The Virginia Tech College of Engineering has awarded nine research teams with funding to support innovative and interdisciplinary collaborations that will pave the way for large-scale, transformative research funding. 

The inaugural Major Grants Initiative (MGI) awards launched earlier this year and support projects that bring together faculty expertise to tackle complex challenges with broad technological and societal impact. The nine projects involve 96 Virginia Tech faculty and research participants, including 71 faculty from 11 departments in the College of Engineering and 25 collaborators from 15 additional departments, units, and institutes across the university.

As with previous college research initiatives, the funding for these projects is provided by the College of Engineering.

“As one of the nation’s leading engineering programs, the Virginia Tech College of Engineering thrives on a culture of innovation and collaboration,” said Harpreet Dhillon, the W. Martin Johnson Professor of Engineering and associate dean for research and innovation, who spearheaded the initiative. “Through this initiative, our faculty are advancing research with the potential for far-reaching impact across disciplines and society.”

The awards are split into three categories: Strategic Expansion Awards, Team Formation Awards, and Scaling Scholarship Awards. The goal is to form teams with some of the college’s top-tier faculty, tackle emerging research themes, propel already well-established research teams to secure center-level funding, and encourage faculty to connect their latest research outputs to large-scale funding efforts.

These faculty members are leading cross-cutting, interdisciplinary teams driving this strategic research momentum.

Strategic Expansion Awards

Powering autonomous, scalable, and secure data center ecosystems

  • Ali Mehrizi-Sani, professor, electrical and computer engineering; director of the Power and Energy Center

Advancing resilient manufacturing through Next-G Wireless control of reconfigurable hybrid manufacturing workcells

  • James Kong, Ralph H. Bogle Professor, industrial and systems engineering 
  • Lingjia Liu, Andrew J. Young Professor, electrical and computer engineering; Institute for Advanced Computing 
  • Chris Williams, L. S. Randolph Professor, mechanical engineering 
  • Tao Sun, research associate professor, industrial and systems engineering

Resilient intelligent sensing and edge Internet of Things technologies

  • Cindy Yi, professor, electrical and computer engineering; director of the Multifunctional Integrated Circuits and Systems Center; Institute for Advanced Computing 
  • Peter Vikesland, Nick Prillaman Professor, civil and environmental engineering 
  • Lingjia Liu, Andrew J. Young Professor, electrical and computer engineering; Institute for Advanced Computing

Team Formation Awards

Developing new models of decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) inspired by principles of mechanics and biology

Synthesized hub in Appalachia for zero-emissions advanced air mobility

Curing with sound: Accelerating the development and translation of focused ultrasound technologies for human and veterinary medicine

  • Eli Vlaisavljevich, associate professor, biomedical engineering and mechanics
  • Adam Maxwell, research associate professor, biomedical engineering and mechanics 
  • Shima Shahab, associate professor, mechanical engineering

Foundations of intelligent discovery and design: Bringing AI to scientific discovery and engineering design

Advancing AI-driven autonomous experimentation for turbulent flows

Intelligent XR

  • Doug Bowman, Frank J. Maher Professor, computer science; director of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction 
  • Joe Gabbard, professor, industrial and systems engineering

Scaling Scholarship Awards

These awards recognize that high-impact scholarly publications are not only a hallmark of academic achievement, but a critical foundation for building major research initiatives. Five projects received awards in this inaugural cycle.

“Differential roles of deterministic and stochastic processes in structuring soil bacterial ecotypes across terrestrial ecosystems,” Nature Communications, 2025

  • Jingqiu Liao, assistant professor, civil and environmental engineering 

“Dissolved Fe species enable a cooperative solid-molecular mechanism for the oxygen evolution reaction on NiFe-based catalysts,” Nature Catalysis, 2025

“LLM-SR: Scientific equation discovery via programming with large language models,” International Conference on Learning Representations, 2025

“The Fidelity-based Presence Scale (FPS): Modeling the effects of fidelity on sense of presence,” ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2025

“Low-temperature Leidenfrost-like jumping of sessile droplets on microstructured surfaces,” Nature Physics, 2024

The college will host its inaugural MGI Day on April 9, to showcase research progress and outcomes from the funded teams. Additional information about upcoming funding opportunities, including the next Major Grants Initiative solicitation and Scaling Scholarship competition, can be found on the Major Grants Initiative website or by contacting Nicole Akers at snakers@vt.edu

To support engineering research with real societal impact like the Major Grants Initiative projects, consider a gift to the College of Engineering annual fund.

Contact:

Tags

Share this story