Dr. Zhang has secured an award for the project titled “Initiatives to Grow New Innovative Talent to Enable Fusion Energy (IGNITE Fusion Energy)” from the Department of Energy’s Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) program! This project, led by Dr. Peng Zhang (PI) and Dr. Mohan Rao (Co-PI) from Tennessee Tech, leverages the collective strengths of five other collaborating institutions (Tennessee State University, Tuskegee University, Southern Adventist University, Missouri University of Science and Technology, and the University of Tennessee-Knoxville), the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and more than ten private fusion companies. The project is funded with a total budget of $2.25 million, from which Tennessee Tech will receive approximately $490,000 over three years as the lead institution. See the official award announcement by DOE here.

This is our first award in nuclear engineering at Tennessee Tech. This collaboration focuses on developing workforce training initiatives and enhancing curriculum to prepare the next generation of researchers for careers in fusion engineering and technology. Read more about this project here.

On November 25, our PhD student, Sina Kazemipour, presented his research on morphing vehicle designs at the APS 77th Annual Meeting of the Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD). Read our research here.