October, 2014
Your smartphone wouldn’t exist without university research
Oct. 31, 2014—(iStock) According to a number of economic studies, somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of our current economy is based on technologies that didn’t exist 50 years ago: They are the end products of basic scientific and engineering research. It’s hard to wrap your mind around a statistic like that. So five years ago, the Association...
Eat your way through this year’s E-Day
Oct. 30, 2014—Undergrads can eat their way through this year’s Engineering Day, with a number of food-based contests that put their skills to use without feeling like another assignment, organizers said. Among the Thursday, Nov. 6, offerings is a contest to build the fastest car you can consume. Meredith Huszagh (BME’16), president of the School of Engineering...
Professor Sarkar elected ASME Fellow
Oct. 30, 2014—Nilanjan Sarkar, mechanical engineering professor and professor of electrical engineering and computer science, has been elected a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, a distinction awarded to ASME members who have made significant engineering achievements. He is one of only 3,335 Fellows out of 127,651 ASME members. Sarkar is recognized as an expert...
Students race to launch startups at 3-day event in November
Oct. 29, 2014—Vanderbilt students will race toward creating real businesses in a three-day sprint at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center in mid-November. Building on a successful, inaugural 3 Day Startup event in the spring, the student organization Vanderbilt Innovation and Entrepreneurship Society (VINES) is host – again – to the global program that challenges budding entrepreneurs to take...
Improving breast cancer chemo by testing tumors in a dish
Oct. 28, 2014—One of the tragic realities of cancer is that the drugs used to treat it are highly toxic and their effectiveness varies unpredictably from patient to patient. However, a new “tumor-in-a-dish” technology is poised to change this reality by rapidly assessing how effective specific anti-cancer cocktails will be on an individual’s cancer before chemotherapy begins....
Two engineering professors named to Vanderbilt’s Academic Strategic Plan committees
Oct. 27, 2014—William H. Robinson III, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer engineering, and Doug Schmidt, professor of computer engineering and computer science, have been named to committees tasked with fleshing out key initiatives in Vanderbilt’s Academic Strategic Plan. Members of the immersion experience and cross-college teaching committees are set, announced John Geer, vice provost for...
Vanderbilt students travel to Washington, D.C., for science policy event
Oct. 27, 2014—The event’s panels addressed policy and advocacy processes, as well as career-oriented topics. Twenty-six Vanderbilt students explored the opportunities and challenges of setting policy on federal issues and advocacy related to science, technology, engineering and math during a two-day immersion event in Washington, D.C. The Oct. 16-17 workshop was designed to explain and demonstrate federal...
Coffee-ring diagnostic offers hope in poorest regions
Oct. 24, 2014—The ring that an evaporating drop of coffee leaves on the counter might be the solution to saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Research accelerating at Vanderbilt offers new hope in diagnostics for malaria and other diseases. The interdisciplinary team is led by Professor of Biomedical Engineering Rick Haselton, Stevenson Professor of Chemistry David Wright,...