Year: 2017

Scientists have known that the brain detects where sound comes from based on a couple of major cues — when the sound hits each ear (interaural time difference) and what the sound level is when it does (interaural level difference.) Less is known, however, about where and how that spatial hearing information is processed in the brain. Read More

One of the key elements of the Vanderbilt Program for LGBTI Health, an innovative effort to improve health care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex patients, is community engagement. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is starting an Advanced Practice Emergency Medicine Fellowship, one of the first programs in the country exclusively for nurse practitioners specializing in emergency care. Read More

Rates of new HIV infections in the United States are declining — except among men who have sex with men. Rates are particularly high among African-American and Hispanic men and especially in the South. Read More

David Penson, M.D., MPH, Paul V. Hamilton, M.D., and Virginia E. Howd Professor of Urologic Oncology and chair of the Department of Urologic Surgery, has been named an associate editor for The Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI). Read More

The EpicLeap project recently reached an important milestone, with the official start of end user training having begun on Aug. 21. While in-class training sessions provide colleagues with their first glimpse into Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s (VUMC) customized system (eStar) and familiarize them with the new functionality, it is important to remember that live classroom sessions are only one small aspect of a holistic training approach. Read More

Vanderbilt University welcomed 104 new doctoral students Sept. 1 during the eighth annual Simple Beginnings ceremony in a Light Hall lecture room filled with family members and other well-wishers. Read More

Steven Webber, MBChB, MRCP, delivered the annual State of the Department of Pediatrics address on Tuesday, with growth and quality improvement serving as recurring themes along with a focus on the department’s four mission areas — discovery, clinical care, education and advocacy, service and community partnerships. Read More

In 2015, King started MACRO, a media company focused on developing content for multicultural audiences. The company’s first major project was the movie Fences, directed by Denzel Washington and nominated for four Oscars last year. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is gearing up for its seventh annual Flulapalooza mass influenza vaccination event, set for Wednesday, Sept. 27, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the area between Light Hall and the Veteran's Administration Hospital. Read More

in the latest book by Vanderbilt Professor of French Holly Tucker—City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris (2017, Norton)—she recounts the true-crime saga of a string of murders that plagued Paris in the late 1600s—and how the city’s first police chief stopped them. Read More

By Bryant Palmer, BA’95 JON KRAUSE   It’s 1994, and I’m in the offices of the Vanderbilt Hustler at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday. I spend as much time here as anywhere else on campus, but not usually this early. I’ve got a phone interview, not with a dean… Read More

When she finally applied her "brain soup" technique to the human brain, Herculano-Houzel discovered we have an average of 86 billion neurons. Surprisingly, though, the neuron density is the same as in other primates, showing a clear evolutionary pattern from monkeys to humans. “We somehow manage to have this large brain with a large number of neurons; but it’s still just a regular primate brain,” says Herculano-Houzel. Read More

Visual artist Mel Chin, BA’75, was named this year’s Peabody College Distinguished Alumnus. (Courtesy Mel Chin) Visionary artist Mel Chin, BA’75, was honored during Commencement May 12 by Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development with the 2017 Distinguished Alumnus Award. Born in Houston in… Read More

Mark L. Schoenfield, professor of English, is among 173 scholars, artists and scientists in the United States and Canada to be awarded a 2017 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Arts Jonathan Rattner’s film The Interior won the Michael Moore Award for… Read More

The program cover for the Verlaine celebration featured this watercolor illustration by artist László Barta(1902–1961) under the name of Brutus, for a 1936 edition of a collection of Verlaine’s poems titled “Hombres.” Poet Paul Verlaine rocketed between emotional highs and lows, between a life of complete freedom… Read More

James Berkenstock (top right) and his wife, Jean, co-founded the Midsummer’s Music Festival in Door County, Wisconsin, dedicated to the chamber repertoire. (Courtesy Midsummer’s Music Festival) Some people believe the life of a musician is nomadic, traveling the world and playing in all kinds of venues. However, James… Read More

Emily Manchester Townes, BA’50, has preserved her brother’s war letters by compiling them into a family history. A portrait of John Manchester hangs behind her. (DANIEL DUBOIS)   When John Speier Manchester left Vanderbilt halfway through his sophomore year in December 1942 to enlist in the U.S. Navy, he… Read More

Like the rest of Nashville, Vanderbilt was bitten by the hockey bug as the city’s 20-year-old NHL expansion team, the Predators, battled the Pittsburgh Penguins in June for this year’s Stanley Cup. University photographer John Russell, who shot much of the action for the Nashville team (including the photo seen here), even helped enlist Vanderbilt’s mascot, Mr. C., to rally Preds fans in the final days of the championship series. Read More

As the campus buzzes with the arrival of new students (and the university made sure they were outfitted with solar eclipse glasses), I think about the spectrum of history embodied in an institution like Vanderbilt. What school traditions or past stories will ignite the imaginations of these newest Commodores? Read More