SIF178 Building on Success

Project Manager: Ian Baucom

Approved: Spring 2021

This award is intended to extend the life of the following successful activities at UVA: Targets of Opportunity (ToPS), Cluster Hires, Environmental Resiliency Institute (ERI), and Global Infectious Diseases Institute (GIDI).

Project Dates: 7/1/2021 – 6/30/2026

Total Funding: $13,000,000

Executive Summary: 

The University committed support from the Strategic Investment Fund to support various initiatives to further previous initiatives and build on UVA's recent success. These include:

• $11 million for faculty hiring through the  Cluster and Target of Opportunity (TOPs) faculty hiring programs
• $2 million dollars to support two Pan-University Institutes, the Environmental Resilience lnstitute (ERI) and the Global Infectious Diseases Institute (GIDI).

Current Status: Active

Progress: 

The SIF178 funds are being used for two purposes: to support the hiring of faculty in cluster areas of strategic importance to the University, and to support the continuation of two Pan-University Institutes: the UVA Environmental Resilience Institute (ERI) and the UVA Global Infectious Diseases Institute (GIDI).

During the last year, SIF178 funds were used to hire one faculty member, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Resiliency/Environmental Change cluster.  All 11 initially approved cluster hire positions have now been filled, in addition to 5 target-of-opportunity (TOPs) hires in the first year of the program.

The SIF178 funds can also be used to support the hiring of Mellon Postdoctoral Fellows into faculty roles. The Mellon Postdoctoral program was awarded by the Mellon Foundation to support the hiring of postdocs that support the Race and Inequality Cluster; this is a program intended to help these scholars transition to professorial roles. The provost committed $300,000 per year for three years to support the hire of Mellon scholars as faculty in the Race and Inequality Cluster; $900,000 was set aside from SIF178 for this purpose. Three Mellon postdocs were hired in the Race and Inequality cluster. There are funds reserved to hire an additional six Mellon postdocs.