Meet Our Partners
UT is proud to partner with national and regional organizations on ground-breaking solutions to shared challenges. Hear from a few of the organizations with which we have built strong, collaborative relationships.
Our partnership with UT is key to solving some of the most complex challenges in the aerospace domain. It’s exciting to see the sophistication and relevance of the research, as well as the caliber of talent from UT.
Linda O’Brien
Vice President and Chief Engineer,
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics
Dynamic relationships
The organizations listed below, while representing only a fraction of our full partner list, demonstrate the variety of ways in which partnership with UT can take shape.
Army Research Laboratory
UT’s long-term partnership with the Army Research Laboratory is advancing manufacturing capabilities and materials science to support military operations in the field. This partnership is also helping prepare the next generation of researchers.
Kairos Power
Kairos Power and UT launched the Operator Training Simulator Laboratory on UT’s campus in 2025 to train current employees and UT students entering the advanced nuclear industry to operate Kairos Power’s novel reactor technology.
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin’s renewed master research agreement with UT advances a variety of technological solutions for national security and prepares the future aerospace workforce. Under the 2019–2024 MRA, Lockheed Martin-funded projects totaled more than $3 million.
River Valley Health
River Valley Health (formerly Cherokee Health Systems) is a federally qualified health center providing outpatient services to 65,000-plus Tennesseans annually. RVH’s long history of collaboration with UT was formalized in 2022, enabling the development of grant-funded research–practice partnership initiatives.
Tennessee Department of Transportation
TDOT is a core partner and funder for transportation safety, technology, and infrastructure research. UT expertise helps inform agency decisions, and the agency participates as a key stakeholder in the UT-led collaborations.
See the impact
Together, UT and our partners are making a real-world impact here in East Tennessee and across the nation.
Y-12’s demonstrated experience in high-precision classified manufacturing and UT’s expertise in next-generation materials and manufacturing are a perfect fit to advance national and energy security imperatives.
Rich Tighe
President and CEO,
Consolidated Nuclear Security
Kairos Power is proud to partner with the University of Tennessee to build on the region’s distinguished nuclear legacy, strengthening the pipeline for students and operators that will be the future of our nuclear workforce.
Mike Laufer
CEO and Co-Founder,
Kairos Power
We have built a foundation of trust and integrity with UT. As an academic institution and a federally qualified health center working together, we are creating something unique and truly worthwhile. Together, we’re looking at how to integrate teaching, research, community service, and workforce development.
Parinda Khatri
CEO,
River Valley Health (formerly Cherokee Health Systems)
Volkswagen:
a commitment to long-term innovation
A valued partner since 2011, Volkswagen Group of America collaborates with UT faculty and students on advanced materials, vehicle electrification, and other projects at Volkswagen’s Innovation Hub in the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm and at Volkswagen’s facilities in nearby Chattanooga, Tennessee. Between 2020 and 2025 the collaboration produced more than 30 active research projects, 30 publications, and 12 pending patents.
Learn about the different milestones UT and Volkswagen have achieved together over time:
This partnership has been outstanding. It’s tied in the strength of the university, the innovation and leadership of Oak Ridge Lab on the government lab side, to industry. And that’s been critical to take some of the inventions and the research projects and bring those to a production level where we can actually put those in our products that our customers can see and benefit from.
Lyndon Lie
Executive Vice President and Chief Engineering Officer,
Volkswagen North America
See the latest partner news
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Our team looks forward to hearing from you. The sooner you contact us, the sooner we can make headlines, together.