January 2026 Sponsored Program Activity

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.”