UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute

09/14/2026

Congratulations to Sobhan Bahrami Zadegan, a Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education Genome Science & Technology student, for receiving the 2026 Robert and Karen Miller Outstanding Graduate Student Award from the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture!

Zadegan works in the Department of Plant Sciences, under the supervision of Tarek Hewezi, professor of Plant Molecular Biology. His research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying plant-pathogen interactions. He uses functional genomics, molecular biology, genome editing, and computational approaches to understand how plants respond to nematode infection and to identify genes and regulatory mechanisms involved in plant resistance.

Zadegan was presented with the award at UTIA’s annual Toast to Success and Fall Welcome Back Celebration for his dedication as a graduate research assistant and for playing a vital role in advancing UTIA’s mission.

Photo courtesy of the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.

09/09/2026

UT-ORII Circular Bioeconomy System’s Research Associate Professor Toby Nelson was part of a team of researchers from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory that made a scientific advancement by using a natural substance from fungi, called chitin, to create hydrogels that are both significantly stronger and tougher. This new material could lead to safer medical devices, longer-lasting coatings, and other innovations that improve everyday technology and health care.

Their study was published in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules and offers a fresh approach that could transform these types of materials used in medicine and engineering.

Read more:

Researchers at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, have made a scientific advance by using a natural substance from fungi, called chitin, to create hydrogels that are both significantly stronger and tougher. This new....

09/08/2026

Congratulations, 2026 R&D 100 Awardees!

The 2026 R&D Awards recognized 100 of the world's most significant new technologies. We're thrilled to celebrate a Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education Ph.D. student and several UT-ORNL joint researchers, faculty and mentors who contributed to this year's award-winning innovations.

Big congratulations to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for a record-setting year, earning 22 R&D 100 Awards - the most in its history.

From internationally recognized researchers to graduate students building their careers, we're incredibly proud to see these members of the UT-ORII community helping turn bold ideas into R&D 100 award-winning innovations.

Congratulations to:
Parans Paranthaman — ORNL distinguished corporate fellow and Bredesen Center professor and graduate adviser — named the 2026 R&D 100 Researcher of the Year

Yilu Liu — UT–ORNL Governor’s Chair for Power Grids and Bredesen Center faculty member — part of the award-winning Pulsar-Based Timing System team and now a six-time R&D 100 winner in seven years

Peter Fuhr, PhD — retired ORNL distinguished scientist and Bredesen Center Advisory Committee member — also part of the award-winning Pulsar-Based Timing System team

Umesh Marathe — UT–ORII assistant professor and Bredesen Center faculty member — contributed to two award-winning technologies, the Recycled Next Generation Composite Oven (ReNGCO) and Multiplexing Extrusion System (MExS)

Alex Ivanov — UT Knoxville assistant professor of nuclear engineering and Bredesen Center mentor — contributed to the award-winning Electrochemical CO2 Graphitization (ECOG) technology

William Doktycz — Bredesen Center Energy Science and Engineering PhD student — contributed to the award-winning Affordable Efficient Thermoelectric Dishwasher with Enhanced Drying

These awards are powerful examples of what UT-ORII was created to do: bring together the UT System and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to advance world-class research while preparing the next generation of our nation's top scientists and engineers.

Read more about our 2026 R&D 100 winners: https://utorii.com/congratulations-2026-rd-100-awardees/

University of Tennessee, Knoxville
UT President Randy Boyd
University of Tennessee Tickle College of Engineering

09/03/2026

Franklyn Ifegbo, a fourth-year Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education student in Energy Science and Engineering, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) travel fund to attend the North American Manufacturing Research Conference and the ASME International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference. The conference is a premier forum for advanced manufacturing research.

Ifegbo won the award with his project on the development of sustainable composites, specifically natural fiber polymer composites. His project involves transforming inherently discontinuous natural fibers into a mechanically continuous tow configuration. The developed material, the first of its kind, is designed to deliver performance and process benefits and to advance NFPCs.

09/01/2026

Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education's Energy Science and Engineering student Joslin Joshy’s “Harnessing biomass-derived reinforcements for sustainable flame-resistant composite” article was published in the June 2026 edition of Materials Today Communications. UT-ORII’s Assistant Research Professor Umesh Marathe and ORNL’s R&D Staff Scientist Cait Clarkson were corresponding authors on the article.

The article covers their study that tested whether two wood-industry by-products can work together to make plastic composites harder to burn. Wood fiber, sold commercially as TimberFill and treated with a small amount of boric acid, was formed into non-woven mats through a process akin to paper making. This was then molded with epoxy resin. Biochar, a charcoal-like material derived from wood waste, was added to the resin as an additive, influencing the composite’s performance properties.

The best combination tested used eight percent biochar and ten percent wood fiber with Epoxy. Compared with neat epoxy, this material burned about seventeen percent more slowly, was roughly a third stiffer, and stayed stable at slightly higher temperatures before softening. It also transferred heat about nine percent better. That helps because heat spreads out rather than building up in one spot, which lowers the chance of the material catching fire.

Boric acid provided a second softening effect. When heated, the material with ten percent wood fiber added expanded more than twice as much as neat epoxy. This suggests the resin molecules moved more freely, weakening the bonds between the resin and the fiber. Overall, these results demonstrate that wood industry by-products can be transformed into valuable composite ingredients. This offers an affordable and environmentally friendly alternative without compromising performance.

Read the full article here -https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352492826011657

08/31/2026

Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education's Energy Science and Engineering student Jihye Choi received a poster award from the North American Thermal Analysis (NATA) Symposium for her poster, Harnessing Transient and Self-healable Adhesion in Pressure-Sensitive Adhesives.

Choi’s research addresses a long-standing challenge in adhesive science. Pressure-sensitive adhesives are used in tapes, labels, medical patches, and protective films, and bond under light pressure without heat, solvents, or curing. However, these materials have historically faced an inherent trade-off: adhesives strong enough to hold reliably tend to leave residue upon removal, whereas cleanly removable adhesives typically sacrifice bonding strength.

Through this research, Choi approached the problem through an unconventional molecular architecture. By combining bottlebrush polymers, whose densely grafted side chains impart intrinsic softness and conformability, with reversible hydrogen bonding and a glassy comonomer, the developed adhesives bond strongly during use, release cleanly upon removal, and recover their performance after damage. Notably, the material is prepared through a simple one-step synthesis, which is a significant advantage for scalability.

Choi’s work establishes a promising design principle for sustainable, reusable adhesives with potential applications ranging from recyclable packaging to skin-mounted wearable devices.

The NATA Symposium, held at the beginning of August at Georgia Tech, promotes the advancement and understanding of thermal analysis, rheology, and materials characterization.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

08/13/2026

STEMOVATE is growing across Tennessee!

Last week, we took STEMOVATE on the road for a five-day, five-city training tour, traveling from Greeneville to Knoxville, Cookeville, Murfreesboro and Jackson to prepare Tennessee 4-H agents and teachers from 34 new counties to bring STEMOVATE to their sixth-grade classrooms.

STEMOVATE: Powering Tennessee’s Future Innovators is a free, hands-on STEM program designed specifically for Tennessee sixth graders. Through lessons aligned with Tennessee’s academic standards, students explore engineering, nuclear energy, artificial intelligence and invasive species while discovering how what they learn in the classroom connects to STEM careers and opportunities right here in Tennessee.

With 34 new counties joining the program, STEMOVATE is expanding from 22 to 56 Tennessee counties for the 2026-27 school year!

Throughout last week’s training, our educators became the students — designing and building marble roller coasters, modeling nuclear chain reactions, exploring artificial intelligence and investigating invasive species.

And judging by the smiles and celebrations, they had a lot of fun along the way!

One teacher called it, "the best in-service STEM training I’ve had in 23 years of teaching." Another said, This is the type of training we’ve been asking for for years! I’m so excited to roll these lessons out in our classes.

STEMOVATE is a partnership of the University of Tennessee–Oak Ridge Innovation Institute, Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Tennessee 4-H and UT-Battelle. Participating educators receive the lessons, materials and year-round support they need to bring STEMOVATE to their students.

And we’re not finished growing! Additional training is planned for November for Tennessee educators and 4-H agents interested in bringing STEMOVATE to their counties.

Contact Bridget Waller at [email protected] or visit utorii.com/STEMOVATE to learn more.



Oak Ridge National Laboratory
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
UT System
Tennessee 4-H
University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture
UT President Randy Boyd
Bridget Correll Waller

08/11/2026

Congratulations to UT-ORII’s Hugo Bouteiller on his recent publication!

His paper, “Hierarchical microstructure of Yb-filled skutterudites through ultrasonically atomized spherical powders for enhanced thermoelectric performance,” was published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A as an invited paper from the Royal Society of Chemistry. It will also be included in a special cross-journal themed collection, ‘Thermoelectric energy conversion’, that will be published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A and Nanoscale.

The paper addresses how a 3D-printing powder technique makes better heat-to-electricity materials. A central challenge in thermoelectric materials is that the properties needed for good performance tend to work against each other: the ideal material should conduct electricity well while blocking the flow of heat, yet these two behaviors are correlated. This study demonstrates an innovative way to break that trade-off using ultrasonic atomization — a process that sprays molten material into fine droplets that solidify into uniform spherical powders, the same kind of powders prized in modern additive manufacturing (3D printing).

The paper lays out how this approach is complementary rather than competing, with its ability to be layered on top of established optimization strategies already used in the field to push performance even further. And because the technique produces exactly the kind of spherical powders that additive manufacturing relies on, it points toward a practical future in which high-performance thermoelectric materials could be 3D-printed directly into finished devices for converting waste heat into useful electricity.

Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1039/d6ta02744j

Bouteiller is a staff research scientist in the Materials Science and Technology Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a UT-ORII Fellow, working with our Fusion Technology and Materials for Extreme Environments Convergent Research Initiative.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville
UT System

08/10/2026

The UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education unites the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory resources and capabilities for its three doctoral degrees at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville:

💻 Data Science and Engineering
💡 Energy Science and Engineering
🧬 Genome Science and Technology

Through this unique partnership, students are mentored by world-renowned scientists in their fields and conduct their own groundbreaking research.

Applications are now open, visit https://bredesencenter.utk.edu/apply/ to get started!

08/08/2026

Thank you to the outstanding Tennessee 4-H agents and sixth-grade teachers who joined us in Jackson yesterday for the final stop of our five-day, five-city STEMOVATE training week!

What a way to finish an incredible week of hands-on learning, collaboration and excitement for STEM education across Tennessee.

Through STEMOVATE, the University of Tennessee–Oak Ridge Innovation Institute partners with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Tennessee 4-H and UT-Battelle to provide educators with free, interactive STEM lessons aligned with Tennessee academic standards.

This week, we trained agents and teachers from 34 additional counties, expanding STEMOVATE from 22 counties in its inaugural year to 56 counties for the 2026-27 school year.

And the partnership doesn’t end with training. Throughout the school year, we’ll continue working with these educators as they bring STEMOVATE lessons in engineering, nuclear energy, artificial intelligence and invasive species to sixth graders in their communities.

Now the real excitement begins — as these lessons move from training rooms into classrooms across Tennessee, inspiring students to explore, experiment and discover what’s possible through STEM.
Tennessee 4-H
Oak Ridge National LaboratoryUT SystemUniversity of Tennessee, KnoxvilleOak Ridge Institute for Science and EducationUniversity of Tennessee Institute of AgricultureUT President Randy BoydKeith Carver, UTIA Senior LeaderUniversity of Tennessee Tickle College of EngineeringEast Tennessee Economic Council - ETECUT Research, Innovation & Economic DevelopmentUT AgResearchOur TennesseeBredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate EducationLynne Michaels MiddletonBridget Correll Waller