Research Achievements | WVU Research | West Virginia University

WVU Research is focused on a wide range of areas such as:

bolstering national security and defense through work on biometrics and unmanned aerial vehicles;
improving water quality;
ensuring the safety of Appalachian food systems;
measuring soils’ ability to absorb radiation; investigating West Virginia’s geothermal energy potential;
studying implications of Marcellus shale drilling;
fighting cystic fibrosis;
helping lung cancer patients avoid hospital visits;
using video games to help patients with nervous system trauma;
waging war on childhood obesity;
and much more.

Grants and Funding

WVU faculty generate $127 million annually in sponsored contracts and research grants.
WVU is one of only 11 schools in the country that are land-grant, doctoral research universities with a comprehensive medical school.
Donor pledges and state matches translated into $6.5 million for WVU research during the first year of the state’s Research Trust Fund.
WVU received $6.5 million grant for international gravitational wave detection efforts. Read the article on WVUtoday.

The Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute—the world’s first institute devoted to the study of human memory—is at WVU.
The FBI named WVU its national leader for biometrics research. The partnership identifies WVU as the academic arm of the FBI’s Biometric Center of Excellence.
WVU has the largest crime scene training complex in the world (three crime scene houses and a forensic garage).
Bonnie’s Bus, WVU Hospital’s mobile digital mammography unit, travels to West Virginia counties that have the worst breast cancer mortality rates.
WVU houses the International Collection of Vesicular-Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, the only large repository of these fungi in the world.

For 25 years, the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) located at WVU has served the nation by providing free consulting services designed to increase the employability of people with disabilities.
“West Virginia Uncovered: Multimedia Journalism from the Mountains” is a Web-based, student-centered project in the P.I. Reed School of Journalism that helps rural newspapers prepare for the changing media landscape.
The University’s growing reputation as an up-and-coming research institution was emphasized in FY 2011 by prestigious recognition in two national research-oriented magazines: identification as one of the top places to work in academia by The Scientist and designation of a “WVU technology as the winner of an “Oscar of Innovation from R&D Magazine.
WVU was the second ranked comprehensive public university, and one of only four in total, on the list compiled by The Scientist, a respected news magazine that focuses primarily on biology and life science. WVU’s ranking pointed out that WVU is a place where cooperation and collegiality “keep research running smoothly in the face of economic adversity.”
R&D Magazine named a new fuel cell-enhancing technology developed by WVU’s Xingbo Liu, in cooperation with the National Energy Technology Laboratory, as one of the “100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace over the past year.” Previous R&D 100 Award winners include such innovations as HDTV and the automated teller machine.

Forest scientists at WVU have successfully cloned the American chestnut, a species that was almost eradicated by a fungus during the early 1900s.
WVU professor among the researchers who discovered new millisecond pulsars. More info in this WVUtoday article.
The total number of WVU Fulbright Scholars is 54, including 18 in the past ten years.
An international team led by WVU astrophysicist Duncan Lorimer and Sloan Fellow Maura McLaughlin have discovered a double-star system that represents a missing link stage in what they believe is the birth process of the most rapidly spinning stars in the universe—millisecond pulsars.

The WVU Honors College recently published the Mountaineer Undergraduate Research Review, the University’s first research journal for undergraduates.
In fall 2011, graduate students in computer science will be able to earn a certificate in interactive technologies and serious gaming, a potential gateway to working in the ever-growing game industry.
WVU was the second academic institution in the world to require electronic submission of theses and dissertations.
WVU students are studying abroad all over the world – in 2014, over 700 students participated in study abroad programs.
Now in its tenth year, the Corporate Citizenship Project teaches future business leaders the value of contributing to society and the community. The class solicits proposals and decides which causes to support. Students have given away more than $200,000 since 2001.
The Academic STARS program has a 99% success rate of retaining African American students. It’s a five-week academic and social program that helps students learn about available resources and develops their leadership potential.