UT’s Institute of Future Mobility Celebrates Strong Start with Director Kevin Heaslip
In the fall of 2023, the University of Tennessee launched the multidisciplinary Institute for Future Mobility, a research cluster devoted to revolutionizing the transportation sector in Knoxville and around the world.
Since its inception, the institute has hired six tenure-track faculty and eight new research faculty across three UT colleges, the Center for Transportation Research (CTR), and the UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute (UTORII).
The cluster now includes over 150 students, faculty, and staff researchers focused on mobility and transport, including representatives from every college at the university. Research expenditures for the cluster have increased by 75 percent over the past two years, exceeding $14 million in the 2025 fiscal year.
“I can’t think of any other university that has put this level of investment in mobility and transport research. What we’re building here at UT is unique,” said Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Kevin Heaslip, the director of both the Institute for Future Mobility and the CTR. “The growth in research that we’ve been able to do since this cluster started has significantly elevated UT’s standing within the field.”
With contributions from experts in so many fields, the Future of Mobility cluster can take a comprehensive view of the transportation sector—with research spanning not just new technologies but also the social, behavioral, and economic effects of their implementation.
For instance, would people rely too heavily on a driving assistance program and stop watching the road, or find it frustrating and deactivate it? How would self-driving vehicles impact the job market? Should Knoxville Area Transit (KAT) implement neighborhood shuttles that safely ferry people to major bus routes?
“Understanding how people would interact with new transportation technology is of the utmost importance,” Heaslip said. “We’re doing work that will help us understand how we can design a technology and integrate it in a way that will improve mobility while keeping people safe.”
Read the full article at cee.utk.edu.