David Sholl is the Executive Director of the University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute (UT-ORII) and Vice Provost of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Sholl also leads Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Transformational Decarbonization Initiative. From 2013-2021, Sholl was the School Chair of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. In 2022-2023, he was a Portfolio Strategy Advisor for DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED), where he was the lead author OCED’s inaugural multiyear program plan. He is a Fellow of AIChE and AAAS and in 2024 was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Sholl has published hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and several books, including Density Functional Theory: A Practical Introduction (with Jan Steckel, 2009) and Success and Creativity in Scientific Research: Amaze Your Friends and Surprise Yourself (2021). His research has primarily focused on using materials modeling methods to develop new materials and processes for chemical separations and energy applications. He has advised over 80 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers.

View Sholl’s ORNL bio here.