Data on the magnitude and harmful effects of VAW give cause for rigorous research on epidemiology, etiology, context and ecology, impact, intervention, and prevention. Nonetheless, two national critiques of the state of research in the field of VAW highlight weaknesses that inhibit a full scientific exploration of these crimes and their impacts. This review proposes a creation of an area of science for the field of VAW. Transforming the study of VAW to a transdiciplinary science will take several substantive steps: (1) constructing and testing theories that are analytically complex and derived from scholarship across disciplines; (2) building a more cohesive community of scientists in the short term and preparing the next generation of scientists in the long term; (3) improving the organization of written scholarship produced from empirical work; (4) strengthening methodologies; and (5) advancing the practical infrastructures through which this new area of science can grow. Figures, tables, notes, and references