Federal jurors convicted retired University of Tennessee professor emeritus J. Reece Roth Wednesday morning on 18 charges of violating the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits the distribution or sale of sensitive technologies to foreign countries.

Roth, who was indicted in May 2008, was found guilty of allowing two foreign national graduate assistants, Xin Dai of China and Sirous Nourgostar of Iran, access to information about a U.S. Air Force defense project.

The former electrical and computer engineering professor now faces more than 150 years in prison. The sentence hearing is set for Jan. 7, 2009.

The project involving work on plasma actuators for Air Force drones was awarded to Knoxville firm Atmospheric Glow Technologies Inc., where Roth served as a subcontractor. It was there the two foreign students had access to the military project.

Daniel Max Sherman, former AGT employee and UT physicist, pleaded guilty to related charges in April when he struck a plea deal and agreed to aid in a probe of the company and Roth. AGT also pleaded guilty to 10 counts of exporting classified material. Sentencing for both cases is still pending.

Roth was also accused of taking reports of the project to China during a lecture tour in 2006. The indictment alleged that Roth did not have permission to take the classified documents to China and that he lied about the employment of Dai and Nourgostar.

Roth denied violating the Arms Export Control Law because he did not believe the work fell under the Arms Export Control Act until after the project was completed, Thomas Dundon, his defense attorney, said.

U.S. Attorney Will Mackie said Roth knew the law, as evidenced by his own notes. In them, Roth details efforts to separate Dai from an American student who handled the export control information. When the separation hindered the project's progress, the students shared information.