Assistant Professor, Nuclear Engineering, Fall 2025

Description

The Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) is seeking applications to fill a tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant Professor level starting on August 1, 2025. Duties include teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in nuclear engineering-related subjects, generating externally funded research, advising graduate students, writing scholarly journal articles, and providing service to the department, college, university, and professional community.

The University of Tennessee Nuclear Engineering Department is part of the Tickle College of Engineering, which has the fastest growing PhD program among the Top 40 public colleges of engineering.  The department has a diverse research portfolio and is the largest Nuclear Engineering PhD program in the United States with over 120 PhD students and over $17M in annual research expenditures.  According to ASEE, it also has the second largest undergraduate program.  In 2021 we moved into a new $129M building, which houses more than 23 new nuclear engineering laboratories and computational resources. In the past 3 years, our undergraduate program has experienced an unprecedented ~100% growth in first-year enrollment with 97 new freshman. UTK has close collaborations with ORNL, Y-12, and more than 150 nuclear-related companies within 50 miles of campus and is located close to the beautiful Smoky Mountains. The Nuclear Engineering Department is committed to cultivating work/life balance and a family-friendly work environment for faculty, staff, and students.

The Tickle College of Engineering is in the midst of an unprecedented period of growth and success including adding over 30 new faculty as part of ambitious cluster hiring campaigns led by Chancellor Donde Plowman and Dean Matthew Mench. The college has set records in research expenditures, enrollment, incoming student GPA, diversity, intellectual property development, and USNWR rank in the past three years. New facilities include the state-of-the art Zeanah Engineering Complex, the University of Tennessee Manufacturing and Design Enterprise (TN-MADE) facility, and the Innovation South building now under construction that will house UTK’s Fibers and Composites Manufacturing Facility (FCMF). TCE currently has 185 Tenure/Tenure Track and 67 Non-Tenure Track faculty in its seven academic departments and offers 12 undergraduate, 16 MS, and 15 PhD degree programs. Affiliated with TCE and located in Tullahoma, Tennessee, the UT Space Institute is a hub of aerospace and defense research. The college is also home to eight research centers and three interdisciplinary institutes. With approximately 3,800 undergraduate and 1,150 graduate students, the college sits 29th among public universities in the most recent U.S. News and World Report graduate rankings. Faculty in the college have won 21 early career awards (NSF, DoE, DARPA, AFOSR, and ARO) since 2016. In FY22, the college had NSF HERD research expenditures of $109 million.

Knoxville, TN is a vibrant city with a beautiful and walkable downtown, active neighborhoods, an effervescent nightlife that includes numerous theaters and museums, a rich live music scene across all genres, and eclectic restaurants. Knoxville is nestled in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, surrounded by lakes and the Tennessee River, providing an amazing access to outdoor activities of all kinds. Knoxville is within 200 miles of four major metropolitan areas that regularly host larger cultural and entertainment events.

Qualifications

Applicants must have a doctorate in Nuclear Engineering or a closely related field by the effective date of appointment. 

Applicants should be able to contribute to existing courses and research activities in nuclear engineering, as well as to develop new avenues of research and teaching. Specific areas of expertise can fall within any of the three signature capabilities of our department, which include: ensuring the sustainability and future expansion of nuclear power; radiation detection, nuclear security and non-proliferation; and radiological engineering, nuclear chemistry and medicine, and medical physics. Ideally, successful candidates could work across more than one of these signature areas. Preference will be given to candidates who have demonstrated research success that complements existing University of Tennessee strengths and with the vision to develop collaborative and sustainable funded research activities. In addition to demonstrated excellence in research and the potential for developing a highly visible, externally funded research program, successful candidates will also be committed to high-quality undergraduate and graduate teaching.

Application Instructions

The University of Tennessee is seek