Engineering and Technology
Watershed Event — Vanderbilt ties to ‘worst submarine tragedy’ 50 years ago
Sep. 24, 2013—Alumnus Pat Garner perished aboard nuclear submarine USS Thresher, which was lost with all 129 hands 50 years ago during deep dive tests 200 miles off the coast of Maine. Steve Krahn, professor of the practice of nuclear environmental engineering, is dedicated to keeping the memory of the Thresher alive.
Free online course on data management for clinical research now underway
Sep. 18, 2013—Vanderbilt University's latest offering on the online learning platform Coursera, "Data Management for Clinical Research," went live this week. More than 33,000 number of students have registered for the massive open online course or MOOC.
Constant innovation helped early MOOC course succeed
Sep. 17, 2013—Constant innovation helped make one of the first massive open online courses, or MOOCs, at Vanderbilt more like a “real class” and benefited faculty and students by improving on-campus teaching, according to Douglas Schmidt, professor of computer science and of computer engineering at Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt Medicine: Robotics revolution
Sep. 11, 2013—In the foreseeable future, robots will be sticking steerable needles in your brain to remove blood clots; capsule robots will be crawling up your colon as a painless replacement for the colonoscopy; and ultra-miniaturized snake robots will remove tumors from your bladder and other body cavities.
Eight engineering students receive NSF graduate fellowships
Sep. 4, 2013—Meghan Bowler, Erica Curtis, Melanie Gault, Samantha Saratt and Chelsea Stowell, biomedical engineering; Kirsten Heikkinen and Richard Hendrick, mechanical engineering; and Thushara Gunda, civil and environmental engineering, have received graduate research fellowships from the National Science Foundation.
Sutherland Prize, Chancellor’s Research Award go to engineers
Sep. 4, 2013—The Earl Sutherland Prize for Achievement in Research was presented to John Gore by Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos during the Fall Faculty Assembly Sept. 22. Deyu Li, associate professor of mechanical engineering, was one of five faculty members receiving a Chancellor’s Award for Research, which also recognizes excellence in research, scholarship, or creative expression.
Vanderbilt startup BioNanovations gets accelerated
Aug. 30, 2013—Vanderbilt graduate student Charleson Bell, who is the president of the high tech startup BioNanovations, is participating in a 12-week accelerator program in Silicon Valley specifically designed to encourage underrepresented tech entrepeneurs.
$9M NSF grant to help engineers expand cyber-physical systems
Aug. 27, 2013—Vanderbilt engineers are part of a multi-university project to help determine the most efficient approach to designing and operating cyber-physical systems that support national health, energy and transportation priorities.
Nashville Scene Innovations 2013: Tankstarter
Aug. 9, 2013—Vanderbilt’s Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) was awarded a $9.3 million contract to develop a collaborative software so that other non-government teams could design a new amphibious tank for the Marine Corps. Sandeep Neema, research associate professor of electrical engineering, is quoted.
Nashville Scene Innovations 2013: Seat relief
Aug. 9, 2013—For their senior design project for the School of Engineering, six Vanderbilt students created the KidSense Car Seat System. The system detects if a child has been left unattended and if the environment has become dangerously hot or cold. Co-creator Chelsea Stowell, BE’13, is quoted.
Nashville Scene Innovations 2013: How soon is NAO
Aug. 9, 2013—Vanderbilt researchers reprogrammed a humanoid robot and an XBox Kinect to help autistic children improve their abilities to engage in social interactions. Nilanjan Sarkar, professor of mechanical and computer engineering, is quoted.
Nashville Scene Innovations 2013: MOOC Synthesizer
Aug. 9, 2013—Vanderbilt University seeks to be on the leading edge of the MOOC field with the opening of its Institute for Digital Learning.