The pandemic could not divert USF鈥檚 top faculty researchers from making big discoveries that shape our understanding of the past, present and future.
TAMPA, Fla. 鈥� One USF researcher brings dinosaurs to life through augmented reality while a colleague explores the origins of life through planetary chemistry. Another faculty member鈥檚 research sounded early alarms about people turning to alcohol amid the stress and fear of the COVID-19 pandemic, while her colleague is the co-founder of the new Center for Justice Research & Policy at USF. And in USF鈥檚 Department of Physics, a professor鈥檚 discovery holds the potential to revolutionize the Internet of Things.
These are just a few of the faculty research achievements newly recognized with USF鈥檚 Outstanding Research Achievement Awards. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic鈥檚 interruptions to campus life in 2020, this year鈥檚 awards recognize 22 faculty members鈥攖he largest group to date鈥攆or their achievements that defied the disruption caused by the last year鈥檚 shutdown.
鈥淭he 91社区鈥檚 reputation as a top urban-based research university is fueled by our innovative faculty and researchers,鈥� said USF President Rhea Law. 鈥淚 congratulate each of the outstanding awardees for such a productive year in their work to change lives and shape the future.鈥�
The largest internal recognition of its kind at USF, the annual nominations are submitted by deans, department chairs, center and institute
directors, and associate deans of research. The nominations are reviewed by members
of the USF Research Council. Each faculty member receives $2,000 with the award and
recognition at an event later in the fall.
, PhD, FAAAS, FASTMH
Distinguished USF Health Professor and Distinguished University Professor, Center for Global Health Infectious Disease Research and USF Genomics Program
College of Public Health
is an international expert in malaria research. His research focuses on host鈥恜arasite interactions and improving the understanding of infection and pathogenesis in malaria. His group is actively engaged in vaccine and drug discovery projects. In 2020, he received a National Institutes of Health grant , the most prevalent type of malaria outside of the African continent. The project builds upon his group鈥檚 successful development of a greatly improved liver culture system for the early infective stages of human malaria parasites.
As the lead investigator on the grant, Dr. Adams brought together an international
consortium from six institutions to prepare a vaccine for clinical trial. He also
the lead investigator for an NIH 2020 exploratory grant to collaborate with researchers
in Thailand to evaluate the pharmacogenomics of an antimalarial drug.
Ryan Carney, PhD, MPH, MBA
Assistant Professor, Department of Integrative Biology
College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Carney , one in paleontology and one in epidemiology. In 2020, he was PI of a newly-awarded NSF proposal for more than $900,000 to fight mosquito-borne diseases worldwide using artificial
intelligence. A first- and senior-authored paleobiology publication in on the iconic received substantial international recognition, including from , and ranked in the 99th percentile in global coverage by Altimetric. A second paper
describing the , which is crucial to disease-control efforts, has already been cited multiple times.
His collaborative research in 2020 resulted in two new invention disclosures with
plans for multiple patents. Dr. Carney's dinosaur research was featured in , , and three international outreach activities with total viewership of 150,000.
, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering
College of Engineering
Dr. Charkhgard is an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial and Management
Systems Engineering and the founder and director of the . Dr. Charkhgard published nine journal articles in 2020 in highly-ranked journals
in operations research. Additionally, he has six journal articles currently under
review which were submitted last year. Dr. Charkhgard is the co-PI on a working to prevent and control harmful algal blooms in Lake Okeechobee by optimizing
the implementation of technologies and practices. Also in 2020, Dr. Charkhgard graduated
two PhD students, applied for a U.S. Patent for his methodological invention on radiotherapy
treatment planning, and submitted a scientific journal article about his invention
to , which was published this year.
, MD, PhD
Professor, Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology
Morsani College of Medicine
Dr. Davis is an He pioneered the use of three-dimensional collagen matrices as a platform for the
study of blood vessels in the lab. More recently, his research has shed light on how aberrant cell signaling can result
in abnormal blood vessels. Healthy communication, or molecular signaling, inside and
outside capillaries appears to play a critical role in promoting healthy tissues such
as the heart, lungs and liver. Many diseases arise from abnormalities in blood vessels
that fail to communicate properly with tissues. Dr. Davis has 151 publications that
have been cited 762 times in 2020 alone. He published six peer-reviewed manuscripts
in 2020 鈥� four as author and two as co-author 鈥� all in outstanding journals. In 2020,
Dr. Davis was the PI on three high-level NIH grants.
Richard Heller, PhD
Professor, Department of Medical Engineering
Morsani College of Medicine
Dr. Heller鈥檚 research and innovations are focused on the delivery of plasmid DNA through pulse electric fields to solid
tumors, skin, muscle, liver, heart and other tissues. In 2020, he was elected as a
Fellow to the National Academy of Inventors. In addition, he continued working on four NIH grants, including three in which he
serves as the PI. In 2020, he published four manuscripts in top journals, including
one that was in the top 5% of all research outputs as scored by Altmetric. Dr. Heller
also had four new U.S. patents issued and three additional patent applications filed.
He also was involved in developing a new startup company focused on the technology
he invented.
Mark Jaroszeski, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Medical Engineering
College of Engineering
Dr. Jaroszeski鈥檚 research has focused on biomedical devices using pulsed electric
fields for the delivery of genes and drugs, an area of research he pioneered more
than three decades ago. In 2020, his efforts were focused on commercializing technology
he invented while continuing to work on a recently awarded grant with a student funded
by an NIH Diversity Supplement. He was part of the founding of the startup company
EF Therapeutics, Inc., located in the USF incubator. Also in 2020, eight of his USF
patents were licensed. He also contributed to the creation of a new general education
course on the scientific process and in efforts to better prepare students for research
careers.
Autar Kaw, PhD
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering
Dr. Kaw鈥檚 current research focuses on the impact of personalized and active learning on improving student achievement and on developing sustainable and quality open education resources. During 2020, he was a PI and co-PI on three highly competitive National Science Foundation grants. In one of the grant-funded programs, he is leading four universities鈥擴SF, Arizona State University, Alabama A&M University, and University of Pittsburgh鈥攊n investigating the effectiveness of personalized learning in flipped classrooms and using learner data to design early and successful interventions for struggling students. Additionally, he gave a keynote speech at the January 2020 International Symposium on Fusion of Science & Technology conference in Faridabad, India. Also, last year he published two peer-reviewed articles on personalized engineering education and presented two papers at the American Society for Engineering Education conferences on the impact of variable grading, cumulative tests, and practice examinations on improving blended learning. Dr. Kaw has been and internationally for his creative and effective teaching methods reaching engineering and mathematics students around the world via and
Mehran Mozaffari Kermani, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
College of Engineering
Dr. Kermani's focuses on the creation of novel hardware-oriented cyber-security techniques through
post-quantum and lightweight cryptography to secure critical cyber infrastructures
and computer hardware systems. He is the director of , and his research in 2020 resulted in more than $1 million in funding and grants
where he served as either PI or Co-PI. In 2020, Dr. Kermani and his PhD students published
five top journal papers (IEEE/ACM Transactions), three flagship conference papers, and . Dr. Kermani has served as the associate editor of three prestigious journals in
the field, editing more than 40 journal papers. Moreover, he was the publications
chair for two prestigious conferences in the field, the and , in 2020.
Lynn B. Martin, PhD
Professor, Global Health and Infectious Disease Research Center
College of Public Health
Dr. Martin is an in disease ecology and invasive species. In 2020, he was awarded a $1.5 million,
four-year to fund an international project on the molecular genetics of one of the world鈥檚
most invasive species, the house sparrow. The research will take him, postdocs and
students to Senegal, Vietnam, Norway, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand to study how
the sparrows became one of the most broadly distributed animals in the world. He also
submitted several other large grant proposals in 2020 which are still pending decisions.
In 2020, he and his trainees and collaborators published 10 papers in high-profile
journals including American Naturalist, eLife, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and Bioscience. Two of those publications were invited (eLife and Bioscience), and all but two papers included a student or postdoc from his lab. Dr. Martin is
also the co-creator and co-host of the popular podcast, .
Sunil Mithas, PhD
Professor and World Class Scholar, School of Information Systems and Management
Muma College of Business
is a Senior Editor of , and Department Editor of Production and Operations Management, and Management Business Review. In 2020, he contributed nine published or forthcoming articles, of which seven are
on a highly selective list of business journals considered in the University of Texas
at Dallas and Financial Times ranking of top business schools. In the summer of 2020, Dr. Mithas began a three-year
assignment as Visiting Professorial Fellow at the School of Information Systems, Technology
and Management at the . Dr. Mithas was the Muma College of Business' first World Class Scholar when he joined the college in 2018.
Ivan Oleynik, PhD
Professor, Department of Physics
College of Arts and Sciences
is a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS), and a
fellow of American Physical Society and American Vacuum Society, is best known for
his groundbreaking contributions to the field of computational materials science that
led to predictions of new materials phenomena and behavior of matter at conditions. In 2020, Dr. Oleynik was awarded a highly competitive and prestigious
, which provides access to Summit, the most powerful computer in the world, with computing
time equivalent to $3 million. In 2020, he also led an international team of researchers
that received another competitive and peer-reviewed award that grants access to at the Sandia National Laboratory, the most powerful radiation source in the world,
to perform groundbreaking experiments to uncover properties matter at extreme conditions.
The award was the equivalent of $1.2 million.
Matthew Pasek, PhD
Professor, School of Geosciences
College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Pasek鈥檚 research focuses on . He recently received a highly selective for work that advances "the study of goal-seeking phenomena in nature," related to
his work in origins science. Dr. Pasek also authored the article 鈥淭hermodynamics of
Prebiotic Phosphorylation鈥� in Chemical Reviews, which has the highest impact factor of all chemistry journals. Additionally, Dr.
Pasek published six more papers in 2020 and had two other papers accepted for publication.
This work is in addition to ongoing NASA and NSF grants totaling more than $1.6 million
over three years. Dr. Pasek鈥檚 expertise is routinely quoted in leading publications
such as and .
Christopher Passaglia, PhD
Professor, Department of Medical Engineering
Morsani College of Medicine and College of Engineering
Dr. Passaglia investigates in both normal and diseased conditions in his He uses his findings to engineer new technologies for monitoring and treating ocular disorders. In 2020, he published five papers in top journals such, as Scientific Reports and Journal of Physiolog, that were highlighted by vision experts, covered by national media outlets, and
featured on the . Additionally, Dr. Passaglia was awarded two high-level NIH grants in 2020 totaling
approximately $2 million, one as co-investigator examining the effectiveness of assorted
drug cocktails at promoting optic nerve regeneration and the other as a PI examining
pressure fluctuations in normal and glaucomatous eyes and their effect on optic nerve
health and function. He was issued in 2020 based on devices that his lab created for measuring and controlling pressure
within the eye or other organs.
Manh-Huong Phan, PhD
Professor, Department of Physics
College of Arts and Sciences
In 2020, published 23 peer-reviewed ISI papers in top-ranked journals, including Advanced Materials, Advanced Science, and Materials Horizons, highlighting the new discoveries of atomically thin quantum magnetic materials and
the Giant spin-Seebeck Effect, an interaction that allows heat to move magnetic information,
that will potentially revolutionize quantum information technology and the Internet
of Things. During 2020, he was one of the most highly cited researchers in his field,
with more than 1,600 citations, and was featured in the list of the . As the managing editor, Dr. Phan successfully led the Journal of Science-Advanced Materials and Devices to achieve its first high impact factor of 3.8 in 2020. He has secured a continuing
Department of Energy grant of $563,247 to exploit novel nanomaterials for spintronics.
In 2020, he was selected for an Honorary Doctorate Degree Award by Vietnam National
University 鈥� Hanoi.
Lindsey Rodriguez, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Psychology
College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Rodriguez鈥� play in substance abuse and in developing and evaluating interventions for addictive
behaviors. In 2020, she published 20 peer-reviewed manuscripts in high-impact journals.
Her on alcohol use during the COVID-19 pandemic received news coverage from several outlets,
including , the , and the , the American Heart Association, and the , among others. Dr. Rodriguez was co-investigator on four new grants totaling $200,000
in 2020. She is an action editor for Addiction Research and Theory and the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. She presented at eight symposia and 18 posters. She also continued her funded work
on three grants from the NIAAA focusing on reducing hazardous alcohol use.
Brad Seibel, PhD
Professor, Comparative Environmental Physiology
College of Marine Science
In 2020, Dr. Seibel investigated the response of marine animals to ocean warming and deoxygenation. He
published on the novel quantitative relationship between the oxygen and temperature sensitivities
of marine animals that had gone unrecognized, despite nearly a century of study. He
used this relationship to determine whether a habitat is metabolically available and
how it will shift with changing climate. It precisely measures the decrement in metabolism
and the scope available for growth and reproduction with declining oxygen and increasing
temperature. It was used to publish a new method for determining oxygen supply capacity
in animals and led to new investigations of other marine species and ecotypes, such
as ram ventilation in sharks, extreme temperature sensitivity in vertical migrators,
gill development in larval fishes, and the success of invasive lionfishes. Dr. Seibel
published in and additionally is investigating bioluminescence, exercise physiology, and the effects
of ocean acidification in marine animals with funding from NSF, the Office of Naval
Research and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Patriann Smith, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Language, Literacy, Ed.D., Exceptional Education & Physical Education
College of Education
Dr. Smith pursues a transdisciplinary research agenda situated at the intersection of linguistics, immigration and migration, and race
in literacy education. She for literacy and language instruction and assessment for Black immigrant students
and educators. In 2020, Dr. Smith published 15 refereed articles including one in
the and another in , the leading global journal in literacy. In 2020, she received contracts from Cambridge
University Press and Teachers College Press for sole-authored and co-authored books,
and was featured on and authored blog posts for the United States Association for Public Policy. In 2020, Dr. Smith was elected to the
Board of Directors of the national Literacy Research Association (LRA) and was a co-presenter
of the report, commissioned by the LRA. Earlier this year, Dr. Smith was awarded a three-year, $3.6 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development to partner with the University
of the West Indies Cave Hill in Barbados in creating an educational research center
to help support decision making and policy in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.
Robert H. Tykot, PhD
Professor, Department of Anthropology
College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Tykot is an archaeologist who studies the early history of Mediterranean civilizations.
In 2020, had 10 formal publications (three as first or sole author), four technical reports,
and eight published abstracts. One of his works was a major article on the chemical
analysis of more than 1,000 on Ustica, a small Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, is highly significant because
it demonstrates open-sea, long distance maritime travel as far back as 6000 BCE. His
studies of ceramic artifacts, copper-based metals, marble, human diet, and radiocarbon
dating were published in nine other articles. Dr. Tykot received funding in 2020 as
the PI from the Archaeological Institute of America / National Endowment of the Humanities
for a project focusing on the Central Po Valley, Italy; and as senior researcher from
the National Science Foundation focusing on the Horn of Africa. He is editor-in-chief
of Science and Technology of Archaeological Research and on the editorial board of nine other international journals.
Edelyn Verona, PhD
Professor, Department of Psychology
College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Verona鈥檚 research focuses on the intersections of psychology and crime. She studies
biosocial risk factors, violence risk and prevention, and evidence-based interventions
to reduce crime and incarceration. In 2020, Dr. Verona published or had accepted two book chapters and seven articles
in top-ranked journals such as Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Personality Disorders: Theory, Research & Treatment,
and Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Her articles have been cited more than 5,000 times, including 450 citations in 2020.
In 2020, she secured $1.2 million of funding from the National Institute of Justice to implement and evaluate interventions in a county jail; in the Tampa Bay Times, and was invited to join the Tampa Police Department鈥檚 Community Advisory Board and
the American Psychological Association鈥檚 Commission on Accreditation. She recently
co-founded the Center for Justice Research & Policy at USF, the first of its kind in 91社区.
Christian Wells, PhD
Professor, Department of Anthropology
College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Wells is the director of USF鈥檚 Center for Brownfields Research and Redevelopment and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, recognized
for his research aimed at improving human-environmental health outcomes through the
redevelopment of underserved urban communities. In 2020, he partnered with the CDC
of Tampa in a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to create an environmental workforce development and job training program for residents
of East Tampa. This grant was the only one awarded in 91社区 in 2020 and the first
ever awarded to a partnership with a 91社区 university. The program is currently
training 60 residents in environmental remediation skills who will be placed in full-time
jobs by the end of 2021. This project is an outgrowth of his existing interdisciplinary
collaboration with USF environmental engineers, in which he serves as co-PI of a study of infrastructure in Tampa.
Henry Lee Woodcock, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry
College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. H. Lee Woodcock鈥檚 is focused on developing and employing computational methodology to solve critical
problems where biophysics, medicine, and/or materials science meets. In 2020, Dr.
Woodcock co-led one of the most high-profile scientific efforts of the year in developing
a new method to breakdown plastics that pollute the world. of 2020, the engineered cocktail of enzymes can digest plastic up to six times faster
than previous efforts. The two combined enzymes鈥擯ETase and MHETase鈥攁re described as
鈥渢wo Pac-men joined by a piece of string,鈥� and provide new hope for tackling society鈥檚
global plastic waste problem. Published in , the discovery was covered by the world-wide media ranging from , the , , and many more. In addition to ongoing NIH and U.S. Department of Energy grants, Dr.
Woodcock is in line to receive two new NIH grants for a combined total of more than
$2 million.
Sarah Y. Yuan, MD, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology
Morsani College of Medicine
Dr. Yuan is an . Her discoveries have significantly advanced the understanding of complex interactions that regulate the vascular barrier that separates blood from tissues during inflammation, trauma, infection, sepsis, atherosclerosis, and diabetes, and how that process can lead to organ failure. Dr. Yuan鈥檚 discoveries are frequently cited by researchers worldwide 鈥� 241 times in 2020 alone. She had eight senior author publications in 2020 in leading journals. Also in 2020, . Dr. Yuan is the first USF faculty member to receive this particular award. The grant will provide an additional $6.250 million over the next seven years. Additionally, she received the 2020 recognizing her groundbreaking contributions to the field of vascular biology.