Dr. Sartipi named to prestigious center for energy, engineering and computation research

Dr. Mina Sartipi has been named a member of the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education, the first UTC faculty member to earn the honor.

The Bredesen Center, located at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, partners with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to research energy, engineering and computation and possibly find solutions to challenges within the industries

Sartipi is Technology Program Leader at the SimCenter and a UC Foundation professor in urban science in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Dr. John P. Zomchick, interim provost and senior vice chancellor at the University of Tennessee, said Sartipi’s credentials were “found to be of the high caliber that is appropriate for the innovative and interdisciplinary doctoral program in energy science and engineering, and/or data science and engineering.”

The center has 140 faculty members whose expertise spans such areas as biofuels, nuclear and renewable energy, advanced manufacturing and health, climate and environmental sciences.

Sartipi calls her appointment to the center “very exciting” and says her goal is to grow the collaborations between UTC and other UT System programs “as well as growing our Ph.D. program.”

She and Dr. Joseph Kizza, head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, have been working together to create a joint Ph.D. program in Data Science and Engineering for about two years, she says. As a faculty member at the Bredesen Center, “I can potentially teach—online or face-to-face—and advise students. This will provide more opportunities for UTC to grow our Ph.D. program.”

Sartipi has been closely involved with Chattanooga’s “Smart City” initiative, an effort to use the city’s 10-gigabit fiber-optics network to, among other things, control traffic flow, conserve energy and make city services more efficient. She says she’ll use Smart Cities as an “advertising” tool when trying to attract new students to the Bredesen Center, “but it won’t be limited to that.”