The Vanderbilt rocket team won the coveted NASA Student Launch Project Review Award for the best documentation of the project progress through 2021-2022. The national Student Launch rocketry competition was held in April and results were announced June 3. This is Vanderbilt’s 15th year to participate in the annual NASA event and teams have won the overall championship seven times and the payload design award eight times. The Vanderbilt team ranked third in the overall competition this year. For this year’s competition, teams were challenged to design a payload capable of autonomously locating the launch vehicle upon landing by identifying the launch vehicle’s grid position on an aerial image of the launch site without the use of a global positioning system (GPS). MORE

The U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board have announced the Fulbright U.S. Student Program awards for 2022-23, with a record 20 Vanderbilt University students and alumni winning the prestigious awards. In addition to the 20 new Fulbright Scholars, four Vanderbilt seniors have been selected as alternates and 32 students and alumni earned recognition as semifinalists. The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program, offering students grants to conduct research, earn graduate degrees and teach English in more than 150 countries overseas. The Fulbright Program is funded through an annual appropriation made by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. MORE

For Vanderbilt  scholar Anna Novosad, there is no reprieve from the worry and angst that accompany each passing day in war-torn Ukraine. A Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow who previously served as her country’s minister of education and science, Novosad has worked tirelessly to bring her fellow citizens to safety and organize resources for communities trying to survive the Russian invasion. The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship, a Fulbright exchange program, brings accomplished educational leaders from developing nations and emerging democracies to the United States for an academic year to study, gain related professional experience, build their leadership capacity and foster mutual understanding. Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development will host a conversation with Novosad on June 23, at 11 a.m. CDT via Zoom. Register here. MORE

The lab of Kathy DelGiorno, assistant professor of cell and developmental biology, seeks to understand changes in the pancreas in response to injury and disease. In a recent project . . . the lab investigated the formation of enteroendocrine cells—a collection of gastrointestinal and pancreatic cell types that secrete hormones in response to chemical or mechanical stimuli—throughout pancreatic tumor development. This work uncovered a previously unrecognized population of cells in the pancreas and potentially provides a way to determine how far the disease has progressed. The identification of hormones produced at different stages of disease could lead to strategies for better detecting early-stage pancreatic cancer. [This work was partly funded by the National Institutes of Health.] MORE

Mariana Byndloss, assistant professor of pathology, microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and William Wan, assistant professor of biochemistry at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Basic Sciences, have been named 2022 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences.  Additionally, The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Alexander and Margaret Stewart Trust have selected Dr. Alexander Bick, assistant professor of genetic medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, to join the 2022 class of Pew-Stewart Scholars for Cancer Research. The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences provides funding to young investigators of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of human health. The program makes grants to selected academic institutions to support the independent research of outstanding early-career junior faculty. MORE

Leaders of Vanderbilt’s LGBTQ+ Policy Lab have provided the first comprehensive evidence on the effects of access to legal same-sex marriage. Their efforts revealed that marriage access impacted the LGBTQ+ community positively in multiple ways. The first-of-its-kind study, published last year, analyzed aspects of both marriage and health in same-sex households following the full rollout of marriage equality across the United States. For gay men especially, results revealed an increase in both becoming married and having significantly improved health care access. The findings build upon earlier work done by [Gilbert Gonzales, lab associate director and assistant professor of medicine, health, and society] showing that once same-sex marriage became legal in the state of New York, significant increases in health insurance coverage for same-sex couples followed. The research also proved that there is demand for marriage among the LGBT community. MORE

Amanda Lea, assistant professor of biological sciences, has been named to the 2022–24 cohort of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Azrieli Global Scholars in recognition of her outstanding early-career research and interdisciplinary work. Lea’s research interests span evolutionary biology, genomics and human health. The CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program provides funding and support to help early-career researchers develop into the next generation of research leaders. A major goal of Lea’s research is to understand the molecular mechanisms that connect environmental challenges experienced during development—social or nutritional stress, for example—with compromised health later in life. MORE

In celebration of Juneteenth at Vanderbilt, the Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center offer opportunities to honor and celebrate the holiday. Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion André L. Churchwell recently sat down with two faculty members to discuss the importance of the date, which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. Joining Churchwell for the recent discussion were Major Jackson, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities, professor of English and director of creative writing; and Tracy Sharpley-Whiting, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and professor of African American and diaspora studies. MORE

In celebration of LGBTQIA+ Pride Month, Vanderbilt is inviting members of the university community to several events offered this June through the K.C. Potter Center and the Glammadores LGBTQIA+ Employee Affinity Group, as well as Pride Month events across Nashville. MORE