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A world of difference

Academics

Graduate and professional studies

When you decide to continue your education at Virginia Commonwealth University, it’s not just about making a better future for yourself. It’s about making a better world for everyone.

And with the city of Richmond just outside the classroom walls, you don’t have to wait until you finish your degree to start putting what you learn to good use.

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Supporting your success

Working toward a graduate or professional degree takes focus, dedication and hard work. Not to mention time — lots of it. VCU offers resources to help you reach your goals faster.

Funding

Career assistance

Connecting with peers

Support

Facts/Stats

25+ graduate programs ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s top 50

2,501 full-time faculty

5,554 graduate students

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Our faculty

VCU’s nationally ranked graduate programs attract dedicated, award-winning faculty with a huge variety of expertise and a passion for collaborating across disciplines.

  • Professor Supriyo Bandyopadhyay [View Image]

    Supriyo Bandyopadhyay 

    Commonwealth professor of electrical and computer engineering

    Named Virginia’s Outstanding Scientist in 2016, Bandyopadhyay leads the Quantum Device Laboratory, which is renowned for its advances in optical, electronic and magnetic devices. He also received the VCU Distinguished Scholarship Award in 2012 and the University Award of Excellence in 2017. His numerous research publications have promoted the understanding of spintronics, a field of electronics in which electron spin is manipulated. Bandyopadhyay also pioneered an offshoot of spintronics called straintronics.

  • Professor Therese Dozier [View Image]

    Therese A. Dozier 

    Associate professor of teaching and learning

    Dozier is passionate about improving Richmond-area schools through teacher preparation and retention. She directs the Richmond Teacher Residency Program, a federally funded effort to design and implement a school-based teacher preparation program for Richmond’s most challenged schools. She also serves as director of the Center for Teacher Leadership at the School of Education and chairs the Metropolitan Educational Training Alliance, a partnership between VCU and Richmond-area school districts to enhance teaching quality. 

  • Professor Pramit Nadpara [View Image]

    Pramit A. Nadpara 

    Assistant professor of pharmacotherapy and outcomes science

    Nadpara’s work focuses on improving treatment-related health outcomes in patients with chronic diseases while also identifying and eliminating inequalities in health care. His research interests include reporting health service use patterns and conducting health outcomes assessment studies with an emphasis on oncology. Nadpara also teaches both Pharm.D. and graduate courses at the School of Pharmacy.

  • Professor Susan Gooden [View Image]

    Susan Tinsley Gooden 

    Professor of public administration

    At the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Gooden's teaching focuses on public policy and administration, social equity and public policy analysis, research methods, and social welfare policy. She founded a fellowship program at the Wilder School that places graduate students in positions with state and local government agencies and nonprofits. Gooden was the 2016-17 president of the American Society for Public Administration and she has also served as executive director of VCU’s Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute. 

  • Professor Matthew Banks [View Image]

    Matthew L. Banks 

    Assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology

    Banks teaches in the university’s M.D./Ph.D. program, pharmacology and toxicology graduate program, and the School of Pharmacy. He also mentors undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. His research aims are to understand mental health disorders such as drug addiction and depression and to develop novel pharmacotherapies and behavioral strategies for treating them. His research on addiction is currently funded through the NIH National Institute of Drug Abuse. 

  • Professor Michael Neale [View Image]

    Michael C. Neale 

    Professor of psychiatry

    Neale has dedicated his research to making connections between how genetic, environmental and behavioral factors interact and contribute to illnesses such as substance abuse and psychiatric disorders. He created OpenMx, an open-source computer program widely used by researchers in modeling data to determine whether genetic variants are linked to outcome variables. The program has helped eliminate barriers in building evidence and has been cited more than 3,000 times in scientific literature.

  • Profesor Harinder Dhindsa [View Image]

    Harinder S. Dhindsa 

    Associate professor and chief of emergency medicine

    Dhindsa is medical director for the university’s critical care transport team and leads emergency department clinical operations. He created and oversees the LifeEvac critical care transport program, which provides lifesaving critical care air and ground transportation, and he developed a curriculum for the School of Medicine’s multidisciplinary team to ensure patients being transported to VCU receive the best-quality care. Dhindsa continuously works to identify efficiencies that can lead to shorter wait times and better patient care. 

Changemakers

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Medicine on a mission

Each summer, VCU students and faculty travel to remote villages in Honduras to offer residents much-needed health care and supplies. Read more [View Image]
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Building bridges

Student-led health screenings at Richmond homeless shelters provide a point of connection between VCU students and the community. Read more [View Image]
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Tiny tech

Brandcenter and School of Engineering graduate students helped create garments that shield wearers from potentially dangerous cell phone radiation. Read more [View Image]
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Positive influence

Ph.D. student Amanda Hall was named Outstanding Young Virginian for her efforts to improve the lives of Richmond residents through community service and education. Read more [View Image]

The professors in the special education program at VCU are constantly working to make me the best teacher I can possibly be.

Grace Giampietro
Graduate student
School of Education