Interim Director – Data Science Institute
Timothy M. Young is Professor Emeritus in School of Natural Resources; and Interim Director of the Data Science Institute at the University of Tennessee. He has Ph.D. in Statistics (focus on Machine Learning) and M.S. in Statistics (minor in Operations Research) from the University of Tennessee. He also holds M.S. and B.S. degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He teaches highly successful industry courses in ‘‘Advanced Analytics, Modeling, and Machine Learning’, ‘Data Analytics and Variation Reduction’ and ‘Design of Experiments for Rapid Innovation’ to a large number of companies at national and international locations since 2000. He is an invited lecturer and adjunct professor at BOKU University, Vienna, and Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, Austria; University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; and the Technical University of Munich Germany since 2010. Tim has extensive invited international speaking engagements and customized training courses for industry in Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Croatia, Greece, Ireland, New Zealand, Romania, and Wales. He was a Fulbright Scholar and Fulbright Specialist (Statistics) in 2014|2016 in Austria.
Tim was awarded the University of Wisconsin CALS ‘Outstanding Alumni of the Year’ in 2018 and ‘Fellow of the International Academy of Wood Science’ in 2019. He is current Head of the Industrial Engineering Unit and Director of the Center for AI and Data Science (CDS) of the Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER), Greece. Leadership experience includes past President of the Forest Products Society (FPS). Tim is an active member of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and American Society of Quality (ASQ).
Professor and Director – School of Natural Resources
Don Hodges is the James R. Cox Professor and Director of the UT School of Natural Resources. He earned his B.S. in Forestry from the University of Tennessee (1982) and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Forest Economics from the University of Georgia (1985, 1988). Over the past 35 years, Hodges has taught more than 150 graduate and undergraduate courses and conducted research in forest economics, econometrics and statistics, and forest products. He was awarded a Fulbright Scholar Award to Slovenia in 2011 and continues to collaborate on forest economics research and co-teaches a doctoral-level research methods class at the University of Ljubljana. Hodges also is a SAF Fellow and currently serves on the boards of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and Tennessee Forestry Association, and the Executive Committee of the National Association of University Forest Research Programs (NAUFRP).
Agriculture and Natural Resources
Thomas K. (Tom) Looney is Assistant Vice Chancellor for Development and has been with the University of Tennessee for more than 30 years. He holds a MS in Communications Management and a BS in Journalism/Public Relations from the University of Tennessee. He leads major gift development for the UT Institute of Agriculture, which includes the School of Natural Resources and the Data Science Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
Kyle Hensley serves as Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations for the UT Institute of Agriculture. He holds a bachelors degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Tennessee’s Herbert College of Agriculture and a Masters in Business Administration from UT’s Haslam College of Business.