Federal Relations

ON THE HILL is a report produced by the Division of Government and Community Relations summarizing activity at all three levels of government, as outlined by the Vanderbilt Federal Relations, State Government Relations and Local Government Relations teams. Read More

In late June, Chancellor Daniel Diermeier traveled to Washington, D.C., for a day of congressional meetings and to headline Vanderbilt University’s congressional reception. His visit, organized by Vanderbilt’s Office of Federal Relations, came at a pivotal moment as Congress considers sweeping budget and tax legislation.  Read More

To address the complexities AI poses to the nation’s economy and security, Vanderbilt University experts retired Gen. Paul Nakasone, founding director of Vanderbilt’s Institute of National Security, and Jesse Spencer-Smith, interim director of the Data Science Institute, shared crucial insights with a bipartisan group of congressional staff on Capitol Hill. Read More

18 Vanderbilt graduate students and postdoctoral researchers traveled to Washington, D.C., in October to participate in Vanderbilt’s Federal STEM Policy and Advocacy Seminar. This two-day event is designed to provide STEM professionals with an inside look at the federal policymaking process, the importance of advocacy in advancing science and research priorities and to explore careers in science policy. Read More

Krish Roy, Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Dean of the School of Engineering, recently engaged in a leadership roundtable in Washington, D.C. with NIH Director Dr. Monica M. Bertagnolli. Hosted by United for Medical Research (UMR), the forum addressed critical issues in biomedical research funding and efforts to secure sustained federal investments in this vital area. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Office of Federal Relations hosted U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly on campus to talk about cybersecurity workforce shortages and the higher education cybersecurity ecosystem. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s Jules White, a leading computer scientist and expert on large language models and prompt engineering, visited Capitol Hill recently to share his expertise with lawmakers. Read More

On National Humanities Alliance’s advocacy day in D.C., through a series of meetings and a social media campaign, Vanderbilt students advocated for federal funding to support the National Endowment for the Humanities. This effort was part of the Robert Penn Warren Center’s Humanities in the Real World: Undergraduate Advocacy Fellowship in collaboration with Vanderbilt’s Office of Federal Relations.  Read More

Krish Roy, Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Dean of the School of Engineering and University Distinguished Professor, met with members of Congress in early February to discuss the importance of engineering’s role in improving living standards, socioeconomic growth and global competitiveness. Read More

The Pathfinder program, a collaboration of Vanderbilt University, the U.S. Army and the nonprofit Civil-Military Innovation Institute, continues launching innovative technology projects designed to address real-world military challenges and fostering technology commercialization through startup businesses. Read More

New technology to mitigate enemy radio jamming developed at Vanderbilt and advanced in collaboration with Soldiers at Fort Campbell has been delivered to U.S. Army Soldiers in the field. Read More

Two Vanderbilt engineers participated in the SmartAmerica Challenge EXPO in Washington D.C. Read More

Vanderbilt University law professor Rebecca Haw told a U.S. House subcommittee that the power of state licensing boards should be trimmed to the point where competition can again take hold. Read More

Innovation Deficit: The widening gap between the actual level of government funding for research and higher education and what the investment needs to be if the United States is to remain the world's innovation leader. Read More

Efforts by the federal government to control the nation’s spiraling budget deficit, including sequestration that took effect on March 1, have created the potential for significant impact to Medicare’s long-standing support for graduate medical education and could limit the ability of the nation’s academic medical centers to care for patients and train the next generation of physicians, says Donald Brady, senior associate dean of Graduate Medical Education for Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Read More

The Office of Federal Relations hosted a July 31 Federal Forum: “Outlook for Immigration Reform and Implications for Higher Education.” Participants include Beth Fortune, vice chancellor for public affairs, Sherif Barsoum, director of the International Student and Scholar Services, Dahlia French, director of the Office of International Services, and Margie… Read More

Vanderbilt-sponsored Golden Goose Award celebrates University of California researcher's discovery that the poisonous venom of the Gila monster can help prevent some of diabetes’ most severe complications. Read More

As part of Vanderbilt’s ongoing federal advocacy efforts in support of federal funding for research and education at the National Science Foundation, Sharon Weiss, associate professor of electrical engineering and physics, traveled to Washington, D.C., for the Coalition for National Science Funding’s (CNSF) advocacy day and Capitol Hill reception on May 7. Read More

Watch video of a lunchtime panel discussion on “Election 2012 and the Congressional ‘Lame Duck’: What’s at Stake?”. The panel, hosted by Vanderbilt’s Office of Federal Relations and the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, will be moderated by Beth Fortune, vice chancellor for public affairs, and will feature: John… Read More

According to economic studies, somewhere between 30 to 50 percent of the United States’ current gross national product is based on products and technologies that have their origin in the nation’s research laboratories. Read More