As developmental scientists, our goal is to build a multidisciplinary team anchored in family and community engagement, focused on sustained partnerships in rural Georgia through engagement with middle schoolers. Through authentic relationship building rather than episodic recruitment, we will develop a long-term participant pool and incorporate community needs and priorities into future research planning, based […]
August 14, 2026
Developing Techniques & Devices for AI Enabled Earth-Observing Small Satellites VIPR Team
With the proliferation of satellites in space, low Earth orbit traffic becomes “jammed”, making it necessary to be more efficient in space-based data collection and downlink. From the perspective of Earth observers, the way to accomplish this efficiency goal is twofold: 1) Use small satellites (CubeSats), which have shorter mission lifetimes and more easily satisfy […]
August 14, 2026
DRIVE: Data-driven Research and Innovation for Vehicle and Infrastructure Ecosystems
This team will establish an interdisciplinary research hub advancing connected and automated mobility systems through student-driven, experiential research. Students engage across the system-of-systems lifecycle, from real-world data collection and AI-enabled analytics, to application development in control, planning, and decision-making, and to multi-resolution simulation and real-world testing. Individual projects address technical, social, or policy dimensions, while […]
August 14, 2026
Earth System Model Analysis for Industry Applications
Weather and climate events can have major impacts on society, via both extremes and persistent conditions. These events can impact society directly, such as damaging infrastructure and transportation systems, disrupting agricultural and industrial operations, and loss of lives, as well as indirectly by disturbing natural ecosystems. This project team will develop reliable climate data analysis […]
August 14, 2026
This team will offer students an experiential learning opportunity in plant genome editing to create resilient plants. Through active participation in research, students will engage in the full pipeline—from experimental design to data collection, and statistical analysis. The team will employ hands-on lab projects with cutting-edge theory, helping students build critical skills in plant biology, […]
August 14, 2026
GlycoCURE Discovery is an interdisciplinary VIPR team focused on harnessing drug discovery and glycobiology to develop new disease models and therapeutic approaches for treating rare disease, with particular focus on congenital disorders of glycosylation (CDGs). Approximately 30 million individuals in the United States are living with a rare disease, which by definition have a prevalence of […]
August 14, 2026
Hydropolis: Urban Infrastructure and Hydrology Research
Hydropolis creates sustainable, resilient, and biodiverse communities by analyzing ecosystems and designing interventions like green spaces, waterway rehabilitations, and infrastructural innovations across urban and rural contexts. Our hybrid approach combines engineering, design, and communication science to reimagine infrastructure and how it is understood. We investigate an array of exciting topics that include water quality management […]
August 14, 2026
Humanities in Public Life: A Multilingual Inquiry
This team will investigate how the humanities shape public life by analyzing cultural narratives, speech, and multilingual discourse in the U.S. Drawing on mixed methods from linguistics, literature, theater, and language studies, we aim to produce research-based insights into how humanistic practices contribute to civic dialogue, identity formation, and social cohesion. Our goal is to […]
March 5, 2026
Corpora and AI Tools For Low-Resource Languages
Our team’s goal is to expand resources for linguistic corpora, especially for low-resource languages and varieties. This includes the collection of spoken or textual linguistic data from under-represented varieties, the use of AI to facilitate data transcription and annotation, the creation of accessible resources and tools for using these corpora, and the linguistic analysis of […]
March 4, 2026
Miniature Smart City for Autonomous and Intelligent Vehicles
We will build and expand on a modular miniature smart‑city testbed with multiple autonomous vehicles and instrumented infrastructure. Achieve robust single‑car autonomy (perception, localization, control) then scale to coordinated multi‑vehicle traffic (junction rules, L3 autonomy, collision avoidance). Add energy‑aware routing with autonomous charging and task allocation. Build on the existing hardware-software framework int he lab, […]
February 28, 2026
Photonic Materials from Nanocrystals to Bulk
Crystals are more than beautiful geometric forms—they are the backbone of modern photonics, quantum technologies, and other advanced applications. The goals of this VIPR are to investigate and engineer the structure–property relationships that govern crystal performance across length scales. Students work in a collaborative research team to design, synthesize, and characterize crystals and integrate spectroscopy, […]
February 28, 2026
The UGA Athens campus provides many unique opportunities for learning. Our VIPR team will employ the notion of campus as a living lab to explore current issues in urban water resources and to develop a mechanistic understanding of streams traversed by decades of UGA students. The field of water resources science is intrinsically interdisciplinary and spans undergraduate […]
February 26, 2026
Our team engineers next-generation viral vectors by repurposing high-impact plant pathogens—such as Citrus Tristeza Virus (CTV), which shares replication strategies with SARS-CoV-2—into modular tools for crop protection. The students will focus on ‘Genome Refactoring’ to streamline complex architectures into stable ‘cargo-ready’ expression platforms. By leveraging their natural movement, we enable ‘Targeted Delivery’ of therapeutic molecules, […]
February 26, 2026
This team aims to develop a decision-support framework that integrates weather and seasonal-to-subseasonal (S2S) forecasts with crop yield and nutrient loss models to improve agricultural management in Georgia, and hopefully beyond. The team will explore how forecasts can be used to optimize fertilizer management prone to losses from rainfall events and where the forecast information […]
February 24, 2026
Modeling Protein Structure and Function to Better Understand Disease
This research experience is designed such that you will: identify a N-glycoprotein of interest and define the role of this protein in human health, evaluate the impact of the N-glycan on protein structure, learn to utilize linux-based programs, code molecular dynamics simulations of your chosen proteins, and analyze the structural features and motion of your […]
February 23, 2026
Resilient Biometrics and Cybersecurity Systems VIPR Team
The Resilient Biometrics and Cybersecurity Systems (RBCS) VIPR Team will design and develop robust, explainable, and human-centered AI systems for identity management, digital forensics, physical access control, and multispectral target recognition in constrained and unconstrained environments. Students will be trained to conduct interdisciplinary research integrating biometrics, cybersecurity, and advanced imaging to develop resilient identity technologies […]
October 28, 2025
At the frontier of stem cell biology, our team uses human pluripotent stem cells to model the peripheral nervous system and the adrenal gland. We aim to uncover the disease mechanisms underlying diseases that affect those tissues in human patients. From conditions like Familial Dysautonomia to diabetic peripheral neuropathy to adrenal gland insufficiency, our lab’s […]
December 2, 2024
This VIPR team is an interdisciplinary group that examines the risks posed by severe and extreme weather to communities and vital systems. These risks include, but are not limited to, high winds, extreme heat, flooding, drought, and wildfires. The team investigates the interconnected effects of these events – particularly compound and cascading hazardous weather – […]
December 2, 2024
Omics and Machine Learning in Precision Agriculture
This VIPR team will introduce 10 undergraduates to an ancient symbiosis between Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF) and most vascular land plants in the world. The AMF live in root cells to provide Nitrogen and Phosphorous to the plant in return for plant carbon. Students will use a Genome Wide Association Study (GWAS) to capture AMF […]
December 2, 2024
SPREE: Social Psychology of Research Experiences and Education Team
The SPREE team studies undergraduate research experiences, including the impacts of embedding research into courses and expanding the pool of research undergraduate research mentors to include graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. This team designs and conducts qualitative and quantitative studies to understand how different forms of research experiences influence students’ educational and career trajectories—for example, […]
December 2, 2024
Project MACAW: Managing Avian Collisions At Windows
This team will identify hotspots and timing of lethal bird collisions with windows on the UGA campus. Students will: uncover the ecological and design drivers of collisions; assess knowledge and educate UGA students, staff, and faculty about the issue; develop monitoring protocols; and propose innovative solutions to prevent collisions by engaging with multiple stakeholders at […]
December 2, 2024
MIA Search and Recovery Technologies: Lost and Found
This VIPR team will enlist undergrads and grad students in the ongoing search and recovery efforts of Missing in Action military service members. There are currently over 80,000 MIA U.S. military service members whose remains have not been recovered. Over the past three years, the University of Georgia has partnered with external stakeholders involved in […]
December 2, 2024
Metabolomics & Systems Biology VIPR Team
Systems Biology is big data in biology. It often refers to large “omics” datasets that are modeled and analyzed for biological insight. Increasingly, machine learning and AI are important tools in this analysis. The Edison lab specializes in metabolomics, which is one of the major components of systems biology. These technologies are important in many […]
December 2, 2024
Luminous Room Documentary Film Production Group
The team will produce one short documentary film during a year-long cycle. This includes interviewing, collecting b-roll and archival footage, scripting storylines, forging graphics, editing, and exhibiting the final product. Topics generally follow themes of conservation/science or arts/culture. The 2026-27 project will likely be a historic exploration of the music that drove the Civil Rights […]