Q & A

Raver, an esteemed developmental psychologist who began her tenure as Vanderbilt’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs on July 1, 2021, talks with Vanderbilt Magazine about her path into higher education leadership and her aspirations to leverage the university's strengths to help solve the major challenges of today and those facing future generations. Read More

Abby and Jon became involved in the Parents Leadership Committee, later serving as co-chairs for the 2011–2012 Vanderbilt Parents Campaign. Jon, now a Vanderbilt trustee who is co-CEO of TPG Capital and the former co-president of Goldman Sachs, joined the Board of Trust in 2012. Read More

Dorothy J. Wingfield Phillips, BA’67, the first African American woman to receive an undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt and a member of the inaugural class of Vanderbilt Trailblazers, recently was interviewed by the American Chemical Society about her career as a chemist and the importance of making the physical sciences more inclusive for women and underrepresented minorities. Read More

Birch, the new chief legal officer and senior vice president of business affairs for the Tennessee Titans, recently was named chair of a new Vanderbilt Board of Trust ad hoc committee that is partnering with university leadership to evaluate and recommend policies around equity, diversity and inclusion. Here he discusses the work of the committee, the rise in athlete activism, and his favorite Nashville sports memory. Read More

Geist answers questions about working in the media during this tumultuous news cycle, launching his Sunday show, and his strong affinity for Nashville and the Commodore community. Read More

As the Vanderbilt campus braced itself to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 through a series of proactive measures in March, School of Medicine class president Varun Menon, MD'20, shared some thoughts on his experience of being a medical student during the unprecedented outbreak. Read More

Moller has served as a federal prosecutor for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, handling cases of financial fraud and other white-collar crimes. She also was the first-ever chief of compliance and oversight for the New York City Police Department, where she helped reform its policies. Read More

Ariel taps into the emotions evoked by his customers’ favorite foods through Goldbelly, delivering one-of-a-kind regional dishes nationwide from more than 450 partnering businesses. Read More

Gary H. Cheek, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, joined Vanderbilt in April to direct the newly created Bass Military Scholars Program, established in 2018 with a $25 million gift from the Lee and Ramona Bass Foundation. Read More

Huggins, a former student government president and Posse Scholar, continues to drum up enthusiasm for Vanderbilt nearly 30 years after arriving on campus. Read More

As the global initiatives director for Human Rights Watch, Worden curates and implements international outreach and advocacy campaigns and is now mobilizing the world of sport to tackle global abuses. Read More

Glazier discusses the evolving business model of the music industry—one that’s gone from selling tens of millions of CDs in thousands of stores to now getting billions of streams from just a handful of companies—and what music listeners can expect on the horizon. Read More

Patti Early White, BA’76, and her husband, George White, have established the Early–White International Scholarship to provide need-based support to undergraduate international students who are from the U.K. or European Union member countries and enrolled in the College of Arts and Science. Read More

Hulu’s chief marketing officer looks for heart at the intersection of entertainment and tech DANIEL BAXTER   Campbell As the ways we consume media continue to change, viewers have more choices than ever before. In 2012, Disney, NBC Universal (now Comcast) and 21st Century Fox banded together to… Read More

George Matouk, BA'91, talks about his family's business, John Matouk & Co., which has emerged as one of the premier luxury brands in bed and bath linens. Read More

PHOTO BY AARON CLAMAGE, PHOTOGRAPHER IN WASHINGTON, D.C.   This year’s recipient of the Vanderbilt Alumni Association’s Young Alumni Professional Achievement Award, Zakiya Smith, BS’06, has dedicated her career to easing the complications and financial burden associated with paying for a college education—first as a senior… Read More

Professor of Law Ganesh Sitaraman believes the United States is facing a stark choice: Either continue along the current path of rising economic inequality and risk oligarchy, or rebuild the middle class and reclaim the republic that the Founding Fathers originally envisioned. Read More

Guided by little more than a desire to learn sign language and perhaps some divine intervention, longtime Atlanta television news personality Karen Graham, BA’87, has launched a digital news network for the deaf community. Read More

In April, when the fiscal separation of Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center was completed, Larry Marnett—the University Professor of Biochemistry, Chemistry and Pharmacology and Mary Geddes Stahlman Professor of Cancer Research—assumed a new role as the School of Medicine’s first dean of basic sciences, reporting directly to the provost. Read More

Sure, you’ve heard of the Cronut®. It’s the half-croissant, half-doughnut that took the world by storm a few years ago. But have you ever wondered why you’ve heard of it? It’s because of innovative attorneys like Candice Cook Simmons, who received her law degree from Vanderbilt in 2003. Read More