December 2025 Grants and Awards
Addressing Benefit Cliffs in Child Care Subsidy Programs: An Actionable Case Study of Virginia’s Child Care and Development Fund Block Grant Program
Principal Investigator:
Le Wang
Professor
Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$35,485
Sponsor:
Department of Health and Human Services, with University of Wisconsin Madison
Reducing Early Season Cucumber Beetle Pressure with a Semiochemical Augmented Trap-Out Approach
Principal Investigator:
Thomas P. Kuhar
Professor
Department of Entomology
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$29,206
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture, with University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc.
Multifaceted Actions of the Interleukin-6 Family During Embryo and Conceptus Development in Cattle
Principal Investigator:
Alan D. Ealy
Professor
School of Animal Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$650,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture
Bacillus Species Supplementation During a Preconditioning and Feedlot Receiving Program
Principal Investigator:
Rodrigo da Silva Marques
Assistant Professor
School of Animal Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$105,219
Sponsor:
Novonesis
Time Required to Recover from a Bout of Stress in Cattle from Different Finishing Systems
Principal Investigator:
David E. Gerrard
Professor
School of Animal Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$23,000
Sponsor:
Virginia Cattle Industry Board
Aerobiome for Fungicide Recommendations
Principal Investigator:
Yuan Zeng
Assistant Professor
Southern Piedmont Agricultural Research and Extension Center
Agriculture Experiment Station
Total Anticipated:
$325,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture
Development of Application Programming Interfaces to Support Fifth Generation Application Key Performance Indicator Information Sharing and Call Risk Scoring with Public Safety Answering Points
Principal Investigator:
David G. Simpson
Professor
Department of Business Information Technology
Pamplin College of Business
Total Anticipated:
$40,000
Sponsor:
GSMA Ltd LLC
Biology, Fluid Dynamics, and Noise of Turbulent Flow Over Soft Fouling and Compliant Surfaces
Principal Investigator:
William J. Devenport
Professor
Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$5,884,569
Sponsor:
Office of Naval Research
Single-Cell Multiomic Analysis to Aid Cell Engineering in Immunotherapy
Principal Investigator:
Chang Lu
Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$40,000
Sponsor:
Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Virginia Tech and Hampton Roads Sanitation District Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow Collaboration 2025–2026: Managed Aquifer Recharge Studies
Principal Investigator:
Amy J. Pruden-Bagchi
University Distinguished Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$150,000
Sponsor:
Hampton Roads Sanitation District
Agentic Artificial Intelligence for Scalable and Cost-Effective Protection of Critical Infrastructure
Principal Investigator:
Murat Kantarcioglu
Professor
Department of Computer Science
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$100,000
Sponsor:
Commonwealth Cyber Initiative
Curriculum Development: Machine Learning for Mechanical Engineers
Principal Investigator:
Jie Chen
Assistant Professor AY
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$10,000
Sponsor:
The MathWorks Inc.
Career and Technical Student Organizations Distributive Education Clubs of America, Health Occupations Students of America, Future Farmers of America, and SkillsUSA State Advisors 2025–2026
Principal Investigator:
Alison Jones
Career and Technical Student Organization Coordinator
Department of 4-H Centers and Administration
Director of Cooperative Extension
Total Anticipated:
$425,512
Sponsor:
Virginia Department of Education
Radiosensitization and Focused Ultrasound–Mediated Drug Delivery for Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma and Diffuse Midline Glioma
Principal Investigator:
Cheng-Chia "Fred" Wu
Assistant Professor
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
Total Anticipated:
$71,401
Sponsor:
St. Baldricks Foundation
Exercise, Mitochondrial AMP-Activated Protein Kinase, and Supercomplex Remodeling in Diabetes
Principal Investigator:
Zhen Yan
Professor
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
Total Anticipated:
$271,732
Sponsor:
American Diabetes Association
Securing Telecommunications Ecosystems Against Artificial Intelligence–Empowered Spam and Bot Attacks
Principal Investigator:
Yaling Yang
Professor
Institute for Advanced Computing
Total Anticipated:
$46,847
Sponsor:
GSMA Ltd LLC
Current State of Property Management Curriculum in Higher Education
Principal Investigator:
Kelly B. Avery
Associate Professor of Practice
School of Design
Total Anticipated:
$10,000
Sponsor:
Institute of Real Estate Management
Age Friendly Communities: Advanced Cycle Case Studies
Principal Investigator:
Eunju Hwang
Associate Professor
School of Design
Total Anticipated:
$1,664
Sponsor:
Jeju Research Institute
High-Efficiency Long-Range and Scalable Underwater Wireless Acoustic Power Transfer for Persistent Department of Defense Naval Operations
Principal Investigator:
Shima Shahab
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Virginia Tech National Security Institute
Total Anticipated:
$360,000
Sponsor:
Office of Naval Research