Inaugural winners of new research awards named

Virginia Tech faculty are working on research that impacts everyday life. Through excellence in scholarship, outreach, and research they enhance the lives and livelihoods of others and elevate Virginia Tech among the top research universities in the world.

Last year, the Office of Research and Innovation collaborated with the Office of Faculty Affairs to reimagine how the university honors the extraordinary faculty who have demonstrated extraordinary scholarly impact. Three new awards were established to complement the Jacob A Lutz Award for Eminent Scholars: the Early Career Scholarly Impact Award, the Frontier Award, and the Engaged Research Award.  Now, the inaugural honorees have been selected for such outstanding work. Funded by the Virginia Tech Alumni Association, each winner receives a plaque and $2,000.  

This year’s winners:

Early Career Scholarly Impact Award

This award recognizes faculty members who have demonstrated early leadership as scholars, as evidenced by a promising record of scholarly/creative achievement and increasing impact.

Meagan Brem, assistant professor, Department of Psychology

In the nominator’s words: “Dr. Brem exemplifies the best of the best in her role as an assistant professor, through her grant strategies, impactful and well targeted lines of inquiry, community outreach, and mentoring success …[she] is helping the field to move toward evidence-based solutions that recognize the nuanced intervention models needed to best prevent IPV in young adults,” said Jamie Edgin, chair of the Department of Psychology.

Ruoxi Jia, assistant professor, Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering 

In the nominator’s words: “She revealed new privacy risks and security vulnerabilities and then developed effective defense to protect privacy and secure machine learning systems while retaining data utility. Her strategic data sourcing techniques have been adopted by Amazon Alexa, currently assisting their internal data selection processes. … Her trailblazing approach of leveraging cooperative game theory for data valuation has produced global impacts in financial institutions and have been adopted by major banks. Her research has also shaped national policy discussions, being incorporated into the National Institute of Standards and Technology AI Risk Management Framework and cited in their guideline for managing misuse risks in foundation models. Additionally, her work has driven concrete changes in industry practices, with OpenAI implementing additional safety measures based on her findings. The widespread adoption and recognition of her research demonstrates its significant real-world impact,”  said Rose Hu, head of the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Rachel Midura, assistant professor, Department of History

In the nominator’s words: “Dr. Midura received a Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for this work, which ranks among the most prestigious grants for digital humanities work. She has mentored student research assistants from both the history department and the Computational Modeling and Data Analytics program, for which she routinely leads a capstone project. ... In addition to updating existing courses to be in line with pedagogical and methodological best practices, Dr. Midura also has an impressive track record of creating new, innovative courses. ... Each of these courses integrate various digital methodologies to facilitate skill-building, from project-based learning producing podcasts, museum exhibits, and infographics, to historical simulations of trials or papal conclaves," said Jennifer Hart, professor and chair of the Department of History.

Frontier Award

The Frontier Award recognizes exceptional scholarly achievement for mid-career faculty, as well as their potential to build on established research to advance knowledge and innovation.

Guoliang "Greg" Liu, professor, Department of Chemistry

In the nominator’s words: “It is hard to oversell the impact of this work, which was published in "Science" and featured in more than 100 media outlets across the world. ... This type of publicity for Virginia Tech helps demonstrate to students throughout across the world the impact of our work and highlights the critical role that academic research efforts play in advancing science and improving sustainability all while providing economic benefits. ... My view is that Greg is a transformative scientist, a brilliant and hyper-creative materials chemist and a visionary in our field," said Amanda Morris, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry.

Michelle Theus, professor and director of the Neurotrauma Research Program in the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine

In the nominator’s words: “While other universities have similar programs, Dr. Theus has distinguished the goals of Virginia Tech's Neurotrauma Research Program by identifying understudied areas of TBI [traumatic brain injury] research and strategically developed innovative approaches to address these critical gaps. Dr. Theus' work aims to translate basic science findings into targeted, sex-specific therapeutics that can improve long-term outcomes for diverse patient populations,” said Ira Blader, professor and head of the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology.

Quinn Thomas, professor, Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation

In the nominator’s words: “Quinn’s research is at the international frontier of developing and applying novel quantitative techniques to examine the effects of global change on the environment. His specific objective is to develop quantitative methods to forecast future terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem dynamics in response to natural and anthropogenic drivers. ... Quinn is internationally recognized for his vision and leadership in water quality forecasting. He developed a state-of-the-art water quality forecasting system with a team of computer scientists, sensor engineers, and freshwater ecologists. Each day, data are transmitted wirelessly and securely from water quality sensors deployed in multiple lakes and reservoirs worldwide to inform ensemble hydrodynamic and ecosystem models. These models are continuously updated with new sensor data to generate daily forecasts for each waterbody that are delivered to water utility managers. The forecasting system is now being deployed at 15 lakes across the globe,” said Joe Knight, professor and head of the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation.

Engaged Research Award

The Engaged Research Award recognizes faculty who apply their research or creative activity to address a significant community need or larger social issue, trying to find solutions that may improve the quality of life for individuals, families, and communities. 

Richard A. Hunt, associate professor and director of Doctoral Studies in Management

In the nominator’s words: “Overall, I underscore that Dr. Hunt is truly an eminent scholar, who has devoted much of his research career to pursuing intriguing research projects by engaging a wide variety of non-traditional, often marginalized or neglected communities in the research process. Given his novel, very applied and engaged research that has shaped the scholarly as well as many marginalized communities around the world, I truly believe that Dr. Hunt is the most deserving candidate for the Engaged Research Award,” said Devi Gnyawali, the R.B. Pamplin Professor and head of the Department of Management.