Latest News

Trinh, Zhang Awarded Chancellor’s Innovation Fund Awards

Professors Cong Trinh and Feng-Yuan Zhang have received Chancellor’s Innovation Fund awards for projects involving the biomanufacturing of natural butyl acetate and the development of a new electrode technology.
Alumna Buckner Honored with Future Technology Leader Award

Meg Buckner (BS/MAE ’24) received the Future Technology Leader Award from the Engineers’ Council during National Engineers Week in Sherman Oaks, California in late February.
Kurr Honored with Trailblazer Award

Amy Kurr has been selected as this year’s recipient of the Trailblazer Award, which is the highest doctoral student honor conferred by the University of Tennessee. Kurr is pursuing her PhD through the Bredesen Center in Energy Science and Engineering with a focus on polymer engineering. Her research within the Center for Renewable Carbon at the UT Institute of Agriculture focuses on the degradation and decomposition of electrical…
Isaacs Selected for Reputable NASA Ames Internship

Christian Isaacs (BS/ME ’22; MS/ME ‘25), a fourth-year PhD student in mechanical engineering, has been selected for a prestigious internship at NASA Ames Research Center, where he will be working in the Arc Jet Complex on the second-generation miniature arc-jet research chamber (mARCII). Located in Moffett Field, California, which is 40 miles south of San Francisco, NASA Ames Research Center has led NASA in conducting…
Lockheed Martin Helps UT Launch Successful Hypersonics Senior Design Projects

In need of support for a senior design project in hypersonics, UT found an instrumental partner in Lockheed Martin. The relationship has the potential to become a national model for workforce development in the field.
Biomimetics Progress Gains International Attention

Sarles Speaks in Switzerland Three years ago, Andy Sarles embarked on a $4 million grant from the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research to push the frontiers of biotechnological integration. “Our main goal is to understand how to design new types of sensing and computing technologies from material interfaces that can process information the same way the cells in…
Advancing Hydrogen Generation and Energy Storage Through Next-Generation Electrolyzers

MAE Professor Feng-Yuan Zhang and Research Assistant Professor Weitian Wang are re-engineering the proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer to its electrode core.
TerMaath Awarded AIAA ICME Prize for Groundbreaking Research

Associate Professor Stephanie TerMaath was part of a multi-disciplinary project that received the 2026 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) Prize for groundbreaking work on adhesively bonded composite and metallic joints, which are critical for naval and aerospace applications. The AIAA ICME Prize is a biennial award given to the best aerospace-focused ICME project. TerMaath was honored at the AIAA SciTech award ceremony in January for…
Singh Named Associate Editor of ASME Journal

Assistant Professor Prashant Singh has been named an associate editor for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Journal of Thermal Science and Engineering Applications. The bimonthly journal focuses on the dissemination of information of permanent interest in applied thermal sciences and engineering, emphasizing new and emerging technologies, significant questions, pressing problems and concerns, and new methods and approaches that can be applied to industrial…
UT Hypersonics Team Captures National Title

The University of Tennessee’s Student Space Technology Association’s (SSTA) Hypersonics Team was crowned a national winner at the 2025 Undergraduate Hypersonic Flight Design Competition, run by the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics (UCAH). UT beat out a field of several university teams to advance to the semifinal round of eight schools from which UT was selected…