Graduate Student News

Jennifer Weggen, a doctoral student at VCU, served for 12 years in the Navy. (Contributed photo)

Navy veteran and VCU doctoral student Jennifer Weggen is serving her military colleagues on many fronts

Nov. 8, 2023

Her research focus on PTSD, traumatic brain injury and heart health, and her work with student and alumni military groups, reflect a longstanding passion with family roots.

3-D printed cilia sensors have the potential to be used in a number of industries, ranging from prosthetics to manufacturing. (Photo by Jeff Kelley)

3D-printed hairs: Ph.D. candidate, professor developing tiny sensors to detect flow and environmental changes

Oct. 20, 2023

Uses could include surgical robots that better detect minute changes in pressure or temperature, industrial machines that measure air or water flow, a robot that reads braille, or debris detection on a highly sensitive camera lens.

Gary Garbett, who works in VCU Technology Services, said that being named a Fulbright Specialist "opens up possibilities for me." (Contributed photo)

VCU communications professional Gary Garbett is named a Fulbright Specialist

Sept. 27, 2023

He will bring his creative talents and Technology Services experience to international projects.

Biomedical engineering student Karah Moore has been a member of the lab of Rebecca Heise, Ph.D., for the past three years, researching cellular activity in diseased lungs. (Kevin Morley, Enterprise Marketing and Communications)

VCU awarded $3 million from the NIH to continue research training of students underrepresented in the sciences

Sept. 21, 2023

Two renewed grants, which support undergraduate and graduate students in pursuing biomedical and behavioral research, highlight VCU’s national standing.

VCU welcomed thousands of new students at the start of the academic year, from first-year undergradates to professional students.

Welcome to the Ramily

Sept. 13, 2023

Get to know a few of this year’s roughly 8,000 new students who add to VCU’s diverse and expansive community.

From surf, turf and sky, NASA and VCU’s Rice Rivers Center deliver an immersive summer experience for undergraduates

June 29, 2023

In its inaugural session on the East Coast, the environmental research program taps VCU expertise and facilities to give 22 students from across the nation a hands-on role in high-level work.

For her Ph.D. in Media, Art, and Text dissertation at VCU, Allison Bennett Dyche, Ph.D., who graduates this month, focused on the lessons she learned in creating an Audio Storytelling & Podcasting course for college students - and how courses like hers would be a beneficial part of the curriculum for mass communication students nationwide. (Samuel Cooke, The Appalachian photographer, Appalachian State University)

Class of 2023: Allison Bennett Dyche found few resources on how to teach podcasting to college students. So she created her own.

May 11, 2023

Dyche, who is earning a Ph.D. in Media, Art and Text, is “at the forefront of a growing conversation about how universities can help prepare students for careers in this growing industry,” her dissertation director says.

Students in the Curating Exhibitions graduate seminar, Nana Ferdnance (left) and Jenah Creecy (right), discuss objects during the set up of the art exhibition, “(Kin)dred Ties,” featuring MFA students' work. Seminar students Mary McLean and Kathryn Long are seen in the background. (Allen Jones, Enterprise Marketing and Communications)

Students curate fellow students’ work in new VCUarts exhibition

May 5, 2023

The exhibition offers history and museum studies graduate students some hands-on experience in spotlighting the work of their studio-based peers.

Otis Fulton said, “I tell people I got slowed down on my dissertation because of COVID. But if I’m being honest, I think I stretched it out because I enjoy being a student." (Kevin Morley, Enterprise Marketing and Communications)

Class of 2023: Otis Fulton, who played basketball at UVA, has a lifelong passion for understanding why people behave the way they do

April 6, 2023

In May, the 65-year-old VCU alum will receive his Ph.D. in social psychology from the College of Humanities and Sciences.

The Department of African American Studies presents the Black History in the Making Awards to outstanding students each year. (File photo)

Founder of Black History in the Making Awards urges newest recipients to fight for truth

March 3, 2023

Daryl Dance, who started the awards in 1983, says, “Many of the major victories in African American history either began with college students or were joined and supported by college students throughout our nation.”