Dr. Joan Bienvenue serves as UT-ORII’s executive director and vice provost.  Dr. Joan Bienvenue joined the University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute as its first executive director and vice provost in March 2021.

Bienvenue leads UT-ORII’s efforts to leverage UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s resources to establish a hub for world-class discovery and innovation, interdisciplinary graduate education and talent development.

Before joining UT-ORII, Bienvenue spent nearly eight years at the Applied Research Institute at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. As that agency’s first executive director, she worked to grow research, education and training, with an emphasis on global and national security. Prior to that, she was program manager and chief scientist for the development of Lockheed Martin’s rapid DNA analysis platform. Bienvenue also worked as the supervisor of validation and quality control for the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md.; and was an ORISE Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the FBI.

She holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Virginia, a master’s in forensic science from the University of New Haven in Connecticut, an MBA from the University of Mary Washington in Virginia and a bachelor’s in chemistry from Rivier University in New Hampshire. She was a National Institute of Justice Research Fellow while at UVA, where her work focused on the development of microfluidic systems. This work was summarized in over 15 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters and presented at many conferences; she is an inventor on five US patents.

Bienvenue is a American Academy of Forensic Sciences fellow. She was appointed to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine board on Army Research and Development in 2019, where she has co-chaired several NASEM efforts. She is a member of the advisory boards for the Tickle College of Engineering at UT Knoxville and the UT One Health Initiative. She also serves on the East Tennessee Economic Council’s board of directors.

Bienvenue holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Virginia, a master’s in forensic science from the University of New Haven, a MBA from the University of Mary Washington and a bachelor’s in chemistry from Rivier University.

Bienvenue is an avid runner and has completed more than 40 marathons.