Four new assistant professors are joining the University of Tennessee Space Institute this academic year, bolstering UTSI’s expertise in advanced alloys for extreme environments, diagnostic techniques for complex flow environments, analysis of the complex phenomena occurring in high-speed flow regimes, and risk analysis for nuclear power plants and other large, complex systems.
The new faculty members will be located at UTSI in Tullahoma while holding joint appointments with engineering departments located at UT’s flagship campus in Knoxville.
Jennifer Colborn
UTSI/Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Colborn joins UTSI after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where her research focused on non-intrusive diagnostics and data analysis in hypersonic environments. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and her master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Dayton. Colborn earned her PhD in mechanical engineering from Penn State University, studying heat transfer in reacting flows with a particular emphasis on radiation in gas turbine engines. At UTSI, she will continue advancing measurement and diagnostic techniques for complex flow environments.
“I am excited to join UT and continue providing meaningful measurements and insights into complex flow environments while educating and supporting students,” Colborn said. “I look forward to expanding my research, mentoring students, and contributing to the development of future flight systems.
Boris Leonov
UTSI/Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Leonov served as a research assistant professor at Texas A&M University before coming to UTSI. He received his PhD from Texas A&M and his bachelor’s degree from Purdue University, both in aerospace engineering. Leonov has received a few prestigious federal awards, including the Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP) award in 2024 and the SMART scholarship in 2020. In his current research, he focuses on developing and implementing novel laser-based diagnostics to study aerothermochemistry in reacting and hypersonic flows. A particular emphasis of Leonov’s research is on understanding and ultimately controlling the complex phenomena that occur in high-speed flow regimes, such as formation and dissociation of species, material degradation through ablation, and boundary layer transition.
“I am excited to join the UTSI/UT team and strive for academic excellence, following a famous quote from Galileo Galilei, who said that the ‘essence of science is to measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so,’” said Leonov. “I am curious what new things we will discover and learn tomorrow, illuminated by the cutting-edge diagnostic methods (at UTSI).”
Jennifer Schuler
UTSI/Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Schuler joins the UT system after serving as a teaching assistant professor and associate chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. She has also held engineering positions at IBM, GlobalFoundries, Apple, and the startup Foundation Alloy, where she developed advanced metallic materials and manufacturing technologies. Schuler earned her PhD in materials science and engineering from the University of California, Irvine, in 2019.
Schuler’s research focuses on designing advanced alloys for extreme environments, with applications in nuclear energy, aerospace, and other high-performance systems. Her research group combines alloy design, nanostructure engineering, and advanced manufacturing to develop materials capable of withstanding high temperatures, radiation, and other demanding operating conditions.
“UT’s commitment to collaborative research and innovation makes it an ideal place to advance new approaches for alloy design in extreme environments,” Schuler said. “I am excited to work with the incredible students and colleagues across the university to create materials that solve some of society’s most demanding engineering challenges.”
Joseph O’Leary
UTSI/Department of Nuclear Engineering
O’Leary will join UTSI in Spring 2027. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and master’s and doctoral degrees in reliability engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. His research focuses on computational methods for risk analysis, including dynamic probabilistic risk assessment. Such methods allow for more comprehensive modeling of complex failure behaviors in complex systems, such as strongly physics-dependent and operator-influenced system failures. He is particularly interested in risk analysis for large complex systems like nuclear power plants.
“I am excited to join the University of Tennessee because of its proximity to the many new and exciting developments in nuclear technology and its partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory,” O’Leary said. “I am excited to join the UT Space Institute in particular for the opportunities to work on interdisciplinary risk and reliability problems, especially in the aerospace field, where many risk problems involve highly physics-dependent system failures. I look forward to the opportunity to teach students, especially in the area of risk and reliability, because it is incredibly important to me that the next generation of engineers incorporate the lessons of past failures to protect the public good.”
Contact
Izzie Gall ([email protected])