Obama to Nominate Public Policy’s Brown to TVA

Atlanta (December 14, 2009) — President Obama on December 10th announced his intention to nominate Marilyn A. Brown to the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). Brown, a professor of energy policy in the School of Public Policy, is a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Brown’s nomination must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Dr. Marilyn A. Brown

The TVA is the nation’s largest public utility serving nearly nine million customers in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Its programs span environmental protection, river management, and economic development. Current initiatives include the construction of the TVA’s seventh nuclear power unit, extensive modernization of 29 hydro plants, programs to reduce power demand through energy-efficiency, and a clean-air program.

With Georgia Tech since 2006, Brown focuses on energy policy and technology to ensure a sustainable future. Previously, she worked with the U.S. Department of Energy’s prestigious Oak Ridge National Laboratory where she co-led the “Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future,” a report which was described by the White House as a “cornerstone of engineering-economic analysis of low-carbon energy options for the U.S.”

The author of more than 200 publications, Brown has provided testimonies and briefings to Committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as numerous state agencies. She is a commissioner on the National Commission on Energy Policy, has participated on Department of Energy review committees and the National Academies' Board on Energy and Environmental Systems. In 2008 she was appointed to the National Academies' Committee on America's Climate Choices.

At Georgia Tech, Brown collaborates with the Strategic Energy Institute, the Sloan Center for Paper Business and Industry Studies, and the Enterprise Innovation Institute's Science and Technology Innovation Program as the Director of Sustainability. She authors Georgia Tech's quarterly energy sustainability index, EnergyBuzz.

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China-Funded Human Capital Project Carves Cutting Edge Research Path

Atlanta (December 14, 2009) — China has funded an international team of researchers to measure its most abundant resource - human capital. Led by School of Economics Professor Haizheng Li and advised by prominent Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson, the project to develop a human capital index ultimately will inform Chinese national policy, but is already pushing the boundaries of economics research.

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“China has become a hot topic in economics research because its emerging economy cannot be explained by traditional market economy theory,” explains Li. “It is providing economic scholars a remarkable new path in studying transitional economies.”

Human capital measures are also a relatively new area of research for China; the combination of the two areas has brought international interest in Li’s work.

“Study of human capital is an important new direction for economics,” says Li. “We have been comfortable working with physical capital (e.g.: oil, manufacturing plants), but human capital is also a main influencer of productivity, innovation, and sustainable economic growth. It comprises more than 60 percent of the wealth of most nations – more than 70 percent of the U.S. national wealth - yet we don’t have a unified measure for it.”

Li’s China index is expected to advance international efforts to build a unified measure that can be applied to other emerging economies and enable comparisons across the global economy. His team has modified an existing mainstream method for measuring human capital – the Jorgenson-Fraumeni (J-F) approach that was developed by Harvard’s Jorgenson and that is being used in Europe and the U.S. Jorgenson’s partner on that work, Barbara Fraumeni, has joined Li’s project team.

Dr. Haizheng Li

Titled “Human Capital Measurement and China Human Capital Index Construction,” the more specific project goal is to measure China’s human capital stock during the rapid growth years from 1985-2007. Begun in fall 2008, the project is funded from various sources including the National Natural Science Foundation of China (China’s equivalent of the NSF). The index will quantify the distribution and dynamics of China’s workforce, capturing such dramatically changing factors as rural to urban migration, higher education, and Chinese cultural factors such as its early retirement age (relative to the U.S.).

Li’s team released a preliminary national human capital index of China at an international symposium held in Beijing in October 2009. It was very well received. The working paper based on the preliminary results has appeared in the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper series. That national index should be completed in spring 2010, but the extensive work collecting data to support indices for Chinese provinces will extend for another 5-10 years.

Because of their current work and future plans in this area, the Acting Director of the Statistics Directorate of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Paul Schreyer, has sent a formal letter to the Chinese government to designate Li’s team “as official participant from China” to the OECD Human Capital Consortium.

“We are building the infrastructure for the quantifiable data that will support the construction of human capital indices at a national and province level in China,” says Li. “Ultimately, the indices will support ongoing empirical research on the role of human capital in economic growth and development and support policy analysis.” It would help quantify, for example, the benefit of China’s aggressive investment in higher education relative to its investment in physical resources.

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Climate Scholars Attend UN COP15 Climate Conference

Atlanta (December 7, 2009) —

Climate scholars within the School of Public Policy in the Ivan Allen College at Georgia Tech have joined more than 10,000 world leaders, business elites, environmental activists, academics and others convened in Copenhagen, Denmark December 7-18. The fifteenth annual Conference of Parties (COP15) meeting is debating the future of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

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“COP 15 has been highly anticipated as it is intended to be the determining negotiation for a post-Kyoto agreement,” explains Janelle Knox-Hayes, Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy (SPP). “The first phase of the Kyoto Protocol–a legally binding agreement which governs global carbon emissions—will expire in 2012. In order to allow governments enough time to prepare for implementation of a framework beyond the first phase, an ambitious new deal needs to be agreed this year.”

Follow Knox-Hayes blog about the conference, her experiences there, negotiations, and her particular area of interest - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) - on the GT Climate Policy Blog at http://www.gtclimatepolicy.wordpress.com

Dr. Knox-Hayes

Paul Baer, an internationally recognized expert on issues of equity and climate change and Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy, who has attended the United Nations international climate negotiations since 2000, is also attending the COP15 climate conference.

Co-author of the “Greenhouse Development Rights” framework, Baer proposes a fair global climate policy framework in which obligations are assigned on the basis of responsibility for historical emissions and ability to pay. Such a framework is not currently part of the structure of the UN global climate treaty that will be in negotiation at COP15 and Baer sees this as a major stumbling block for gaining cooperation on any treaty from developing countries. (See www.greenhousedevelopmentrights.org)

Dr. Paul Baer

“Such a fair framework is not currently on the table at the COP15,” said Baer. “The relationships between the rich and poor countries are steeped in distrust, and the industrialized nations have largely failed to meet their obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).”

Follow Baer's Tweets from the conference through http://twitter.com/paulgbaer

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EUCE Symposium Assesses Energy Policy Progress

Atlanta (December 14, 2009) — Just a month before the United Nations' COP15 Climate Summit in Copenhagen, and on the heels of the formation of a joint EU-US Energy Council announced at the EU-US Summit, European and U.S. scholars and policy makers came together at Georgia Tech and Georgia State University to assess the European Union’s progress toward a common energy policy.

EUCE Energy Policy Symposium

Organized by the European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE) in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, the symposium also delineated obstacles to a unified EU policy.

EUCE Director Vicki Birchfield and Professor John Duffield from Georgia State University, hosted Luisa Ragher, Head of Transport, Energy, Environment and Nuclear Matters Section for the European Commission’s Delegation to Washington, along with scholars from Germany, Britain, France, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Spain. These researchers were joined by Ivan Allen College public policy and international affairs professors Marilyn Brown, Paul Baer, Adam Stulberg, and Janelle Knox-Hayes for the two-day symposium.

In the past decade, the EU has made rapid progress towards developing a common energy policy, even adopting an ambitious and comprehensive Energy Action Plan based on the EU Commission's 2007 Communication “An Energy Policy for Europe.”

The symposium assessed conditions and events that influenced the progress on forming a common EU energy policy and historical, national, and functional perspectives. Additional commentary was provided by Jay Hakes, Executive Director of the Carter Presidential library, an author and expert on U.S. energy policy. Output from the symposium will be an edited book by Birchfield and Duffield with articles by symposium participants from nine European countries on key issues including renewable sources of energy, cutting emissions, nuclear power and energy efficiency.

Atlanta Regional Commission Panel

In its mandate to connect Georgia and Europe and educate the local community about EU affairs, the EUCE also collaborated with the Atlanta Regional Commission on their annual State of the Regions breakfast and arranged for Ragher to join their policy and energy forum as a panelist. Ragher spoke to the 900-strong audience about how the EU influences global debates on climate change, renewable energy, and energy security. (A video link to this panel resides on the www.atlantafiftyforward.com website and is accessible through the panel video link below. Play the video entitled "Panel Discussion: Susan Hoffman, moderator")

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Symposium Explores Digital Games as Art

Atlanta (December 14, 2009) — Games have always been part human creative expression, but only in the 20th century did games and game play become acknowledged as art. “The Art History of Games” symposium taking place February 4-6, 2010 seeks to more clearly articulate the importance of games as a form of art.

Chaired by Ian Bogost and Michael Nitsche who are faculty in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture’s Digital Media Graduate Program, and by John Sharp from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, the three-day colloquy will bring together academics and experts in the fields of game studies, art history, and related areas of cultural studies. The conference will also premiere three commissioned art games by internationally-renowned artists and designers. The symposium will be held at the Rich Auditorium at the Woodruff Arts Center midtown. Registration is open to students and the public.

Learn more on “The Art History of Games” website

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Pearce Elucidates “Communities of Play”

Atlanta (December 14, 2009) — From bridge clubs to sports leagues, from tabletop role-playing games to Civil War reenactments, play communities have long been part of culture. Digital networks have brought about new varieties of adult play communities, most notably online games and virtual worlds. It is these new communities of play that Celia Pearce defines in her book "Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds (MIT Press, 2009).

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A game researcher, designer, and Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture, Pearce became fascinated when observing how players in networked worlds sometimes developed a sense of community that transcended the game itself and acted in ways that didn't coincide with the intentions of the game’s designers. In “Communities of Play” she set out to analyze play and community and to contextualize games and virtual worlds.

Pearce focuses on the Uru Diaspora—a group of players whose game, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, closed. Identifying themselves as "refugees,” these players “immigrated” into other online game worlds. In There.com. they created a hybrid culture integrating aspects of their old world with their newfound home. Ostracized at first, they eventually became community leaders.

Using the Uru Diaspora as her lens, Pearce analyzes the properties of virtual worlds and looks at the ways design affects emergent behavior. Countering the ludological definition of play as unproductive and pointing to the long history of pre-digital play practices, Pearce argues that play can be a prelude, indeed a call, to creativity. She discusses the methodologies for studying online games, including a personal account of the “sometimes messy” process of ethnography.

Dr. Celia Pearce

Pearce considers the "play turn" in culture, as epitomized by such trends as cosplay, alternate reality games that take place in the real world, ritual play events such as Burning Man and DragonCon, games on “non-gaming” platforms such as the iPhone, Facebook and other emerging platforms, and an overall increase in playfulness across all media. She describes the advent of a participatory global playground enabled by networked social media that, notes Pearce, “is every bit as communal as the global village Marshall McLuhan saw united by television.”

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College Welcomes Interim Development Officer

Atlanta (December 14, 2009) — Juan A. McGruder has joined the Ivan Allen College as interim development officer. McGruder is familiar with the Georgia Tech landscape; from 2003 through 2008 he was Associate Director of Development for the College of Computing and ultimately the first Director of Development for the School of Computer Science.

Dr. Juan McGruder

McGruder joins the College at a time when several key development initiatives are underway. He is also reaching out to faculty and staff to become more familiar with the college’s schools and programs.

“I find that our faculty appreciates the philanthropic success the College has experienced,” said McGruder, “yet they are more focused on achieving the unrealized potential of continued investment in their programs and research efforts. Many are keenly aware of the transformational impact that can be realized from philanthropy and have graciously extended themselves to assist in that process.”

Prior to joining the Ivan Allen College, McGruder was Associate Vice President for Development at Morehouse School of Medicine. Earlier in his career, he was Director of Development and Assistant Professor of Education at Clark Atlanta University (CAU). During his tenure at CAU, he also served as Special Assistant to the President and Director of Alumni Relations. While in Washington, DC, McGruder served as Assistant Director of the Consortium for the Advancement of Private Higher Education (CAPHE) at the Council for Independent Colleges, a national organization for private liberal arts colleges and universities.

McGruder holds a PhD from Vanderbilt. His research areas included historically black colleges and universities, institutional collaborations, and institutional advancement. He also holds the Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE) professional designation. He is married to Henraya F. McGruder, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention-Atlanta. They have two children, Alexander (4) and Hailey (3).

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INTA Student Wins 2009 SAIC-GT Competition

Atlanta (December 14, 2009) — Amira Mouna, an undergraduate student in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, is one of three students at Georgia Tech selected as winners of the 2009 SAIC - Georgia Tech Student Paper Competition for her essay on "Analysis of Neoliberalist and Realist Perspectives of Bionanotechnology in Iran."

Amira Mouna

Mouna's paper, based on research with Assistant Professor Margaret Kosal, considers the international security connections of Iran's bionanotechnology research and development programs, infrastructure, and capabilities. An awards ceremony will be held on Thursday, 19 November.

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) is a FORTUNE 500 scientific, engineering, and technology applications company that solve problems of national security, energy and the environment, critical infrastructure, and health. Their collaboration with Georgia Tech includes a fellows’ program through the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, TAPIS ”” Technology Applications for Promoting International Security, which is designed to analyze global security issues and attract women and minority students into cutting-edge research and careers in the defense industry.

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