to the fields of AI and evolutionary biology.
James Stroud, PhD
Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Early Career Assistant Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Tech
Dr. James Stroud is an Elizabeth Smithgall Watts Early Career Assistant Professor of School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech. He earned a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from Florida International University. He is an integrative evolutionary ecologist who investigates how ecological and evolutionary processes may underlie patterns of biological diversity at the macro-scale.
He primarily studies lizards and his research is highly multidisciplinary, combining field studies with macro-ecological and evolutionary comparative analyses. Stroud’s current interests are particularly focused on measuring natural selection in the wild, often taking advantage of non-native lizards as natural experiments in ecology and evolution.
In 2024, he was named an Early Career Fellow by the Ecological Society of America. He joins the ranks of nine newly appointed ESA Fellows and ten 2024-2028 ESA Early Career Fellows, elected for “advancing the science of ecology and showing promise for continuing contributions” and recently confirmed by the organization’s Governing Board. He was also awarded the prestigious Founder’s Prize by the British Ecological Society (BES), the largest scientific society for ecologists in Europe.