\u201cA common theory that has come out of NASA studies of space travel is that space travel accelerates aging,\u201d Donahue said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Undergraduate students will work with graduate students and postdoctoral researchers on experiments assessing bone structure and function, utilizing micro-CT imaging, bioinformatics and tests of bone strength. The hands-on experience will introduce students to research with potential applications in health care and spaceflight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur hope is that identifying the mechanisms underlying disuse-induced bone loss will suggest therapeutic targets for space travel-induced and aging-induced bone loss, since all three of these conditions, disuse, space travel and aging, result in similar bone loss,\u201d Donahue said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using a leg-casting model in genetically diverse mice, researchers will study how genetic differences influence bone loss in response to disuse. Students will help analyze micro-CT images of bone structure and how this is influenced by genetic background. The team hopes to identify genes that may protect against bone loss or worsen it, potentially revealing targets for future treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe hope in completing this study we’ll be able to identify genes that either protect against disuse-induced bone loss or make disuse-induced bone loss worse,\u201d Donahue said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The findings may also be relevant to low-gravity environments. Donahue said researchers have theorized that space travel may accelerate aging. This project focuses on bone, where spaceflight-related bone loss shares similarities with age-related and disuse-related bone loss. The results could inform future efforts to protect astronauts\u2019 bone health and contribute more broadly to research on prevention and treatments that help preserve mobility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
The Department of Biomedical Engineering provides undergraduate<\/a> and graduate<\/a> students with the opportunity to perform real-world research<\/a> as soon as they enroll. From delving into the intricacies of cell migration in cancer research to exploring tissue engineering in menisci, tendons and ligaments, our students pursue a diverse range of cutting-edge research topics. Browse videos and recent news from the Department of Biomedical Engineering<\/a> to discover how the College of Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University prepares the next generation of scientists and engineers for the challenges of the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VCU researchers received a $3M NIH grant to study the genetic factors of disuse-induced bone loss, comparing spaceflight and aging to discover new treatments for preserving astronaut and patient mobility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2033,"featured_media":1957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,165,15],"tags":[10,1151,38,1164,1174],"class_list":["post-1956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bme","category-faculty-awards","category-grants","tag-grants","tag-hm","tag-henry-j-donahue","tag-josh-cohen","tag-research-grant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2033"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1958,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1956\/revisions\/1958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":1943,"date":"2026-11-09T15:54:34","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T15:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2026-11-09T15:54:36","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T15:54:36","slug":"longtime-vcu-college-of-engineering-faculty-and-staff-reflect-on-the-institutions-30-year-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/2026\/11\/09\/longtime-vcu-college-of-engineering-faculty-and-staff-reflect-on-the-institutions-30-year-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime VCU College of Engineering faculty and staff reflect on the institution\u2019s 30-year history"},"content":{"rendered":"\n Celebrating 30 years of engineering education, the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Engineering formed in 1996 from an unmet demand for creative thinkers capable of working the engineering problems facing industry and the greater Richmond area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With no buildings or classrooms and no faculty, Henry A. McGee, Ph.D.<\/strong><\/a>, VCU Engineering\u2019s first dean, set his mission to recruit faculty, staff and students who understood the importance of graduating ready-to-work engineers that could hit the ground running once hired. More than 100 students took a chance on the new institution, which centered heavily on hands-on learning and public-private partnerships to help students understand and address the ever-changing needs of businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the VCU College of Engineering, longtime faculty and staff reflect on the yearly years, and how things have changed at VCU and within Richmond.<\/p>\n\n\n Director of Information Technology \u201cWhen VCU Engineering first formed, we were small enough that, when anyone had a birthday, everyone fit into a single conference room. There were maybe eight or ten of us, but then we started growing fairly rapidly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u200aI think there was a lot of excitement at that point in time. We had a strong sense of direction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Two things were very striking then: One was that we were going to be supported by local business, and the other was that we were going to be training engineers to meet the needs of these local business supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before joining the engineering school in 1996, I worked as director of computing for the \u200aacademic schools on the VCU medical campus. There were many researchers in the health fields who wanted to collaborate with true engineering faculty. They’ve got this idea. They want somebody to make a reality of it, actually design a device or instrument that could help patients. They needed to go to other universities to look for collaborators. I so regretted that VCU did not have an engineering school back then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Associate Professor and Associate Chair \u201cSomething I really liked at VCU Engineering would evolve into what is now the Capstone Design Expo. It started in electrical engineering around the spring of 2000 or 2001. Dr. Iyer had become our new department chair and brought the idea from his previous institution. The event was hosted in the West Hall atrium and in a couple of the classrooms for electrical engineering students. I thought that was great because it was open to everybody, the public, parents, people living close to VCU. I’m glad that it was adopted by all, by the other departments and the college as a whole. I think Capstone has become really valuable and we get a lot out of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s an appreciation for everybody who is different at VCU. It\u2019s the idea that everyone can contribute in their own way with their specific skills and qualities. I\u2019ve always liked that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The College of Engineering has been supportive to me on a personal level too. Soon after being hired, I needed back surgery. It was a VCU Health colleague who I was working with on a research project that became my doctor and performed the surgery. Faculty, staff and students at VCU Engineering all did what they could to help me after the procedure and assist my recovery. I felt very welcome at VCU because of that. I was still new at the engineering school, so that was nice.”<\/p>\n\n\n Professor \u201cWhen I first joined VCU Engineering, the uniqueness was that everybody knew everybody else. We were small and I’d like to think of it more like a collegial family. Anybody was willing to do whatever was needed to make things work for our students. It was a young program that was growing. Coming in as the chair of the electrical and computer engineering department, I had a clean slate to do whatever I wanted, like put together the first senior design showcase. It was only for electrical engineering, but you could call it Capstone version 0.01.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Around 2003 or 2004 things really started growing, we added more research and graduate programs. The electrical and computer engineering department was recognized as the number one department in research funding per faculty member at VCU, including the medical campus. The awards ceremony was held at the Science Museum of Virginia, hosted by the VCU Office of Research. Our first graduate programs were an M.S. in engineering and a Ph.D. in engineering. There were no specialties back then, so most engineering graduate students took electrical engineering classes and vice versa. The School started to grow even more rapidly after computer science joined VCU Engineering a few years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those early years were very exciting. It’s almost like working at a startup, with faculty members who were willing to roll up their sleeves to get things done. They ordered furniture, built academic programs, hosted events, whatever needed to get done. Everybody wanted us to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Chair and Professor \u201cThe engineering school brought me onboard for my computer engineering experience to develop the 300 and 400 level computer engineering classes, VCU Engineering\u2019s first class were sophomores at the time. We also needed a computer lab too, so I helped order about 20 Sun workstations and those old-style CRT monitors to run the software needed for computer engineering work. Everyone pitched in, and I found myself unpacking boxes, installing the operating system, installing the individual software packages, everything to get things running for students to use. It was an adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every other year or so from the engineering school\u2019s opening, we hired another computer engineering faculty member, including Dr. Iyer who became department chair. We all worked to get the computer engineering program at VCU Engineering running and accredited by ABET.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had strong industry support from businesses like Qimonda, Dominion Semiconductor and Motorola because our coursework was geared toward graduating working engineers. The Virginia Microelectronics Center housed at VCU Engineering also played a role in that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our graduate and research programs began with the alumni of those first few graduated classes, asking them to come back to VCU Engineering to continue their education. Around that time is when I came into my own research specialty as a result of a colleague connecting me with people at NASA Langley. I would go on to work on autopilots and data payload systems for unmanned aerial vehicles. We were doing UAVs at VCU Engineering before anybody called them drones or DJI had developed those multi-rotor systems that have become popular.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Assistant Dean for Student Affairs \u201cWhen I first got to VCU Engineering, it was before we had a building. We were in those houses on Franklin Street, and I ran up and down Franklin Street shuttling packages to faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a birthday party on my first day in engineering. Once a month, Dean McGee would have a big party for whoever celebrated that month. It was nice and really showed me we were all like family, everyone pulling together and trying to make this thing work. We were close and knew each other well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That’s what attracted me to come over and work at the College of Engineering. I liked the idea that this was the start of something great, something that never has been before. I went from being a student worker to full-time staff, and from one of the executive assistants to working in advising and then becoming an assistant dean. I have been very fortunate to be at a place that fully supported my career aspirations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember the bagel Wednesdays Career Services hosts today started with Dr. Mattauch, our second dean. He joined VCU from UVA and loved Bodo’s Bagels, so Bob brought them from Einstein’s Bagel every week. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to come together in fellowship, students, faculty, staff and enjoy each other\u2019s company. That was really one of the first touch points that we had to build that family atmosphere. Later on we had things like the Thanksgiving turkey fry and the Battle of Belvidere, where folks from East and West Hall would cook and people chose which building had the best food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s been a wonderful experience at the College of Engineering. Looking back to 2000, we had our first graduation next to West Hall. The Institute for Engineering and Medicine wasn\u2019t built yet, and because of the size of the class, we were able to hold it out on the lawn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Director of Graduate Studies and Engagement “My start at VCU Engineering was as executive coordinator for Dr. Boyan when she came from Georgia Tech to be the College of Engineering\u2019s new dean. There was a lot of momentum at that time and people were really excited around what we could build and create. Things were smaller and more streamlined then. We didn’t have quite as many faculty and staff. \u200aA big goal in the dean’s office was to make it feel like a place that was welcoming, so that people could come in, get coffee and chat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the first things I worked on at the College of Engineering was the promotion and tenure process. Everything was still on paper then, so reports from the committees, departments and dean all went into a binder that was passed to the Provost\u2019s office. I\u2019d been with VCU for about a month, and walked a stack of these binders to Ginter House. But when I opened the door (it was very old) it literally fell off its hinges. It’s hanging on by the bottom hinge, so I’m trying to walk in and leave and I’m like, “Hi, where do I go with these binders? Also, I broke your front door.” Those were my early days at VCU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Battle of Belvidere was a really great event that brought everyone together in a cooking competition of West Hall vs East Hall. The Office of the Dean, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Chemical and Life Science Engineering were West Hall. The Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Computer Science were East Hall. Everyone volunteered to bring in a dish and we sold really cheap tickets that let students, faculty and staff attend. You\u2019d get to try one of everything in the room and vote for what you thought was best. The prize was bragging rights and an award that was a turkey made out of aluminum foil and cooking utensils. All the proceeds were donated to the Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though we\u2019ve grown since then, we make sure our students don’t feel like just a number. I know sometimes at big, public, state-kind of universities people aren’t really known as individuals. But even for our freshman, because of the dedicated advising within the college and having undergraduate program directors and graduate program directors, I think we know most students as individuals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We want to make sure we’re helping students in a personal way, rather than just, “Hi, stranger, please fill out this form to graduate.” You know? I think it\u2019s interesting that feeling has held true through the VCU College of Engineering\u2019s many years. It\u2019s a hard thing to maintain, but I think it\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1088\/2026\/11\/a3f1cc830e7cea67c58a6ce3dfe528151532697451_l.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAnil Chatterji<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Joined 1996<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1088\/2026\/11\/ee39175676e8b1229693f9fb0fe22fbc1480543991_o-1-1024x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAlen Docef, Ph.D.<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Joined 2000<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1088\/2026\/11\/Ashok-Iyer-1024x1024.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAshok Iyer, Ph.D.<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Joined 2000<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1088\/2026\/11\/52258742434_e8a64e6016_k-1000x1000-1.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nBob Klenke, Ph.D.<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Joined 1998<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1088\/2026\/11\/Jennifer-Rivers.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nJennifer C. Rivers, Ed.D.<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Joined 1995<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1088\/2026\/11\/2024-jenilee_sm-1000x1000-1.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nJenilee Stanley-Shanks<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Joined 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1088\/2026\/11\/4a824be8ff5d34f4a8f1202a5564371b1532716292_l.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.vcu.edu\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1088\/2026\/11\/tepper-header-970x900-1.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n