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Sinead Miller was a pro cyclist at the top of her game, a lifelong athlete with unrivaled discipline and drive, when a traumatic brain injury ended her career. She drew upon that determination to earn a biomedical engineering Ph.D. and create a device to treat sepsis.

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It's never too early in your college career to start preparing for your first real job.

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Economic progress can cause people to feel dispossessed and angry if they don’t feel like they are also advancing, according to a study. “The results indicate that a booming economy may not be the incumbent government’s sole insurance against loss of public support,” said Cecilia Hyunjung Mo of Vanderbilt University, one of three authors of the study, “Economic Development, Mobility, and Political Discontent: An Experimental Test of Tocqueville’s Thesis in Pakistan,” which was published in June by the American Political Science Review.

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Filling the universe with knots shortly after it popped into existence 13.8 billion years ago provides a neat explanation for why we inhabit a three-dimensional world. That is the basic idea advanced by an out-of-the-box theory developed by an international team of physicists.

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Creating a model pipeline that will assist adults on the autism spectrum find meaningful and gainful employment while enhancing local business innovation. That is the purpose of Vanderbilt University’s Center for Autism & Innovation (VCAI). The new center brings together academic researchers, educators, employers, philanthropists and community organizers to address one of the biggest problems that individuals with ASD and their families face as they reach adulthood: How can they achieve financial independence and become contributing members of society? “Autism now represents one-and-a-half percent of the population,” said center director Keivan Stassun, Stevenson Professor of Physics and Astronomy.

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Despite rhetoric that the United States might pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, there will be substantial pressure from American businesses to forge a deal to remain, says NAFTA expert and Vanderbilt University professor Timothy Meyer. “Neither Mexico nor Canada nor major elements within the U.S. business community and government want to see NAFTA die,” Meyer says.

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Vanderbilt scientists have taken an important step toward understanding the way in which injured cells trigger wound healing, an insight essential for improving treatments of all types of wounds.

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Vanderbilt University researcher Ken Catania stuck his arm into a tank with small electric eel 10 times -- the only way to get accurate measurements of the circuit created by animal, arm and water.

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Vanderbilt Assistant Professor of Computer Science Maithilee Kunda figured out how to write code that emulates the kind of image-based thinking many people with autism report. The result is a form of artificial intelligence that allows researchers to study a model of human cognition.

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New insights into the long-lasting effects of Fragile X syndrome on connections in the brain during early development highlight the importance of early detection and treatment.

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A new study has found that sugars in mother's' milk do not just provide nutrition for babies but also help protect them from bacterial infections, making them a new class of antimicrobial agent.

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Unless you have specialized equipment, a tripod, and some good post-production skills, your photos of the eclipse will be mediocre at best--and you risk ruining your phone. Take pictures of pinhole projections and shadow bands instead.

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It takes a minuscule amount of force to make T cells behave in the lab as they behave in the body. That finding is a leap in cancer therapy research.

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One of the most potent toxins known acts by welding the two strands of the famous double helix together in a unique fashion which foils the standard repair mechanisms cells use to protect their DNA. A team of Vanderbilt University researchers have worked out the molecular details that explain how this bacterial toxin—yatakemycin (YTM)—kills cells by preventing DNA replication.

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Unlike other back-saving devices, this one was tested with motion capture, force plates and electromyography.

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The university is offering experts, filing room, technology and a balloon team all in one place.

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A team of Vanderbilt astronomers have developed an online course that NROTC is using to reintroduce training in celestial navigation.

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Two-dimensional materials that can multitask. That is the result of a new process that naturally produces patterned monolayers that can act as a base for creating a wide variety of novel materials with dual optical, magnetic, catalytic or sensing capabilities.

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Vanderbilt University engineers find existing human protein is ideal carrier for powerful molecules that can signal tumors to self-destruct.

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Imagine slipping into a jacket, shirt or skirt that powers your cell phone, fitness tracker and other personal electronic devices as you walk, wave and even when you are sitting down. A new, ultrathin energy harvesting system developed at Vanderbilt University’s Nanomaterials and Energy Devices Laboratory has the potential to do just that.

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A new, comprehensive Vanderbilt study published in "Psychological Bulletin" outlines which coping strategies work best for children and adolescents.

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A Vanderbilt University team created surgery-tested software that better marries a CT scan's image of a liver with a tracking tool's.

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Biologists report a major advance in deciphering the molecular genetics underlying the ant's high-definition sense of smell, an ability that has allowed them to create the most complicated social organization on earth next to humans.

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Applications include information or devices that could be implanted in humans and destroyed by applying ice.

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Vanderbilt engineers have designed a “granular jamming cap” filled with coffee grounds that can improve the accuracy of the sophisticated “GPS” system that surgeons use for nose and throat surgery.

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An analysis of stalagmite records from White Moon Cave in the Santa Cruz Mountains shows that 8200 years ago the California coast underwent 150 years of exceptionally wet and stormy weather. It is the first high resolution record of how the Holocene cold snap affected the California climate.

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According to a new study, individuals with relatively elevated symptoms of Adult Separation Anxiety Disorder (ASAD) respond more favorably to advertisements with home concepts.

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About a quarter of Americans suffer hardening of the valves by age 65 and about half by 85. Without a suitable drug, the only treatment is surgical replacement.

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Kenyan elephants will get more protection from poachers thanks to new Vanderbilt University technology embedded in their tracking collars — ballistic shockwave sensors that send coordinates to authorities immediately after detecting gunshots.

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An international team of astronomers has discovered a planet like Jupiter zipping around its host star every day and a half, boiling at temperatures hotter than most stars and sporting a giant, glowing gas tail like a comet.

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A new study out of Vanderbilt University shows that people who attend worship services live longer and have less stress,

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An exceptionally well-preserved site in northern Peru suggests that early Americans migrating south along the Pacific coast may not have always moved as quickly as we thought--instead, they may have stopped and "settled in for a good long while" along the way.

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An interdisciplinary study suggests that the strange creatures which lived in the Garden of the Ediacaran more than 540 million years ago before animals came on the scene may have been much more dynamic than experts have thought.

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Hundreds of thousands of children with chronic illnesses who used to die are now surviving their disease and treatment—which is amazing. But their brains are being damaged in the process of keeping them alive. This first ever research quantifies the IQ impact of six main illnesses and looks and the common threads that connect them. It also takes next steps on how psychologists can team up with surgeons/oncologists, etc. to help treat kids and their parents, so they can thrive in school and life.

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According to the latest national assessment, 85 percent of the people in Bangladesh have access to safe drinking water. However, a multi-year, interdisciplinary study of water use in one of the country’s rural areas conducted by a team of Vanderbilt University researchers has uncovered two major problems not reflected in the national statistics.

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A significant majority of adults in the United States—63 percent—oppose eliminating federal funding for arts and culture, according to survey questions fielded by the Curb Center for Arts, Enterprise and Public Policy.

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Analysis of the microscopic wear on the teeth of the legendary man-eating lions of Tsavo reveals that shortage of normal prey did not drive them to begin killing and eating people.

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Vanderbilt geneticists have developed an effective method for identifying the plant genes that produce the chemical ammunition plants use to protect themselves from predation and is a natural source of many important drugs.

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One of the longest-running controversies in evolutionary biology has been, “What was the oldest branch of the animal family tree?” Was it the sponges, as had long been thought, or was it the delicate marine predators called comb jellies? A powerful new method has been devised to settle contentious phylogenetic tree-of-life issues like this and it comes down squarely on the side of comb jellies.

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Users can look up any pending bill on PredictGov or find predictions through its partner, legislation tracker GovTrack, which now includes a “prognosis” line in its overview of each bill.

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A new, open-source software platform has been designed to support applications required to create a smart power grid and protect it from dangers ranging from terrorists to falling tree limbs.

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Steps must be taken to preserve middle-class America or the United States will cease to be a democracy, says Vanderbilt law professor Ganesh Sitaraman, author of the new book, The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic. “The shrinking middle class is a constitutional problem because our Constitution wasn’t designed for a country with significant economic inequality,” says Sitaraman.

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Vanderbilt University chemists collaborated in research that ‘squashes’ the shape of nanoparticles to create inexpensive lasers that continuously emit light in a customizable rainbow of colors.