Faculty Earn $113.3M in Research Funding for FY26, Pushing 5-Year Total Past Half Billion

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Aug. 13, 2026) – Researchers at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University secured $113.3 million in research contracts and grants in the recently concluded fiscal year (July 2025-June 2026) on the strength of a record-setting year in submission of grant proposals and despite an increasingly competitive federal funding arena.

Faculty submitted 511 proposals, making FY26 the first year that North Carolina A&T put forward more than 500 submissions for scientific and engineering research studies. Overall, federal research and development funding has declined for the second consecutive year, leaving many universities challenged to maintain their research budgets. But A&T funding grew by more than $17 million and is already off to a strong start in FY27.

All told, A&T researchers have landed $556 million in research awards over the past five fiscal years, as the university’s research enterprise continued to grow and mature. Just 10 years ago, faculty were earning only half the funding they won last fiscal year.

“Our researchers’ pursuit of extramural funding from diverse sources including federal and state agencies, foundations, public-private partnerships and more, speaks to their dedication to studying and solving real challenges our world faces,” said Lisa Clough, Ph.D., vice chancellor for Research. “Our success in achieving funding growth in challenging times speaks volume about the excellence of the research that happens at A&T.  And combining the two, N.C. A&T researchers most definitely have their foot on the gas, as Chancellor (James R.) Martin (II) always challenges us to do.”

Some of the funded projects include:

• The U.S. Department of Education awarded a total of $3.25 million to three research teams from the College of Education for five-year projects that will advance efforts to support fellowships, programming, and workforce development for students in the M.S. in school counseling and the M.S. in clinical rehabilitation counseling programs.
• The Historically Black College and University Health Equity Data Consortium, housed at A&T and led by Jason Mose, Ph.D., A&T’s Alvin V. Blount Jr. Student Health Center research operations director, secured a total of $1.86 million across three awards to improve public health, support data modernization workforce development and mitigate health disparities. The funding to support these individual projects came from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, the North Carolina Division of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, respectively.
• The National Institutes of Health awarded a four-year $552,000 grant to Dipongkor Saha, Ph.D., an associate professor in the College of Science and Technology (CoST), to address glioblastoma (GBM), an aggressive and incurable cancerous brain tumor. The team will focus on glioblastoma stem-like cells as therapeutic targets for a novel anticancer vaccine they have developed and plan to continue studying its efficacy in preventing and treating GBM. If successful, their strategies could be adapted to offer personalized treatment options for patients.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded a two-year $260,533 grant to College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences principal investigator (PI) Harmandeep Sharma, Ph.D., to use hyperspectral imaging and artificial intelligence to identify varieties of looseleaf lettuce that can withstand cold and freezing temperatures. Her colleague, Arnab Bhowmik, Ph.D., an associate professor of soil science and soil microbiology is the project’s co-PI.
• The National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program awarded a three-year $278,943 grant to lead PI Kristen Rhinehardt, Ph.D., associate professor in the College of Engineering, for a multisite REU in synthetic biology with Simmons University. The goal of the project is to build upon previous success in training the next generation of researchers by introducing them to the field through interdisciplinary collaboration. Rhinehardt will collaborate with co-PI Robert Newman, Ph.D., of CoST and Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering faculty.

FY27 is building on this momentum with recent announcements of a prestigious $16.9 million NIH award to establish a health disparities research center led by Marc Cook, Ph.D., associate professor in the John R. and Kathy R. Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences and associate director of the university’s Center for Integrative Health Disparities and Equity Research.