Dr. Jennifer Jordan, Ph.D., M.S. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Pauley Heart Center at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She obtained her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2007, her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Virginia Tech – Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences in 2011, and her M.S. in Clinical and Population Sciences from Wake Forest University in 2014.
Dr. Jordan is a translational scientist focused on cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) and computed tomography (CT) imaging in acute chest pain, cardiac sarcoidosis, heart failure, and the emerging field of cardio-oncology. Her research centers on the application of rapid imaging techniques to identify noninvasive biomarkers for ischemia and heart failure in these populations. As the Director of the Quantitative Cardiovascular Imaging lab, she currently oversees imaging from several multi-center, US and international studies from academic and community-based hospitals with CMR and echo imaging endpoints.
Accomplishments
Inaugural Fellow, Executive Leadership Academy for Cancer Centers
In January 2025, VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center welcomed the inaugural cohort for the Executive Leadership Academy for Cancer Centers (ELACC), an 18-month intensive leadership academy in partnership with the Medical University of South Carolina Hollings Cancer Center. This first-of-its-kind, in-depth training series involves a robust curriculum to empower scientists who are interested in becoming future leaders of National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers.
2024 VCU National/International Recognition Award
The National/International Recognition Award (NIRA) recognizes VCU faculty who were nationally or internationally recognized for exceptional accomplishments during the course of their current evaluation period, performing at the top of their academic unit, and were recommended by their dean.
Affiliations
American College of Cardiology
American Heart Association
International Cardio-Oncology Society
Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance
VCU Massey Cancer Center
Courses
EGRB 215
Computational Methods
EGRB 407/527
Physical Principles of Medical Imaging
EGRB 491
Research Excellence in Cardiovascular Medicine: Methods and Ethics
EGRB 528
Fundamentals and Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging
Education
Wake Forest University
M.S. Clinical and Population Translational Sciences 2014
Completed as part of NIH T32 Post-doctoral Fellowship in Clinical Cardiovascular Imaging at Wake Forest School of Medicine
Virginia Tech - Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences
Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering 2011
American Heart Association Pre-doctoral Fellowship
North Carolina State University
B.S. Biomedical Engineering 2007
University Honors
Event Appearances
Insights from Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the Oncology Patient: Improving CV Profiles for Treatment and Survivorship
Invited Seminar Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute (Seattle, WA) 2019-02-04
When a picture is worth a thousand words: CMR imaging in women with breast cancer
Heart Health in Women Symposium Virginia Historical Society (Richmond, VA) 2019-02-01
Jennifer Hawthorne Jordan, Ph.D., M.S., has joined the faculty as director of the new Cardiovascular MRI Core Lab and assistant professor of biomedical engineering. Her previous position was engineering director of the Cardiovascular MRI Laboratory at Wake Forest School of Medicine, where she also served on the faculty.
She received her master’s in clinical and population translational sciences at Wake Forest University and her doctoral degree in biomedical engineering at Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. She also completed a T32 cardiovascular imaging postdoctoral fellowship. One of her research advisors at Wake Forest was Dr. Greg Hundley.
Jordan is a peer reviewer for numerous journals and currently serves as an investigator on over $13 million in NIH and other grants, mostly involving MRI studies of patients with cardiovascular disease, including those who have undergone cancer treatments.
The VCU College of Engineering’s faculty continues to expand. The college’s 12 new faculty have added expertise in a wide range of fields that include cybersecurity, pharmaceutical engineering, biomedical engineering, and alternative energy. A number of VCU Engineering’s current faculty members have also received academic promotions.
“It is with great pride that the College of Engineering welcomes these exceptional new faculty to our academic family,” said Barbara D. Boyan, Ph.D., the Alice T. and William H. Goodwin Jr. dean of the College of Engineering and professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. “Our students will have the opportunity to study with professors who are doing cutting-edge research in fields that address the challenges of our century. Go Rams!”
Kron, who last October was awarded an endowment fund through the Wright Center to further support her research, is joined in the study by Jennifer Jordan, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the VCU College of Engineering Department of Biomedical Engineering and director of the Cardiovascular MRI Core Lab at the Pauley Heart Center. Jordan’s research focuses on translational and clinical cardiovascular MRI techniques and cardiac magnetic resonance tissue characterization in patients who have received chemotherapy for breast cancer. For this study, she will be using her expertise in cardiac magnetic resonance to help assess inflammation in cardiac sarcoidosis and evaluate responses to treatment.
The Pauley Pilot Research Grant Program, which is made possible entirely by philanthropy, supports early stage research by physicians and scientists working to advance heart health. The program allows investigators to test novel ideas and gather enough data to apply for major research grants from institutions such as the NIH.
Kron plans to submit a proposal for external funding by February 2021.
“The results of this research will help me gather critical data to inform applications for larger grants later,” she said.
“The ability to noninvasively assess changes in the heart tissue while at the same time assessing overall cardiac function is a major advantage in the diagnosis and care of cardiac Sarcoidosis,” said Dr. Jennifer Jordan, fellow SCMR member and Committee Member. “We now have many MRI-conditional devices that allow patients who have cardiac Sarcoidosis and an implanted device to undergo a cardiac MRI for either clinical care or research.”
Research Grants
Cardiovascular Impact of Near-complete Estrogen Deprivation for Breast Cancer
PI - NIH NHLBI R01HL159393 2022 - 2027
Interleukin-1 blockade for treatment of cardiac sarcoidosis
PI - AHA Collaborative Sciences Award 19CSLOI34580004 2019 - 2022
Does Prior Receipt of Anthracycline-Based Chemotherapy Reduce Left Ventricular Microcirculatory Perfusion Reserve in Survivors of Breast Cancer and Lymphoma?
