Two years after he set multiple powerlifting records, Col. Dan Barr ’74, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Military Institute, has once again achieved new heights.

Two Virginians — one a poet and the other a painter — have united in blending visual and literary art forms to enhance their creative expressions and to celebrate Virginia 250.

Col. J. Patrick Rhamey, professor in the Department of International Studies and Political Science, examines the overwhelming majority of analyses explaining the motivations for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine being not only wrong, but leading to terrible predictions of Russia’s inevitable success.

Dr. Duncan Richter, professor in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies and holder of the Charles Luck III ’55 Institute Professorship at Virginia Military Institute, has recently authored his seventh book.

Maj. Mattie Webb, assistant professor in the Department of History at Virginia Military Institute, was recently named a nonresident fellow with the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group (IGA), a nonprofit research and public education organization focused on geopolitics.

Lt. Col. Tim Passmore recently published an article addressing the effect of populist government on international cooperation in International Studies Quarterly, a peer-reviewed academic journal of international studies and an official journal of the International Studies Association.

Dr. Tanjina Afrin, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Military Institute, is featured on “Concrete Jungle,” an episode of the public radio program, “With Good Reason,” that first airs Jan. 24.

Maj. Alison Burke, assistant professor and health professions advisor in the Department of Biology at Virginia Military Institute, recently had a research article published in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Lt. Col. Mark Boonshoft, associate professor and Conrad M. Hall ’65 Chair in American Constitutional History at VMI, has been named co-editor of the Journal of the Early Republic, the quarterly publication of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic (SHEAR).

Mattie Quesenberry Smith, Ph.D., instructor in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies at Virginia Military Institute, and Virginia’s poet laureate, has been chosen by Virginia Business (VB) for their list of “100 People to Meet in 2026” in the Educators category.