History
The Bredesen Center is named in honor of 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 his commitment 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 Chair program, the UT Biofuels Initiative, the Volunteer State Solar Initiative, and the UT-ORNL Joint Institutes for Computational Sciences, Biological Sciences, and Neutron Sciences.
Governor Bredesen with members of the first class of ESE students in 2012. Image courtesy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy.
Locations
Because the Bredesen Center is committed to establishing collaborative graduate research between the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, locations have been set up at both campuses to fulfill the educational and research requirements of our students, faculty, and staff.
At the University of Tennessee campus, the Bredesen Center is located on the fourth floor of Greve Hall.This location serves as the educational hub for the graduate program, complete with a modern classroom, a conference room, study rooms, and offices for both students and staff.
At the Oak Ridge National Laboratory campus, the Bredesen Center is located on the first floor of the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences building 5100 in room 140. This multipurpose room offers graduate students a space to work, as well as to host seminars and lectures in a room with videoconferencing capabilities.
Partners
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 TN-SCORE, Tennessee Solar Conversion and Storage using Outreach, Research and Education, 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.