Oak Ridge Today

Urban design leader named newest UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair

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Phil Enquist

Phil Enquist

KNOXVILLE—Philip Enquist, partner in charge of urban design and planning and leader of the City Design Practice at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, has been named the 16th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill is one of the world’s leading urban planning, architecture, and engineering firms, a press release said.

Enquist and a select research team will serve as Governor’s Chair for High Performance Energy Practices in Urban Environments and will be affiliated with and administer projects through the UT College of Architecture and Design.

The Governor’s Chair team will be a research partnership among many designers at the firm who specialize in sustainable urbanism and high-performance buildings. Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill’s City Design Practice is the world’s most highly awarded urban planning group.

The contract between ORNL, UT, and the design firm is pending, the press release said. [Read more…]

Energy Secretary Moniz to give lecture on energy, environment at UT on Friday

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Ernest Moniz

Ernest Moniz

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will give a lecture on energy and the environment at the University of Tennessee on Friday. It’s free and open to the public, a press release said.

Moniz will also talk about the U.S. Department of Energy and its activities in Tennessee, a press release said.

It’s the Baker Distinguished Lecture on Energy and the Environment, and it’s scheduled from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Friday at the UT College of Law, Room 132. Overflow seating will be available in Room 135, and the event will be streamed live here.

The College of Law is at at 1505 W. Cumberland Ave. in Knoxville. Paid public parking will be available in the Volunteer Hall Garage. A map of campus is available at utk.edu/maps. [Read more…]

Fifth in nation: UT graduate program in nuclear engineering

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The graduate program in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville has risen to fifth place among all universities in the country, according to the 2015 U.S. News and World Report graduate rankings released last week.

Nuclear engineering ranked sixth in the nation in last year’s list. In a press release, the University of Tennessee said it’s one of the college’s fastest growing graduate programs.

The College of Engineering’s overall graduate program also climbed to 36th among all public universities, moving up three spots since last year, the UT press release said. [Read more…]

UT names bioenergy expert as 14th UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair

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Art Ragauskas

Arthur Ragauskas

KNOXVILLE—Arthur Ragauskas, an authority in bioenergy, has been named the 14th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair.

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.

He will also serve in the Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate, Biosciences Division, at ORNL and as a member of the U.S. Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center, or BESC.

Ragauskas begins at UT on June 1. [Read more…]

Oak Ridge college senior one of only seven Rhodes Scholars from UT

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Lindsay Lee

Lindsay Lee

The Oak Ridge college senior who was named a Rhodes Scholar this past weekend is one of only seven University of Tennessee students who have received the honor in more than a century, officials said Monday.

Lindsay E. Lee is a UT senior studying math and Spanish. She is the oldest daughter of Julie Lee and Joe Lee, a member of the Oak Ridge Building and Housing Code Appeals who frequently participates at Oak Ridge City Council meetings and once ran for a seat on Anderson County Commission.

UT said the Rhodes Scholarship, which has an average value of about $50,000 per year, is the most prestigious international award a student can earn. Lee was one of 32 American recipients chosen from 857 students endorsed by 327 colleges and universities across the country. [Read more…]

Intel funding for UT will develop codes, open computing center at joint UT-ORNL institute

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Joint Institute for Computational Sciences

The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is pictured above. (Photo courtesy of ORNL)

KNOXVILLE—Imagine going to the doctor and the doctor peering into your genetic code to determine the best medicine to treat what ails you.

The University of Tennessee in Knoxville has received funding from computer chip maker Intel to develop computer codes to make personalized medicine like this and other transformative scientific discoveries possible.

The funding will open an Intel Parallel Computing Center at the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences, or JICS, at UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Parallel computing, used in supercomputers, is a form of computation in which many calculations are carried out simultaneously. The focus of the center will be to take supercomputing to the next level to meet scientific computing demands. Today’s research faces limitations due to the amount of data, time, and energy it takes to run calculations. [Read more…]

UT names nuclear materials expert as 13th UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair

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Steve Zinkle

Steve Zinkle

KNOXVILLE—Steve Zinkle, an authority on the effect of radiation on materials in fission and fusion nuclear reactors, has been named the thirteenth University of Tennessee–Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair.

Zinkle will serve as Governor’s Chair for Nuclear Materials, based in the department of nuclear engineering at UT with a complementary appointment in materials science and engineering. He begins at UT on Oct. 1. [Read more…]

Personal computer inventor to join UT College of Engineering faculty

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Mark Dean

Mark Dean, co-inventor of the personal computer, will join the faculty of the College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville this fall. (Submitted photo)

KNOXVILLE—Mark Dean, co-inventor of the personal computer, will join the faculty of the College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville this fall.

Dean arrives at UT from IBM, where he most recently served as chief technology officer for IBM Middle East and Africa, based in Dubai.

He begins on Sept. 1 as the John Fisher Distinguished Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. [Read more…]

UT names advanced manufacturing expert as Governor’s Chair with ORNL

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Sudarsanam Suresh Babu

Sudarsanam Suresh Babu

Sudarsanam Suresh Babu, an authority in the production, design, and performance of transforming materials into parts, has been named the 11th University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair.

Babu will serve as Governor’s Chair for Advanced Manufacturing. He begins on July 1.

Babu, a professor in the Welding Engineering Program in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at The Ohio State University, directed a National Science Foundation Industry and University Cooperative Research center focused on materials joining for energy applications. [Read more…]

UT named a ‘Best Value’ public college by Princeton Review

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KNOXVILLE—The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, consistently delivers an affordable, high quality education and offers plenty of opportunities to engage its students, according to the Princeton Review’s 2013 Best Value survey.

UT was ranked today among the top 75 public colleges and universities in the Princeton Review’s “Best Value Colleges for 2013” edition. The ranking compares 30 data points of public and private schools that include cost, financial aid, and other student and academic metrics. The top colleges and universities were selected from more than 650 institutions.

[Read more…]