Institute For Public Engagement

The Sept. 10 Vanderbilt in the City doubled as the public debut of the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Engagement, a new Discovery Vanderbilt center designed to connect university experts with the public. “Who Do You Trust and Why? Expertise in an Age of Algorithms” drew faculty, alumni, students and New York neighbors into a discussion of how knowledge travels—and stalls—in a media environment that’s shaped by social platforms, artificial intelligence and eroding institutional trust. Read More

At Vanderbilt University’s New York City campus in Chelsea, a new institute will explore a pressing challenge: How can universities ensure that credible expertise reaches people in an information landscape that is increasingly shaped by algorithms, fragmented media and declining public trust? Read More

Jad Abumrad, Distinguished Research Professor of Communication of Science and Technology and creator of award-winning series like Radiolab, More Perfect, Dolly Parton’s America and Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, set out in life to be a composer. Perhaps a poet, maybe a fiction writer, but it was music, Abumrad said, that was “running through me constantly.” Read More