August 2026 Grants and Awards
Control of Diamondback Moth in Head and Stem Brassica
Principal Investigator:
Thomas P. Kuhar
Professor
Department of Entomology
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$13,500
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture with the University of California Davis
Genetic Improvement of Metabolic Efficiency in Dairy Cattle
Principal Investigator:
Rebecca Cockrum
Assistant Professor
School of Animal Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$19,260
Sponsor:
Virginia Cattle Industry Board
Targeted Mastitis Management Through Early Identification of Gram-Positive Mastitis Infections
Principal Investigator:
Azahar Ali
Assistant Professor
School of Animal Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$28,825
Sponsor:
Virginia Cattle Industry Board
Cattle Welfare and Surface Water Use in Response to Consuming Toxic Fescue
Principal Investigator:
John H. Fike
Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$12,367
Sponsor:
Virginia Cattle Industry Board
Optimizing Cover Cropping and Rotation for Long-Term Agricultural Productivity in the United States
Principal Investigator:
Yongfa You
Assistant Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$278,074
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Proteomic, Genomic, and Biological Characterization of Emerging Viruses in Upland Cotton
Principal Investigator:
David C. Haak
Assistant Professor
School of Plant and Environmental Sciences
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Total Anticipated:
$294,000
Sponsor:
United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Autonomous Surface Vehicle-Based 3D Mapping for Coastal Monitoring
Principal Investigator:
Mingi Jeong
Assistant Professor
Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$7,280
Sponsor:
The Minneapolis Foundation
Career: Synergistic Motion and Sensing for Resilient Cyber-Physical System Navigation
Principal Investigator:
Mathieu Joerger
Associate Professor
Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$677,114
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Collaborative Research: Make-It-Anywhere Distributed Additive Manufacturing
Principal Investigator:
Sourav Saha
Assistant Professor
Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$304,709
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Collaborative Research: Thermal Transport in Supercooled Droplet Freezing on Superhydrophobic and Ultrasonically Vibrating Surfaces for Enhanced De-Icing
Principal Investigator:
Michael K. Philen
Professor
Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$445,401
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Advancing Multimodal and Multidimensional Artificial Intelligence to Discover Connections Between Cloud Microphysics and Precipitation
Principal Investigator:
Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz
Associate Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$501,291
Sponsor:
United States Department of Energy
Collaborative Artificial Intelligence and Geospatial: Multisource Learning to Predict Chemical Fate in Complex Environmental Mixtures
Principal Investigator:
Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz
Associate Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$840,111
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
High Frequency Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances and Ions Measurements at the Griffith Water Treatment Plant Intake
Principal Investigator:
Andrew C. Maizel
Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances Laboratory Research Scientist
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$35,450
Sponsor:
Hazen and Sawyer DPC
Improvised Powered Air-Purifying Respirators Made from Commonly Available Household Materials
Principal Investigator:
William G. Lindsley
Senior Research Scientist
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$248,169
Sponsor:
National Philanthropic Trust
Quiet Corsi-Rosenthal Air Cleaner
Principal Investigator:
William G. Lindsley
Senior Research Scientist
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$164,537
Sponsor:
National Philanthropic Trust
Using the Horizontal-to-Vertical Spectral Ratio of Microtremors to Obtain Site Terms for Ground Motion Models
Principal Investigator:
Joseph P. Vantassel
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$113,974
Sponsor:
United States Geological Survey
Re-Architecting Tiered Memory for Cloud Datacenters
Principal Investigator:
Huaicheng Li
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$85,000
Sponsor:
Google Corp
Secure and High-Performance Computing: Foundations for Comprehensive Integration Testing in Agentic Artificial Intelligence Workflow Orchestration
Principal Investigator:
Eli Tilevich
Professor
Department of Computer Science
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$495,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Collaborative Research: Research Initiation: Engineering Identity Formation of Student Veterans Through Capstone Experiences
Principal Investigator:
Marie C. Paretti
Professor
Department of Engineering Education
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$16,791
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Engineering Quantum Futures: Toward a Triple Helix Theory of Quantum Workforce Co-Development Through Academia-Industry-Government Partnerships
Principal Investigator:
Dayoung Kim
Assistant Professor
Department of Engineering Education
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$499,874
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Research Experiences for Teachers Site: Interdisciplinary Water Science and Engineering
Principal Investigator:
Vinod K. Lohani
Professor
Department of Engineering Education
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$600,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Collaborative Innovation in Computational Informatics: Integrated Public-Private-Academic Artificial Intelligence: A Traceable, Cost-Aware, and End-to-End Data Curation Framework for Medical Artificial Intelligence
Principal Investigator:
Ruoxi Jia
Assistant Professor AY
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$899,998
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
High-Mobility Germanium-on-Aluminum Arsenide Nanosheet Field-Effect Transistors and Complementary Field-Effect Transistors for Adaptive and Ultra-Low-Power Electronics
Principal Investigator:
Mantu K. Hudait
Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$451,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Platform for Collaborative Learning-Test Bed: Artificial Intelligence-Native, Cloud-Orchestrated Self-Driving Nanofabrication Node for Accelerating Semiconductor Research and Education
Principal Investigator:
Rose Qingyang Hu
Professor and Department Head
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$20,000,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Collaborative Research: Collaborative Sequential Experimentation for Bio-Additive Manufacturing Systems
Principal Investigator:
Blake Johnson
Professor
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$300,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer Function: High-Throughput Screening of Electrolytes for the Next Generation of Rechargeable Batteries
Principal Investigator:
Wenjun Cai
Associate Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$1,099,851
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Collaborative Research: From Waves to Motion—Harnessing Focused Ultrasound for Adaptive Dynamics in Liquid Crystal Elastomers
Principal Investigator:
Shima Shahab
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$395,099
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Multiscale Mechanics of Active Transient Fibrous Structures: From Turnover-Driven Fluctuations to Coarse-Grained Theory
Principal Investigator:
Sohan Kale
Assistant Professor AY
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$390,296
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Travel: Slenderness in Motion: The Dynamics of Elongated Structures Across Life Forms
Principal Investigator:
Noel M. Naughton
Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Total Anticipated:
$20,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Career: Photopolymerization of Cyclic Disulfides
Principal Investigator:
Joshua C. Worch
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$720,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Collaborative Research: Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer Function: High-Throughput Screening of Electrolytes for the Next Generation of Rechargeable Batteries
Principal Investigator:
Tao Li
Professor
Department of Chemistry
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$760,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Ecology-Driven Natural Product Discovery
Principal Investigator:
Emily E. Mevers
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$100,000
Sponsor:
The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation Inc
Elucidating Solvation Structures for Rational Design of Solvent-in-Salt Electrolytes for High Voltage Alkali-Metal Batteries
Principal Investigator:
Tao Li
Professor
Department of Chemistry
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$423,521
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Understanding Self-Assembly and Properties of Ionic Composites Based on a Charged Double Helical Polymer
Principal Investigator:
Louis A. Madsen
Professor
Department of Chemistry
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$515,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Combinatorics in Representation Theory and Algebraic Geometry
Principal Investigator:
Mark M. Shimozono
Professor
Department of Mathematics
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$42,000
Sponsor:
The Simons Foundation
String Compactifications: From Geometry to Effective Field Theory
Principal Investigator:
Lara B. Anderson
Professor
Department of Physics
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$495,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
The DarkSide Dark-Matter Search Using Liquid Argon
Principal Investigator:
Robert B. Vogelaar
Professor
Department of Physics
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$316,953
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Evaluation of Mentalization-Based Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder
Principal Investigator:
Chloe Hudson
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
College of Science
Total Anticipated:
$1,000
Sponsor:
Society of Clinical Psychology
Enhancing Comparative Clinical Research: Integrating Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Veterinary Extension into Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership Vocabularies
Principal Investigator:
Julie M. Green
Research Assistant Professor CY
Veterinary Medicine Research and Graduate Studies
Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine
Total Anticipated:
$25,000
Sponsor:
Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges
Pharmacokinetics of Single and Multiple Doses of Paroxetine (Paxil) in Adult Horses
Principal Investigator:
Harold C. McKenzie
Professor
Veterinary Medicine Research and Graduate Studies
Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine
Total Anticipated:
$25,032
Sponsor:
Virginia Horse Industry Board
Repositioning the Old Antibiotic Nitroxoline with a Dual Mechanism of Action for Treating Drug-Resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Chlamydia
Principal Investigator:
Mohamed N. Seleem
Professor ES CY
Veterinary Medicine Research and Graduate Studies
Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine
Total Anticipated:
$3,650,065
Sponsor:
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Supporting Flood Recovery in Rural, Mountainous Areas Through Health Systems Knowledge Exchange and Fine-Scale Healthcare Utilization Data Analysis
Principal Investigator:
Julia M. Gohlke
Professor
Veterinary Medicine Research and Graduate Studies
Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine
Total Anticipated:
$2,936,880
Sponsor:
National Institutes of Health
Transcriptomic Dynamics Associated with TDP-43 Propagation in Limbic-Predominant Age-Related TDP-43 Encephalopathy Neuropathological Change
Principal Investigator:
Hehuang D. Xie
Associate Professor
Veterinary Medicine Research and Graduate Studies
Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine
Total Anticipated:
$762,861
Sponsor:
National Institute on Aging
Sovereign Library Intelligence: An Agentic Artificial Intelligence Framework for Trustworthy Library Collections Stewardship and Access
Principal Investigator:
Yinlin Chen
Assistant Director, Center for Digital Research Scholarship
Library
Dean of Libraries
Total Anticipated:
$613,106
Sponsor:
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Deciphering the Role of pH Regulator SLC4A4 in Glioma Progression
Principal Investigator:
Qi Ye
Assistant Professor
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
Total Anticipated:
$746,997
Sponsor:
National Cancer Institute
Genetic and Functional Dissection of Frontal Thalamocortical Circuitry
Principal Investigator:
Michael Halassa
Professor
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
Total Anticipated:
$1,615,240
Sponsor:
National Institute of Mental Health
Identifying Relationships Between Reinforcement Learning and Mood in Depression
Principal Investigator:
Pearl H. Chiu
Professor
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
Total Anticipated:
$64,443
Sponsor:
National Institute of Mental Health
Iron Deficiency and Neuropsychiatric Disease Risk in 3q29 Deletion Syndrome
Principal Investigator:
Ryan H. Purcell
Assistant Professor
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC
Total Anticipated:
$456,864
Sponsor:
National Institute of Mental Health
Designing a Low-Cost Optical System for Microplastic Detection in Drinking Water
Principal Investigator:
Christina M. McIntyre
Director of Professional Development and National and International Scholarships
Honors College
Total Anticipated:
$8,000
Sponsor:
Virginia Space Grant Consortium
Human-Centered Computing: Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Classroom Orchestration for Collaborative Programming Learning at Scale
Principal Investigator:
Yan Chen
Assistant Professor
Institute for Creativity, Arts and Technology
Total Anticipated:
$790,509
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Collaborative: Vines: Track 1: Establishing a Systematic Security Foundation for Next-Generation Cellular Networks
Principal Investigator:
Angelos Stavrou
Professor
Institute for Advanced Computing
Total Anticipated:
$700,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
United States–United Arab Emirates Workshop on Spectrum Research and Technologies
Principal Investigator:
Walid Saad
Professor
Institute for Advanced Computing
Total Anticipated:
$150,000
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Camera-Trapping Surveys for Bog Turtles in Virginia to Expand Knowledge of Distribution and Inform a Habitat Model
Principal Investigator:
Carola A. Haas
Professor
Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation
College of Natural Resources and Environment
Total Anticipated:
$6,000
Sponsor:
Turtle Survival Alliance
Documenting Yellow Sulphur Springs—Historic American Buildings Survey Drawings and History
Principal Investigator:
Lisa M. Tucker
Department Head
School of Design
College of Architecture, Arts, and Design
Total Anticipated:
$6,000
Sponsor:
Historic Preservation Education Foundation
Collaborative Research: Mapping Career Pathways to Biomedical Faculty
Principal Investigator:
Chris Smith
Postdoctoral Affairs Program Administrator
Research/Interdisciplinary Program Admin
Office of Research and Innovation
Total Anticipated:
$123,882
Sponsor:
National Science Foundation
Investigating Changes in Air Pollutants During Meteor Showers at 80,000 Feet
Principal Investigator:
Kevin T. Sterne
Senior Research Associate
Virginia Tech National Security Institute
Total Anticipated:
$3,500
Sponsor:
Virginia Space Grant Consortium