Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:33:15 +0000

KNOXVILLE – The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is hosting its first weeklong celebration of undergraduate research.

Research Week will take place March 21-26 and spotlight undergraduate researchers, scholars, artists and performers with a concert, an honors symposium, an art competition and a student paper competition.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a former governor and president of UT, will give the event’s keynote address “Research and the Public Good,” on Monday, March 22, at 8 a.m. inside the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy’s Toyota Auditorium. Richard Rodriguez, the author of “Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez,” will keynote the honors symposium at 12:20 p.m. on March 22, also at the Baker Center.

Research Week is part of a larger initiative by the university to give undergraduate students opportunities to connect with faculty and be part of the university’s scholarship. This initiative is integral in achieving Gov. Phil Bredesen’s goal to make UT Knoxville a top 25 public research university. According to Greg Reed, associate vice chancellor for research, studies on undergraduate learning show the value of connecting students to faculty and their research as early as possible.

“Data have demonstrated that undergraduate students who are connected in this way are more likely to be retained by the university until graduation, graduate in less time, and increase their GPA as compared to students who do not have an undergraduate research experience,” Reed said.

Reed notes undergraduate research has a positive impact not just on the university community, but society as a whole.

“One of the significant advantages of these experiences is to help the students become intellectual entrepreneurs, the innovators of our economy and culture,” said Reed. “The future competiveness of our country depends on our ability to be the leading innovators.”

Research Week also will feature the 14th annual Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement (EURēCA), where more than 200 undergraduate researchers will compete for the top spot in their fields. Their research and creative activities cover a wide range of concentrations and are developed in collaboration with a UT Knoxville faculty mentor. Participants are judged by a combination of UT Knoxville faculty members and community professionals.

The EURēCA competition will be held from noon to 4 p.m. March 24 in the University Center Ballroom. The event is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on March 25. An awards ceremony will be held in the University Center’s Tennessee Auditorium at 6 p.m. on March 25.

The UT Knoxville Office of Research coordinates this unique competition to encourage, support and reward undergraduate participation in the campus research enterprise. Top awards are funded by the UT Chapter of Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society and the William Franklin Harris III Undergraduate Research Award. On average, one award is given for every six entries per college. The standard award is $200 plus any division match or supplement.

For more information on the week’s events, please visit http://research.utk.edu/rw.

—

C O N T A C T :

Whitney Holmes (865-974-5460, wholmes7@utk.edu)

Bill Dockery (865-974-2187, dockeryb@utk.edu)

Related Posts

1. UT Knoxville Undergraduates Launch Research Journal (March 16, 2010)
2. UT Hosts Communications Research Symposium (200) (April 14, 1999)
3. UT Knoxville Student Government Celebrates Diversity Week (February 26, 2010)
4. UT Hosts Communications Research Symposium (200) (April 14, 1999)
5. Three UT-Knoxville Students Awarded for Broadcast Research (220) (March 14, 1997)
6. Two More Chancellor Finalists Visit UT Knoxville This Week (September 15, 2008)
7. First Two Chancellor Finalists Visit UT Knoxville This Week (September 8, 2008)
8. Final Chancellor Finalist Visits UT Knoxville This Week (September 22, 2008)

Zhenyu Zhang, a Joint Faculty Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and a Distinguished Research Staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, had his research recently featured in Forbes magazine. His work illuminates the possibilities of altering titanium oxide for greater solar efficiency in fuel cells and solar cells.

Titanium oxide is a commonly used white pigment found in items like sunscreen. A photocatalyst, it absorbs particles of light. Unfortunately, it can absorb only ultraviolet light, not the more abundant visible light needed for efficient solar energy conversion. By adding pairs of chromium and nitrogen to titanium oxide, Zhang and his colleagues found they could capture more of the visible light spectrum. The work is a Department of Energy highlight.

Zhang’s main research interests lie in the multi-scale studies of the formation, stability, physical properties, and potential technological applications of surface-based nanostructures.

Selected Publications

“Band gap narrowing of titanium oxide semiconductors by noncompensated anion-cation codoping for enhanced visible-light photoactivity,” Wenguang Zhu, Xiaofeng Qiu, Violeta Iancu, Xing-Qiu Chen, Hui Pan, Wei Wang, Nada M. Dimitrijevic, Tijana Rajh, Harry M. Meyer, III, M. Parans Paranthaman, G. M. Stocks, Hanno H. Weitering, Baohua Gu, Gyula Eres, and Zhenyu Zhang, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103: 226401 (2009).

“Tuning the electronic coupling and magnetic moment of a metal nanoparticle dimer in the nonlinear dielectric-response regime,” M. Claudia Troparevsky, Ke Zhao, Di Xiao, Zhenyu Zhang, Adolfo G. Eguiluz, Nano Lett., 9: 12, (2009).

“Calcium as the superior coating metal in functionalization of carbon fullerenes for high-capacity hydrogen storage,” Mina Yoon, Shenyuan Yang, Christian Hicke, Enge Wang, David Geohegan, and Zhenyu Zhang, Phys Rev Lett., 100: 206806 (2008).

“Managing light polarization via plasmon-molecule interactions within an asymmetric metal nanoparticle trimer,” Timur Shegai, Zhipeng Li, Tali Dadosh, Zhenyu Zhang, Hongxing Xu, and Gilad Haran, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105: 43 (2008).

“Tuning the quantum stability and superconductivity of ultrathin metal alloys,” Mustafa M. Oezer, Yu Jia, Zhenyu Zhang, James R. Thompson, Hanno H. Weitering, Science, 316: 5831 (2007).

“Charged fullerenes as high-capacity hydrogen storage media,” Mina Yoon, Shenyuan Yang, Enge Wang, and Zhenyu Zhang, Nano Lett., 9: 7 (2007).

Tags: Physics • Sustainability • Zhenyu Zhang