Mechanical Engineering

Paul Slaughter knew early on he wanted an engineering degree that would help amputees, even writing in a high school career essay about designing prosthetics to assist athletes. The Vanderbilt Mechanical Engineering graduate student recently got that opportunity when he designed a prosthetic leg for Army veteran Kelly Elmlinger… Read More

The Apex 2 exosuit is giving Australian defense personnel a boost. (RAAF)   A back-relieving exosuit designed by Vanderbilt spin-off company HeroWear is continuing to show its effectiveness with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) ordering hundreds of additional suits and eyeing larger expansion. HeroWear, a Nashville-based workforce wearable… Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have been awarded a National Science Foundation grant to advance research that uses artificial intelligence to improve communication between neurodivergent and neurotypical youth and adults with the goal of placing more neurodivergent individuals with conditions like autism in the STEM workforce. The three-year $900,000 award is through NSF’s… Read More

A surgical robot capable of performing an entire surgery without human intervention: That’s the goal of a landmark, multi-institution project being led by a Vanderbilt engineer that recently received an award up to $12 million in funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). Robert Webster and his… Read More

Vanderbilt University announced Sept. 18 the launch of its Institute of National Security, led by Paul M. Nakasone, former director of the National Security Agency, former commander of U.S. Cyber Command and retired four-star general. Founding director Paul M. Nakasone The institute emerged from Vanderbilt’s rich history of… Read More

Group of capsules moving in tubular tortuous structures and sampling liquids.   Vanderbilt researchers have developed technology for sampling body liquids in tortuous and narrow spaces that could lead to early detection of diseases like cancer. The research led by Xiaoguang Dong, assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering,… Read More

Vanderbilt engineering students Rais Nurhidajat, Jonathan Zak, Leo Brenes, and graduate student Andrew Noonan gained invaluable aerospace career experience this summer at the Vanderbilt Aerospace Design Laboratory (VADL). Their project, developing an autorotative lander, advanced their technical skills and provided a springboard for their future careers in the… Read More

When kidney stone surgery is performed using an endoscope, about a fourth of those patients will require a repeat surgery within 20 months due to residual stone fragments being left behind. These remaining pieces can lead to obstruction, pain, kidney injury and recurrent infections. Jie Ying Wu Gaining and assessing… Read More

Professor of Mechanical Engineering Deyu Li has been awarded an inaugural National Science Foundation TRAILBLAZER Engineering Impact Award to extend Max Planck’s theory of thermal radiation from equilibrium thermal sources to a regime where non-equilibrium energy carriers can lead to significantly enhanced radiative heat dissipation. The resulting… Read More

  Xiaoguang Dong Xiaoguang Dong, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has been awarded an R21 Trailblazer Award by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to pursue a project about “Wirelessly Actuated Ciliary Stent for Minimally Invasive Treatment… Read More