Year: 2019

Frogs don’t like living near noisy highways any better than people do, but research from Vanderbilt suggests that frogs, like hardened city-dwellers, can learn to adapt to the constant din of rumbling trucks, rolling tires and honking horns. Read More

Vanderbilt University Medical Center recently received a $3.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to improve outcomes for children with significant hearing loss by providing individualized, prescription-like programming for their cochlear implants. Read More

Gastronomic Judaism as Culinary Midrash (2018, Lexington/Rowman & Littlefield) by Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, MA’86, PhD’91 This book is about who and how one makes food Jewish. Brumberg-Kraus questions Jewish identity in particular, and identity generally as something fixed, stable, singular and unintentional and Jewish food choices as situational, often temporary, expressions… Read More

Drug combinations used for the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and melanoma aren’t as effective as they could be. Oncologists haven’t had the right tools to predict drug interactions, other than in costly clinical trials. That could change with a new algorithm developed by a cross-disciplinary Vanderbilt University team… Read More

Encounters at the Edge of the Muslim World: A Political Memoir of Kyrgyzstan (2018, Rowman & Littlefield) by Eugene Huskey, BA’74 Holder of the William R. Kenan Jr. Chair in Political Science at Stetson University, Huskey’s research first took him to Kyrgyzstan in 1992, six months after Kyrgyzstan’s emergence as… Read More

Vanderbilt's internationally acclaimed student rocket team has propelled many alumni into the science of spaceflight. Read More

At Vanderbilt, there is no shortage of exploration. Every day our talented faculty, students and staff are driven to make discoveries—not just for the recognition, but for the chance to move the dial, to permeate the boundaries, to affect our society at large and for the better. Read More

During the past 11 years, NASA has awarded the Vanderbilt rocket team eight payload design awards and five national championships. The team has won a total of 30 national and international awards and 16 regional awards. In addition, the Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Lab has launched an impressive number of graduates into roles at companies such as SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Rolls Royce, NASA and Northrop. Read More

The Frist Center for Autism and Innovation seeks to transform workplaces by developing new technologies based on the specific skills and talents of people with autism, effectively inspiring advances that can lead to meaningful employment and a fuller life. Read More

Three graduates and one current student have taken their passions to extreme levels—visiting every country on the planet, flying solo around the world, biking across the country, and walking the length of California. Read More

Last year 13 former Commodores played in the big leagues. Of those 13 players, eight were pitchers, including David Price and Walker Buehler, who both pitched in the 2018 World Series. Read More

As the global initiatives director for Human Rights Watch, Worden curates and implements international outreach and advocacy campaigns and is now mobilizing the world of sport to tackle global abuses. Read More

Tthe Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2018, is taking a look at its origins through an oral history project and a documentary exhibit. Read More

“Untitled” by Alicia Henry, mixed media, 2 feet by 3 feet Paper dolls have long been used to emphasize cultural norms regarding femininity and beauty. As often happens, childhood play subtly reinforces society’s notions of the “ideal.” Once these playthings are cast off and one enters adulthood, these romanticized… Read More

Junior Nicholas Heilborn conducts his commissioned piece with chatterbird musicians. Photo by Susan Urmy The composer Michael Slayton can’t remember the first time an ensemble performed one of his pieces. That’s perhaps not surprising, since Slayton’s works, especially his chamber music, are now frequently commissioned and performed… Read More

Photo by Anne Rayner Douglas Shadle, assistant professor of musicology, was presented with the American Musicological Society’s inaugural H. Robert Cohen/RIPM Award at this year’s annual meeting in San Antonio for his book Orchestrating the Nation: The Nineteenth-Century American Symphonic Enterprise (2015, Oxford University Press). The award honors… Read More

James Threalkill, BS’79, poses with the portraits he has painted for the Legacy Pioneers series. (Joe Howell) Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos unveiled four portraits during Reunion weekend in October that are part of a new Vanderbilt Trailblazers portrait series honoring members of the Vanderbilt community who broke barriers at… Read More

Entertaining a continent as populous as Asia is no small feat. Todd Miller, CEO of Hong Kong–based Celestial Tiger Entertainment, is doing it with aplomb. “You can think of Celestial as the HBO of Chinese movies,” he says. “We operate six core channels, all of… Read More

Judge Escobar outside the Justice A.A. Birch courthouse in Nashville. (John Russell) There were no road maps for Ana Escobar to follow when she was elected Nashville’s first Latina judge in August. Further, the self-described introvert had to step outside her comfort zone to run for the elective post… Read More

Xiaoyan Jiang, MBA’01, is helping to ensure that Owen Students can expand their educations by traveling abroad. (Chad Driver) Xiaoyan Jiang, MBA’01, is a strong believer in the transformative power of international travel. While working in global business, she logged addresses in Nashville, Cleveland, Tokyo, Hong Kong and… Read More