This year’s USF Health Research Day set new records as more participants than ever filled the USF Tampa campus Marshall Student Center on March 3 to showcase the best of their scientific work.

The 33^rd USF Health Research Day included 457 research poster presentations by students, postdocs, residents, faculty and staff across all health disciplines.

Research Day is the largest research-oriented event of its kind at USF and remains the largest celebration of health sciences research collaboration across all four USF Health  (medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy) as well as with colleagues in other USF colleges, including social work and engineering.

The event kicked off with the Annual Roy H. Behnke, MD, Distinguished Lectureship featuring speaker Kim Orth, PhD, professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Following Dr. Orth’s presentation on bacterial effectors, judges reviewed the posters that lined the Marshall Center Ballroom. They asked students for more detail and clarifications about their research projects. Presentations ranged from pilot, preliminary, empirical and case studies to system reviews and reviews of literature or charts.

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

research award. (Photo by Sara Stubben)

The USF College of Public Health had a total of six students with winning posters and another three who were invited to be oral presenters. Those students and their awards are:

• Best Poster the field of Other Research: Brooke Broxterman (COPH master’s student)
• The Basic Science, Clinical & Translational Research Award COPH: Doctoral Student Research – Rafaella Stein Elger
• The Basic Science, Clinical & Translational Research Award COPH: Master’s Student Research – Paula Hernandez
• The Community Research Award COPH: Doctoral Student Research – Suman Chowdhury
• The Community Research Award COPH: Master’s Student Research – Bence Nagy
• The USF Health Dean’s Interprofessional Research Award: Romina Beltran (COPH master’s student)
• Invited Oral COPH Presenters: Anthony Nguyen (COPH doctoral student), Marshara Fross (COPH doctoral student), Pradeep Annamalai Subramani (COPH postdoctoral scholar)

For the full USF Health Research Day story, click here.

Excerpts from USF Health Communications and Research. Written by Sarah Worth.