Researcher Stories

Explore how Tennessee Tech researchers are using advanced computing, data, software, and RCD support to advance their work.

Aquaculture Genomics and the Biology of Sex Determination

Dr. John Liu, Dr. Dongya Gao, Tong Chen

Department of Biology

Genomic and bioinformatics research is revealing how economically important traits, reproductive isolation, and sex determination are regulated in aquaculture species.

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Building the Instruments and Software That Reveal How Molecules Work

Dr. Ranil Gurusinghe

Department of Chemistry

The Gurusinghe Lab designs custom scientific instruments, open-source software, and an open molecular database—all built by Tennessee Tech students.

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Making Online Polls More Trustworthy with AI

Amr Akmal Abouelmagd

Department of Computer Science

Graph neural networks analyze peer-to-peer dissemination patterns to identify ineligible participation without examining the content of individual poll responses.

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Modeling Catalysts for Sustainable Energy

Dr. Ali Estejab and Yulieth Mercado Sosa

Department of Chemical Engineering

Multiscale modeling and high-performance computing are helping researchers investigate catalysts for sustainable hydrogen production and ammonia-based energy systems.

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Modeling Particulate Emissions from Residential Wood Heaters

Dr. Austin Andrews, Leander Tenbarge, Benjamin Landsberg, Samuel Ellis

Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering

Computer simulations of fluid flow and particle transport are helping researchers improve how particulate emissions from residential wood heaters are measured.

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Precision Agriculture and Intelligent Sensing

Dr Abdul Momin

Agricultural Engineering and Technology, School of Agriculture

UAV-based field imaging is used to collect high-resolution images for weed identification, mapping, and precision agricultural decision-making.

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Reconstructing Geologic History with Digital Outcrop Models

Dr. Gourab Bhattacharya, Philip Roberson, Gabe Babbit, Asher Seiling

Department of Earth Sciences

UAV imagery and high-performance computing are helping researchers transform large geological exposures into detailed three-dimensional digital models.

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Revealing Hidden Biodiversity in Cumberland Plateau Caves

Zoe Wills

Department of Biology

Environmental DNA and traditional cave surveys are helping researchers document vulnerable animal communities hidden beneath the Cumberland Plateau.

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Teaching Vision–Language AI to See with Fewer Tokens

Mahmoud Attallah

Department of Computer Science

A compact, self-supervised token summarizer could help vision–language AI systems process images with substantially less computational overhead.

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Tracking the Effects of Invasive Aquatic Plants with eDNA

John-Kaarli Rentof

Department of Biology

Environmental DNA is helping researchers understand how invasive aquatic plants affect fish, macroinvertebrate, and plant communities in Tennessee River reservoirs.

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Understanding Mallard Movement and Wintering Ecology

Dr. Bradley Cohen and Cory Highway

Department of Biology

Researchers are using large wildlife datasets to study mallard movement, habitat connectivity, and hunter success in western Tennessee.

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