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Vanderbilt’s Juneteenth commemoration continues
Vanderbilt joins the nation in celebrating President Biden's [signing of historic legislation] on Thursday, June 17, to immediately establish Juneteenth (June 19) as a federal holiday. Vanderbilt will remain in session and will continue events that have been scheduled throughout the week commemorating the end of slavery in the United States on June 19, 1865. Vanderbilt also today announced that it is the newest member of the Universities Studying Slavery consortium. The consortium, created and led by the University of Virginia, began in 2014 with five Virginia colleges and universities that were actively researching their institutional ties to the slave trade. Now more than 70 institutions are working together in the consortium to respond to historical and contemporary issues dealing with race and inequality in university communities and in higher education more broadly. MORE
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FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH
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Graduate student co-leads efforts to repurpose approved medications for pregnant women and children
Vanderbilt doctoral student Anup Challa, BE’21, MS’21, has been tapped to co-lead a team of researchers and patient advocates to identify areas across the world in need of health care for pregnant women and infants. He is the new chair of the Special Populations Coordinating Committee for the CURE Drug Repurposing Collaboratory. CDRC is a public-private partnership that includes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health and Critical Path Institute. Drug repurposing, also known as drug repositioning, aims to identify new uses for medical treatments that have already received regulatory approval. There are numerous benefits to using this technique, including shorter development times, lower costs and increased governmental support. MORE
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Nashville suffered less than regional cities throughout Colonial Pipeline shutdown due to stronger waterborne petroleum access
Vanderbilt civil and environmental engineers have concluded that cities in Middle and East Tennessee with waterborne access to petroleum products were far less affected by the disruption of the Colonial Pipeline shutdown in May 2021 than other regional markets. The research was conducted as part of a case study on resilience strategies for navigable portions and associated infrastructure of the Cumberland/Tennessee river couplet system. To understand the impact of fuel shortages caused by the May 7 shutdown in the region Moravec focused on six cities; Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Raleigh, Charlotte and Asheville. Cities in Tennessee each have some level of waterborne access to fuel while all three cities in North Carolina rely on fuel delivered by pipeline. [The research supporting the case study’s development is funded by the Department of Homeland Security Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence at UNC-Chapel Hill.] MORE
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For Juneteenth, graduate students highlight Black physiologists
Juneteenth is a day to celebrate Black freedom and achievement, and to promote reflection and a commitment to further champion equity and anti-racist actions and policies in the U.S. To this end, the Graduate Student Association of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics—Slavina Goleva, Tiffany Richardson, Julia Pinette, Serena Sweet, Katrina Volk, Shannon Townsend and Cayla Ontko— researched and put together a poster chronicling the achievements, milestones, and contributions by Black scientists in the field of physiology. This poster is intended to celebrate Black excellence in the field of physiology and to honor the tremendous hardship that these individuals had to overcome to make their contributions to the field. MORE
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Green Steel Deal: Climate mitigation and international trade come together in decarbonization policy proposal
Vanderbilt Law School Director of International Legal Studies Timothy Meyer and Roosevelt Institute Director of Governance Studies Todd Tucker [have] recommended a two-pronged climate change/international trade policy they call the Green Steel Deal. Its goal is to work within the legal and political constraints nations face at home, rather than designing international trade restrictions. This arrangement, the authors said, calls for like-minded countries to create a steel-focused international “climate club,” where the condition of membership is to convert, as soon as is feasible, all domestic steel production to green methods. The “club” would agree to apply a common carbon tariff on the imports of steel from nonmember countries, and within 10 years, all members would replace the tariff with an internal ban on the sale of dirty steel. Member countries would also pledge to re-invest tariff revenue into green steel projects and development. Steel is the best place to start, they say, because the industry is likely to support something like a Green Steel Deal. MORE
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Two Vanderbilt students named 2020-21 Goldwater Scholars
Rising senior Minna Apostolova and rising junior Joseph Sexton have been named 2021 Barry A. Goldwater Scholars, the nation’s most competitive scholarship for undergraduate STEM students who show exceptional promise of becoming the nation’s next generation of research leaders. Goldwater Scholarships contribute up to $7,500 per year toward educational expenses for the remainder of a student’s undergraduate career. Through her undergraduate laboratory research . . . Apostolova will continue to study immunotherapies as a Goldwater Scholar. Sexton, a psychology and medicine, health and society major, will center his scholarly work around the study of depressive-like behaviors. Sexton is an Atlanta Lanier Scholarship recipient. MORE
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Vanderbilt political scientists discuss shifts in U.S. Congress with longtime North Carolina Rep. David Price
The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy will host a virtual discussion about the evolution of the U.S. Congress and how to find issues of common ground in a time of polarization. The discussion will include current U.S. Rep. David Price, who has served as a member of Congress through seven White House administrations, and Vanderbilt political scientists Alan Wiseman and Larry Bartels. The online discussion will be Monday, June 28, at noon CT and is open to the public. Registration is required. MORE
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Curb Scholars, ArtLab Studio collaborate on ‘See You Again: Students Respond to COVID-19’
When the COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed a sudden shift to online and virtual platforms for classrooms, exhibits and other communal gatherings, it offered a unique opportunity for the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy and The ArtLab Studio to collaborate on See You Again: Students Respond to COVID-19, an exhibit of Curb Scholars’ artwork on the pandemic and the vaccine rollout. The exhibit is currently showcased through virtual reality on ArtSteps and augmented reality on the mezzanine level of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s adult hospital. The Curb Scholars’ paintings, graphic designs, collages, music, films and poetry featured in the exhibit, as well as the ArtLab Studio’s VR and AR designs, exemplify what it means to identify as a “creative” rather than an “artist" . . . . MORE
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VandyBoys play Saturday in College World Series
The VandyBoys make their 2021 College World Series debut Saturday at 6 p.m. CT against Arizona. The game will be televised live on ESPN. Stay tuned to VUCommodores.com for information on fan events in Omaha, Nashville-area watch parties, where to get CWS gear and more. MORE
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VUbrief summarizes Vanderbilt news items to inform our Congressional community of developments at the university. Visit our website for past issues of VUbrief. Vanderbilt University Office of Federal Relations (202) 216-4361
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