A mission to protect vulnerable children
By Erica Naone Robin Foster, M.D. (M.D.’89/M; H.S.’92/M), has barely slept. She worked a night shift in VCU Health’s pediatric emergency department, she explains, as she navigates the hallways of the Children’s Pavilion at Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. She excuses herself briefly to check on a family. She can’t stay with them long […]
All dressed up with somewhere to go
By Erica Naone Rhonda Williams (A.S.’68/En) has lived a life of dramatic change. She left Halifax County in rural Virginia after high school for the bustling state capital, Richmond. Over the years, she forged a career in the then-nascent field of software engineering, pursued a new path as an entrepreneur, came out as transgender and […]
She said yes! With help from VCU Libraries’ screen, proposal became a really big ask
By Julie Young His stomach was in knots, and he stumbled over the words he had so carefully rehearsed. But at 2:50 p.m. April 21, with an assist from James Branch Cabell Library’s 400-foot digital screen, Osman Malik (B.S.’15/B) pulled off a surprise proposal to his longtime girlfriend, Faria Ahmed (B.S.’15/H&S), on the Virginia Commonwealth […]
Reunion: A reason to smile
Pediatric dentist aims to make her first class reunion one to remember By Anthony Langley (B.S.’16/MC) This year marks five years since Lindsey North, D.D.S. (D.D.S.’13/D) graduated from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry. This is her first class reunion. Each year, VCU’s health sciences schools — allied health professions, dentistry, medicine, nursing and […]
Small particles, big implications
By Anthony Langley (B.S.’16/MC) Patricia Turpin (B.S.’17/H&S; B.S.’17/LS) credits her high school math teacher, Mr. Kaiser, for teaching her to appreciate the certainty that came with math and science. “When I’d write an English essay, there was always room for answers to be partially correct,” she says. “But with math, there was always one true […]
Making sure the beat goes on
By Anthony Langley (B.S.’16/MC) Hannah Standiford (B.M.’11/A) picked up her first guitar at 13. Music has played an integral role in her life ever since. She studied classical guitar at Virginia Commonwealth University, graduating with a bachelor’s in music in 2011. Since then, she has performed as the frontwoman for a number of bands and […]
Partners in practice
By Julie Young Diane Coniglio, Pharm.D. (Pharm.D.’87/P), and Tony Coniglio, Pharm.D. (Pharm.D.’86/P), met as undergraduate pharmacy students at the University of Rhode Island. They married in 1983 and moved to Richmond, Virginia, where VCU School of Pharmacy’s graduate program focused their careers, provide a lifelong network of colleagues and friends and cement their union as […]
Dancing into the sunset
Dance has been at the heart of everything Sheena Jeffers (B.S.’08/MC; B.A.’08/H&S) has done since she took her first ballet class when she was 5.
Capturing a far-off place: A conversation with wildlife photographer Trevor Frost
By Anthony Langley (B.S.’16/MC) Trevor Frost (B.S.’06/LS) is a wildlife photographer and filmmaker who, after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2006 at the age of 20, has gone on to work with National Geographic. We caught up with Frost recently to learn about his love of the wild, storytelling and his time at VCU.
A covert operation: How alumna Eva Dillon learned a Cold War secret
By Anthony Langley (B.S.’16/MC) As a child, Eva Dillon (B.M.’82/A) moved all around the world. She and her six siblings would fall in love with a country, and a few years later, her father’s job would take the family somewhere new. “I was born in Berlin, Germany, four years before the [Berlin] Wall went up,” […]