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.”

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Please send faculty, staff, and student recognitions to Erin Chapin (erin.chapin@utk.edu).

• Dayakar Penumadu, the Joint Institute for Advanced Materials (JIAM) Chair of Excellence in the Tickle College of Engineering, is in the process of patenting a new adhesive, referred to as a “smart joint” system consisting of distributed optical fiber sensors useful to designers and manufacturers in advanced materials. The UT Research Foundation and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering submitted the patent application on his behalf for Luna Innovations Incorporated O Di SI product (Optical Distributed Sensing).

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• Jack Dongarra, director of the University of Tennessee’s Innovative Computing Laboratory, has received two prestigious supercomputing awards: the High Performance Parallel and Distributed Computing Achievement Award from the Association for Computer Machinery and the Super Computing (SC) 2016 Test of Time Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Dongarra is also a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science in the College of Engineering and a Distinguished Research Staff Member at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

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The UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Joint Institute for Advanced Materials has named Veerle Keppens as its new director.

Keppens, current head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in UT’s College of Engineering, brings a knowledge of advanced materials—substances with properties that go beyond the norm in one or more aspects, such as electronically or chemically—that will allow her to transition to the new role without a learning curve.

“Dr. Keppens carries a wealth of materials science knowledge to this position along with a passion for broadening our understanding in these areas of research,” said UT Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek. “She has worked well in research partnerships with ORNL and will be a strong leader of the institute.”
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The newly established Micro-Processing Research Facility (MPRF) will allow researchers to conduct research and development requiring thin film processing technology at the micron level without having to leave the campus.
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