Future Mobility
Driving real-world economic, social, and environmental benefits
Cluster Goals
The future of mobility affects everyone. Mobility connects people to their jobs and schools, health care, essential goods, and one another. It influences how the US reduces greenhouse gas emissions and how states improve air quality. In Tennessee—home to more than 900 companies in the automotive manufacturing sector—the future of mobility significantly impacts economic growth and job creation.
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Future Mobility cluster collaborates at the intersections of mobility’s technological, environmental, social, and economic challenges. We aim to invent and validate new mobility technologies, processes, systems, and services, and to deploy them in new shared R&D testbeds here in Tennessee. Working with partners across the state, we’ll strengthen Tennessee’s mobility innovation ecosystem—and prepare future generations as well as current members of the workforce to contribute to the mobility economy.
Together we’ll create opportunities for a safer, greener, and more secure mobility future that enhances economic prosperity.
More Powerful Together
Our experts are advancing mobility on multiple fronts, including:
- Vehicle electrification
- Vehicle automation
- Performance materials
- Clean fuels
- Connected infrastructure
- Supply chains and logistics
- Public policy and economics
- Community engagement
Ready to take the next step?
Why UT?
The Future Mobility cluster builds on UT’s recognized position of leadership in mobility solutions that meet real industry and community needs. We have the partnerships, facilities, and world-class testbeds in place for our faculty to make impacts that matter.
New faculty will join UT’s Institute for Future Mobility, a community of experts who have experience collaborating across departments and colleges. Together we will explore multidisciplinary challenges that require expertise in fields ranging from batteries to biofuels, micromobility to lightweight materials, and cybersecurity to sociology.
Cluster faculty will tap into multiple collaborative research centers led by UT, including the Center for Transportation Research, the US Department of Transportation–funded Center for Freight Transportation for Efficient and Resilient Supply Chain, and the Center for Ultra-Wide-Area Resilient Electric Energy Transmission Networks. The cluster’s work will intersect closely with the AI Tennessee Initiative and the Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing, and we will collaborate frequently with researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory to leverage their expertise and unique world-class facilities.
Cluster faculty will also help steer TEAM TN. This first-of-its-kind coalition is funded by the National Science Foundation and led by UT. More than 100 academic, industry, technical, community, and economic development partners have come together through TEAM TN to secure the state’s leadership role in advanced mobility industries.
Join Our Academic Community
Explore the links below to learn more about open positions. Contact the faculty lead if you don’t see an open position aligned with your skill set or if you’re a current UT faculty member who wants to get involved.
Hiring Units
- College of Arts and Sciences
- Tickle College of Engineering
- Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs
Cluster Positions
Filled
Pingen Chen Associate Professor
Focus: Human-machine interaction and robotics for transportation
Hiring Unit:
Filled
Andrew Balthrop Assistant Professor
Focus: Freight transportation, supply chains, and public policy
Hiring Units:
Filled
JiangBiao He Associate Professor
Focus: Vehicle electrification and electric motors
Hiring Unit:
Filled
Oriana Calderon Quevedo Assistant Professor
Focus: Multimodal freight transportation
Hiring Unit:
Filled
Aryana Soliz Assistant Professor
Focus: Societal impacts of transportation
Hiring Unit:
Filled
Hongyu Zheng Assistant Professor
Focus: Electrified, autonomous, and shared transportation
Hiring Unit:
Meet Our Cluster Community
Faculty Lead
Kevin Heaslip
Director, Center for Transportation Research
Phone: 865-974-1813
Email: kheaslip@utk.edu
Faculty
-
Assistant Department Head; Mechanical, Aerospace, & Biomedical Engineering
electrochemical systems (batteries, fuel cells, electrolyzers) relevant to vehicle electrification; grid stability; and energy storage
-
Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
power electronics in motor drive systems, EV on-board charger, EV DCDC converter, applications of wide-bandgap devices, battery management systems
-
Assistant Professor, Baker School of Public Policy & Public Affairs and Department of Supply Chain Management
supply chain policy, freight transportation, trucking
-
Ryder Professor, Supply Chain Management
third-party logistics and transportation outsourcing, transportation policy, business-to-government interactions and SCM’s broad implications for society
-
Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
multimodal freight transportation
-
Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
AI for future mobility, sensor-rich autonomous driving and mobility
-
Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
micromobility, safety, sustainability, travel behavior
-
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
printable fiber-reinforced polymer and ceramic matrix composites and multi-material hybrid structures
-
Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
power electronics for electric vehicles
-
Associate Professor, Social Work
emerging transportation technologies, electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, transportation equity, modeling latent travel demand, smart mobility
-
Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
control of biological processes, modeling of wireless systems, networked control systems, preferential image segmentation and video tracking
-
Chancellor’s Professor, John D. Tickle Professor, and James G. Gibson Professor
climate change, air quality, and energy using environmental modeling and large-scale simulations
-
Associate Professor, Electric Engineering and Computer Science
electric motor-drive systems, power electronic converters, health monitoring and fault-tolerant power apparatus, transportation electrifications (EVs, aircraft, ships, etc.), renewable energy integration and microgrid
-
John D. Tickle Professor & Department Head, Industrial & Systems Engineering & Director, Institute for a Secure & Sustainable Environment
sustainability, climate change, optimization, transportation and logistics, supply chain, additive and smart manufacturing, energy efficiency
-
Beaman Distinguished Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
intelligent transportation technologies, transportation safety, sustainable transportation
-
Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Resource Economics
transportation, environmental, and climate policy
-
Dan Doulet Faculty Fellow & Professor, Industrial & Systems Engineering
systems modeling, simulation and optimization, agent-based modeling, machine learning
-
Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering
evaluation of ASR-affected structures, 3D printing of concrete, bond behavior between rebar and concrete, behavior of prestressed concrete bridges
-
Assistant Professor, Industrial & Systems Engineering
supply chain risk management, critical infrastructure risk management, interdiction, defender-attacker modeling
-
Dean, Tickle College of Engineering
electrochemical power conversion and storage, computational simulation, multi-phase transport visualization and characterization
-
Research Assistant Professor; Mechanical, Aerospace, & Biomedical Engineering
multifunctional approaches on energy storage materials; lithium-ion, sodium-ion, potassium-ion, and lithium-sulfur batteries; rechargeable seawater battery system
-
Fred N. Peebles Professor & IAMM Chair of Excellence
lightweight and advance materials and structures
-
Gonzalez Family Professor, Computer Science
image processing, computer vision and machine learning; collaborative information processing in sensor networks
-
Assistant Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
cybersecurity, human-centered computing
-
Joint Faculty, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
computer vision, machine learning, natural language generation, human-computer interaction
-
Assistant Professor, Computer Science
neuromorphic computing, spiking neural networks, evolutionary and genetic algorithms, machine learning on high-performance computing
-
Director, Community–University Research Collaboration Initiative & Professor, Sociology
green economy, mobility issues
-
Associate Professor, Economics
behavioral and experimental economics, environment and natural resources, public policy
-
UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair for Polymer Science
electrical energy storage, batteries, lightweight materials
-
Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
security and privacy in wired/wireless networks and critical application systems
-
Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
vehicular cybersecurity, IoT-based smart infrastructure
-
Clinical Assistant Professor, Supply Chain Management
supply chain network design and modeling and advanced transportation technologies
-
UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair in Advanced Composites Manufacturing
advanced composite materials and manufacturing, nondestructive evaluation, composites recycling and sustainability
-
George A. Spiva Scholar, Kinney Family Faculty Research Fellow, Associate Professor, & Fellow, Economics
economic history, education, health, labor economics
-
Professor and Condra Chair of Excellence in Power Electronics, CURENT Technical Director
power electronics, power systems, motor drives
-
Assistant Professor; Mechanical, Aerospace, & Biomedical Engineering
optimal control convex optimization; machine learning; guidance, navigation, and control; space systems; aerial vehicles; connected vehicles
-
Professor, Psychology
life transitions, romantic relationships, gender, family relationships, couples, transition to college, transition to retirement, emerging adulthood
-
UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair for Electrical Energy Conversion and Storage
electrolytes and composite electrodes for fuel cells, fundamentals of energy storage materials and systems, water management in fuel cells
-
Associate Professor; Mechanical, Aerospace, & Biomedical Engineering
battery safety, thermal management, low carbon fuels, advanced combustion strategy, engine-fuel interaction
-
Assistant Professor, Industrial & Systems Engineering
transportation electrification and automation, mobility system analysis and management, transportation equity, and smart logistics systems
