Changemakers honored at VCU’s Excellence in Community Engagement Awards ceremony

By Haley Tenore

Highlighting educators, students and community partners who make an impact inside and outside the classroom, Virginia Commonwealth University hosted its annual Excellence in Community Engagement Awards ceremony on May 14 to recognize service that stretches beyond campus.

VCU’s Division of Community Engagement directs the recognition program, and here are this year’s honorees in five categories.

Excellence in Community Engaged Research: Katherine Tossas      

Tossas, Ph.D., is a cancer epidemiologist who is an assistant professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Public Health. She is the founding director of the Office of Catchment Area Data Analytics and associate co-director of global oncology at VCU’s Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Her initiatives include the Chickahominy T.R.U.T.H. Project (Trust, Research, Understand, Teach, and Heal), which studies the water supply in Charles City County and interviews residents to assess cancer risk. She also co-led Project Coalesce, which worked to break down barriers to cancer screenings.

In February, she joined the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s New Voices program for university leaders.

“Dr. Tossas is the epitome of research excellence and a rising star in cancer health equity,” wrote Jessica G. LaRose, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, in her nomination of Tossas. “She has a stellar record of accomplishments characterized by methodological rigor and original thought, and her approach is deeply aligned with VCU’s commitment to community engagement and a culture of collaboration.”

Excellence in Community Engaged Teaching: Emily Smith

Smith, an assistant professor in the School of the Arts’ Department of Interior Design, is a self-described generalist. At the heart of her teaching is the middle Of broad studio, an interdisciplinary design studio she co-leads for VCUarts that brings together VCU students and Richmond community members to develop design solutions for community needs.

Her curiosity extends well beyond Richmond. Through Patterns of Place, a collaboration with a design historian, she has taken students to the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Sicily to study how patterns in the built environment and nature reveal the impacts of climate change — and what resilience might look like. Closer to home, her Material Being project is building an open, interactive database where people can share and discover new ways of understanding materials.

In nominating Smith, Roberto Ventura, associate professor and chair of the Department of Interior Design, praised her commitment to making community-engaged design across diverse communities a focal point in her teaching and emphasized her commitment to sustainability and her leadership in extramural study opportunities.

Excellence in Community Engagement (Faculty or Staff): Emily Zimmerman

Zimmerman, Ph.D., is a professor of epidemiology in the School of Public Health and co-investigator for community partnership research at the Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research. She co-founded Engaging Richmond, an initiative of the VCU Center on Society and Health that targets the needs of residents of Richmond’s East End, and she serves as director of community engaged research at the center. Projects of Engaging Richmond address barriers to employment, gun violence education and early childhood education.

Zimmerman also developed the SEED method – Stakeholder Engagement in Question Development – that Richmond and the city of Martinsville implemented to address health concerns such as diabetes, lung cancer and opioid addiction.

“The impact of Dr. Zimmerman’s work is evident across multiple domains,” wrote Samar R. El Khoudary, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology, in a nomination letter. “At the individual level, community members have gained skills, confidence and opportunities for advancement. At the community level, there have been tangible improvements in services, programs and collaborative capacity.”

Excellence in Community Engagement (Students or Postdoctoral Fellows): Nina Dashti-Gibson

Dashti-Gibson, an M.D./Ph.D. student in the Medical Scientist Training Program in the School of Medicine and a T32 Scholar in the Wright Center's Translational Biomedical Sciences Training Program, was recognized for her work with Brushstrokes of Discovery. The initiative invited local artists to create murals for display in Richmond locations throughout May, raising awareness for donating tumor tissue samples to support cancer research.

“Ms. Dashti-Gibson served as a central champion for this initiative, ensuring that engagement was not treated as outreach alone, but as a reciprocal partnership grounded in trust, respect and shared purpose,” wrote nominators Jennifer Koblinksi, Ph.D., and Chuck Harrell, Ph.D., who are both associate professors in the School of Medicine and researchers in the VCU Massey Comprehensive Care Center. “From the project’s earliest stages, she played a pivotal role in facilitating meaningful relationships between cancer researchers, local Black artists, institutional stakeholders and community members. Her ability to listen deeply and communicate across disciplines and centering community voices was essential to the project’s success.”

Outstanding University Community Partner: Richmond Public Schools: Multilingual Student Success team and Katrina Jackson

This year, the Outstanding University-Community Partner Award recognizes two programs within Richmond Public Schools that together represent an exceptional model of sustained, collaborative partnership.

The Department of Multilingual Success, under the leadership of Jennifer Blackwell, Ed.D., supports RPS students who speak English as a second language and gives VCU students an opportunity to work with multilingual students. The program welcomed interns from VCU’s School of Education and the College of Humanities and Sciences, providing insight into how urban school districts educate multilingual students.

Jenna Lenhardt, Ph.D., assistant professor with the School of Education, nominated the program, writing, “The RPS Multilingual Student Success team did not just provide a site for our students; they provided a clear future career pathway and professional network. Through their intentional model of professional development, they allowed VCU students to grow from observers to advocates.”

A second initiative recognized for its impact is led by Katrina Jackson, regional coordinator with the RPS Office of Engagement. Guided by a personal mission to “teach, lead and serve with love,” Jackson has spent 21 years championing Richmond’s students and families. Through the “Connecting Pieces” initiative, she has mobilized family liaisons across ten schools to deliver more than 40 programs targeting chronic absenteeism.