Research
Vanderbilt chapter advisor, student leaders win 2021 ASCE awards
Oct. 8, 2021—Professor Lori Troxel has received the 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers’ Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award. The award goes to faculty advisors who have demonstrated outstanding leadership and support to their ASCE student chapter. She is one of two recipients nationwide. Lexi Revis, BE’21, the conference planning chair of the 2021 ASCE Southeast Student Conference,...
Vanderbilt and University of Tennessee-Knoxville win Sustainable Regional Systems Research Network grant from National Science Foundation
Oct. 1, 2021—Jonathan Gilligan, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, and Janey Camp, research associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, have won a Sustainable Regional Systems Research Network grant from the National Science Foundation. With a grant of nearly $150,000, they and researchers from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville will work with involved entities to propose a large-scale research network...
Tennessee flash floods are an example of climate change impacts to come
Sep. 15, 2021—The historic rain and flash flooding that swept central Tennessee on Saturday, Aug. 21, 2021, devastated the small city of Waverly, about 60 miles west of Nashville. A flash flood watch issued Friday quickly became a “flash flood emergency” Saturday. On Wednesday, Sept. 25, Humphreys County officials said 20 people died and all those missing had been accounted...
Vanderbilt, TDOT partner to test automated vehicles and improve traffic flow on I-24, soon the smartest roadway in the world
Sep. 7, 2021—Dan Work, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, leads the technical element in collaboration with Vanderbilt, the Tennessee Department of Transportation, and transportation consulting firm Gresham Smith to build the smartest roadway in the world along a six-mile stretch of I-24. The project, called I-24 MOTION, will use over 300 ultra-HD (4K) cameras to anonymously...
Royal Society award gives international exposure to work in polar sciences, computational mechanics
Aug. 25, 2021—The School of Engineering’s work in polar and climate science, plus computational mechanics, will get international exposure with a two-year travel grant from the Royal Society, the independent academic society of the U.K., for a collaboration between a Vanderbilt professor and a professor in England. The project will establish new approaches for simulating fracture propagation...
Vanderbilt team first to win VentureWell E-Team Stage 2 Grant for tech-driven environmental monitoring startup Intelligent Systems
Aug. 3, 2021—Intelligent Systems, an indoor air quality monitoring startup founded by Tim Darrah, a Ph.D. student in computer science and a NASA fellow, has won a stage 2 grant from VentureWell. Intelligent Systems is the first Vanderbilt team to be accepted into this program. Formerly known as the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, VentureWell funds and trains...
$1.5M DOE grant targets engineering of cyanobacteria as biofuel production platform
Jul. 21, 2021—A new, $1.5 million Department of Energy grant brings together experts from three institutions to parse the metabolism of a blue-green algae that holds great promise for biofuel production. The team, led by Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Jamey Young, will take a systems biology approach to identify how cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green...
Hornberger retires; new working group begins planning for future of climate, environment and energy education, research and advocacy at Vanderbilt
Jul. 21, 2021—George Hornberger, Craig E. Philip Professor of Engineering and university distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering and earth and environmental sciences, retired June 30 after decades of dedicated service and as director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and the Environment. Hornberger was already an established leader in the fields of water resources and sustainability...
Renowned climate scientist Carlos A. Nobre to deliver Earth Day lecture April 21
Apr. 13, 2021—Climate scientist Carlos A. Nobre, who is renowned for his work on the impact of Amazon deforestation, will deliver the 2021 Earth Day Lecture on Wednesday, April 21, at 1 p.m. CT. Nobre’s talk, “The Amazon Near a Tipping Point: The urgent need of a novel standing forest bioeconomy,” is part of a joint venture by...
Vanderbilt defines the pathways for solid-state battery development
Oct. 1, 2020—As society moves toward a future of renewable energy around the world, a vision is emerging of safe, energy-dense batteries that will allow electric vehicles to travel longer distances on a single charge, as well as decentralized grids to store massive amounts of energy to power entire communities. The development of solid-state batteries is moving...