Bredesen Center Honors

NSF Graduate Fellowship recipients Mallory Ladd, Kemper Talley, and Jayde Aufrecht (not pictured: David Garcia). Image courtesty of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy.

National Recognition

The Bredesen Center is home to 13 national fellowship recipients. These prestigious awards have been granted to graduate students by the following programs:

• National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship
• National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship
• Nuclear Nonproliferation and International Safeguards Fellowship
• Nuclear Energy University Program Fellowship
• Nuclear Forensics Graduate Fellowship
• Hydro Research Foundation Fellowship
• Fulbright U.S. Student Program

Bredesen Center Honors Day

Each spring The Bredesen Center honors graduate students for outstanding achievement in Research, Entrepreneurship, and Policy. We are proud to honor these diverse contributions in research, education, and outreach. See below for descriptions and previous winners of each award, as well as space to nominate current students for this year’s awards.

Honors Day Nomination Form

• Name of nominee*
• Award Category*
  EntrepreneurshipPolicyOutreachService
• Nominated by*
• Description of activity

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Research Awards

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First Step Award

Presented to students who have published their first 1st authorship paper during the past year

Sujana Chandrasekar, Ashley Cliff, Blake Hawley, Jasmine Kreig, Michelle Lehmann, Dhrupad Parikh, Lauren Riley, Ron Sadlier, Anna Wanhala

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First Authorship Award

Presented to the student with the most journal articles published as 1st author since joining the Bredesen Center

2020 recipient: Christine Ajinjeru

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Hit the Ground Running Award

Presented to the student with the most journal articles published since joining the Bredesen Center

2020 recipient: Holly Ray

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The Derek Austin High Impact Award

Presented to the student published as first author in the highest impact journal during the past year

2020 recipient: Eva Mutunga

Derek Austin and PhD advisor, Dr. Mike Simpson.

Much like the Bredesen Center students of today, Dr. Derek Austin received his Ph.D. from UTK in 2006 after performing his research work at ORNL in Mike Simpson’s group.  Derek was a pioneer of the prominent noise biology work to come out of this group — work that continues on today.  Derek’s crowning research achievement resulted in a paper published in Nature that he first authored.  Derek blazed a path that serves as example of the core values of the Bredesen Center.  He performed cutting edge interdisciplinary research that was published in top journals, but he also made entrepreneurship a part of his legacy by participating in the formation of two successful start-up companies. Although Derek ultimately lost his courageous battle against pancreatic cancer, his example lives on within the Bredesen Center.  The Derek Austin High Impact Award honors the Bredesen Center students that follow Derek’s example and publish their research results in prominent scientific journals.

 Entrepreneurship Award

“The entrepreneurship award recognizes the student whose entrepreneurial initiatives have been productive and enriched opportunities for their colleagues, while maintaining admirable progress on their dissertation research and academic progress. Items for consideration include participation in pitch competitions, extracurricular mentorship or volunteer activities related to the local entrepreneurship community, significant progress towards the development and launch of the individual’s own company, etc. Previous recipients of the award include: Erica Grant; Shang Gao; Rob Moseley; and Tony Bova.”

2019 recipient: Erica Grant

Policy Award

The policy award recognizes the student whose efforts have produced thorough policy recommendations, initiatives to inform and engage students and the community on relevant issues, and create opportunities for other students, while maintaining admirable progress on their dissertation research and academic progress. Items for consideration include participation in University policy through Graduate Student Senate, Commissions through Office of Equity & Diversity, or otherwise; internships or significant extracurricular engagement STEM or research-related policy at the local, state, or federal level, extracurricular mentorship or volunteer activities related to understanding and affecting policy. Previous recipients of the award include: Zach Sims, Michelle Halsted, Guin Shaw, and Justin Knowles.

2020 recipient: Dustin Gilmer

2019 recipient: Zach Sims

Community Outreach Award

The community outreach award recognizes the student whose efforts have informed and engaged our broader community on scientific topics in ways that strengthen and enrich our scientific community, while maintaining admirable progress on their dissertation research and academic progress. Items of consideration include significant extracurricular involvement in community-oriented STEM programming such as ORNL’s mobile science fair, UTK data day, publishing science communications in the UTK newspaper, etc. This may occur through the development of new programming, or the collaboration of pre-existent programming. Previous recipients of this award include: Megan Lily, Mallory Ladd, and Jessica Velez.

2020 recipient: Brianne Beers

2019 recipient: Megan Lily

Service Award

The service award recognizes the student whose efforts have supported their colleagues, created opportunities for them to interact across disciplines, and enabled them to develop their own initiative, while maintaining admirable progress on their dissertation research and academic progress. Items for consideration include development of professional development for Bredesen Center students, significant administrative contributions to professional communities (journals, conferences, etc.), significant contributions to the science of team science at UT, ORNL, or beyond. Previous recipients of this award include: Jasmine Kreig, Ernesto Zuleta, and Nannan Jiang.

2019 recipient: Jasmine Kreig