Dustin Gilmer was a PhD student at the University of Tennessee in Energy Science and Engineering when he first met Suresh Babu. Gilmer still remembers how Babu described being the director of the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education.
Babu told students he was the “bridge between UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.” Gilmer views his new role at UT in a similar vein.
Gilmer has joined the faculty as an assistant professor for the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI) with a home in the Department of Materials Science Engineering (MSE). He will have an office and lab at UT in Knoxville and an office and lab at UTSI in Tullahoma, Tennessee.
Gilmer has a background in additive manufacturing with a focus on extreme environmental materials processing. He will be teaching MSE’s principles and processing polymeric materials course this fall at UT.
Before taking his new job at UT, Gilmer was a post-doctoral fellow at UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute (UT-ORII) and worked out of the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL. Gilmer will continue to work at ORNL in some capacity as well.
“I like collaborating with other people. I think the collaboration is the best part of my role, because we can do more together than we can do apart,” Gilmer said. “Specifically, Oak Ridge has so many great resources and there’s some great resources in Tullahoma and, of course, Knoxville has amazing faculty, equipment, and resources too. Bringing that all together is what I’m super excited about.”
Gilmer will complement a lot of what the MSE faculty has already been doing while expanding into some new territory with his expertise in the polymer and processing side.
“MSE is very excited about Professor Gilmer joining our department. I actually helped hire Dustin while in a role at the University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute as I knew he had a bright future ahead of him,” said MSE Interim Department Head Philip Rack. “Dustin has a unique ability to understand and identify critical manufacturing issues and solve them. For a young researcher, his interests are very broad and touch polymers, ceramics and metals. We are also excited to grow our partnership with UTSI as many of the directions they are headed require advanced materials solutions.”
Homegrown material
Gilmer earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from East Tennessee State University. As a PhD student at UT, his studies focused on advanced manufacturing techniques and the interface of chemistry, materials science, energy, and manufacturing utilizing tools such as additive manufacturing, synthesis, and data science. Gilmer won an R&D 100 award in 2019 for his research titled “High Strength Binder System for Additive Manufacturing.”
Gilmer has worked with UT students on senior design projects in the past and is eager to interact with more daily during his classes.
“We have great professors that give students a really good background in metals and ceramics. I want to provide the same for polymers,” Gilmer said. “I want them to be able to come out of this program with enough of a background that if they want to pursue research and polymers or if they want to pursue some kind of industry job in the polymer industry that they can do that.”
Gilmer grew up in Blountville, Tennessee and was raised working on a cattle farm. He played football, basketball, and tennis in high school, and married his high school sweetheart, Danielle. They have a 2-year-old son, Oliver. Both sides of their families are avid UT sports fans.
“This was the dream job,” Gilmer said. “I get to come back to UT, where I got my degree and where my wife graduated from. We really love Knoxville, and we didn’t want to leave.”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey (865-974-0683, rpotkey@utk.edu)