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Neeli Bendapudi honored for advancing public-impact research
Her university-wide initiative has backed faculty-student projects across 11 campuses, advancing applied research on public health, sustainability and community impact.
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Malvika Choudhary - Sat, 11, Apr 2026
- 11:12 EDT
- 22
Neeli Bendapudi / Penn State
Pennsylvania State University president Neeli Bendapudi received the 2026 Impact Innovations Award from Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) for her leadership in integrating public impact into the university’s research mission.
The award recognizes Bendapudi’s Presidential Strategic Initiative for Public Impact Research (PSI-PIR), which promotes research in collaboration with government, industry and communities to strengthen the societal value of academic research.
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“Penn State’s Presidential Strategic Initiative for Public Impact Research represents exactly the kind of institutional leadership the Impact Funders Forum seeks to elevate,” said Angela Bednarek, director of scientific advancement at The Pew Charitable Trusts and chair of the Impact Funders Forum.
“PSI-PIR moves beyond individual projects to redesign the systems that enable research to inform policy, practice and community outcomes. Through President Bendapudi’s leadership to bring together her peers and align internal incentives and national collaboration, Penn State is demonstrating how universities can operationalize research impact at scale,” she added.
Launched as part of Bendapudi’s leadership agenda, PSI-PIR is administered by Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute through its Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative.
The initiative has supported interdisciplinary research across 11 Commonwealth Campuses, involving more than 200 students in applied projects on environmental sustainability, public health, workforce development, cybersecurity, education and community well-being.
“Public research universities exist to serve society and at Penn State we approach this mission through an interdisciplinary lens focused on solving our world’s most pressing challenges,” Bendapudi said.
“Through the Presidential Strategic Initiative for Public Impact Research, we are proud to build upon our land-grant mission to recognize the power of research that benefits the places we live, work and study. This recognition from ARIS affirms the amazing work of our faculty, staff and students across our campuses who are demonstrating every day that rigorous scholarship and meaningful public benefit go hand in hand,” she added.
The initiative operates through two core programs. The Presidential Public Impact Research Awards (PPIRA) supports faculty-student teams partnering with communities on applied research, with nearly $700,000 invested so far across the Commonwealth Campuses.
The Presidents’ and Chancellors’ Council for Public Impact Research, convened with Pew and the Impact Funders Forum and chaired by Bendapudi since 2024, brings together university leaders to embed public-impact priorities into funding, governance and accountability frameworks.
Projects supported through PSI-PIR have led to harm-reduction strategies serving hundreds of residents, expanded nonprofit cybersecurity readiness across the state, enhanced environmental monitoring with state agencies and produced workforce data used for retraining and economic planning.
Evaluations of the program show that faculty receiving PPIRA support subsequently increased research proposal submissions, indicating sustained scholarly and societal impact.
Bendapudi, an Indian-American academic leader, became Penn State’s 19th president in May 2022, becoming the university’s first woman and first non-white president.
She previously served as president of the University of Louisville from 2018 to 2021 and held senior academic leadership roles at the University of Kansas, including as provost and executive vice chancellor. She has also held faculty positions at Texas A&M University and the Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business.
Bendapudi earned her Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Kansas after completing her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Andhra University in India.
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