Becker’s Hospital Review likes UVA Health. A lot.
The publication issues annual lists of “100 hospitals and health systems with great (fill in the blank) programs.” As of this week, UVA Health has appeared in its 2024 top-100 lists for orthopedic, oncology, and neuroscience and spine programs, all released in recent weeks.
Becker’s described UVA Health Orthopedics as “a leader in both clinical care and musculoskeletal research, recognized for its surgical innovations and research contributions.”
The publication highlighted UVA Health’s expertise in joint replacements, spine surgery, sports medicine and geriatric fractures. “Supported by numerous National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense grants, the orthopedic research branch is exploring innovative treatments such as tissue regeneration and immune modulation for musculoskeletal conditions,” the publication said.
Becker’s also spotlighted what it described as the “state-of-the-art UVA Health Orthopedic Center,” located on Ivy Road in Charlottesville. The center consolidates UVA Health’s outpatient orthopedic care in a single location and features an outpatient surgery center, prosthetics and orthotics, imaging and physical therapy along with a full range of clinics.
The neuroscience and spine recognition emphasized UVA Health’s efforts to expand access to specialized, high-quality care, said Dr. K. Craig Kent, chief executive officer of UVA Health and UVA’s executive vice president for health affairs.
“At UVA Health, our goal is to be the care provider of choice for patients across Virginia and beyond, especially for patients with serious and complex conditions,” he said. “Our neuroscience and spine teams have pioneered treatments that have improved the lives of countless patients, and this honor from Becker’s is well deserved.”
Becker’s highlighted the Department of Neurosurgery for its “innovative treatments and leading research,” including its pediatric neurosurgery program and a Gamma Knife Center that has treated more than 10,000 patients since 1989.
The publication also cited the groundbreaking work of UVA’s Health’s Focused Ultrasound Center, a high-tech treatment approach that replaces scalpels with focused sound waves. UVA Health’s Dr. Jeff Elias and his team conducted research that led to the federal Food and Drug Administration’s approval of focused ultrasound to treat essential tremor, a common movement disorder, and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. UVA researchers are examining additional potential uses, including cancer immunotherapy, at the world’s first focused ultrasound cancer immunotherapy center.
Becker’s also recognized UVA Health for its epilepsy care, as the National Association of Epilepsy Centers has designated it a level 4 epilepsy center – the highest possible designation.
The UVA Health Spine Center – a partnership between UVA Health neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons – is “at the forefront of minimally invasive and robotic-guided surgeries, with spine specialists participating in major national clinical trials,” according to Becker’s. UVA Health’s spine team performs more than 1,500 procedures annually.
In honoring UVA Heath’s oncology program, Becker’s described UVA Cancer Center, which serves more than 3.2 million people across 87 counties in Virginia and West Virginia in addition to the region and nation, as “a leader in cancer care, research and community outreach.”
The publication spotlighted the center’s 50% increase in patient volume since 2014 and a nearly 500% rise in research participation, backed by $77 million in annual research funding, which has included groundbreaking research on prostate and nerve sheath cancers.
“Our team at UVA Cancer Center is committed not only to providing high-quality care for our patients but to bringing new, state-of-the-art and innovative cancer treatments to those with complex diagnoses,” Kent said.
UVA Cancer Center was the first in Virginia designated by the National Cancer Institute as a comprehensive cancer center – one of just 57 nationally – for its excellence in patient care, research and outreach. Becker’s noted the cancer center’s efforts to work with communities across the region, including a collaborative cancer screening program with federally qualified health centers and strategies to better prevent cancer in rural and underserved communities.
Influential Robotics Journal Picks UVA Paper as Best of 2024
Doctoral student Byungjoon Bae and his adviser, Kyusang Lee, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and engineering. (Left photo contributed; right photo by Tom Cogill)
An article published in Science Robotics by a team of UVA researchers has been selected as the prestigious journal’s best paper of 2024. Electrical and computer engineering doctoral student Byungjoon Bae and his adviser, Kyusang Lee, led the award-winning research.
The article described the team’s praying mantis eyes-mimicking vision system – artificial compound eyes with stereoscopic vision that can track objects in 3-D space.
Their innovations address limitations in the way machines currently collect and process real-world visual data, which can lead to failures, such as a self-driving car not “seeing” a person or another vehicle.
“Our team’s work represents a significant scientific insight that could inspire other engineers and scientists by demonstrating a clever, biomimetic solution to complex visual processing challenges,” said Lee, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and engineering.
The team’s design mirrored a feature of the praying mantis’ visual system that gives the insect depth perception, in addition to excellent motion tracking. Achieving this capability required developing new optoelectrical engineering and data processing solutions, Bae explained in a UVA School of Engineering and Applied Science news release.
UVA electrical and computer engineering graduate students Doeon Lee, Minseong Park, Yujia Mu, Yongmin Baek and Inbo Sim, and associate professor Cong Shen also contributed to the research.
Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Named Distinguished Lecturers
Scott Acton, left, and Mathews Jacob are members of the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s 2025 Class of Distinguished Lecturers. (Photos by Tom Daly)
Professors Scott Acton and Mathews Jacob of the Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering were named to the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s 2025 Class of Distinguished Lecturers.
Acton and Jacob are in rare company; the society named only five appointees. Acton and Jacob will serve two-year terms.
Acton, the Lawrence R. Quarles Professor and chair of the department, runs the Virginia Image and Video Analysis lab at the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He also serves as a special adviser to the provost on artificial intelligence. A noted researcher in biomedical image analysis problems, he recently led a project to develop an AI-driven system capable of characterizing human actions in video footage with unprecedented precision and intelligence.
While a potential industry-changer in high-stakes scenarios such as surveillance, health care diagnostics or autonomous driving, this technology also underlies a National Science Foundation-supported joint project with the School of Education and Human Development called Artificial Intelligence for Advancing Instruction. Its goal is to automate video analysis to help teachers perform better in the classroom.
Jacob is an expert in developing and applying machine learning algorithms to improve medical imaging. His lab, the Computational Biomedical Imaging Group, recently landed a $3.9 million multi-institute grant to develop technology to detect early signs of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Jacob is also leading other National Institutes of Health- and industry-funded efforts in ultrahigh resolution imaging of the brain, as well as developing a “free-breathing” cardiac MRI that doesn’t require the patient to hold their breath.
“I believe machine learning and signal processing tools can make medical imaging technology significantly more affordable, thereby enhancing health care accessibility in the U.S., as well as in developing countries,” Jacob said.
Law School’s Vice Dean Elected to American Law Institute
Vice Dean Michael D. Gilbert is the School of Law’s 36th member of the American Law Institute. (UVA School of Law photo)
Michael D. Gilbert, vice dean of the School of Law, has been elected a member of the American Law Institute, the organization announced recently.
There are now 36 members of the UVA Law faculty currently affiliated with the institute, which produces scholarly work meant to update or otherwise improve the law. The organization includes judges, lawyers and law professors from the U.S. and around the world who are “selected on the basis of professional achievement and demonstrated interest in improving the law,” according to the institute’s website.
Gilbert, the Perre Bowen Professor of Law and Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law joined the faculty in 2009 and has served as vice dean since 2021.
His research focuses on misinformation, corruption and the role of “prosocial” preferences such as empathy in law. In 2022, Oxford University Press published Gilbert’s book, “Public Law and Economics,” co-written with professor Robert D. Cooter of the University of California, Berkeley. Gilbert’s research has appeared in multiple law reviews, peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and he has lectured throughout the United States and around the world.
Gilbert has been a visiting professor at Panthéon-Assas University in Paris and Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires, among other places. He has won UVA’s All-University Teaching Award and the Student Council Distinguished Teaching Award. He was the inaugural director of UVA Law’s Center for Public Law and Political Economy and is a member of Convergencia, an international network of scholars studying economic and social regulations. He is also a member of the UVA Democracy Initiative’s Corruption Lab for Ethics, Accountability, and the Rule of Law.
Hellman Awarded APA Prize for Article on ‘Algorithmic Fairness’
Law professor Deborah Hellman’s award-winning article focuses on the challenges of defining and measuring fairness in algorithmic decision-making. (UVA School of Law photo)
Law professor Deborah Hellman received the American Philosophical Association’s 2024 AI2050 Prize for Established Researchers for her article “Measuring Algorithmic Fairness.”
Hellman, the Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law, directs the Center for Law & Philosophy. Her work focuses on equal protection law and its philosophical foundation. She also studies bribery, corruption and campaign finance law, as well as the theory that underlies these issues.
The APA AI2050 Prizes are awarded “in recognition of outstanding philosophical scholarship relating to artificial intelligence.” Hellman’s honor includes a $10,000 award.
The paper, published by the Virginia Law Review in 2020, previously won the Section on Jurisprudence Article Award from the Association of American Law Schools.
In the paper, Hellman discusses the challenges of defining and measuring fairness in algorithmic decision-making, which is the process of using algorithms to examine data and then make predictions that can assist decision-making in many different contexts.
Retired Soil Scientist Named Area’s Top Gardener
The Piedmont Master Gardeners named Linda Blum, a retired member of the environmental sciences faculty and a lifelong gardener, as its Master Gardener of the Year. Part of the Virginia Cooperative Extension, the Piedmont Master Gardeners’ volunteers promote science-based, environmentally sound horticultural practices.
Retired environmental sciences professor Linda Blum, a soil scientist, is putting her expertise to work in the community through the Piedmont Master Gardeners. (UVA College of Arts & Sciences photo)
Blum completed the Master Gardener training class in 2021 after a distinguished career as a professor and research scientist at UVA, then put her research and educational skills to work.
She took over coordination of the Virginia Cooperative Extension’s horticultural help desk and the mobile help desk that master gardeners staff at farmer’s markets and community events, helping new and experienced master gardeners field questions from the public and provide research-based answers.
“As Extension Master Gardeners, we are all called to be educators. Linda Blum truly epitomizes this role,” reads the award citation. “She serves as a model for all of us – synthesizing complex information to make it easy to grasp, while at the same time conveying her love of gardening and love of people.”
