News

Recently, Andrey Shults, Guanyu Lu, Josh Caldwell and Janet Macdonald celebrated their winning 2023 VINSE Best Collaborative Paper award. The paper has contributions from two VINSE groups from different departments – the Macdonald group in Chemistry and the Caldwell group in Mechanical Engineering. The authors report on colloidal chemistry synthesis… Read More

Students from Harpeth High School While the Vanderbilt campus is ramping down during spring break, VINSE outreach program is buzzing with energy! On March 11, VINSE welcomed 20 students from Harpeth High School to our Blackberry Solar Cell Lab. They made solar cells out of blackberry juice and measured the… Read More

  On Friday, March 1 VINSE hosted students from Mansfield Frontier STEM Academy from Mansfield Texas to learn about nanoscience and nanotechnology during a day visit. Outreach experiences are tailored to fit into a variety of science courses. For the graphene work and the gowning session, student made their… Read More

VINSE offers a variety of short courses each year to provide attendees opportunities to advance their skills and knowledge about topics relevant to a technical community. Attendance is open to all interested parties and is not limited to Vanderbilt personnel or VINSE users. Atomic Force Microscopy AFM is an advanced… Read More

About the author: Marc Nabhan, a 2023 PhD graduate from the Department of Chemical Engineering, successfully defended his dissertation under the guidance of Dr. Kane Jennings. Currently serving as the co-founder and CEO of Optomar Technologies, Marc leads the development of a metabolic rate sensor designed for precise calorie… Read More

DISSERTATION DEFENSE Jeremy Espano, Interdisciplinary Materials Science *under the direction of Janet Macdonald “Understanding the Crystalline Landscape of Metal Chalcogenide Materials” 03.01.24  |  2:30PM CST  |  214 Light Hall | The identity and arrangement of atoms determine the properties of all crystalline solids, and when the identity of the atoms is the… Read More

Co-first author Hayden Pagendarm is a 4th year PhD student in Biomedical Engineering program advised by Dr. John T. Wilson. His research is focused on the development of novel technologies to induce antigen-specific immune tolerance, with a focus on engineered proteins and extracellular vesicles. Co-first author Payton Stone is… Read More

DISSERTATION DEFENSE Alexandra C. Koziel, Chemistry *under the direction of Janet Macdonald “Think Smaller: Understanding Selenium Pathways in Metal Chalcogenide Nanocrystal Synthesis” 03.07.24  |  2:00PM CST  |  512 Light Hall As nanochemistry grows as a field and the applications of nanomaterials emerge, the importance of understanding what happens in the reaction… Read More

DISSERTATION DEFENSE Simon J. Ward, Electrical and Computer Engineering *under the direction of Sharon Weiss “Improving Biosensor Performance using Machine Learning and Signal Processing” 02.15.24  |  1:00PM CST  |  308 Featheringill Hall | Zoom ID: 935 9293 1256 The field of biosensing, encompassing the detection of harmful biological molecules in medical… Read More

DISSERTATION DEFENSE Lauren E. Wenger, Chemistry *under the direction of Timothy Hanusa “Mechanochemical Exploration of the p-Block” 02.20.24  |  1:45PM CST  |  1220 MRBIII As environmental concerns over organic solvents rise and chemists become more aware of the interference solvents can play in reactions, solvent-free methods have grown in popularity, including… Read More