Research

Vanderbilt University Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Kelly Holley-Bockelmann has been awarded the National Science Foundation's largest ever Faculty Early Career Development grant in the field of astronomy. She will use the prestigious award to continue her studies of black holes while supporting the university's innovative program designed to make the university the top producer of underrepresented minorities with Ph.D.s in physics and astronomy. Read More

They’re on the frontline of the workday world – filling our coffee cups, trimming our hair, holding Sunday open houses – but workers in some service jobs in Tennessee are at a higher risk of not having access to health care coverage through their employers, according to a study conducted… Read More

As you consider year-in-review stories and look ahead to the trends of 2010, Vanderbilt University faculty are available to offer perspective on these and other topics. mailto:bruce.barry@vanderbilt.edu Read More

Camilla Benbow, dean of Vanderbilt University's Peabody College, received the National Association for Gifted Children's 2009 Presidential Award at the group's annual convention in St. Louis, which was held Nov. 5-8. Read More

The recent vote in Congress on health care reform – with only one Republican lawmaker voting yes – provides more evidence of the growing polarization between the parties and the fundamentally different understandings of right and wrong that continue to pull the two major political parties further apart, according to Vanderbilt University political scientist Marc Hetherington. Read More

First, it was the soccer-ball-shaped molecules dubbed buckyballs. Then it was the cylindrically shaped nanotubes. Now, the hottest new material in physics and nanotechnology is graphene: a remarkably flat molecule made of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal rings much like molecular chicken wire. Read More

Surveillance doesn't necessarily make schools safer;can negatively impact students. But are students any safer as a result? What is the cost of these measures in terms of student well-being? Read More

A little respect could go a long way to preserving democracy in America, says Vanderbilt professor Bob Talisse in his new book. Read More

Peabody faculty member David Dickinson will be a featured guest speaker at an international conference on child development in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Nov. 24-25. Read More

With the support of a $2.7 million Recovery Act grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), an interdisciplinary team headed by Vanderbilt chemist John McLean and physicist John Wikswo will attempt to determine whether an individual's white blood cells retain chemical memories of exposure to drugs like cocaine and alcohol that can be read reliably and unambiguously. Read More

Unnoticed by the nearby residents of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, tiny leaf beetles that flit among the maple and willow trees in the area have just provided some of the clearest evidence yet that environmental factors play a major role in the formation of new species. Read More

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, long known for its "hands-off" regulatory policy, appears to be changing course toward greater intervention in markets. New research by professors at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management finds that when it comes to index investors, more intervention is a mistake. Read More

Performance pay for teachers continues to gain momentum nationally despite the absence of a clear understanding of its impact on students, teachers and schools. A new book from the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University brings together the latest research on the topic to offer guidance for researchers, policymakers and practitioners seeking deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding this issue. Read More

Antonis Rokas is a member of a small cadre of scientists who are applying the growing power of genomics to untangle and correctly arrange the branches of the tree of life. Read More

"Bad movie physics from the perspective of art and science" is the subject of a free public lecture that is scheduled for 4 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 15, in Stevenson Center Room 4327 on the Vanderbilt campus. Read More

A collaboration between scientists at Vanderbilt University and the University of California, San Francisco has led to the first direct information about the molecular structure of prions. In addition, the study has revealed surprisingly large structural differences between natural prions and the closest synthetic analogs that scientists have created in the lab. Read More

The most ambitious attempt yet to trace the history of the universe has seen "first light." The Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III), took its first astronomical data on the night of Sept. 14-15 at the Sloan Foundation telescope in New Mexico. Read More

The impact of recognition and rewards on student attendance and performance in afterschool programs is the aim of a new study being launched by the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University and uBoost, a company that manages student reward programs. Read More

When citizens in the United States and Mexico are confronted by terrorist threats, they cope in ways that can put significant stresses on the nations' democracies, according to research by political scientists at Vanderbilt and Claremont. Read More

A unique collaboration between Fisk and Vanderbilt universities that is poised to become the nation's top source of Ph.D.s in physics and astronomy awarded to underrepresented minorities has received a major boost from three federal grants totaling $3.7 million. Read More