Research

Instead of looking at space atmosphere as a toxic vacuum, look at it as an asset, said Les Johnson, who handed a silver 4-inch square of solar sail material as light as small bird’s feather to an audience member. As the piece of sail traveled through a standing-room-only crowd in… Read More

James Hill, an associate professor of computer and information science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, has become one of the youngest African Americans to become a tenured professor in computer science at a research university in the United States. Hill gained that distinction in August, when his tenure appointment in… Read More

Addisu Taddese, National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship recipient, holds a medical capsule robot. (Heidi Hall/Vanderbilt University) Researchers around the globe who want to customize medical capsule robots won’t have to start from scratch – a team from Vanderbilt University School of Engineering did the preliminary work for… Read More

Vanderbilt University School of Engineering volunteers take middle school girls through an experiment about the environment on Saturday at the Society of Women Engineers national conference. (Heidi Hall/Vanderbilt University) Hundreds of middle school girls learned how a mini car runs off solar power, how to ionize water… Read More

For well over a decade, Vanderbilt Engineering alumnus Brock Smethills (BE’13) and his family have been driving to a picturesque spot just south of Denver, envisioning the futuristic wonderland it would become. Houses where the residents pay mere pocket change for utilities thanks to solar power and a one-of-a-kind system… Read More

Brock Smethills is COO of Sterling Ranch. (Heidi Hall/Vanderbilt University) A recent alumnus who distinguished himself in the aerospace field returns this week to talk about his latest big challenge — launching a 20-year, 12,050-unit sustainable community just south of Denver. Brock Smethills (BE’13) is chief operating… Read More

Ebony McGee (Vanderbilt) Understanding the ways in which women persist in the face of barriers in engineering will be the focus of a collaborative study by education researchers at Vanderbilt and Purdue universities. The three-year study, “Why We Persist: An Intersectional Study to Characterize and Examine the… Read More

Vijay Kumar delivers the John R. and Donna S. Hall Engineering Lecture in Jacobs Believed In Me Auditorium. (Joe Howell/Vanderbilt University) Aerial robot superstar Vijay Kumar gets that there are good reasons for the Federal Aviation Administration to look askance at drone use. There are… Read More

Akos Ledeczi and Will Hedgecock, who developed PinPtr. (John Russell/Vanderbilt University) Two innovative but very different products designed by Vanderbilt University engineers are getting a financial push onto the market, thanks to National Science Foundation Accelerating Innovation Research–Technology Translation (AIR-TT) grants of about $200,000 each. VenoStent is… Read More

Invention of the first integrated circularly polarized light detector on a silicon chip opens the door for development of small, portable sensors that could expand the use of polarized light for drug screening, surveillance, optical communications and quantum computing, among other potential applications. The new detector was developed by a… Read More