The University’s Office of Engagement, housed within the External Relations office, hosted their final webinar of the semester in their “Leader to Leader — Insights from U.Va. Leadership” series Wednesday which featured Lori McMahon, University vice president for research and professor of Neuroscience. McMahon detailed the three key roles of the Office of Research and how the opening of the Paul and Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology will allow the University to partner with major drug companies to educate new students, scientists and technicians.
The Leader to Leader series consists of private events held for University alumni who remain a “dedicated volunteer” to connect with and learn from various leaders on Grounds. In the webinar, McMahon discussed the main roles that the office holds and how research is an important part of the University.
“Research is important to advancing how we live our lives,” McMahon said. “Whether it be in new medicines … [or] in humanities and fine arts, it provides new information.”
McMahon said the first role of the Office of the Vice President for Research is ensuring research is ethical, safe and responsible. The second role involves overseeing the $571 million research portfolio and any legalities that may be involved with new discoveries — the portfolio is sponsored mainly by national research grants, for which the University competes. The third role includes turning the discoveries into impact by making sure that the new developments are broadcasted to the public — she noted the office has a research communications team to communicate findings to the “non-expert public.”
In the webinar, McMahon shared the research grants for the current and previous fiscal years. Within the portfolio, she shared a graph that showed the $571 million sponsored research amount from the past fiscal year, which is “the highest amount to date.”
In addition to the high funding received this fiscal year, the graph also showed a decrease in the amount of federal funding compared to this time last year, which McMahon said she believes is due to the government shutdown in late 2025, which slowed the release of grant money from federal funding agencies.
“So we are anxious to see, as we approach the fiscal year, to see if we are going to reach the same level [of federal funding] that we reached last year,” McMahon said. “Even with all of the turmoil in the past year, with all the changes in federal funding and the government shutdown and the executive orders, we have fared well at U.Va.”
According to a pie chart shared by McMahon, nearly 82 percent of funding for research at the University is provided by the federal government. She noted when changes are made to the federal government regarding research, the University becomes “concerned.” Though she pointed out the University has overall survived the slowdown in grant money, according to McMahon, some grants were still lost from the federal regulations. McMahon shared that two grants from the Environmental Protection Agency — totaling to $40 million — were cancelled last year.
Looking specifically at the breakdown of federal research funding, McMahon explained that of the 82 percent of federal funding provided to the University for research, 64 percent of it is provided by the National Institute of Health, which makes the NIH the largest contributor.
McMahon showed a graph in the webinar that demonstrated the release of funding from the National Institute of Health, specifically. The graph pictured lines that represented the fiscal years 2021-26. The lines denoting the years 2025 and 2026 were lower than that of 2021-24, which McMahon explained is because of the slowdown in the Office of Treasury — specifically the Office of Management and Budget — in releasing grant awards to the National Institute of Health. However, she pointed out that the University is still receiving grants at the same pace compared to last year.
“Even with this slowdown, we are lucky here at U.Va., [to be] receiving new grant awards at the same pace that we received them last year,” McMahon said. “Which wasn’t too far behind these years of 2021 to 2024.”
McMahon detailed future research initiatives at the University, including the arrival of the Manning Institute of Biotechnology — she said the first part of the building will open in December 2027. The Manning Institute will serve as a building for life sciences research with a focus on biotechnology and the development of new medicines.
The Institute will have four focus areas — cardiovascular disease, immunotherapy, neurodegeneration and cancer. The Institute will also work closely with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to accelerate drug discovery and development.
“We’re going to create biotech startups and entrepreneurs,” McMahon said. “Really, this will have a lot of economic impact across the state.”
McMahon concluded the webinar by detailing her “strategies for future success,” through the recent launch of 15 new research hubs. According to McMahon, the hubs help position the University in a competitive position for new federal funding and will enhance the University’s “readiness” in creating new research development materials — she did not specify the locations or other details for these hubs.
“We want to have influence on [the] NIH, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and Defense," McMahon said. “[We’re] going to be sharing materials and ideas and concept papers, [facilitating] collaboration on Grounds … so that we make sure we have all of our experts [with] shared interests … working together.”
In an interview with The Cavalier Daily following the webinar, Andrea Devine, senior director of volunteer engagement with the Office of Engagement, said McMahon was a prominent and timely figure to speak at the webinar event.
“We thought that with all of the things going on in research, especially with the Manning Institute opening soon … and [with] the announcement with AstraZeneca, we thought people would be interested in hearing from her,” Devine said.
The Leader to Leader webinar series will continue to host sessions in the 2026 Fall semester — the speakers for those events have not yet been announced.
Read More
Student Council swears in Michael Mitchell as president for the 2026-27 academic year
By Jaylynn Perez | 13 hours agoRepresentatives also swore in third-year College student Saehee Pérez as Student Council vice president for administration and third-year Batten student Harper Tran as vice president for organizations.
Iranian international students face visa challenges amidst national policy shifts
By Michael Racz | 3 days agoAccording to representatives from the International Studies Office, the ban on issuing student visas is prompting many students to consider extending their studies at the University to remain in the United States.
Honor Committee holds its final meeting of the 2025-26 academic year
By Isabela Delgado | 3 days agoThe Honor Committee met Sunday for its final meeting of the 2025-26 academic year to discuss a recommendation of how to handle student unresponsiveness after students are notified of an alleged violation of the University’s honor code.
