SMU scientists engage in research on health issues including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, diabetes, childhood obesity, women’s health care, cancer, mental health, African sleeping sickness and side effects of radiation on bone strength. Other subjects include immigration, evolution, earthquakes, volcanoes, effects of drilling in the Barnett Shale and origins of the universe.
SMU research projects are conducted throughout the United States and worldwide at sites including Angola, the Canary Islands, Mongolia, Kenya, Italy, China, the Congo Basin, Ethiopia, Mexico and South Korea.
Grants for SMU research and sponsored projects come from a variety of public and private sources, including the National Science Foundation; National Institutes of Health; U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education and Energy; U.S. Geological Survey; Google.org; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Hogg Foundation for Mental Health; and Texas Instruments Foundation.
During 2009–10 SMU received $25.6 million, up from $16.5 million the previous year, in external funding for research and sponsored projects. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has raised SMU’s classification to a research university with “high research activity.”