Robert Webster

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to upend lives in countless ways, members of the Vanderbilt community have shown remarkable resilience in the face of the crisis. Read More

As COVID-19 continues to push unprecedented challenges on medical communities, one of the most pressing threats for hospital staff across the country is a dwindling supply of ventilators. Now, an interdisciplinary team of Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center faculty is taking on the challenge by way of a fabricated, open-source ventilator design. Read More

Faculty have been named to a new subcommittee formed by the Vanderbilt University Research Council to provide governance for the GlobalVU initiative. Read More

Vanderbilt collaborators focused on minimally invasive prostate surgery are developing an endoscopic robotic system with two-handed dexterity at a much smaller scale than existing options. Read More

Vanderbilt collaborators focused on minimally invasive prostate surgery are developing an endoscopic robotic system with two-handed dexterity at a much smaller scale than existing options. A key part of the design – telescoping, curved, concentric tubes – received U.S. patent protection in March 2019, the same month the principal investigators secured a $2.1 million R01... Read More

Vanderbilt’s newest endowed chair holders were celebrated for their path-breaking scholarship and research by family members, donors, colleagues and friends during a Feb. 25 ceremony. Read More

Collaboration between a mechanical engineer at Vanderbilt University and a pulmonologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) has resulted in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 grant that will be used to develop a steerable robotic needle to safely biopsy hard-to-reach lung nodules. Read More

Removing part of a kidney with minimally invasive robotic surgery rather than an entire kidney when operating for smaller tumors is often best for patients from a recovery and health standpoint, but many surgeons hesitate to do so because of the complexity of the robotic partial nephrectomy procedure. Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have designed a “granular jamming cap” filled with coffee grounds that can improve the accuracy of the sophisticated “GPS” system that surgeons use for nose and throat surgery. Read More

VIDEO» A Vanderbilt research team has successfully created a mechanical wrist less than 1/16th of an inch thick -- small enough to use in needlescopic surgery, the smallest form of minimally invasive surgery. Read More

For those most severely affected, epilepsy treatment means drilling through the skull deep into the brain to destroy the small area where seizures originate—invasive, dangerous, and requiring a long recovery period. Five years ago a team of Vanderbilt engineers wondered: Is it possible to address epileptic seizures in a less invasive way? Read More

Vanderbilt engineers have developed a surgical robot designed to perform brain surgery by entering through the cheek instead of the skull. Read More

In the foreseeable future, robots will be sticking steerable needles in your brain to remove blood clots; capsule robots will be crawling up your colon as a painless replacement for the colonoscopy; and ultra-miniaturized snake robots will remove tumors from your bladder and other body cavities. Read More

Surgery to relieve the damaging pressure caused by hemorrhaging in the brain is a perfect job for a robot. That is the basic premise of a new image-guided surgical system under development at Vanderbilt University. Read More

A new Android app developed at Vanderbilt uses tactile feedback technology to help students with visual impairments to master algebra, geometry, graphing and other subjects that are particularly hard to comprehend without the aid of normal vision. Read More

Four Vanderbilt School of Engineering faculty members have been awarded a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to create new tools, including a web-based modeling and simulation infrastructure, intended to help speed up the development of miniature medical capsule robots. Read More

The Melodores student a cappella group didn’t let restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic keep them from sharing their music with fans. Their performances, recorded using videoconferencing technology, have been viewed more than 775,000 times and have been featured on Good Morning America, ABC News and NBC News. As the… Read More

Mechanical Engineering graduate students David Comber and Massimiliano Simi have won first and second place in the Three-in-Five competition at the Design of Medical Devices Conference. Read More

A mechanical engineering graduate student has created an app that turns Android tablets into an educational aid for teaching mathematics to visually impaired students. Read More

Dickerson, Sung and Webster recognized for research including nanoparticles, regenerating blood vessels and finding options for 'inoperable' patients. Read More