University of South Florida

2009 Outstanding Research Achievement Awards

TAMPA, Fla. (October 19, 2009) -- Fourteen of the University of South Florida’s top researchers were honored recently with the 2009 Outstanding Research Achievement Awards in a ceremony that capped the end of USF’s ResearchOne celebration.

Twenty-six faculty members were nominated for the award, which recognizes exceptional research achievements accomplished or recognized during the previous calendar year. The awards were created to highlight and celebrate the national and international recognition of USF faculty.

This year’s winners are:

John H. Adams, Professor, Global Health, College of Public Health, for conducting a large, 6-year-interdisciplinary project that resulted in the publication of “comparative Genomics of the Neglected Human Parasite Plasmodium vivax Illuminates Malaria Parasite Biology” in the journal Nature. In 2008, Dr. Adams also was selected as editor of the prestigious Journal of Infection and Immunity.

Jon Antilla, Asst. Professor, Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences, for receiving an NSF CAREER Award for his study titled Chiral Phosphoric Acid-catalyzed Reaction Methodology and Synthetic Applications.

Venkat Bhethanabotla, Professor, Chemical & Biomedical Engineering, for the major role he played in the discovery and development of surface acoustic waves for the simultaneous sensing of multiple biomarkers. In 2008, this project resulted in three patent applications and seven published articles in highly-competitive journals, such as Physical Review E, Physical Review B, and Applied Physics Letters.

Kathryn Borman, Professor, Anthropology, College of Arts & Sciences, for four research grants in 2008 totaling more than $2.8 million for her large, interdisciplinary, multi-phased and multi-centered projects on public education nationally and in the state of Florida. These include two grants from the National Science Foundation focused on science, technology, math and engineering curricula. Borman also is the principal investigator in an NSF Advance grant to support the professional development of women in science and engineering.

Boris Galperin, Assoc. Professor, College of Marine Science, for the discovery of a new class of waves called “zonons” which helps explain the interaction between waves and turbulence in fluids. The discovery was made through the computer simulations of satellite observations and spacecraft surveillance of the Earth and other planets. His findings, published in Physical Review Letters in 2008, offer a new way of understanding circulation in the oceans and the weather patterns of giant planets.

Peter Harries, Assoc. Professor, Geology, College of Arts & Sciences, for recognition as a leading member of an international team of scientists who compiled the Paleobiology Database to examine the evolution and variation of biodiversity through geologic time. The work was published in Science. The effort suggested a dramatically different curve to the evolutionary trail of biodiversity and rewrites numerous aspects of biodiversity of marine organisms.

Russell Kirby, Professor & Marrell Endowed Chair, Community & Family Health, College of Public Health, for his award from the Godfrey P. Oakley, Jr. Award by the national Birth Defects Prevention Network for his significant contribution to the field of birth defects and his leadership on numerous collaborative research projects.

Jarred Ligatti, Asst. Professor, Computer Science & Engineering, College of Engineering, for his NSF CAREER Award for his study, Foundational Theories and Enforcement Tools for Secure Software Systems.

Pat Rogers, Eminent Scholar and DeBartolo Professor of Humanities, Department of English, College of Arts & Sciences, for his election to the Fellowship of the British Academy, the equivalent of the National Academy of Sciences in the U.S.  Rogers is a leading international scholar in the field of 18^th Century British Literature and Culture.

Jason Rohr, Asst. Professor, Integrative Biology, College of Arts & Sciences, for his work as the lead author of the paper “Agrochemicals Increase Trematode Infections in a Declining Amphibian Species” in the journal Nature and the paper “Evaluating the Links Between Climate, Disease Spread and Amphibian Declines” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2008, Rohr also received more than $1 million in funding from the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Hamisu Salihu, Professor, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, College of Public Health, for the publication of a novel theory called “event memory hypothesis” which suggests a possible molecular memory-recall programming pattern in human gestation using epidemiologic/molecular evidence. The hypothesis was published in the journals Medical Hypotheses and Obstetrics & Gynecology. The framework may help medical scientists understand and prevent some of the causes of fetal death.

Noel Schiller, Asst. Professor, Art & Art History, School of Art and Art History, College of The Arts, for receiving a Getty Postdoctoral Residential Fellowship to work on her book, Engaging Laughter: Representing Perception, Sensation and the Passions of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. Schiller was one of only 15 scholars selected for the fellowship, which supports projects that promise to make a substantial and original contribution to the understanding of art and its history.

Kristina Schmidt, Asst. Professor, Department of Cell Biology, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, College of the Arts & Sciences, for her five-year National Institutes of Health RO1 Grant totaling more than $1.3 million for a projected titled, Suppression of Translocations by RecQ-like DNA helicases which focuses on genomic instability using a yeast model system.

Kevin Yelvington, Assoc. Professor, Department of Anthropology, College of Arts & Sciences, for receiving a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to work on his book, Melville J. Herskovits and the Making of Afro-American Anthropology. One of 190 fellows selected from more than 2,600 applicants, he was among a group of select artists, scientists and scholars chose for their achievement and promise of future accomplishments.