Among these impressive discoveries and advancements, one researcher in USF Health has created a nationally acclaimed interactive dashboard to track COVID-19 and another is developing novel COVID-19 therapeutics. Another faculty member has received NASA funding to improve human spaceflight conditions, while her colleague is creating new defenses for wireless network security systems. And in USF Health Morsani College of Medicine a professor has made outstanding contributions relevant to Alzheimer’s disease.

These are just a few of the faculty research achievements newly recognized with USF’s Outstanding Research Achievement Awards. This year’s awards recognize 26 faculty members—the largest group to date—for their important achievements.

“The University of South Florida’s reputation as a top research university is powered by the discoveries and innovations of our faculty members,” said USF President Rhea Law. “I congratulate each of the outstanding awardees on all they have accomplished in their work of advancing knowledge, finding solutions and transforming lives.”

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.

Here are this year’s COPH awardees:

Dinorah Martinez Tyson, PhD, MPH, MA
Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Science and Practice
College of Public Health

Recognized for exceptional contributions to the field of public health through efforts to address and reduce health disparities among ethnic minorities and underserved populations in the U.S. and Latin America.

Dr. Martinez Tyson is noted for her outstanding contributions in cross-cultural perspectives to the study of cancer health disparities. Her research focuses on identifying the best models and methods for adapting instrumentation and proven interventions to address health disparities across the cancer continuum. She led an exploratory sequential mixed method study, which employed a series of iterative and group consensus-building approaches, to translate and culturally adapt the previously validated CaSUN measure into Spanish, for Latino cancer survivors. In 2021, she was awarded a highly competitive PCORI grant to develop a culturally adapted online couples’ communication program for Latina breast cancer patients, and brought together a diverse and highly skilled academic and community-based research team to undertake this challenging project.

Jason Salemi, PhD, MPH, FACE
Associate Professor, Concentration Lead for the PhD Program in Epidemiology
College of Public Health

Recognized for seminal work in translational science related to COVID-19 transmission and mitigation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Salemi is a nationally recognized epidemiologist with expertise in birth defects, surveillance methodology, evaluation, and research. He built a comprehensive, interactive dashboard to track COVID-19, which received national attention and has been an invaluable resource for researchers, advocacy groups, county commissioners, and citizens. In 2021, Dr. Salemi conducted approximately 350 interviews to local, regional, national and international media outlets regarding COVID-19 transmission and mitigation. His presence was also evident in eleven presentations he made regarding COVID-19 at regional and state-level venues including the Hillsborough County Board of Commissioners and the Emergency Medical Planning Council. He also engaged with Publix Super Markets, Inc. to lead various townhall discussions with employees regarding COVID vaccination. Dr. Salemi had 14 publications in 2021, received the 2021 Griot Drum Community Hero award from the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists, the Above and Beyond Coronavirus Distinction (ABCD) award from the Society for Epidemiologic Research, and was selected as a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology.

Monica Uddin, PhD
Professor, Global and Planetary Health
College of Public Health

Recognized for distinguished contributions to the field of public health for genomics research to identify predictors for stress-related mental disorders related to depression and PTSD.

Dr. Uddin’s innovative research seeks to identify genetic and epigenetic predictors of stress-related mental disorders, with a particular focus on depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. A central theme of this work is the recognition that lived experience has a substantial impact on risk for mental disorders, and that this risk is likely mediated in part by changes to genomic biology. In 2021, Dr. Uddin was awarded duration of grant funding for two important projects for which she serves as MPI and that all address genomic factors in traumatic stress and mental health: Epigenomic Predictors of PTSD and Traumatic Stress in an African American Cohort; The impact of traumatic stress on the methylome: implications for PTSD; and Transgenerational Epigenomics of Trauma and PTSD in Rwanda. In addition, she and her colleagues published four articles in 2021 with two additional manuscripts in press.

Thomas Unnasch, PhD
Distinguished University Professor, Global and Planetary Health
College of Public Health

Recognized for distinguished contributions in translational science related to COVID‐19, modeling, projections and mitigation during the pandemic.

Dr. Unnasch’s long‐term research has focused on vector‐borne diseases; his laboratory is involved with developing new tools to enhance the efficiency of the surveillance activities and development of molecular based methods for the detection of the black fly vector in Africa and Latin America. In 2021, Dr. Unnasch’s work with USF colleagues on the development of mathematical algorithms to use data collected from screening pools of vectors—such as COVID‐19 pools—to quantify the intensity of exposure in affected human populations resulted in his being one of the experts at USF and in Florida identified early in the pandemic to assist in explaining the status of transmission and mitigation.

Excerpt reposted from USF Newsroom