Research Domain
Georgetown University is dedicated to conducting nationally and globally significant research that fosters greater insight and cross-cultural understanding, and addresses some of today’s critical intellectual and social issues. The Office of the Senior Vice President for Research advances and supports Georgetown University by engaging in research related to contemporary socio-technical issues affecting health, security and sustainability. The Office of the Senior Vice President for Research strives to create an environment that recruits, engages, and rewards collaborative research among investigators from the natural sciences, social sciences, computational sciences, and the humanities.
Ethics in Big Data
Governments, corporations, and organizations in civil society now routinely create massive repositories of raw data whose size and complexity pose major technical, analytic, and ethical challenges. As policy makers have come to realize recently in domains as diverse as genetics and counter-intelligence, successful resolution of the challenges of Big Data requires broad and varied public consultation.
Forced Migration
Effective early warning of forced population displacement will help governments and international organizations plan for such movements, as well as directly aid potential refugees and displaced persons before, during and after their exodus. Planning can lead to action in trying to avert mass displacement by tackling the triggering events and underlying stressors, and providing options to those who would otherwise be forced to relocate (e.g., deploying peacekeepers high-risk communities in conflict zones or getting food to villages at risk of famine).
Urban Resilience
Coastal-storm-related economic losses have increased substantially over the past century, largely due to expanding population and development in low-lying coastal areas. Additionally, higher global temperatures will contribute to rising sea levels and increasing severity of hurricanes. As a result, the proportion of the US population at risk of the effects of flooding, high winds, and other natural disasters continues to grow.
HIV
The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) continues to present substantial health challenges to the global community. We are currently working with our partners to develop new conceptual frameworks and effective privacy-sensitive technologies and approaches in an effort to help address these public health challenges.
Food Security
According to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, billion of tons of fertile soil disappear each year and over the next twenty years, the world will need 50% more food, 40% more energy and 35% more water to keep pace with the growing population. Recognizing the unique challenges of an increasingly globalized food system, Georgetown University has assembled a uniquely qualified team of organizations with expertise across the spectrum of the entire food production, processing, distribution and consumption life cycle.