Presidential Goal #2: Grow interdisciplinary research excellence

By Chris Buchignani

Dr. Lora Weiss, senior vice president for Research will have the job of maintaining the scope and status of Penn State’s billion-dollar research juggernaut while identifying ways to spark innovation and increase competitiveness. Navigating this challenging arena will mean finding and keeping diverse, top-tier faculty, exploring potential new fields/areas of study, and being aggressive on ways to monetize research. Joining Dr. Weiss are co-leads Kevin Black (Interim
Dean for the College of Medicine) and Justin Schwartz (Interim Executive Vice President and Provost).

Focus areas that caught our eye:

• Increasing research expenditures to continue to lead Penn State research to top rankings
• Pursuing large Program Project (P01) grants and incentivizing interdisciplinary and multi-university partnerships that increase research funding and scale of impact
• Increasing biomedical and health-related research, translational research and commercialization opportunities

Read the full article on Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi’s vision for the University