A university leadership committee has approved Discovery Vanderbilt investments into three faculty-initiated startups—HeroWear, IDBiologics and Virtuoso Surgical Inc.—as part of its mission from the offices of the chancellor and provost to boost innovation across the university. HeroWear received seed funding of $250,000, and IDBiologics and Virtuoso received seed and Series A funding of $500,000, respectively. HeroWear develops wearable assist devices, called exosuits, to alleviate back strain and injuries—especially for those who do heavy and repetitive lifting. IDBiologics develops human monoclonal antibodies for the treatment and prevention of major infectious diseases . . . . Virtuoso developed a robotic surgery system that enables physicians to overcome the limitations of traditional endoscopes. [HeroWear was initially funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and later received funding support through the Army’s Pathfinder Program; the research behind IDBiologics has been supported by NIH and DARPA; and Virtuoso received early funding from NIH and LaunchTN.] MORE

Steve Krahn, a specialist in nuclear energy technology and professor of the practice of nuclear environmental engineering at Vanderbilt, is optimistic about the possibilities surrounding nuclear fusion. Krahn has 45 years of technical and project management experience in government, private industry, and the military. He’s part of an initiative with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to perform a safety analysis task for commercial fusion power. Over the past five years Vanderbilt, working under a series of grants from EPRI that amounted to just under $1 million, developed an incremental approach to the development of the safety analysis for novel nuclear technologies. The methodology also received both funding and in-kind support from Southern Company and TerraPower, and was used to perform safety analyses associated with its reactor and facility design efforts. [Krahn also works with the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP), which contracts with the Dept. of Energy to evaluate the possible risks of nuclear power.] MORE

The Vanderbilt University Data Science Institute continued its project with the Vanderbilt Women’s Basketball strength and conditioning program to use data to improve athletic performance while reducing the risk of sport-associated injury. This semester, the focus was on making better use of training and competition data through improved analytics efforts, data consolidation, the creation of predictive models, and improved data visualization. [T[he team worked on challenges with the application programming interfaces themselves as they incorporated them into the dashboard, pulling the necessary data, and detecting anomalies. Anomaly detection was a key area of focus this semester, with the goal of finding any indications of injury in each athlete’s data and alerting staff if similar signals are found to prevent injury. MORE

Dr. Holly Tucker, the Mellon Foundation Chair in the Humanities and Professor of French, teaches the class, titled European History and Culture Through Immersive Gaming – French Revolution, to undergraduates each year. The class throws out the textbook, allowing students to learn history by living it through an elaborate role-playing game. Dr. Tucker has saved the data over the years, and is interested in the possibility of leveraging the data to make the most of the recent advancements in AI and data analysis techniques to enhance the learning experience of her students. Dr. Tucker reached out to the Data Science Institute in the spring 2023 semester about the project, and it soon became one of our Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) projects for the summer of 2023. The project involves analyzing the extensive dataset of student interactions on the Slack platform. Through semantic analysis, the team aims to examine the character interactions, the messages exchanged, and their potential influence on game outcomes. MORE

Kelly Slay, assistant professor of higher education and public policy, is one of 25 education scholars to receive the National Academy of Education (NAEd)/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship. The $70,000 non-residential fellowship supports one year of leave from teaching for early-career researchers contributing to critical areas of education research. Fellows will also attend three professional development retreats in Washington, D.C., in 2023 and 2024. Slay’s NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship will allow her to advance her research on test-optional admissions in higher education. She will examine admissions review processes at three institutions that experienced increases in their enrollment of undergraduate students from racially/ethnically and/or socioeconomically underrepresented backgrounds after dropping requirements for tests like the SAT or ACT during, or in response to, the COVID-19 pandemic. MORE

Karl Zelik, associate professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering and physical medicine and rehabilitation, is being recognized for his contributions to the field of biomechanics with a prestigious Goel Award from the American Society of Biomechanics. The award recognizes outstanding accomplishments in translational biomechanics research, entrepreneurship, and societal benefit. Zelik co-directs the Center for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology at Vanderbilt. His overall mission is to improve health, mobility, and independence for individuals with physical disabilities and to enhance human performance and well-being through advances in movement science and assistive technology like prostheses and exoskeletons. Zelik is also Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of HeroWear, a Vanderbilt spin-off company. HeroWear is a workforce wearable technology company that makes back-relieving exosuits to support workers in logistics, manufacturing, and other physically-demanding jobs. MORE

Vanderbilt has partnered with several community organizations, neighborhood associations, nonprofits and media outlets to provide opportunities for the community to become better informed about the choices they have in the August election. These public forums allow candidates to present their platforms and engage in discussions with community members. Voters can interact with candidates, understand their perspectives and make informed decisions. Two forum events have been held, with three more to come between June 6 and July 11. The Nashville Metro general election for mayor, vice mayor, Metro council at-large and district councilmember takes place Aug. 3, with the runoff election set for Sept. 14. MORE

Vanderbilt won the 2023 SEC Tournament championship with a 10-4 victory over Texas A&M on Sunday afternoon at Hoover Met. The Commodores are tournament champs for the fourth time in program history, third under head coach Tim Corbin. Vandy is the first No. 4 seed since 2015 to take the title game. The freshman duo of RJ Austin and Chris Maldonado were named to the all-tournament team with Austin earning MVP honors. Patrick Reilly earned the win, his fifth on the season, with four innings of work. Schultz threw 1.2 scoreless innings and Nick Maldonado closed out the game in the ninth. With the win, Vanderbilt is now 57-42 all-time in the SEC Tournament, including a 44-27 mark under Corbin. Corbin matches Ron Polk for most wins in the tournament at a single institution. MORE