Peabody Reflector Fall 2025

By Jenna Somers In September, a delegation from Pakistan visited Vanderbilt University for the weeklong STEM-Powered Immersion Conference, hosted by Peabody College of education and human development. Six faculty members from Sukkur IBA University and Qasim Aslam, founder and chief executive officer of Beyond the Classroom, participated in a… Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich Grace Ambrose-Zaken, Pediatric Belt Cane inventor. It was a little bit of kismet that led Vanderbilt Peabody College alumna Grace Ambrose-Zaken, Ed.D.’97, to the visual disabilities field. But it was a lot of passion and creativity that drove her to transform that field with… Read More

Social innovation reimagines organizations and systems through human-centered design principles and through leadership to create evenhanded, sustainable solutions to pressing challenges. Considered an emerging field within the past two decades, social innovation is one that Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development has been at the forefront of… Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich and Krystal Schmidt If you are an educator—or work with educators—then it’s likely you have encountered Section 504 plans. These plans support more than 1.3 million students with disabilities across the country, but they differ from Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs.  In the… Read More

Vanderbilt Peabody’s Emily Pendergrass has been named to the new global cohort “Empowering Teachers: 21st Century Skills.” The University of Jordan, in Amman, recently assembled the research team, which aims to boost teachers’ professional development in an age of evolving technologies and rapidly… Read More

By Jenna Somers Whether a young child lives in Guatemala or the Netherlands, whether they attend school in a mudbrick building with dirt floors or a state-of-the-art facility, is it possible to develop common measures to understand their health and development? How does child development differ across cultural contexts, and… Read More

By Jenna Somers The Great Recession of 2008 led to a pronounced decline in birthrates, and the impact has caught up with colleges and universities. Children born at the start of the recession are now 18 years old, but there are fewer of them compared to the prior decade,… Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich and Krystal Schmidt As kids return to school, families considering special education services for their children may wonder where to start. Even after support is in place, Section 504 plans and IEPs can feel overwhelming. Vanderbilt Peabody College researcher Meghan Burke, professor of special… Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich Teenagers in the School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt (SSMV), staff with the Vanderbilt University Museum of Art (VUMA) and Nashville Metro Historical Commission archaeologists recently joined forces in a unique collaboration. Beginning in January 2025 with support from Vanderbilt’s Community Engagement Collaboration Fund, three… Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich This July 6 – 23, rising high school seniors in the Cooke Young Scholars Program immersed themselves in life and learning at Vanderbilt University. During the initiative’s annual Senior Summit, 57 students stayed on campus, studied in advanced courses and participated in engaging residential experiences.  … Read More

by Jenna Somers Karen Legrand Karen Legrand returned to Guatemala with “new eyes” after her experience in the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development in 2020-2021. In the highlands of Guatemala, she created a violence prevention program, followed by a… Read More

By Jenna Somers and Krystal Schmidt   This summer, around 30 middle-school students from the Tennessee Nature Academy explored upstream and downstream Mill Creek, which flows 28 miles from Nolensville to the Cumberland River in Tennessee. Some students moved as quickly as algae-covered rocks would allow, while others took… Read More

Since 2020, educators, policymakers, and families have grappled with the long-term effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on student learning and well-being. While pandemic recovery efforts are ongoing, one of the most persistent challenges has been chronic absenteeism. Nashville PEER hopes to understand this issue at its roots with a new… Read More

By Jennifer Kiilerich Marissa Tessier, Melanie Hundley and Elizabeth Seeker. Photo: Krystal Schmidt Convincing tweens and teens to read books can be an uphill battle. But a collaboration between two Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development students, their professor, and best-selling Disney Books author Jen Calonita is… Read More