Meet the Expert: Joe Bozeman III

Bozeman, an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech, spearheads the Social Equity and Environmental Engineering lab, whose hallmark is an interdisciplinary approach to research.  

Joe Bozeman III, an assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech, grew up food-poor at times and has seen the consequences related to food insecurity up close.  

So when his early research as a doctoral student at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) found that White Americans’ diets produced more greenhouse gases than those of other racial and ethnic groups in the United States, he was not surprised. After all, it made sense that the wider variety of foods you had access to, the greater the chances of related dietary habits adversely impacting the environment.  

The 2019 study was not supposed to be controversial but it became so. “I was surprised that other people were surprised,” Bozeman says, “I just thought that we needed to confirm the findings so we could focus on policy.” Instead Bozeman found himself in the eyes of a political maelstrom and the rhetoric amped up to the point where he received threats.

Since then, Bozeman’s research has not stirred up a hornet’s nest but is just as important. As Director of the Social Equity and Environmental Engineering Lab (SEEEL), Bozeman researches and develops equitable climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies anchored in environmental engineering. His specific research interests run the gamut—from urbanization; the interrelationships between food, energy, and water; circularity with respect to the economy and use of materials; and transportation electrification.  

An early interest in engineering 

Mostly growing up in the shadow of gang activity in inner-city Dayton, Ohio, Bozeman had an itinerant childhood moving between his separated parents’ households all across the country. Despite being in survival mode, “there was also a lot of laughter and beauty,” he says. 

An early picture he drew outlined two of his grandest career ambitions: NBA basketball player or engineer. After all, this was the late ‘80s when Michael Jordan was dazzling the country with his hoopside calisthenics. But when Bozeman realized he couldn’t quite be like Mike, he decided on his fall-back as a career choice: engineering. 

A K-12 STEM college prep program for low-resourced students in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he lived with his mother, stepfather, and brother during his elementary school years, introduced Bozeman to engineering concepts. For a while, his mother worked as senior administrative assistant for an engineering company in town and his family is peppered with engineers, coders, athletes, and artists. Bozeman eventually decided he’d pursue mechanical engineering at Wright State University. 

An introduction to research 

At Wright State, Bozeman found a mentor in Dr. Ruby Mawasha. This Assistant Dean encouraged Bozeman to sign up for a NASA summer scholarship program, where he researched polymers and thermal conductivity. Bozeman was hooked and would eventually go on to complete a master’s at the university, researching solid oxide fuel cells. 

A career detour took Bozeman to the Department of Veteran Affairs in Dayton after graduation. He eventually moved to Chicago to work for the Department of Defense and the VA as an environmental engineer and sustainability officer.  

While working full-time, Bozeman enrolled at UIC to pursue a PhD. He remembers the time as enriching because he could apply principles he was learning at school back at work and vice versa.  

It was here that Bozeman veered away from researching materials to applying engineering concepts to broader environmental equity issues. His advisor, Dr. Thomas Theis, the Director of the Institute for Environmental Science and Policy at UIC, suggested Bozeman retrain his focus to the nexus of food, energy, and water impacts. Initially worried about finding funding opportunities, Bozeman later found reassurance from his advisor that equity-related issues could take root in engineering. He jumped in with both feet and has not looked back since. 

An interdisciplinary focus and accessible policy 

Working around COVID-19-related shutdowns shortly after obtaining his PhD, Bozeman took on an assistant professorship at Georgia Tech in 2021. He’s proud that the institute’s Civil and Environmental Engineering department is consistently rated in the top few in the country.  

An interdisciplinary lens is the key anchor in Bozeman’s research. Case in point: The environmental social justice and equity research his lab pursues roots in engineering training. A recent paper, “Three research priorities for just and sustainable urban systems: Now is the time to refocus,” in the Journal of Industrial Ecology illustrates work in urbanization. Those three research priorities include social equity and justice, circularity, and digital twins. The key here, Bozeman says, is that social equity and justice is not confined to one pillar but influences both circularity and digital twins in the way they approach data collection and analysis, and model development.  

Bozeman believes that engineers need to devise ways to communicate meaningful and implementable information. He is well aware that sharing the message from research is critical to realizing positive change. A hip-hop, R&B, and gospel singer well before he became an engineer, Bozeman still uses art as a medium for science communication. “We have to be cognizant of the human element as we’re designing our technologies,” Bozeman adds, “it changes the way we do design, the way we ask our questions. Our lab is at the center of trying to standardize how we go about doing that.”  

One way to make policy prescriptions more digestible is to apply a holistic approach to studies. A systemic equity framework for social equity and justice, for example, needs to integrate both scientific methodology and a cultural lens, he says. Bozeman explains this three-legged stool in a paper in Environmental Engineering Science. 

Sober hope for the future 

On a parallel track, given that Atlanta is seeing an increasing focus on electric vehicles, Bozeman’s lab has also been exploring the electrification of transportation. A recent study in that line of research found that overhead cable line technology using battery electric vehicle principles is more efficient for long-haul freight transport.  

Bozeman’s enthusiasm for his research spills over into the classroom as well and he has been awarded student recognition for teaching excellence. As a Black man focused on equity-centered research, it’s not lost on Bozeman that he works in Atlanta, a home to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. “All of this rich history of equity is important,” he says, “being in a place like Atlanta, building relationships with community-based organizations, and maybe just rubbing shoulders with some of the influencers out here is a good thing.” 

As for the future of the climate, Bozeman has “sober hope.” He likens the shift to sustainability to going to the gym. “It’s universally recognized that there might be some pain but you have to put in some sacrifices. If you do, you can realize the benefits.” 

What about his childhood ambition to be like Mike? These days, Bozeman hopes he’s like another popular basketball player. “I like to throw assists to my teammates a little more,” he says. Like LeBron James. 

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