From the city’s neighborhoods and cultural institutions to its infrastructure, industries and workplaces, New York offers students new ways to explore what they learn in the classroom. Vanderbilt faculty are at the center of that experience, bringing their scholarship and expertise to the university’s new Chelsea campus.
Five faculty members from the College of Arts and Science, School of Engineering and Peabody College of education and human development will help establish that academic foundation this fall: Samira Sheikh, Victoria Hensley, Sanjiv Gokhale, SC Perot and Anton Thomas. Together, they bring expertise spanning history, the built environment, engineering and organizational leadership. Their disciplines and backgrounds vary, but together they reflect Vanderbilt’s vision for New York, combining the opportunities of a global city with the academic rigor, faculty engagement and intellectual community of a Vanderbilt education.
“Vanderbilt’s New York campus places faculty at the center of the student experience. The city offers extraordinary opportunities to connect rigorous classroom learning with institutions, industries and communities that can deepen students’ understanding of what they study and how they can apply it in the world,” Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs C. Cybele Raver said.
The undergraduate semester program puts that idea into practice, pairing Vanderbilt coursework with internships and experiential learning that connect students to the city’s industries, institutions and communities. Students also have opportunities to experience New York through faculty- and staff-led programming, from a Broadway backstage tour and performances at Lincoln Center to visits to the United Nations and Chelsea galleries, as well as conversations with leaders from the city’s business, civic and cultural communities.
Here are some of the Vanderbilt faculty who will help bring that experience to life.
Samira Sheikh: Mapping connected worlds
Associate Professor of History, College of Arts and Science
Historian Samira Sheikh studies western India and the Indian Ocean world, with interests in political change, trade, religion and spatial knowledge. Her current projects include a book on the 18th-century port city of Bharuch and a study of the distinctive cartographic traditions of South Asia.
Maps lie at the heart of her current work: She examines how people made and used maps to make sense of the world. Vanderbilt’s New York campus offers new ways to trace the far-reaching connections at the center of her scholarship. Even the city’s geography carries echoes of the histories she studies: Queens County, established in 1683, is traditionally associated with Catherine of Braganza, whose marriage to Charles II brought Bombay under English rule. Connections like these allow Sheikh to use New York as a lens for exploring intertwined histories of empire, migration and urban life.
Victoria Hensley: Reading the city through its communities and built environment
Senior Lecturer of Civic Engagement, Program in Culture, Advocacy and Leadership, College of Arts and Science
For Victoria Hensley, cities themselves can tell stories.
A public historian and historic preservationist by training, Hensley studies historic preservation, urban built environments and grassroots public history. Her research focuses particularly on the legacy of residential segregation and community-led preservation efforts as well as the material culture of Black craftspeople.
Before joining Vanderbilt, Hensley worked as a city planner in Franklin, Tennessee, before becoming a postdoctoral researcher with Vanderbilt’s Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities. She now teaches in the Program in Culture, Advocacy and Leadership, where students examine history, institutions and communities while developing the skills to engage in civic and public life.
The neighborhoods, cultural institutions, stories of New Yorkers and layers of urban history surrounding Vanderbilt’s new campus offer a particularly rich setting for that work. Students can encounter those ideas beyond the classroom through the city itself, from its neighborhoods and public spaces to cultural institutions and conversations with New Yorkers about the communities they call home.
Sanjiv Gokhale: Connecting engineering with the city being built around students
Professor of the Practice of Civil Engineering and Engineering, Endowed Director of Construction Management, Vanderbilt School of Engineering
Few places make the scale and complexity of the built environment as visible as New York City.
Sanjiv Gokhale brings decades of engineering and construction management experience to Vanderbilt’s New York campus. A structural engineer by education and training, Gokhale has worked in the design, construction and program management of institutional, commercial and healthcare facilities.
He joined Vanderbilt’s civil engineering faculty in 2001 and has been a longtime leader of the university’s Construction Management program. Since its establishment, the program has prepared students who have gone on to work across the engineering and construction industries on projects ranging from hospitals and residential towers to airports and water infrastructure.
Here, students are surrounded by examples of the engineering, infrastructure and construction challenges they study. The city’s built environment provides a living context for that work, allowing students to see how engineering and construction decisions shape the places where millions of people live, work and move.
SC Perot: Building community through connection
Human and Organizational Development, Peabody College of education and human development
For SC Perot, BS’13, helping build a Vanderbilt community in New York is a professional opportunity and a return to the city where she completed her HOD capstone as a student.
A Vanderbilt alumna who earned her degree in human and organizational development, Perot returned to the university in 2023 to teach in the same program after a career in law. Her approach to teaching emphasizes relationships, mentorship and the communities students create with one another.
That emphasis takes on new significance for students spending a semester together away from Nashville. Peabody students participating in the New York program can complete their Human and Organizational Development capstone while living and learning in the city, connecting their academic work with professional and experiential opportunities.
Perot has encouraged students to approach their classes as opportunities to form new communities at Vanderbilt. Now, those communities are taking shape in a new city and on a new campus.
Anton Thomas: Bringing engineering learning into the workplace
Associate Professor of the Practice of Engineering Management, Vanderbilt School of Engineering
For engineering students, a semester in New York is designed to connect academic learning directly with professional practice.
Anton Thomas is helping guide that connection as part of Vanderbilt’s Engineering Management program, which combines engineering management coursework with internship experiences in the city. Students can carry what they learn in class into professional settings, while also engaging with business and industry leaders through the broader New York program.
Thomas recently transitioned from a 20-year career with a multinational corporation, which included positions in research and development and strategy and transformation.
A Vanderbilt education, with New York at the doorstep
The five faculty members are part of Vanderbilt’s growing academic presence in the city.
The university’s undergraduate semester programs combine coursework with internships, faculty engagement and experiential learning, allowing students to draw on the city’s concentration of leaders and institutions in fields ranging from finance and technology to media, culture and the arts. Visits to cultural and civic institutions, conversations with professionals and alumni, and faculty-led experiences throughout the city give students more ways to connect their academic interests with the world beyond Vanderbilt’s classrooms.
Vanderbilt is also creating opportunities for faculty across the university to use the New York campus as a base for research, scholarship and creative work. Through the recently announced Scholars in Residence Program, faculty can spend from 31 days to a full semester in New York, pursuing their work while contributing to the intellectual life of the campus and engaging with students. Faculty interested in spending time in New York during the spring 2027 semester can submit a proposal to the Scholars in Residence Program by Oct. 1. Learn more about the program and submit a proposal.
“Our goal is not simply to offer Vanderbilt courses in a different location. We are building an academic experience that draws on the strengths of Vanderbilt and the extraordinary resources of New York, connecting students with the people, institutions and ideas that make the city such a powerful place to learn,” Senior Associate Provost Kevin Stack said.
Together, these efforts reflect a broader vision for Vanderbilt in New York: bringing the university’s faculty, students and academic strengths into sustained conversation with a city that can open new possibilities for teaching and discovery.
