Brenda Ellis

Vanderbilt computer science professor Jonathan Sprinkle is among seven principal investigators using a $6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to explore a new way to engineer cyber-physical systems. Examples of CPSs include smart power grids, implantable medical devices and transportation technology such as self-driving cars, which are the focus of the five-year, multi-institutional project. Read More

Three engineering faculty members have received grants to support the early stages of pioneering research projects identified as likely candidates for further funding from federal, foundation and industry sponsors. Spring 2022 Seeding Success Grants were awarded to 14 faculty and are the second cycle of the internal early investment funding initiative. The grants, awarded to faculty spanning the... Read More

The Vanderbilt rocket team won the coveted NASA Student Launch Project Review Award for the best documentation of the project progress through 2021-2022. The national Student Launch rocketry competition was held in April and results were announced June 3. This is Vanderbilt’s 15th year to participate in the annual NASA event and teams have won the... Read More

Piran Kidambi, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been selected to receive funding for research as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program. The program is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career period, when many scientists conduct... Read More

Vanderbilt engineering graduate student Sai Abitha Srinivas received the I.I. Rabi Young Investigator Award at the 2022 meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, held May 7-12 in London. This award is recognition for her work to improve image quality in portable MRI systems with minimal passive shielding that could reduce the... Read More

by Jenna Somers  Two Vanderbilt professors were awarded Pathfinder seed funding for a project that could benefit soldiers by optimizing their neurological performance through suggested behavior protocol and by improving aircraft design and equipment to reduce the effects of in-flight vibration and percussion.  The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory and the Civil-Military Innovation Institute... Read More

Biomedical engineering nets more than any BME department in the country with 10 Sixteen engineering graduate students have been awarded a highly competitive government-funded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Three engineering undergraduate students also received NSF fellowships. NSF Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 allowance for tuition and fees... Read More

Justus C. Ndukaife, assistant professor of electrical engineering, has received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for foundational research in cell-to-cell communication. His CAREER project, “Resonant Dielectric Optical Metasurfaces for Single-Cell Extracellular Vesicles Analysis,” will enable Ndukaife to associate the properties of extracellular vesicles directly to their cell sources—up to the resolution of single cells—a capability that... Read More

Ahmad F. Tata, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, has received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for fundamental research in new approaches to network sensors and controllers scheduling. His CAREER project, “Scheduling Driving Sensing and Control Nodes in Nonlinear Networks with Applications to Fuel-Free Energy Systems,” offers a novel framework for the exploration of... Read More

David Braun, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for foundational research in mechanically adaptive robotics. His CAREER project, “Mechanically Adaptive, Energetically Passive Robotics,” will enable the creation of new-generation industrial robots, transportation systems, and devices that can assist and augment humans. The five-year, $600,000 grant will support work on robot... Read More

By Marissa Shapiro THE IDEA The human brain is organized in functional networks—connected brain regions that communicate with each other through dedicated pathways. That is how we perceive our senses, how the body moves, how we are able to remember the past and plan for the future. The “default mode” network is the part of... Read More

By Marissa Shapiro THE IDEA The human brain is organized in functional networks—connected brain regions that communicate with each other through dedicated pathways. That is how we perceive our senses, how the body moves, how we are able to remember the past and plan for the future. The “default mode” network is the part of... Read More

Karl Zelik, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is one of three inaugural awardees for the February 2022 cycle of the Scaling Success Grant, which is the first cycle of this internal funding opportunity. Yuankai Huo, assistant professor of computer science and computer engineering, is co-PI on a SSG grant. Read More

Biomedical engineering prof says study raises the prospect of a new application of diagnostic optical biopsy by Paul Govern In a new study from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 10-second videos of white blood cell motion in the skin’s microvasculature greatly improved the prediction of which stem cell and bone marrow transplant patients would have a relapse... Read More

To shoot a basketball with precision requires countless hours of practice. Usually, this happens under the watchful eye of a coach, who can provide guidance on the right mechanics of each shot. Now, though, thanks to new research from Vanderbilt University, players may soon be able to use artificial intelligence technology to work on those... Read More

Mikail Rubinov, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, computer science, psychiatry and psychology, has been awarded a four-year, $1.1 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to better understand the development and organization of brain networks, as well as their change in development and aging. Rubinov and his collaborators will link aspects of gene expression and... Read More

John Wikswo, founder and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and Gordon A. Cain University Professor, is the principal investigator of a $1 million award from the National Science Foundation. The object is to build a pathbreaking “robot scientist”—a fully automated microfluidic system for parallel, independent, long-duration, machine-guided experiments. The... Read More

John Wikswo, founder and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and Gordon A. Cain University Professor, is the principal investigator of a $1 million award from the National Science Foundation. The object is to build a pathbreaking “robot scientist”—a fully automated microfluidic system for parallel, independent, long-duration, machine-guided experiments. The... Read More

Joshua Caldwell, Flowers Family Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow in Engineering and associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Joseph Matson, a graduate student in Caldwell’s lab, have contributed to an international study that has discovered a new type of light-matter coupling. The work has long-term implications for how optical components can be even further miniaturized, a discovery... Read More

Vanderbilt team to focus on engineering, testing the device by Matt Batcheldor Vanderbilt University Medical Center will share in an $8.7 million federal grant to create an artificial lung system that patients with incurable lung disease can use at home. The Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) grant will fund research to create... Read More