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October, 2015

Alum Morgan headlines Engineering Day; service projects, treats, fun pack schedule

Oct. 30, 2015—Engineering Day activities will range from the whimsical to the creative to the academic this year, featuring a pair of Vanderbilt University alumni returning to discuss their experiences here. The events will take place beginning at 11 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, and most are being held in Featheringill Hall. The keynote speaker, Morris H. Morgan...

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Perry Wallace engineering scholarship to honor first black SEC varsity athlete

Oct. 28, 2015—Vanderbilt University will establish the Perry E. Wallace Jr. Scholarship to honor and recognize the achievements of Wallace, who, as a member of the Commodores’ basketball team, became the first African American to play varsity sports in the Southeastern Conference at a time of lethal racial division across the region. Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos made...

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VUSE volunteers encourage career goals at pair of Society of Women Engineers events

Oct. 25, 2015—Hundreds of middle school girls learned how a mini car runs off solar power, how to ionize water and how wind turbines create electricity – all thanks to Vanderbilt University School of Engineering volunteers who turned out in force on Saturday. The brief lessons took place at the Society of Women Engineers’ Design It. Build...

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Alum Smethills describes development offering years of research across disciplines

Oct. 22, 2015—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 that lets them shed electrical...

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Vanderbilt engineering MOOC leads talented Indian student to Nashville

Oct. 16, 2015—A student’s round trip of 16,716 miles began with an invitation to spend a summer in Nashville, Tennessee, as a computer science intern at Vanderbilt University. In January, Chinmaya Samal, 22, of Rourkela, Odisha, in India, won a Google prize of a Nexus 7 tablet for an Android app he developed in the capstone project...

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Alum who’s developing smart, sustainable community is back to discuss the challenges

Oct. 15, 2015—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 officer of Sterling Ranch, a development so state-of-the-art that it prompted changes to Colorado law to accommodate its...

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Study to examine how female engineering faculty persist despite barriers

Oct. 15, 2015—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 Experiences of Women Tenure-Track Faculty in Engineering,” is...

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Penn Engineering’s Kumar says FAA grounding won’t halt growing drone interest

Oct. 14, 2015—Aerial robot superstar Vijay Kumar gets that there are good reasons for the Federal Aviation Administration to look askance at drone use. There are 15,000 of them sold each month in the U.S. alone, with no standard safety regulations or training for users. Even a drone weighing about a pound can hurt someone if it...

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