Thomas Honored with Class of 1934 Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award

Posted March 12, 2018

Valerie Thomas, professor in the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy, has been awarded the Class of 1934 Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award by the Faculty Honors Committee. The award was established to recognize Georgia Tech faculty who have made significant interdisciplinary contributions to teaching and research.

Professor Thomas has been active in a wide variety of research areas including nuclear arms control, energy policy, high-energy physics, environmental sustainability, and technology assessment. Her collaborations are equally varied, including colleagues from academia, and the public and private sectors. The nature of her collaborations and diverse subject expertise has resulted in research that engages the public and has had meaningful impacts in policy making. The award will be presented at the annual Georgia Tech Faculty and Staff Honors Luncheon to be held on Wednesday, April 11, 2018.

Professor Thomas holds a joint appointment in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. Thomas’s research interests include energy systems, sustainability, industrial ecology, technology assessment, international security, and science and technology policy. Current research projects include the environmental impacts of biofuels and electricity system policy and planning. Thomas is a member of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)/ Department of Energy (DOE) Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee. In 2004 - 2005, she was the American Physical Society Congressional Science Fellow. Thomas is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the American Physical Society, and has been a member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board. She is currently a member of the board of the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance and a member of the Federation of American Scientists Board of Experts. She has previously worked at the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, and at Princeton University’s Environmental Institute. Thomas received a B.A. in physics from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cornell University.

The School of Public Policy is part of the Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

For more information on the luncheon and award, visit Georgia Tech’s Events page.