Who We Are

UTC Solar Decathlon is an interdisciplinary student organization with undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC). We compete in the international, Department of Energy-sponsored and Orange County (CA) sponsored Solar Decathlon competitions that challenge college students worldwide to design and build high-performance, low-carbon buildings that mitigate climate change and improve our quality of life through greater affordability, resilience, and energy efficiency.

Our history begins in early 2019, when “Dr. Sungwoo Yang, an assistant professor in the Civil and Chemical Engineering department founded UTC Solar Decathlon inspired by his renewable energy research.[1] Dr. SeongDae Kim in the Engineering Management Department and Dr. Eun-Young Kim in the Interior Architecture and Design department joined the team as co-faculty advisors in early 2021. In 2022, Dr. Thomas Lyons in the College of Business joined the team as co-faculty advisor. Philip Bonfiglio, the Director of Development, joined the team in 2022 and has been playing a key role on fundraising. We plan to recruit more key members from other departments at UTC and local building industries in upcoming years.