Research Centers and Labs

Jointly directed by Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia State University, the Atlanta Global Studies Center (AGSC) is a National Resource Center and a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship program funded by a $2.25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The interdisciplinary center focuses on research and instruction geared to college students who are underrepresented in international and advanced language studies — including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) students; community college students; and minority, first-generation and low-income students — to serve national needs in educating these college students for careers in business, education, security and defense, and public and governmental sectors.

The Augmented Environments Lab activities focus on understanding how to build interactive computing environments that directly augment a user's senses with computer-generated material. Researchers are interested in augmenting the user's perception and place particular emphasis on the interaction between the users and their environment.

The Center for Advanced Communications Policy (CACP) focuses on key issues that influence the development, implementation, and adoption of cutting-edge, advanced communications technologies. Work includes assessment of policy issues and production of regulatory filings, identification of future options for innovation, and articulation of a clearer vision of the technology landscape.

The Center for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies (CDAIT) fosters the development of interdisciplinary Internet of Things (IoT) research and education that bridges industry partners with Georgia Tech researchers and faculty as well as other collaborators who share similar interests.

CDAIT is a global, nonprofit, partner-funded center of excellence in IoT that stimulates creativity, productivity gains, and revenue generation while addressing critical societal issues such as inclusivity, privacy, trust, ethics, regulation, and policy.

The Center for European and Transatlantic Studies (CETS) promotes research, education, and outreach programs on the European Union and transatlantic relations. The center works to foster knowledge and understanding of the European Union and the transatlantic partnership by utilizing Georgia Tech's commitment to promoting interdisciplinary programs

The Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy (CISTP) provides a collegial venue for scholars, policy analysts, scientists, technical experts, practitioners, and community leaders to explore innovative approaches to issues situated at the nexus of science, technology, and international affairs.

Center for Urban Research

The Center for Urban Research is a partnership between the Georgia Institute of Technology and the City of Atlanta Office of the Mayor, focused on collaborative solutions to address socio-economic inequities in urban areas—bringing academic expertise across the state to the work being done on the ground.

The center’s mission is to build mutually beneficial partnerships with university, community, non-profit and municipal leaders across the city to support community resilience and sustainability; leverage private and philanthropic investment for research and programming; provide policy analysis and recommendations; and increase non-profit capacity.

Center for Urban Research

Founded in 2001, the China Research Center promotes an understanding of greater China based on in-depth research and experience. Center associates are experts on greater China’s history, contemporary politics, economy, business environment, language, culture, and media and are committed to building bridges between the Southeast United States and China, Taiwan, Macao, and Hong Kong. The group publishes the journal China Currents.

Climate and Energy Policy Laboratory (CEPL) helps prepare students for careers addressing sustainable energy challenges. CEPL conducts research on clean energy employment; financing, information, and regulatory policies to promote energy-efficiency investments; renewable energy policies and trends in the U.S. South; smart grid policies; and demand response programs. It is involved in studies of climate mitigation.

The Creative/Career Origination Lab (CoLab) gives students space and support to grow as creators, develop their skills, and prepare and explore career possibilities. The CoLab offers a friendly, comfortable, and collaborative environment with peer guides and a professional creative director who through project work and one-on-one sessions bridges the transition from student to professional.

The Design and Social Justice Studio brings an interdisciplinary group of faculty and students together to examine the experiential and participatory dimensions of civic media and their relationship to establishing and supporting democratic forms of social interaction. Research at the studio spans both theoretical inquiry and experimental design, situated at the intersection of Design, the Humanities, and Human-Computer Interaction. The studio designs and investigates a variety of design products and services (e.g., locative media, visualizations and mapping, policy media, social and educational media) drawing on the multiplicity of design methods and strategies, most notably participatory and co-design methods, ethnographic methods, experimental designs.

Funded by a $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Digital Integrative Liberal Arts Center (DILAC) leverages the College's strengths in digital humanities education and scholarship. It equips Georgia Tech students with the technologically advanced tools and methodologies to participate in innovation-based team learning experiences encompassing research, civic engagement, and other projects under the guidance of faculty and graduate student mentors.

The Ethics, Technology, and Human Interaction Center (ETHICx)— pronounced “ethics” — advances ethics-in-technology-centered research, education, and engagement at the Georgia Institute of Technology in collaboration with communities, government, non-governmental organizations, and industry. ETHICx conducts research in ethics and emerging technologies and frames ethical questions, solutions in ethics and technology, and social justice and equity. Interdisciplinary and community-based research are also emphasized. Educational initiatives include investigating and designing curricula for ethics training that can be woven throughout students’ educational journeys and for employees at affiliated companies.

The Expressive Machinery Lab explores how a better understanding of human creativity can help us create new technological experiences where people can express themselves and make meaning with computing. The lab engages in research such as how can we improvise when interacting computers? How can they improvise with us? How can expression and meaning-making be used as a motivation for students to explore/learn computing? How can we better measure and quantify creative social interactions? How can embodied and tangible interactions in public spaces engage learners in expressive, educational computing experiences?

Four Four Beat Labs is a STEAM-inspired maker space and digital pedagogies incubator. Founded in 2012, the Lab uses The OutKast Imagination, culture, music, and new media technologies to teach, produce, and enhance the computational media, coding, and civic engagement capacities of diverse student communities. 

The mission is to expand the traditional perspectives of “the classroom” space. That is, how it looks, where it happens, the archival resources used, and the limitless possibilities when technological innovation meets pedagogical sensibility. The projects the Lab incubates are guided by design principles that utilize the storied meanings of cultural artifacts to buildout interactive installations across analog, digital, and augmented platforms.

A $3.3 million research partnership between Georgia Institute of Technology and the American College of Radiology’s Neiman Institute, the Health Economics and Analytics Lab (HEAL) within Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts applies big data analytics and artificial intelligence to large-scale medical claims databases — with a focus on medical imaging — to better understand how evolving health care delivery and payment models affect patients and providers.

Interdisciplinary Media Arts Center

The Interdisciplinary Media Arts Center fosters projects and pathways that enable researchers, students, and practitioners to make expressive use of innovative technologies.

The Center supports three interrelated programs: 1) an annual residency for media artists; 2) courses that connect expressive and technical or scientific endeavors; and 3) a research incubator that supports expressive projects by transdisciplinary teams.

Interdisciplinary Media Arts Center

The Internet Governance Project (IGP) is a leading source of analysis of global Internet policy and Internet resource management that is widely read by governments, industry, and civil society organizations. IGP researches and analyzes global Internet policy issues and puts its expertise into practical action in the fields of global governance, Internet policy, and information and communication technology, and participates directly in Internet governance institutions.

The Local Data Design Lab is focused on bridging the substantial divide between two complementary, but largely disconnected areas of work: data studies and data visualization. The first is an area of scholarly inquiry that has emerged recently in response to the phenomenon of big data and seeks to make sense of data from a social perspective. The second is a form of design practice, which produces informative and expressive interfaces to data. It is influenced by, but more publicly oriented than the sub-field of computer science called information visualization.

The Naugle Communication Center aids students from the Georgia Tech community with communication skills and projects related to their classes, careers, and civic and community lives. As an inclusive resource, the center welcomes students of all identities, languages, and ability levels. Trained consultants can help students with everything from their multimodal projects for English 1101 and English 1102 to graduate school applications, from engineering and science reports to team presentations, from storyboards for videos to poster designs, from grant proposals to cover letters and resumes. Faculty can make requests for class visits, class tours, and topic workshops.

The Prototyping eNarrative Lab (PeN Lab) applies digital information design and interaction design principles to digital storytelling to create more complex and expressive narratives, focusing on emerging platforms like experimental television, virtual reality, and augmented reality, and on the intersection of storytelling with game design and simulation design.

The Research on Careers in Science (ROCS) Lab provides a home for an interdisciplinary group of faculty, researchers, and students to conduct empirical and theoretically-driven research and program evaluation studies on the context, development, professional experiences, and outcomes relevant to the STEM workforce and careers in science and engineering.

Georgia Tech has a longstanding tradition of commitment to science fiction studies. The Sci Fi Lab enhances students’ ability to engage with issues of science, technology, and society as they are represented in the premiere story form of an increasingly technological and global world. It also enables them to better develop the analytic skills and creative mindsets that are crucial for graduate school and for advancements in careers ranging from education to engineering.

The Innovation Co-Lab is a strategic partnership among Georgia Institute of Technology (GT), the University of Manchester (UNIMAN), and Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT). Directed by faculty in the Ivan Allen College School of Public Policy, the Co-Lab engages researchers in mutually agreed research projects, exchange, training, and other related activities in the domain of science, technology, and innovation management and policy.

The Sports, Society, and Technology (SST) Research Center is an arm of the SST Program which also seeks to create interest and increased visibility for the interdisciplinary study of sport at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The SST Research Center sponsors research-oriented workshops and additionally supports and promotes Georgia Tech faculty research findings related to sports.

Established to promote the application and development of new media technologies in the areas of education, design, digital art, and culture, the Wesley Center encourages work in film, television, expression of art, and literary forms — all of which are now in a cultural dialogue with new digital media.