Two of the state’s "Top 10" scientists identified by Business Tennessee magazine have ties to TTU.

Mechanical Engineering Associate Professor Steve Canfield and alumnus Richard Turner (Chemistry ’64, ’66) are ranked as two of the most prolific, accomplished and/or up-and-coming scientists working to change the world.

Business Tennessee editors, in selecting this year's Top 10, said, "These 10 scientists affirm an image of Tennessee as a state steadily moving from its agricultural past toward the cutting-edge research and development frontiers of tomorrow."

NASA is set to activate another stage of Canfield’s high profile research on powering spacecraft from low-earth to high-earth orbit using a momentum exchange electrodynamic reboost tether system. The MXER system could some day lead to harnessing the Earth’s forces to propel rockets into space and to capture and release payloads.

“With current NASA support we hope to march this project up the readiness ladder and validate what we think will happen in a lab environment with this system,” says Canfield.

NASA has supported Canfield and a group of students through the infancy of their research. Last summer, they were invited to NASA’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program and spent several hours aboard a KC-135 aircraft testing the dynamics of capture and release of a payload with a scaled model space tether in an anti-gravity environment.

Now NASA has asked the group to produce dynamic modeling that will lead to conceptualization and prototyping of a working system. This support signals a move up for Canfield’s project on NASA’s technical readiness scale.

“We’ve been asked to design a viable payload capture mechanism and to examine what works, what doesn’t work, and why,” says Canfield. “These questions need to be answered through analysis and theory and then compared to findings of other teams working on similar systems.”

Tennessee Tech leads the research for a capture mechanism powered by the tether system, but a handful of other groups are working on other methods.

A viable MXER tether system would use the Earth’s magnetic force as a source of energy. Now spacecraft depend on rocket boosters for propulsion, but Canfield proposes using electrodynamic tethers to shove a spacecraft against the Earth’s magnetic field, resulting in a transfer of momentum that would carry the spacecraft into orbit. Once the tether transfers energy to the payload, it would slowly rebuild its orbital momentum using electrodynamic thrust.

Turner, a research fellow at Eastman Chemical Co.’s Polymer Technology Division, holds 95 patents in polymer chemistry and has worked for Xerox, ExxonMobile and Kodak. He joined Eastman in 1993 and is leading efforts to improve Eastman’s plastics and introduce new products to the marketplace.

His current projects include creating new types of plastics that have higher temperature resistance to flow properties and improving clear plastics used in medical settings that need to be see-through and resistant to medical fluids and sterilization processes.

“The polymer field is competitive and fast changing, and there is more demand for end products than for pure science,” says Turner. “An important part of my work is championing new polymers to commercialize their uses. I’m interested in developing new polymers and plastics that enable people to do things they can’t do today."

Although he contributes to frontier science in the field, it’s Turner’s ability to see the big picture when it comes to his research that earns him “top scientist” status. His colleagues laud his understanding of business and marketing strategies essential to getting new products into the marketplace. He conducts much of his research with the goal of adding value to a company looking to create a new, improved or less expensive product.

A former TTU baseball player, Turner credits the late professor Vernon Allen for being his mentor and friend and encouraging him to pursue graduate work and his subsequent career.

“There were only three or four places in the country to pursue a doctorate in the polymer field, and Dr. Allen steered me to the University of Florida for that opportunity,” says Turner. “He’s the reason I completed my master’s degree at Tennessee Tech, and his support meant a lot to me.”

In gratitude to Allen, Turner helped our Chemistry Department establish the Vernon Allen Memorial Scholarship Fund. He also stays connected to TTU by visiting campus and working with Chairperson Scott Northrup on opportunities to speak to students.

The Nashville native was named a Fellow by the Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering Division of the American Chemical Society in 2002. He also is a member of the advisory board of the Petroleum Research Fund and has served on several National Science Foundation review panels.