Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education

Congratulations to Emma Foley on being named a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Volunteer of Distinction!

Foley, who graduated from our Data Science and Engineering program in the summer of 2025, researched the use of Gaussian processes for power grid data analysis.

In collaboration with Peter Fuhr at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Grid Communications and Security Group, Foley’s interpretable analysis supports grid operations, which are integral to our communication and emergency services and affect nearly all aspects of our daily lives.

“It is so rewarding to be recognized for years of hard work,” says Foley. “My time at UT was so valuable to my future career and my aspirations as a researcher. I am grateful to my advisor, Dr. Fuhr, my group at ORNL and my family for their support. The Bredesen Center staff are so helpful not only in advising and guiding us through program requirements, but also for their genuine interest in our goals.”

UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute

Three outstanding students from the UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s Bredesen Center have been selected for the 2026 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program—one of the nation’s most prestigious honors for graduate researchers.

Congratulations to:
🔸 Daniel Perkins, Data Science and Engineering
🔸 Ella Williams, Energy Science and Engineering
🔸 David Levy, Energy Science and Engineering

The Bredesen Center’s unique UT–ORNL model gives students the opportunity to work side by side with leading researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory—combining world-class academic training with access to one of the nation’s premier national labs.

That approach is reflected in the work of this year’s fellows, whose research spans AI-driven emergency response, advanced energy storage and quantum sensing—areas critical to our nation’s future.

We’re proud to see Bredesen Center students recognized at the national level and excited for the impact they will continue to make.

At the Bredesen Center, we are privileged to have professors from across campus teaching and mentoring our doctoral students.

Chad Duty, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Dustin Gilmer, an assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, have received the Outstanding Graduate Professor and Outstanding Graduate Research Mentor awards.

Presented by the Graduate Student Senate, the Outstanding Graduate Professor award recognizes faculty members who have shown outstanding commitment to teaching graduate and professional students, and the Outstanding Graduate Research Mentor award recognizes faculty members who have shown outstanding commitment to mentoring graduate and professional students in their research endeavors.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Jacob Forbes on being named a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Volunteer of Distinction!

Forbes graduated in fall 2025 with a doctoral degree in Data Science and Engineering. His research focused on developing machine learning methods for quantifying nuclear data uncertainty. Forbes’ work supported a nuclear data pipeline that is upstream of and essential for applications in national security, nuclear energy, medical imaging, astrophysical research and more.

“The Volunteer of Distinction award is special to me for the way it reminds me of the support I received from the Bredesen Center, my research advisor and team, and my incredible wife to help me succeed in my PhD program,” said Forbes. “The Bredesen Center staff shepherded me through the administrative aspects of completing the PhD, they mentored me in course selections, and they provided meaningful encouragement.”

Forbes is currently an Air Force Technical Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

During , we want to congratulate our very own Amy Kurr, one of this year’s inaugural Trailblazer Awardees, the highest doctoral student honor conferred by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and UTK Volunteer of Distinction!

Kurr is pursuing her PhD through the Bredesen Center in Energy Science and Engineering with a focus on polymer engineering. Her research at UT Institute of Agriculture's Center for Renewable Carbon focuses on the degradation and decomposition of electrical wire and cable used in the automotive and energy industries.

“I am surprised, grateful, and humbled to receive the Trailblazer Award,” Kurr said. “I am surprised that I was selected among the dozens and dozens of amazing PhD students I have met and collaborated with over the past few years. I am grateful to have had such a large impact on the University of Tennessee and the lives of the individuals I have met while studying, and I am humbled to think where I'd be if hundreds of people had not endlessly reached out their hands to help me along this journey.”

Read more at https://utorii.com/kurr-honored-with-trailblazer-award/

UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute

Congratulations to Abhishek Sahoo, Genome Science & Technology doctoral student, and Shovan Chowdhury, Ph.D., Data Science & Engineering doctoral student, for receiving the Excellence in Graduate Research.

Presented by the Graduate Student Senate, this award is presented to graduate and professional students who have received recognition in their field and show promise in their area of research and/or creative achievement.



University of Tennessee, Knoxville
UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute
Oak Ridge National Laboratory

As a part of GPSAW, we want to congratulate this year’s University of Tennessee, Knoxville's, Volunteer of Distinction awardees with the Bredesen Center. This award honors students who received their degrees in Summer or Fall 2025 and will receive their degree in Spring 2026, and exhibited extraordinary academic achievement, community engagement, outstanding teaching, and excellence in research.

Jennifer Rybak, PhD, Genome Science & Technology, Summer ‘25
Steven Tavis, Genome Science & Technology, Fall ‘25
Jacob Forbes, Data Science & Engineering, Fall ‘25
Emma Foley, Data Science & Engineering, Fall ‘25
Ark Ifeanyi, PhD, PhD, Energy Science & Engineering, Fall ‘25
Amy Kurr, Energy Science & Engineering, Spring ‘26
Isidora Fletcher, Data Science & Engineering, Spring ‘26
Kyra Owensby, Energy Science & Engineering, Spring ‘26
Emily Gee, Genome Science & Technology, Spring ‘26

Be on the lookout over the next few weeks as we highlight each of our awardees, their research, and where they are now and going!





UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute

Every year, we host a recruit visit that brings prospective students to campus to get a first-hand look at our programs and what it would be like to be a doctoral student at the Bredesen Center. From these recruit visits, many of those become students in the fall. This wouldn’t be possible without our students volunteering to speak with these prospective students during panels, networking, and poster sessions.

But this isn't the only time our students show up. Throughout the year, they present their research and posters at the UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute(UT-ORII) and other Bredesen Center events, symposiums and workshops. They highlight the groundbreaking work being done under the mentorship of world-renowned scientists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We appreciate the time our students take outside of their studies and work in labs to promote the research being done at the Bredesen Center and UT-ORII.

This week, we celebrate graduate students across campus, but especially our Bredesen Center and UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute graduate students!

Our students work alongside researchers from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, across disciplines, tackling compelling research problems to advance scientific knowledge that will impact our world.

We appreciate their efforts inside the classrooms, labs, conferences, and everywhere else!

Meet Emily Proehl, a materials science and engineering Ph.D. student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and one of UT-ORII’s FY2025-26 Science Alliance GATE (Graduate Advancement, Training, and Education) award recipients!

Proehl is researching how precipitates behave under reactor-relevant conditions and how Ferritic-martensitic (FM) steels can be designed for the next generation of nuclear reactors.

Working in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Low Activation Materials Development and Analysis (LAMDA) lab, she is using electron microscopy to study how extreme environments—such as high temperature, radiation and stress—present in nuclear reactors affect FM at the microstructural level. Her current research project is on precipitate stability in FM steels after exposure to reactor-relevant conditions.

Through this research, an understanding will be gained in a few different areas:
· Insights into fundamental interactions between irradiation-induced defects and precipitates
· Precipitate sink strength
· Phase evolution in an irradiation environment

Congratulations to Proehl, one of 11 UT Knoxville graduate students who received a FY2025-26 GATE Award from the UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s Science Alliance. These awards represent more than $600,000 invested in the university’s next generation of scientific leaders. Learn more about GATE and its awardees at https://utorii.com/gate-awards/.