Centers and Facilities
Students and Faculty in the School of Life Sciences and Sustainability have access to exceptional research spaces, field sites, and technologies that foster hands-on learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and scientific discovery.
SLSS Centers
- Rice Rivers Center: Located along the James River, the Rice Rivers Center is a 494-acre field station dedicated to environmental research, education, and community engagement. The center provides unparalleled opportunities for field-based learning and research in ecology, conservation, and sustainability. Facilities include teaching labs, a freshwater research pier, a boat fleet, and housing for students and visiting researchers.
- Center for Integrative Life Sciences Education (CILSE): CILSE advances innovative teaching and learning across the life sciences, with a focus on interdisciplinary education, community engagement, and workforce preparation. The center coordinates programs such as the Integrative Life Sciences Ph.D., sustainability curriculum initiatives, and K-12 outreach, and serves as a hub for collaboration among faculty, students, and external partners.
Additional SLSS Facilities
SLSS manages a variety of specialized research spaces on campus, including:
- Greenhouse facility for plant science research
- Aquatics facility with freshwater and marine tanks
- Animal facility maintained and supervised by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
- State-of-the-art microscopy center maintained by SLSS faculty
Shared Campus Resources
Students and faculty also have access to multi-user laboratories and university research centers that provide cutting-edge technology and expertise.
- Instrumentation Facility: This facility in the nearby Department of Chemistry has resources for biomarker identification and environmental chemistry
- High Performance Research Computing Core: The HPRC core facility provides the VCU community with high-performance computing resources for research, teaching, and outreach activities.
- University Core Laboratories: The university maintains several core laboratories that provide access to genomics and lipidomics analyses as well as high-performance computing resources
Collaborations Across VCU
SLSS researchers frequently engage in transdisciplinary work with centers and institutes across the university, including the Massey Cancer Center and the Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research. We also regularly partner with the university's Outdoor Adventure Program and the VCU Office of Sustainability.