VINSE Faculty News

Rizia Bardhan, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering B.A., Westminster College, 2005  M.A., Rice University, 2007 Ph.D., Rice University, 2010 Bardhan’s research focuses on interdisciplinary nanoscience, with the convergence of multiple disciplines: engineering, material science, chemistry, physics… Read More

Spinach power has just gotten a big boost. An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Vanderbilt University have developed a way to combine the photosynthetic protein that converts light into electrochemical energy in spinach with silicon, the material used in solar cells, in a fashion that produces substantially more electrical current… Read More

Twelve Vanderbilt University faculty members were honored for extraordinary contributions to their respective fields during an Aug. 28 celebration of endowed chair holders at the Student Life Center. Jeff Balser, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, noted during his opening remarks the… Read More

Unless you’re in the .05 percent of the population who enjoyed physics in high school, the term “quantum” probably calls to mind James Bond or Scott Bakula. But researchers at Vanderbilt University are working on a project that could bring the word into the everyday vernacular, and perhaps even have… Read More

The amount of damage that radiation causes in electronic materials may be at least 10 times greater than previously thought. That is the surprising result of a new characterization method that uses a combination of lasers and acoustic waves to provide scientists with a capability tantamount to X-ray vision: It… Read More

In a process akin to belling an infinitesimal cat, scientists have managed to tag a protein that regulates the neurotransmitter serotonin with tiny fluorescent beads, allowing them to track the movements of single molecules for the first time. The capability, which took nearly a decade to achieve, makes it possible… Read More

Last December a trio of Vanderbilt researchers — Rick Haselton, professor of biomedical engineering, David Wright, associate professor of chemistry, and Ray Mernaugh, associate professor of biochemistry — snagged a $1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a “low tech, high… Read More

With the age of the incandescent light bulb fading rapidly, the holy grail of the lighting industry is to develop a highly efficient form of solid-state lighting that produces high quality white light. One of the few alternative technologies that produce pure white light is white-light quantum dots. These are… Read More

Tony Hmelo’s research has taken him from NASA to nanoscience and from New York to Nashville. Hmelo is associate director for operations and outreach for the Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, the interdisciplinary group researching new science and technology based on tiny—nanoscale—materials. (Nanotechnology is widely considered… Read More

Five faculty members were recognized for their achievements in and out of the classroom by Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos at the Spring Faculty Assembly. Professors Paul Laibinis, Emily Nacol, Sohee Park, Suzanna Sherry and Janos Sztipanovits were selected for the awards by… Read More