The Vanderbilt Story

On Leap Day—Feb. 29—Blair School of Music senior Jack Coen took a leap of faith. That night Coen, a composition and theory major, premiered his capstone project "Folk and Flora"—a song cycle based on flowers and how people relate to them—in Sarratt Cinema to a full house. Read More

Growing up in small-town Kentucky, Safiah Hassan longed to live in a larger city with a diverse population. After coming to Vanderbilt, she made seeking out diverse communities a hallmark of her university experience. Read More

There’s the Pranjal Gupta dressed in kurta and pyjama, his feet keeping time with an impossibly fast Indian dance tune. And then there’s the Pranjal Gupta in a lab coat, peering through glasses at data on how children with autism integrate sight and sound. Read More

Like many little girls, Eunice Jun was a ballerina growing up. But by the time the Los Angeles native arrived at Vanderbilt four years ago, she had traded in her toe shoes to cultivate twin interests in graphic design and technology, pursuing double majors in cognitive studies at Peabody College and computer science at the School of Engineering. Read More

For Ariel Helms, a genealogy search when she was young revealed a long-kept secret: Her ancestors were Cherokee Native Americans. Read More

For Rani Banjarian, the summer of 2006 was the defining moment of his young life. For a month that summer, artillery and airstrikes were a daily occurrence as the unrest between his home country of Lebanon and neighboring Israel grew into the July War. Read More

Dr. Annabelle de St. Maurice rapidly is ascending to the cutting edge of addressing the practical problems of world-impacting diseases. After earning her master’s degree in public health at Vanderbilt, in July 2015 she began work in Atlanta at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an Epidemic… Read More

Vanderbilt alumni are making a splash on Broadway, as evidenced by several recent graduates currently working both behind the scenes and in front of the lights in New York City productions. Many of them worked together as members of Original Cast, Vanderbilt on Broadway and Vanderbilt University Theatre. Some are… Read More

James Hill, an associate professor of computer and information science at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, is one of the youngest African Americans to become a tenured professor in computer science at a research university in the United States. He gained the distinction last August, when his tenure appointment in the… Read More

Meet Jeremy Price: the senior English major, Tour Guide exec member, and premier “tricker” who (when not in a cast) can be seen doing backflips on Alumni Lawn. The Hustler sat down with Jeremy to hear about his unique amalgamation of majors, what exactly tricking is, tour guide escapades, his… Read More

I was homeless the summer before grad school. Living on the coast of Lake Michigan in the same town where I had gone to undergrad, I was too poor even to pay rent on a $200 room. I spent days working at a local brewery, just trying to save up enough… Read More

A Vanderbilt University student and entrepreneur is spearheading a social media campaign aimed at helping people be more authentic. Meet Larissa May and #halfthestory. Read More

Meet Rama Kumaran, a sophomore who was the winner of the National Flute Association’s Young Artist Competition this summer and was featured on National Public Radio’s “From the Top” series at age 16. He talks Harry Potter fan fiction, his strategies to connect with an audience and what drew him… Read More

Meet Megan Ward: the actress behind Vanderbilt Off-Broadway’s Elle Woods. Well known on campus as an improv comedian, Pi Phi President and VP of the Business Careers and Entertainment Club, she dons a blonde ‘do and pink heels for her starring performance this weekend. Amidst a crazy rehearsal schedule, the… Read More

Meet Danny: mechanical engineering, math and computer science triple major who speaks both Japanese and Russian, has been a committed intern at places like Microsoft and Twitter, and flaunts formerly pink, (but now bright green) hair. Read More

The Owen School can say that, too (all our students are talented high achievers), but we tend to not group people together. Each person is individual, unique and vital to the makeup of our student body. Read More

Winter Storm Jonas blanketed the campus with snow last week. Check out photos of the winter weather event on the Get Social website. Read More

Learn how Jack Rutledge, BMus’03, MBA’09, turned his talent for music and business to become head of catalog and selection for Amazon Music. Learn how he blended his music and business acumen into a successful career. Read More

Would working at a toy company really be all fun and games? Erin Sullivan can tell you. She has worked at Mattel since landing a marketing internship while a student at Owen. Now senior director for Fisher-Price marketing, she has handled virtually every Mattel brand, except dolls, in her 11… Read More

Greg Brink, EMBA’03, is a senior risk manager at Fannie Mae and has spent his career working with commercial mortgages. His wife, Ann Marie, is a professional musician who is the associate principal violist for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. They met at a patrons’ event for the orchestra in Dallas. Read More