Two VCU Executives are Named in Style Weekly’s Top 40 Under 40

By Michael Ford
University News Services

Two Virginia Commonwealth University executives have been named to Style Weekly magazine’s 2004 list of Top 40 Under 40 successful young professionals who give back to the community.

Named in the Sept. 29 issue were Samatha Wheeler Marrs, assistant vice president for university advancement and director of corporate and foundation relations; and Denise C. Daly, an instructor in the Department of Internal Medicine’s Division of Quality Health.

Marrs was chosen for her work with several community organizations, and Daly was chosen for her work as executive director of REACH, Richmond Enhancing Access to Community Healthcare.

Marrs directs corporate and foundation philanthropic efforts for VCU by identifying national funding opportunities for university priorities like research, teaching and public service. She collaborates with more than 25 development officers within the university on both the Monroe Park and MCV campuses. In addition, she manages the campaign to build the Rice Center for Environmental Life Sciences on the James River and the effort to restore the historic Scott House.

Marrs has worked with VCU Community Solutions, the Nonprofit Enterprise Institute, the Massey Cancer Center campaign committee, the Partnership for People with Disabilities Resource Development Group, DataShare Richmond, the Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Advisory Board, the VCU Institute for Women’s Health, the Grace E. Harris Leadership Program, REACH and the NASA/VCU FIRST Robotics competition.

Prior to coming to VCU in 2000, Marrs was a program associate with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Smith College and a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University.

Daly joined VCU as a research associate in 1999 and has been the co-investigator on a half dozen national grants at VCU, including a $1 million federal grant that led to the founding of REACH in 2000. She became the founding coordinator of REACH, which is a consortium of nine area safety-net providers dedicated to helping uninsured and under-insured people get access to medical care.

This summer Daly was appointed to the Lieutenant Governor’s Commission on Small Business Health Insurance Costs. She also has worked with the Governor’s Conference on Covering the Uninsured. Daly was a chief architect of MORE Access, a software system that shares patient financial information among the REACH partners, streamlining the screening process for patients.

Daly is a graduate of The College of William and Mary with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She earned a master’s degree from the University of Virginia and a certificate in leadership excellence in neurodevelopmental disabilities from VCU.