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2025: A YEAR OF EXCELLENCE MADE POSSIBLE BY YOU!
AI REVEALS GHOST FORESTS FROM MAINE TO SOUTH CAROLINA
FACULTY RECEIVE DEAN'S AWARD FOR GRADUATE MENTORSHIP
FOUR SCHOLARS AMONG WORLD'S MOST INFLUENTIAL RESEARCHERS
UVA Dean of Arts & Sciences Christa D. Acampora shares how your generosity made 2025 a year of transformation, enriching the undergraduate experience, advancing graduate excellence, and fueling research and creative activity that addresses society’s most pressing challenges.
Arts & Sciences honored three faculty members for exceptional guidance and support of graduate students. This standard of excellence in academic leadership advances the prestige of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, a key philanthropic priority that’s critical to UVA’s overall national ranking.
Congratulations to these faculty members named to the Clarivate’s 2025 Highly Cited Researchers List, which recognizes scholars whose work ranks in the top 1% worldwide. Philanthropic support for A&S allows critical research across diverse fields to continue in times when federal grant landscape remains uncertain.
Using cutting-edge artificial intelligence, A&S researchers are mapping the eerie spread of “ghost forests” along the Atlantic coast, uncovering how rising seas and climate change are transforming ecosystems. Donor support for graduate research like this enhances knowledge, harnessing AI positively to advance UVA’s research profile.
In November, a special 2-day event brought together students, faculty, scholars, and alumni to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Jewish Studies at UVA. The weekend kicked off a $25 million fundraising campaign to strengthen and grow this interdisciplinary program through new professorships, graduate fellowships, and programming.
Professor Jessica Connelly and senior scientist Allison Perkeybile received nearly $5 million in NIH grants to study how birth experiences shape maternal health and brain function. Their psychology department labs provide research opportunities for dozens of undergraduate and graduate students in Arts & Sciences to be part of groundbreaking work and enable the College to lead in discovery and innovation that improves lives.
A team of nine UVA students are heading to Paris to present a synthetic biology innovation that turns waste into clean fuel. Research opportunities like this reflect how philanthropic support results in life-changing experiences for A&S undergraduates and solutions for the broader world.
At an event co-sponsored by Arts & Sciences, tech journalist Karen Hao and Seth Lewis, incoming Professor of AI and Media Studies, discussed AI’s trajectory and its potential for exploitation. Dean Christa Acampora said AI could “save or destroy us,” emphasizing how it renews the liberal arts’ mission to foster empathy, discernment, and meaning. Donor generosity enables A&S to promote intellectual debate on leading edge topics and to attract star professors to the College.
PST celebrated its 50th anniversary with a symposium for alumni, faculty and current students made possible by philanthropic support. A recent significant gift alongside other generous donations have helped secure the future of PST and serve as a model for expanding interdisciplinary majors across Arts & Sciences.
Decades ago, passionate alumni helped form the Foundation to ensure the philanthropic support the needed by the College to flourish. Twenty-five years and a billion dollars later, the Foundation is still advancing the academic mission of Arts & Sciences thanks to generations of benevolent alumni, parents, and friends.
UVA opened its doors to students and held its very first “College” classes in 1825. Today, its academic mission is stronger than ever, thanks in part to donor support. To celebrate, Arts & Sciences is kicking off a year-long bicentennial celebration.
A formal Investiture Ceremony recently celebrated 16 faculty who were awarded prestigious named professorships. Philanthropic support makes these possible to recognize top professors for contributions to research, teaching, and the University community.