Research

RESEARCH SPARK: Get to know Shekhar Bhansali, new head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and his vision for AI engineering education. Read More

By Jenna Somers   Families interested in enrolling their children in this study should contact the research team at vuhandsonplaylab@gmail.com or (615) 343-1079. Down syndrome, the most common chromosomal cause of cognitive disability, affects approximately one in 700 live births. Scientists have known the genetic etiology of Down syndrome for… Read More

By Jenna Somers About a quarter to a third of students with mathematics learning disabilities do not show adequate improvement after receiving skills-based math interventions. A new study will test the effects of combining a mathematics intervention and working memory training on the math learning of first-grade children with… Read More

Key Takeaways:  Vanderbilt Peabody College will co-host the Global Education Deans’ Forum October 21 – 24 in Nashville.  The event will be co-hosted by Florida State University and the University of Kansas.  Leaders of education faculties from more than 30 colleges and universities… Read More

Vanderbilt University announced nine recipients of the Innovation Catalyst Fund awards for the June 2025 cycle, continuing its mission of accelerating translational research and driving innovative solutions to real-world challenges by providing faculty with crucial pre-seed funding across diverse disciplines.  The newly selected projects span cutting-edge work in health care, engineering and technology solutions. Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich Grace Ambrose-Zaken, Pediatric Belt Cane inventor. It was a little bit of kismet that led Vanderbilt Peabody College alumna Grace Ambrose-Zaken, Ed.D.’97, to the visual disabilities field. But it was a lot of passion and creativity that drove her to transform that field with… Read More

Policies adopted by states drive major differences in the resources available to families.   The first three years of life are critical for healthy development, yet families in some states have more than twice the resources of those in others—a gap created by state policy choices. Consider a single mother… Read More

A national search is underway for Vanderbilt’s next vice provost for research and innovation. Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs C. Cybele Raver has appointed a committee to identify candidates for the university’s new chief research officer, who will begin their appointment early in 2026. Read More

"Hosting Nissha Medical Technologies at the former site of our Stadium Club on West End Avenue will give our faculty and students extraordinary new opportunities to work with a leader in advancing medical devices—a strategic research priority for Vanderbilt and our region," Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said during a news conference on campus announcing the partnership. Read More

When an “unsolvable” problem needs solving, put John Wikswo on the team. As director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and University Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, and Physics, Wikswo is tackling questions crucial to the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, now with support from Vanderbilt's Innovation Catalyst Fund. Read More

Josh Caldwell, professor of mechanical engineering and Director of the Interdisciplinary Materials Science graduate program at Vanderbilt University, and Alex Paarmann of the Fritz Haber Institute, led an international collaborative research project that successfully demonstrated the confinement of terahertz light to nanoscale dimensions using a new type of layered material. This could lead to improvements in opto-electronic devices such as infrared emitters used in remote controls and night vision and terahertz optics desired for physical security and environmental sensing. Read More

With the cost of living remaining stubbornly high, and credit card interest rates adding to the monthly debt burden for working families, politicians on both the right and the left have touted proposals to cap credit card interest rates to keep more money in Americans’ pockets. A first-of-its-kind analysis from the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator’s (VPA) Brian Shearer finds that proposals to cap credit card interest rates could save Americans and small businesses billions of dollars without reducing access to credit or cutting into rewards programs. Read More

Some of the most ideal building blocks in technology are 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. An international collaboration involving co-principal investigator De-en Jiang could result in a new class of these “2-D” materials for use in electronics, energy storage and other applications. Jiang, H. Eugene McBrayer Professor of Chemical Engineering, leads the Computational Chemical Sciences and Materials Laboratory. Read More

Kathleen DelGiorno, assistant professor of cell and developmental biology, has received a Research Scholar Award from the American Cancer Society. The award will fund research into potential therapies against pancreatic cancer, the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, which is forecast to become the second-leading cause by 2030. Read More

The Human Language Analysis Lab directed by H. Andrew Schwartz, which just moved to Vanderbilt’s new College of Connecting Computing, is running a key part of the annual worldwide artificial intelligence test, SemEval, which will evaluate how well current AI text systems understand human emotion. Read More

The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy recently conducted a national poll to gauge Americans’ opinions on topics related to institutions of higher education, including their confidence in those institutions, their current relevance, federal policies targeting them and the principle of neutrality. The results indicate that, despite frequent coverage of the escalating charges and accusations against institutions of higher education, Americans’ have confidence in them — and that confidence is growing. Further, Americans believe colleges and universities have a positive effect on the state of the country.  Read More

RESEARCH SPARK: Meet new faculty Maya Singhal and see how their research could help us understand the impact of diverse community dynamics. Read More

Vanderbilt University welcomed regional policymakers, researchers and community leaders to campus on September 11 for Policy Innovation Days, designed to connect universities with state and local governments and highlight effective public policies based on research.   Read More

The Mid-South I-Corps Hub, one of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps Hubs led by Vanderbilt, is proud to welcome the University of Arkansas as its newest participating institution, marking the next stage in a regional partnership built on innovation and shared vision.  Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich and Krystal Schmidt If you are an educator—or work with educators—then it’s likely you have encountered Section 504 plans. These plans support more than 1.3 million students with disabilities across the country, but they differ from Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs.  In the… Read More