Vanderbilt Magazine

María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Art, has been named the 2024 SEC Faculty Achievement Award winner from Vanderbilt University. Her artistic work spans a variety of media, including photography, performance, sculpture, drawing, painting and video. She employs them in immersive installations that explore her experience as a Cuban woman and the broader issues facing Caribbean people, including displacement and inequality. Read More

Reese Animashaun, Maddy Bowser, Taryn DeWese, Hailee Mack, Giovanna Mason and Rachel Ogunleye are the first new volleyball Commodores. Head coach Anders Nelson and assistant coaches Lauren Plum and Russell Corbelli worked together to recruit Vanderbilt’s first class for volleyball since the program was paused in 1980. Read More

Chris Lowry, BMus’11, and Peter Dayton, BMus’12, both received recognition in the American Viola Society’s 2024 biennial Maurice Gardner Competition for Composers. Among the 77 submissions to the contest, Chris Lowry was the first prize winner, with his work, “Zenith (for Jackson)” for viola and electronics. Read More

More than 150 alumni and parent volunteers gathered on campus March 1–2 for Vanderbilt’s seventh annual Volunteer Leadership Weekend. Attendees of the weekend events included representatives from many alumni and parent groups across the university. Read More

An upcoming motion picture, 'Cabrini,' features a score composed by Blair School of Music alumnus Gene Back, BMus’06. Coming to theatres on March 8, International Women’s Day, 'Cabrini' was directed by the award-winning Alejandro Monteverde. Read More

Alumni wrote in to tell us about their favorite professors. Read More

Some have said that singer Dashon Burton’s bass-baritone is enormous, capable of raising the dead or like looking directly into the sun. This year, the two-time Grammy winner is nominated once again with vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category for their album Rough Magic (New Amsterdam Records, 2023). Read More

Vanderbilt University Press has launched a new trade series, Global Black Writers in Translation, which will publish a variety of texts by authors of African descent translated from their source languages into English. The goal is to amplify a body of writing that introduces anglophone readers to the range and complexity of Black literary and cultural production, history and political thought. Read More

See how Alexandra Doten, BA'18 is turning her love for all things space into a social media adventure. Read More

Mohamed Abdel-Kader, MEd'04, is the chief innovation officer and executive director of the Innovation, Technology and Research Hub at the multi-billion-dollar U.S. Agency for International Development, where he enjoys solving real problems creatively while making the most of U.S. aid. Read More

Thomas Weiler, professor of physics and astronomy, emeritus, died December 17, 2023, after enduring a progressive neurodegenerative variant of Parkinson’s disease. He was 74. Read More

David Hercules, Centennial Professor of Chemistry emeritus, who served as the chair of the Department of Chemistry for eight years, died January 20, 2024, after a battle with cancer. He was 91. Read More

John C. Kornblum, distinguished ambassador in residence and writer in residence for the Max Kade Center for European & German Studies, died Dec. 21, 2023, in Nashville. He was 80. Read More

Avery Carpenter Forrey, BA'11, says Vanderbilt was the first place where she felt she could make a career out of writing. With a double major in in English and communications, her latest writing journey has led to the publication of her novel 'Social Engagement' (Mariner, 2023). Read More

Dennis G. Hall, Vanderbilt’s first associate provost and later vice provost for research, dean emeritus of the Graduate School, professor emeritus of physics and professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science, died Jan. 6 in Nashville. Read More

WATCH: Find out how former Commodore football player Cam Robinson is combining a passion for healing, a love of people, and his Divinity School education to change lives. Read More

Rich Hull, BA'92, and his wife, Kelly, have created the Vanderbilt In Hollywood Internship Endowment, a need-based scholarship that supports students with cost of living expenses during the ViH summer program.  Read More

Bryan Deaner, MBA’93, has made a multi-layered gift to the Owen Graduate School of Management that includes a bequest to ultimately support the Deaner Creativity Scholarship for students there. His gift also incorporates current-use funding for scholarships at Owen through a matching gift program with his employer for additional support.   Read More

The Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries have acquired the personal collection of Dom Flemons, a Grammy Award-winning songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and cultural historian whose music and research have brought greater awareness to African Americans’ extensive contributions to roots music. Flemons also will be appearing at the Blair School and NMAAM later this month. Read More

For Victor Czerkasij (pronounced chur’ ka-see) and his wife, Rene, Ukraine was the land of his parents and ancestors, and it was supposed to be the site of their 40th wedding anniversary vacation. Then the war came.   And the effects of that war… Read More