Kelly Tiller, Ph.D.

President and CEO

As Genera Energy President and CEO, Dr. Kelly Tiller was instrumental in the creation of Genera Energy in 2007 as a subsidiary of the University of Tennessee Research Foundation.  Genera was founded primarily as a vehicle to develop strategic partnerships and execute the capital construction projects of the University of Tennessee's $70.5 million Biofuels Initiative, expanding since to manage various biomass feedstock business activities, and creating a farmer-owned biomass supply cooperative. She was instrumental in developing a collaboration with DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol to jointly construct and operate a demonstration scale cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in East Tennessee.

Dr. Tiller also holds administrative and faculty positions at the University of Tennessee, serving as the Director of External Operations for the University of Tennessee’s Office of Bioenergy Programs and as an Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics. In these roles, she is coordinating a State and University commitment of more than $70 million to develop a cellulosic biofuels industry in Tennessee, integrating a local farm-based switchgrass energy crop industry and demonstrating a portfolio of switchgrass processes and technologies for green fuel, power, and chemicals. Much of her previous faculty work focused on tobacco policy and economics, including extensive involvement in development of the 2004 tobacco quota buyout legislation, 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 the founder and director of the Center for Tobacco Grower Research, a national survey research center of excellence at the University of Tennessee.

Dr. Tiller received an undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and her master’s and doctoral degrees in Agricultural Economics from the University of Tennessee. Dr. Tiller has been called on more than a half dozen times to testify before Congress and frequently provides briefings for Congress and federal agencies. She is the recipient of several academic and professional research awards, including the Program of Distinction Award by the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association and the University of Tennessee’s Research Impact Award. She was recognized among the Top 40 Under 40 by the Knoxville Business Journal for early exceptional leadership in business and community and was highlighted in the ag industry’s Top Producer Magazine as one of 2009’s Top 25 influencers of agriculture’s future.