Asensio Named to National Academies New Voices Cohort

Posted July 19, 2021

Omar Asensio, assistant professor in the School of Public Policy, has been named to the 2021-23 New Voices Cohort of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The Academies chose Asensio and 21 other early to mid-career experts (within 10-12 years of their Ph.D.) from among nearly 300 applicants for this honor.

“I am humbled and excited to join this distinguished committee representing New Voices at the National Academies,” Asensio said. “The selection is a shared honor with my students and colleagues. We will have a unique platform to broaden dialogues on science policy and critical issues facing society in an increasingly digital and connected world."

Members of the New Voices panel are expected to “engage in communicating the evidence base for addressing national and global challenges to provide new perspectives on issues of importance to the community represented by the National Academies. They will also help identify ways to expand the diversity of expertise that is brought to all of the Academies' convening and advisory activities.”

Asensio’s research focuses on big data and public policy, with applications to energy systems and consumer behavior, smart cities, and machine learning in transportation and electric mobility.

He directs the Data Science and Policy Lab at Georgia Tech, where he collaborates with the private sector and city governments on data innovations in policy analysis and research evaluation. His work uses statistical and computational tools to advance our understanding of how large-scale civic data and experiments can be used to increase participation in civic processes, while addressing resource conservation and environmental sustainability.

He is a faculty affiliate at the Institute for Data Engineering and Science (IDEaS), the Machine Learning Center, and the Strategic Energy Institute. His research has been published in leading journals such as Nature Energy, Nature Sustainability, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

The first New Voices cohort served from 2018–2020. The New Voices program is supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.  

The School of Public Policy is a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.