Researcher Highlight

My current research is funded by the Partnerships for Research Education (PREM) at TSU-Fisk-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and by the U54 Pilot Grant through the Meharry-Vanderbilt-TSU Cancer Partnership to end health disparities. I develop biomaterials for cancer immunotherapy under the guidance of Dr. Richard Mu at TSU, Dr. Read More

Andrey Shults, 4th year Chemistry PhD Candidate in the Macdonald Lab. Summary of Research: My research focuses on the synthesis of various metal chalcogenide nanoparticles and the mechanistic understanding of their formation. Just as with graphite and diamond, the polymorphs of carbon, the two different elements of a metal… Read More

Laura Bertolami, a senior undergraduate Chemical Engineering student on Senior Tech Crew. I have been working on the tech crew since May 2022, and have been senior tech crew since October 2023. My current project involves developing parameters for multiple aperture patterning with Electron Beam Lithography as well as… Read More

Owen Meilander, 2nd year Interdisciplinary Material Science PhD student in Dr. Mona Ebrish’s Lab in the Electrical Engineering department.   Summary of Research: My work focuses on the fabrication and characterization of gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor devices. GaN devices offer many benefits for high power and high frequency applications. Read More

Boyang Xiao, 2nd year PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Xiaoguang Dong in Mechanical Engineering. Gastrointestinal (GI) diseases have become more common and serious among health problems in the US. It is reported that there are over twenty million Americans suffering from chronic GI diseases. How to provide… Read More

Emily Fabiano, 3rd year Biomedical Engineering PhD student in the Reinhart-King Lab Research Summary: My research focuses on understanding the intersection of cell migration and bioenergetics in breast cancer. Specifically, I investigate the role that cell-matrix adhesions play in regulating bioenergetics, aiding in more efficient cancer cell migration… Read More

Payton Stone, 4th year Chemical Engineering Ph.D. Candidate in the Wilson Lab Summary of Research: Peptides, proteins, and nucleic acids make up many of the recently developed cancer immunotherapies, which function by activating intracellular pathways to elicit downstream signaling cascades, which in turn result in robust anticancer immune responses. Read More

Chloe Frame, 5th year Chemical Engineering PhD Candidate in the McCabe Lab Summary of Research: My work focuses on the outermost layer of the epidermis, the stratum corneum, which consists of corneocytes (dead skin cells) embedded in highly organized lipid lamellae. This lipid matrix is responsible for the barrier… Read More

Jason Valentine, Professor of Mechanical Engineering (primary) and Electrical Engineering; Deputy Director, Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering Advances in optical materials and technologies have been a key enabler of the information age. Conventional free-space optical elements such as lenses, beam splitters, and polarization optics have, however, remained relatively… Read More

Craig Duvall, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering; Professor, Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences; Professor, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering The central dogma of biology is that genomic DNA encodes for messenger RNA (mRNA), which is then translated into proteins. Proteins are the fundamental units that drive the functions… Read More