University at Albany Physicists Launch Endowed UAP Research Program "UAlbany Project X"

Physicists Kevin Knuth, Matthew Szydagis, and Cecilia Levy — all associate or full professors at the University at Albany, State University of New York — officially launched UAlbany Project X (UAPx) in November 2025, establishing it as a formally endowed academic research program focused on the scientific investigation of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). The announcement was reported by The Debrief on December 2, 2025, in an article authored by Editor-in-Chief Micah Hanks.

The program was made possible by an endowment gift from Tony Gorman, a co-owner of The Gorman Group, a family-owned highway construction firm based in the Albany, New York area. Gorman stated he was motivated to contribute after seeing a local news report about the team's UAP research. According to Knuth, the donation "funds us for five years, and in addition to that, sets up an endowment that funds us in perpetuity." Szydagis characterized the gift as enabling the researchers to work on UAP "for the rest of our lives" rather than on a volunteer basis.

UAlbany Project X is positioned as the direct successor to the original nonprofit UAPx organization. That group conducted a 2021 field data-collection expedition over the Santa Catalina Channel off the coast of southern California, near the area where personnel aboard the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) reported a UAP encounter in November 2004 — a case in which footage captured by U.S. Navy FA/18 Super Hornet pilot Chad Underwood was later confirmed as authentic by the Pentagon in April 2020. Results from the 2021 expedition were published in a 2025 paper in Progress in Aerospace Sciences, with Szydagis as lead author and Knuth and Levy as co-authors. A separate history paper with Knuth as lead author appeared in the same journal edition. Gary Voorhis, a U.S. Navy veteran and former CEO and co-founder of the original nonprofit UAPx, confirmed the transition, writing that the team had "turned our little rag-tag expedition team into a funded, university-backed research program."

The research roadmap for UAlbany Project X includes deployment of portable, networked camera arrays to conduct sky surveillance at specific locations over multi-week periods, spectral analysis using diffraction gratings, and measurement of magnetic and electric fields — instrumentation the team notes has been frequently omitted from prior UAP studies. Physicist Eric W. Davis has agreed to participate as a volunteer adjunct researcher in an advisory role. Szydagis also indicated the team plans to increase its output of peer-reviewed publications, noting "all kinds of ideas on papers we want to publish on this topic broadly."

Knuth told The Debrief that beyond data collection, the project aims to improve the conceptual and methodological framework used to study UAP scientifically, stating: "I think the best thing to do is to learn from the mistakes of others, and to build on their successes." Szydagis described the program as "a phoenix being reborn," preserving the original UAPx nonprofit's mission while transitioning it into a sustainable academic structure with long-term institutional backing.