Message from Chancellor Donde Plowman:

I am pleased to announce that Matthew Mench, head of the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering, has agreed to serve as interim vice chancellor for research and engagement beginning December 1.

Dr. Mench is a proven leader and researcher whose work is among the top in his field. I greatly appreciate his willingness to step forward in service and leadership during this time of transition. He will take on the role vacated by Robert Nobles, who most recently served as interim vice chancellor since August 2018 and has accepted a position at Emory University. Dr. Mench will not seek the position on a permanent basis, and he will return to his previous role upon hire of the next vice chancellor.

Nobles

UT Interim Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement Robert Nobles has announced plans to leave UT to become vice president of research administration at Emory University. He will begin serving in his new position December 1.

Dr. Nobles has served as interim twice now, stepping in when asked to lead during times of transition. During his tenure, research expenditures reached a record $260 million last fiscal year. Dr. Nobles has worked to make connections and elevate the visibility of UT’s research enterprise, while leading efforts to enhance strategy, operational efficiency, and compliance in order to support the exceptional work of our research faculty and staff. I’m grateful for his dedication and service.

Robert Nobles has agreed to serve as interim vice chancellor for research beginning August 1.

Turning research into real-world solutions with market value is the focus of an intensive, three-week workshop that kicked off today at the University of Tennessee’s Cherokee Farm.

Chancellor Beverly Davenport speaks during the opening session of the I-Corps South event at the Cherokee Farm, Joint Institute for Advanced Manufacturing (JIAM) Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017.

UT Knoxville is hosting the event for the first time after joining the National Science Foundation-funded “Innovation Corps” program in June. For some participants with start-up ideas, there’s a potential prize, too. NSF-funded grants of $50,000 are possible for participants whose ideas and plans for turning them into reality are deemed promising enough to win the cash to pilot them.

Scientists and engineers representing Georgia Tech, Louisiana State University and Tennessee Tech University are hearing from experts on thinking through and launching a startup. Participants will then conduct 20 customer discovery phone interviews to test their ideas with customers for evaluation.

The lineup kicked off with a welcome from UT Knoxville Chancellor Beverly Davenport.

“I’d like to spend every day welcoming innovators, inventors and entrepreneurs who are thinking about tomorrow and what kinds of needs can be met and what kinds of jobs are going to be created,” Davenport said. “There’s no better incentive than a need, a problem, around which to develop a solution. I’m excited that the University of Tennessee is bringing people together to think in terms of the end user, the applications and what use they might be.”