Whole Health consortium advances mental, rural, and technology research | Virginia Tech News
Whole Health consortium advances mental, rural, and technology research | Virginia Tech News
https://news.vt.edu/articles/2026/02/whole-health-consortium-seed-grants-2026.html
Publish Date: 2026-03-06 07:33:00
Source Domain: news.vt.edu
Over the next year, Parti, along with team members Na Meng and Christiana Chamon Garcia, will conduct proof-of-concept testing, assess feasibility, and refine both technical and behavioral components in collaboration with older adults. Once testing concludes, the team will use these findings to pursue larger external funding focused on scaling, longitudinal evaluation, and broad dissemination.
Parti’s team is one of six selected for the Whole Health Consortium’s 2025-26 Seed Grant Program, which supports research designed to advance whole health across community, clinical, and systems settings.
“Whole Health requires us to move beyond isolated fixes and address how well-being is shaped across the places people live, learn, and receive care,” said Tina Savla, director of the Whole Health Consortium. “These seed grants will accelerate innovation that begins locally and influence practice at scale.”
Parti’s seed funding comes from one of two tracks offered by the consortium, the Advancing Partnerships track. The award provides up to $40,000 for one year to support multidisciplinary teams in building interconnected, community-engaged projects under a unified Whole Health theme with strong potential for external funding.
The Incubating Emergent Collaborations award provides up to $10,000 for eight months to support early-stage, high-impact projects designed to generate preliminary data, proof- of- concept findings, or prototypes that can evolve into larger initiatives.
This year, funding for two of the four Incubating Emergent Collaborations awards was provided in partnership with Carilion Clinic and the Institute for Society, Culture, and Environment.
The 2025-26 Seed Grant awardees
Advancing Partnerships Track
Project: Anti-scam Conversational helper for On-call Resilience (ANCHOR) for older people
Goal: Shift scam prevention from after-the-fact education to proactive, real-time protection by combining real-time verification of voice-based…
