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Meet Our Graduates: You Zhou

Dec. 10, 2021—You Zhou earned his Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Materials Science in August 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Jason Valentine. You Zhou’s PhD research is to address the current trend towards miniaturization of photonic devices and nanophotonic systems. In one key advance, You developed 3D cascaded flat optics as a pathway for adding complexity and functionality to...

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Spotlight Publication: “Contact Thermal Resistance between Silver Nanowires with Poly (vinylpyrrolidone) Interlayers” published in Nano Letters

Dec. 8, 2021—“Contact Thermal Resistance between Silver Nanowires with Poly (vinylpyrrolidone) Interlayers” published in Nano Letters has been selected as a VINSE spotlight publication. About the author:  Matthew is pursuing his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering under the direction of Dr. Deyu Li and is studying the role of interfaces and their impact on the flow of heat...

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Meet Our Graduates: Brandon Jacome-Mendez

Dec. 8, 2021—Brandon Jacome-Mendez received his B.A. in Chemistry with a minor in Psychology from Vanderbilt University in May 2021. As an undergraduate, Brandon worked on the VINSE tech crew during the academic year and mainly focused on process development for various cleanroom services. These included photolithography, soft lithography for microfluidics devices, and material characterization using profilometry, ellipsometry, and Raman...

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Meet Our Graduates: Amy Ng

Dec. 6, 2021—Amy Ng earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry at Vanderbilt University in December of 2014 under the supervision of Sandra Rosenthal.  In the research team, Amy synthesized, fabricated, and characterized nanocrystalline-polymer photovoltaics.  Her passion in electron microscopy opened an opportunity to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under the guidance of Stephen Pennycook. ...

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Engineering Professor Yaqiong Xu was a gifted scholar and devoted mentor

Dec. 2, 2021—Yaqiong Xu, associate professor of electrical engineering and physics, has died after a long-term illness. She died Oct. 30 in China, where she had returned to be with her family. Yaqiong Xu A celebration of her life will be held Friday, Dec. 3, from 4 to 5 p.m. in the School of Engineering’s Jacob’s Believed in Me...

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Spotlight Publication: “Taxanes Sensitize Prostate Cancer Cells to TRAIL-Induced Apoptotic Synergy via Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress” published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics

Dec. 1, 2021—“Taxanes Sensitize Prostate Cancer Cells to TRAIL-Induced Apoptotic Synergy via Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress” published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics has been selected as a VINSE spotlight publication. About the author: Korie Grayson (koriegrayson.com) earner her PhD in Biomedical Engineering in May 2020 from Cornell University under the direction of Prof. Michael King. She was a visiting...

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Vanderbilt engineers’ Science paper reviews scope of atomically thin membranes for subatomic separations

Dec. 1, 2021—A paper by Vanderbilt engineers that explores the scope to scale up the sizes of atomically thin membranes and their potential use in applications relating to energy, microscopy, and electronics is published in the journal Science. Authors Piran R. Kidambi, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, Pavan Chaturvedi, postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Chemical and...

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Meet Our Graduates: Samantha Kaczaral

Nov. 30, 2021—Samantha Kaczaral graduated from Vanderbilt University in 2019 with a degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. While an undergraduate, Samantha was a member of the VINSE Technical Crew. She learned valuable skills including photolithography, thin film deposition techniques, and selective material etching. These skills we applied primarily to photolithography process optimization as well as thermal...

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Chuchuan Hong wins VINSE’s 2021 Best Graduate Student Publication Award

Nov. 23, 2021—Congratulations to Chuchuan Hong recipient of the 2021 VINSE Best Graduate Student Publication award. In addition to a cash prize, Chuchuan was selected to give the graduate student presentation at the 21st annual Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Forum. Chuchuan’s recent paper on optical nanotweezers demonstrated a novel approach called opto-thermo- electrohydrodynamic tweezers (OTET) for optical trapping...

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Isom Kelly wins Best Collaborative Paper

Nov. 22, 2021—VINSE is excited to announce Isom Kelly is the recipient of the inaugural VINSE Best Collaborative Paper award. Isom’s paper has contributions from two VINSE faculty from different departments and one VINSE technical staff member, and involves research carried out in each of VINSE’s three core facilities: porous silicon nanoparticle fabrication in the cleanroom, characterization in the...

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