College of Engineering topples previous research record with $42.7M in new awards for 2024, a six-fold increase since 2019
Tennessee Tech University’s College of Engineering garnered $42.7 million in new external
awards for the fiscal year ending in June – a 650 percent increase since 2019.
The record-breaking year for research also saw a dramatic increase in average awards per tenured and tenure-track faculty, leaping 690 percent in the last five years to $577,000 per faculty. Research expenditures have tripled in that time period to $11.8 million, nearly doubling in the last year alone.
College of Engineering Dean Joseph C. Slater attributed the surge in research productivity to “a culture of innovation driven for success.”
“Our faculty are wired for making an impact not just in their fields, but also in our communities,” he said. “We are seeing growth in areas where they have built collaborative research networks and forged new partnerships that also maximize opportunities for our students.”
Major public investment from agencies highlights this kind of collaboration, including a $10 million grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to lead a four-state consortium for electric grid modernization throughout the Appalachian region that will enable rural electric utilities to test and deploy smart grid technologies and real-world solutions to lower costs, improve reliability and expand adoption of green energy technologies.
The college also notched its first award for its new nuclear engineering program launched this fall—a $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for workforce development and new curriculum in fusion energy with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and 10 private fusion companies in Tennessee.
“The faculty in our departments are increasingly leveraging their collective strengths, both within the college and throughout the university, creating powerhouse interdisciplinary teams that reflect the nature of today’s research frontiers, particularly in energy,” said Allen Mackenzie, Ph.D., interim associate dean for research in the College of Engineering.
Other recent awards include:
- A $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to repurpose coal and coal waste to manufacture copper-graphene nanocomposites to develop low-cost advanced conductors.
- $4.5 million from the U.S. Department of Energy for “Second-life Battery in Mobile EV Charging Application for Rural Transportation (SMART).” The project aims to address the urgent need to develop affordable mobile charging stations that can be deployed at scale in rural America by utilizing second-life batteries retired from electric vehicles.
The university overall topped $46 million in activations for externally funded research for 2024, surpassing a previous record by $10 million and marking the achievement of one of the university’s long-held strategic goals a year ahead of schedule. The College of Engineering accounted for 63 percent of the university’s activations with $29 million.
Tennessee Tech is recognized as an R2 doctoral, high-research activity university by the Carnegie national classification system.
