Cluster Hire Initiative

The university has announced the creation of the Cluster Hire Initiative. This new initiative is a $50 million-funded project to tackle seven areas through cross-discipline related research that it has identified as grand challenges: Bioinformatics, Genomics, and Quantitative-based Solutions for Food Security; Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry; Food and Nutrition Security; Foundational Artificial Intelligence: Closing the Gap to Human Intelligence; Future Mobility; Precision Health and Environment; and Science-informed Artificial Intelligence.

The college is playing a major role in six of the seven initiatives. Check out the initiatives the college will be participating in below:

Future Mobility

Hiring Colleges: Tickle College of Engineering; College of Arts and Sciences; Haslam College of Business; Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy

Cluster Lead: Kevin Heaslip (CEE)

Complementary Initiatives and Resources: Center for Transportation Research, Future Mobility; AI Tennessee; Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing

Goals:

  • Explore, invent and validate new technologies, processes, systems, and services that are responsive to mobility consumer and industry needs;
  • Strengthen UT’s and Tennessee’s mobility innovation ecosystem, increasing the supply of serial entrepreneurs, enabling the establishment of new high-growth companies, and attracting and retaining existing companies;
  • Prepare current and future generations of workers to contribute to Tennessee’s mobility economy, providing inclusive access to education and training opportunities that also allow workers to reskill and upskill as the technological landscape evolves; and,
  • Create shared R&D testbeds and facilities that support developing and deploying cutting-edge mobility solutions in real-world environments.

TCE Involvement: CEE, EECS, ISE, MABE

Foundational Artificial Intelligence: Closing the Gap to Human Intelligence

Hiring Colleges: Tickle College of Engineering; College of Arts and Sciences

Cluster Lead: Hairong Qi (EECS)

Complementary Initiatives and Resources: AI Tennessee, Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education

Goals:

  • Build a machine that performs cognitive functions that are more associated with humans, such as thinking, learning, problem solving and reasoning;
  • Develop AI solutions inspired by cognitive neuroscience with a strong focus on dynamic learning, a cornerstone of human intelligence;
  • Enable a comprehensive investigation of learning dynamics from the developmental, functional, mathematical and implementation perspectives.

TCE Involvement: EECS, MABE

Precision Health and Environment

Hiring Colleges: College of Nursing; Tickle College of Engineering; College of Communication and Information; College of Arts and Sciences; UT Institute of Agriculture, College of Veterinary Medicine

Cluster Leads: Tami Wyatt (Nursing) and Chris Cox (CEE)

Complementary Initiatives and Resources: AI Tennessee; Center of Excellence in Livestock Diseases and Human Health; Genomics Center for the Advancement of Agriculture; National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis; One Health Initiative; UT Graduate School of Medicine; Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Goals:

  • Build on UT’s strengths in domain-specific data collection, analysis and modeling, and decision-making;
  • Integrate campus expertise in community engagement and enhance UT’s capacity to study the connections between environment and human health and wellness through advanced data analytics and precision health;
  • Further explore the link between exposure to environmental conditions and human health, including vector-borne diseases, infectious diseases, cardiac conditions, respiratory conditions, mental health conditions and cancers;
  • Develop a nuanced understanding of health and wellness issues specific to environmental and socio-economic conditions in Tennessee and rural Appalachia.

TCE Involvement: CEE, EECS, ISE

Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry

Hiring Colleges: UT Institute of Agriculture; Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy; Tickle College of Engineering

Cluster Lead: Jie Zhuang

Complementary Initiatives and Resources: AI Tennessee

Goals:

  • Continue to help innovative technologies such as telecommunications, artificial intelligence, advanced sensor technology, real-time aerial imaging, and autonomous mechanical agricultural platforms evolve;
  • Further the expansion of policies and markets for ecosystem services providing the financial certainty and know-how to hasten the diffusion of these technologies;
  • Combine experimental data with data science at the intersection of agriculture, forestry, engineering and economics;
  • Help farm and forestry enterprises adapt to climate change.

TCE Involvement: EECS, ISE

Science-informed Artificial Intelligence

Hiring Colleges: College of Arts and Sciences; Tickle College of Engineering

Cluster Lead: Vasileios Maroulas

Complementary Initiatives and Resources: AI Tennessee; UT Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing; UT–Oak Ridge Innovation Institute; UT Space Institute

Goals:

  • Expand Tennessee’s growth as high-tech hotbed with some of the most sophisticated manufacturing facilities in the world, particularly in the area of advanced materials and manufacturing;
  • Support the intelligent engineering systems in generating a rich library of complex data that persistently challenges the current state of the art in artificial intelligence;
  • Develop foundational multiscale, multimodal models for artificial intelligence that respect the various physical laws and the chemical properties that govern the underlying process
  • Optimize scientific and mathematical AI for intelligent engineering systems, particularly for additive manufacturing and hypersonic defense systems.

TCE Involvement: ISE, MABE

Bioinformatics, Genomics, and Quantitative-based Solutions for Food Security

Hiring Colleges: UT Institute of Agriculture; College of Arts and Sciences; Tickle College of Engineering

Cluster Lead: DeWayne Shoemaker

Complementary Initiatives and Resources: AI Tennessee, OneHealth Initiative, Plant Research Center

Goals:

  • Develop, harness, and apply new technologies to address threats to global food security;
  • Perform interdisciplinary research supporting the sustainable intensification of agriculture to optimize productivity and land and resource use;
  • Develop climate-resilient crops (often described as precision or digital agriculture;
  • Overcome challenge of relating data-driven solutions and gaining societal understanding and acceptance of new approaches;
  • Coordinate diverse skills and expertise and integrate several disciplines and technologies to address this urgent need and make a marked impact.

TCE Involvement: EECS, ISSE