Research

By Jennifer Kiilerich Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development, with Florida State University Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, and the University of Kansas School of Education and Human Sciences, hosted a four-day gathering of some of the world’s leading minds from institutions… Read More

Founded in 2016, the Tennessee Education Research Alliance (TERA) brought together leaders from Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development and the Tennessee Department of Education to launch one of the first state-level research-practice partnerships aimed at informing education policy and practice. Through TERA, researchers… Read More

Salvatore Falletta (submitted photo) Warren Lowell (Vanderbilt University) Amy Owen Michelle Perdomo Douglas Ribeiro (Vanderbilt University) Jonathan Seiden… Read More

Vanderbilt University may submit up to three concept papers to the Mellon Foundation Higher Learning Program: 2026 Call for Concepts. Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich In a game-changing partnership, Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development and the YMCA of Middle Tennessee are proving that effective reading interventions can come in all shapes—and ages. Reading Buddies is a peer-to-peer tutoring initiative spearheaded by Peabody researcher Jeanne Wanzek and Elizabeth… Read More

Wolters Kluwer Health and Vanderbilt University’s Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries have announced a new collaboration that will help support medical breakthroughs and improve access to scholarly research. The agreement, which is an expansion of Wolters Kluwer’s read-and-publish offerings in North America, will run through 2028. Read More

Since the inception of the Ancora Innovations partnership in 2018, Vanderbilt and Deerfield Management have enjoyed a robust collaboration. Deerfield’s commitment includes significant support for advancing translational research and sponsorship of various events across Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Recently, key members of Deerfield's leadership team spent two days at Vanderbilt to engage faculty in discussions about potential projects of mutual interest.  Read More

RESEARCH SPARK: Learn a key tool new faculty leader Kristina Thomas Dreifuerst is using to prepare the next generation of nurses. Read More

The role of artificial intelligence in drug discovery has been limited by machine learning methods that fail when they encounter chemical structures they weren’t “trained” on. Assistant Professor Benjamin Brown has written a paper suggesting a more targeted approach: using a task-specific model architecture that’s intentionally restricted to learn from a representation of the interaction space between a protein and a drug molecule and be better able to generalize and figure out which compound might best interact with that protein. That’s important, because identifying those compounds early cuts the costs and time involved in developing drugs. Read More

Health inequity is one of the greatest problems facing people across the U.S., and the School of Nursing Health Equity Faculty Fellows program is designed to fight it. “I am confident that the work of our Faculty Fellows will both find solutions and inspire further research that addresses the very real issues faced by our communities,” Dean Pamela R. Jeffries said. This year’s cohort of six scholars, and their research projects, were announced late last month. Read More

Advanced melanoma can be notoriously resistant to standard immunotherapy, but a new drug combination might hold some hope for patients with this most common form of skin cancer. Professor Emerita of Pharmacology Ann Richmond and her team, in preclinical work, created a “tumor microenvironment more receptive to immune challenge.” The treatment slowed tumor growth, showed stronger immune responses and increased helpful T cells. It could be on a faster-than-typical track to human studies because all the drugs are already involved in other clinical trials. Read More

Flying can be a mess that everyone complains about but few people can change. Vanderbilt Law Professor Ganesh Sitaraman might be one of those people. He testified before Congress in early October about what they could do to fix the airline industry: requiring resilience and rainy day funds, setting minimum seat sizes, preventing dynamic pricing and giving passengers the ability to sue. Sitaraman was also a recent guest on Provost C. Cybele Raver’s Quantum Potential podcast, where he talked about his book Why Flying Is Miserable and How To Fix It. Read More

Gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, plagues millions of people. Vanderbilt researchers led by Assistant Professor Xiaoguang Dong have developed a soft robotic valve that can seal off the lower esophagus from the stomach, keeping gastric acid where it belongs. Then when the patient eats or drinks, the valve, which is implanted in concert with a stent, can be opened with a wearable external magnet. “This platform holds promise not only for treating GERD, but also for managing other sphincter-related disorders,” said co-author and Assistant Professor Yuxiao Zhou. Read More

On September 14, 2015, at 4:51 a.m. Central Time, scientists witnessed something no human had ever seen before: two black holes colliding. These black holes, which were 29 and 36 times the mass of the sun, respectively, had been circling each other for millions of years. Their rotations became increasingly faster until they eventually collided and became a single black hole. Since then, scientists have had numerous breakthroughs that deepen our understanding of the universe, and researchers in the College of Arts and Science have been at the forefront, shaping the scientific field of black holes and gravitational waves. Read More

Three leaders in health policy, informatics and cancer research from Vanderbilt University Medical Center have been elected this year to membership in the National Academy of Medicine, a preeminent advisory body on critical matters of health care, medicine and public health. Read More

Political propaganda and artificial intelligence–driven misinformation are infiltrating social media accounts, and Americans need to do something about it. That’s the warning revealed in research from two Vanderbilt professors and discussed on this special episode of the Quantum Potential podcast. Read More

Vanderbilt University may nominate one faculty member in the Chemical Sciences for the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program. Read More

Vanderbilt University may submit one application in either the Institutional Impact or Capacity-Building category to The Educating Character Initiative. Read More

As far back as he can remember, Andy Schwartz has been fascinated by two things—how the brain works and how humans process natural language.   Andy Schwartz, director of the Human Language Analysis Beings lab and research associate professor in the Vanderbilt College of Connected Computing (Submitted photo)… Read More

Andrew Nalani Andrew Nalani, assistant professor of human and organizational development, has joined the Bezos Family Foundation as an inaugural scholar of the Jackie Bezos Researcher in Residence program. Nalani began the one-year residency program on August 18, taking a leave of absence from his faculty position… Read More