University News and Communications publishes VUToday, a compilation of Vanderbilt mentions in the media, each weekday. Read a selection of Vanderbilt news stories for the week of July 31.
USA Today: Super-suits for back-pain sufferers? Smart underwear coming to the rescue
Back pain is an excruciating fixture in millions of lives, but Vanderbilt University engineers are developing something that might be able to prevent it: smart underwear. The article features a video produced by Vanderbilt Video. Lead researcher Karl Zelik, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and co-researcher Aaron Yang, assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation, are quoted. Related stories were published by Men’s Health, NewsBytes, Santé Magazine (France), heilpraxisnet.de (Germany) and Digital Trends.
NBC’s Today: Video: The 2017 best college rankings
Princeton Review is out with its list of the top 20 colleges in more than 60 categories. Vanderbilt University is featured as being ranked No. 1 with the happiest college students and No. 2 for great financial aid. Susan Wente, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, is quoted in a related story published by The Tennessean.
Slate: The Navy doctor who pushed for trans troops to serve openly pushes back on Trump’s ban
Jesse Ehrenfeld, associate professor of anesthesiology, director of the Program in LGBTI Health at the School of Medicine and a commander in the Navy Reserve, is interviewed about President Donald Trump’s recent announcement on Twitter that transgender people would be barred from serving in the United States military in any capacity.
Los Angeles Times: Measuring up U.S. infrastructure against other countries
Hiba Baroud, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, writes that America’s infrastructure falls short of the rest of the world by many measures but that a new class of solutions is emerging that, with the right funding, could help address these deficiencies. The piece, which originally appeared in The Conversation, was also reprinted in SF Gate (San Francisco) and the Houston Chronicle.
The Washington Post: Opinion: Trump’s slow pace of appointments is hurting government—and his own agenda
Do vacancies hurt the president’s agenda? At the moment, key positions in tax policy, immigration and infrastructure remain vacant. This leaves the president shorthanded. It’s hard for the president to effectively communicate his priorities to 2.85 million federal employees when most of those still work in agencies without presidential appointees, writes David Lewis, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Political Science.