What comes to mind when you think of The George Washington University? Our prime location in the heart of the nation’s capital? The fact that GW is currently a “hot” school for undergraduates? Perhaps our strengths in public policy, politics, international affairs, and law? What you’ll discover in GW Research is that there’s a lot more to us.

GW is a complex and diverse research university with top-notch and exciting research, scholarship, and creative activity in all of its colleges and schools: arts and sciences, business, education, engineering, international affairs, law, medicine and health sciences, public health and health services, and professional studies. We are also a research university on the rise. We had approximately $55 million in sponsored research expenditures in 1997, but $125 million in 2004, an increase of 127 percent. The Medical Center’s research expenditures have climbed from $20 million to more than $42 million, and the rest of the University’s expenditures from $35 million to $83 million, during those eight years.

Now we are committed to building an ever stronger research enterprise, all the while strengthening the intimate ties between research and both undergraduate and graduate education, as well as between research and partnerships with government and industry. One of the six pillars of our 2003 Strategic Plan for Academic Excellence is this goal: “Move GW into the ranks of the top-tier research institutions through continued and enhanced facilitation of faculty scholarship and research growth.” We are moving.

Because all of our schools have presences on our Foggy Bottom Campus, interdisciplinary collaborations are usually only a block or three away. Because we are where we are, partnerships with the National Institutes of Health, the Naval Research Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Homeland Security, and other national laboratories and federal agencies, as well as with premier institutions such as the Children’s National Medical Center and The Institute for Genomic Research and corporate partners such as AOL, come easily and serve to expand research opportunities for faculty and students. And for those research groups that need expanded laboratories that our downtown campuses cannot provide, the University’s Virginia Campus in Loudoun County serves as a field of dreams.

In the following pages, we offer a sampling of GW’s researchers and research, touching on topics ranging from skin cancer prevention, cybersecurity, and micro-electro-mechanical sensors to school reform and aging. We celebrate initiatives to entice more undergraduate students into the research enterprise, look at new developments in technology transfer, and present statistics on research. We also introduce two new members of the team: Anne Hirshfield, associate vice president for health research, compliance, and technology transfer; and Elliot Hirshman, interim chief research officer, who has recently assumed responsibilities for research as Carol Sigelman, previously the associate vice president for research and graduate studies, has taken on new duties as associate vice president for graduate studies and academic affairs. Mainly we pay tribute to all of the faculty members, research staff, graduate students, and others whose dedicated efforts and outstanding accomplishments have been driving, and will continue to drive, our achievements as a research institution. We hope you enjoy getting to know us and will be happy to tell you more (e-mail resgrad@gwu.edu).

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© 2005 The George Washington University
The George Washington University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.