Reagan Villet

Former first lady of the United States Jill Biden will discuss her new memoir, View from the East Wing, on Monday, June 8, at Vanderbilt University. Biden will be in conversation with a special guest beginning at 6:30 p.m. in Langford Auditorium. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. Read More

There’s nothing like a good set of tweezers. Chancellor Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor Justus Ndukaife, with his team, have developed next-generation nanotweezers that let scientists better analyze “extracellular vesicles” in real time and in their native state—no chemical staining or fixation to alter them. A patent application for the technology has been filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; the research was just published in Light: Science and Applications. Read More

Radiation is known to destroy some breast cancer cells, but new research published in Cell Reports shows that it might also make some surrounding tissue more prone to cancerous cell growth. Vanderbilt postdoctoral fellow Kevin Corn conducted much of the study’s work with Assistant Professor Marjan Rafat. “When we think about radiation, we usually focus on tumor cells,” Rafat said. “But the surrounding tissue is also responding, and that can shape what happens after treatment.” By addressing processes in that surrounding tissue, they hope to reduce the chance that breast cancer will recur. Read More

PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” have already been linked to disruptions in thyroid hormones, among other detrimental health effects. A recent paper by first author Heather Hartmann, a Ph.D. student in the lab of Associate Professor Vivian Weiss, dug into thyroid cell behavior under long-term exposure to PFAS. It finds that the chemicals alter cellular function, including signaling pathways that are involved in cancer. “We hope [this] can help people who are already at risk for thyroid cancer … make better-informed choices, as consumers, to limit exposure to these chemicals,” Hartmann said. Read More

How teams are seeded in tournaments can make a big difference in their outcomes. The way the UEFA European Championship and the FIFA World Cup are seeded could use some work, say Owen Professor Michael Lapre and co-author Julia Amato, BA’23, in an article in the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. Improving how teams are seeded could make for fairer, more exciting tournaments, Lapre said: “Balanced groups increase the chances that the best teams advance and that more matches truly matter.” Read More

Vanderbilt University will host one of the nation’s leading forums on national security April 23–24 at The Pinnacle in downtown Nashville as the newly renamed Asness Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats returns for its fifth year—bringing together senior leaders from government, military, intelligence, technology and academia. The summit was renamed this year following a landmark $10 million gift from Cliff and Laurel Asness, reflecting its expanding reach and national significance. Read More

When physics and astronomy Ph.D. candidate Oem Trivedi was growing up in India, he had big dreams: becoming a wrestler in the World Wrestling Entertainment industry. Then, in the sixth grade, he watched an Albert Einstein documentary. And everything changed. Read More

Julia “Jules” Ashworth (class of 2026) fell in love with the French language at an early age, when she took her first French class in the third grade. She continued to study French up until middle school, when she was required to take Spanish, but then re-enrolled in French as soon as she got to high school. Ashworth’s curiosity and wide-ranging interests led her to triple major in philosophy, communication studies, and French. Read More

Mentorship shapes every phase of student development at Vanderbilt, from the direction of students’ research papers to their careers and aspirations. But its impact is especially strong in the lab of F. Peter “Fred” Guengerich, PhD’73, in the department of biochemistry. Read More

Discovery Dialogues, a new podcast being launched April 6 by the Vanderbilt Graduate School, brings doctoral research and graduate student voices to the forefront. The podcast series spotlights the scholarship, ideas and academic experiences of Vanderbilt Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars through thoughtful, in-depth conversations with podcast host Nick Hyer, program manager for the Graduate and Postdoc Academic Success program. Read More

As the academic year winds down, Vanderbilt Campus Dining is already planning for the next. Take a few minutes to complete the Spring 2026 survey and share your thoughts on dining hours, service, menu options and overall experience. Read More

The Biodiversity Heritage Library has announced a new collaboration with Vanderbilt University’s Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries that will provide digital preservation support for the world’s largest open-access repository of natural history materials. Through the agreement, the Heard Libraries will contribute cloud infrastructure expertise and technical leadership for BHL, which serves as a foundational resource for biodiversity science, taxonomy and conservation research, with more than 63 million pages dating from the 15th to the 21st century. Read More

The annual Graduate Education Honors Banquet honored doctoral students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty members who have demonstrated exceptional leadership, excellence in academics, innovation and mentorship. The March 19 banquet recognized the outstanding achievements taking place across more than 50 graduate programs and departments. Read More

This year, we’re kicking off I ⚓ VU Week and the Giving Day excitement by getting Anchored in Community with a different kind of donation. Giving back starts with showing up to prove that “I Bleed Black and Gold” isn’t just a slogan — it’s one more way to give back. Read More

For centuries, the human brain has intrigued scientists and philosophers alike. It stores our memories and shapes our behavior—the center of learning, emotion and identity. Yet even after decades of research, much about how the brain works remains a mystery. “People have been fascinated with questions of how you learn and who you are—philosophical questions that all come back to processes in the brain,” says Lisa Monteggia, Lee E. Limbird Professor in Pharmacology and the Barlow Family Director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute. Now neuroscience is at a watershed moment, with new tools poised to dramatically expand understanding of the central nervous system.   Read More

Vanderbilt Board of Trust member Robert “Bob” Levy, BA’72, and Diane vS. Levy are fueling a surge in momentum for Vanderbilt’s future in South Florida with a $6.5 million commitment. Their gift marks an important milestone in Vanderbilt’s expansion to its new graduate campus in West Palm Beach, establishing a strong foundation for academic excellence and strategic flexibility in the region known as Wall Street South. Read More

The humanities shape how we understand history, culture and the complex challenges facing society. In March, Vanderbilt advocates Paul Stob, director of the A&S College Core and professor of communication studies, and Ayla Faullin, a Vanderbilt junior studying English, traveled to Washington, D.C., for the National Humanities Alliance’s Humanities Advocacy Day. There, they met with congressional offices to advocate for continued federal support for the National Endowment for the Humanities. Read More

That spirit of shared responsibility anchored a recent collaboration among the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Nashville Public Library’s Special Collections, Vanderbilt University and Tennessee State Parks, bringing history to life through dialogue, performance and community engagement. Read More

Hussam Mahmoud, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Sustainability, Energy and Climate, has been named a National Geographic Explorer for an innovative study about how to provide a better framework for preparing for wildfires. National Geographic Explorers are groundbreaking scientists, conservationists, educators and storytellers who get funding and support from the National Geographic Society to illuminate and protect the planet. Read More

Extreme heat kills more people in the U.S. each year than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. It's typically thought of as a climate issue, but a new report from the Vanderbilt Cultural Contexts of Health and Wellbeing Initiative suggests that it's also a social one. The report examines how heat-related illness is often made worse by biological vulnerabilities, cultural norms and political and economic structures. Read More