Philip Barnett is a research assistant professor with the University of Tennessee–Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s Clean Manufacturing and Advanced Materials Convergent Research Initiative. He also holds a joint appointment with the Composites Innovation Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Barnett’s research focuses on hybrid and multiscale reinforced composites, impact protection and crashworthiness, and the low-energy production of high-performance composites.

He earned his doctorate from the University of Tennessee, where he developed a novel manufacturing process for high-performance recycled carbon fiber composites. He later served as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, studying agile manufacturing of aerospace structural composites. In 2023, Barnett returned to UT as one of the inaugural hires of the UT–Oak Ridge Innovation Institute.

Education