Dr. Kelly Tiller
Assistant Professor & Director
Department of Agricultural Economics
Office of Bioenergy Programs
Director of External Operations
The University of Tennessee
209-B Forest Products Center
2506 Jacob Drive
Knoxville, TN 37996-4570
(865) 946-1130
(865) 946-1109 (FAX)
ktiller@tennessee.edu
www.utbioenergy.org
Professional Appointments
- Agricultural Policy Analysis Center
- Center for Tobacco Grower Research, Director
- Genera Energy, LLC, Chief Executive Officer
- UT Research Foundation, Director of Bioenergy Programs
Areas of Professional Interest
- Biofuels policy and economics and business development
- Tobacco policy and economics
- Commodity and resource policy, firm-level policy analysis
Education
- Ph.D., The University of Tennessee, 1996
Other Information
Dr. Tiller is the Director of External Operations for the University of Tennessee’s Office of Bioenergy Programs. In this role, she is coordinating a State and University commitment of more than $70 million to develop a cellulosic biofuels industry in Tennessee. As part of the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative, the University of Tennessee is constructing a demonstration-scale cellulosic biorefinery in the state and developing a local farm-based switchgrass energy crop industry.
Dr. Tiller also holds a faculty appointment in the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center at the University of Tennessee, where she has been a faculty member in the Department of Agricultural Economics since 1999. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in Agricultural Economics.
Since 2004, Dr. Tiller has worked with the team implementing the Sun Grant Initiative in the Southeastern Region, a federally funded program creating university-based research, education, and extension programs for biobased energy technologies. Dr. Tiller has coordinated the development of the Sun Grant BioWeb, an online educational resource for comprehensive peer-reviewed information on biofuels, biopower, bioproducts, and biorefineries. She is also working on a multi-institution and multi-disciplinary effort to develop a graduate-level curriculum in biomass conversion technology and bioenergy systems.
Much of her previous research has focused on tobacco policy and economics. She was very involved with the development of the tobacco quota buyout legislation that was enacted in 2004, which ended the federal tobacco program and delivered more than $10 billion in privately funded compensation payments to tobacco farmers in the Southeast. She is currently the Director of the Center for Tobacco Grower Research at the University of Tennessee. Her work with tobacco policy was recently recognized with the outstanding education and outreach program award by the American Agricultural Economics Association and the Tennessee Research Impact Award.
Dr. Tiller has been called on five times to provide expert testimony before Congress and a Presidential Commission, and has provided more than 50 congressional, agency staff, and policy staff briefings and more than 100 invited professional and industry presentations. Over the last five years, she has been awarded more than $2.5 million in grant and contract funding for her research programs, in addition to co-authoring the business plan for the $70 million Tennessee Biofuels Initiative and securing biorefinery development funding in excess of $100 million.
