Mini Profile

Dr. Robert Mahley recently received a $2.5 million grant from the Wellcome Trust to fast-track a drug that could neutralize the protein researchers believe is the genetic cause of Alzheimer’s disease—the apolipoprotein E4, or ApoE4. Read More

Tricia Rose Burt's one-woman show, How to Draw a Nekkid Man, was selected for the 2011 New York International Fringe Festival. Read More

SpaceX launch engineer Sam Nackman is responsible for designing and overseeing construction of the launch pad’s hydraulic, fuel and nitrogen systems. Read More

Jim Shepherd oversees earthquake repairs at the historic Washington National Cathedral. Read More

Cave Man At age 11, Gary Roberson crawled into a cave on his very first Boy Scout camping trip and fell in love. To this day he’s still enamored, especially when he sets foot in undiscovered territory. “Caving is one of the few things in the world that allows you… Read More

Lift Ev’ry Voice Rick Lee “First-generation students who don’t have cultural capital, who don’t come to the table with college-educated parents or economic resources—for those kids to walk across the stage at graduation makes every single day worthwhile,” says Roslyn Clark Artis of her work in higher… Read More

Credit: GERALD LAWRENCE As soon as Bernie Madoff was arrested in December 2008 for his $50 billion Ponzi scheme, the phones began ringing at Barbara Hart’s law firm. “The impact on our clients was devastating,” says Hart, the chief operating officer at Lowey Dannenberg Cohen & Hart… Read More

Credit: PERRY JAMES LOCKE Watching a 100-pound silver tarpon leap high in the air and take off just beneath the surface of the water is an incredibly visual experience, says Chris Frohlich. “I’ve caught all types of fish all over the world,” he says, “but fishing for… Read More

CREDIT: Adam Kuykendall/University of Maine Lu Zeph believes people with disabilities have both a civil and a human right to develop their abilities in an inclusive community. “The disability rights movement is rooted in the Civil Rights Movement,” she states. Both faced similar opposition, she says, and… Read More

Credit: JR ANDERSON Deena Dill is probably one in a million—a busy actress and producer who’d rather work light-hearted sitcoms and game shows than become the next Meryl Streep. “Game shows are certainly not a niche most people in the industry gravitate toward, but it’s what I… Read More

CREDIT: Rancard Solutions Ltd. During a 1997 summer internship, Vanderbilt mechanical engineering student Kofi Dadzie had a brilliant idea: Enormous opportunities awaited someone who could bring a combination of business principles and information technology to his homeland, Ghana. “As a developing country, Ghana … did not boast… Read More

Rodger Dinwiddie, recently named president of the International Bullying Prevention Association, never dreamed he would become an expert on the topic when he was a first-grade teacher at Tom Joy Elementary School in Nashville in the late ’70s. Read More

When Zakiya Smith was studying political science and education at Vanderbilt, she dreamed of someday working for the U.S. Department of Education. Not only did she fulfill that dream, but she became a senior adviser on education policy to President Barack Obama. Read More

Woods serves as associate editor at The Cambodia Daily, an English-language newspaper based in Phnom Penh. Read More