Michael Rodgers
Distinguished Member of the Research Staff
Bio
Dr. Rodgers research currently focuses on the application of quantitative methods to problems related to energy, transportation, public health, and the environment and their impacts on public and private decision making especially involving the introduction of new technologies and policies. Over his long career, Dr. Rodgers has led or participated in more than 200 research programs covering a wide-range of topics for sponsors including U.S. DOE, NASA; U.S. EPA; NSF; NOAA; U.S. DOT, Exxon-Mobil, as well as multiple other organizations. In additional to his research position at ORNL, Dr. Rodgers serves a distinguished researcher and fellow for the University of Tennessee/Oak Ridge Innovation Institute (UT-ORII) and has joint appointments with both the Bredesen Center and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Before coming to ORNL, Dr. Rodgers held various academic and research appointments at Georgia Institute of Technology in the Schools of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Public Policy as well as the Georgia Tech Research Institute over his more than forty years there. He was the founding director of the Georgia Tech Air Quality Laboratory and served as it director from 1988 to 2006. In that role he led or was a major participant in a variety of major atmospheric measurement and modeling programs for U.S. EPA (Southern Oxidants Study, Next Generation Emissions Model Development); NASA (Pacific Exploratory Missions (PEM-Tropics and PEM-West)) and NOAA (Global Tropospheric Experiment). The PEM-West project was honored by the NASA Administrators Group Achievement Award, NASA’s highest award for a project or program. Subsequently, he served as a division chief in the Health and Environmental Sciences Laboratory and as associate laboratory director for the Aerospace, Transportation and Advanced Systems laboratory of the Georgia Tech Research Institute. In addition to his other academic and research appointments, Dr. Rodgers served as the Deputy Director of the Georgia Transportation Institute (2012-2024) and as the Georgia Tech lead for the Center for Advancing Research in Transportation, Energy, Emissions and Health (CARTEEH) (2016-2024).
Results from Dr. Rodgers’ research have been described in his more than 200 refereed publications and several hundred other reports. His research has won numerous awards including the Pyke Johnson Award from the Transportation Research Board; the Administrators Group Commendation Award from NASA; Professional of the Year Award from the American Lung Association and the Steven J Ressler Award by the American Society for Engineering Education. He is also a two-time winner (2012 and 2017) of the Thomas Evans award for Outstanding Educational Paper from the Southeastern Section of ASEE for papers in sustainability education. For these and other accomplishments, Dr. Rodgers was named a Georgia Tech Institute Fellow in 1994 and one of the inaugural GTRI Technical Fellows in 2009. In 2014, Dr. Rodgers was named as the Outstanding Undergraduate Educator at Georgia Institute of Technology by the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. In 2018 and 2021, the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia named him to consecutive terms as a Regent’s Researcher, its highest technical recognition. This appointment was made a lifetime appointment appointment upon his retirement as a Regents' Researcher and adjunct Regents' Professor Emeritus in the Schools of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Public Policy.
Education
Ph.D. 1986 Georgia Institute of Technology Geophysical Sciences (Atmospheric Sciences)
M.S. 1978 Georgia Institute of Technology Physics
B.S. 1976 Georgia Institute of Technology Physics (Applied Optics)