UVA’s Center for Applied Biomechanics researches how the human body sustains injury—and how to prevent it—in both car crashes and combat. Jason Forman leads automotive safety work with NHTSA, while Robert Salzar develops military protective equipment, including the Warrior Injury Assessment Manikin, born from studying blast injuries in MRAP vehicles.
UVA neuroscientist Tanya Evans investigates why some children struggle with reading or math by studying the brain mechanisms behind learning differences like dyslexia. Through cross-disciplinary collaborations and a $3 million NIH grant, her research explores how declarative and procedural memory systems shape skill development, with findings pointing toward targeted interventions for students who need them most.
The UVA Center for Digital Editing has received a $10 million NEH grant to make founding-era primary sources publicly accessible through a new website called forgingUS. Launching around America’s 250th anniversary, the project goes beyond celebrated figures to highlight the correspondence and documents behind the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, combining images, maps, and data visualizations in a growing digital humanities ecosystem.
Measuring pain in clinical settings is challenging, especially for patients who cannot self-report. Cori Espelien, a postdoctoral researcher at UVA’s Department of Public Health Sciences, is developing AI facial recognition software that automatically detects and classifies pain.
A therapy developed at UVA School of Medicine targeting sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome has entered first-in-human clinical trials. Called hCitH3mAb, it is the first treatment to directly neutralize CitH3, a molecule that drives runaway inflammation in critically ill patients. The milestone reflects years of collaborative research and the growing role of UVA’s Manning Institute in accelerating discoveries toward clinical application.
UVA economist Anton Korinek shifted his research focus from financial crises to artificial intelligence in 2015, sensing its transformative potential. Now a TIME100 AI honoree leading research at Anthropic, Korinek studies how to distribute AGI’s economic benefits broadly and warns that fully automating AI research could trigger a significant growth explosion within just three years.
GET THE STORIES BEHIND THE RESEARCH
Receive updates about the discoveries, researchers, and ideas shaping our world — straight from UVA.
University of Virginia’s FY26 research achievements highlight $588M in sponsored funding, 3,218 proposals worth $2.89B in potential awards, and 10,032 publications. These milestones reflect UVA’s commitment to Jefferson’s founding vision of advancing knowledge for the Commonwealth and the world through robust research activity.
UVA has launched 15 inaugural Research Hubs, chosen from ninety proposals, spanning fields like hypersonic technologies, quantum photonics, aging, health policy, AI, and supply chains. Open to faculty across career stages and schools, these hubs foster cross-disciplinary collaboration, generating scholarship and partnerships that strengthen UVA’s competitiveness for major research funding opportunities.
UVA’s Office of the Vice President for Research hosted four symposia this year spanning clinical AI, quantum computing, robotics, and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, uniting researchers, clinicians, students, and community members. From cutting-edge technology to underdiagnosed conditions, these gatherings show how convening the right people around pressing questions can shape entire fields of discovery.
UVA chemical and biomedical engineering professor Bryan Berger, named 2025 Edlich-Henderson Innovator of the Year, has built a career around making food production safer and more sustainable. Through his company Lytos Technologies, he develops protein-based biotechnologies to detect foodborne pathogens, combat crop diseases like fire blight, and reduce antibiotic use in agriculture while protecting environmental health.
From the Eastern Shore to the Southern Appalachians, UVA operates four field research stations across Virginia’s ecologically diverse landscape. Morven Farm, Blandy Experimental Farm, Mountain Lake Biological Station, and the Coastal Research Center each serve as extensions of Grounds, offering unique environments where students, faculty, and researchers study ecology, sustainability, and the natural world.
Kelsey Johnson, a professor of astronomy, is driven by a deep curiosity about the universe’s most fundamental processes. Her current research focuses on extreme star clusters, known as super star clusters. By analyzing how these clusters form, Johnson hopes to gain insights about the physical conditions of the early universe.
