Members of Quantum team at symposium
Annual Report

From AI to Rare Disease: UVA’s Research Symposium Series

August 12, 2026
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One of the most powerful things a research university can do is create space for its scholars to find each other. Over the past year, the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) hosted four symposia on topics at the forefront of science and medicine, bringing together researchers, clinicians, students, and community members from across UVA and beyond.

Jaclyn Wiggins presents their research in AI in Medical Education at the Clinical AI symposium.

Frontiers in Clinical AI

September 17, 2025

Artificial intelligence is beginning to reshape medicine in ways that are difficult to overstate, from the way physicians document patient visits to how drugs are discovered and how diagnoses are made. The first OVPR Research Symposium of the year, held in partnership with the Center for Advanced Medical Analytics, brought clinicians and data scientists together to examine where this transformation stands and where it is headed.


Speakers from the School of Medicine, the School of Data Science, the Biocomplexity Institute, and industry addressed topics from AI-powered early warning systems and precision medicine to ethical frameworks and the practical challenges of clinical implementation.

Lori McMahon talks with researchers during the symposium.

Quantum Computing

October 13, 2025

By harnessing the behavior of matter at the smallest scales, quantum computers have the potential to solve problems that would take today’s fastest machines thousands of years, with implications for drug discovery, materials science, climate modeling, and more. This symposium showcased the breadth of quantum research underway at UVA and convened researchers working across the many different approaches to making this technology a reality.


Speakers from the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering, and Jefferson Lab, a Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in nuclear physics, presented work spanning gate-based quantum computing, photonic quantum systems, and quantum algorithms. A panel discussion moderated by Associate Vice President for Research Fred Epstein explored how UVA can position itself to lead as this field matures.

Participants had a chance to learn about robots during the demonstrations.

Robotics + X

January 30, 2026

The Robotics + X Symposium, hosted in partnership with the School of Engineering and Applied Science, was organized around a simple question: what happens when robotics meets everything else?


Organized by faculty members Rohan Chandra, Tariq Iqbal, and Yen-Ling Kuo, the day brought together researchers from across Grounds to explore emerging opportunities at the intersection of robotics and fields including medicine, architecture, law, and education. Demonstrations and a poster session gave participants a firsthand look at where the field is going.

Researchers and participants had a chance to discuss their observations during the breaks at the Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Research Symposium.

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Research Symposium

April 9–10, 2026

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is a group of connective tissue disorders that affect the body in ways that are often invisible, widely misunderstood, and difficult to diagnose. The OVPR, in partnership with the UVA Health EDS and Hypermobility Disorders Center, organized a two-day symposium to bring researchers, clinicians, and patients into the same room to examine what is known, what remains uncertain, and what the path forward looks like.


Speakers came from UVA, Mayo Clinic, the Medical University of South Carolina, Indiana University, Penn State, and other institutions, addressing topics ranging from mast cell disease and autonomic dysfunction to genetics, orthopedic surgery outcomes, and the intersection of EDS with other conditions.


Patients were integral to the symposium, with advocates presenting alongside clinicians and participating in a dedicated panel. The response was extraordinary. More than 150 people attended in person, over 400 joined live online, and thousands registered for the event, a level of engagement that reflected how deeply felt the need for progress on this condition is.


Taken together, the four symposia reflect a deliberate approach to research leadership: that convening the right people around the right questions is itself a form of discovery. The conversations that start in a single afternoon can shape the direction of a field for years to come.

This story originally appeared in the 2026 Annual Research Report, produced by the Office of the Vice President of Research. Find more stories from this report here:  https://news.research.virginia.edu