Sarah Ross

De-en Jiang, H. Eugene McBrayer Chair in Chemical Engineering, was honored for his academic achievements during Vanderbilt’s endowed chair investiture ceremony on March 24. “Endowed chairs recognize faculty whose scholarship and impact set them apart,” said Chancellor Daniel Diermeier during the ceremony. “They… Read More

Congratulations to VINSE faculty member Mona Ebrish on receiving an NSF CAREER Award. Ebrish received the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her project, “CAREER: Unlocking Programmable Doping in Wide-Bandgap Materials.” The NSF CAREER Award is the foundation’s most prestigious award for early-career faculty, recognizing those who… Read More

Concept and overview of the magnetically actuated soft robotic valve for anti-reflux of gastric acid. (A) Concept of the soft robotic valve integrated into a self-expandable esophageal stent. The valve is opened using an external magnetic field. (B) Optical image and 3D rendering of the soft robotic valve. (C) Exploded… Read More

DISSERTATION DEFENSE Brayden Terry, Interdisciplinary Materials Science *under the supervision of Al Strauss “Friction Stir Welding of Thin Sheet Nitinol: Dissimilar Materials and Heat Treatment” 3.25.26 | 9:00 am | 132 Olin Hall| Zoom Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state joining method that sees use in the… Read More

Congratulations to Sydney Henriques a member of the Giorgio lab! Sydney’s paper “Locally Reprogramming Tumor‑Associated Macrophages with Cytokine‑Loaded Injectable Cryogels for Breast Cancer” has been selected as a VINSE spotlight publication. Breast cancer remains the most prevalent cancer in the United States, causing more than 40,000 deaths annually. Within solid… Read More

Under certain anneal conditions, vanadium dioxide thin films dewet to form nanoparticles which grow via aggregation, producing a scale-invariant particle size distribution. When tungsten dopant atoms are present, they concentrate at the edges of the nanoparticles. Congratulations to Samuel White in the Haglund lab!  Dr. White’s article “Solid-State Dewetting of… Read More

Simultaneous Spin Coating and Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization (scROMP) for the Rapid Synthesis of Semifluorinated Copolymer Films. aNorbornene (NB) is a fully hydrocarbon monomer, while 5-(perfluoro-n-alkyl)norbornenes (NBFn) are partially fluorinated monomers with perfluoro chains attached to norbornenyl rings. Congratulations to Matthew Vasuta in the Jennings lab! Matthew’s paper “Fluorocarbon Minimization Via… Read More

Porous Silicon Membrane-on-Paper Biosensor Congratulations to Huijin ‘Ginny’ An in the Weiss group! Ginny’s article “Porous Silicon on Paper: A Platform for Quantitative Rapid Diagnostic Tests” has been selected as a VINSE spotlight publication. Porous silicon (PSi) is a versatile nanophotonic material widely utilized in… Read More

Matthew Vasuta has been selected to receive the 2026 Provost’s Pathbreaking Discovery Award, a premier university honor recognizing doctoral students who demonstrate truly exceptional research and scholarship. Vasuta is a fourth-year PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Materials Science Program and a member of Professor G. Kane… Read More

DISSERTATION DEFENSE Kieran Nehil-Puleo, Interdisciplinary Materials Science *under the supervision of Peter Cummings “Towards virtual autonomous material design” 3.4.26 | 3:00 pm | 134 Olin Hall | Zoom Virtual autonomous material design is a computational paradigm in which artificial intelligence, high-throughput simulations, and adaptive optimization algorithms work together… Read More