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As a child, Jenna Dombroski was at her grandfather’s bedside when cancer took his life. A scientist, he was her inspiration. Years later, the Vanderbilt University Ph.D. student and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow is honoring him by leading the development of what appears to be a promising treatment for breast cancer metastasis, and... Read More

Audrey Bowden, Dorothy J. Wingfield Phillips Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow and associate professor of biomedical and electrical engineering, has won a grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering to develop a novel noninvasive smartphone-integrated device to provide accurate, point-of-care detection of jaundice in newborns of all skin tones. Audrey Bowden Newborns have immature... Read More

Twelve exceptional undergraduates have benefited from the addition of new workshops to a 10-week Summer Fellows program that gives students first-hand experience in research laboratories and provides financial support. The Vanderbilt Institute for Surgery and Engineering’s Summer Fellows program expanded this year with the addition of two new workshops: Technical Communication in Research and Refining... Read More

Vanderbilt University has been selected to present in two venues at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly referred to as COP27, Nov. 15 at Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Vanderbilt research assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and Vanderbilt Climate Change Initiative Director Leah Dundon’s proposal on Vanderbilt’s ongoing research in marine shipping... Read More

Sankaran Mahadevan, John R. Murray Sr. Professor of Engineering and civil and environmental engineering professor, is the winner of the 2022 IASSAR Distinguished Research Award. The award is presented every four years to two eminent senior researchers by the International Association on Structural Safety and Reliability at its quadrennial meeting. IASSAR promotes the study, research... Read More

Neuroblastoma is one of the most common—and lethal—forms of childhood cancer, accounting for 15 percent of pediatric cancer deaths each year. (Despite the name, neuroblastoma is not a form of brain cancer; it typically consists of tumors found in the abdomen, chest, neck, pelvis and bones.) Currently, children with neuroblastoma are treated with aggressive forms... Read More

Neuroblastoma is one of the most common—and lethal—forms of childhood cancer, accounting for 15 percent of pediatric cancer deaths each year. (Despite the name, neuroblastoma is not a form of brain cancer; it typically consists of tumors found in the abdomen, chest, neck, pelvis and bones.) Currently, children with neuroblastoma are treated with aggressive forms... Read More

As the population of older adults continues to boom across the U.S., Vanderbilt researcher Nilanjan Sarkar is partnering with Lorraine Mion of the Ohio State University and two Middle Tennessee long-term care (LTC) facilities to investigate how augmented reality technologies can ease loneliness among residents. Sarkar, the David K. Wilson Professor of Engineering and a... Read More

A new study by Vanderbilt researchers demonstrates the ability to initiate chemical reactions by cooling materials instead of heating them— a counterintuitive process that could open new vistas for applications ranging from monitoring shipping conditions to developing smart clothing that guards against dangerously low temperatures. The paper, published in August by the journal RSC Advances,... Read More

by Bill Snyder The growth of epithelial ovarian cancer, one of the most lethal malignancies, is associated with the presence of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), white blood cells that can block the anti-cancer activity of the immune system and immunotherapy. Fortunately, TAMs can be “repolarized,” converted from immunosuppressive tumor-promoters to inflammatory tumor-fighters. Now, Associate Professor of Pharmacology Fiona Yull,... Read More

Two leading energy companies that used a Vanderbilt-pioneered process to develop safer nuclear reactors received a prestigious technology award from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in June. A team led by Steve Krahn, professor of the practice of nuclear environmental engineering, worked in collaboration with EPRI to develop a “safety-in-design” methodology that was adopted... Read More

Janey Camp has been named the director of the Vanderbilt Engineering Center for Transportation and Operational Resiliency (VECTOR) where interdisciplinary groups work on a variety of transportation and infrastructure resilience projects using groundbreaking applications and risk management practices. “It is an absolute honor to move into this leadership role for VECTOR at such an exciting time... Read More

Cynthia Reinhart-King, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering and professor of biomedical engineering, has accepted the position of Senior Associate Dean for Research. Her appointment comes as Associate Dean for Research and John R. Hall Professor of Chemical Engineering Peter Cummings steps down and has announced his retirement. Reinhart-King is a cellular bioengineer who is a leader... Read More

Three engineering faculty members have received grants to support the early stages of pioneering research projects identified as likely candidates for further funding from federal, foundation and industry sponsors. Spring 2022 Seeding Success Grants were awarded to 14 faculty and are the second cycle of the internal early investment funding initiative. The grants, awarded to faculty spanning the... Read More

The Vanderbilt rocket team won the coveted NASA Student Launch Project Review Award for the best documentation of the project progress through 2021-2022. The national Student Launch rocketry competition was held in April and results were announced June 3. This is Vanderbilt’s 15th year to participate in the annual NASA event and teams have won the... Read More

Piran Kidambi, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has been selected to receive funding for research as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program. The program is designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early career period, when many scientists conduct... Read More

Vanderbilt engineering graduate student Sai Abitha Srinivas received the I.I. Rabi Young Investigator Award at the 2022 meeting of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, held May 7-12 in London. This award is recognition for her work to improve image quality in portable MRI systems with minimal passive shielding that could reduce the... Read More

by Jenna Somers  Two Vanderbilt professors were awarded Pathfinder seed funding for a project that could benefit soldiers by optimizing their neurological performance through suggested behavior protocol and by improving aircraft design and equipment to reduce the effects of in-flight vibration and percussion.  The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory and the Civil-Military Innovation Institute... Read More

Biomedical engineering nets more than any BME department in the country with 10 Sixteen engineering graduate students have been awarded a highly competitive government-funded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Three engineering undergraduate students also received NSF fellowships. NSF Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 allowance for tuition and fees... Read More

Justus C. Ndukaife, assistant professor of electrical engineering, has received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for foundational research in cell-to-cell communication. His CAREER project, “Resonant Dielectric Optical Metasurfaces for Single-Cell Extracellular Vesicles Analysis,” will enable Ndukaife to associate the properties of extracellular vesicles directly to their cell sources—up to the resolution of single cells—a capability that... Read More