Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education

The Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education brings together extensive and complementary resources at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to increase science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research of national significance. In order to accomplish this task, Bredesen Center has created two exceptional doctoral programs that will attract the best and brightest graduate students to come and solve the most challenging energy-related problems facing the nation and the world today.

The Energy Science and Engineering (ESE) Ph.D. program and concentration will engage these graduate students in interdisciplinary studies, including courses on entrepreneurship and public policy, while also drawing knowledge from a variety of STEM fields as they relate to specific topics. Topical areas of the ESE Ph.D have been chosen to resonate with Department of Energy priorities and industry needs, with a tailored integration of graduate courses across disciplines to provide deep expertise in a chosen specialty. Current areas of energy-related research include nuclear energy, bioenergy and biofuels, renewable energy, energy conversion and storage, distributed energy and grid management, as well as environmental and climate sciences related to energy usage. Graduate students will join research teams at both ORNL and UT, which will expose them to problem-oriented research and encourage them to develop solutions to these problems from multiple directions.

Bredesen Center is also home to the highly competitive Distinguished Graduate Fellowship (DGF) Ph.D. program designed to create future leaders in science and engineering. Fellows will be heavily involved in research at ORNL while simultaneously taking specialty courses and seminars to complete their Ph.D. in a traditional STEM field at the University of Tennessee.

Legacy

Gov. Phil Bredesen The center is named for Governor Phil Bredesen, who served Tennessee from 2003 to 2011, in recognition of his leadership in education and economic development for the state. In addition to the Bredesen Center, Governor Bredesen’s vision for capitalizing on the great potential of the UT-ORNL partnership resulted in the UT-ORNL Governor’s Chairs program, the UT Biofuels Initiative, the Volunteer State Solar Initiative, and the UT-ORNL Joint Institutes for Computational Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Neutron Sciences.

Linkages

Given the dynamic and interdisciplinary nature of modern scientific research, creating linkages between public, private, and non-profit institutions is crucial to the mission of the Bredesen Center. In order to achieve this goal, the Bredesen Center has partnered with Tennessee Solar Conversion and Storage using Outreach, Research and Education (TN-SCORE), a research award program initialized by Tennessee EPSCoR Committee. The mission of TN-SCORE is to identify and focus investments on specific research areas to improve research competitiveness, to increase collaboration between universities and the state, to improve educational science and technology, and to increase educational opportunities of underrepresented groups across the State of Tennessee. In addition to providing research awards to enterprising graduate student researchers, TN-SCORE will also advise researchers on entrepreneurial opportunities and activities related to solar energy in Tennessee.

Location

The office for Bredesen Center graduate students and staff is located at the historic Temple Court building in the heart of the UTK campus. Under university ownership for more than a century, Temple Court has been home to a variety of institutions, including the colleges of Library Science, Social Work, and the Center for International Education. Temple Court is named after Oliver Perry Temple, a community leader and university trustee who helped to secure Land Grant funds for the university in the 1870s. Today, Bredesen Center is proud to be part of the history of such an iconic location and will seek to continue its legacy of exceptional scholarship.

Questions?

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to contact us at cire@utk.edu and we will address your concerns as quickly as possible. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for up to date news and events.