UVA President Jim Ryan addresses new Amazon headquarters in Virginia

University of Virginia President Jim Ryan today issued the following statement regarding Amazon’s decision to locate a major headquarters in Northern Virginia.

“Amazon’s choice to invest in Virginia is a testament to everything the commonwealth has to offer, now and in the future. At UVA, our goal is to serve the commonwealth and beyond by providing education and training, offering outstanding medical care, growing the economy, conducting research and cultivating a new generation of entrepreneurs.

“To help do this, we have been expanding our footprint in Northern Virginia over the last decade and have plans to do even more. The Darden School of Business, for example, has opened new facilities in Rosslyn, and the Medical School is partnering with Inova to open a new campus in Northern Virginia. We’re working with Inova, George Mason University and the commonwealth to launch the Genomics and Bioinformatics Research Institute to help advance clinical care through precision medicine. Our School of Continuing and Professional Studies provides certificates online in business and technology to help working adults advance in their careers, and our Data Science Institute offers degree programs related to data analytics. In addition, the McIntire School of Commerce now offers a joint degree in business analytics with Darden and a degree in management of information technology on its own. Our Curry School of Education, finally, offers multiple part-time degrees for students in the area. We also have more than 30,000 alumni in the Northern Virginia area (our largest concentration of alumni) involved in a vast array of professional, civic and community endeavors.

“We look forward to working with Amazon to see how we can best work together to create opportunities for their existing and potential employees in the Northern Virginia area. We also look forward to working with our colleagues at Virginia Tech and George Mason to continue to strengthen Virginia’s economy and create economic opportunity for all Virginians.”