Faculty across George Mason University are leading or participating in innovative new projects to further research and education this academic year, thanks to grants recently awarded by 4-VA, a statewide consortium of nine higher education institutions in Virginia.
“The core purpose of 4-VA is to improve efficiencies in higher education and launch novel research via collaborations that leverage the strengths of each university,” says 4-VA@Mason Campus Coordinator and Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Janette Muir. “Through 4-VA, we encourage teamwork to bring great ideas to fruition.”
During 25-26, 4-VA is funding four Collaborative Research Grants led by faculty at George Mason University (partner schools in parentheses):
-Younsung Kim: COS (via support from the entire 4-VA Statewide Consortium), Designing Experiential Learning Modules for Stormwater Management and Climate Adaptation via Spatial Analysis Tools (UVA, VT)
-Quentin Sanders: CEC, Enhancing Daily Living Activities in Stroke Survivors Through Semi-Autonomous Hand Exoskeletons with Multi-Modal Sensing (UVA)
– Shaghayegh (Shay) Bagheri: CEC, Bio-Inspired Metamaterials: Design for Additive Manufacturing (VT, VCU)
-Yanika Kowitlawakul: CPH, Development and integration of Escape Room games to enhance undergraduate nursing students’ collaboration, problem-solving skills, and academic performance (UVA, VCU)
The following researchers have received 4-VA Complementary Grants to support projects managed at partner schools (partner school in parentheses):
-Silvia Danielak: Carter School, Environmental Peacebuilding as an approach for promoting just and sustainable Data Center governance in Virginia (JMU)
-David Luther: COS, Sound Ecology: Acoustic Niche Partitioning and the effects of 17-year cicadas on avian communities across an urban gradient (JMU)
-Armita Kar: COS, Safe Streets: AI-Powered Digital Twin Framework for Enhancing Urban Pedestrian Safety (VT)
-Ziwei Zhu: CEC, Towards Fair Decision Systems: Augmenting LLMs with Causual Graph Discovery (UVA)
-Ethan Ahn: CEC, CMOS-CIM Collaboration on CMOS+Xarrays for Compute-in-Memory (UVA)
-Xijin “Emma” Zhang: CEC, Safety Machine Learning-Driven Bio-Upcycling of Waste Concrete into High-Value Materials (VT)
-Tamara A. Maddox: CEC, Designing a Classroom Platform for Accountable Use of Generative AI in Writing (VT)
-Gregory Stein: CEC, Leveraging Digital Twin Environments and AI-Embodied Reasoning Models for Human-Robot Collaboration in Construction Tasks (VT)
Additionally, George Mason University faculty members were awarded grants to support course redesign, created to bring updated/relevant materials cost-efficiently to students.
-Tammy Stitz, University Libraries (assisted by James Baldo, Bernard Schmidt, and Susan Lawrence): DAEN 690: Data Analytics Engineering
-Sara-Lynn Gopalkrishna: CEC CS 108: Introduction to Computer Programming
In addition to George Mason University, other institutions in the 4-VA consortium are: Christopher Newport University, the College of William and Mary, James Madison University, Old Dominion University, Radford University, the University of Virginia, Virginia Military Institute, and Virginia Tech.