Arts And Science

By Jenna Somers and Krystal Schmidt   This summer, around 30 middle-school students from the Tennessee Nature Academy explored upstream and downstream Mill Creek, which flows 28 miles from Nolensville to the Cumberland River in Tennessee. Some students moved as quickly as algae-covered rocks would allow, while others took… Read More

Ultra-thin layers of gold and copper sulfide developed by Vanderbilt doctoral student Yueming Yan with Associate Professor of Chemistry Janet Macdonald and Stevenson Professor of Physics Richard Haglund could revolutionize medical imaging and environmental sensing. The energy exchange between the metal and semiconductor particles—resonant energy transfer—can convert infrared light into visible and ultraviolet colors. The nanoscale films "could replace bulky optical sensors with flexible, wearable or even implantable devices, thus transforming health and safety technologies." Read More

Printer’s Fist, by Melissa Range, has been selected as the 2025 winner of the Vanderbilt University Literary Prize. The prize competition received more than 250 submissions. Printer’s Fist is scheduled for publication in March 2026 from Vanderbilt University Press. Range will be in residence for a week in spring 2026 to engage students, faculty and the greater community with her work. Read More

After concluding her term as associate dean for academic affairs for the Graduate School, Terrah Akard will return to her role as professor of nursing in the School of Nursing. Julián Hillyer, Centennial Professor of Biological Sciences, and Andrea Page-McCaw, Stevenson Chair and professor of cell and developmental biology, have been named associate deans for academic affairs. Read More

Tracy Sharpley-Whiting's research explores the interior lives of historical figures whose artistic influence shaped their worlds. Her impressive accomplishments led to her recent election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. Read More

Five Vanderbilt researchers have received Seeding Success grants for early-stage projects that have strong potential for external funding. The program, managed by Research Development and Support, reflects the university’s commitment to advancing high-impact research across disciplines. Read More

This past academic year, seven graduate students and one undergraduate student participated in the 2025 Merck Compound Challenge. Created in 2018, the competition gives teams from around the world 48 hours to create a proposed route of chemical steps from a commercial chemical they believe will make the final compound. Read More

Pet parrots often outlive their owners, and Vanderbilt researchers want to know why—because uncovering the biological mechanisms behind exceptional longevity could one day help safely extend the lives of humans. With the support of a new $1.3 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, Vanderbilt biologist Gianni Castiglione is taking a bold approach to aging research: reverse-engineering how birds live three to four times longer than similarly sized mammals to identify safe, effective genetic targets for human aging therapies. Read More

A collaboration among VUMC, the College of Arts and Science, the School of Medicine and the School of Engineering has led to some higher-order “hitchhikers” that can make immunotherapy cancer treatments more effective. Associate Professor John Wilson’s lab devised a way to piggyback cancer-fighting nanobodies onto molecules that naturally accumulate around tumors—getting the treatment where it needs to go. Read More

This year’s event will be titled “Vanderbilt University Presents: The Southern Festival of Books, a program of Humanities Tennessee,” marking a new chapter in the life of this storied public event and reflecting Vanderbilt’s deepening investment in the cultural, civic and intellectual fabric of the region. The continuation of the festival is a testament to the power of community. After months of uncertainty following the termination of federal funding, Tennesseans will have the opportunity to celebrate the return of this free event that connects authors and readers at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, the Tennessee State Museum and the Tennessee State Library and Archives. Read More

A university requires more than professors, administrators and students to run properly. The preparation of food, maintenance and cleaning of facilities, landscaping and groundskeeping work, and thousands of other essential tasks build the foundation of every place of learning. Even so, conversations between these two worlds can be rare, and when they do occur, might be scaffolded by hierarchical ideas about work. One program, sponsored by the Curb Center in collaboration with Forklift Danceworks, seeks to change this.  Read More

Seven incoming first-year students and three rising sophomores have been selected for the Ingram Scholars Program. They were chosen from among more than 2,000 applicants for the prestigious merit scholarship, awarded each year to students who demonstrate academic excellence and a strong passion for service.  Read More

When economics and communication of science and technology double major Leilani Rucker, Class of 2026, stepped into the Wond’ry’s Fiber Arts Build Lab, she had the feeling her lifelong love for fashion design was about to gain momentum. In the FAB Lab, Manager Alexandra Sargent Capps provides experiential opportunities to promote sustainable fashion and upcycling. Capps piqued Rucker’s interest when she showed up with a bin of colorful neckties from a clothing drive. Rucker’s imagination was sparked, and she set out to create a small upcycled clothing collection to display during Vanderbilt Fashion Week. Read More

In this episode of Quantum Potential, Amanda Little, writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt’s College of Arts and Science, joins Provost C. Cybele Raver to discuss how journalism can highlight the tipping points humanity faces and how people-first storytelling can move us from observation to action. Read More

The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, in partnership with the Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Association, announced the 2025 award winners at the Spring Postdoc Awards Ceremony on May 21. The event highlighted the vital contributions that postdocs make across various disciplines at the university.   Read More

A recent study from the labs of Lars Plate and Jens Meiler, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, analyzed both selectively responsive and poorly responsive variants of cystic fibrosis and revealed the molecular determinants of drug response. Read More

Danial Asgari, a postdoctoral researcher in the Tate Lab, and Ann Tate, associate professor of Biological Sciences, recently published a study in Molecular Biology and Evolution titled “How the Structure of Signaling Regulation Evolves: Insights from an Evolutionary Model.” Their findings show that negative feedback loops (or NFLs) acting closer to a cell’s final decisions, such as turning genes on or off, are especially resistant to evolutionary change. Read More

While we know that intermediate-mass black holes should exist, little is known about their origins or characteristics—they are considered the rare “missing links” in black hole evolution. However, four new studies have shed new light on the mystery. The research was led by a team in the lab of Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Karan Jani, who also serves as the founding director of the Vanderbilt Lunar Labs Initiative. Read More

The National Center for Science Education has named Vanderbilt University’s Evolutionary Studies Initiative as one of its 2025 recipients of the prestigious Friend of Darwin award. This national honor recognizes ESI’s outstanding contributions to advancing public understanding of evolution through interdisciplinary research, education and outreach. Read More

Vanderbilt has announced eleven awardees in the latest round of its Innovation Catalyst Fund, an initiative that supports translational research that has promising commercial potential. Read More