Mechanical Engineering

While using an ice pack to ease pain is nothing new, a Vanderbilt team has taken the concept high-tech. Associate Professor Leon Bellan leads the group that has developed a cold-triggered “depot”—an implantable device that releases medication from within the body on demand. This shows promise on two fronts: Patients can release the medication simply by putting an ice pack over the implant, and locally effective NSAID drugs can be used instead of more addictive opioids. Read More

A new PBS Kids series created to help children better understand the impact of weather and climate took instructional cues from Jeremi London, associate provost for academic opportunity and associate professor of mechanical engineering, who played a role in the show’s development. Read More

Josh Caldwell, professor of mechanical engineering and Director of the Interdisciplinary Materials Science graduate program at Vanderbilt University, and Alex Paarmann of the Fritz Haber Institute, led an international collaborative research project that successfully demonstrated the confinement of terahertz light to nanoscale dimensions using a new type of layered material. This could lead to improvements in opto-electronic devices such as infrared emitters used in remote controls and night vision and terahertz optics desired for physical security and environmental sensing. Read More

Xiaoguang Dong, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, has been awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award that will support research on magnetic miniature soft robots for precision medicine that could facilitate early disease detection and treatment. Read More

Vanderbilt researchers have received a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a smart microscope system that uses artificial intelligence to help scientists better understand how cells behave, particularly in diseases like cancer. Read More

Vanderbilt has announced eleven awardees in the latest round of its Innovation Catalyst Fund, an initiative that supports translational research that has promising commercial potential. Read More

Vanderbilt engineering professor Xiaoguang Dong is leading a team of researchers that has developed a system of artificial cilia capable of monitoring mucus conditions in human airways to better detect infection, airway obstruction, or the severity of diseases like cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and lung cancer. Read More

Paul Slaughter knew early on he wanted an engineering degree that would help amputees, even writing in a high school career essay about designing prosthetics to assist athletes. The mechanical engineering graduate student recently got that opportunity when he designed a prosthetic leg for Army veteran Kelly Elmlinger to compete in triathlons, including a World Triathlon Para Series event where Elmlinger used the leg to help come in first place. Read More

A back-relieving exosuit designed by HeroWear, a Nashville-based workforce wearable technology company, was co-founded by Karl Zelik, associate professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering and physical medicine and rehabilitation, and two alumni, is continuing to show its effectiveness with the Royal Australian Air Force ordering hundreds of additional suits and eyeing larger expansion. Read More

A landmark, multi-institution project being led by Vanderbilt engineering professor Robert J. Webster received an award up to $12 million in funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health to develop a fully autonomous surgical robot. Read More