Sheng Dai, Ph.D., P.E., is an associate professor and group coordinator in Geosystems Engineering at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech. He earned his BS and MS degrees from Tongji University, and MSCE and Ph.D. degrees from Georgia Tech. He worked as an ORISE postdoc at the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, and returned to Georgia Tech as a faculty member in 2015. He is also a faculty member in the Ocean Science and Engineering program, and holds a courtesy appointment at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.
Dr. Dai's group addresses emerging energy and environment challenges through studying subsurface geomechanics, energy geotechnics, bio-inspired geotechnics, flow in porous media, and granular dynamics. His research has been funded by federal funding agencies (DOE, NSF, NASA, DOT), national labs (INL, NETL), and industry (AECOM, GTI, Leidos). He is an associated editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, an editorial advisor of Geomechanics for Energy and Environment, and serves on the Pressure Core Advisory Board for the U.S. Geological Survey, the GOM2 Marine Test Technical Advisory Committee for UT/DOE, the National Gas Hydrate Program for NETL, and the Task Force Leader of TC308 Energy Geotechnics of ISSMGE.
Dr. Dai's research, teaching, and service have been recognized by the NSF CAREER award, the NSF CMMI's Game Changer Academies, the Woodfruff Academic Leadership Fellow, the Jim Pope CREATE-X Faculty Fellowship, the ORISE Fellowship, the Bill Schutz Junior Faculty Teaching Award, the Class of 1969 Teaching Fellows, and the Emerging Leaders Program at Georgia Tech.
Geomaterials characterization, Energy geotechnics (hydrate, geothermal, carbon, biomass), Flow in porous media, Bio-inspired geotechnics, Subsurface geomechanics and sensing, Granular dynamics
In a breakthrough study, a cross-disciplinary team of Georgia Tech researchers discovered a previously unknown class of bacterial proteins that play a crucial role in the formation and stability of methane clathrates, which trap methane gas, preventing it from escaping and bubbling up into the atmosphere.
