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a VALIANT Effort | February 2026

Mar 2, 2026, 5:08 PM

February 2026

Friends,

It seems only fitting that in the shortest month of the year, we deliver one of our longest newsletters. To paraphrase Taylor Swift, we have a lot going on right now.

I have just returned from the SPIE Medical Imaging conference, where an energetic and creative Vanderbilt cohort, pictured above, presented more than 50 papers and sessions and took home honors across image processing, informatics, computer aided diagnosis, and AI in medicine. Our awardees included graduate students, medical students, visiting scholars, and undergraduates. Together, they are pushing boundaries and asking fundamental questions: What does it mean to learn? What does it mean to create? What does it mean to discover as partners with AI?

Back in Nashville, that same energy continues. I am deeply grateful to Jesse Spencer Smith and Alan Karns for guest lecturing in my Studio in AI course and helping us explore how to integrate AI into meaningful projects. Across campus, our scholars are contributing to discoveries that span disciplines, from planetary science to proteomics, from harmonization in brain MRI to translational work in bronchoscopy and beyond, as reflected in this month’s Alchemists’ Corner.

At the same time, AI opportunities are accelerating across Nashville and Middle Tennessee. Industry partners are spinning out of Vanderbilt and others are joining our circle, eager to translate the ideas and momentum here into real world innovation. I value the early conversations just as much as the fully formed partnerships. Each represents a spark.

This spring, we will amplify that spark through our Discover AI event and a new PITCH competition. AI Scholars will present three-minute, single-slide visions for transformative pilot projects, bold resource investments, or boundary-pushing experiments. A distinguished panel of external judges will allocate real funding to the ideas that spark their imagination, serving as entrepreneurial catalysts for innovation in our dynamic research community. Along with live AI demonstrations and dedicated networking time, Discover AI will help us dream boldly and build wisely.

One thing is certain: there is never a boring day at VALIANT. I look forward to connecting with you this spring, whether electronically, in person, or through carrier pigeon.

Warmly,
Bennett

Discover AI 2026

VALIANT’s Discover AI on April 24, 2026 will bring our community together for a day of artificial intelligence in action, featuring interactive demos, industry and organizational partners, and an evening reception designed to spark new collaborations. As part of the event, students can compete in both a PITCH competition and an AI Demo competition for funding and recognition to accelerate their ideas, and VALIANT Fellows are receiving early access to nominate students and labs before applications open university wide. This is an opportunity to elevate emerging AI research, strengthen interdisciplinary connections, and highlight the innovative work already happening within our center while helping the next generation of projects take shape.

Building Tools That Translate

We continue our profile series on the VALIANT community with our most recent member… AI Scholar Yimeng Dou’s career sits at the intersection of hardware, algorithms, and clinical reality.

As an undergraduate at UC Davis, he designed circuit boards and signal compression strategies to enhance positron emission tomography (PET) imaging systems. He later helped build PET analysis pipelines and deep learning frameworks for biomedical applications. Along the way, he co-founded a student startup aimed at helping adolescents with chronic disease transition into adult care, learning firsthand that innovation requires both technology and a viable path to impact. During his PhD at Wisconsin, Yimeng advanced multimodal medical image registration and freehand 3D ultrasound reconstruction, earning recognition in international challenges and publishing in leading venues.

What brought him to MASI is a conviction that data matters. Deep learning in medicine must grapple with real-world variability across devices, institutions, and patient populations. He is particularly intrigued by image-based search across large clinical archives, asking how we might use one image to retrieve similar cases and reduce diagnostic ambiguity.

New to Nashville (joining VALIANT this month), he has already observed that people here are surprisingly friendly. We are delighted that his next chapter, and his next set of big questions, will unfold with us.

VALIANT Ventures

Our scientists are breaking new ground:
  • Dr. Can Luo, who successfully passed her PhD defense on January 21, has received the prestigious Outstanding Doctoral Student Award.  She has also accepted a postdoctoral position with Professor Evan Eichler at the University of Washington, a world leader in structural variation and population genomics, where she will begin in April. Her research will focus on developing computational methods for analyzing genome-wide structural variation in large-scale long-read sequencing datasets, including graph-based variant discovery and collaborative studies with major genomics consortia to uncover disease associations and population genetic patterns.
  • Lily Gao was selected as runner-up for the SPIE Medical Imaging Wagner all-conference best student paper award!
  • Owen Dong and Adam Saunders took home first and third place at their 3-minute poster competitions at the SPIE Medical Imaging Conference (awarded by the Journal of Medical Imaging).
  • Eleanor Liard‘s work was selected as an SPIE Image Processing Deep Dive presentaiton.

VALIANT’s AI in the Classroom

The AI in the Classroom Faculty Seminar Series creates a candid, faculty led space for Vanderbilt and VUMC educators to share real experiences, challenges, and practical strategies for navigating artificial intelligence in higher education. From rethinking assessments to addressing academic integrity, these discussion driven sessions focus on what is actually happening in our classrooms and how we respond thoughtfully, together.

DSI’s AI Days 2026

AI Days 2026 brings Vanderbilt’s community together for two days of hands on workshops, research showcases, and cross disciplinary conversations focused on generative AI and agentic systems. Built around the theme Come with Ideas Leave with Solutions, the conference is designed to help participants move beyond inspiration and walk away with practical strategies they can immediately apply to their academic and scholarly work.

THRIVE-AI

VALIANT is proud to be part of THRIVE-AI, a statewide effort uniting Tennessee institutions to build interdisciplinary AI and machine learning capacity. Through collaborative workshops and partnerships across Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis, the initiative empowers emerging researchers to develop ethical, AI driven solutions that address critical health disparities across the region.

A Deeper Dive into the Brain’s Networked Waters

On March 17 from 1 to 2PM CST, the VALIANT Deeper Dive Seminar Series welcomes Weifeng Yu from the University of Virginia for a focused exploration of graph learning in multimodal neuroimaging. His talk, Integrating Multimodal Imaging and Non Imaging Data via Graph Learning, will chart how functional connectivity and behavioral characteristics can be woven together to better differentiate psychiatric disorders, highlighting the role of thalamic and network level patterns in adolescent neurodevelopment.

Editor’s Choice Award

AI Fellow Kurt Schilling’s work on preclinical diffusion MRI was selected as an Editor’s Pick of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, highlighting practical guidance for rigorous in vivo small animal imaging. This recognition underscores the growing impact of our collaborative efforts to strengthen standards in translational diffusion MRI research.

From Brain Tracts to Beating Hearts

VALIANT and VUIIS investigators Dr. Bennett Landman and Dr. Kurt Schilling have received a Leeds–Vanderbilt Pump Priming Seed Grant with Dr. Irvin Teh (University of Leeds) for “Advancing 3D microstructural characterisation in whole heart: From tracts to sheetlets.”  The project will translate connectomics-style diffusion MRI analysis into the heart – using whole-heart tractography and tract-/sheetlet-level phenotyping to quantify how cardiomyocyte and sheetlet architecture differs between relaxed vs. contractured hearts, generating pilot data for sustained collaboration.  This work combines Landman’s expertise in large-scale image processing and analysis, Schilling’s expertise in tractography/tractometry pipelines, and Teh’s expertise in cardiac diffusion MRI, imaging, and anatomy, building on their broader “tractography beyond the brain” collaboration.

Keeping in touch

We cut through announcement overload by unifying AI related seminars and visits into one shared calendar that helps our community discover ideas beyond their home area and show up for the conversations that spark the best new thinking.

Deep Thinking, Shared

We were delighted to host Mengqi Wu from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a VALIANT Deeper Dive seminar on multi site brain MRI harmonization. His presentation sparked thoughtful technical discussion and exactly the kind of engaged exchange that makes this series so valuable to our community.

Letting the Students Use AI

Faculty Seminar March 3rd @ 9am: Should students be allowed to use AI in coursework—and if so, under what conditions? This session explores practical approaches to integrating AI into assignments while maintaining academic rigor and integrity. We’ll discuss policy design, transparency expectations, and how to distinguish between productive AI use and overreliance.

Using AI to Improve Student Feedback

Faculty Seminar March 6th, 2026 @ 12pm: AI can generate summaries, draft comments, and even suggest improvements—but how can it meaningfully enhance the feedback process without diminishing instructor voice or student growth? This discussion focuses on ways AI might streamline grading workflows, improve feedback quality, and support more timely responses while keeping faculty firmly in the loop.

When the Code Works but the Student Didn’t Write It

Faculty Seminar March 18th @ 12pm. In technical courses, AI can produce fully functioning code in seconds. But if the solution works, how do we assess whether the student understands it? This session examines strategies for evaluating comprehension, reinforcing learning objectives, and redesigning assessments to prioritize reasoning over output.

I Think My Student Used AI to Cheat. What Do I Do?

Faculty Seminar March 24th @ 8:30am. As AI tools become harder to detect and easier to access, faculty are navigating new gray areas around academic integrity. This conversation addresses how to respond when AI misuse is suspected, the limitations of detection tools, and how to approach these situations thoughtfully and consistently.

Looking for an AI Internship?

The VALIANT-jobs listserv is active with a focus with positions in Nashville. Join us at list.vanderbilt.edu

Alchemists’ Corner

We have a lot going on right now. Here is a selection of what has hit Scopus from our community since last month.

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