Graduate School Blog

In 2024, eleven teams of graduate students received Lacy-Fischer Interdisciplinary Research Grants to support projects ranging from advanced optical technologies and gravitational wave detection to medical innovations and autonomous vehicle safety. The Lacy-Fischer grant supports students through and beyond their academic careers at Vanderbilt. These grants create unique research and… Read More

Ph.D. student Noah Lian has been awarded the Emerging Scholar and Professional Organization (ESPO) Interdisciplinary Paper Award for his paper titled “Friendship and End-of-Life Discussions Among Older Adults: Moderating Effects of Marital Status and Gender.” Noah will present his research at the Gerontological Society of… Read More

PhD student Yinru Long received the Smadar Levin Award at the Society for Research in Psychopathology Conference for her poster presentation titled “Effects of Daily Friend or Parent Support on Active Suicidal Ideation in Adolescents After Psychiatric Hospitalization: The Moderating Role of Sexual… Read More

Ph.D. student Gabriella Noreen has been awarded the 2024-2025 Award for Excellence in Research by the Mensa Foundation! This prestigious award recognizes “groundbreaking studies in intelligence, giftedness, and related fields, as well as contributions that advance knowledge and practice.” Noreen received this honor for her article (Noreen, Lubinski, &… Read More

The Graduate School’s Fall Career Colloquium is taking place October 20th-24th, 2025, in Alumni Hall.  The Career Colloquium is organized to provide critical career development opportunities as you begin to think about your future aspirations. With several events throughout the week, there will be many opportunities to connect with… Read More

Lana Reeves, a second-year MFA student, has had her poem “Gyotaku of Myself” accepted for publication in the upcoming issue of Gulf Coast. In May, she was named a finalist for the 2025 Iowa Review Poetry Prize. Additionally, she received funding this summer to attend the Kenyon… Read More

MFA student Kanchi Sharma was accepted to and received support from workshops at Tin House, Kenyon Review, VONA, Fine Arts Work Centre, Skidmore College’s NYS Summer Writing Institute, Community of Writers, and the Napa Valley Writers Conference. Congratulations!… Read More

Athena Nassar recently had a book review published in The Adroit Journal and has a poem forthcoming in The Atlantic. She is a Tennessee Williams Scholar for the 2025 Sewanee Writers’ Conference. Congratulations, Athena!… Read More

Sydney Mayes has been awarded several prestigious scholarships, including the C.D. Wright Memorial Scholarship to attend the Community of Writers, the Donald Justice Scholarship for the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and an Emerging Writers’ Fellowship for Lighthouse’s LitFest. Her poems are set to be published in upcoming issues… Read More

Mackenzie Smith, a graduate student in the Molecular Pathogenesis and Immunology (MPI) program, has been awarded a Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F31) from the NIH/NCI for her project, “Characterizing the Role of Cancer-Associated U2AF Mutations in Immune Dysregulation.”Congratulations Mackenzie!… Read More