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Vanderbilt engineer and medtech global leader Krista Donaldson to discuss public health inequities, better products and solutions
Mar. 6, 2023—Engineering school’s Chambers Lecture is April 4 at the Wond’ry Vanderbilt engineering alumna, designer, author and entrepreneur Krista Donaldson has addressed global health inequities through the design and scaling of disruptive medical devices that treated more 1.8M patients, mostly children and young people, in 80 countries. Now, she directs Innovation to Impact at Stanford University’s...
Somtochukwu Dimobi Okoye, BE’19, creates allyships to help others realize their potential
Mar. 3, 2023—By Amy Wolf When Somto Dimobi Okoye, BE’19, was growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, her mother would open their home to people who needed help—instilling a philosophy of building strength and community through a tightly woven support system. “Even if we had one piece of chicken, she’d cut that chicken into 13 equal pieces,” Okoye...
How a graduate school “midlife crisis” inspired a breakthrough surgical device
Feb. 28, 2023—By Lucas Johnson When Robert J. Webster III was working on an engineering project for his Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University, he was struck with an unnerving thought: The technology he was helping create seemed interesting, but it wouldn’t reach patients for at least 20 years. “And that’s only if everything went well,” he recalls....
MEDLab’s perennial engineering class for college-bound girls earns praise
Feb. 28, 2023—A hands-on interactive class designed by graduate students in the Medical Engineering and Discovery Lab (MEDLab) for high school students drew enthusiastic reviews from a Nashville college-preparatory school group. Sessions included introduction to engineering and STEM, computer aided design, robotics and coding, bioinspired design, and a civil engineering module on structure design. The three-week class, Structures,...
Brett Byram named inaugural Hoy Family Faculty Fellow in engineering school
Feb. 27, 2023—Brett Byram, associate professor of biomedical engineering, has been named the inaugural Hoy Family Faculty Fellow in recognition of his advances in medical ultrasound imaging. Byram’s research is a transformational integration of acoustics, machine learning, signal processing and physiology to better understand and access functional and anatomical information. He leads the Biomedical Elasticity and Acoustic...
Catie Chang is inaugural Sally and Dave Hopkins Faculty Fellow in the School of Engineering
Feb. 27, 2023—Catie Chang, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, computer science, and biomedical engineering, has been named the inaugural Sally and Dave Hopkins Faculty Fellow in the Vanderbilt School of Engineering in recognition of her highly collaborative and interdisciplinary research. Chang develops engineering and computational approaches for investigating the human brain. Her work draws upon...
Biomaterials and drug delivery pioneer Nicholas Peppas to deliver engineering school’s Hall Lecture March 21
Feb. 22, 2023—Nicholas Peppas, professor of biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, surgery and pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin and a pioneer in biomaterials and drug delivery systems, will deliver the John R. and Donna S. Hall Engineering Lecture Tuesday, March 21, at 4 p.m. in the Vanderbilt School of Engineering’s “Jacobs Believed in Me Auditorium,” Featheringill...
Research Spotlight: The rise of ChatGPT and the age of artificial intelligence
Feb. 21, 2023—When one of his Ph.D. students first suggested that Jules White, associate professor of computer science, check out ChatGPT—the artificial intelligence platform that can do everything from write original poetry to generate sophisticated computer code in seconds—White was dismissive at first. But once he investigated further, White knew that this technology would shape the future,...