Vanderbilt, Pepsi and Metro Nashville Parks and Recreation open new community basketball court in North NashvilleOn Thursday, June 15, more than 300 families, neighbors and friends gathered to experience a vibrant addition to North Nashville. Vanderbilt University, alongside Pepsi, Hoopbus and Metro Nashville Parks and Recreation, unveiled a revamped outdoor basketball court at the “Hoops & Hope: Celebrating Black History and Community” event at Watkins Park Community Center. The mural on the court honors the legacy of Perry Wallace, the first African American basketball student-athlete in the Southeastern Conference. Wallace, who attended high school across the street from Watkins Park, made history when he enrolled at Vanderbilt in 1966 and broke the color barrier in the SEC. Representatives from Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt Football and Basketball teams, Pepsi, Hoopbus, Metro Nashville Parks and Recreation and local government were in attendance Thursday to commemorate the occasion and speak to the importance of community and wellness. MORE
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Meet the Vanderbilt Astronomers behind the groundbreaking NSF-funded discovery
Vanderbilt University researchers are scheduled to reveal a groundbreaking discovery in the realm of pulsars and gravitational waves from National Science Foundation headquarters on June 29. On June 30, they will return to Nashville to share what they found and what the discovery means for our future understanding of the cosmos. Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory will host a “Meet the Astronomer” talk and telescope viewing with Stephen Taylor, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and graduate students William Lamb and Kyle Gersbach on Friday, June 30, beginning at 8 p.m. Dyer Observatory is located at 1000 Oman Drive, Brentwood, TN 37027. The talk will include a Q&A, with viewings through Dyer’s Seyfert telescope to follow if weather permits. Reserve tickets in advance and get more information here. MORE
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| FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH
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National Institute of Health—Vanderbilt launches $17 million program to advance diversity of research facultyVanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt University are launching a $17 million multiyear transformative program with support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to accelerate diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in the biomedical research community. The institutions will build on prior successes in recruitment to strengthen hiring, promotion and retention efforts for diverse, early-career investigators as a foundational element of the Vanderbilt Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation Program (V-FIRST). V-FIRST is funded by the NIH Common Fund Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (FIRST) program as part of its third round of awards. The NIH’s FIRST program is designed to cultivate and sustain cultures of inclusive excellence in the biomedical research community. MORE
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Department of Energy—New study in ‘Nature Water’ demonstrates a vastly more sustainable, cost-effective method to desalinate industrial wastewaterVanderbilt researchers are part of a team that has developed a cutting-edge method that seeks to make the removal of salt from hypersaline industrial wastewater far more energy-efficient and cost-effective. While desalination through reverse osmosis has made tremendous strides—allowing for salt removal from seawater for less than a penny per gallon—it still falls short in eliminating saline in wastewater from industries like mining, oil and gas, and power generation and in inland brackish water. Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and 2023 Chancellor Faculty Fellow Shihong Lin and his team . . . believe they have an answer to this dilemma. In a paper featured on the cover of the June 2023 issue of the journal Nature Water, Lin and his colleagues describe a novel brine treatment technology called electrodialytic crystallization that has the potential to reduce the energy consumption and cost of brine crystallization. [This study is funded by the National Alliance of Water Innovation, a public-private partnership led by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.] MORE
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National Science Foundation—Vanderbilt researcher wins NSF CAREER award to close a gap in network analysis by better modeling negative online interactions like unfollowing and blockingTyler Derr, assistant professor of computer science, has won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to advance network analysis methods for data that inherently contain both positive and negative interactions, such as that found in e-commerce and online social media. The grant for $550,000 is administered by the NSF’s Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS). The project aims to address this gap by developing specialized network analytical methods, including graph neural networks, that capture both positive and negative relations. These advancements will enable improved analysis of historical data, lead to valuable insights into the direction of public sentiments and provide more accurate predictions for the future. Derr’s research interests include data mining and machine learning, especially in social network analysis, deep learning on graphs, and data science for social good. MORE
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Transmission of vaccine-hesitant beliefs among parents is a key predictor of vaccination coverage and disease risk among children
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Niloofar Razi Howe to enhance Vanderbilt’s expertise in national securityVanderbilt University has appointed Niloofar Razi Howe, a technology entrepreneur and influential thought leader and strategist on national security and cyber threats, as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the College of Arts and Science, effective July 1. Howe was a session chair and featured speaker at the Vanderbilt Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats in May 2022 and May 2023. Howe is a public speaker on national security, cybersecurity, technology, innovation, corporate governance and corporate culture. “I am thrilled to join Vanderbilt University and support its vital goals of promoting interdisciplinary research and driving innovative solutions to our most pressing national security and cybersecurity challenges,” Howe said. MORE
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First cohort of Vanderbilt-Fisk Postdoctoral Fellowship Program announcedThe Office of Postdoctoral Affairs has announced the first cohort of the Vanderbilt-Fisk Postdoctoral Fellowship. These fellowships are designed to offer opportunities for recent Vanderbilt Ph.D. graduates to build their teaching and scholarship portfolios, receive mentoring from faculty at both institutions, and allow time for publishing from their dissertation or preparing other research papers. Fellows will be considered by Fisk for faculty positions, with the goal of leading to tenure-track positions. Three fellows were chosen based on their exceptional records of research and scholarship. Their appointments will begin Aug. 1 and last until July 31, 2025. MORE
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School of Nursing’s Ginny Moore selected as AANP fellowThe American Association of Nurse Practitioners has named School of Nursing Professor Ginny Moore, DNP, MSN’90, as an AANP fellow in honor of her outstanding achievements and exemplary service. Moore, who directs the Women’s Health/Gender-Related Nurse Practitioner specialty, will be inducted on June 22 at the 2023 AANP National Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. The honor recognizes nurse practitioners who have positively affected the profession through their work in health care policy, clinical practice, research and education. “Membership in FAANP will provide incredible opportunities to continue working toward advancement of the NP profession and improvement of health care on global levels,” Moore said. MORE
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Lab-to-Table Conversation: ‘Science of Sight: Advances in Eye Research’ on June 27As the baby boomer generation grows older, eye diseases like cataracts, age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma are becoming more prevalent. According to the National Eye Institute, more than half of all Americans 80 years or older either have cataracts or have had surgery to treat cataracts, 10 percent of adults age 50 or older have early stages of AMD, and 3 million Americans have glaucoma. What are current treatments for these diseases? How are scientific discoveries changing the future of these diseases? And how are new technologies moving these discoveries forward? In honor of Cataracts Awareness Month, join Aaron Conley, director of external affairs, partnerships and communications at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Basic Sciences, as he delves into these questions and more during the next Basic Sciences Lab-to-Table Conversation, “Science of Sight: Advances in Eye Research.” The virtual event will be on June 27 at 11 a.m. CT. . . . Register for the event here. MORE
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