Achievements

WVU faculty generate over $143 million annually in sponsored contracts and research grants.

The Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute—the world’s first institute devoted to the study of human memory—is at WVU.

The FBI named WVU its national leader for biometrics research. The partnership identifies WVU as the academic arm of the FBI’s Biometric Center of Excellence.

Donor pledges and state matches translated into $6.5 million for WVU research during the first year of the state’s Research Trust Fund.

Forest scientists at WVU have successfully cloned the American chestnut, a species that was almost eradicated by a fungus during the early 1900s.

An international team led by WVU astrophysicist Duncan Lorimer and Sloan Fellow Maura McLaughlin have discovered a double-star system that represents a missing link stage in what they believe is the birth process of the most rapidly spinning stars in the universe—millisecond pulsars.

WVU has the largest crime scene training complex in the world (three crime scene houses and a forensic garage).

The WVU Honors College recently published the Mountaineer Undergraduate Research Review, the University’s first research journal for undergraduates.

Bonnie’s Bus, WVU Hospital’s mobile digital mammography unit, travels to West Virginia counties that have the worst breast cancer mortality rates.

For 25 years, the Job Accommodation Network (JAN) located at WVU has served the nation by providing free consulting services designed to increase the employability of people with disabilities.

The College of Creative Arts offers one of only three puppetry degree programs in the country.

WVU was the second academic institution in the world to require electronic submission of theses and dissertations.

WVU students are studying abroad all over the world – in 2007-08, over 800 students traveled to Italy, Peru, China, Jordan, Russia, Dubai, Mexico, England, Chile, Malawi, and many other destinations.

The Corporate Citizenship Project, a business management course, teaches students to wisely give away money to support nonprofits. Students have given $165,000 to local nonprofits since the program began eight years ago.

WVU houses the International Collection of Vesicular-Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, the only large repository of these fungi in the world.

“West Virginia Uncovered: Multimedia Journalism from the Mountains” is a Web-based, student-centered project in the P.I. Reed School of Journalism that helps rural newspapers prepare for the changing media landscape.

Betty Shelton, associate dean for undergraduate academic affairs at the School of Nursing, was named a 2009 fellow by the National League for Nursing’s Academy of Nursing Education. She created the “Shelton Model of Student Retention,” which stresses face-to-face interviews for all nursing school candidates. The School now boasts a 90 percent student retention rate.