Congratulations!
The following UTC Faculty and Staff have attracted $715,210 in external grant and contract awards:
Dr. Gazi Akgun (Engineering Management and Technology), Dr. Chandra Ward (Sociology, Anthropology, and Geography), and Dr. Seyedmehdi Khaleghian (CUIP) have received $50,000 from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation for the project entitled, “Consumer Acceptance of Automated Vehicles & Analysis and Comparison of State Laws.”
Dr. Mohammad Mahtabi (Mechanical Engineering) has received $7,780 from AMAERO Advanced Materials and Manufacturing, Inc. for the project entitled, “316L Sintered Buttons.”
Dr. Mina Sartipi, Austin Harris, Dr. Seyedmehdi Khaleghian (CUIP), and Dr. Vahid Rasouli Disfani (Computer Science and Engineering) have received $502,798 from the City of Chattanooga for the project entitled, “An End-to-End Decision Support System for Integrated Transportation System and Smart Grid Management.”
Susan Lazenby (WUTC) has received $22,300 from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the project entitled, “WUTC Radio Community Service Grant.”
Dr. Mina Sartipi, Austin Harris, Dr. Seyedmehdi Khaleghian, and Dr. Huu Hoang Nguyen (CUIP) have received $18,002 from the US Department of Transportation for the project entitled, “End-to-End Data Architecture and Analytics Pipeline for Safe and Adaptive Autonomous Vehicles.”
Dr. Erkan Kaplanoglu (Engineering Management and Technology) has received $13,155 from Sensory Bridges LLC for the project entitled, “Design and Development of the Brooks Band Wearable System.”
Dr. Abdel Karrar (CECS) has received $40,943 from the Tennessee Board of Architectural and Engineering Examiners for the project entitled, “2026 TBAEE Annual Grant – Engineering.”
Catherine Kendall and Jessica Etheredge (Interior Design) have received $5,232 from the Tennessee Board of Architectural and Engineering Examiners for the project entitled, “2026 TBAEE – Interior Design.”
Austin Harris, Dr. Mina Sartipi, Dr. Mohamed Fadul, and Yasir Hassan (CUIP) have received $10,000 from the University of Tennessee Research Foundation for the project entitled, “Network-V2X Enabled Cloud-Based Digital Twin.”
Dr. Stephan Davenport and Dr. Spencer Usrey (Accounting), in collaboration with the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga, Inc., have received $20,000 from the US Internal Revenue Service for the project entitled, “2025-26 IRS/Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Matching Grant Program.”
Dr. Deborah McAllister, Dr. Jason Gordon, Dr. Jennifer Lynberg (School of Education), and Dr. Aniekan Ebiefung (Mathematics) have received $25,000 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “Track 2: Graduate Yearlong Experience and Residency for Acquiring STEM Teaching Competencies (GradYEAR).”
Good Luck!
The following UTC faculty and staff members submitted proposals for the potential to generate over $2,448,486 in external funding, if awarded:
Jami Hargrove (Student Health) has requested $3,500 from the American College Health Foundation for the project entitled, “Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) Navigation and Support Program.”
Dr. Khalid Tantawi (Electrical Engineering) has requested $7,999 from the American Society for Engineering Education for the project entitled, “Debunking Perpetual Motion Through A Sustainability-Integrated Motor-Generator Misconceptions Lab.”
Dr. Sarah Chehade (Quantum Center) has requested $43,745 from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the project entitled, “2026 ORNL JFA.”
Dr. Brian Choi (Mathematics) has requested $10,999 from the Korean-American Scientists and Engineers Association for the project entitled, “Rigorous numerics for complex systems: memory and uncertainty in nonlinear PDEs.”
Dr. Murat Barisik (Mechanical Engineering) has requested $700,000 from the North Carolina State University for the project entitled, “GCR: Converging Interfacial Water Physics and Thermal Transport to Enable Sustained Dropwise Condensation.”
Dr. Elizabeth Olson (Geosciences) has requested $5,000 from the Oak Ridge Associated Universities for the project entitled, “Partitioning Groundwater Recharge and Storage in the Obar Springs Karst Watershed Through Surface-Subsurface Monitoring and Modeling.”
Nyssa Hunt and Charles Mix (Center for Applied Geospatial Data Science (CAGDS)) have requested $44,243 from the Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership for the project entitled, “National Aquatic Connectivity Mapping (Phase 3).”
Charles Mix and Laura Lee (Center for Applied Geospatial Data Science (CAGDS)) have requested $18,270 from the Tennessee Department of Transportation for the project entitled, “TDOT Collaboratory Proposal: A Shared Online Environment for Geospatial Data Collection and Analysis.”
Dr. Aruna Ranhotige (Computer Science and Engineering) has requested $350,000 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “Collaborative Research: SaTC 2.0: RES: Cross-Layer Side-Channel Leakage Assessment of AI Accelerators.”
Dr. Mina Sartipi and Austin Harris (CUIP) have requested $551,831 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “ART Track 2: GROW: IMPACT (Innovation Maturation, Partnership Acceleration, and Cultivating Tech-Entrepreneurships).”
Dr. Serkan Varol, Dr. Gokhan Erdemir, Dr. Erkan Kaplanoglu (Engineering Management and Technology), and Dr. Dalei Wu (Computer Science and Engineering) have requested $399,805 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “Bridging No-Code Analytics and Python: A No-Code-Plus Track for Low-Computing Students.”
Dr. Shahnewaz Karim Sakib and Dr. Mengjun Xie (Computer Science and Engineering) have requested $313,094 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “SaTC 2.0: RES: Measurable and Deployable Privacy Guarantees for Black-Box, Tool-Augmented AI Assistants under Imperfect Adversary Knowledge.”