Investing in the Unexpected: A&S Distinguished Scholar Awards Spark New Opportunities for Researchers
Last year, the University of Virginia’s College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences awarded additional funding to faculty members who had secured prestigious external fellowships, enabling them to expand their research in unexpected and transformative ways. These “top-off” awards are designed to supplement major grants and fellowships from other organizations, enabling A&S faculty to expand the scope of their research, integrate emerging methodologies and explore collaborations broader than originally envisioned.
“The groundbreaking research our faculty are pursuing — often in unexpected and transformative directions — demonstrates the power of inquiry when given the right support,” said Christa Acampora, Buckner W. Clay Professor of Philosophy and dean of Arts & Sciences. “These awards provide more than just funding; they reflect our deep commitment to fostering intellectual discovery and enabling our scholars to push the boundaries of knowledge. I am incredibly proud of what our faculty have accomplished through this program, and I look forward to seeing how their work continues to shape their fields and inspire our students.”
The program not only recognizes faculty excellence but also underscores the College’s commitment to fostering intellectual discovery that evolves in real time.
For some awardees, this has meant being able to apply previously unexplored interdisciplinary approaches to their research, while others leveraged the extra support to enhance public engagement or create new research opportunities for their students.
Through initiatives like these enhanced fellowship awards, A&S continues to champion scholarly innovation, proving that with the right support, groundbreaking research can take unexpected — and extraordinary — turns.
Meet some of the faculty recipients of Arts & Science’s supplemental research grants:
Zachary Irving: Exploring the Philosophy of Mind and Action
For Zachary Irving, a cognitive scientist and assistant professor with the Department of Philosophy, the award supplemented a sabbatical fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Initially, his plan was to dedicate a year to writing his book The Spontaneity Deficit, which explores how digital distractions are reshaping our attention spans and reducing spontaneous forms of thought like mind-wandering that help us be creative and explore new perspectives. Over the course of the year, however, it became apparent to Irving that a second book was also necessary. While The Spontaneity Deficit, written for a more general audience, will explore the impact of technology on spontaneity, Irving felt it was also important to explore some of the more technical questions about spontaneity and mind wandering. As a result, a second book project, The Wandering Mind, will provide researchers with a philosophical and scientific framework for understanding the role of spontaneity in our cognitive and ethical lives.
Irving credits the award for enabling him to expand the initial scope of his project. “Having the time to pivot was crucial,” he said. “The award allowed me time to rethink the work in the way that will give it greater impact and get closer to the heart of the ideas.”
A scholar whose work crosses conventional academic boundaries, Irving added that the additional support is especially important to addressing some of the unique challenges of interdisciplinary research.
“Interdisciplinary work can be very expensive, both in terms of money and time,” Irving said. “There are costs involved in building bridges across disciplines, which requires the creation of new infrastructure That makes the time afforded by my top-up award especially crucial.”
Elizabeth Varon: Bringing Clara Barton's Legacy to Light
UVA’s Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History and an executive committee member of the University’s John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History, Elizabeth Varon is currently writing a biography of Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, pioneering nurse, suffragist, diplomat and philanthropist whose humanitarian work spanned both the U.S. and Europe, providing relief to victims of warfare and of natural disasters.
A&S top-off funding made it possible for Varon to accept the prestigious Harmsworth Chair of American History at Oxford University for the 2023-24 academic year. While in the United Kingdom, she further expanded her research by exploring Barton's similarities to the legendary British humanitarian Florence Nightingale.
According to Varon, A&S’s enhanced funding is creating vital opportunities like hers to pursue international fellowships that advance research while deepening UVA’s global impact. During her Oxford tenure, Varon and the UVA’s Nau Civil War Center had the opportunity to co-sponsor a conference with Oxford’s Rothermere American Institute — an unexpected opportunity that she believes will foster lasting institutional connections and collaboration.
“It is mutually beneficial for individual scholars and for UVA as an institution to support such research, as doing so generates new knowledge and burnishes UVA's international reputation,” Varon said.
Fotini Kondyli: Reimagining Byzantine Athens
An associate professor of Byzantine art & archaeology, Fotini Kondyli is reshaping the study of Byzantine Athens with her research project, Inhabiting Byzantine Athens, which explores the city's topography and daily life between the ninth and 15th centuries. Using archaeological archives and digital tools, Kondyli is reconstructing lost urban landscapes and highlighting the roles ordinary people played in shaping the city.
The enhanced A&S award provided Kondyli with crucial support that made it possible to expand hands-on student training in digital archaeology, giving students unique opportunities to explore university resources like recording studios, 3D printing facilities and makers’ spaces, and advanced digital tools for archaeological visualization. The award also supported student fieldwork in Greece, offering them firsthand experience with artifacts and excavation techniques.
While Kondyli originally intended the project to be an academic study of Byzantine topography and urban life, the opportunity to integrate immersive experiences into the project allowed her to completely reshape the project into a public-facing endeavor, Kondyli said.
“These tools not only help us reconstruct the past but also invite people to step into it, allowing them to experience Byzantine Athens in ways that are engaging, accessible and thought-provoking,” Kondyli said.
Kondyli’s work has been gaining popularity in Greece where she is currently serving as the Elizabeth A. Whitehead Distinguished Scholar at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Growing interest in her work from the public and the Greek media, Kondyli said, illustrates how integrating storytelling, immersive experiences and digital tools can create meaningful connections between academic research and the public, inspiring wider participation in the study of the past and the protection of cultural heritage.
