Engineering And Technology

The United States’ global leadership in science and technology depends on sustained federal investment in engineering research and education. With that message, Krish Roy, Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Dean of Engineering at Vanderbilt University, joined fellow Tennessee engineering leaders on Capitol Hill to underscore the importance of funding for agencies that power innovation and workforce development. Read More

Being able to tell whether an image is real or generated by AI may be something you’re born with: object recognition. “It’s a stable trait that helps people meet new perceptual challenges,” study author Professor Isabel Gauthier said. “We were shocked to see how intelligence or even technology training did not help accurately judge if a face is AI.” Object recognition has been linked to success in a wide range of tasks, such as X-ray analysis and cancer cell categorization. Read More

Vanderbilt University has announced its fall 2025 recipients of the Seeding Success, Scaling Success and Rapid-Advancement MicroGrant Program awards, providing internal funding to help faculty launch new research directions, strengthen proposals and compete for major external grants. Read More

Vanderbilt University announced seven recipients of the Innovation Catalyst Fund awards for the October 2025 cycle. The awards offer strategic pre-seed funding to help faculty across a wide range of disciplines turn promising research concepts into tangible solutions that address fundamental societal needs.  Read More

He leads groundbreaking work creating robotic tools to make surgeries safer. Now, with a passion for partnership, see how Robert Webster is carving a path for others to take their life-changing innovations and turn them into reality. Read More

Robert J. Webster, the Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Vanderbilt, has been elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors as well as elevated to IEEE Fellow, a prestigious title awarded by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers to members who have made significant contributions to the fields of engineering, science, and technology. Read More

What does the future of AI and robotics look like in our daily lives and as a career field? In a special episode of Quantum Potential, Provost C. Cybele Raver talks with Matthew Johnson-Roberson, the inaugural dean of the College of Connected Computing, about the accelerating evolution of AI and robotics. Read More

Soldiers spend a lot of time wearing body armor. The added weight takes a toll on their shoulders and back, contributing to one of the most common injuries reported by U.S. Army soldiers: back overuse. Vanderbilt researchers have developed a two-pound wearable device that redistributes 90 percent of that weight to the wearer’s hips while standing, walking and sitting—and lets soldiers retain their full agility and freedom of movement. Associate Professor Karl Zelik, senior research engineer Chad Ice and Ph.D. graduate Paul Slaughter published the study. Read More

While using an ice pack to ease pain is nothing new, a Vanderbilt team has taken the concept high-tech. Associate Professor Leon Bellan leads the group that has developed a cold-triggered “depot”—an implantable device that releases medication from within the body on demand. This shows promise on two fronts: Patients can release the medication simply by putting an ice pack over the implant, and locally effective NSAID drugs can be used instead of more addictive opioids. Read More

A new PBS Kids series created to help children better understand the impact of weather and climate took instructional cues from Jeremi London, associate provost for academic opportunity and associate professor of mechanical engineering, who played a role in the show’s development. Read More

Vanderbilt supports new faculty every step of the way—by connecting them with senior faculty who serve as mentors, observe their classes and provide valuable feedback, and proofread their grant proposals to make them stronger. These professors who joined Vanderbilt in the past few years shed light on how the university has helped them succeed.  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

Much of the human brain is still a mystery, largely because it’s pretty difficult to see what’s going on in there. Assistant Professor Daniel Gonzales and the team in his lab are working to make that easier. They’re using experimental platforms that record brain activity with unprecedented precision on all levels. It works on everything from whole-brain networks to individual synapses—tiny gaps between brain cells that are one-tenth the width of a human hair. “We can … really detail pictures of brain activity during learning,” Gonzales said. “And then we can apply that to study diseases that degrade learning.” Read More

Road closures are a pain—and sometimes they’re not even supposed to be happening. A project by senior research scientist Ayan Mukhopadhyay is working to develop a system—SENTRY—that uses AI to help city inspectors find and address unauthorized road closures in Nashville. “The system has the potential to save millions in unpaid permit fees, reduce external inspection costs and minimize disruptions for residents, commuters and local businesses,” Mukhopadhyay said. His research is supported by a $697,000 grant that's part of NSF's CIVIC Innovation Challenge. Read More

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

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

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

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

David Hyde, assistant professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University’s College of Connected Computing, has received a $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a new, open-source software platform for “physical intelligence,” which is the combination of traditional physics simulation algorithms with artificial intelligence for addressing complex real-world applications. Read More

Jack Noble, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is working with clinical colleagues to develop and validate an augmented reality vision guidance system to help surgeons place cochlear implants more precisely. The guidance system leverages emerging artificial intelligence technology and uses inexpensive, commonly available equipment, making it practical for many operating rooms. Read More