The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and Dominion Energy announced Dec. 16 that Dr. Neeral Shah, a professor of medicine at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, and James Soland Jr., an associate professor of research, statistics and evaluation in UVA’s School of Education and Human Development, are among 12 statewide recipients of 2025 Outstanding Faculty Awards.
Each winner will receive a $7,500 gift from Dominion Energy at a March 4 ceremony in Richmond.
The awards, first given in 1987, recognize faculty at Virginia’s institutions of higher learning who exemplify the highest standards of teaching, scholarship and service.
Institutions select nominees for a panel of peers to review. A committee of leaders from the public and private sectors selects the final recipients. This year, the program received 83 nominations.
Shah is an academic transplant hepatologist who provides care to patients with liver disease and collaborates with biomedical engineers to pioneer innovative diagnostic techniques for bleeding disorders. He directs the Gastroenterology Fellowship Program and co-chairs the pre-clerkship curriculum. He is editor of Access Medicine and The Infographic Guide to Medicine, used in 70 countries and 98% of medical schools in the U.S.
Shah has bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and biomedical engineering and earned his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
Soland, designated as a “Rising Star” winner for early career achievement, is an affiliated research fellow at NWEA, an assessment nonprofit. His research focuses on educational measurement, practice and policy, with emphasis on how measurement decisions impact our understanding of student development. Before joining UVA, Soland received a doctorate in educational psychology from Stanford University with a concentration in measurement. He has been a classroom teacher, a policy analyst at the RAND Corporation and a senior policy analyst for the California legislature.
Virginia Football Earns AFCA Academic Achievement Award
The UVA football program was one of seven nationwide to receive the 2024 American Football Coaches Association Academic Achievement Award. UVA earned the honor for the fifth time, tied for the fourth-most of any Football Bowl Subdivision school in the country.
UVA’s football team captured an American Football Coaches Association Academic Achievement Award for the second straight year. (Photo by Emily Faith Morgan, University Communications)
Virginia previously won the award in 1985, 1986, 2017 and 2023. The Cavaliers share the 2024 award with the Air Force Academy, Clemson University, Liberty University, the University of Notre Dame, Wake Forest University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. UVA, Clemson and Notre Dame are the only three schools to win the award in back-to-back seasons.
This year’s award marks the 13th time the NCAA’s Graduation Success Rate one-year formula has been used to select the winner. The GSR is based on a six-year graduation window for student-athletes and holds institutions accountable for transfer students. The GSR also accounts for midyear enrollees.
Williams, Gaines Honored as ACC Unite Award Recipients
Director of Athletics Carla Williams and football student-athlete Elijah Gaines are among the 2024 recipients of the 2024 Atlantic Coast Conference UNITE Awards.
The award honors league affiliates who promote and encourage racial equity and social justice through education, partnerships, engagement and advocacy. Those selected – two from each member institution – have helped create meaningful, lasting change by improving systems, organizational structures, policies, practices and attitudes or have been pioneers and/or helped pave the way for minorities either at the institution or in the community.
Williams was named UVA’s director of athletics in October 2017, becoming the first Black female athletics director at a Power 5 conference school. Under her leadership, UVA has won nine NCAA team championships, 19 ACC team titles and has posted consecutive top-five finishes in the most recent Learfield Directors’ Cup standings. The standings measure the overall success of university athletic programs nationwide.
Williams continues to oversee the development of UVA athletics’ master plan, highlighted by the recently completed 90,000-square foot Molly and Robert Hardie Football Operations Center and the Harrison Family Olympic Sports Center, set to open in summer 2025. The Harrison Center will accommodate most UVA Olympic sports programs and feature a performance training center, strength and conditioning facilities, tutoring and academic support spaces and a hall of champions.
The ACC honored Carla Williams, UVA’s director of intercollegiate athletics, and football student-athlete Elijah Gaines for their promotion and encouragement of racial equity and social justice. (Photos by Matt Riley, University Communications)
In conjunction with Williams’ emphasis on the holistic development of UVA student-athletes, the Harrison Center will also serve as a permanent home for the Center for Citizen Leaders and Sports Ethics.
Williams was instrumental in creating UVA’s groundbreaking Pathways program, which uses University, community and alumni resources to connect student-athletes with areas of interest to help jump-start their career goals, identify valuable skills and accelerate their leadership abilities.
This fall, Williams began a three-year term on the College Football Playoff Selection Committee.
Gaines, a graduate student, has participated in numerous volunteer and service initiatives in the Charlottesville and UVA communities. He served as UVA’s president of Black Student-Athletes Offering Service and Support, a role in which he coordinated events and collaborated with groups across Grounds and in Charlottesville.
In 2023, Gaines attended the ACC Unity Tour in Washington, D.C., and the Black Student-Athlete Summit in 2022.
He has participated in community service efforts with the Ronald McDonald House, UVA Campus Cleanup, UVA Equity Center, Blue Ridge Food Bank, Colby’s Crew Rescue, Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry and Greer Elementary School. Last fall, he joined Williams and Happy Perry, the mother of the late UVA football player D’Sean Perry, in a community conversation for local youth on the topics of mentorship, reaching one’s potential, and finding community.
He is currently a member of Men of Honor, Color and Ambition, a program designed to develop leaders within the local community through youth development initiatives.
A three-time All-ACC Academic selection, Gaines earned his undergraduate degree at UVA one semester ahead of schedule in fall 2023 with a double major in media studies and African American and African studies. He is enrolled in UVA’s higher education master’s program and expects to earn his second UVA degree in May.
Professor Wins Prize for National Security Law Scholarship
School of Law professor Ashley Deeks has been awarded the 2024 Mike Lewis Prize for National Security Law Scholarship for her article, “(Sub-)Delegating National Security Powers.”
The prize is given by the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin and the Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law in consultation with the American Association of Law Schools’ Section on National Security Law.
Deeks’ article, published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, analyzes the legal doctrine and historical practice surrounding national security delegations, which occur when the president designates specific decision-making authority to a senior government official, who may then sub-delegate those decisions to someone else down the chain of command.
Law professor Ashley Deeks’ award-winning article examines what happens when the U.S. president delegates to subordinates authority in national security matters. (UVA Law photo)
Deeks said she was motivated to write the paper after spending 18 months at the National Security Council, where she served as White House associate counsel and deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council. There, she realized that delegations can be consequential but opaque to outside observers.
Deeks is the Class of 1948 Professor of Scholarly Research in Law, director of UVA Law’s National Security Law Center and a senior fellow at the Miller Center of Public Affairs. She is a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law and the American Law Institute.
Law Professor to Lead Society for Political and Legal Philosophy
School of Law professor Deborah Hellman was recently named president of NOMOS: The American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy.
Law professor Deborah Hellman will lead an organization that brings together scholars in several fields interested in exploring problems in political and legal philosophy. (UVA Law photo)
NOMOS brings together scholars in political science, law and philosophy who are interested in interdisciplinary exploration of problems in political and legal philosophy, according to the organization. Each year, NOMOS hosts a conference with this year’s focus on “Structural Injustice” with papers from each of the disciplines.
Hellman, the Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law, directs the school’s Center for Law & Philosophy. Her work focuses on equal protection law, its philosophical justification and the obligations of professional roles.
