George Mason University is a public sea-grant research university in Fairfax County, Virginia near Washington, D.C. The university was originally founded as the Northern Virginia University Center of the University of Virginia in 1949 as a Northern Virginia regional branch of the University of Virginia. Named after Founding Father of the United States George Mason in 1959, it became an independent university in 1972. The school has since grown into the largest public university in the Commonwealth of Virginia.