Postdoc Features

Written by Sam Shepherd, Ph.D. Symmetry occurs everywhere in the natural world, from the atomic structures of different materials, to the spherical shapes of stars and planets, to the bilateral symmetry present in many animals. I study group theory, which is the mathematical language that describes symmetry in all its… Read More

Written by Ash Gillis, Ph.D. (they/them) The summer after I finished high school, my family took a trip to Alaska that changed my life trajectory. We took a helicopter to the Mendenhall Glacier and when we arrived, a tour guide said as an aside “yeah, you know, every summer… Read More

Written by Isidora Miranda, Ph.D. Preparing to move to Nashville in August 2020 was both nerve-wracking and thrilling for me. I was excited to move to Nashville, to be around a famed music scene, and to teach at a place like the Blair School. On the other hand, the pandemic… Read More

Written by Daniel Fehrenbach, Ph.D. When we think about the most common ways people get sick, things like the most recent COVID-19 pandemic are quick to jump to the top of our list. We may also think about all the different types of cancer that have affected our friends and… Read More

Written by Markie Sneed, Ph.D., APRN, FNP-BC During high school, my father underwent an emergent triple Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG) surgery at the age of 51, yet it wasn’t until three years later during my sophomore year of college when my paternal grandfather passed away suddenly from an… Read More

Written by Jhanvi Sharma, Ph.D.  Around mid-March of 2020, a pandemic was declared due to COVID19. This pandemic affected lives of billions of people, including international students and scholars, in an unprecedented way. I was no different; my first postdoc position got pushed back by several months due to lockdowns… Read More

Written by: Harry Barbee, Ph.D.  My postdoctoral appointment at Vanderbilt University has been transformative. I arrived at Vanderbilt in 2020 after preparing and being awarded a Diversity Supplement Award, the first-ever awarded on the basis of sexual and gender minority status at the National Institutes of Health. This award has… Read More

Written by Laura, E. Henkhaus, Ph.D.  As a postdoctoral scholar jointly at the Data Science Institute at Vanderbilt University and the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, I’ve been fortunate to have communities of colleagues and resources across both the university and the medical center. At… Read More

Written by: Maxime Chevee, Ph.D.  My great-grandma, a Latin teacher in Paris in the 1930’s, had a painful tooth so she went to see a dentist. There, she noticed a book on the dentist’s desk: Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness by Henri Bergson. Impressed, she… Read More

Written by: Neelima Wagley, Ph.D. Nepali, English, and Swiss-German were a few of the several languages spoken in my family home in Kathmandu. Growing up, I’d watch Tom and Jerry cartoons dubbed in Hindi. In school, it was strictly English except during Nepali class. On holidays, there was no… Read More