page_title: University of Virginia
section_title: Faculty
hierarchical_section_title: University of Virginia / People / Faculty
caption_attribution_description: Kathryn C. Thornton (Ph.D.), NASA Astronaut (missions STS-33, STS-49, STS-61, STS-73)
context_page_description: The University of Virginia is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by United States Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson. It is the flagship university of Virginia and home to Jefferson's Academical Village, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. UVA is known for its historic foundations, student-run honor code and secret societies.
  The original governing Board of Visitors included Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Monroe was the sitting President of the United States at the time of its foundation, and earlier Presidents Jefferson and Madison were UVA's first two rectors. Jefferson conceived and designed the original courses of study and original architecture. UVA was the first university of the American South elected to the research-driven Association of American Universities in 1904. More than a century later, the journal Science credited UVA faculty with two of the top ten global scientific breakthroughs of 2015. The University of Virginia, along with the University at Buffalo, are the only two colleges founded by United States presidents.
context_section_description: Faculty were originally housed in the Academical Village among the students, serving as both instructors and advisors, continuing on to include the McCormick Road Old Dorms, though this has been phased out in favor of undergraduate student resident advisors (RAs). Several of the faculty, however, continue the university tradition of living on Grounds, either on the Lawn in the various Pavilions, or as fellows at one of three residential colleges (Brown College at Monroe Hill, Hereford College, and the International Residential College).
  The university's faculty includes a National Humanities Medal and National Medal of Arts winner and former United States Poet Laureate, an awardee of the Order of Isabella the Catholic, 25 Guggenheim fellows, 26 Fulbright fellows, six National Endowment for the Humanities fellows, two Presidential Young Investigator Award winners, three Sloan award winners, three Packard Foundation Award winners, and a winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Physics professor James McCarthy was the lead academic liaison to the government in the establishment of SURANET, and the university has also participated in ARPANET, Abilene, Internet2, and Lambda Rail. On March 19, 1986, the university's domain name, VIRGINIA.EDU, became the first registration under the .EDU top-level domain originating from the Commonwealth of Virginia on what would become the World Wide Web.
  Larry Sabato has, according to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, become the most-cited professor in the country by national and regional news organizations, both on the Internet and in print. Civil rights activist Julian Bond, a professor in the Corcoran Department of History from 1990 to 2012, was the Chairman of the NAACP from 1998 to 2009 and was chosen to host the Nobel Laureates conference in 1998.
caption: Kathryn C. Thornton, mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering professor, held the record for most NASA spacewalks by a woman until 2006.
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