Congratulations!
The following UTC Faculty and Staff have attracted $536,900 in external grant and contract awards:
Sean O’Brien and Benjamin Chassen (Campus Law Enforcement), in collaboration with the Financial Commission for Appalachia HIDTA have received $19,000 from the US Executive Department for the project entitled, “Annual Drug Enforcement Administration State and Local Task Force Agreement.”
Dr. Donald Reising and Dr. Joshua Tyler (Electrical Engineering), in collaboration with SRI International, have received $216,810 from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the project entitled, “2025 IARPA End-Gen-TA2.”
Dr. Kimberly Wingate and Dr. Stephanie Brennan (School of Education) have received $301,090 from the Tennessee Department of Education for the project entitled, “UTC Registered Teacher Apprenticeship Program (RTAP) Expansion Grant Application.”
Good Luck!
The following UTC faculty and staff members submitted proposals for the potential to generate over $33,184,896 in external funding, if awarded:
Dr. Yukun Yuan (Computer Science and Engineering), in collaboration with Central State University, has requested $121,505 from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture for the project entitled, “A Low-cost Precision Weed Management System for Small-scale Farmers: AI-powered Approach to Video-based Drone Scouting & Targeted Spraying.”
Dr. Yukun Yuan and Dr. Zihao Wang (Computer Science and Engineering), in collaboration with Central State University, have requested $187,085 from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture for the project entitled, “From Mites to Models: An AI-Powered Imaging Platform for Rapid Mite Detection and Data Science Training.”
Dr. Ryan Zwart, Dr. Andrew Bailey, and Dr. Eric Hungenberg (Health & Human Performance) have requested $5,310 from the City of Chattanooga for the project entitled, “2026-27 City of Chattanooga Department of Parks and Outdoors (Outdoor Chattanooga) Placer.Ai Visitation Reporting.”
Dr. Donald Reising (Electrical Engineering), in collaboration with Florida State University, has requested $60,000 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “Collaborative Research: Sub-Shot-Noise Limited Distributed Quantum Sensing on a Commercial Metropolitan-Scale Quantum Network via Deep Learning Aided Noise Suppression.”
Dr. Samuel David (Chemistry) has requested $332,733 from the National Institutes of Health for the project entitled, “A New Kinase-Substrate Interaction at an Old Node.”
Dr. Shaogang Ren, Dr. Yu Liang (Computer Science and Engineering), Dr. Gregory Heath (Health and Human Performance), and Dr. Jin Wang (Mathematics) have requested $513,599 from the National Institutes of Health for the project entitled, “Causal Learning for Epidemiological Modeling and Intervention Optimization under Uncertainty.”
Dr. Zihao Wang (Computer Science and Engineering), in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital, has requested $107,050 from the National Institutes of Health for the project entitled, “CT-Centered Missingness-Aware Multimodal AI for Dynamic Risk Assessment of Severe Cerebral Edema and Neurologic Recovery After Cardiac Arrest.”
Dr. Shahnewaz Karim Sakib (Computer Science and Engineering) has requested $7,000 from the OpenMined Foundation for the project entitled, “Attention Head Compression for Efficient Answer Verification and Model Routing.”
Dr. Jason Miller (Psychology) has requested $49,711 from the Russell Sage Foundation for the project entitled, “Muslim Immigration and Symbolic Threat: A Cyclical Relationship with Christian Nationalism.”
Latisha Hubbard (Student Conduct & SOS) has requested $6,600 from the Swipe Out Hunger for the project entitled, “Scrappy’s Cupboard Food Pantry.”
Dr. Mina Sartipi and Dr. Rick Mukherjee (Quantum Center), in collaboration with the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, have requested $29,018,214 from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development for the project entitled, “Quantum Infrastructure for Commercialization and Knowledge (QUICK) – Equipping Researchers and Industry with Shared Access to Next-Generation Capabilities.”
Dr. Venkateswara Kode (Civil and Chemical Engineering) has requested $20,000 from the University of Tennessee Research Foundation for the project entitled, “Humidity-Regulated Sorbent Wheel for Direct Air Capture.”
Dr. Weidong Wu and Dr. Ignatius Fomunung (Civil and Chemical Engineering) have requested $20,000 from the University of Tennessee Research Foundation for the project entitled, “Affordable Pavement Intelligence: From Real-Time Distress Detection to Maintenance Planning.”
Dr. Huu Hoang Nguyen and Dr. Mina Sartipi (CUIP), in collaboration with UrbisIQ LLC, have requested $70,000 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “SBIR Phase I: iCityGuardian – Language-Guided Cross-Camera Monitoring for Real-Time Incident Reconstruction.”
Dr. Abdul Ofoli and Dr. Moses Acquah (Electrical Engineering) have requested $195,802 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “ERI: Cell-Resolved Health Assessment with Robust, Generalizable, Calibrated Estimation for Lithium-Ion Batteries (CHARGE).”
Austin Harris (CUIP) has requested $736,127 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “AI-Infrastructure-Hubs: AI Tennessee-Scaling Statewide Compute Access for AI-Enabled Discovery.”
Dr. Gokhan Erdemir (Engineering Management and Technology) has requested $199,099 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “ERI: Detecting and Predicting Strategic Manipulation in Collaborative AI-Driven Robotic Systems.”
Dr. Lakmali Weerasena (Mathematics), Dr. Joey Shaw (Biology, Geology, and Environmental Science), and Nyssa Hunt (CAGDS) have requested $497,084 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “Predicting Invasive Plant Dynamics Through Integrated Ecological Learning and Spatial Modeling.”
Dr. Mohandas Pillai (Mathematics) has requested $83,117 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “Analysis: Soliton Dynamics in Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations Inspired by Physics.”
Dr. Rahul Jayan (Mechanical Engineering) has requested $199,833 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “ERI: From Single Atoms to Clusters: Nuclearity Dependent Ensemble Requirements for Discharge and Charge in Na-gas batteries.”
Dr. Serkan Varol (Engineering Management and Technology) has requested $158,167 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “ERI: Cognitive Workload and Visual Attention During Digital-Twin Manufacturing Disruptions.”
Dr. Surya Ayalasomayajula (Mechanical Engineering) has requested $197,555 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “ERI: Network-Coupled Physics-Preserving Models for Predictive Battery Management and Second-Life Assessment.”
Dr. Vahid Rasouli Disfani (Computer Science and Engineering) and Dr. Moses Acquah (Electrical Engineering) have requested $199,937 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “ERI: Physics-Grounded, Calibrated Battery Health Inference from Field Operation: Condition-Invariant Features, Degradation-Mode Transfer, & Coverage-Guaranteed Lifecycle Decisions.”
Dr. Venkatesh Pulletikurthi (Mechanical Engineering) has requested $199,368 from the National Science Foundation for the project entitled, “ERI: From Real-Time Data to Predictive Intelligence: Parametric Identification for Data-Integrated Low-Order Modeling of Urban Canopy.”