Catherine Cotrupi, Assistant Dean of Student Services, Inclusion, and Strategic Partnerships

Catherine Cotrupi (she/hers) serves as the Assistant Deanof Student Services, Inclusion, and Strategic Partnerships for the Graduate School at Virginia Tech.

She is passionate about community engagement, DEIJ, antiracism, and justice-based efforts and has served in professional and personal roles working to bridge the these to leverage the resources of each for the benefit of the others.

Her professional work and passions lie at the intersection of community engagement and DEIJ efforts. Her previous professional roles include working for VT Engage, the Center for Service Learning, Leadership Education, and Civic Engagement; and Multicultural Programs and Services (now the Cultural and Community Centers) at Virginia Tech; and as Community Engagement Manager at the University of Southern Indiana. 

She uses her experience and expertise to support antiracist and social justice efforts on campus and off.

Catherine earned both her doctoral degree in Higher Education and her master’s degree in Sociology from Virginia Tech and she earned a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Clemson University. Her dissertation research focused on white faculty members’ actions to resist upholding whiteness and white supremacy culture in their community engagement efforts. Her personal, professional, and academic interests include individuals’ actions toward actively addressing inequity and hegemony.

She is involved in the regional community in a variety of ways; she has served on the Board of the New River Conservancy since 2020 where she currently serves as Chair; she has been on the City of Radford’s Recreation Commission since 2018, and she has been an Officer of Elections serving as a Poll Worker then Precinct Chief since 2016.

She and her wife, Tara, live in Radford their dog, Hugo, and their cats, Phoebe and Finn.

You can reach Dr. Cotrupi at (540) 231-6529, or via email: cotrupi@vt.edu.