Engineering And Technology

Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, medical therapeutics, software and advanced materials often begin in university labs, but turning those discoveries into real-world solutions requires investment. At this year’s Southeast Venture Showcase, hosted by Vanderbilt University, 44 startups worked to secure the funding needed to move their ideas forward.   Read More

Vanderbilt University hosted the Vanderbilt Quantum Forum, bringing together nationally recognized leaders to explore how quantum technologies are beginning to shape sectors ranging from energy and security to health care and economic competitiveness—and what it will take to ensure workforce readiness as the field grows.  Read More

Vanderbilt faculty like Associate Dean for Research Abhishek Dubey are on the leading edge of investigation and development of AI. Dubey, also director of the SCOPE lab, develops advanced AI-driven frameworks and decision-making methods to improve public safety, transportation and infrastructure. Read more about Dubey, his research and his commitment to connecting academia and industry for the advancement of society. Read More

The National Science Foundation has granted Assistant Professor Mona Ebrish a CAREER Award, the foundation’s most prestigious honor for early-career faculty. Ebrish’s work centers on strategic modification of semiconductors to tailor their electrical behavior—aiming to push past long-standing limitations in device fabrication. She wants to achieve “new freedom in how we design, fabricate and ultimately integrate these materials into future electronic platforms.” Read More

It’s difficult to monitor lung disease patients’ airways remotely and noninvasively, so symptoms of their conditions—tissue stiffness, pressure, mucus accumulation or temperatures—can worsen undetected. Assistant Professor Xiaoguang Dong and a team of researchers have developed a device with multiple sensors and a magnetic switch that can give health care personnel consistent and long-term data to improve patient treatment. Their research was published in Science Advances on April 15. Read More

There’s nothing like a good set of tweezers. Chancellor Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor Justus Ndukaife, with his team, have developed next-generation nanotweezers that let scientists better analyze “extracellular vesicles” in real time and in their native state—no chemical staining or fixation to alter them. A patent application for the technology has been filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office; the research was just published in Light: Science and Applications. Read More

Radiation is known to destroy some breast cancer cells, but new research published in Cell Reports shows that it might also make some surrounding tissue more prone to cancerous cell growth. Vanderbilt postdoctoral fellow Kevin Corn conducted much of the study’s work with Assistant Professor Marjan Rafat. “When we think about radiation, we usually focus on tumor cells,” Rafat said. “But the surrounding tissue is also responding, and that can shape what happens after treatment.” By addressing processes in that surrounding tissue, they hope to reduce the chance that breast cancer will recur. Read More

Hussam Mahmoud, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Sustainability, Energy and Climate, has been named a National Geographic Explorer for an innovative study about how to provide a better framework for preparing for wildfires. National Geographic Explorers are groundbreaking scientists, conservationists, educators and storytellers who get funding and support from the National Geographic Society to illuminate and protect the planet. Read More

Cyberattacks on medical devices and health care systems can endanger patient lives. A project led by a team of Vanderbilt faculty—the Advance Risk Management and Operational Resilience for Hospitals system—is a vulnerability mitigation platform to help avert and thwart such threats. Its development got a $7 million boost from the federal ARPA-H program. Read More

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