电气工程专业的学生有机会参与推动这些变化的研究，从而有可能影响从医疗保健到教育，运输，国防和环境等几乎每个人类系统。电气工程领域的重要研究计划集中于碳，金刚石和硅纳米技术，混合和嵌入式系统，医学图像处理，光子学，辐射效应和可靠性以及机器人技术。许多教职员工都参与了软件集成系统研究所和太空与国防电子研究所，这些研究所支持对关键的商业和政府系统至关重要的前沿基础和应用研究。此外，范德比尔特纳米科学与工程学院和范德比尔特外科与工程学院也有几位教职员工。
Electrical engineering students have the opportunity to participate in research that is propelling those changes with the potential to impact virtually every human system, from health care to education, transportation, defense and the environment. Significant research programs in electrical engineering focus on carbon, diamond and silicon nanotechnology, hybrid and embedded systems, medical image processing, photonics, radiation effects and reliability and robotics. Many faculty members are involved with the Institute for Software Integrated Systems and the Institute for Space and Defense Electronics, which support leading-edge basic and applied research important to critical commercial and government systems. In addition, several faculty members are affiliated with the Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering and the Vanderbilt Initiative in Surgery and Engineering.