UConn receiving millions to conduct research for U.S. Navy

WASHINGTON — Professor Richard Christenson isn’t allowed to say exactly what his students at the University of Connecticut are researching for the U.S. Navy.

His program, the National Institute for Undersea Vehicle Technology, collaborates with the University of Rhode Island and General Dynamics Electric Boat to develop the nextgeneration of submarines and the workforce that will build them. The program has received millions in federal funding in 2019 and will compete for more government dollars authorized by a recent bipartisan defense bill.

“There are a number of research efforts that show great promise,” said Christenson, codirector of the Institute.

The idea for this institute was born in January 2017, but UConn has been conducting research for the Navy and submarinemaker Electric Boat in informal ways for years, Christenson said.

The Navy works with hundreds of academic institutions and industry partners to conduct research and performs its own studies in naval research laboratories, said David Smalley, deputy Director for Public Affairs for the Office of Naval Research. Electric Boat declined to comment.

The National Institute for Undersea Vehicle Technology is another way the U.S. Department of Defense and Electric Boat is seeking to bolster the Connecticut advanced manufacturing workforce by harnessing college students to ride out an expected “silver tsunami” of retiring workers in the next few years.

UConn is the No. 1 provider of engineers to Electric Boat and Pratt and Whitney, another Connecticut manufacturer that makes jet engines for the U.S. Air Force among others, said Kazem Kazerounian, Dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Connecticut.

UConn is also home to the United Technologies Corporation Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering and two Pratt and Whitney engineering and manufacturing centers, Kazerounian said.

“The state of Connecticut has two major advanced industries, aerospace and naval vessels, basically submarines,” Kazerounian said. “In the School of Engineering, we strive to be very relevant to the economy of the state and the economic development.”

Over the past 5 years, Pratt and Whitney, and its parent company United Technologies, has hired 1,500 engineers and 800 of them from UConn, Kazerounian said. Electric Boat employs about 1,000 UConn alumni, he added.