Our Impact

From 2017 - 2022, the Center for Engineering in Medicine provided over $1 million per year in seed funding to support the formation of new collaborations and launch promising new projects at the engineering-medicine interface. The center helped build partnerships and promoted cross-pollination between engineering and medicine through a strategy called embedding - physical co-location between labs. The center also provided extensive mentorship and research development support.

Participant Feedback

"The EIM grant was instrumental in helping us secure the efforts of critical staff and students to help push this project forward. We have recently submitted an AHRQ grant that was scored but not funded, and we are actively in the process of resubmitting it. Thank you so much for the support."

"EIM is a fantastic program that enables trainees/students to become further educated on grant writing and working on multidisciplinary research projects. This program also promotes the collaboration between researchers in various departments, schools, and universities that otherwise might not have occurred. Such seed money is an instrumental component of a university."

"We really appreciate the funding from the Engineering in Medicine.  We appreciate the opportunity to collaborate between Engineering and Pediatrics and expose Engineering Students to the clinical world, and the needs of specific patients.  Thank you for funding our work and collaboration."

"Our team greatly values and acknowledges the exceptional leadership and invaluable opportunities that the EIM program has provided us. The program's internal funding support, comprehensive workshops, and embedding plans have been immensely beneficial for our team in initiating new research directions. These platforms also help engineering students broaden their perspectives and deepen their knowledge regarding how engineering research directly influences patient care and healthcare systems. The drastic learning experiences enable them to bridge the gap between engineering principles and clinical needs, fostering a holistic approach to their contributions to the field. More importantly, the EIM has been the best internal seed program offering junior faculty (who are interested in engineering and medical research) guidance and tracking their progress with feedback. We sincerely express our heartfelt appreciation for the tremendous efforts invested in the program."

"What a fantastic and productive program. Great staff was key to fostering projects and transitioning to external funding for sustainable science."

"This program was very helpful in seeding new collaborations.  In fact, just last week I just learned about a spin-off collaboration that one of my co-investigators started with two physicians. Congratulations on a nicely run program."

"It was a great experience and transformative for my lab, my students, and my collaborators! Thank you for all the support!"

"Our EIM seed grant paved the way for Dr. Amy Mathers and me to work together shortly before the pandemic began. When it did, our work soon pivoted to focus on passive wastewater-based covid surveillance. This technique was then implemented in residence halls at UVA for the 2020-2021 academic year. Our team published two impactful papers about the covid surveillance work (in addition to two other student-first-authored papers about the original topic of our EIM seed grant). If we had not already had the EIM seed grant as a mechanism to bring us together before the pandemic first started, I don't think we would have been in a position to stand up the wastewater covid testing. Thank you!"

"Our team was really grateful to have this pilot funding that allowed us to collect data and successfully acquire an NIH R21 grant to complete a secondary data project."

"The EIM program has been absolutely critical to my academic career in terms of supporting successful, external proposals and establishing a network of collaborators within different disciplines. My first EIM seed pilot grant resulted in a funded NIH R01 and the second in a grant through the Betty Moore Foundation. These external proposals were funded because we had strong pilot data and evidence of working together as a team which was possible due to EIM. This is a wonderful model that should be replicated at other schools. Thank you to the entire EIM team for your incredible support and dedication to innovative interdisciplinary collaboration."

"This program directly led to my current NCI R37 funding (essentially up to a 7-year R01). I could not have obtained promotion without the support of this program and its wonderful staff."

"The EIM seed grant provided me the opportunity to work on a project which was small enough that it could reasonably be accomplished in the 1-year time frame.  Scoping out and successfully completing this project created a positive track record for me, which has helped me secure other work opportunities.  In addition, presenting the results of the EIM project at a SOM Research Retreat directly led to me being introduced to the group I now work with.  Some of the work with this new group (which was completely separate from the EIM project) formed a critical part of a funded NIH RO1 application."