Research Day 2022 participants welcomed the opportunity to once again connect with health sciences scholars across USF colleges and disciplines

Video by Ryan Rossy, USF Health Communications and Marketing

Masks did not hide the smiling eyes or muffle the energetic buzz of conversations that filled the USF Tampa campus Marshall Student Center on Feb. 25 as students, postdocs, residents, faculty, and staff across all health disciplines showcased the best of their scientific work.

USF Health Research Day 2022 returned in full force as an in-person event. Last year the event coincided with the university’s closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so everything happened online.

USF Health Research Day 2022 award winners and others pose for an onstage photo. The event, showcasing 364 poster presentations and 12 oral presentations across multiple colleges and health sciences disciplines, was held Feb. 25, 2022, in the USF Marshall Student Center.

This year, with USF COVID protocols in place, 364 poster presentations lined the Marshall Center Ballroom in the morning. Faculty judges holding folders and touchscreen tablets moved between the aisles to chat with students eager to answer questions about their research projects.

Research Day remains the largest celebration of health sciences research collaboration across all four USF Health colleges (medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy) as well as with colleagues in other USF colleges.

Blake Scott (facing camera), a doctoral candidate in the USF Health College of Public Health, talks about her team’s research poster titled “Leveraging Unemployment and Employment Data to Characterize the Long-Term Economic Impacts of Florida’s Most Recent Category 5 Hurricane.” Scott was one of 12 students and scholars across USF Health selected to present their research at the 12th Annual Joseph Krzanowski, PhD, (Prof. Emeritus) USF Health Invited Oral Presentations.

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“It’s so wonderful to be back!” said Blake Scott, a doctoral candidate at the USF Health College of Public Health. “You just don’t get the same networking experiences when everything is virtual.”

Blake participated in her first Research Day in 2020, pre-COVID. Now, she was back sporting a flowered mask — one of 12 individuals selected to give oral presentations of their research later that afternoon. Leveraging unemployment and employment data, she led a project characterizing the long-term effects on the health and well-being of Florida Panhandle communities impacted by Hurricane Michael (a category 5 storm).

“This is a great opportunity to broaden your mind and learn about all the research collaborations here, including in colleges and disciplines outside your own,” Blake said.

Robert Deschenes, PhD, chair of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s Department of Molecular Medicine (facing camera), speaks with Diptaraj Chaudhari, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the MCOM Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair, about the poster “Broad metagenomic analyses for developing clinically applicable microbiome scores.”

Second-year medical student Matthew Udine, who also delivered an oral presentation later in the day, echoed Blake’s enthusiasm.

“The personal connections make a big difference when we all gather together for Research Day,” Udine said. “You interact more with colleagues and judges, get to explore ideas with people in diverse fields, and learn more than with an online format.”

Udine’s project compared basic metabolic health indicators collected from a pre-COVID-19 cohort of first year-students from Japan’s Gifu University (Class of 2019) with the same indicators from a statistically comparable cohort of incoming students screened during the COVID pandemic (Class of 2020). The analysis showed that indicators such as systolic blood pressure, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides significantly increased in the Gifu COVID cohort. Udine and his fellow medical student team members suggested that stress, reduced physical activity, substance use and poorer diets may have influenced alterations in Japanese college students’ metabolic markers during the pandemic’s extended lockdowns.

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Stephen B. Liggett, MD, associate vice president for research at USF Health and the vice dean for research at the Morsani College of Medicine (at podium), introduces Litsa Kranias, PhD, of the University of Cincinnati (on screen), the keynote speaker for USF Health Research Day 2022. Dr. Kranias spoke on “Calcium Cycling Circuits in Cardiac Function and Survival.”

Research Day kicked off with the Annual Roy H. Behnke, MD, Distinguished Lectureship featuring speaker Litsa Kranias, PhD, Hanna Professor and Director of Cardiovascular Biology at the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. Kranias was the former chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Systems Physiology at Cincinnati and continues to play a major role in training the next generation of scientists, particularly as a mentor to women in science. She delivered her presentation, “Calcium Cycling Circuits in Cardiac Function and Survival,” via Microsoft Teams, appearing on a big screen suspended above the stage in the Marshall Student Center’s Oval Theatre.

Calcium cycling refers to the release and reuptake of intracellular calcium ions that drive muscle relaxation and contraction. In heart failure, calcium cycling is severely altered, leading to impaired contractions and deadly arrythmias (irregular heartbeats).

USF Health’s Christian Bréchot, MD, PhD,  listens to the Research Day 2022 keynote speaker in the Marshall Center’s Oval Theatre.

Throughout her National Institutes of Health-funded career Dr. Kranias has worked to better understand the complex network of proteins contributing to the heart’s function. She has focused on defining how the cardiac protein phospholamban (PLN) helps control the calcium cycling needed for hearts to work properly. Using genetically altered mouse models her laboratory demonstrated that, rather than stimulating contractility, PLN inhibited cardiac function during heart failure and this inhibition was relieved when the molecule was phosphorylated under β-agonist stimulation. PLN-deficient mice showed improved heart muscle performance without changes in heart rate.

“A major challenge of heart failure is the aberrant handling of calcium,” Dr. Kranias said. “If we can effectively inhibit PLN, we may have promising new therapeutics for heart failure.”

Kranias and colleagues discovered that PLN does not act alone. The molecule is part of a dynamic system of many proteins — including HAX-1 (an anti-cell death protein), heat shock protein 20 (HSP20) and protein phosphatase 1 (PP1), to name just a few — which interact to regulate PLN activity and the muscle cell contractions that make the heart pump.

Dr. Kranias and collaborators also found that inhibiting PP1 can enhance cardiac function and suppress progression of heart failure. Their rigorous translational research, moving from the laboratory bench to small and large animal models, helped lead to a first study in humans. This ongoing Phase 1 clinical trial is testing whether a gene therapy, which aims to activate protein phosphatase inhibitor 1 (called I-1c), can improve heart function in patients with congestive heart failure.

Matthew Udine, a second-year medical student,  gives an oral presentation during USF Health Research Day 2022. He led a project titled “Changes in basic metabolic health of first-year Japanese college students due to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

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Research Day culminated with an Awards Ceremony announcing the winners in 29 competitive categories – including 18 monetary awards totaling $8,600.

For the list of Research Day 2022 award winners, click here.

For the list of Research Day judges and sponsors, click here.

For the full presentation by Research Day keynote speaker Litsa Kranias, PhD, click here.

More photos

Photos by Allison Long, USF Health Research Communications and Marketing

Students chat with peers and faculty about their research in the USF Marshall Student Center Ballroom as they wait for the poster presentation judging.

Caitlin Wolfe, a PhD candidate in the USF Health College of Public Health, works on her laptop in front of her poster about vaccine hesitancy, shortly before the judging begins for USF Health Research Day 2022.

Estelle Toto Lobe (left), a fourth-year biomedical engineering student at the USF College of Engineering, explains her research poster to Laura Blair, PhD, assistant professor in the MCOM Department of Molecular Medicine.

Douglas Haladay, DPT, PhD, (left) associate dean and school director of of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Science, and Haru Okuda, MD, executive director of USF Health’s Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS), check their notes between judging posters.

Research Day participants, flashing the “Go Bulls” sign, pose for a group photo before setting up their poster presentations.

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The noise level in the Marshall Student Center escalated to a palpable buzz as USF Health Research Day 2019 progressed.  Students, trainees, faculty, staff and visitors milled about the center’s ballroom the morning of Feb. 22, checking out rows of poster presentations and eagerly discussing research projects ranging from basic and translational science to clinical, epidemiological and outcomes studies.

Some 350 poster presentations representing the breadth and depth of USF Health research were part of this year’s Research Day.

This year, some 350 poster presentations showcased the best scientific work of students, residents, fellows and postdoctoral scholars across all four USF Health colleges – Medicine, Nursing, Public Health and Pharmacy – including health-related collaborations with other USF colleges and several hospital affiliates.

Among the presenters was USF College of Public Health (COPH) doctoral student Joanna Mackie, who arrived early with her children Eva, 9, and Oliver, 4.  They helped their mother carry in her rolled-up poster and watched as she unfurled and attached it smoothly to board #70. Then, they settled on the carpet to play the game Jenga, stacking small wooden blocks beneath Mackie’s poster titled “Policy Analysis of Current Regulations and Guidelines Focusing on Nutrition and Mealtimes in Early Care and Education.”

Eva Mackie (left) and brother Oliver get a ground floor view of USF Health Research Day. Their mother Joanna Mackie was among the students presenting posters.

Joanna Mackie, a College of Public Health doctoral student, explains her study to the faculty judges.

“I don’t have child care today, and I thought it’s important for them to see Mommy’s research work in action,” said Mackie, who studies the prevention of obesity in the context of early child care. “This is a valuable day to come together and exchange ideas.  Sometimes we get so involved in our own work that we’re not even aware that another group’s work has overlap or interconnection with our research interests.”

Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM) was one of 147 judges for the event – his fifth year judging Research Day here.

Charles Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, was one of the 147 Research Day judges.

“I really love seeing the energy and hearing their enthusiasm,” Dr. Lockwood said about interacting with the students as a judge. “What’s unique about our USF Health Research Day is that it’s not just looking at gene splicing and transgenic mice, it’s population-based health, it’s community activism, it’s understanding the limits of some of our technologies and their clinical applications, it’s working to enhance the care delivery systems.  The projects represent a fantastic mix of approaches to medicine and health.”

Stephen Liggett, MD, associate vice president for research at USF Health, said the annual gathering provides an opportunity for those from different disciplines and colleges to learn about one another’s work and perhaps forge collaborations to strengthen their research.  And, he said, it offers a valuable learning experience for those interested in pursuing careers in scientific discovery to benefit patients or community health and well-being.

Stephen Liggett, MD, associate vice president for USF Health, welcomes participants to 2019 USF Health Research Day.

“Virtually every one of the students or trainees at Research Day has a faculty mentor who helps them with this (poster) format that is typical of presentations at national scientific and medical meetings,” Dr. Liggett said. “It’s a good training exercise to be able to put your most relevant information down on a board and then be able to explain it to anyone who passes by, whether that’s someone who does not understand the research well or someone who understands it better than you do.”

Students and trainees spend several months to several years working on the projects they present.  The Research Day posters are diverse, but they follow a standard recommended format: presenting a hypothesis, concisely explaining why it’s important and what was done to tackle the issue or problem, and then the conclusion.

Isaac Raplee, a doctoral student in the MCOM Department of Molecular Medicine, greets judge Victoria Rich, PhD, dean of the USF College of Nursing. Raplee won the USF Health Dean’s Interdisciplinary Research Award for his poster titled “Aligning the Aligners: Comparing RNA sequencing data and gene expression quantification tools for formalin-fixed, parafin-embedded breast cancer specimens.”

“It’s been a great experience. Now we’re working on getting our work published in the Journal of Athletic Training,” said Rachel Shelton, a master’s student in the MCOM’s Athletic Training Program and coauthor of a study investigating effectiveness of alternative cooling methods in decreasing core body temperature. “It’s more than just coming up with a research idea. You go through a lot of effort to make sure you have all the information required to make a valid argument, yet rule out the information you don’t necessarily need.”

Lead author Walenska Santiago-Datil and coauthor Noor Ali stood next to their poster, a collaboration of the College of Public Health and the Department of Anthropology.  The study aimed to identify barriers to access, and gaps in reproductive services, available to college-age students — including those trying to or planning to get pregnant while still in college. Most fertility research involving college students focuses primarily on family planning, specifically pregnancy prevention, the students found in their literature review.

COPH master’s students Waleska Santiago-Datil and Noor Ali wait for the judges.

“This is an opportunity to showcase an issue (infertility experiences among college students) that the public may not be aware of,” said Santiago-Datil, a COPH graduate student.

The Roy H. Behnke keynote speaker was Gerald Dorn II, MD, the Needleman professor of medicine, associate chair for translational research, and director for the Center for Pharmacogenomics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.  Dr. Dorn kicked off Research Day with his presentation “The Mitochondrial Basis of Disease: Newly recognized diseases (and new approaches to old ones).”

Research Day keynote speaker Gerald Dorn II, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine, spoke about the mitochondrial basis of disease.

Trained as a cardiologist and a scientist, Dr. Dorn helped discover how mitochondria (the energy machine in cells) are poorly regulated in myocytes in heart failure, leading to progressive loss of pumping function.  His key observation that many neurodegenerative diseases may have similar mitochondrial dysfunction in neurons led to studies to unravel this common cause of cell death in two apparently different types of diseases, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). His laboratory developed a drug compound — a small molecule mitofusin agonist – shown to promote mitochondrial health and neuronal repair in experimental models of these disabling diseases.  Dr. Dorn recently founded a company seeking to expand the drug’s use to other neurological conditions, such as traumatic injury and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Tampa General Hospital, the primary teaching hospital for USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, was the presenting sponsor for USF Health Research Day 2019.

COPH graduate student Kaylin Martin (right), speaks with judge Stephanie Marhefka, associate professor at COPH.

Following the 10^th Annual Joseph Krzanowski Invited Oral Presentations by 12 select students representing medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy, the day-long celebration of research concluded with a ceremony announcing top award and certificate winners:

Top Award Winners

The 10th Annual Joseph Krzanowski, PhD Invited Oral Presenters
Samia Dutra, postdoctoral scholar, CON
Nandozie Emechebe, doctoral student, COPH
Helena Hernandez-Cuervo, doctoral student, MCOM
John Lockhart, doctoral student, MCOM
Adrian Moy, Med II student, MCOM
Udoka Okaro, doctoral student, MCOM
Waise Quarni, postdoctoral scholar, MCOM
Manumit Sarkar, postdoctoral scholar, COPH
Fredric Starling, doctoral student, COP
Christian Tan, resident, MCOM
Kenneth Taylor, doctoral student, MCOM
Kevin Wu, Med II student, MCOM

Kevin Wu, a second-year medical student, was one of two winners of the Joseph Krzanowski, PhD, Invited Oral Presentation Award sponsored by Tampa General Hospital. Wu’s study concluded that RAG deficient B cells show evidence of a defective immune screening process, known as peripheral tolerance checkpoint, that is more severe in adult patients than in pre-immune infants, and central tolerance breaks may also be present.

The Joseph Krzanowski, PhD Outstanding Oral Presentations Award (sponsored by TGH)
Kevin Wu, Med II student  — B cell tolerance checkpoints in autoimmunity in RAG deficiency
Christian Tan, resident — Newborn Murmur Management: A Quality Improvement Study

Outstanding Clinical Research Fellow Award (sponsored by TGH)
Rachel Sprague — β2-Adrenergic Receptor Expression in Human Endometrial Stromal Cells Potentially Mediates Catecholestradiol-induced Proliferation: Implications for Endometriosis

Christian Tan, MD (center), a resident, receives The Joseph Krzanowski, PhD, Invited Oral Presentation Award from Dr. Liggett and Sally Houston, MD, executive vice president and chief medical officer of Tampa General Hospital. Dr. Tan’s quality improvement study indicated that  inappropriate echocardiograms in otherwise asymptomatic newborns with heart murmurs can be reduced with provider education, improved documentation and pediatric cardiology consultation.

Outstanding Innovations in Medicine Poster Presentation Award
Sadeea Rahman

Outstanding Med IV Student Watson Clinic Award
Ali-Musa Jaffer

Dr. Christopher P. Phelps Memorial Fund for Neuroscience Graduate Student Travel Award
Heather Mahoney

USF Health Dean’s Interdisciplinary Research Award
Isaac Raplee

USF Federal Credit Union Infectious Disease Research Award (sponsored by the USF Federal Credit Union)
Caroline Simmons

MCOM Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Poster Award in Neuroscience
Aimee Winter

MCOM Outstanding Postdoctoral Scholar Poster Award in Molecular and Cell Biology
Bojjibabu Chidipi

MCOM Outstanding Resident Poster Award
Carissa Simone

The Lisa DeSafey Jaap Memorial Award for Patient-Centered Health Care and Communications
Seon Kyung Nam
Certificate Winners

MCOM Doctoral Students
Chart Review Research – MaKenzie Judy
Cancer Biology Research – Udoku Okaro
Clinical Science Research – Sierra Bahr
Molecular and Cellular Biology Research – Ashley Liu

MCOM Masters Students
Research – Melinda Peters
Case Studies and Chart Review Research – Bola Yusuf

MCOM Medical Students I
Research – Louis Leon

MCOM Medical Students II
Basic Research – Kevin Wu
Clinical Science Research – Saranya Sundaram
Evidence-based Research – Gautam Krishna Koipallil
Chart Review Research – Nina Liu, Ethan Song and Joseph Balbona
Global Health Chart Review Research – Amanda Pitre
Education Research – Luke Furtak and Adam Elkhayat
Public Health Research – Andrea Diviney

MCOM Medical Students III
Clinical Science Research – Roger Kayaleh
Education and Global Health Research – Alex Leonard
Chart Review Research – Mahnoor Khan
Case Studies – Indira Ranaweera

MCOM Medical Students IV
Allergy and Immunology Chart Review Research – Jessica Kennedy
Clinical Science Chart Review Research – Jesus Diaz Vera

MCOM Residents and Clinical Fellows
Resident Case Studies – Alicia Billington
Resident Chart Review Research – Elizabeth Hoover
Clinical Fellows Case Studies – Shylah Marie Moore-Pardo
Clinical Fellows Chart Review Research – David Swoboda

COPH Poster Presentations
Fahad Mansuri
Cheyenne Wagi
Joanna Mackie
Rumour Piepenbrink
Kenneth Taylor
Sharonda Lovett
Ashley Hydrick
Samuel May
David Almario
Meredith Kernbach
Stacey Griner
Nicholas Thomas

College of Nursing & College of Pharmacy
CON Doctoral Student Research – Tina Mason
COP Doctoral Student Research – Tu Phan
COP Masters Student Research – Payal Gosh
COP Postdoctoral Scholar Research – Jennifer Rodgers

USF Health Undergraduate Students
Neuroscience Research – Danielle Blazier
Allergy, Immunology & Infectious Disease Research – Sina Hosseinian
Research – Alexis Coiner
Cardiovascular Research – Ethan Zheng
Chart Review Research – Hussien Mohamed
Case Studies – Julianna James

Some award winners pose for a group photo at the close of another annual USF Health Research Day.

-Video by Torie M. Doll and Photos by Fredrick J. Coleman, USF Health Communications and Marketing

More Research Day photos….

Two new Research Day awards focus on scholarly work promoting research and practice across the health colleges

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This year’s USF Health Research Day hit another record number of poster presentations, and the successful event’s aim to encourage interdisciplinary and interprofessional research among students was at the forefront.

For Research Day 2018, held Feb. 23, the university’s Marshall Center Ballroom filled early more than 370 poster presentations. The event showcases the best scientific work of students, residents, fellows and postdoctoral students across USF Health as well as health-related collaborations with other USF colleges.

Among the 97 judges who volunteered to evaluate student presentations was Charles J. Lockwood, MD, who has seen Research Day grow in both the numbers of participants and the caliber of research in his more than three years as senior vice president of USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine.

This year’s USF Health Research Day hit another record number of poster presentations.

“The quality of the presentations is exceptional, and the passion and energy of our students is infectious,” Dr. Lockwood said.  “This passion for excellence in research is a sign of our maturity as an academic organization.  It’s what a great health sciences center ought to do.”

Now in its 28^th year, Research Day initiated three new awards this year — two focused specifically on scholarly work promoting interdisciplinary research and practice.

A Research Day participant prepares her poster for presentation.

The $1,000 USF Health Deans’ Interdisciplinary Research Award, sponsored by the deans from medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy and coordinated through the WELL, was created to reward students from two or three different USF Health colleges who collaborate on a research project. The $500 Lisa DeSafey Japp Memorial Award in Patient-Centered Health Care and Communications recognizes a team of interdisciplinary USF Health students conducting patient-centered care that promotes empathy and compassion for patients and their families. The third new award, the USF Federal Credit Union Cancer Biology Poster Award, honors a Morsani College of Medicine doctoral student conducting outstanding research in cancer biology. (A list of USF Health Research Day 2018 top award and certificate winners appears at the end of this story.)

Research Day kicked off with the Annual Roy H. Behnke, MD, Distinguished Lectureship presented by Francis McCormack, MD, director of pulmonary, critical care medicine and sleep medicine at the University of Cincinnati.  Dr. McCormack conducts National Institutes of Health-funded research on lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) and other rare lung diseases with the aim of applying that knowledge toward discovering new biomarkers and treatments.  His presentation was titled “Silencing LAM: Science, Synergy and Serendipity.”

Stephen B. Liggett, MD, associate vice president for research at USF Health and vice dean for research at Morsani College of Medicine, welcomes attendees to USF Health Research Day 2018.

Dr. McCormack has worked with USF Health’s Jeffrey Krischer, PhD, one of the world’s top NIH-funded principal investigators who oversees a major data coordinating center for the NIH Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network, encompassing some 250 medical centers worldwide.  The network’s Rare Lung Diseases Consortium includes the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Dr. McCormack leads LAM studies bridging both basic and clinical research.

Following his presentation, Dr. McCormack said he was “very impressed” by the level engagement and enthusiasm at USF Health Research Day.

Other academic Research Days he has attended “don’t get turnouts like this,” he said. “I think young people become interested in (advancing) research when other students and faculty take an interest in their research, and this kind of event is the forum where that interaction can happen.”

Featured Research Day speaker Francis McCormack, MD, of the University of Cincinnati, spoke about his laboratory and clinical research seeking new biomarkers and treatments for rare lung diseases, particularly lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM. 

Dr. McCormack, who encourages emerging health scientists to focus their energies on answering “big questions” that could ultimately benefit patients or public health, said “collaboration is the key to success.”

Public and private agencies increasingly require that collaborative edge in the projects they fund.

Both Dr. McCormack and Stephen Liggett, MD, associate vice president for research at USF Health and vice dean for research at the Morsani College of Medicine, agreed that team science that stretches the abilities of researchers to tackle the big questions of science by working across disciplines and professions is the wave of the future.  Within a structured format, projects that bring a broader range of expertise and perspectives to discovery in the laboratory, clinic or community settings have the potential to improve experimental design and the relevance of findings.

“Interdisciplinary research builds a process whereby we can get things done in a quicker, and often better, fashion than if you try to do everything yourself,” Dr. Liggett said.

Nicole Le, far right, of the Morsani College of Medicine Department of Plastic Surgery, explains her team’s research poster results to judges, including Charles J. Lockwood, MD, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of MCOM.

USF Health students were quick to cite the advantages of working across disciplines and colleges to help solve problems.

Second-year medical student Attiya Harit, winner of the USF Health Deans’ Interdisciplinary Research Award, led a team creating a health care needs assessment for Tampa Bay Street Medicine (TBSM), a medical student-run organization providing basic medical care to homeless in the Tampa Bay area through street runs and outreach clinics.

Last summer, TBSM partnered with the USF College of Public Health to create an interdisciplinary service learning opportunity. Undergraduate public health students taking a health education course with COPH Assistant Professor Anna Torrens Armstrong, PhD, drafted a structured questionnaire to help TBSM identify the strengths of services they offer as well as pinpoint any gaps or barriers to care that might be addressed.  To get to know the people TBSM serves and their daily challenges, some of the public health students accompanied medical students on outreach runs to distribute hygiene supplies. The preliminary assessment tool will be further refined and implemented by a class of COPH graduate students this summer before being used by TBSM to evaluate services.

Second-year medical student Attiya Harit speaks with Victoria Rich, PhD (right), dean of the USF College of Nursing.

“Creating the health needs assessment really would not have been possible without the expertise of the College of Public Health,” Harit said. “Public health as a discipline has a strong background in doing needs assessments and looking at things from a preventive aspect, and we in medicine can take the needs they’ve identified and act on them.”

Abena Annor, a first-year medical student; Samia Vo Dutra, a PhD nursing student;  Marlene J. Bewa, a public health graduate student; and Danielle Gorman, a first-year physical therapy student, are members of a research team working to develop a user-friendly mobile app to improve patient-centered communication.  Annor, lead author on their poster, received the Lisa DeSafey Japp Memorial Award in Patient-Centered Health Care and Communications.

Theresa Nguyen (left), a College of Public Health graduate student specializing in global communicable diseases, explains the research she conducted with colleagues in mental health and civil engineering. The study combined  GIS, mapping technologies and sociodemographic information to help define populations vulnerable to the opioid epidemic in Florida counties. COPH Professor Ellen Daley, PhD, was among the Research Day judges. 

Each student contributed different perspectives in designing survey questions that the app will use to assess patient and provider feedback about patient encounters.  Their goal is to help improve provider communication skills to increase patient satisfaction with care and adherence to medical recommendations. The students plan to test the app this summer with a pilot study involving USF faculty physicians and 15 eligible cancer patients.

USF Health provides an environment that gives students from different colleges the opportunities to interact – which helps create the context for interprofessional research and practice, Dutra said.  “If we weren’t able to reach out to students and faculty in other colleges to brainstorm, team projects like this would not happen.”

College of Pharmacy Associate Professor Srinivas Tipparaju, PhD, (left) one of the judges for the Research Day oral presentations, listens intently to a student speaker. 

Following the 9^th Annual Joseph Krzanowski Invited Oral Presentations by 12 select students representing medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy, Research Day concluded with a ceremony announcing top award and certificate winners:

Jeremy Baker, a doctoral student in the Morsani College of Medicine’s Department of Molecular Medicine, took the top prize in the oral presentations for his research on a naturally-occurring human enzyme  that can unravel protein aggregates contributing to both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease

Top Award Winners

The 9th Annual Joseph Krzanowski, PhD Invited Oral Presenters
Evan Hegarty, master’s student, College of Public Health
Elliot Pressman, Med II student, Morsani College of Medicine
John Canfield, doctoral student, Morsani College of Medicine
Krys Johnson, MPH, doctoral student, College of Public Health
Jeremy Baker, doctoral student, Morsani College of Medicine
Caitlin Wolfe, MPH, doctoral student, College of Public Health
Ashley Marie Perry, Med II student, Morsani College of Medicine
Chao Ma, doctoral student, Morsani College of Medicine
Kimberly Sand, DNP, postdoctoral student, College of Nursing
Arunava Roy, PhD, postdoctoral student, Morsani College of Medicine
Jared Tur, PhD, postdoctoral student, College of Pharmacy
Danielle Henry, MD, fellow, Moffitt Cancer Center

Kimberly Sand, DNP, a postdoc in the USF College of Nursing, presented results of her quality improvement project evaluating the impact of an adult cardiovascular disease risk assessment on patients’ perception of risk and their intent to change risk.

USF Health Vice President’s Award for Outstanding Invited Oral Presentation
Jeremy Baker

Outstanding Innovations in Medicine Poster Presentation Award
Elliot George Neal

Outstanding Med IV Student Presenter Watson Clinic Award
Leah Clark

Dr. Christopher P. Phelps Memorial Fund Annual Morsani College of Medicine Graduate Student Travel Award
Chao Ma

Attiya Harit was among the top award winners, receiving the first-ever USF Health Deans’ Interdisciplinary Research Award for a research/service-learning project teaming medical students from Tampa Bay Street Medicine with College of Public Health students.

USF Health Deans’ Interdisciplinary Research Award
Attiya Harit

USF Federal Credit UnionCancer Biology Poster Award
Mark Howell

The Morsani College of Medicine Outstanding Poster Awards

Postdoctoral Scholar Poster
Lei Wang

Resident Trainee Poster
Kelsey Ryan

Clinical Fellow Poster
Matthew Perez

Lisa DeSafey Japp Memorial Award in Patient Centered Health Care and Communications
Abena Annor

From left, Abena Annor, a first-year medical student received the inaugural Lisa DeSafey Jaap Memorial Poster Award for Patient-Centered Health Care and Communications.  She’s pictured here with her student teammates:  Marlene J. Bewa of the College of Public Health, Samia Vo Dutra of the College of Nursing, and Danielle Gorman of the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences. 

Certificate Winners

Morsani College of Medicine Masters & Doctoral level Graduate Student Categories

Overall Masters-Level Student Research
Shan He

(Masters-level) Molecular Biology and Neurology
Jacob Wilson

(Doctoral-level) Allergy, Immunology & Infectious Disease Research
Udoka Okaro

(Doctoral-level) Cardiovascular Research
Natascha Alves

(Doctoral-level) Clinical and Education Research
Rohini Nimbalkar

(Doctoral-level) Molecular and Cellular Biology
Thomas Parks

Morsani College of Medicine Medical I- III Student Categories

Med I Student Research
Karisa Serraneau

Med II Clinical Science Research
Ashley Perry
Lawrence Guan

Med II Student Case Studies
Jose Jesurajan

Med II Chart Reviews
Kyle Sheets
Matthew Gliksman

Med II Education Research
Sabrina Khalil

Med II Evidence-based Research
Chelsea Schmitt

Med II Neuroscience Research
Suraj Nagaraj

Med II Public Health Research
Anna Radisic

Med III Case Studies
Danny Nguyen

Med III Chart Reviews
Roger Gerard

Med III Clinical Science
Joseph Luke O’Neill, II

Research presented ranged from basic and translational science to clinical studies.

Morsani College of Medicine Medical IV Student, Medical Resident/Clinical Fellow, Postdoctoral Scholar Categories

Med IV Case Studies and Chart Reviews
Min Kong
Bryce Montane

Resident Case Studies, Chart Reviews
Stefanie Grewe

Clinical Fellows Case Studies, Allergy, Immunology & Infectious Disease
Sonia Joychan

Clinical Fellows Chart Reviews
Lynh Nguyen

College of Public Health Graduate Student Categories
Marlene Bewa
Linda Bomboka
Kenneth Taylor
Yingwei Yang
Nisha Vijayakumar
Alexis Barr
Mosadoluwa Afoiabi
Evan Hegarty
Virginia Liddell
Jessica Berumen
Rumour Piepenbrink

College of Nursing & College of Pharmacy Student Awards

College of Nursing Research
Samia Vo Dutra

College of Pharmacy Graduate Student Research
Donna Mae Marg Pate

College of Pharmacy Postdoctoral Scholar Research
Vetriselvan Manavalan

Emerging young scientists included undergraduate award winners, some of whom are pictured here.

USF Health Undergraduate Student Poster Awards

Undergraduate Research: Allergy, Immunology and Infectious Diseases
Bence Zakota

Undergraduate Research: Case Studies and Chart Reviews
Meghana Reddy

Undergraduate Research: Clinical Science
Hayley Rein
Radhe Mehta
Pamela Bulu

Undergraduate Neuroscience Research
Mohammed Khatib

Undergraduate Research
Grant Morrison

A group of award winners shows their USF Bulls pride.

-Video by Sandra C. Roa and Torie Doll, and photos by Eric Younghans and Freddie Coleman, USF Health Communications and Marketing