Jesse Spencer-Smith

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

The Vanderbilt Innovation Catalyst Fund, launched in 2023, bridges the gap between academic research and real-world applications by supporting projects with commercial and societal potential. To date, the fund has completed six award cycles, distributing 39 grants to VU and VUMC awardees across diverse disciplines. Read More

Get to know Jesse Spencer-Smith's favorite food, books, music and why he's excited to be faculty head of Sutherland House on the Ingram Commons. Read More

Gov. Bill Lee has appointed Vanderbilt University’s Jesse Spencer-Smith to the Tennessee Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council, which was established last year to guide the ethical and effective use of AI in the state.  Read More

AdvancED spent it's first official year leveraging the collaborative potential of three university functions: online and lifelong learning, pedagogical support and educational technology. Look back at 2024's successes and milestones. Read More

Vanderbilt Residential Colleges announces a new faculty head of Sutherland House on The Martha Rivers Ingram Commons. Jesse Spencer-Smith, interim director and chief data scientist at the Data Science Institute and professor of the practice of computer science, will assume the role of faculty head beginning Jan. 1, 2025. He will succeed Chezare Warren, associate professor of equity and inclusion in education policy in the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations, who has served as faculty head since 2021. 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

In May 2023, Vanderbilt University Professor Jules White released his first generative AI online course using the Coursera platform: Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT. In the next 18 months, the university’s partnership with Coursera expanded significantly, and Vanderbilt added 13 more courses and seven “specializations.” Professor Jules White interviews Shawn Keen… Read More

Hunting for black holes sounds like the premise of a new Hollywood blockbuster, but at Vanderbilt University, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Karan Jani works with students in a lab to do exactly that. Last year, Jani’s group at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, along with the university’s Data Science Institute, jointly launched the AI for New Messengers postdoctoral fellowship. The fellowship, one of the first of its kind in the U.S., seeks to apply AI techniques to analyze data from cosmic events (such as black hole collisions) using information from the Nobel Prize–winning Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) experiment. Read More

The Computing Catalyst Working Group will identify computing resources needed to catalyze a new wave of discovery and innovation powered by AI and computing at Vanderbilt.  Read More

Vanderbilt is leading the charge on what AI can do for teaching and learning in higher education. Read More

Vanderbilt and the Data Science Institute announce the university’s first ever AI Training Day. This daylong event, scheduled for March 5, is open to the public and offers something for everyone who wants to learn more about artificial intelligence. Participants will explore modern training methods and architectural models in AI and ensure that they are up to date in this rapidly evolving landscape. For faculty and students that will be teaching AI models or using AI models in their classroom or research, this event offers essential information. Read More

Alumni wrote in to tell us about their favorite professors. Read More

In just over a year, generative AI has emerged from a niche curiosity to a driving force in many of Vanderbilt’s classrooms. The Office of Faculty Affairs and Professional Education has launched several resources and programs related to generative AI, including an updated academic affairs policy, an online resource hub, a new teaching award and a pilot program for a secure, proprietary alternative to ChatGPT. These updates reflect AI becoming an established tool in classrooms and labs across the campus and give faculty ways to help equip students to best use generative AI for new lines of inquiry and scholarship.  Read More