Improving Human Health, Well-Being, and Preparedness
Healthy populations are less vulnerable to disease and crises and better equipped to contribute to peaceful and prosperous communities. George Mason is actively approaching improvements in health systems, mental well-being, and emergency preparedness to build resilience for the future. With a people-first integrated approach that advances science, develops talent, and strengthens communities, George Mason is modeling scenarios that prioritize access to preventative care while investing in emergency prevention and preparedness scenario training.
Grand Challenge Initiative
George Mason’s Grand Challenge Initiative is a university-wide collaboration addressing humanity’s most pressing challenges through six interlocking strategies, supported by a $15 million investment over five years.
THE GEORGE MASON ADVANTAGE
The first of its kind in Virginia, George Mason’s College of Public Health is also the first and only in the state to earn accreditation from the Council on Education for Public Health.
Learn how immersive tech is changing public health education.
Learn how Mason’s Center for Community Mental Health (CCMH) serves children, teens, adults, and veterans in the Northern Virginia community.
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RESEARCH IN ACTION
Chronic knee pain. Photo by Getty Images
$4.65 million NIH grant explores chronic knee pain
For millions of Americans, chronic musculoskeletal pain is a daily reality that makes even simple activities like walking across a room, playing with grandchildren, or just getting through a workday feel daunting. Researchers at George Mason’s Center for Advancing Systems Science and Bioengineering Innovation (CASSBI) are leading a new $4.65 million National Institutes of Health-funded R01 study to better understand what shapes those experiences, and how to improve care.
The multidisciplinary team will work to solve this problem by studying how physical, biological, emotional, and social factors come together to shape the daily experience of living with chronic knee pain. They will look at whether analyzing multiple symptoms over time can help identify important turning points in a person’s pain journey, and how each’s particular mix of stress, biology, and movement plays a role in achieving maximal potential for function.
Over the next four years, the team will recruit participants with chronic knee pain who are receiving treatment at Optimal Motion, a community-based physical therapy clinic. For one year, participants will be followed closely, with data collected every three months on their biomechanics, physical function, biological health, and psychosocial well-being. A smartphone app will also allow participants to share daily reflections, giving researchers an unprecedented look into the lived experience of chronic pain.
Aarthi Narayanan. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding
Grant supports study of viruses’ impact on organ health
With the support of a $1.4 million grant from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, George Mason researcher Aarthi Narayanan is investigating how an infection spreads between organs, and how a therapeutic will impact connected organs. The work will initially focus on mosquito-transmitted viruses while Narayanan hopes to expand the implications from these studies to other human disease states.
Narayan is using CN-Bio’s organ on a chip platform—an emerging technology that more closely replicates human organ-based parameters—at George Mason’s Biomedical Research Laboratory to understand how disease affects the body and better understand how one infected organ will affect another that not infected.
“When you look at an infection like West Nile Virus, for example, it affects the brain early. But that does not mean it only impacts the brain,” said Narayanan, a professor in the Department of Biology in the College of Science. “There is often multiorgan involvement in later states of disease, but we still don’t have a full understanding of how one organ reacts to another’s infection to then know how to provide more effective treatments.”
STUDENT RESOURCES
Lab for Immersive Technologies and Simulation
The College of Public Health is home to the nation's first Society for Simulation in Healthcare-accredited Lab for Immersive Technologies and Simulation at a public health college. This pioneering facility redefines how health professionals practice and reinforces George Mason's leadership in cutting-edge technology that revolutionizes public health education and workforce development.
University Career Services
University Career Services hosts the Health Fair each year in late March or early April. An average of 33 employers and 230 students attended this career fair the past five years. Employers include local government, hospital systems, counseling offices, private practice offices, and more.
Center for the Advancement of Well-Being
Thanks to a pioneering program from the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being and a transformative $1.5 million gift from the Clifton Foundation, students in a new peer coaching program are helping others discover their strengths and how to leverage them in everyday situations.
Mason: Health Starts Here
Mason: Health Starts Here is a first-of-its-kind transdisciplinary student cohort study to understand and improve the health and well-being of university students. This research will follow a broad sample of young adults over time to capture the diversity of their experiences in college and how it affects their health and well-being.
FACULTY SPOTLIGHTS
Amira Roess of the College of Public Health is an epidemiologist with expertise in infectious diseases epidemiology, multidisciplinary and multispecies field research, and evaluating interventions to reduce the transmission and impact of infectious diseases.
Chemistry and Biochemistry Department chair Mikell Paige’s groundbreaking work in biochemistry is at the interface of synthetic organic chemistry, drug discovery, and molecular design. He is designing small molecules to enable drug development in meaningful and practical ways.
At the Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM), researcher Marissa Howard, BS Bioengineering ’17, PhD Biosciences ’22, leads a team of scientists who have discovered a way to “eavesdrop” on cellular communications that could revolutionize treatments for cancer and other diseases. Hear from Marisa Howard
Janusz Wojtusiak, director of CPH’s Machine Learning and Inference Laboratory, has expertise that spans machine learning, health informatics, and artificial intelligence in clinical decision support and knowledge discovery in medical data.
PARTNERSHIPS AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Claude Moore Foundation
As Virginia faces growing shortages in the health care workforce, the Claude Moore Foundation and George Mason University have formed a groundbreaking partnership to seek solutions and build a flexible, inclusive, and data-driven workforce pipeline. The effort is one designed not just to meet current needs but to shape a stronger, more equitable future for health care in the commonwealth.
Virginia Concussion Initiative (VCI)
George Mason researcher Shane Caswell is executive director of the Virginia Concussion Initiative (VCI), a statewide program committed to protecting the brain health of all Virginians by raising awareness, sharing evidence-based knowledge, and supporting the tailored implementation of concussion management best practices. VCI is a partnership between George Mason and the Virginia Department of Health supported by funding from the commonwealth and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM)
Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine (CAPMM) researchers Marissa Howard and Lance Liotta have partnered with Children’s National Medical Center for personalized therapy sickle cell nephropathy using urine PINK1 markers of glomeruli mitochondria podcyte damage to aid in early detection and treatment.
Center for Evidence-Based Behavioral Health
The Center for Evidence-Based Behavioral Health leads a multidisciplinary training consortium that was developed via an academic-community partnership between the George Mason’s Psychology Department, Healthy Minds Fairfax , and the Northern Virginia Regional Projects Office.
FUTURE-READY INFRASTRUCTURE
Population Health Center
The Population Health Center facilitates partnerships between academia and the community and houses state-of-the-art facilities for telehealth, research, and delivering clinical care. Practitioners and community partners provide referrals for resources to address social determinants such as access to housing, food, and prescriptions.
Biomedical Research Lab
The Biomedical Research Lab on the Science and Technology Campus is one of 12 regional biocontainment laboratories in the nation established through the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and capable of addressing infectious disease threats with translational science.
Center for Health Workforce
George Mason’s Center for Health Workforce serves as an anchor institution to lead collective efforts in health workforce planning and development for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The SMART Laboratory
The Sports Medicine Assessment Research and Testing (SMART) Laboratory combines research with clinical practice through multiple avenues of scientific inquiry working toward decreasing injury risk and advances the well-being of physically active individuals of all ages.
The 3T MRI Facility
The 3T MRI Facility houses a Siemens Prisma 3T Magnetom for human brain and whole-body MRI and is staffed by certified MRI technologists.
PODCASTS
Access to Excellence podcast
A small cup with big impact in the fight against Lyme disease.
In this episode of the Access to Excellence podcast, George Mason President Gregory Washington speaks with Alessandra Luchini, professor in the School of Systems Biology in the College of Science, about the development of cancer and Lyme disease detection technologies and the importance of international collaboration in scientific progress.
NEWS
- January 15, 2026
- November 19, 2025
- November 3, 2025
- October 29, 2025
- October 22, 2025