Tennessee Tech University could receive $3 million in proposed state funding from Governor Bill Lee to expand its Next-Gen Academies, with a focus on nuclear and cybersecurity technologies.
Tennessee Tech Chief of Government Affairs Dr. Terry Saltsman said state leaders have been discussing for the past few years how the nuclear industry can advance while getting more Tennesseans involved. Saltsman said the funding for Next-Gen Academies is a way that Tennessee Tech can help the state do more in the nuclear industry.
“Hire more professors, we’ll be able to hire more cyber experts in our college, that in turn will provide us the means to recruit and educate those students who will support the industry in the future,” Saltsman said.
Saltsman said the university is excited to see that the state is providing funds to allow the initiative to take off. Saltsman said the Next-Gen Academies will help fill the demand for the various career fields in the nuclear industry.
“We need people in mechatronics who support it at the base level, we need nuclear engineers who will help design and operate these facilities, we need nuclear physicists who will study advanced nuclear reactions and allow us to build and design that next generation — that fifth and sixth-generation nuclear facility that is just in people’s imaginations right now. It allows us to look into the future of the nuclear industry and grasp a vision of what that might look like.”
Saltsman said as the nuclear industry grows in Tennessee, so does the need for cybersecurity. Saltsman said cybersecurity is becoming heavily tied to the nuclear industry.
“Nuclear facilities are connected to the internet,” Saltsman said. “They are going to need protection. Basically, that stopgap that prevents other people — you have always heard about nuclear threats coming in from China, Russia, Belarus, etc. — this will allow us to develop those experts in cybersecurity to protect what we are building in that nuclear infrastructure.”
Governor Lee proposed the funds in his state budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The state’s budget has not been finalized.