‘IMS’

Anna Douglas Engineering Olin. Anna Douglas is a PhD student who has received a prestigious (and not yet publicly announced) award to work at ORNL on SkyNano, a company based on technology she developed that could make the manufacture of single-walled carbon nanotubes easier and cheaper. Production now requires expensive equipment and controlled conditions, resulting in a final product that sells for $900/gram and makes widespread adoption cost prohibitive. She is one of five entrepreneurs picked for Innovation Crossroads, at ORNL for the first time, and is the only one who does not already have her PhD. The fellowship covers living costs, benefits, travel and up to $350,000 in research costs for up to 2 years to use on collaborative research in clean energy innovations.

Anna's technology takes carbon dioxide out the ambient air to produce high-value carbon nanotubes, which have applications in electronics, aerospace, medical devices, drug delivery, shielding, sensors, etc. The material has great strength and less weight than typical composites. It has great conductivity and can withstand high heat and pressure. Single-walled carbon nanotubes, if successfully commercialized at a larger scale, could be the foundation for nextgen electronics. Anna and Professor Cary Pint believe her system could produce SWCN for less than $1/gram. They formed SkyNano - Anna is the CEO and deferring her NSF fellowship to work on scaling it to a product line. For Engineering School website, likely Research News at Vanderbilt and possible outside media. Photo by Joe Howell

IMS graduate student Anna Douglas selected for prestigious entrepreneurship program

Jun. 7, 2017—An interdisciplinary materials science graduate student has been selected for a prestigious entrepreneurship program to scale and commercialize a revolutionary method of carbon nanotube production. Anna Douglas is one of five entrepreneurs selected for the inaugural cohort of the Department of Energy Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The accelerator program includes...

Alice Leach (IMS graduate student) part of team MERLIN: Winners of the 2016 TechVenture Challenge

Apr. 1, 2016—Wednesday saw the completion of yet another successful TechVenture Challenge. After six years, we are still encouraged that each year the presentations continue to improve and be of higher quality. This can be attributed not only to the student teams and their hard work, but also to the student organizers who improve upon the competition...

IMS graduate student Alice Leach (Macdonald Lab) wins People’s Choice at 4th Annual Three Minute Thesis Competition

Mar. 1, 2016—Topics ranged from giving nanoparticles the aquatic skills of an Olympic swimmer so they can deliver anti-cancer drugs more effectively…to using game theory to help Sri Lankan farmers decide what crops to plant…to developing an ultrasonic Trojan horse to destroy tumors…to using blue light as an alternative to antibiotics in controlling bacterial infections. The event...

Quantum dots made from fool’s gold boost battery performance

Nov. 11, 2015—If you add quantum dots – nanocrystals 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair – to a smartphone battery it will charge in 30 seconds, but the effect only lasts for a few recharge cycles. However, a group of researchers at Vanderbilt University report in the Nov. 11 issue of the journal ACS Nano that they...

IMS grad student Jake Benzing takes home physical sciences award from conference

Sep. 9, 2015—A Vanderbilt PhD student in interdisciplinary materials science took home a first-place poster award at August’s Microscopy & Microanalysis conference, held last month in Portland, Oregon. Jake Benzing, whose adviser is Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering James Wittig, presented a research poster and abstract titled “Fe-25Mn-3Al-3Si TWIP-TRIP Steel Deformed at High Strain Rates” and...

IMS student Kelsey Beavers featured in Research News @ Vanderbilt

Mar. 27, 2015—Kelsey Beavers, a Vanderbilt University Ph.D. candidate in interdisciplinary materials science, is exploring how inserting engineering into biological processes can lead to a healthier society. (Susan Urmy/Vanderbilt University) Behind the pathology for a variety of painful and deadly diseases lie genes that aren’t doing their jobs. They may be blocking the healing process for foot...

MS graduate students Kevin Miller and Kelsey Beavers featured in Vanderbilt News

Jan. 2, 2015—KEVIN MILLER Kevin Miller reflected in his optoelectronic device. With a slight turn of the tweezers holding it, an inch-long, mirrored chip reflects the face of its creator. Less obvious than Kevin Miller’s smile are tiny filters on the chip’s surface that he hopes will one day replace the electronic components inside computers. Miller, a...

New device stores electricity on silicon chips

Oct. 22, 2013—Solar cells that produce electricity 24/7, not just when the sun is shining. Mobile phones with built-in power cells that recharge in seconds and work for weeks between charges. These are just two of the possibilities raised by a novel supercapacitor design invented by material scientists at Vanderbilt University that is described in a paper...

Bridging the Gap in the Sciences – featuring VINSE IMS graduate students

Jun. 8, 2012—Vanderbilt is on track this year to become the number one producer of minority Ph.D. recipients in physics, astronomy and materials science, an area where minorities are grossly underrepresented. Watch the emotional journey of the latest doctoral graduates from the Fisk-Vanderbilt-Master’s-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program. https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2012/06/08/vucast-extra-bridge-program/