Megan Jermak

About Megan

Facing Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath throughout her childhood, Megan learned to question whose voices are centered in disaster response and infrastructure decision-making. This background, paired with formative experiences in environmental justice work, drove her to civil engineering, where she could combine technical skills with community-centered approaches to address historic inequities and build resilience.

As a graduate researcher at Georgia Tech, Megan examines how disconnects between industry, academia, government, and community hinder the effective deployment of clean technologies. She develops analytical methods that capture socioeconomic dimensions of complex supply chains, particularly in the electric vehicle and critical mineral industries, expanding from Asia into the US. Her goal is to stimulate technical transitions that simultaneously advance decarbonization, regional economies, and societal outcomes.

This work has been supported by over $25,000 in grants and a fellowship from the Sloan Foundation, and she has presented her findings at international conferences across the US and Asia. Yet her approach is shaped by experiences beyond the lab. Megan has led community-engaged engineering projects, including the construction of an outdoor classroom and design of a net-zero preschool. She developed an ethics course for community engagement in engineering and now co-facilitates a human-centered design course exploring youth perspectives on workforce development in Southeastern clean-tech industries. Each project has reinforced her belief that engineers must work across disciplines and sectors to achieve holistic solutions—a commitment she hopes to impart among her peers to promote enduring social and environmental transformation.

In her free time, Megan enjoys biking, karaoke, and fostering kittens.