A press conference announcing the launch of the UTC Research Institute took place Monday, May 1, at the Multidisciplinary Research Building. Dr. Mina Sartipi was named executive director of the institute. Photo by Angela Foster.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is establishing the UTC Research Institute as a strategic initiative launched to pursue increased research funding, interdisciplinary collaboration across campus, and support for community and local industry priorities.
On Monday, May 1, Chancellor Steven R. Angle introduced the new initiative at the Multidisciplinary Research Building on the UTC campus—where UTC Research Institute will be headquartered.
The Research Institute will be led by Dr. Mina Sartipi, founding director of the UTC Center for Urban Informatics and Progress (CUIP) and Guerry Professor of computer science and engineering. Dr. Sartipi, whose title will be executive director of the institute, also holds a joint appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“This new institute will help UTC move forward and realize our research goals,” Angle said. “The heart of the UTC Research Institute is impactful and broad cross-disciplinary research that will help fast-track Chattanooga’s place as a hub for mobility electrifications, connectivity and automation.
“Dr. Mina Sartipi will shine in her new role. Dr. Sartipi and the CUIP team’s history of innovative, cutting-edge research and cooperative teamwork illustrates how UTC is preparing our community for the future.”
The Research Institute will narrow and intensify the University’s focus on strategic areas of research funding. Two initial focus areas are transportation (intelligent transportation systems, electric vehicle and battery technologies, human factor, automation, multimodal systems, policy and planning, cyber security, privacy and infrastructure) and quantum technologies (computing, sensing and networks).
“Dr. Mina Sartipi is an incredible scientist, scholar, leader and educator who has maximized every opportunity to engage students, the campus community and the surrounding community in finding solutions to real-world problems,” said UTC Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of the Graduate School Joanne Romagni. “As executive director of our new Research Institute, she will place the University in a better competitive position to pursue research funding and will position research teams to make greater scientific, technical, societal and economic impacts.”
The UTC Research Institute’s approach to pursuing community- and funding-driven research areas is intended to expand resources and opportunities across campus and disciplines, engaging scholars whose expertise can bring needed interdisciplinary depth to fully exploring solutions to complex problems.
“It has been gratifying to observe UTC’s level of research rise and make a dramatic impact on the community, but this is only the start,” said Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Jerold L. Hale. “A focal point of the new UTC Research Institute will be to promote interdisciplinary research involving faculty and staff from across the University. That interdisciplinary approach will promote strategic research growth to benefit not only the Chattanooga community but the region, the state and the country.”
The new institute will be the home of the UTC Center of Excellence in Applied Computational Science and Engineering and CUIP.
According to Sartipi, federal agencies like the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, the National Science Foundation and others are increasingly financing research projects that use a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional approach to solving highly complex problems.
“Having teams from across campus involved in problem-solving positions UTC to be more competitive when pursuing research funding and will create a more substantial and broader impact from our research,” Sartipi said.
UTC Research Institute will be charged with:
- Engaging all colleges and departments in defining ambitious outcomes that one or two departments can’t achieve
- Managing relationships with funding agencies and mentoring faculty to assume these roles
- Developing and/or ensuring access to cross-cutting capabilities such as high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), data engineering and economic analyses
- Developing research facilities and testbeds
- Developing strategic partnerships, possibly evolving into new centers
- Engaging the community
In August 2022, a proposal submitted by Chattanooga’s Smart City program and developed by CUIP won $9.2 million in funding—$4.5 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation and $4.7 million from industry partners, UTC, Chattanooga city government and EPB. The funding, the single-largest of its kind in UTC history, is creating a networked system making Chattanooga home to the nation’s largest electric vehicle “living testbed.”
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More on Mina Sartipi
Dr. Mina Sartipi
Dr. Mina Sartipi joined UTC as an assistant professor of computer science in 2006 after earning a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering from Georgia Tech University, where she also earned a master’s degree in 2003. She received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, in 2001.
Sartipi was designated as a UC Foundation Professor and a Guerry Professor at UTC in 2015 and 2020, respectively; was named as a faculty member of the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education—jointly operated by the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)—in 2018; and was awarded a joint faculty appointment at ORNL in 2023.
Sartipi has led research funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Energy, U. S. Department of Transportation, the state of Tennessee, Lyndhurst Foundation and industry organizations. These projects focused on data-driven approaches to tackling real-world challenges in smart city applications directed at mobility, energy, and health. At CUIP, she has coordinated cross-disciplinary research and strategic visions for urbanism and smart city advancement focused on people and quality of life.
Sartipi serves on various technical program committees for national workshops and conferences on topics related to AI and smart city operations. She was named a 2019 Chattanooga Influencer by a local business magazine, Edge, and is the recipient of several University awards and honors, including the 2016 UTC Outstanding Faculty Research and Creative Achievement award. She was named the best researcher in her department in 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2022. In conjunction with the City of Chattanooga and The Enterprise Center, Sartipi has won Smart 50 awards from 2020-2022—honoring the year’s 50-most transformative smart technology projects—from the Smart Cities Connect organization.
She has delivered various keynote speeches and presentations, including to the U.S. Congressional Caucus on Smart Cities, at Smart Cities Connect conferences, and the National Transportation Training Directors organization. In 2020, she delivered an invited TEDx Talk presentation, “Leveraging Big Data for a Better Tomorrow.”
Sartipi has been a senior member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers since 2016 and serves as a member of the board of directors for multiple startup and non-profit organizations, including EPB, The Enterprise Center of Chattanooga, Chattanooga Urban Studio, and Thrive Regional Partnership, GridMatrix, Variable, Inc, and MoHuman.
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UTC Research Institute photo gallery
