News

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

Lauren Underwood, a registered nurse who represents Illinois’ 14th Congressional District, will discuss leadership, nursing and health equity during a virtual conversation with Vanderbilt University School of Nursing leaders on Tuesday, May 17, from noon to 1 p.m. CT. The event is free and will be available via Zoom. 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

Ahmad F. Tata, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, has received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for fundamental research in new approaches to network sensors and controllers scheduling. His CAREER project, “Scheduling Driving Sensing and Control Nodes in Nonlinear Networks with Applications to Fuel-Free Energy Systems,” offers a novel framework for the exploration of... Read More

David Braun, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for foundational research in mechanically adaptive robotics. His CAREER project, “Mechanically Adaptive, Energetically Passive Robotics,” will enable the creation of new-generation industrial robots, transportation systems, and devices that can assist and augment humans. The five-year, $600,000 grant will support work on robot... Read More

By Marissa Shapiro THE IDEA The human brain is organized in functional networks—connected brain regions that communicate with each other through dedicated pathways. That is how we perceive our senses, how the body moves, how we are able to remember the past and plan for the future. The “default mode” network is the part of... Read More

By Marissa Shapiro THE IDEA The human brain is organized in functional networks—connected brain regions that communicate with each other through dedicated pathways. That is how we perceive our senses, how the body moves, how we are able to remember the past and plan for the future. The “default mode” network is the part of... Read More

Karl Zelik, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is one of three inaugural awardees for the February 2022 cycle of the Scaling Success Grant, which is the first cycle of this internal funding opportunity. Yuankai Huo, assistant professor of computer science and computer engineering, is co-PI on a SSG grant. Read More

Biomedical engineering prof says study raises the prospect of a new application of diagnostic optical biopsy by Paul Govern In a new study from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 10-second videos of white blood cell motion in the skin’s microvasculature greatly improved the prediction of which stem cell and bone marrow transplant patients would have a relapse... Read More

To shoot a basketball with precision requires countless hours of practice. Usually, this happens under the watchful eye of a coach, who can provide guidance on the right mechanics of each shot. Now, though, thanks to new research from Vanderbilt University, players may soon be able to use artificial intelligence technology to work on those... Read More

Peter Buerhaus, PhD, FAAN, FAANP(h), a renowned researcher who studies the health care workforce and economy will share his expertise on the future of nursing, health equity and the relationship balance between nurses, leadership and educators. He will be the inaugural speaker in a new Leadership Lecture Series presented by the Vanderbilt University School of... Read More

Nursing educators challenged with incorporating nursing informatics into their curriculum in accordance with the new AACN Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education can get a jump start at a three-day conference offered by Vanderbilt University School of Nursing this summer. The Vanderbilt Informatics Summer Teaching Academy (VISTA) will be July 20-22, 2022, at Vanderbilt’s park-like... Read More

Mikail Rubinov, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, computer science, psychiatry and psychology, has been awarded a four-year, $1.1 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to better understand the development and organization of brain networks, as well as their change in development and aging. Rubinov and his collaborators will link aspects of gene expression and... Read More

John Wikswo, founder and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and Gordon A. Cain University Professor, is the principal investigator of a $1 million award from the National Science Foundation. The object is to build a pathbreaking “robot scientist”—a fully automated microfluidic system for parallel, independent, long-duration, machine-guided experiments. The... Read More

John Wikswo, founder and director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and Gordon A. Cain University Professor, is the principal investigator of a $1 million award from the National Science Foundation. The object is to build a pathbreaking “robot scientist”—a fully automated microfluidic system for parallel, independent, long-duration, machine-guided experiments. The... Read More

Joshua Caldwell, Flowers Family Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow in Engineering and associate professor of mechanical engineering, and Joseph Matson, a graduate student in Caldwell’s lab, have contributed to an international study that has discovered a new type of light-matter coupling. The work has long-term implications for how optical components can be even further miniaturized, a discovery... Read More

A multidisciplinary team that includes a Vanderbilt computer science professor has established the foundation for an automated, up-to-date assessment of personal protective equipment across U.S. hospitals—work that got its start before the COVID-19 pandemic but took on greater urgency. Significantly, the team developed a secure, third-party system to operate independent of federal and state governments... Read More

Vanderbilt team to focus on engineering, testing the device by Matt Batcheldor Vanderbilt University Medical Center will share in an $8.7 million federal grant to create an artificial lung system that patients with incurable lung disease can use at home. The Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) grant will fund research to create... Read More

Christos Constantinidis, professor of biomedical engineering, and Zhaohua Ding, research professor of electrical engineering, have been elected to the 2022 class of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows. Recipients of this honor are chosen for exceptional leadership and achievements in medical and biological engineering. Read More