Megan Cales presents her “Brooks Band” innovation at the 2025 Spring Research and Arts Conference. Photo by Angela Foster.
Small amounts of early funding are often what determine whether a research idea moves forward or loses momentum.
At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, that push comes from the MOCS Innovate! The Harris Chair Seed Fund for Innovation award, a mini-grant program that—for the past five years—hasprovided seed funding to UTC researchers working to develop their work into real inventions.
“This comes out of an intentional effort on the part of several of us to create a research commercialization program here at UTC,” said Dr. Thomas Lyons, the Clarence E. Harris Chair of Excellence in Entrepreneurship in the Gary W. Rollins College of Business. “Six years ago, there was no such program. We were seeing researchers struggling with what they were supposed to do.”
Lyons said faculty members who submitted invention disclosures to external offices often received rejections and little guidance on next steps, “and then they just give up because there was nobody there to help them. So it was off to the next invention, the next bit of research.”
That is why Lyons and his team worked with campus leaders to create the award, funded through the Harris Chair’s charitable endowment.
This year, five faculty members received MOCS Innovate! awards ranging from $3,500 to $4,000.
Lyons said the goal is to move in where larger investors typically will not.
“This is where the risk is highest,” he said. “We’re stepping in and saying, ‘We believe in you. Take it as far as you can.’”
Here is a look at the 2026 MOCS Innovate! awardees.
Megan Cales, coordinator of career engagement in the Decosimo Success Center, Gary W. Rollins College of Business
Megan Cales is continuing the development of the Brooks Band, a wearable device designed to help individuals who struggle with voice volume regulation due to autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or hearing impairments.
The device provides discreet haptic feedback when a wearer’s voice exceeds appropriate levels, helping build awareness without drawing attention or relying on external correction. Feedback from students, families and educators has helped shape the design as the project has progressed.
Since receiving the earlier MOCS Innovate! support, Cales said the Brooks Band team has built a working prototype, completed extensive customer discovery interviews, filed a provisional patent and connected with schools and therapy centers interested in pilot testing.
With the award, the team will refine the device by adding a clip-on microphone to improve voice capture accuracy and prepare for user testing in partnership with UTC’s Biomechatronics and Assistive Technology Lab, housed in the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
Dr. Medhi Khaleghian, postdoctoral research fellow, Center for Urban Informatics and Progress
Dr. Medhi Khaleghian’s project focuses on using drone technology to improve how cities and agricultural systems collect and interpret data.
His work involves developing a multispectral drone system designed to enhance urban infrastructure monitoring and agricultural intelligence. By integrating advanced sensing capabilities, the system aims to support more efficient analysis across complex environments.
The award will allow Khaleghian, who received his Ph.D. in computer science from UTC in May 2025, to continue developing and testing the technology as it moves closer to application.
Dr. Shahnewaz Karim Sakib, assistant professor, College of Engineering and Computer Science
For Dr. Shahnewaz Karim Sakib, the first weeks of the semester often come with competing demands, including teaching, research and the administrative burden of assessment and accreditation documentation.
That experience led him to develop an AI-based system designed to streamline course design and accreditation workflows. The platform acts as a purpose-built “AI co-pilot,” generating syllabi, learning outcomes, rubrics and weekly schedules from short prompts while automatically aligning materials with accreditation requirements.
“At its core, the project shifts faculty effort from paperwork to pedagogy, while making accreditation, accessibility and privacy more reliable and transparent,” Sakib said.
The system also maintains a detailed audit trail, allowing instructors and reviewers to see exactly how learning outcomes map to assessments and why each alignment was made.
With MOCS Innovate! funding, Sakib will continue refining the platform to support accreditation reporting, annual reviews and broader curriculum assessment needs.
Dr. Maged Shoman, research assistant professor, UT–Oak Ridge Innovation Institute, Center for Urban Informatics and Progress
Dr. Maged Shoman’s project addresses what is often called the “last-mile” problem in urban logistics, the most expensive and environmentally taxing part of grocery delivery.
Rather than relying on large trucks navigating residential streets, Shoman proposes a network of smart microhubs. Mobile, autonomous pods stocked with high-demand items would temporarily park in neighborhoods, where small electric delivery robots would handle final deliveries to customers’ doorsteps.
With support from the award, the project is moving from computer simulations to physical hardware, allowing Shoman to begin testing real-world feasibility.
Dr. Weidong Wu, professor of civil engineering, College of Engineering and Computer Science
For Dr. Weidong Wu, accreditation reporting represents a significant drain on faculty time and energy.
Wu is developing a web-based platform that automates ABET course assessment reporting, replacing fragile, manual workflows with stable tools that generate statistical analyses, visualizations and submission-ready reports.
Built using R Shiny and Quarto, the system also allows faculty to merge reports with supporting materials such as syllabi and student work into a single PDF, reducing a process that can take hours to just a few steps.
The MOCS Innovate! award will support further development of the platform as Wu works to improve consistency, reliability and efficiency in accreditation documentation.
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Lyons said the program also supports paid positions held by students in the Gary W. Rollins College of Business, who are hired to work with awardees on customer discovery and market research to help the researchers better understand who their potential users are.
“This has evolved over time,” Lyons said. “It went from being just a grant. Now I pay students to work for the researchers.”
He shared that in recent years, the program has also allowed awardees to present their work at UTC’s annual Spring Research and Arts Conference, where they can share their prototypes and early concepts.
These opportunities and this kind of funding, Lyons said, can support researchers as they move to the next stage of their projects, when the path forward is usually most uncertain.
“It’s about helping people learn how to create value,” he said.
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