School of Public Health

The VCU School of Public Health is proud to send more than 20 representatives to the APHA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., on November 2-5, 2025.

The Applied Public Health Statistics (APHS) Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) has granted Niloofar Ramezani, Ph.D., the 2025 APHS Mid-Career Award.

Few treatments currently exist for people suffering from long-lasting effects of a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), also known as a concussion. A four-year study, funded by the Department of Defense (DOD), tests how a treatment called Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Biofeedback may help service members suffering from long-term symptoms after a mTBI relative to the usual care that these patients receive.

The Center on Society and Health (CSH) is an academic research center that studies the health implications of social factors—such as education, income, neighborhood and community environmental conditions, and public policy. The VCU School of Public Health is proud to announce Derek Chapman, Ph.D., will lead the Center on Society and Health as director. Chapman […]

Jessica G. LaRose, Ph.D., F.S.B.M., has been named chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences as of August 1, 2025. LaRose served as interim chair since 2022.

In the spring 2026, the VCU School of Public Health will offer an accredited, fully online Master of Public Health program. The asynchronous, online program offers maximum flexibility for students while experiencing the same curriculum to help them develop the analytic and critical reasoning skills to improve public health.

By Olivia Trani Rural communities are particularly hard-hit, and the research could point to workforce initiatives. Nearly half of Virginia’s neighborhoods don’t have enough nearby primary care physicians for their residents, with rural communities being hit hardest by workforce shortages, according to a new study led by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University.  Using anonymized health […]

Scientists at VCU have created a new tool called TACIT that could help doctors better understand what is happening inside the body by using advanced computer models to identify different kinds of cells in tissues faster and more accurately than ever before, helping to guide better treatment decisions.

Robert Perera, Ph.D., interim chair of the Department of Biostatistics in the VCU School of Public Health, has been appointed to the board of the Biopharmaceutical Applied Statistics Symposium (BASS). Perera was nominated for this role by current members of the BASS board after serving on the organization's program committee.

Each year, the VCU School of Public Health and its departments recognize outstanding teaching and service with awards for its faculty and staff. Here are the awardees for 2024-2025.