The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is establishing the UTC Research Institute as a strategic initiative launched to pursue increased research funding, interdisciplinary collaboration across campus, and support for community and local industry priorities.
On Monday, May 1, Chancellor Steven R. Angle introduced the new initiative at the Multidisciplinary Research Building on the UTC campus—where UTC Research Institute will be headquartered.
The Research Institute will be led by Dr. Mina Sartipi, founding director of the UTC Center for Urban Informatics and Progress (CUIP) and Guerry Professor of Computer Science and Engineering. Dr. Sartipi, whose title will be executive director of the institute, also holds a joint appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“This new institute will help UTC move forward and realize our research goals,” Angle said. “The heart of the UTC Research Institute is impactful and broad cross-disciplinary research that will help fast-track Chattanooga’s place as a hub for mobility electrifications, connectivity and automation.
“Dr. Mina Sartipi will shine in her new role. Dr. Sartipi and the CUIP team’s history of innovative, cutting-edge research and cooperative teamwork illustrates how UTC is preparing our community for the future.”
The Research Institute will narrow and intensify the University’s focus on strategic areas of research funding. Two initial focus areas are transportation (intelligent transportation systems, electric vehicle and battery technologies, human factor, automation, multimodal systems, policy and planning, cyber security, privacy and infrastructure) and quantum technologies (computing, sensing and networks).
“Dr. Mina Sartipi is an incredible scientist, scholar, leader and educator who has maximized every opportunity to engage students, the campus community and the surrounding community in finding solutions to real-world problems,” said UTC Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of the Graduate School Joanne Romagni. “As executive director of our new Research Institute, she will place the University in a better competitive position to pursue research funding and will position research teams to make greater scientific, technical, societal and economic impacts.”
The UTC Research Institute’s approach to pursuing community- and funding-driven research areas is intended to expand resources and opportunities across campus and disciplines, engaging scholars whose expertise can bring needed interdisciplinary depth to fully exploring solutions to complex problems.
“It has been gratifying to observe UTC’s level of research rise and make a dramatic impact on the community, but this is only the start,” said Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Jerold L. Hale. “A focal point of the new UTC Research Institute will be to promote interdisciplinary research involving faculty and staff from across the University. That interdisciplinary approach will promote strategic research growth to benefit not only the Chattanooga community but the region, the state and the country.”
The new institute will be the home of the UTC Center of Excellence in Applied Computational Science and Engineering and CUIP.
According to Sartipi, federal agencies like the Department of Energy, the Department of Transportation, the National Science Foundation and others are increasingly financing research projects that use a multidisciplinary and multi-institutional approach to solving highly complex problems.
“Having teams from across campus in solving problems positions UTC to be more competitive when pursuing research funding and will create a more substantial and broader impact from our research,” Sartipi said.
UTC Research Institute will be charged with:
- Engaging all colleges and departments in defining ambitious outcomes that one or two departments can’t achieve
- Managing relationships with funding agencies and mentoring faculty to assume these roles
- Developing and/or ensuring access to cross-cutting capabilities such as high performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), data engineering and economic analyses
- Developing research facilities and testbeds
- Developing strategic partnerships, possibly evolving into new centers
- Engaging the community
In August 2022, a proposal submitted by Chattanooga’s Smart City program and developed by CUIP won $9.2 million in funding—$4.5 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation and $4.7 million from industry partners, UTC, Chattanooga city government and EPB. The funding, the single-largest of its kind in UTC history, is creating a networked system making Chattanooga home to the nation’s largest electric vehicle “living testbed.”