Meet Dr. Alexandru “Alex” Cojanu, MD, MS
Board-Certified Psychiatrist & Founder of VIPPs
Dr. Alexandru “Alex” Cojanu is a board-certified psychiatrist, physician, former professional athlete, and founder of VIPPs in Williamsburg, Virginia.
His path to medicine has been shaped by a longstanding interest in human performance. Before becoming a psychiatrist, Dr. Cojanu studied how the body moves, competed as an NCAA Division I athlete, played professional tennis, and pursued graduate-level study of neuroscience. His medical career later expanded across clinical psychiatry, academic medicine, healthcare leadership, quality improvement, and behavioral health.
Those experiences helped shape the philosophy behind VIPPs: care should consider the individual rather than reducing a person to a single symptom, diagnosis, or goal.
At VIPPs, Dr. Cojanu brings a physician-led perspective to mental health, cognitive performance, and the thoughtful use of advanced technologies. His approach emphasizes careful evaluation, evidence-based medicine, individualized recommendations, and a clear understanding of what a treatment can and cannot reasonably accomplish.
From High-Performance Athletics to Medicine
Long before Dr. Cojanu entered medicine, performance was already a major part of his life.
He began playing tennis as a child and competed nationally and internationally before attending the College of William & Mary in Virginia. There, he studied kinesiology while competing as an NCAA Division I tennis player.
Dr. Cojanu became nationally ranked during his collegiate career and qualified for the NCAA National Championships in both singles and doubles. After college, he continued his athletic career as a professional tennis player, traveling internationally to compete on the professional circuit.
The experience gave him a firsthand understanding of the physical and psychological demands associated with high-level performance. Training, recovery, focus, decision-making, resilience, pressure, and physical health were not abstract concepts. They were part of his daily life.
Eventually, his curiosity expanded beyond how the body performs to a deeper question: how does the brain influence the way we think, respond, make decisions, and perform?
That question helped lead him toward neuroscience and, ultimately, psychiatry.
A Foundation in Neuroscience
After his professional tennis career, Dr. Cojanu continued his education at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he earned a master’s degree while studying anatomy, neurobiology, and neuroscience.
His graduate work included research involving multisensory processing and how the brain integrates information from different sensory systems.
This scientific foundation became an important bridge between his background in human movement and his future work in medicine. Instead of looking only at physical performance, Dr. Cojanu became increasingly interested in cognition, behavior, mental health, and the complex biological processes that influence how people function.
His interest in working directly with people eventually led him to medical school and a career in psychiatry.
Medical Education & psychiatry Training
Dr. Cojanu earned his medical degree from the University of Medicine and Health Sciences in St. Kitts in 2016.
During his medical education, he completed clinical rotations across multiple healthcare environments in the United States, gaining exposure to different physicians, patient populations, and approaches to care.
He went on to complete his psychiatry residency at Wayne State University and Detroit Medical Center in Detroit, Michigan.
Dr. Cojanu is board-certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
His clinical interests have included mood disorders, anxiety, sports performance, cognitive concerns, substance use disorders, behavioral health emergencies, and other psychiatric conditions. His experience has also extended into neurocognitive assessment and the evaluation of concerns involving memory, attention, processing speed, executive function, and overall cognitive performance.
Clinical, Academic & Leadership Experience
Dr. Cojanu’s experience extends beyond private psychiatric practice.
Throughout his career, he has worked in clinical, hospital, academic, and healthcare leadership settings. His professional interests have included acute psychiatric care, behavioral health emergencies, substance use disorders, patient safety, quality improvement, sports psychiatry, and professional wellbeing.
He has also held academic appointments and contributed to medical research and scholarly work.
His academic experience includes work as a Clinical Associate Professor with the Clemson University School of Health Research. His previous leadership responsibilities have included serving as Vice Chair for Medical Staff Affairs and Quality within a department of psychiatry and working clinically in emergency psychiatry.
These experiences provided Dr. Cojanu with a perspective that reaches beyond individual treatment decisions. Quality, safety, clinical evidence, appropriate patient selection, and measurable outcomes have remained important considerations throughout his career.
That same perspective influences the way he approaches care at VIPPs today.
An Athlete's Perspective on Mental Performance
Dr. Cojanu’s background as an NCAA Division I and professional athlete continues to influence his approach to psychiatry.
Competitive environments can place significant demands on concentration, emotional regulation, confidence, recovery, sleep, decision-making, and the ability to perform under pressure. Athletes are not the only people who experience these demands.
Executives, professionals, entrepreneurs, first responders, parents, and other high-performing individuals may also find themselves functioning under prolonged mental and physical stress.
Dr. Cojanu understands that someone can appear successful and highly capable while still experiencing anxiety, mood changes, difficulty concentrating, poor sleep, burnout, or other concerns that deserve appropriate evaluation.
His goal is not simply to help people perform more. It is to understand what may be interfering with their ability to function well and determine whether medical, psychiatric, behavioral, or other appropriate interventions should be considered.
The Vision Behind VIPPs
Think Good. Look Good. Feel Good.
Dr. Cojanu founded Vertically Integrated Personalized psychiatry, or VIPPs, to create a different type of healthcare environment in Williamsburg.
Rather than building a practice around one treatment or technology, he envisioned a physician-led center where mental health, physical function, aesthetics, and individual goals could be considered within a broader clinical context.
That distinction matters.
Not every concern requires treatment. Not every technology is appropriate for every person. And a treatment should not be recommended simply because it is available.
Dr. Cojanu believes patients should understand why an option is being considered, what evidence supports its use, what its limitations are, and what realistic outcomes may look like.
This philosophy is especially important as new technologies enter the medical and wellness industries. Marketing can sometimes move faster than medical evidence. Dr. Cojanu emphasizes distinguishing between what research supports, what a device has been cleared or indicated to do, and claims that extend beyond the available evidence.
VIPPs was built around that more measured approach.
psychiatry That Looks at the Individual
Mental health rarely exists in isolation. Mood, cognition, sleep, medications, medical conditions, life circumstances, physical health, stress, and other factors can overlap. Two people describing the same symptom may have very different circumstances contributing to it. That is why Dr. Cojanu emphasizes individualized evaluation.
Depending on the reason for seeking care, psychiatric services at VIPPs may involve clinical assessment, medication management, neurocognitive evaluation, discussion of lifestyle or medical factors, or consideration of appropriate device-based therapies.
The objective is not to fit every patient into the same protocol. It is to gather the information needed to make informed clinical decisions.
An Evidence-Conscious Approach to New Technology
Innovation is an important part of VIPPs, but Dr. Cojanu believes innovation should be accompanied by appropriate medical judgment.
New technologies can create meaningful opportunities for patients, but they can also generate claims that extend beyond what research has established. Dr. Cojanu takes a more critical approach.
When discussing newer therapies, he considers available clinical evidence, regulatory indications or clearances, individual patient factors, potential limitations, and whether a particular service is appropriate for the concern being addressed.
In July 2026, he brought this perspective to the Kiwanis Club of Williamsburg during a presentation titled “The Future of Healthy Aging: Protecting Your Brain, Body, Independence and Quality of Life.”
The discussion included brain health, cognitive baselines, long-term physical health, and how patients can evaluate emerging treatment options more critically.
This emphasis on separating established evidence from marketing claims is central to the type of medical environment Dr. Cojanu aims to create at VIPPs.
Returning to Williamsburg
Williamsburg also represents a return to an important part of Dr. Cojanu’s personal story.
He attended the College of William & Mary before his professional tennis, neuroscience, medical, and psychiatric careers took him to other parts of the country and world.
Today, he has returned to the Williamsburg area to establish VIPPs and bring those experiences together in one practice.
VIPPs provides a private, concierge-style environment at 502 Strawberry Plains Road, Suite B, Williamsburg, VA 23188, where patients can access physician-led psychiatric care alongside selected noninvasive technologies addressing mental, physical, and aesthetic concerns.
Dr. Cojanu's Education & Professional Background
- Board Certification: American Board of psychiatry and Neurology
- Specialty: Psychiatry
- Undergraduate Education: College of William & Mary
- Undergraduate Field of Study: Kinesiology
- Graduate Education: Virginia Commonwealth University
- Graduate Studies: Anatomy, neurobiology, and neuroscience
- Medical Degree: University of Medicine and Health Sciences, St. Kitts, University of South Carolina, School of Medicine
- Psychiatry Residency: Wayne State University / Detroit Medical Center
- Academic Experience: Clinical Associate Professor, Clemson University School of Health Research
- Clinical Experience: Outpatient, hospital, emergency, academic, and behavioral health settings
- Professional Interests: Psychiatry, cognitive health, sports psychiatry, quality improvement, patient safety, behavioral health emergencies, substance use disorders, and performance
- Athletic Background: Former nationally ranked NCAA Division I and professional tennis player
Beyond the White Coat
Dr. Cojanu’s career may be in medicine, but many of the principles guiding his work were developed years before he put on a white coat.
Competitive athletics taught him that meaningful improvement requires consistency, preparation, honest feedback, and an understanding of the individual. Medicine reinforced another lesson: measurable performance means little if it comes at the expense of health. Those ideas come together at VIPPs.
Dr. Cojanu approaches his role as both physician and collaborator. He wants patients to understand their options, participate in decisions about their care, and have realistic expectations about what medicine and technology can accomplish.
For him, optimizing health is not about chasing perfection or promising a particular result. It is about understanding where you are now, identifying concerns that warrant attention, and making informed decisions about what comes next.
Meet With Dr. Alex Cojanu in Williamsburg, VA
If you are looking for a board-certified psychiatrist in Williamsburg, Virginia, and value an individualized, evidence-conscious approach to care, schedule a consultation with Dr. Alex Cojanu at VIPPs.
Whether you are seeking psychiatric care, have concerns about cognitive function, or want to better understand the services available through VIPPs, your experience begins with learning about your concerns, medical history, and goals.
From there, Dr. Cojanu and the VIPPs team can help determine which evaluations or services may be appropriate for you.