Driven by purpose and impact
From the chair
Benjamin Darter, PT, Ph.D.
Featured news
Every day College of Health Professions students, alumni, faculty and staff do extraordinary things. Read more about our latest achievements below.
On the quest to continue Marquette Challenge streak
VCU Physical Therapy students are looking to extend their 5-year streak of winning the Marquette Challenge, a national fundraiser supporting the Foundation for Physical Therapy Research (FPTR). To honor this run of victories, the event has been renamed the VCU-Marquette Challenge for this year.
Students honored during Commencement activities
During an awards luncheon, Physical Therapy celebrated the Class of 2025 and presented several recognitions.
Wilkins blends heart of a PT with vision of a hospital leader
Fully outfitted in scrubs, Joe Wilkins walks into the Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center and heads to the rehab unit. Long before he became the hospital’s president, Wilkins was a physical therapist – and that part of him shows up every first Friday of the month.
Kiefer helps pave way for new therapies for inherited muscle disorders
At the intersection of clinical practice, scientific discovery and international collaboration, VCU physical therapy researcher Mike Kiefer, DPT, Ph.D., is helping rewrite the future for patients with rare and progressive muscle disorders.
Student pro bono PT clinic CARES for community
For uninsured patients who have nowhere to turn, the CARES Clinic offers something rare: a chance for a better quality of life.
Wright pivots to PT after 22-year military career
Earning her physical therapy degree in May marks the latest milestone for Feather Wright’s decades-long relationship with the discipline that began during her initial career in the U.S. Army.
Our Fall 2024 Newsletter
In our latest newsletter, find an array of stories and other valuable insights about the program, including:
VCU wins Marquette Challenge for 5th straight year
Keeping an important streak going, VCU Physical Therapy students raised the most funds for research to earn the Marquette Challenge for the fifth year in a row. For the next year, the event will be titled the VCU-Marquette Challenge to recognize this top finish. VCU raised $24,150.60 - representing nearly a fifth of the total $150,000 raised by PT programs across the country.
Scholarships awarded during Commencement, White Coat Ceremony
In addition to welcoming the incoming Class of 2027 and presenting them with their white coats, the Physical Therapy presented scholarships to more than a dozen students across the program during its fall ceremony. Those awards join a pair of scholarships presented during Commencement activities last spring.
VCU team’s immersive VR intervention offers hope for chronic back pain relief
Whether playing simulated dodgeball or fishing, individuals who participate in immersive video games get distracted from chronic back pain and make specific movements that ease their discomfort and allow them to engage in more active lives, according to preliminary findings by a VCU physical therapy researcher. James Thomas, Ph.D., professor and director of the Motor Control Lab, presented the early results, based on five years of data collection, during the International Association for the Study of Pain’s 2024 World Congress this summer in Amsterdam.
Kline brings new vision to mobility study of individuals with lower-limb amputations
Growing up in a rural North Carolina community that attracted a lot of retirees, Paul Kline saw his neighbors every day struggle with mobility issues. “I joked that’s how I became interested in physical therapy, because I saw firsthand the challenges my neighbors were dealing with as they got older,” Kline says.
Physical Therapy alum joins faculty to champion health equity
From Virginia clinics to remote Haitian villages, Kai Kennedy, D.P.T., has dedicated her career to ensuring that everyone – no matter their background or zip code – has access to the care they need to live their fullest lives.
Motivating underserved children to become more physically active
Tamara Buck, PT, DPT, PCS, is on a mission to get children who aren’t physically active moving more.
Physical Therapy students launch degree journeys at White Coat Ceremony
In pairs, members of the Class of 2027 crossed the Kontos Building stage to accept their white coats – a symbol of their commitment to their future profession as physical therapists.
Physical Therapy faculty member is among recipients of 2024 VCU Quest Fund
Paul Kline, P.T., D.P.T., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Virginia Commonwealth University College of Health Professions Department of Physical Therapy, has been awarded a grant from the 2024 VCU Quest Fund.
CBS6 visits the biomechanics lab to interview Pete Pidcoe and Zach Moore about concussion research
A team of researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University College of Health Professions and College of Engineering are using robotic technology to better understand the long-term impacts that concussions can have on patients. The goal of the project is to develop a model for assessing the level of physical impairment caused by a concussion and how long it takes to recover.
Transdisciplinary project is using robotics to advance concussion recovery
A team of researchers at the Virginia Commonwealth University College of Health Professions and College of Engineering are using robotic technology to better understand the long-term impacts that concussions can have on patients. The goal of the project is to develop a model for assessing the level of physical impairment caused by a concussion and how long it takes to recover.
Honoring our mentors: A conversation with Dr. Ann Dunbar
In this episode of CHP Conversations, we talk to Dr. Ann Dunbar, alumna of the physical therapy program and founder of the 'Honoring Our Mentors Physical Therapy Scholarship.' Dr. Dunbar shares her experience with the College of Health Professions and what motivated her to establish this fund to support the students of today while remembering the contributions of those helping students reach their professional goals.
Our Fall 2023 newsletter
In our latest newsletter, find an array of stories and other valuable insights about the program, including:
VCU College of Health Professions Appoints Physical Therapy Chair
Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Health Professions has appointed Benjamin Darter, P.T., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Physical Therapy. Darter has served as interim chair since fall 2022.
VCU collaboration gives children experience of mobility
June 26, 2023 - A group of students in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Physical Therapy in the College of Health Professions, was part of a volunteer project this month to help meet the needs of patients with significant mobility impairment at Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU (CHOR).
Virtual VCU worlds used to train, teach and treat in the real one
Across VCU's campuses, instructors, researchers and clinicians have turned to virutal reality (VR) for teaching, training and patient care.
College of Health Professions Alumni Spotlight: Evangeline Yoder, PT, MS, DHSC
Evangeline Yoder was first introduced to the physical therapy profession as a child while being treated by an orthopaedic surgeon in Richmond named Dr. Thomas Wheeldon. Yoder had adolescent idiopathic scoliosis – an abnormal curvature of the spine that appears in late childhood or adolescence. Wheeldon received accreditation in 1931 from the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) to establish the first physical therapy school “in the south” at Richmond Professional Institute, the forerunner of the Medical College of Virginia’s (MCV) physical therapy program.
Department of Physical Therapy names interim chair
Oct. 31, 2022
VCU Takes Top Honors at the VCU-Marquette Challenge
The ‘VCU-Marquette Challenge’ is a national competition in which physical therapy students compete to raise the most money to support APTA’s Foundation for Physical Therapy Research (FPTR). VCU Physical Therapy students came out on top again this year, and were awarded the coveted first place among 79 participating programs in the country. This marks three years in a row that VCU students have won the competition signaling their clear and unwavering passion and dedication to support physical therapy research. Congratulations to Shawne Soper, who supported the PT student leaders in developing and implementing a year-long fundraising campaign that raised just $23,053.72.
‘I could really see myself here at VCU’
Image by Tom Kojcsich, University Relations
PT Faculty Receive National Awards
Two PT faculty received national awards at the 2020/2021 American Physical Therapy Association Awards Ceremony in Washington DC on September 12th, 2021.
Alumni Spotlight - Dr. Tracey Adler
We recently had the opportunity to talk one on one with Dr. Tracey Adler, a physical therapy graduate of the College of Health Professions, (formerly known as VCU’s School of Allied Health Professions).