Faculty Net $96.2M in Research Contracts and Grants for FY25, $350M Over Past Three Years

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Sept. 23, 2025) – North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University faculty earned nearly $96.2 million in research contracts and grants for fiscal year 2025 – just a tick below last year’s total of $102 million – despite funding headwinds that research universities faced this year across the country.

Though North Carolina A&T researchers saw $24 million in research projects terminated by the federal government this calendar year, only $6.6 million of that total mapped to projects funded in FY2025. The remaining $17.4 million was taken from multi-year awards made in prior years. Across the country, many research universities experienced reductions of as much as 25%.

A&T’s $96.2 million total included 25 total awards in excess of $1 million. Over the past three years, Aggie researchers have earned nearly $350 million in external funding for a sprawling range of projects in agriculture and environmental sciences, human and animal health, engineering, science and technology.

“We are proud of the societal impact our researchers continue to make through projects supported by various funding agencies,” said Melissa Hodge-Penn, Ed.D., interim vice chancellor for Research. “Their work reflects our commitment to advancing knowledge that serves the community and drives innovation. As we look ahead, we’re excited to continue building on this momentum and expanding the reach of our research mission.”

Projects that received funding include:

• The U.S. Department of Education awarded a four-year, $4.5 million grant to expand A&T’s research and teaching capacity in the biomedical life sciences. Andrea Gentry-Apple, D.V.M., a teaching assistant professor in the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences is the lead principal investigator (PI) on the project, along with co-PIs Robert Newman, Ph.D., of the College of Science and Technology (CoST) and Shyam Aravamudham, Ph.D., of the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering. This funding will enhance the team’s cability to conduct research and train undergraduate, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers on state-of-the-art equipment. A portion of the funding was used to complete renovations to A&T’s 13,000-square-foot vivarium, which will come online this academic year.
• The U.S. Department of Defense awarded $1 million over a four-year period to Tianjun Xie, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Engineering’s Department of Chemical, Biological and Bioengineering. Xie’s project, “Enhancing Ionic Conductivity of Solid-State Electrolytes via Computation, Modulation, and Characterization (CMC),” aims to improve the performance of solid-state batteries by engineering the solid materials that conduct lithium ions (called solid-state electrolytes) and promote better interfaces. The team is working toward higher energy densities, longer lifetimes and enhanced safety in solid-state batteries, which will undoubtedly advance technologies including electric vehicles and portable electronics that can better combat readiness and, ultimately, national security.
• Google awarded a two-year, $225,000 grant as part of an overall $25 million initiative across 10 states and five youth organizations to develop artificial intelligence literacy among educators and students. As the 4-H STEM specialist with Cooperative Extension at A&T, Mark Light, Ph.D., co-chairs the National AI Curriculum for this project and leads North Carolina’s efforts to develop 4-H curriculum and best practices for using AI, in addition to ensuring equal access to AI tools. Light aims to reach at least 15,000 North Carolina youth and 2,000 adults with AI education and training by May 2026.
• NC Collaboratory awarded a two-year, $75,000 grant to Liesl Jeffers-Francis, Ph.D., an associate professor in CoST and a recipient of the 2025 Award for Excellence in Teaching by the University of North Carolina Board of Governors. Jeffers-Francis and her team will conduct a critical study to better understand how microbial contamination in household plumbing may contribute to environmental health disparities across North Carolina. Particular focus will be placed on the presence of antimicrobial-resistant pathogens like ESKAPE organisms, which are of increasing concern to public health officials. Data will be collected from homes across the Greensboro and Durham areas. The study is part of a broader initiative linked to the National Science Foundation-funded Precision Microbiome Engineering (PreMiEr) Research Center.
• Newman, the Nathan F. Simms Distinguished Professor in CoST’s Department of Biology, was awarded a $1.8 million R35 Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). The R35 grant mechanism, which recognizes an individual investigator’s sustained research excellence and potential for groundbreaking research, is one of the most prestigious grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Newman’s R35 project explores the impact of redox modification on the function of protein kinases in health and disease.
  Protein kinases are a family of signaling enzymes that play a central role in regulating essential cellular functions such as metabolism, cell division, cell migration, and programmed cell death. Consequently, the dysregulation of kinase-dependent signaling has been implicated in many pervasive diseases, including diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and a variety of neurological disorders.