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Research

WVU education, health and wellbeing resources expanded with more than $2M gift

David and Dr. Jo Ann Goldbaugh Shaw, WVU alums and Wheeling natives, have built a legacy of innovation, education and transformation at WVU through charitable giving. Their latest contribution benefits WVU Athletics, the WVU School of Medicine, the David and Jo Ann Shaw Center for Simulation Training and Education for Patient Safety (STEPS) and WVU Medicine Children’s.

WVU engineers advance U.S. Air Force search and rescue missions in hostile territories with unmanned drones

Through a 21-month, $300,000 project with funding from the Small Business Innovation Research of the U.S. Air Force Laboratory and in partnership with Kinnami Software Corporation, engineers in the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources are making it possible for combat search and rescue operations to pinpoint isolated personnel without using radio GPS that can be intercepted.

WVU researchers won’t hit snooze on mattress recycling needs

After years of use, mattresses and the materials that form them are eventually discarded into landfills creating methane gases while their chemicals and dyes seep into soil and groundwater. West Virginia University researchers are working on ways to recycle used mattress textiles to help create biodegradable products as replacements for single-use plastics.

Natural gas is key to WVU engineer’s vision for clean hydrogen energy

With help from new Department of Energy grant funding, Xingbo Liu, a West Virginia University engineer, will work to develop new, cutting-edge coatings for the blades of turbines used in large-scale power generation. These protective layers will be able to withstand the extreme heat and corrosion of hydrogen combustion but work with the principles and technologies of existing natural gas turbines, primarily in power plants.

WVU environmental microbiology student named Goldwater Scholar

A chance decision in high school and the inspiring poster of a previous dual scholarship recipient has led a West Virginia University senior to the laboratory of one of the University’s notable researchers and her own Goldwater and Udall scholarships.

WVU research finds LGBTQ people face barriers to health care, especially in rural areas

By interviewing researchers and physicians, Zachary Ramsey — a doctoral candidate in the School of Public Health — identified four pressing health issues that sexual and gender minorities face: discrimination, heteronormativity, health care system barriers and the interconnectedness of physical, mental and social health.

New WVU program trains next generation of toxicologists to collect, analyze air samples from mining, fracking sites

With a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, the University is launching an immersive, interdisciplinary program that centers on WVU’s Inhalation Facility. The 40 doctoral students who participate will use the Facility, one of only a few like it in the country, to analyze the toxicity of air samples they’ve collected in the field and investigate how air pollution affects entire systems of the body, rather than just single cells.

Two WVU undergraduate students named Beckman Scholars

Bryan Ho, originally from Martinsburg, and Zachary Ellis, a native of Renick, were named to WVU’s third and final cohort for the award which was initially granted to the University in 2020. Both students are biochemistry majors and members of the WVU Honors College.