Research

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

Vijay Kumar and his students at the University of Pennsylvania build small, agile flying robots that swarm, sense each other, and form ad hoc teams that could be used for search and rescue in large-scale disasters. Penn Engineering Dean Kumar Kumar, recognized around the world for his groundbreaking work on… Read More

Vanderbilt University’s newest chemical and biomolecular engineering assistant professor grew up fascinated with the human brain and decided early on he’d focus his research on that complex organ. But a surprise turn of events as an undergraduate led Ethan Lippmann into a particular avenue of brain research: using induced pluripotent… Read More

  (Vanderbilt University) VISE is keeping its acronym but changing its name. The Vanderbilt Initiative in Surgery and Engineering will become the Vanderbilt Institute in Surgery and Engineering. The promotion from a three-year trial program to an established institute is the consequence of a Vanderbilt… Read More

John F. Mansfield, left, MSA President, congratulates Jake Benzing on his award. (Submitted photo) A Vanderbilt PhD student in interdisciplinary materials science took home a first-place poster award at August’s Microscopy & Microanalysis conference, held last month in Portland, Oregon. Jake Benzing, whose adviser is Associate Professor of… Read More

The Vanderbilt University School of Engineering announces the appointment of three new faculty members to its full-time teaching staff. They are Hiba Baroud, Maithilee Kunda and Ethan Lippmann. Baroud After completing a Ph.D. at Oklahoma University’s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Hiba Baroud has joined the civil and environmental… Read More

(iStock) Every month or so an article comes out reporting that some new object has been made using 3D printing: Everything from jewelry to prosthetic devices to electronic circuit boards to assault rifles to automobiles has now been created in this fashion. The prospect that this revolutionary… Read More

With the flick of a tiny mechanical wrist, a team of engineers and doctors at Vanderbilt University’s Medical Engineering and Discovery Laboratory hope to give needlescopic surgery a whole new degree of dexterity. Needlescopic surgery, which uses surgical instruments shrunk to the diameter of a sewing… Read More

Karl Zelik (Vanderbilt University) In his effort to develop better prosthetic limbs, Karl Zelik had to start with deciphering more clearly how muscles function in walking. His path not only led to a better way of quantifying human locomotion, but also to the discovery that muscles around… Read More