Graduate Research Opportunities

If the Catholic intellectual tradition is the heart and soul of this University, research is its blood and bones. In creating Catholic University as a graduate research institution in 1887, the bishops of the United States sought to establish an institution that would go beyond the preservation of learning and teaching to also encompass the advancement of knowledge through research in all fields.

The history of research and discovery at Catholic University is voluminous.

• Albert F. Zahm built America’s first wind tunnel equipped with instruments for scientific study here in 1901.
• Rev. Eugene Xavier Henri Hyvernat, a member of the University’s original faculty, began assembling resources for the study of Coptic languages as early as 1889, an effort that  laid the foundation for the extraordinary collection of rare books in the Catholic University Semitics Library, which is widely used today.
• Justine Bayard Ward developed the groundbreaking Ward Method of music instruction in 1929, which had a profound effect on how music was taught in Catholic schools throughout the 20th century and even today.
• Catholic University physics professor Clyde Cowan was co-discoverer, with Frederick Reines, of the elementary subatomic particle called the neutrino. For this discovery, first announced in 1956, Reines was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1995. He received the prize in both his and Cowan’s names.