Reagan Villet

When economics and communication of science and technology double major Leilani Rucker, Class of 2026, stepped into the Wond’ry’s Fiber Arts Build Lab, she had the feeling her lifelong love for fashion design was about to gain momentum. In the FAB Lab, Manager Alexandra Sargent Capps provides experiential opportunities to promote sustainable fashion and upcycling. Capps piqued Rucker’s interest when she showed up with a bin of colorful neckties from a clothing drive. Rucker’s imagination was sparked, and she set out to create a small upcycled clothing collection to display during Vanderbilt Fashion Week. Read More

In this episode of Quantum Potential, Gen. Nakasone, former NSA director, founding director of Vanderbilt’s Institute of National Security, Distinguished Research Professor of Engineering Science and Management, and special advisor to the chancellor, joins Provost C. Cybele Raver to discuss the challenges of national security in the 21st century and academia’s role in training the next generation of multifaceted national security professionals. Read More

“Stitched Stories: A Children’s Literature and Quilting Journey” took place over six weeks and brought upper-elementary students together with members of the Zuri Quilting Circle, a collective of local Black women quilters who use fabric to tell stories about their lives and traditions. The students read and discussed four picture books about quilting before designing their own quilts and learning hands-on techniques to assemble and sew them. Read More

Vanderbilt students, faculty and staff who enjoy free online subscriptions to The New York Times courtesy of the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries can now access The Athletic and fully access Games alongside other features. Read More

Vanderbilt (VU + VUMC, collaboratively) may select one nominee for the Curing Kids Cancer Innovative Research Award. Read More

Vanderbilt University may submit up to two letters of intent to the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research 2025 Endeavor Award. Read More

In this episode of Quantum Potential, Amanda Little, writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science, joins Provost C. Cybele Raver to discuss how journalism can highlight the tipping points humanity faces and how people-first storytelling can move us from observation to action. Read More

Vanderbilt University may submit one application to the CFMT Community Impact Grants competition. Read More

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy recently conducted a national poll about Americans’ opinions on topics including higher education, the state of the economy under President Donald Trump’s administration and immigration, among other key issues. The results reveal interesting nuances in public sentiment, as well as divisions among those Republican voters who identify as part of the Make America Great Again movement and those who identify more with the traditional Republican Party. Read More

Researchers led by John T. Wilson, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and biomedical engineering, have developed a new approach using a molecularly designed nanobody platform that seeks to make immunotherapy more effective in the treatment of cancer. Read More

Vanderbilt University may submit only one proposal to the NEXT for AUTISM Autistic-Led and Community-Based Grants. Read More

The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, in partnership with the Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Association, announced the 2025 award winners at the Spring Postdoc Awards Ceremony on May 21. The event highlighted the vital contributions that postdocs make across various disciplines at the university.   Read More

Vanderbilt University and Nissan Motor Corporation have joined forces to pursue strategic projects in data science and beyond. The partnership is expected to unlock significant value and identify potential cost savings of over $70 million for Nissan. Read More

Beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, Vanderbilt Campus Dining will offer optional Off-Campus Meal Plans designed to provide flexible, affordable access to meals on campus. These plans extend the convenience, flexibility and quality of Vanderbilt’s award-winning dining program to students living off-campus.  Read More

The many contributions of LGBTQ people to the political, social and cultural fabric of Middle Tennessee are explored in a new exhibit at the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries. 'Alive with Pride: LGBTQ Existence and Resistance in Middle Tennessee' is on view in the Central Library fourth-floor lobby through September 2025. An opening reception for the exhibit will be on Tuesday, June 24, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., and a series of curator talks will be held at Central Library on three Saturdays—July 12, July 19 and Aug. 9—this summer. Patrons are invited to view the exhibit from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. each session, with guided tours scheduled at 11 a.m. and at noon. Read More

A recent study from the labs of Lars Plate and Jens Meiler, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, analyzed both selectively responsive and poorly responsive variants of cystic fibrosis and revealed the molecular determinants of drug response. Read More

New research from Vanderbilt Business explores how cringeworthy marketing can spark backlash and go viral for the wrong reasons. Learn how brands recover and avoid future failures. Read More

A group of researchers from the lab of Larry Marnett, the Mary Geddes Stahlman Professor of Cancer Research, recently paired a precisely targeted imaging agent to an anticancer agent and found that they could specifically attack cancer cells and not normal cells with it. Their work was performed in collaboration with School of Engineering faculty members Craig Duvall and Rebecca Cook, and was published in Molecular Pharmaceutics in April 2025. Read More

Danial Asgari, a postdoctoral researcher in the Tate Lab, and Ann Tate, associate professor of Biological Sciences, recently published a study in Molecular Biology and Evolution titled “How the Structure of Signaling Regulation Evolves: Insights from an Evolutionary Model.” Their findings show that negative feedback loops (or NFLs) acting closer to a cell’s final decisions, such as turning genes on or off, are especially resistant to evolutionary change. Read More

While we know that intermediate-mass black holes should exist, little is known about their origins or characteristics—they are considered the rare “missing links” in black hole evolution. However, four new studies have shed new light on the mystery. The research was led by a team in the lab of Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Karan Jani, who also serves as the founding director of the Vanderbilt Lunar Labs Initiative. Read More