Fresh off defeating Stanford to win the 2025 National Championship, the Florida State University Women’s Soccer team proved that elite execution starts with smart strategy. Celebrating on the field, trophy in hand, Head Coach Brian Pensky shared the secret behind their title run with FSU Provost Jim Clark: “You know how we won? We out-thought them.”

That game-winning mindset took center stage at the Turnbull Conference Center during FSU’s second annual Data Day Conference.

Hosted by the Office of Institutional Research and sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the daylong event brought together more than 250 faculty, staff, researchers and professionals to explore how data powers success across the university.

“One of the things I appreciate most about Data Day is that it brings together people from every corner of the university,” said FSU Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Jim Clark. “Faculty, administrators, analysts, researchers and technology professionals each bring a different perspective, but we share a common goal: using data to better serve our students, strengthen our institution and advance our mission.”

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Florida State University recorded the most successful fundraising year in its history during the 2025-26 fiscal year, with alumni, parents, faculty, staff, friends and partners contributing a record $235.4 million.

The total surpassed the university’s previous fundraising record of $225 million, set in 2015-16, led by a $100 million gift from Jan Moran and The Jim Moran Foundation.

The record-breaking total includes philanthropic support raised through the FSU Foundation, Seminole Boosters, Research Foundation, Alumni Association and The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. These investments support FSU’s strategic priorities leading to FSU’s powerful impact across Florida and beyond.

“This record-setting year reflects our momentum and the exquisite support of Florida State University’s future,” FSU President Richard McCullough said. “From Dr. Herbert Wertheim’s historic $65 million dollar gift to the over 41,000 donors who support Florida State each year, these gifts create new opportunities for students, accelerates groundbreaking research and advances initiatives that improve our lives. We are deeply grateful to every donor who is now part of our shared future.”

The record fundraising year advanced priorities across the university, from scholarships to faculty support, to improved healthcare, to research and capital projects.

The year’s largest gift came from visionary entrepreneur and philanthropist Dr. Herbert Wertheim whose $65 million investment established the Herbert Wertheim College of Business and the Herbert Wertheim Center for Business Excellence. This is the largest endowment gift in university history and will transform the business of healthcare, create new opportunities for students and faculty and further strengthen one of the nation’s leading public business schools.

“We are deeply grateful to every donor who is now part of our shared future.”

– FSU President Richard McCullough

The university also received a $10 million gift from Bruce and Tracey Berkowitz and The Fairholme Foundation, the largest in the history of the FSU College of Nursing. The investment will expand undergraduate nursing education and innovation at FSU’s Panama City campus while helping address critical nursing workforce shortages across Northwest Florida.

“Every gift represents someone who believes in Florida State and the impact this university has on students, families and communities,” said Marla Vickers, vice president for University Advancement and president of the FSU Foundation. “I extend my deepest gratitude to FSU’s donors and commend their commitment to supporting our university through philanthropy. Their remarkable philanthropy directly empowers our students, strengthens our academic programs and fuels the work of our faculty in truly transformational ways.”

This was also one of the most successful fundraising years in Seminole Boosters history. Philanthropic support helped the Boosters and Athletics open the renovated Doak Campbell Stadium, creating an enhanced experience for fans, donors and student-athletes, as well as the Dunlap Football Center to further enhance recruiting, development and student-athlete support.

“This was among the strongest fundraising year in Seminole Boosters history, and it happened because our supporters don’t just give to Florida State, they are part of the Seminole family,” said Stephen Ponder, president and CEO of Seminole Boosters. “Their generosity strengthens our student-athletes, advances the university’s mission and demonstrates what’s possible when our community comes together behind Florida State.”

The university’s record fundraising year reflects the generosity of thousands whose investments are helping Florida State expand opportunities, advance discovery and prepare tomorrow’s leaders. As the university’s comprehensive campaign continues, those partnerships will play a vital role in shaping Florida State’s future.

To learn more about supporting Florida State University, visit give.fsu.edu.

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Florida State University President Richard McCullough has appointed Susan Glenn interim vice president for University Advancement and president of the FSU Foundation.  

Glenn begins the interim role immediately, succeeding Marla Vickers, who stepped down earlier this summer after serving as vice president since 2022.

“Susan Glenn brings deep advancement experience, steady leadership and a strong understanding of Florida State’s fundraising priorities to this interim role,” said President Richard McCullough. “She has already made a meaningful impact through her work with our colleges, schools and units, and I am confident she will provide thoughtful leadership during this transition. I also want to thank Marla Vickers for her service to Florida State and her contributions to our advancement efforts over the past several years.”  

Glenn, an advancement leader with more than 30 years of experience, has served as associate vice president of Advancement for Colleges, Schools and Units since December 2023.  

As interim vice president, Glenn will lead the university’s advancement and alumni engagement efforts. She will oversee fundraising, alumni relations, donor engagement and communications initiatives that support Florida State’s academic, research and student success priorities while providing executive leadership to the FSU Foundation Board of Trustees. 

Glenn has spent her career focused on higher education, academic health and health systems fundraising. She currently oversees major gift teams and operations across 23 colleges, schools and units and partners closely with academic leaders and deans to set and exceed annual fundraising goals. She also has played a key role in developing campaign goals and priorities for FSU’s next comprehensive fundraising campaign. 

Before joining FSU, Glenn held advancement leadership roles at the University of Central Florida, Rock Valley College, Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center, Duke University School of Nursing and other not-for-profit organizations. 

Throughout her career, she has led major, annual and planned giving programs, developed fundraising strategies and partnered with deans, faculty and institutional leaders to advance campaign priorities. 

Glenn earned a bachelor’s degree in corporate communications from Northern Illinois University. 

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Florida State University will lead four major projects as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s highly coveted Genesis Mission, showcasing the university’s strengths in advanced technological innovation.

These landmark projects, led by FSU’s world-class faculty, utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to tackle some of the nation’s most complex challenges, spanning high-temperature superconductors for fusion energy, quantum error correction, particle physics, and nuclear reaction modeling.

“These awards further affirm Florida State University’s emergence as a national leader at the frontiers of discovery, innovation and national service,” said FSU President Richard McCullough. “To secure four projects through the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission is a defining achievement for our institution and a powerful recognition of the caliber of our faculty. FSU is helping shape the scientific agenda for the nation’s future by advancing the artificial intelligence, quantum and energy frameworks that will strengthen our national infrastructure, accelerate American innovation and reinforce U.S. technological leadership.”

The Genesis Mission represents a major federal investment to unite DOE national labs, industry and academia to accelerate breakthroughs in energy dominance, physical sciences and national security. It has drawn comparisons to the Manhattan Project or Apollo mission. The Department of Energy awarded 278 awards across 26 identified science and technology challenges to accelerate U.S. innovation and scientific leadership during a summit in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, July 22.

FSU secured four awards and the FSU-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory is partnering on a fifth award led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Three of the FSU awards stem from the Department of Physics, and the other is from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.

The awards are for an initial phase one that is nine months. However, researchers who received the awards are invited to show initial results of their work and apply for a second phase of funding that will likely be announced next year.

FSU Vice President for Research Stacey S. Patterson emphasized the strategic alignment of these projects with FSU’s mission to deliver solutions to critical global challenges.

“FSU has strategically positioned itself at the intersection of artificial intelligence and physical sciences to address some of the most critical vulnerabilities our country faces,” Patterson said. “From rebuilding a secure domestic supply chain for high-performance fusion magnets to paving the way for unbreakable, fault-tolerant quantum computers, these projects are highly practical solutions to real-world national security challenges. We are incredibly proud of our faculty for securing these historic awards, which will inspire next-generation breakthroughs and solidify FSU’s role as a trusted partner in federal scientific leadership.”

FSU researchers are leading the following Genesis projects:

AI-Powered Manufacturing of High Temperature Superconductors for Fusion Energy

Challenge Area: Reenvisioning Advanced Manufacturing and Industrial Productivity

Led by Associate Professor Fumitake Kametani, this project uses AI to transform how high temperature superconducting tapes are made for fusion energy magnets. Manufacturing these highly engineered tapes involves subtle, hard-to-detect variations that limit performance uniformity and thus drive up costs of magnets, so the team is building an AI “digital twin”, which is a predictive computer model of the production line. This model learns how manufacturing conditions shape tape quality, helping rebuild a US-owned supply chain of this critically important technology for US energy security. FSU leads the project with the US manufacturer High Temperature Superconductors, Inc., and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Sanghyun Lee, associate professor of Mathematics, and National High Magnetic Field Laboratory researchers Aixia Xu, Yan Xin, Jeseok Bang, and Chris Segal, will also play key roles in executing the project, as well as MagLab Chief Materials Scientist David Larbalestier.

Teaching AI to Fix Quantum Errors

Challenge Area: Realizing Quantum Systems for Discovery

Led by Professor of Physics Nicholas Bonesteel, this project develops AI that acts as a real-time diagnostic system for quantum computers. Quantum computers are extraordinarily sensitive to noise, and keeping a quantum computation on track requires rapidly interpreting streams of indirect error signals. For today’s leading quantum codes, efficient classical algorithms handle this task — but they break down for the richer, more powerful codes expected to follow. The team is training neural networks to decode these signals for this next generation of quantum codes — essential groundwork for quantum computers that work at full scale. Co-Principal Investigators on this award include Assistant Professor of Physics Yanzhu Chen, Professor of Computer Science Xiuwen Liu, and FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Professor William Oates.

Accelerating Cosmic Discovery in Particle Physics

Challenge Area: Unifying Physics from Quarks to Cosmos

Led by Wyatt-Green Chair of Physics Mayly Sanchez and Robert O. Lawton Professor of Physics Harrison B. Prosper, this project uses AI to help scientists figure out one of the biggest mysteries in the universe: why everything around us is made of matter instead of antimatter. A massive U.S. experiment called DUNE will shoot invisible particles called neutrinos 800 miles through the Earth to find out, but physicists can only interpret what they see by comparing it against computer simulations that aren’t yet accurate enough. Today, improving those simulations is slow, hand-guided work that can take years. The FSU team is training an AI on millions of recorded neutrino collisions to find every place the simulation disagrees with reality at once, then compress what it learned into compact equations physicists can read. The team will transfer what the AI learns from one experiment directly to DUNE, opening the way to a system that unites the world’s neutrino data into a single shared model of how neutrinos interact with matter.

AI and Quantum Computing for the Next Generation of Nuclear Science

Challenge Area: Delivery of Fusion Energy

A multi-institutional team led by FSU will combine artificial intelligence with next-generation quantum-computing methods to improve understanding of atomic nuclei and other quantum systems. By combining AI-driven data analysis with advanced quantum-information methods, the researchers will address longstanding challenges in interpreting the vast amounts of experimental nuclear data collected over decades. Their work aims to produce predictive models that reveal how quantum systems interact, evolve, decay, and respond to external influences. Beyond advancing fundamental science, these developments could contribute to progress in quantum technologies, clean energy, and national security. The project brings together principal investigator Alexander Volya, Hitesh Changlani, and Yanzhu Chen of FSU; co-principal investigator Grigory Rogachev of Texas A&M University; Richard J. deBoer of the University of Notre Dame; collaborators at Quantinuum; and participating students and researchers across the institutions.

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Florida State University alumnus and insurance executive Allen Durham, who oversees the university’s iconic Osceola and Renegade tradition, and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor Brad Schmidt will address graduates during FSU’s summer commencement ceremonies Friday, July 31, at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center.

FSU expects to award 2,891 degrees, including 1,582 bachelor’s degrees, 952 master’s and specialist degrees, 253 doctoral degrees, 99 Juris Master’s degrees and 5 LL.M. degrees. More than 1,786 graduates are expected to participate in the day’s ceremonies. 

The day begins with a doctoral hooding ceremony at 9 a.m. Faculty members will hood doctoral graduates during the ceremony. 

Bachelor’s, master’s and specialist degree candidates will be recognized during commencement ceremonies at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Florida State President Richard McCullough will preside over all three ceremonies. 

2 p.m. ceremony: Allen Durham 

Allen Durham, founder, president and CEO of an insurance brokerage firm, will deliver the commencement address at the 2 p.m. ceremony.

A 1993 graduate of FSU’s College of Business, Durham earned a bachelor’s degree in risk management before going on to earn a law degree. During a career spanning three decades, he has built a successful business while remaining deeply engaged with his alma mater, serving in several leadership roles, including chair of the FSU National Alumni Association Board of Directors and a member of the College of Business Board of Governors.

The son of Bill Durham, who created the Osceola and Renegade tradition in 1978, Durham served as the eighth student to portray Osceola before taking over leadership of the program in 2007. Since then, he has mentored generations of student riders and helped preserve the university’s longstanding partnership with the Seminole Tribe of Florida.

Last year, Durham and his father were jointly honored with the Mores Torch Award for their enduring commitment to Florida State and their role in creating and sustaining one of the university’s most recognized traditions. 

He will address graduates from the Dedman College of Hospitality, Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship, College of Applied Studies, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, Herbert Wertheim College of Business, College of Music, and Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences. 

7 p.m. ceremony: Brad Schmidt 

Brad Schmidt, Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor and chair of Florida State University’s Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, will deliver the commencement address at the 7 p.m. ceremony. 

An internationally recognized leader in clinical psychology, Schmidt studies the causes, prevention and treatment of anxiety and related mental health conditions, including PTSD, substance use and suicide. 

Schmidt has led numerous research initiatives supported by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense while mentoring generations of students and early career researchers. He was recently elected to the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida. 

Schmidt will address graduates from the College of Medicine, College of Motion Picture Arts, College of Fine Arts, College of Communication and Information, College of Law, College of Nursing, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, College of Social Work and College of Arts and Sciences. 

Every Florida State University graduate is automatically a member of the FSU Alumni Association. Alumni can learn more at alumni.fsu.edu. 

For more information about commencement, including ceremony schedules and livestream links, visit commencement.fsu.edu. 

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The Florida State University College of Nursing and College of Medicine have been awarded a more than $1.6 million Institutional National Research Service Award (T32) from the National Institutes of Health to prepare the next generation of nurse scientists to harness technology and artificial intelligence in improving health outcomes for a variety of populations.

The five-year training program, NURTURe: Nurse Scientists Using Research, Technology and AI to Uplift Resilient eHealth Outcomes, prepares nurse-trained postdoctoral fellows for careers as researchers in digital health. Fellows within the program will develop, test and apply digital health and AI tools for preventing disease and managing chronic conditions, with a focus on rural communities where access to care can be limited.

The program will be based within the college’s Institute on Digital Health and Innovation (IDHI) and supported by the FSU College of Medicine’s Center for Translational Behavioral Science (CTBScience).

“This award reflects a belief we have championed at the FSU College of Nursing, that nurses must help lead the future of artificial intelligence in healthcare,” said Jing Wang, dean of the FSU College of Nursing. “NURTURe joins a growing list of investments we have made to prepare nurses for an AI-enabled world. By training nurses to develop and test these technologies, we ensure that innovation is guided by the professionals who understand patients best.”

Preparing the next generation of health and healthcare professionals is central to FSU Health, the university’s integrated academic health system. The College of Medicine and College of Nursing are foundational to that mission, working alongside IDHI and CTBScience to advance education, research and innovation across FSU Health.

“The promise of this work is ultimately measured in the care this will bring into people’s lives,” said Lisa Hightow-Weidman, distinguished and endowed McKenzie professor, associate dean for research, founding director of the Institute on Digital Health and Innovation, and co-principal investigator. “Digital health and AI can extend high-quality care to communities that need additional resources, but only if these tools are built and tested with real patients in mind. There is no better place to do that than IDHI, where we bring together the technology, the science and the deep clinical understanding needed to turn innovation into healthier communities.”

The program is led by three multiple principal investigators — Hightow-Weidman, Wang and CTBScience founding director Sylvie Naar — whose combined expertise spans nursing science, digital health technology, health promotion, community engagement, translational behavioral science and implementation science.

“The FSU College of Medicine and the Center for Translational Behavioral Science are thrilled to help train the next generation of nurse researchers in AI and digital health, grounded in community-engaged dissemination and implementation science,” said Naar, also a distinguished endowed professor in the College of Medicine. “By placing fellows across IDHI and CTBScience, NURTURe reinforces the close collaboration between our two colleges.”

NURTURe draws its mentorship team from across the FSU College of Nursing and the FSU College of Medicine.

Primary Mentors

• Lisa Hightow-Weidman, FSU College of Nursing
• Jing Wang, FSU College of Nursing
• Sylvie Naar, FSU College of Medicine
• Henna Budhwani, FSU College of Nursing
• Eugenia Millender, FSU College of Nursing
• Kathryn Muessig, FSU College of Nursing
• Bonnie Spring, FSU College of Medicine

Secondary Mentors

• Jie Chen, FSU College of Nursing
• Lucinda Graven, FSU College of Nursing
• Adam Hanley, FSU College of Nursing
• Zhe He, FSU College of Communication and Information
• Karen MacDonell, FSU College of Medicine
• Geraldine Martorella, FSU College of Nursing
• Norman B. Schmidt, Department of Psychology, FSU College of Arts and Sciences
• Laura Widman, FSU College of Nursing

The T32 award is the latest milestone in the FSU College of Nursing’s broader push to lead in digital health and AI, part of its Boldly Rising strategic plan. In recent years, the college launched the nation’s first Master of Science in Nursing with a concentration in AI Applications in Healthcare, established the Nursing and Artificial Intelligence Innovation Consortium, and partnered with the Coalition for Health AI to create the nation’s first micro-credential series on responsible AI for nursing.

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FSU Health is Florida State University’s integrated academic health system, bringing together hospitals, physicians, clinics, research, education, and innovation under a unified vision to improve the health of the communities we serve. For more information, visit fsuhealth.fsu.edu.

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Florida State University Vice President for Student Affairs Amy Hecht has received a Fulbright International Education Administrators (IEA) Award, giving her the opportunity to strengthen FSU’s global engagement while exploring higher education systems abroad.  

Fulbright IEA Awards are two-week seminars that give U.S. higher education administrators the opportunity to learn about other countries’ higher education systems, exchange best practices, explore potential institutional partnerships and strengthen their institutions’ international engagement. 

Hecht will travel to France in October for a program focused on the country’s higher education and research system. The program includes briefings, campus visits, meetings with government officials and international education professionals, networking opportunities and cultural activities. 

“Receiving a Fulbright International Education Administrators Award is a tremendous honor,” Hecht said. “I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to engage with colleagues in France, learn from their approaches to higher education and student success and bring new ideas and partnerships back to Florida State University. I look forward to this experience with great enthusiasm and a spirit of collaboration.” 

“I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to engage with colleagues in France, learn from their approaches to higher education and student success and bring new ideas and partnerships back to Florida State University.” 

— Amy Hecht, FSU Vice President for Student Affairs

During the program, Hecht will also explore ways to strengthen support for student study abroad opportunities and faculty research collaborations while laying the groundwork for future partnerships between FSU and French institutions. 

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government’s flagship international educational and cultural exchange program, fostering mutual understanding through academic and professional exchanges in more than 160 countries. 

Hecht joins seven FSU faculty members who received Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards for the 2026-2027 academic year. Those scholars will conduct work in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Belgium, Vietnam and India. 

“It is especially meaningful to join the distinguished community of Florida State Fulbright recipients,” Hecht said. “The achievements of our faculty scholars reflect FSU’s enduring commitment to global engagement, and I am proud to contribute to that tradition while advancing opportunities for our students, faculty and staff.” 

FSU has reciprocal student exchange agreements with three institutions in France: MICEFA (Mission Interuniversitaire de Coordination des Échanges Franco-Américains), a consortium of 18 Paris-area universities; NEOMA Business School, with campuses in Paris, Reims and Rouen;, and the University of Strasbourg.  

Through FSU’s Global Exchange Programs, administered by the Center for Global Engagement within the Division of Student Affairs, FSU students can study abroad while earning academic credit and paying FSU tuition and fees. The program also welcomes exchange students from partner universities around the world.  

FSU also has two study abroad programs in France through International Programs.  

The Dance in Paris program is designed to immerse the dance enthusiast in a unique curriculum combining technique classes at various dance academies and conservatories in Paris with the study of French culture, adding further context to the program.  

The Intensive French program is offered in partnership with the Institut Catholique de Paris, one of the country’s most prestigious language schools. Students are taught entirely in French by native-speaking faculty after placement into the course best suited for their proficiency level.  

“Florida State already enjoys strong and valued relationships with institutions in France, and I hope this experience will help us build upon those connections in ways that expand study abroad opportunities, foster innovative collaborations and deepen the ties between our communities for years to come,” Hecht said.  

FSU faculty interested in learning more about applying for Fulbright Program funding can contact Peggy Wright-Cleveland, director of Faculty Development in the Office of Faculty Development and Advancement, at mwrightcleveland@admin.fsu.edu or (850) 645-8202. 

To learn more about FSU’s global footprint, visit global.fsu.edu. For more information about the Division of Student Affairs at FSU, visit studentaffairs.fsu.edu.  

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Florida State University has been named one of the nation’s top universities in Money Magazine’s 2026 Best Colleges in America list, earning recognition for delivering exceptional quality and value.

The distinction highlights FSU’s longstanding commitment to affordable education, reflecting the university’s mission to provide premier educational opportunities along with comprehensive student support services.

Florida State received 4.5 stars on Money’s 5-star scale for the fourth consecutive year, tying for the highest score among rated public institutions in Florida.

“This recognition shows Florida State University’s dedication to providing a world-class education that remains affordable for every student. We are committed to helping students graduate on time, minimize debt and leave FSU prepared to succeed in rewarding careers or pursue advanced degrees.”  

– FSU President Richard McCullough

“This recognition shows Florida State University’s dedication to providing a world-class education that remains affordable for every student,” said President Richard McCullough. “We are committed to helping students graduate on time, minimize debt and leave FSU prepared to succeed in rewarding careers or pursue advanced degrees.”

Money evaluates colleges based on tangible outcomes, including graduation rates, cost of attendance, financial aid, student debt and alumni salaries. FSU secured a high rating based on its graduation rate and estimated cost of degree, which is significantly lower than the national average.

FSU delivers one of the best values in public higher education, combining affordable costs with strong financial support for students.

Merit-based scholarships, need-based grants, and work-study opportunities help make an FSU education accessible while contributing to one of the lowest median federal student debt levels among public research universities. During the 2024–2025 academic year, 87% of full-time undergraduate students received some form of non-loan financial aid, demonstrating the university’s commitment to reducing financial barriers and supporting student success.

The publication analyzes data from the U.S. Department of Education, Peterson’s databases and PayScale to assess real-world return on investment.

For more information and the complete rankings, visit the Money Best Colleges webpage.

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Altony “Tony” Lee III began serving as chair of the FSU Alumni Association’s National Board of Directors on July 1, bringing to the role more than two decades of experience in higher education, nonprofit development and alumni engagement.

Lee’s appointment reflects his longstanding commitment to Florida State University as both an alumnus and volunteer leader. Through his service to the Alumni Association, including his role as vice chair, he has helped strengthen connections between alumni and the university while advancing initiatives that encourage lifelong engagement with Florida State.

“As a first-generation student, Florida State University provided me with a preeminent college experience and education,” Lee said. “I am honored to serve as chair alongside alumni who are deeply passionate about preserving our rich alumni traditions while embracing new ones.”

Beyond his service to Florida State University, Lee is interim chief of staff at Florida A&M University (FAMU), where he works closely with President Marva B. Johnson, executive leadership and the Board of Trustees to help carry out FAMU’s strategic priorities. In this role, he guides presidential initiatives and helps translate the president’s vision into action across the institution.

Before joining FAMU, Lee served as associate vice chancellor of public affairs for the State University System of Florida, where he helped secure increased investment in higher education. He also strengthened engagement between state policymakers and university leaders, helping ensure Florida’s public universities had a strong voice in decisions affecting higher education.

Throughout his career, Lee has served in advancement and development roles at Florida State University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Radford University and Zoo Tampa. Across those organizations, he helped secure millions of dollars in philanthropic support while building public and private partnerships that further their missions.

“Tony’s leadership reflects a deep understanding of both higher education and the lasting value of an engaged alumni community,” said Marla Vickers, vice president for University Advancement and president of the FSU Foundation. “His ability to build relationships and lead with purpose will guide the board as it builds on the Alumni Association’s strong tradition of service and engagement.”

Lee previously served as the board’s vice chair, and he will work alongside fellow directors to help guide the association’s strategic priorities and support its long-term vision.

Lee earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Florida State University in 2002, a master’s degree in global and strategic communications from Florida International University and a doctorate in applied learning sciences from the University of Miami.

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A Florida State University geneticist has earned one of the most prestigious awards available to early career faculty for her work investigating how genetically identical individuals raised in the same environment, like identical twins, can still be different from each other.

Assistant Professor of Biological Science Amy Webster received a 2026 Faculty Early Career Development Award, or CAREER Award, from the National Science Foundation to study how genes are regulated to affect their traits. The award provides $1.1 million in funding. Webster is one of four FSU faculty members to receive CAREER awards so far this year, all from the College of Arts and Sciences.

“The Webster Lab is still relatively young, so this support provides momentum to build a strong foundation for the future,” Webster said. “We know our genomes are important for many of our characteristics, so we expect genetically identical individuals to be broadly similar. But we also know DNA sequence doesn’t predict everything about us. Many traits and diseases are influenced by the environment, and some differences arise in a seemingly random way. My lab studies how ‘noise’ in gene regulation can have important consequences for organisms.”

The CAREER Awards Program offers NSF’s most significant awards in support of early career faculty with the potential to serve as role models in research and education and lead groundbreaking advances in their fields. The award provides faculty with five years of funding to support students and conduct research while affording them the opportunity to work closely with NSF staff on developing their professional endeavors.

“NSF CAREER awards are prestigious and bring attention to the high caliber of our faculty,” said Karen McGinnis, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of biological science. “Dr. Webster’s combination of expertise in mathematics, genetics, and genomics allows her to tackle interesting and significant questions about genetic inheritance, evolution and variation among individuals.”

While a person’s DNA remains largely unchanged throughout life, how their genes are expressed can change due to environmental factors such as sun exposure, diet and stress. For instance, smoking cigarettes represses a specific gene that prevents cancer; when smokers quit, this gene can resume its cancer-fighting functions over time. Webster’s research focuses on how and why certain genes are flipped “on” or “off,” an area of the field known as gene regulation.

“By understanding DNA’s interactions with other factors to influence gene regulation, we can gain insight into how biological differences arise during an individual’s life,” Webster said. “Long term, this work helps us better understand why individuals differ in traits and disease risk, even when genetics alone doesn’t fully explain those differences.”

To study the interactions between an organism’s genome and environment, the Webster Lab raises and observes Caenorhabditis elegans, a microscopic roundworm that shares 60 to 80 percent of its genes with humans and can express half of all known human disease genes.

“Although they’re clones raised under identical conditions, we’ve found that some genes are regulated differently across individuals, which can affect important traits such as reproductive output,” Webster said. “We’re now working to understand why some genes are regulated consistently, while others are more variable. We’re also investigating how genome sequence and epigenetic modifications, the chemical changes influencing how DNA is packaged and regulated, contribute to these differences.”

Additionally, the award will enable the Webster Lab to investigate whether non-genetic differences that arise in one generation can affect subsequent generations. To do this, Webster will observe evolution in real time by employing experimental approaches allowing her lab to grow more than 200 generations of Caenorhabditis elegans populations.

NSF CAREER awards also support researchers’ investment in educating and training the next generation of scientists, and this award will bolster the Webster Lab’s offering of student opportunities in bioinformatics — a field combining computer science, statistics, and mathematics to analyze massive biological datasets — and artificial intelligence. For example, the Webster Lab employs these technologies to assist in identifying gene regulation patterns that are difficult and time consuming to detect manually.

“Since starting my lab at FSU, it’s been incredibly rewarding to see students and researchers become invested in the questions we’re asking and take ownership of their experiments and analyses,” Webster said. “We’ve accomplished a lot already, and I’m excited to see what we can do next with sustained NSF support.”

Webster joined FSU’s faculty in the Department of Biological Science in 2024 and earned a First-Year Assistant Professor Award in 2025. She earned a doctorate in genetics and genomics from Duke University in 2021 and was a postdoctoral scholar in the Institute of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Oregon before coming to Tallahassee.

Visit the Department of Biological Science website for more information on faculty research.

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Governor DeSantis signs 2026-27 budget, funding a new building that will expand and reshape the joint college’s campus

The FAMU-FSU College of Engineering has received the final piece of state funding needed to complete Building C, a new facility that will expand the college’s existing campus at Innovation Park with new classrooms, teaching labs and collaborative learning spaces.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the 2026-27 state budget on June 29, including a $91.98 million appropriation for the project. The funding, requested by Sen. Corey Simon and Rep. Tyler Sirois, brings the state’s total investment in Building C to approximately $152 million across three budget cycles, following earlier appropriations of $20 million in 2023-24 and $40 million in 2025-26[TK1.1].

Since the college’s last major building opened in the 1990s, it has grown significantly, adding new academic programs and enrolling more students than ever before. Building C will expand capacity to educate the next generation of engineers, helping meet Florida’s growing workforce needs and supporting the state’s continued innovation and economic growth.

“This new building will give our students the classrooms, teaching laboratories and collaborative spaces they need to learn by doing, the hallmark of an engineering education,” said Suvranu De, the Google Endowed Dean of the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. “I am grateful to the Florida Legislature and Gov. DeSantis, and to Sen. Simon and Rep. Sirois, who carried this request. Their commitment to engineering education will have a lasting impact on our students, our state, and the generations of engineers who will follow.”

The joint institution’s last major facility opened in 1998. Since then, enrollment has surged: undergraduate enrollment is up 22% and graduate enrollment up 44% over the past five years, pushing total enrollment past 3,700 students from FAMU and FSU.

The roughly 164,000-square-foot building will add classrooms and hands-on instructional space, plus a new plaza and auditorium. It will also become the engineering village’s main entrance, reshaping how students and visitors move through campus. Initial designs continue the architectural throughline set by the college’s original 1980s building and its 1990s second building. The floor plan includes modern features to support active learning, collaborative study, makerspaces and state-of-the-art lab space.

“This was truly a joint effort from start to finish,” De said. “FSU’s leadership and government relations team worked alongside their FAMU counterparts throughout the session, because both universities recognize how central the joint college is to their future and are committed to its continued success.”

About the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering

Established in 1982, the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering is the only shared college of engineering in the nation, jointly operated by Florida A&M University, a historically Black university, and Florida State University, a Research 1 institution. Students enroll and graduate through their home university while learning and researching together at the college’s shared campus in Tallahassee’s Innovation Park.

The post State of Florida provides final $92M, fully funding $152M FAMU-FSU College of Engineering building appeared first on Florida State University News.

Florida State University’s distinguished faculty are central to the mission of the university. Faculty excellence in scholarship, research, and creative activity is critical to the quality of student learning and makes a difference in the lives of others.

Throughout the year, honors and recognitions are awarded to individual faculty and staff members across campus. Faculty and Staff Briefs are produced monthly to recognize accomplishments and provide a space where honors, awards, bylines, presentations, grants, service and any other notable items can be showcased.

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HONORS AND AWARDS

Amber DeJohn, Ph.D. (Department of Geography) was awarded the NIH/NCATS-funded K12 Multidisciplinary Program Career Development Award for her project titled “Disentangling Mobility, Cognitive Function, and Digital Behaviors to Understand Social Isolation and Dementia Risk.” Her project aims to identify patterns of physical and digital social engagement and examine their associations with baseline cognitive function to determine whether digital social engagement mitigates social isolation or reinforces withdrawal from in-person social environments.

Val Wongsomboon, Ph.D. (Anne’s College) was awarded a College-sponsored CTSA Career Development Award for her project titled “Development and Feasibility Testing of a Brief AI Literacy Intervention to Improve Help-Seeking and Mental Health Outcomes in Adolescents.” Her project aims to develop and pilot test an intervention on AI digital literacy to teach adolescents about AI limitations for emotional support and help them build help-seeking skills. The goal of this intervention is to build help-seeking behaviors among vulnerable adolescents and prevent the escalation of depressive symptoms.

Patrick Merle, Ph.D. (School of Communication) has been selected to take part in the 2026 Scripps Howard Leadership Academy hosted by Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications.

Nate Newton, Ph.D. (Wertheim College of Business), and two co-authors have been selected to receive the American Accounting Association’s 2026 Notable Contribution to Accounting Literature Award for their paper, “How do team workloads and team staffing affect the audit? Archival evidence from U.S. audits,” published in the July 2021 issue of Accounting, Organizations and Society. They will receive the award and a $2,500 prize at the 2026 AAA Global Connect in August in Las Vegas.

Cassandra Cole, Ph.D., Evan Eastman, Ph.D., and Kyeonghee Kim, Ph.D. (Wertheim College of Business), won the Les B. Strickler Innovation in Instruction Award for their work on “AI-Powered Simulation Games for Risk Management and Insurance Education.” They will receive the award during the national meeting of the American Risk and Insurance Association in August.

Deb Osborn, Ph.D. (FSU Career Center & Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) has been selected as the recipient of the Eminent Career Award bestowed by the National Career Development Association.

Paul Cohen, (College of Motion Picture Arts) produced Groundswell, a documentary directed by two FSU alumni, Joshua Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell. The film was awarded the Golden Globe Prize for Documentary at Festival De Cannes.

Elizabeth Ray, Ph.D., Felicia Jordan Jackson, Ph.D. (School of Communication), and Ph.D. candidate Trayana Kaleycheva received the Top Paper Award from the Public Relations division of the International Communication Association (ICA) for their paper, “When Smiles and Frowns Meet Sugar and Fat: Affective Cues, Risk Perceptions, and Nutrition Decisions.”

Jie Chen, Ph.D., RN (College of Nursing), received the Editor of Distinction Award for “Author Service Award 2026” from Springer Nature for serving on the editorial board of BMC Nursing, an open access, peer-reviewed journal that considers articles on all aspects of evidence-based nursing care.

Rachel Duke, Ph.D., Research and Engagement Program Director (Libraries), received the Society of American Archivists (SAA) Foundation Annual Meeting Award to support her attendance at ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2026 in New Orleans, LA.

Javier Rosado, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) received the 2026 Alumni Award from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, where he did a doctoral internship in Clinical and Community Psychology.

GRANTS

Zhe He, Ph.D. (School of Information), and Michael Killian, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) received a CTS Pilot Award for their project, “A Reusable AI-Assisted Psychosocial Risk Synthesis Engine for Pediatric Transplant Evaluation,” from the UF+FSU Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Hub.

Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski, Ed.D. (Learning Systems Institute) and Sana Tibi, Ph.D. (Department of Communication Science and Disorders) will serve as principal investigators on a project with IREX on the Early Grade Education Activity (ASAS) in Jordan. LSI will join the project to advance Jordanian-led teacher education initiatives.

Liz Dunne, M.S., and Michael Pritchard, M.A. (Libraries) received a $9,975 grant from the Florida Department of State Division of Library and Information Services for their project “FSU Libraries / Leon County Schools Cross-Sector Professional Learning Community (PLC)” supporting high school librarians and Leon County Dual Enrollment students’ research needs at FSU.

Gary Ostrander, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) and Eric H. Holmes, Ph.D., (Research and Graduate Programs) were awarded a $365,437.52 grant from the Florida Department of Health Innovation Fund for “Enacting Niclosamide Activity for Cancer Treatment (ENACT).” 

BYLINES

Marissa Hershon, (John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art) authored the paper, “The Dwight James Baum Business Records: Rediscovering the Creatives Behind the Ringlings’ Vision for Ca’ d’Zan” which was accepted for the international academic conference, “On papers. Archives for Project, History and Prospects” at the ArCoD Department of Architecture Construction Design of the Bari Polytechnic University in Bari, Italy, in collaboration with A Faculdade de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa and the Alma Mater Studiorum at University of Bologna HPA Lab, June 2026, and will be included in the peer-reviewed collective volume of the series Quaderni di ArchitecrA – Architettura attraverso gli Archivi dell’editore Quasar in Rome, Italy.

Timothy Baghurst, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) co-authored “Why Context Matters: An Exploration of How Sporting Characteristics Shape Coaching Practice,” published in the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education.

Timothy Baghurst, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) co-authored “Analysis of coach and athletic director turnover in the Florida school system,” published in the International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching.

Joseph Watso, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) and Ph.D. candidate Christin Domeier co-authored “Water intake mediates cross-sectional associations between urinary kidney injury biomarkers and race in emerging adults,” published in the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.

Jay Kesten, LL.M. and LL.B., (College of Law), has a forthcoming article, “Presidential Immunity: A Lesson from Corporate Law”, with the Georgia State Law Review.

Kristy Anderson, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Caregiver employment changes and care coordination in families with children and autism,” published in the journal Research in Autism.

Sonnie Mayewski, MSW, and Michael Killian, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Integrating shiny web applications into pediatric transplant research: Development, implementation, and case application,” published in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

Michael Killian, Ph.D. and Sonnie Mayewski, MSW (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Behavioral health and adherence factors driving emergency and inpatient care among pediatric transplant recipients,” published in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

Lisa Schelbe, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Corporal punishment in the U.S. Public Schools: A review of state bans,” published in the journal, Children & Schools.

JaNiene Peoples, Ph.D. (College of Social Work) co-authored the article, “Ecological momentary assessment of racial discrimination and same-day and next day alcohol use among Black college students,” published in the journal, Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Michaé Cain, Ph.D., Lauren Stanley, Ph.D., and Dina Wilke, Ph.D. (College of Social Work and Florida Institute for Child Welfare) co-authored the article, “An investigation of factors impacting job-stress-related presenteeism among child welfare workers,” published in the Children and Youth Services Review.

Kara Guinan, M.S., and Lauren Stanley, Ph.D. (College of Social Work and Florida Institute for Child Welfare) co-authored the literature brief “Understanding Disordered Eating in System-Involved Youths: A Trauma-Informed Overview for Child Welfare Professionals,” which will be published through the Florida Institute for Child Welfare.

Burcu Izci, Ph.D. (College of Social Work and Florida Institute for Child Welfare) co-authored the article “Guiding parents on young children’s digital technology use: Insights from preservice and in-service teachers”, in the Journal of Research in Childhood Education.

Patrick Merle, Ph.D. (School of Communication), and graduate student Mitch Krueger co-authored “Are all uses of AI created equal? An experimental review of AI disclosure types on credibility” in Journalism.

Sun Young Park, Ph.D., Jaejin Lee, Ph.D., and Braidyn Lazenby, Ph.D. (School of Communication) co-authored the research article, “Gut health goes viral: analyzing influencer advertising for dietary supplements on TikTok,” in the International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing.

Zhe He, Ph.D., Mia Lustria, Ph.D. (School of Information), Obianuju Aliche, Ph.D. (College of Medicine), Kyunghye Kim, Ph.D. (School of Information), and doctoral student Lovinta Atrinawati co-authored the systematic review, “Patient Experiences With Online Laboratory Test Presentations From Access to Activation: Systematic Review”, in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

Kathleen P. Wilson, Ph.D., APRN, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM (College of Nursing), co-authored “Lifestyle interventions for major depressive disorder (MDD): An expert consensus statement from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.” Published in the Journal of Lifestyle Medicine.

Brittany Lane, MPH, Ph.D., Casey D. Xavier Hall, MPH, Ph.D., Artur Queiroz, Ph.D., BSN, MS (College of Nursing), Rasheda Haughbrook, MS, Ph.D. (Center of Population Sciences for Health Empowerment), Umedjon “Umed” Ibragimov, Ph.D., Liying Wang, Ph.D., Eugenia Flores Millender, Ph.D., RN, PMH-APRN, FAAN, FAANP, Frank “Frankie” Y. Wong, Ph.D. and Amanda Gabster, Ph.D., MSc (College of Nursing),  co-authored “Healthcare Acceptability and Delayed Care Among Older People Living with HIV in the All of Us Program.”

Brendan Weaver, Ph.D. (Department of Art History) authored a chapter within The Oxford Handbook of South American Archaeology.

Brenda Wawire, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) co-authored “Understanding the Relations between the Component Skills of Reading Comprehension among English Language Learners from Kenya,” which was published in Reading & Writing quarterly.

Michelle Bumatay, Ph.D. (Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics) edited a special issue of the journal Francosphères (Liverpool UP), vol. 15, Issue 1, titled “Francophone Afrotopias.” She also wrote the introduction, edited an interview with the Francophone Senegalese author Felwine Sarr, and contributed an article titled “Francophone comics by African digital natives: Forming (as) inclusive Afrotopias.”

Michael Neal, Ph.D. (Department of English) had his article, “Following the North Star: Movement Toward Universal Writing Assessment,” published in the Journal of Writing Assessment, a peer-reviewed publication dedicated to topics in writing assessment.

Jacquelyn H. Clements, Ph.D., Digital Projects Librarian (Libraries), authored a review of Welo Hou in the June 2026 issue of ARLIS/NA Multimedia & Technology Reviews.

Delaney W. La Rosa, EdD, MSN Ed, RN (College of Nursing), co-authored the textbook “Nursing Education in the AI Era: Practical Guidance for Educators to Provide Equitable Care”. The textbook has been adopted for use at Harvard University and will be featured in the window display at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Karen Geletko, MPH, Jon Mills, Ph.D., Jeffrey Harman, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) and three medical students published “Impact of Legislation on Adolescent E-Cigarette Use” in Public Health Reports.

Yang Hou, Ph.D., Dan Liu, Ph.D., and Xiaoli Zong, Ph.D., (College of Medicine) were among the global team of authors of “Age-varying associations between parent-reported executive function and internalizing/externalizing problems in children with neurofibromatosis type 1: an integrative analysis of data from nine institutions,” published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

Karen MacDonell, Ph.D., and Sylvie Naar, Ph.D. (Center for Translational Behavioral Science/College of Medicine) were two five authors who published “Blood Spot Biosampling Technology for HIV Viral Load Collection Among Youth with HIV” in AIDS and Behavior. 

PRESENTATIONS

Dillon Pruett, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science & Disorders) presented a poster, “The gene VRK2 is implicated in genome-wide analyses of stuttering, language, and rhythm traits,” at the Molecular Psychiatry Association Conference in Lihue, Hawaii.

JR Harding, Ed.D. (Wertheim College of Business) presented in May with FSU students Julian Dirani, Ashley Evans and Kristen Mancinelli at FSU Panama City’s 2^nd Annual Northwest Florida Disability Conference. Their topic was the Evolution of Higher Education and PWDs.

James Hunt, Ph.D. (Office of Institutional Research) presented “Navigating Your Professional Development Through IR Organizations” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.

Katherine Gipalo, MPA and Samantha Nix, Ph.D. (Office of Institutional Research) co-presented “How Do I Say No? Discussing Strategies for Saying No to Stakeholders” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.

Heather Epstein-Diaz, MLIS (Office of Institutional Research) co-presented “Data Governance as a Service: Building Trust, Access, and Usability” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.

Heather Epstein-Diaz, MLIS and Eclipse Ramsey, MSI (Office of Institutional Research) co-presented “AI Readiness Starts with Context: Semantic Layers for Higher Education” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.

Lee Howell, MBA (Information Technology Services) presented “Metrics Strategies: Aligning Data, Tactics, and Purpose for IR Success” and “Beyond the Numbers: Faculty Achievement in Fine Arts” at the 2026 Association for Institutional Research in Washington, D.C.

Landon Weeks, (Division of University Advancement) presented “Maximizing our Joint Slay: Strategies to Effectively Leverage Campus Partnerships at the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education’s (CASE) Recent Alumni and Student Engagement conference in Nashville, Tennessee.

Frederick Abbott, LL.M. and J.D., (College of Law), presented at the “Order and Disorder in International Trade: The Past and the Future,” meeting hosted by the European Free Trade Association, the World Trade Institute, and the University of Bern, in Bern, Switzerland.

Michael Morley, J.D., (College of Law), presented at the Florida Bar Government Lawyer Section’s first-ever Legacy & Leadership Symposium at The Florida Bar Annex Building in Tallahassee. He presented a “Survey of Recent Cases in Elections Law,” which reviewed court decisions affecting state and federal 2026 elections laws.

Ose Ndebbio, M.S. (Florida Institute for Child Welfare, College of Social Work), and Jessica Greil-Burkhart, MSW (College of Social Work), presented “Scaling Course Improvement Without Losing Instructional Judgment” at the Teaching and Learning with AI conference at the Gaylord Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

Machelle Madsen Thompson, Ph.D. (College of Social Work), Malaika Samples, Ph.D. and Tenille Taylor (Florida Institute for Child Welfare) and (Stoops Center for Communities, Families, and Children) presented a half-day training, “Advancing Child Maltreatment Interventions Through Case-Based Training and Virtual Reality,” at the Association of Professionals Solving the Abuse of Children 2026 conference in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Mona Bozorgi, Ph.D. (Department of Art) chaired a session, Materiality and Response-ability and presented her research titled Affective Matter: On the Exchange Between Image, Substance, and Bodies. She was also part of a juried group exhibition and served as a portfolio reviewer at the Society for Photographic Education Annual Conference in Atlanta.

Yelena McLane, Ph.D. (School of Design) presented a paper titled Generative Affordances in Permanent Supportive Housing: Applying Ecological Theory to Dignified Design at the annual Environmental Design Research Association conference in Amherst, MA.

Grace Aneiza Ali, MFA (Department of Art) was a featured speaker at the Donald Locke Symposium: Edge of Spirit in London.

Erin Morpeth-Provost (Counseling & Psychological Services) presented a general session “EMDR in a University Counseling Center: Client Outcomes and Practical Use in Response to a Campus Crisis” at the American College Health Association annual conference.

Mari Kay Avant (University Health) co-presented two general sessions at the American College Health Association annual conference: “Administration Hot Topics: Marketing Student Health Centers” and “Designing For Impact: Creative Strategies to Market College Healthcare to Gen Z Students.”

Nicole Lilly (Career Center) presented “From Stuck to Sprouting: Tools for Resilient Career Thinking” at the Graduate Career Consortium.

Amy Magnuson, Ph.D., R.D. and Kelly Dykes, BSN, RN, CHPE, CPHIMS (University Health Services) co-presented “The Business Backbone of Student Health” at the 2026 American College Health Association annual conference.

Carrie Meyers and Jim Reynolds (Learning Systems Institute/FSU InSPIRE) presented at the 4th annual Teaching and Learning with AI conference at UCF.

Laura Greene, Ph.D. (Mag Lab), Anna Romanova, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute), and Michael Shatruk, Ph.D. (Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry) presented as part of the U.S. Science and Education Forum at the Lviv Academic Bridge.

Rob Schoen, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) presented “The human-in-the-loop: Navigating the intersection of AI limitations and expert pedagogy in mathematical task design” at the annual conference of the Florida Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Rob Schoen, Ph.D. and Amanda Tazaz, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) presented “Impact of CGI on Teachers and Students in Florida” and “Using M-CLIPS to Detect Impact of CGI on Teaching: Results from a Randomized Control Trial” at the 2026 CGI Conference in Arizona.

Lakesia Dupree, Ph.D., Odalis Tavares, Ph.D., Amanda Tazaz, Ph.D., and Shanann Young (Learning Systems Institute) presented “Empowering Families to Support CGI Practices at Home” at the 2026 CGI Conference in Arizona.

Alda Balthrop-Lewis, Ph.D. (Department of Religion) presented, “Patience and Political Asceticism,” as part of the Patience in Adversity Summer Seminar hosted by the Templeton Religion Trust funded grant at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Tarez Samra Graban, Ph.D. (Department of English) presented her papers, “Cultural Lines of Sight: Reconsidering Historical Memory in and of the UN World Conference on Women at Beijing,” and, “Unsettling Expectations about the Resilience of South Africa’s Black Sash,” at the 22nd Biennial Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America in Portland, Oregon.

David Newheiser, Ph.D. (Department of Religion) presented, “Mysticism and Political Theory,” at the British International Studies Association 2026 Conference in Brighton and the invited lecture, “Critical Political Theology” at King’s College London, in the United Kingdom. He also presented, “Miracles and Democratic Imagination: The Power of an Impossible Hope,” at the International Network in Philosophy of Religion in Paris, France, and, “Religion, Wonder, and the Limits of Reason: Reframing the Debate over Miracles,” at Panteion University in Athens, Greece.

Silvia Valisa, Ph.D. (Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics) co-organized the panel, “Italian Ecopoetry in Translation: An Ecology of Attention,” and presented her paper, “Moving Encounters: Italian Ecopoetry Translation Workshop at FSU,” at the Poetry’s Environments Conference organized by Poetry@Leeds, the poetry center of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

Alice Maxwell, M.A., Jessie Colegrove, M.A. and Evan Eisenstark (Division of Student Affairs Marketing and Communications) presented, “Before the Glow Up: Rebuilding Career Center Marketing for What Comes Next” at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Annual Marketing and Branding Conference in Denver, Colorado.

Saanchi Shah, Ph.D., and Boris Kantor, Ph.D. (Institute for Pediatric Rare Diseases/ College of Medicine) presented at the A.J. Anderson Foundation & IPRD Rare Disease Conference in Palm Harbor, Florida. Shah spoke about presented “Sunshine Genetics Updates” while Kantor presented “Gene Therapy for Pediatric Rare Diseases: Current Status and Future Perspectives.”

Rebecca Carter, LCSW, and Karen Cramer, MSW (College of Medicine) spoke at the 2026 National Association of Social Workers-Florida Annual Conference in Orlando on “CBT for Nicotine Dependence: Better Behavioral Health and Recovery Outcomes in Social Work Practice.

Joseph Gabriel, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) and his two co-editors of “Dealing with Drugs: New Histories of Risk and Benefit” were guests on a University of Rochester Press podcast about their book, part of the Rochester Studies in Medical History book series.

Regan Bailey, Ph.D., and Patrick Stover, Ph.D. (Institute for Connecting Nutrition and Health/College of Medicine) presented at the 31^st Marabou Symposium in Stockholm, Sweden, with the theme “Dynamics of Nutrient Needs to Compensate for Metabolic Decline in Aging.” Stover moderated panel discussions and Bailey presented “Bringing it all  together: Nutrient needs throughout the life cycle.”

Heather Flynn, Ph.D., and Mike Drury, Psy.D., (College of Medicine) presented “Fundamentals of Psychological Treatments for Perinatal Behavioral Health” in a webinar for healthcare professionals.

EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES

Jamie Ho, MFA (Department of Art) had work featured in Fellowship 26 at Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, PA.

Katie Kehoe, MFA (Department of Art) has a series of 6 photographs exhibiting in “Unprecedented” at The Crown Gallery at Metro Art Studios in Bridgeport, CT, and is also in the group exhibition, “The Forest was Rebuilt with Scrap and Ply” at Wiregrass Museum of Art in Dothan, AL.

Alena Mehic, MFA (Department of Art)’s work “Za Mamu” will be on view at “somewhere i have never travelled”, an exhibition at Behind VA Shadows in Cambridge, MA.

Jiha Moon, MFA (Department of Art) exhibited “Collection, Reframed: Jiha Moon” at Bechtler Museum of Modern Art in Charlotte, NC.

Meredith Lynn, MFA (Department of Art)’s work “Bad Outdoorsmen (Application Video)(Northeast Florida)” is on view at The Orlando Museum of Art for the 12th Annual Florida Prize in Contemporary Art exhibitions. Professor Meredith Lynn’s monograph is available at the Orlando Museum of Art store. 

Lilian Garcia-Roig, (Department of Art) is included in several traveling group shows including, “Let Us Gather In A Flourishing Way” at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York, which will be followed by a national tour including presentations at the Des Moines Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, the Phoenix Art Museum, and the Frye Art Museum, Seattle.

SERVICE

Kyeonghee Kim, Ph.D. (Wertheim College of Business), joined the Academic Advisory Council of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Center for Insurance Policy and Research, for which she will provide input and guidance on the center’s mission to advance understanding of insurance issues among policymakers, regulators, industry leaders and academia.

Latika Young, MA, Ed.M. (Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement) chaired the panel “Expanding the Scope of CUR: A Panel Discussion about Statewide Efforts to Support Undergraduate Research” and served as host for a lunch discussion table on “Statewide Support for Undergraduate Research” at the ConnectUR conference hosted by the Council on Undergraduate Research in College Park, Maryland.

Kathleen P. Wilson, Ph.D., APRN, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM (College of Nursing), has been appointed as Member at Large to the Fellows of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (FAANP) Executive Committee. The FAANP program is dedicated to the global advancement of nurse practitioners (NPs) and the high-quality health care NPs deliver.

Jessica Bahorski, Ph.D., APRN, PPCNP-BC, WHNP-BC (College of Nursing) and BSN undergraduate students Kelsie Nyman and Madison Roy attended the Gadsden County Healthy Start Coalition Baby Bash. They offered height and weight measurement for infants with growth chart tracking.

Leah Sherman, Ph.D., Visual & Performing Arts Librarian (Libraries), was elected Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect of the Arts Section of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) for the 2026–2029 term, reflecting her ongoing leadership in arts librarianship.

Laurel Harbin, Ph.D., AICP, LEED-AP (Office of the Provost) and Rabieh Razzouk, MBA (Learning Systems Institute) have each been appointed by FSU President Richard McCullough to serve two-year terms on the Florida State University Schools, Inc. Board of Directors.

Alice Maxwell, M.A. (Division of Student Affairs Marketing and Communications) served as faculty for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Annual Marketing and Branding Conference in Denver, Colorado. In addition to helping plan the conference, she moderated the student communications focused panel “What Students Wish You Knew” and served on the panel “AI in Marketing and Branding: What’s Working, What’s Not, and What’s Next” as a speaker.

Cheryl Porter, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) was appointed to the inaugural Research, Engagement, Growth and Scholarship Committee of the Association of American Medical Colleges.  AAMC restructured its groups and replaced the Group on Student Affairs with the Learner Access, Support, Opportunity and Retention Group, of which this new committee is a part.

Susan Epstein, MSLS (College of Medicine) was named to the Information, Discovery & Interchange Topic Committee of the National Information Standards Organization, a library access organization.

NOTABLE

Patrick Merle, Ph.D. (School of Communication) has been accepted to present at the 27^th annual congress of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association in September in Malaga, Spain.

Richard Morris, (School of Communication Science and Disorders) retired after serving Florida State University for nearly four decades (since 1988).

Giovanni Lopez, (Wertheim College of Business) served as a panelist at the 2026 Technology in Business Schools Round Table annual meeting, hosted by the University of Colorado Leeds School of Business, and offered insights about moving into a new building, including planning, design, construction, technology, implementation and more.

Maria Paula McIntyre Nwenyi (Center for Leadership & Service) is one of 15 FSU faculty and staff members who earned the Institutional Research Data Literacy and Analytics Certificate in Spring 2026.

The Ukraine Task Force, led by Vilma Fuentes, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute), hosted Dmytro Dyadin, Ph.D. and Oleksandr Hrytsyna, Ph.D. as part of the Bridge USA Ukraine Program for Resilience and Reconstruction, which connects Ukrainian and U.S. scholars to foster research, develop education, and rebuild resilience through impactful international partnerships.

Rick Burnette (Sr. Vice Provost & Chief Strategy Officer) participated in “The Higher Education AI Reality Check” IREX webinar discussing FSU’s approach to AI and the broader questions surrounding its use in higher education.

Lakesia Dupree, Ph.D., Odalis Tavares, Ed.D., and Amanda Tazaz, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) worked with educators in Hillsborough County on the Successful Start: Cognitively Guided Instruction project, providing training and support to math teachers serving students in foundational grades.

Please send items for Faculty and Staff Briefs to tfordyce@fsu.edu. We publish monthly.

The post Faculty and Staff Briefs June 2026 appeared first on Florida State University News.