University of Tennessee names 2025 Chancellor’s Innovation Award recipients

For the second year, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is supporting entrepreneurial research led by UT faculty with Chancellor’s Innovation Fund awards of $50,000 for each project. This year’s winning researchers are testing an implantable prosthetic thumb, developing humanoid robots, protecting the national soybean crop, improving data collection for manufacturing, and creating aluminum-air batteries.

The Chancellor’s Innovation Fund was developed in 2023 to strengthen East Tennessee’s entrepreneurial network and support faculty who want to bring their technology to market.

The recipients, who were honored at an award ceremony on Feb. 18, were chosen through a rigorous process that included a pitch competition during which they described the benefits of their technology and how the funding would help them commercialize the ideas.

Evaluations of the projects were based on their ability to address an unmet market need, the current state of technology, the proposed technology development plan and the funding’s impact on commercialization. UT Research Foundation supported the program by evaluating proposals and providing three dedicated coaching sessions – a crash course in delivering a compelling five-minute business pitch.

“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work alongside such brilliant innovators and to witness their enthusiasm for learning something entirely new,” said Marc A. Nabhan, UT’s assistant director of entrepreneurship and new ventures. “Their performance in the pitch competition was nothing short of inspiring, and I look forward to continuing to support and shape our world-class researchers into entrepreneurial visionaries.”

These are the 2025 recipients:

Dustin Crouch: EndoThumb

Dustin Crouch, an associate professor of biomedical engineering in UT’s Tickle College of Engineering, is creating an implantable prosthesis called the EndoThumb. Unlike traditional prosthetics, worn on the outside of the body, the EndoThumb will be enclosed in living skin to restore both natural appearance and tactile sensation.

Crouch and research associate Katrina Easton will focus their efforts on finalizing the EndoThumb design to prepare for FDA preclinical testing; this would support an application to perform a clinical trial, with expected FDA approval in 2031. An equally important part of the work will be vetting the EndoThumb to see if it is a commercially viable product that insurance would cover and hospitals would purchase.

Jindong Tan, Shuai Li and Weizi Li: Skillfold Robotics

Faculty across departments in the Tickle College of Engineering are working together to equip robots with humanlike skills so they can be deployed in real-world settings such as grocery stores.

Skillfold Robotics is creating one solution for two problems: the expense of staffing supermarkets and inflation in the prices for goods. Deploying robots to scan and stock shelves in supermarkets can reduce labor costs and lead to cost savings for customers.

The team has been working on the project since 2020 and has already produced a prototype agile enough to navigate tight spaces and dexterous enough to perform tasks that humans do. With a patent granted in 2024, Skillfold Robotics’ next step is to showcase their robot at upcoming technology exhibitions.

Vince Pantalone: SCN Race 2-resistant soybeans

Soybeans are the top agricultural crop in Tennessee and the second leading crop in the nation, but a new race of soybean cyst nematode, SCN Race 2, can attack all existing breeds of soybeans. Vince Pantalone, the Charles E. Wharton Institute Professor of Plant Sciences, and Professor of Plant Sciences Tarek Hewezi, both in the Herbert College of Agriculture, discovered a new gene for SCN Race 2 resistance last year. Now a team of faculty led by Pantalone will use the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund award to conduct DNA sequencing to make a superior variety of soybean.

Field testing in crops this summer will allow the team to gauge the performance of the lines and move the best selections forward to commercialization.

Sai Swaminathan: On-Site IoT

Manufacturing depends on sensors to collect data, and sensors depend on batteries. Sai Swaminathan, an assistant professor in the Tickle College of Engineering, and a team of UT researchers have invented AI-driven peel-and-stick sensors that are self-sustainable by harvesting energy from light.

The On-Site IoT (Internet of Things) devices are lower cost and lower maintenance than traditional batteries, and able to process machine data instantly on the factory floor. The sensors also increase data security by using LiFi, a light-based communication protocol, instead of the internet, decreasing vulnerability to cyber attacks.

Swaminathan and fellow team members Danny Norman and Dan Scott already have a working prototype of On-Site IoT and will use the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund award to launch pilot testing with manufacturing partners.

Thomas Zawodzinski and Brian Washington: Aluminum-Air Batteries

Batteries that run on aluminum and oxygen from the air could power multiple electric​ applications ranging from stationary systems to drones to large-scale heavy-duty vehicles. Zawodzinski, UT-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair for Electrical Energy Conversion and Storage in UT’s Tickle College of Engineering, and Entrepreneurial Fellow Brian Washington will create prototypes of these batteries for different use cases.

Aluminum-air batteries are better for the environment because they are nonflammable and fully recyclable. Additionally, these systems do not produce carbon dioxide during system operation. The team has increased the power output of their aluminum-air battery system by 1 1/2 to two times the amount previously thought to be the gold standard, and the goal this year is to have a functional physical prototype.