“The big goal is to raise awareness of engineering opportunities at Tennessee for these students,” said Engineering Diversity Program Director Travis Griffin. “A major part of that is showing them the kinds of things that they will be working on and the kind of people they will be working with.”

“Exascale computing (capable of one quintillion floating point operations per second) will enable us to solve problems in ways that are not feasible today and will result in significant scientific breakthroughs,” said Dongarra, of the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

One of the fastest growing graduate programs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has again risen in the 2015 U.S. News and World Report graduate rankings released today. UT’s graduate program in nuclear engineering now ranks fifth among all universities in the nation.

With more than $56 million in research gifts, grants, and contracts (many of them focused on energy research), the college is committed to innovation in the energy market.

Students pursuing this degree complete the sixteen-course, four-semester program as an ensemble, attending all-day Friday classes not held on the university campus.

Suresh Babu, UT–Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair for Advanced Manufacturing, and a team of faculty, will help lead UT’s research effort in the $140 million Detroit-based institute, called the Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation, or LM3I—one of two institutes announced today.

David Goddard, formerly of the Knoxville News Sentinel, has joined the College of Engineering as coordinator of media relations, where he will focus on media placement for engineering research, faculty, students, and outreach.

He will serve as Governor’s Chair for Biorefining, based in UT’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering with a complementary appointment in the UT Institute of Agriculture’s Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries.

Election to the NAE is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to engineering research, practice or education and to the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing and implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.

Tarrick Love, a 1997 mechanical engineering graduate, will be one of twelve cast members to enlist in a high-pressure competition designed to push the contestants’ creative reach. The show premieres at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on March 23 on NBC.