April, 2021
Engineering alums recall Rugby Football Club; 50 years of competition and camaraderie
Apr. 30, 2021—Angela Snell By Graham Hays It started as a Yorkshireman’s attempt to bring something of home to Nashville. More than 50 years later, the Vanderbilt University Rugby Football Club has roots of its own. For the generations of alumni who took Dr. Geoffrey Berry’s idea and ran with it, the most enduring club sport on...
NISE graduate trainee program now accepting applications
Apr. 29, 2021—Applications are now open for the Neurodiversity Inspired Science and Engineering (NISE) graduate trainee program. The deadline to apply is June 15. Sponsored by an NSF Research Traineeship grant, the NISE program takes a novel approach to the training of engineers and scientists engaged in advancing the future of work at the human technology frontier...
Schwager is one of 100 Ph.D. students in U.S., Canada named P.E.O. Scholar
Apr. 28, 2021—Samantha Schwager, a Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering, is one of 100 doctoral students within the United States and Canada selected to receive a Philanthropic Educational Organization Scholar Award from the P.E.O. Sisterhood. She was nominated by P.E.O. Chapter P of Nashville. Schwager is a fourth-year graduate student in Professor Cynthia Reinhart-King’s cell mechanics laboratory....
BME Professor Matthew Walker III was biomedical design leader
Apr. 27, 2021—Matthew Walker III, professor of the practice of biomedical engineering and associate professor of radiology and radiological sciences, died April 24, 2021, at his home. Walker, 56, designed an innovative biomedical engineering design curriculum that leveraged connections between the Vanderbilt School of Engineering, the medical school and the biotechnology community. He served as the biomedical...
Vanderbilt names newest residential college in honor of Marieke and Jeff Rothschild
Apr. 26, 2021—Marieke and Jeff Rothschild Vanderbilt University’s newest residential college will be named Rothschild College in recognition of the transformational $20 million gift that Marieke and Jeff Rothschild, BA’77, MS’79, made in 2016 to accelerate the development of the residential college system. The Rothschilds’ generous contribution has helped advance a key pillar of Vanderbilt’s academic strategic...
Day of Wond’ry 2021 virtual event is May 12
Apr. 22, 2021—Day of Wond’ry, an online innovation extravaganza, will be held on Wednesday, May 12, 2021, from 4 to 6 p.m. CT. See student presentations and creations, learn about Wond’ry programs and services, and explore the virtual fair space using Gather.town, a connection platform combining video conferencing with a walkable 2D world. Walk close to a person to speak...
How to be a hydroponic farmer: Expert advice from agricultural entrepreneur Hassan Sharaff, BE’07
Apr. 21, 2021—One tip: Think like an engineer “Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned the hard way,” laughs Hassan Sharaff, BE’07, gesturing to, well, everything: the polyethylene greenhouse walls with a soaring aluminum frame, torqued by last year’s derecho winds, and tray after tray of arugula, basil, kale and lettuce shoots, drinking in diffuse winter sunlight, tropical humidity...
Senior design project envisions VU-owned land as container development
Apr. 20, 2021—A team of civil and mechanical engineering students has a new vision for land Vanderbilt owns in the Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood of Nashville – apartments for graduate students, restaurants and offices made from 648 used shipping containers. The senior design project, sponsored by the Civic Design Center, is theoretical, but the team tackled it using real-world...