The Vanderbilt Story

The neighborhood where Jessica Mooney Holman grew up is barely 2 miles from the heart of the Vanderbilt campus. But in many ways it’s a world apart. “Yes, it was definitely a tough neighborhood,” says Holman, BS’10, MEd’12, who played on four NCAA Tournament basketball teams while at Vanderbilt from… Read More

As a freshly minted Vanderbilt graduate, Emily Motayed moved to New York City to work as a health care consultant. But the cost-conscious professional faced an immediate challenge in figuring out how to outfit her first “big-girl apartment.” “I had no idea how to go about buying furniture, and no… Read More

Harold Jordan, M.D., has had a distinguished medical career that includes many highlights, including being chair of Psychiatry at Meharry Medical College, his medical alma mater, and serving as acting dean of the School of Medicine at Meharry as well. Besides his academic career, Jordan was devoted to improving mental… Read More

When Adena Friedman, MBA’93, took over as CEO of Nasdaq at the start of 2017, making her the first woman to lead a global exchange company, she became the subject of numerous profiles in the financial press. Although each piece explored different aspects of her management style and future plans… 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. With plans to broadcast two online newscasts a day, the CNN-affiliated Sign1News will be the first… Read More

Tatum Hauck Allsep grew up in Mississippi with parents who bled black and gold. She knew all about the strong traditions, the beautiful campus, and the exceptional reputation of the academics. What she didn’t know was that attending Vanderbilt would be a life-changing experience. Allsep thought she would pursue a… Read More

When Michael Caruso walked across the Commencement stage and received his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt in 1972, pursuing a Ph.D. seemed unlikely. Despite falling in love with philosophy after taking an introductory course with Centennial Professor of Philosophy John Lachs his sophomore year and declaring it… Read More

Jacques Cousteau said we protect what we love. I have been in love with nature—and aware of how precious it is—since the first Earth Day in 1970 when a group of ecologists took my first-grade class on a nature walk in a nearby park. Escaping the classroom into the relative… Read More

Bridgette Brown came to Vanderbilt for a world-class education but, in addition to finding a new home, she also discovered herself. Read More

As a Vanderbilt undergraduate, Alex Taylor, BS’97, never thought he’d join the family business. He also had no desire to follow his friends into the world of financial services, even though he was studying what he calls the “psychology of business” as a human and organizational development major at… Read More

If you want to get a handle on the game of baseball, a good place to start is with the ball itself, specifically the seams that tie it all together. The 108 red stitches—used by pitchers to alter the trajectory of throws, depending on subtle changes in their grip—are the… Read More

In July 2004, Wes Powell received what he now refers to as “the Guantánamo call.” Life hasn’t been the same since. That same year the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that men imprisoned at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had a right to challenge their detention in… Read More

Frequently busy with meetings, planning sessions and administrative responsibilities, Alive Hospice President and CEO Anna-Gene O’Neal welcomes the chance to slip out of her office and spend time with residents and staff in Alive’s residence near downtown Nashville. On this particular rainy morning, she sits by resident Knox Ownby’s bed… Read More

Chandler Barnes talks about his vision for artificial intelligence and how technology can help solve global problems. Read More

Lucy Mensah, who graduated with a Ph.D. in English in 2016, is drawing on her humanities training and taking a path less traveled. Read More

Ann, MBA’96, and David Kloeppel’s, BS’91, MBA’96, story is in many ways a Vanderbilt romance—as students, they fell in love with each other and the university. Read More

Alumna Lillian Harpole Hazelton keeps a family tradition alive by supporting a scholarship established by her mother for Divinity School students preparing for United Methodist Church ministry. Read More

Arts and Science senior Ryan "Sully" Sullivan applies his knowledge of public policy to his nonprofit organization to make a difference in the lives of rural Thai villagers. Read More

For the past 110 years, the hourly tolling of Kirkland Hall’s signature bell has alerted generations of students that they’ve overslept for economics class or that kickoff was imminent. For more than a third of those 110 years, the task of keeping the tower’s clock ticking has fallen to Paul Young. Read More

Expect the unexpected when you walk into Kit Parker’s biophysics lab at Harvard. From cuttlefish skin camouflage to cotton candy machines used for wound dressings, his science is anything but ordinary. In fact, the young scientists inside are just as likely to be playing with crayons to visualize solutions… Read More