The Tickle College of Engineering celebrated the historic addition of two new departments with ribbon cutting ceremonies on September 3. The Department of Applied Engineering (AppE) and the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) launched this fall, increasing the total of number of departments within TCE to nine.
With students, faculty, staff, and benefactors in attendance, BME held a ribbon cutting ceremony in front of Perkins Hall and AppE held a ribbon cutting ceremony on the ground floor of the Zeanah Engineering Complex.
Dean Matthew Mench, the Wayne T. Davis Dean’s Chair of the college, spoke at both ceremonies, joined by new BME department head Dacheng Ren and new AppE department head Chulho Yang.
“This is a historic era for our college, and the addition of these departments will pave the way for even more innovative and impactful engineering education and research,” Mench said. “From our outstanding faculty to our recent records in rank, enrollment, student success, research enterprise, and so many other things, the college has never been in a better place.”
Aiming to meet industry demand and better serve UT’s land-grant mission, AppE launched this fall with concentrations in software engineering and manufacturing. The four-year engineering degree programs offered prepare students to directly enter the workforce upon graduation with an emphasis on hands-on knowledge and critical thinking skills that are directly relevant to industry.
“What makes our approach nationally unique in AppE is that the programs created will have the same level of rigor and accreditation as our traditional programs and have been designed to enhance all college programs through shared labs and faculty hired with relevant industrial experience,” Mench said. “This department will be an agile program that responds to the rapidly changing needs of our industry. We will produce world-class engineers ready to be leaders in their field.”
BME launched as a stand-alone department this fall, separating from its association with mechanical and aerospace engineering. The separation allows BME to grow, strengthen specialization in its curriculum, and bolster its national identity. The move was made in strategic alignment with the university-level investments in human health and wellness and a strengthening partnership with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center that offers greater opportunities for the department and its faculty and students.
“An independent BME department has been over 30 years in the making, and I believe we are just getting started,” Mench said. “With visionary leadership from the chancellor, provost, department heads, and their faculty now aligned with the institutional strategic objectives, the future of the TCE is tremendous.”
Ren Selected to Lead New Department of Biomedical Engineering
Dacheng Ren has been selected as the inaugural department head of the new Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Tennessee that launched in August.
Ren comes to UT after spending the last 19 years at Syracuse University, where he was most recently the associate dean for research in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Stevenson Endowed Professor in the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, and previously the director of the Syracuse Biomaterials Institute. Ren’s research focuses on microbial control, biomaterials, and safety of medical devices.
“I am thrilled to join UT as the inaugural head of the new Department of Biomedical Engineering,” Ren said. “As one of the most rapidly growing disciplines, biomedical engineering provides new knowledge and innovative solutions to better diagnose, treat, and cure diseases, ultimately improving human health and longevity. It is an important and exciting field with unlimited potential.”
Ren received his bachelor’s degree in applied chemistry with a minor in electrical engineering from Shanghai JiaoTong University, and his master’s in chemical engineering from Tianjin University in China. He obtained his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Connecticut and was a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University prior to joining Syracuse University in 2006.
Ren was honored with an Early Career Translational Research Award in Biomedical Engineering from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation in 2009 and a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award in 2011. He is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Ren currently has more than 80 journal publications, over 8,500 citations, and 13 issued/pending patents.