Vanderbilt University and the University of Liverpool in the U.K. have announced the inaugural recipients of a new joint seed grant program that supports faculty teams pursuing innovative projects designed to grow into larger collaborations and generate external funding.
Ravindra Duddu, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Janine Kavanagh (Liverpool), chair of volcanology, are one of seven Vanderbilt-Liverpool faculty teams that received inaugural grants in 2025 for their project: Phase-field fracture modeling of fluid-driven fractures for investigating ice-sheet–climate interactions and volcanic processes.
The Vanderbilt–Liverpool Joint Research Seed Grant program originated at a recent music event in the U.K., where visiting members of Vanderbilt’s leadership connected with their counterparts at Liverpool. A discussion about Nashville’s and Liverpool’s contributions to music led to a realization that the universities also shared similar academic strengths.
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