FY25 ISSE Seed Grant Winners
The Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment (ISSE) makes annual funding available for multi-disciplinary, multi-investigator research and support. For fiscal year 2025, ISSE and the UT Office of Research Innovation and Economic Development (ORIED) have awarded five seed grants to support research projects related to clean energy transition and environmental sustainability. All projects, selected by a panel of independent reviewers, have high potential for external funding.
| FY25 ISSE Seed Grant Winners | ||
| Investigators | Project Title | |
|---|---|---|
| PI: Peng Zhao (MABE) Co-PI: Tom Zawodzinski (CBE) | Characterization of particle emission during battery thermal runaway and fires | |
| PI: Leon Tolbert (EECS) Co-PIs: Hua Bai (EECS), David Greene (CEE) | Community Electrical Vehicle Charging Infrastructure with V2G Technology Integrated for Environmental and Social Justice | |
| PI: Xiaofei Ye (BESS), Co-PIs: Zhili Zhang (MABE), Kellie Walters (Plant Sciences) | Decarbonization of nitrogen fertilizer for agriculture | |
| PI: Anming Hu (MABE) Co-PI: Qiang He (CEE) | Innovative tandem system of porous carbon sorption and photocatalytic degradation of TiO2 nanomembranes for micro-nano-plastics and PFAS removal | |
| PI: Eminé Fidan (BESS) Co-PIs: Augustin Engman (Natural Resources), Jon Hathaway (TNWRRC) | Environmental Justice in the City: Socio-Economic Dimensions of Urban Stream Health |
Previous Seed Grants Awarded
| Anna Herring | Coupled Mass Transfer Processes During Underground Hydrogen Storage – read Final Report |
| Kai Sun | Assessing the Implications of Large-Scale Hydrogen Production on Power Transmission Systems – read Final Report |
| Toni Wang | Transformational Production of Sustainable Aviation Fuel and Biofertilizer from Black Solider Fly |
| Jiangang Chen | Assessing the levels of forever chemicals (PFAS) in surface water in Tennessee aquatic ecosystems |
| Alison Buchan | Identification of novel pathways for bacterial degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons |
| Baoshan Huang | Utilization of waste plastics to build the next generation of sustainable and durable asphalt pavements |
| Chris Cherry | Micromobility Vehicle Second-Life Battery Applications: Market Inventory and End Use Feasibility Analysis |
| Khalid Alshibli | Gas Driven Fracture During Gas Production using 3D Synchrotron Computed Tomography (SMT) |
| Chris Clark | Analyzing Strategies for Diverting and Managing Organic Waste Streams in Tennessee |
| Anahita Khojandi | Multi-Sensor Data-Driven Inspection/Maintenance of Green Infrastructure |
| Steven Ripp | Emerging synthetic biology for plant phytosensing and agricultural sustainability |
| Douglas Hayes | Transport, Colloidal Behavior, Biodegradability, and Ecotoxicity of Micro- and Nanoplastics from Emergent Biodegradable Agroplastics in Aquatic Systems |
| Khalid Alshibli | Geochemical Interaction between CO2 and Caprock for safe Carbon Sequestration |
| Qiang He | Toward Precision Environmental Health Risk Management: Feasibility of Personalized Exposome Monitoring |
| Scott Lenaghan | Bioengineering of the Duckweed Plastid Genome: A Model Plant for Aquatic Bioremediation |
| Terry Hazen | Microbial-geochemical signatures for CO2 storage performance and sustainable development of unconventional shale resources |
| Scott Lenaghan | Bioengineering of the Duckweed Plastid Genome |
| Kelsey Ellis | Beat the Heat: Builiding adaptive capacity of vulverable populations in Knox County to combined stressors from urban heat. |
| Frank Loeffler | Microbial transformation and degradation of sulfonated per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. |
| Khalid Alshibli | Geochemical Interaction between CO2 and Caprock for Safe Carbon Sequestration |
| Jie Wu | Socioeconomic inequalities and drinking water quality: assessin arsenic concentrations in community water systems by novel field deployable biosensors. |
| Qiang He | Toward Precision Environmental Health Risk Management |