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Research Highlights & Innovation

biomechanical hand developed by students

Advancing Knowledge: It’s What We Do

As a research university, we go beyond simply preserving and passing on knowledge — we advance knowledge. There are always new ways that the University is exploring what's possible and pushing the horizon of future breakthroughs. 

Research at the School of Engineering ranges from investigations into medical imaging to robotics to environmental engineering. The school's many labs constantly foster innovation and exploration.
Our biology research is on the cutting-edge forefront of medical innovation. As one example, Dr. Venigalla Rao, an expert in virus and bacteriophage studies, led a research project that contributed toward the development of COVID-19 vaccines.
University-affiliated NASA researchers are part of an international team that has proven the existence of the ambipolar electric field, a global energy field that has eluded scientists for decades.
Students test a golf adaptation device they helped develop for a wounded veteran. The research conducted by Catholic University's biomedical engineering students have fascinating real-world applications.
Medieval Day is an annual festival hosted by Catholic University's Medieval Society that celebrates and showcases medieval culture and research. The day features musical performances, medieval warfare demonstrations, and more. Catholic University boasts a strong medieval studies program including important collections and connections with other medieval scholars in the D.C. area.
The schools of philosophy and theology are sources of important research being conducted in their fields. The School of Theology and Religious studies is home to several research centers such as the Institute for the Study of Eastern Christianity and the Center for Carmelite Studies.
Catholic University is home to the Oliveira Lima Library, a collection of materials relevant to the study of Portuguese and Brazilian history and culture. Rich in primary sources, including a wealth of materials for the study of Portuguese and Brazilian literature and the history of the Catholic Church in the Portuguese-speaking world, the library is the strongest collection of its kind outside of Portugal and Brazil.
The Latin American Center for Graduate Studies in Music (LAMC) features a library of scores, books, and recordings of Ibero-American music. The library, and our Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art provide a wealth of resources for the fields of music and musicology.

Current Featured Projects

At Catholic University, we believe that great discovery can happen across all of the academic disciplines. Here are some of recent research projects that are advancing knowledge and pushing innovation at the University.

student at the NASA Goddard office

An Agile Partner for NASA

Catholic University is the lead institution in a $64 million cooperative agreement with NASA to support and advance the scientific and technical program of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Heliophysics Science Division.
Explore This Partnership
Dr. Rao in a lab coat

Seminal Research Leads to $5m NIH/NIDA grant

Professor Venigalla Rao recently won a $5 million grant from the NIH/National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Avant-Garde Award Program for HIV and Substance Use Disorder Research. Rao previously conducted seminal research to tease out the mechanisms of viral DNA packaging.
Read About This Grant
Luke Burgis speaking at an event

A New Model for Public Engagement

The Templeton Foundation has awarded Professor Luke Burgis a $2.5 million grant to create an institutional framework that brings together leaders from three metaphorical “cities” — Athens (the Academy), Jerusalem (religion), and Silicon Valley (technology) — to model dialogue on serious issues that are not being addressed in interdisciplinary ways.
Learn More About This Project

The Study of Meaning, Beauty, and Understanding

  • Sociology professor Brandon Vaidyanathan speaking at an event.

    Beauty, Wonder, and Awe As Part of Scientific Understanding

    Through his recent Templeton grant, Professor Brandon Vaidyanathan conducted the world’s first large-scale study of the role of beauty in science. The findings showed that beauty matters immensely to scientists and shapes their work profoundly.

  • David Jobes portrait

    Saving Lives: Suicide Prevention Interventions

    Professor David Jobes is one of the country’s preeminent researchers of suicide prevention. Jobes runs the University’s Suicide Prevention Lab and developed the widely used clinical intervention CAMS (Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality).

  • statue of Saint Thomas Aquinas

    Getting Aquinas Right: The Critical Edition of His Work

    Professor Kevin White is a member of the Leonine Commission (Commissio Leonina) commissioned by Pope Leo XIII in 1880 to produce the critical edition of the Opera Omnia of St. Thomas Aquinas. The work of the Leonine Commission is ongoing.

Innovations in Nursing, Architecture, and Sustainability

  • A nursing student uses a headset during a demo for an immersive simulation of a lumbar puncture procedure.

    Learning Nursing in the Metaverse

    Before our nursing students even set foot in a physical hospital, they gain experience using extended reality technologies to simulate real patient care scenarios, allowing them to practice patient care and make mistakes without the risk of harming human patients.

  • Student assembling a geodesic dome at smithsonian day

    Partnering with Smithsonian Institution on a Geodesic Dome

    Our architecture students partnered with Smithsonian Institution staff to study, fabricate, and reconstruct the famous “Weatherbreak” geodesic dome and to revisit dome architecture as a possible solution for affordable and resilient housing for those displaced by extreme weather events.

  • Solar array on CUA campus

    Pioneering Sustainable Energy Solutions: Our Solar Array

    The University has launched its innovative new solar array, which will supply renewable energy for the University and Washington, D.C. communities and will save an estimated 7.115 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

inventio staff gathered in a circle discussing the next issue

Inventio: A Journal of Student Discovery 

Inventio publishes original undergraduate research that best represents the University’s commitment to the academic and Catholic traditions that inform its mission to “discover and impart the truth.” 

Facebook’s Accountability Crisis: The Factors Influencing Modern Digital Censorship (by Joseph Gabriel Brasco) 

More Than Interested Observers: The Effect of Brexit Negotiations Regarding Northern Ireland on a US-UK Trade Deal (by Christopher Carey) 

Dancing Through a Revolution: Content and Artistry in Soviet Ballet (by Jana Jedrych) 

University Research Day

University Research Day (URD) is the University's premier annual research event for students. Our community gathers for a full day to celebrate its long research tradition and showcase current research being conducted across the disciplines. Visit the 2024 Research Day website to see the breadth of our students’ research. 

Browse All 2024 Research Presentations

Did You Know?

Catholic University faculty have a rich history of research discoveries and innovation. See a few highlights that are part of our history.

Albert F. Zahm built America’s first wind tunnel equipped with instruments for scientific study here in 1901.

Catholic University physics professor Clyde Cowan was co-discoverer, with Frederick Reines, of the elementary subatomic particle called the neutrino. For this discovery, first announced in 1956, Reines was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1995. He received the prize in both his and Cowan’s names.

Catholic University Provost Aaron Dominguez was a member of the team that discovered the Higgs boson particle in 2012. This “monumental milestone in particle physics” marked the start of a new era of research, according to Fabiola Gianotti, director-general of CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research).

The University’s Vitreous State Laboratory (VSL), led by Ian Pegg, has been pioneering a nuclear waste management method through a process called vitrification, in which radioactive waste is transformed into a very durable glass using a 2,000-degree Fahrenheit melter. This method helps contain nuclear waste and prevent it from leaching into the surrounding environment, yielding a more environmentally-friendly way of handling nuclear waste.

Justine Bayard Ward developed the groundbreaking Ward Method of music instruction in 1929, which had a profound effect on how music was taught in Catholic schools throughout the 20th century and even today.

Rev. Eugene Xavier Henri Hyvernat, a member of the University’s original faculty, began assembling resources for the study of Coptic languages as early as 1889, an effort that laid the foundation for the extraordinary collection of rare books, widely used today, in the Catholic University Semitics Library.

The University curates and maintains Special Collections in its Library to support advanced research in many fields of the humanities and social sciences.

student taking notes in class

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