Scholarships and Awards

The College of Humanities and Sciences offers more than 100 scholarship opportunities annually to currently enrolled students.

Of those, the following are offered to students specifically through the Department of Physics, though there are more general scholarships in the full scholarship database for which students may qualify, as well. Our scholarships are supported by, or endowed in honor of, alums and former members of our faculty, in a tangible representation of their deep commitment to VCU and to physics as a discipline.

• Bijan Rao Scholarship in Physics. The College and the Department of Physics established the Bijan Rao Scholarship in Physics in honor of Bijan K. Rao, Ph.D., a beloved physics professor known for his research in atomic clusters and nanoscale science. Rao passed away in May 2004. The scholarship will be awarded annually to an undergraduate physics major who has completed at least 16 credit hours of physics courses applicable to the major, is at least one year away from graduation, has not won the award before, and has at least a 3.0 GPA in their physics courses. The scholarship will be assessed on academic merit.