Research grows at Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in D.C. area
Virginia Tech researchers are at the center of Northern Virginia’s growing tech ecosystem.
A rendering of the west streetscape outside the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus Building One.
When Lance Collins was named vice president and executive director of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in August 2020, he knew that in addition to tailoring the campus approach to the demands of the greater Washington, D.C., metro area, he needed to let the strengths of the faculty lead the way.
“Our goal is to build a vibrant community perfectly positioned to connect talented students and researchers with Northern Virginia’s growing tech ecosystem,” said Collins. “When it comes to identifying forward-looking, impactful research areas, faculty are the best guides.”
The 11 Virginia Tech faculty members from the College of Engineering who joined the Innovation Campus in August 2022, along with seven new faculty hires, bring with them expertise and add to some of the university’s top research strengths — the focus areas of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Wireless, and Quantum. In addition, Innovation Campus leadership sought input from industry leaders on the Campus Advisory Board, resulting in a fourth area of focus, Intelligent Interfaces.
“These four research areas are changing rapidly, and work in these fields will create seismic, fundamental change in our society,” Collins said. “That is exactly where Virginia Tech wants to operate.”
The Innovation Campus has 18 faculty members and more than 375 Master of Engineering students in the D.C. area — students are currently at the Northern Virginia Center in Falls Church. The 11-story, 300,000-square-foot Innovation Campus Academic Building One will open in Alexandria in January 2025.
Research areas for the future of technology
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning presents some of the most talked-about and pressing opportunities and challenges in our modern world. Through the Sanghani Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics, professor of computer science and Director Naren Ramakrishnan and his team are working toward solutions in intelligence analysis, sustainability, and electronic medical records.
The Innovation Campus also will house the Center for Quantum Architecture and Software Development, via financial support from Northrop Grumman, helping researchers harness the power of quantum mechanics for problems too complex to be solved by classical computers. In partnership with the Virginia Tech Center for Quantum Information Science and Engineering, the Innovation Campus will establish a premier research group focused on the analytical and algorithmic subareas led by professor of computer science Steve Flammia, director of the Center for Quantum Architecture and Software Development.
Research in Intelligent Interfaces seeks to find better ways of understanding, improving, and integrating human and artificial intelligence. From augmented reality to social media to autonomous vehicles to crowdsourcing, Virginia Tech’s Center for Human-Computer Interaction, under the guidance of professor of computer science Kurt Luther and with support from The Boeing Company, takes a human-centered approach, collaborating with experts in academia, industry, and government to design, build, and evaluate a wide range of technologies. Innovation Campus Academic Building One will also include an immersive visualization lab on its first floor.
As the telecom industry deploys 5G more widely across the world, Virginia Tech researchers are already hard at work on the next generation of wireless systems at the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) 5G Testbed, including 6G for the cellular world and Wi-Fi 8 for wireless local area networks. A cyber-physical systems lab, featuring a two-story drone cage, will support research and testing at Academic Building One. Under the leadership of professors of electrical and computer engineering Walid Saad and Director of Wireless@VT Lingjia Liu, and in conjunction with the VT-Applied Research Corporation, National Security Institute, CCI and Wireless@VT, the Innovation Campus is poised to lead the way in the research and development of next-generation wireless technologies.
“To me, at a great university like Virginia Tech, the heart of the university is the research,” said professor of computer science Kirk Cameron, associate vice president of academic affairs at the Innovation Campus. “I am excited about the team of world class faculty at the Innovation Campus and can’t wait to see the research they produce next.”
The scope of Innovation Campus faculty research will run the gamut – from short term applied projects to researching and testing next generation technology.
“We’re comfortable with inventing the future, the kinds of things that may not come into being for 10 years,” said Collins. “But we’re also very capable of solving problems that need to be solved in the next three months. And everything in between.”
