School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt

School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt A program of the Vanderbilt Collaborative for STEM Education & Outreach founded in 2007 and offered to students in Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools.

The SSMV curriculum connects sciences, technology, engineering, & mathematics with increasing depth. The SSMV offers Metro Nashville high school students a four-year, interdisciplinary, research-centered learning experience through meaningful and engaging hands-on exploration with increasing depth and independence.

Congrats to Moh, Reese, and Andrew, members of the Class of 2028, who presented their sophomore research project, “Compa...
09/04/2026

Congrats to Moh, Reese, and Andrew, members of the Class of 2028, who presented their sophomore research project, “Comparing Road Temperature Across a Variety of Road Surfaces Using IR Sensors” at the Vanderbilt Sustainability, Energy, and Climate Symposium poster session on September 2!

The Class of 2030 visited CLACX Ethnobotanical Garden to learn about plants native to the Americas and grown on our own ...
09/01/2026

The Class of 2030 visited CLACX Ethnobotanical Garden to learn about plants native to the Americas and grown on our own campus. Students ended the tour by planting corn to be harvested by VU college students at the end of the semester (if the rabbits promise to not get to it first.) 🌽🪴🪏🌎

Yesterday, the Class of 2028 kicked off one of our favorite collaborative projects - a hands-on bridge-building curricul...
08/28/2026

Yesterday, the Class of 2028 kicked off one of our favorite collaborative projects - a hands-on bridge-building curriculum with civil engineer, Dr. Ghina Absi!

Over the next several weeks, students will put engineering concepts into action as they explore design principles, problem-solving, teamwork, and the science underlying the construction of bridges.

Can you guess the inspiration for the bridge designs this year? 🦋🪕✨

On Monday, the freshman class was tasked with answering this question: if you were to design an ethnobotanical garden wi...
08/25/2026

On Monday, the freshman class was tasked with answering this question: if you were to design an ethnobotanical garden with plants from Latin America, what plants might survive in Nashville’s climate – and how might you know?!

The goal was for students to consider regionally specific conditions in Nashville that would allow Latin American plants to thrive, and to provide evidence for optimal growing conditions by exploring the nearby Native Meadow.

Why does this matter? Next week, students are taking a field trip to Vanderbilt’s Latin American Ethnobotanical Garden (CLACX Ethnobotanical Garden ). There, they will learn about plants from Latin American countries that thrive in Nashville’s climate, and explore the ways in which these plants are used for medicinal or culinary purposes.

Our seniors are BACK at SSMV! 🎉🔬This week, our seniors had their first day back at SSMV and returned to their Vanderbilt...
08/21/2026

Our seniors are BACK at SSMV! 🎉🔬

This week, our seniors had their first day back at SSMV and returned to their Vanderbilt labs to finish their VU Lab internships. They’re hard at work wrapping up data collection and analysis!

Working alongside Vanderbilt researchers with expertise across many STEM fields, our seniors are conducting research on topics ranging from:

🧬 Characterizing the different types of cells that make up the kidney

🍯 Identifying the floral sources of local wildflower honey produced at Stratford STEM Magnet School

🧫 Studying how different treatments affect breast cancer cells

🧠 Developing better ways to grow and mature cells derived from stem cells in the lab

🔬 Evaluating fluorescent dyes used to study how cells communicate
…and many more!

As they wrap up their lab internships, our seniors will turn their research into formal research papers and prepare their work for submission to the Regeneron Science Talent Search (STS).

We’re proud of all their hard work and excited to see them finish strong! 🚀

SSMV got off to a cracking start this week! Amongst many, one highlight was seeing the newly minted IS2 students design ...
08/14/2026

SSMV got off to a cracking start this week! Amongst many, one highlight was seeing the newly minted IS2 students design and build a Rube Goldberg machine, which is now an annual tradition. They didn't quite make it go all the way around the classroom, but the real treasure was the friends they made along the way. :)

We are excited to celebrate Ereny Saleeb, a rising senior at the School of Science and Math at Vanderbilt (SSMV), and he...
08/05/2026

We are excited to celebrate Ereny Saleeb, a rising senior at the School of Science and Math at Vanderbilt (SSMV), and her research experience with Dr. Jason Chow and the Vanderbilt Implementation Research Lab team! Ereny’s project was featured in VIRAL’s July newsletter (see photos).

As part of her SSMV research internship experience, Ereny has been working alongside the VIRAL team since the spring to explore how speech-language pathologists build collective efficacy. From developing a coding scheme and analyzing 58 interview transcripts to collaborating with graduate and undergraduate researchers, she has contributed to research that she presented at the Collaborative for STEM Education and Outreach Summer Research Symposium on July 2. Ereny will continue her work with Dr. Chow and the VIRAL team through the fall semester, where she will submit her work to national and local science competitions.

It’s almost time to welcome back students to the SSMV for the fall semester! Please note the course schedule for the fir...
08/03/2026

It’s almost time to welcome back students to the SSMV for the fall semester! Please note the course schedule for the first days back:

Class of 2030 - Monday, August 10
Class of 2027 - Tuesday, August 18
Class of 2029 - Wednesday, August 12
Class of 2028 - Thursday, August 13

A reminder that the SSMV will continue to begin class promptly at 8:00 AM. Classes are dismissed at 2:00 PM, and students have the option to remain in the classroom for Study Hall until 4:30 PM on their SSMV day.

Be sure to bookmark the SSMV calendar! https://www.vanderbilt.edu/cseo-ssmv/calendar/

On July 2nd, students, mentors, families, and CSEO and MNPS supporters gathered for the Collaborative for STEM Education...
07/31/2026

On July 2nd, students, mentors, families, and CSEO and MNPS supporters gathered for the Collaborative for STEM Education and Outreach Summer Research Symposium. At this event, 24 MNPS students presented progress from summer research internships with Vanderbilt faculty as a part of their participation in the CSEO’s School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt (SSMV) and Interdisciplinary Science and Research (ISR) programs.

We’d like to congratulate all students and mentoring teams for their hard work! We’d also to acknowledge students with the highest poster presentation scores, as voted by their peers:

Session 1:
1st - Sandy Hanna (SSMV), PI: Dr. Jonathan Brunger
2nd - Valary Adedire (REHSS), PI: Dr. Marie Suver
3rd - Caroline Duncan (REHSS), PI: Dr. Kathy Gould
Honorable Mention - Jayci Washington (SSMV), PI: Dr. Lin Meng

Session 2:
1st - Sara Feleke (SSMV), PI: Dr. Jeff Spraggins
2nd - Gabby McMillian (SSMV), PI: Dr. Hussam Mahmoud
3rd - Jailen Fuller (SSMV), PI: Dr. Jamey Young
Honorable Mention - Clara Dehority (REHSS), PI: Dr. Marie Suver

📚 Earlier this summer, students explored how one of the world's oldest languages continues to shape modern medicine.They...
07/27/2026

📚 Earlier this summer, students explored how one of the world's oldest languages continues to shape modern medicine.

They began by playing a custom Medical Latin UNO game created by Dr. Shakeera Walker, where they learned to recognize common Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes used in medical terminology. Students then put those skills to the test by deciphering excerpts from 17th-century Latin medical texts provided by Eskind Biomedical Library Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries

The experience concluded with a visit to Eskind Biomedical Library, where students explored rare medical and scientific books from the 1600s and saw firsthand how the language and history of medicine have evolved over the centuries.

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