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.
HONORS AND AWARDS
Ayyalusamy “Rams” Ramamoorthy, Ph.D. (FAMU-FSU College of Engineering) was awarded the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) fellowship for his groundbreaking research on Alzheimer’s, Type 2 Diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.
Lucinda J. Graven, Ph.D., APRN, FAHA, FAAN (College of Nursing), has been selected as the recipient of the 2025 Heart Failure Society of America’s (HFSA) Nursing Research Leadership Award to be presented in September at the HFSA’s annual conference in Minneapolis.
Casey Rust, M.D. (College of Medicine) was honored with a United Hero Award by UnitedHealthcare, based on high scores from patients surveyed after being treated at a faculty clinic run by the college’s Florida Medical Practice Plan.
GRANTS
Shonda Bernadin, Ph.D. (FAMU-FSU College of Engineering) received a $10,000 AMIE Innovation Investment Award from Boeing to further drone research. Bernadin will lead the Electrical and Computer Engineering Research Mentoring Program’s RF Sensor Drone Payload Summer Project.
Bayaner Arigong, Ph.D. (FAMU-FSU College of Engineering) received a $7,000 AMIE Innovation Investment Award from Boeing to further research in wireless communication systems. Arigong’s research focuses on beamforming technology, specifically developing a new type of phased array capable of operating across a wide frequency range from 2 to 18 GHz.
Andrea Barton-Hulsey, Ph.D. and Michelle Therrien, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science and Disorders) received a $5 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to fund the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Augmentative and Alternative Communication.
Kelly Farquharson, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science and Disorders) was awarded a $12,500 grant from the Institute for Pediatric Rare Diseases for her work “Developing the Scoring for Expressive Evaluation and Diagnosis paradigm for pediatric speech disorders.”
Yushun Dong, Ph.D. (Department of Computer Science) received a $600,000 National Science Foundation grant for the project, “Secure Machine Learning as a Service for Collaborative Scientific Research.”
Choogon Lee, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) was awarded a one-year grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to study the genetic basis of circadian rhythms and sleep disorders.
Yang Hou, Ph.D., and Angelina Sutin, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) were awarded a three-year grant by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, endorsed by the Department of Defense, to study daily patterns and predictors of cognitive function in middle-aged and older adults with neurofibromatosis Type 1.
Jarrod Mousa, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) is a co-Principal Investigator (PI) on a grant to study increasing the protective capacity of antibodies by enhancing Fc-mediated responses awarded to the University of Georgia.
Xiaonan Zhang, Ph.D. (Department of Computer Science) received a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant from the Security, Privacy, and Trust in Cyberspace program.
BYLINES
Ravinder Nagpal, Ph.D. and Chester Ray, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) co-authored “Microbiome-based Therapeutics Towards Healthier Aging and Longevity,” published in Genome Medicine.
Joseph Watso, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) and doctoral student Joseph Vondrasek co-authored “Advanced Phenotyping in Patients with a Fontan Circulation Uncovers Effects of Pulmonary Vascular Disease,” published in Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
Annie Wofford, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) and doctoral candidate Holly Henning co-authored “We Can Change the Culture through Those Individual Engagements: Social Exchange and Equity-Mindedness in STEMM Doctoral Students’ Roles as Mentors,” published in Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education.
Annie Wofford, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) co-authored “Building Transfer Student Interest in Computer Science Ph.D.s: Examining an Advising Intervention Using a Staged Innovation Design,” published in Research in Higher Education.
Lakeisha Johnson, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science and Disorders) authored the poster “Educators’ Knowledge of Dyslexia and Developmental Language Disorders” and coauthored the poster “Understanding Social Risk and Resilience in Urban and Rural Areas” at the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading Conference in Calgary, Canada.
Russell Clayton, Ph.D. (School of Communication) authored “’What Can the Heart Tell Us About Thinking?’ A Three-Decade Review of Heart Rate Measurement and Its Future Applications to Advertising Research,” published in the Journal of Advertising.
Changhyun (Lyon) Nam, Ph.D. (Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship) published “Cradle to Cradle Footwear Design Model: Bio-Based Material Shoes and Wearer’s Perceptions and Acceptance” in the journal in Fashion and Practice.
Mollie Romano, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science and Disorders) and graduate students Diana Abarca and Frances Baehman authored “A Low-Cost, Social Media–Supported Intervention for Caregivers to Enhance Toddlers’ Language Learning: Mixed Methods Feasibility and Acceptability Study,” published in JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting.
Kathleen P. Wilson, Ph.D., APRN, CPNP, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM (College of Nursing), co-authored “Boot Camp: Preparing the Next Generation of Nurse Practitioners,” published in the Journal for Nurse Practitioners.
Freddy Juarez, MS, Jarred Pernier, M.Ed. and Brittany Devies, Ph.D. (Fraternity and Sorority Life) co-authored “Organizational Change Framework: Navigating Change for Individuals and Organizations” in New Directions for Student Leadership.
Nadia Banteka, J.D., LL.M., LL.B. (College of Law) authored “Police Vigilantism” in the Virginia Law Review.
Jake Linford, J.D. (College of Law) co-authored a new Open-Source Contracts Casebook, a major scholarly milestone several years in the making.
Stephanie Zuilkowski, Ph.D. and Adrienne Barnes-Story, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) co-authored “Pre-service Teacher Education – The Linchpin for Embedding Sustainable, Scalable Change in Education Systems,” published by What Works Hub for Global Education.
Eundeok Kim, Ph.D. (College of Entrepreneurship) co-authored “Using Artificial Intelligence in Sustainability Teaching and Learning” published in the journal Environmental Sciences Europe.
Cathy McClive, Ph.D. (Department of History) co-authored the article, “Women at the Centre: Medical Entrepreneurialism and ‘La Grande Médecine’ in Eighteenth-Century Lyon,” which won Nursing Clio’s 2025 Best Article Prize for scholarship on women’s historical contributions to the field of medicine.
Bonnie Spring, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) was the principal investigator (PI) and a co-author of “Effects of a Physical Activity mHealth Intervention (Fit2Thrive) on WCRF/AICR Cancer Prevention Score among Breast Cancer Survivors: A Secondary Data Analysis,” published in Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers. She was also PI and a co-author of “How Community-Based Organizations View and Use Data: Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities,” published in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved. In addition, she was PI and a co-author of “Speaking of Survival: Oncologists’ Approaches to Risk Behavior Conversations with Cancer Survivors,” published in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship.
Mary Gerend, Ph.D. (College of Medicine), Farnaz Solatikia, Ph.D. (Office of the Vice President for Research) and doctoral student Christina T. Myers authored “Using Cancer Survivor Narratives to Increase Parents’ Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Intentions,” published in Health Psychology.
William Bobo, M.D., MPH (College of Medicine) published “Prenatal Antidepressant Exposure and Risk of Depression and Anxiety Disorders: An Electronic Health Records-Based Cohort Study” in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Boris Kantor, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) co-authored “SNCA-targeted Epigenome Therapy for Parkinson’s Disease Alleviates Pathological and Behavioral Perturbations in a Mouse Model,” published in bioRXiv. He also co-authored “Trends and Challenges of AAV-delivered Gene Editing Therapeutics for Unmet Needs in CNS Disorders: Implications for Neurodegenerative Disease,” published in Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids.
Thesla Berne-Anderson, Ed.D., Aihua Wang, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) and doctoral student Benjamin Linkous co-authored “Shaping the Future Clinical Trial Workforce Through Early Educational Programs,” published in Clinical Researcher.
Cyneetha Strong, M.D., George Whiddon, M.D., Christopher Mulrooney, Ph.D. and Alma Littles, M.D. (College of Medicine) co-authored a letter to the editor in Hepatology Communications in response to “Population Screening for Cirrhosis,” describing the Florida Healthy Liver Program.
Robert Hickner, Ph.D. and Mostafa Ali, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) co-authored “Creatine Monohydrate Supplementation and NOX Impact Skeletal Muscle Microvascular Blood Flow: A Pilot Study” alongside co-authors, including postdoctoral researcher alumni Paul Baker, Holly Clarke, and Cesar Meza.
Feng Bao, Ph.D. (Department of Mathematics) and Hristo Chipilski, Ph.D. (Department of Scientific Computing) co-authored the article “Nonlinear Ensemble Filtering with Diffusion Models: Application to the Surface Quasigeostrophic Dynamics,” published in the American Meteorological Society’s Monthly Weather Review journal.
Rosemary Kellison, Ph.D. (Department of Religion) co-authored the book, “Solidarity and Power Feminist Approaches to Religious Ethics” published by Bloomsbury.
Judith Pascoe, Ph.D. (Department of English) authored “A Good Mother Is Hard to Find” about American novelist Flannery O’Connor’s mother, published in the summer issue of the Georgia Review.
Tanya Peres, Ph.D. (Department of Anthropology) co-authored the chapter, “Turkey Management and Use in the Eastern Woodlands of North America,” in the book, “Exploring the History of Turkey Management and Domestication: A Transatlantic Perspective” about the history of turkey management and domestication, published by the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France.
PRESENTATIONS AND CONFERENCES
Hugh Catts, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science and Disorders) presented “A Computer Adaptive Measure of Word Reading Ability” at the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading Conference in Calgary, Canada.
Shannon Hall-Mills, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science and Disorders) presented “The Impact of Educational Supports and Adjustments on Academic Achievement in Students with Developmental Language Disorder” at the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading Conference in Calgary, Canada.
Kathleen Powers Conti, Ph.D. (Department of History) presented her research on documenting historic vernacular community spaces at the annual Vernacular Architecture Forum conference in Wilmington, Delaware, in May.
Sana Tibi, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science and Disorders) presented “Reading Anxiety in Arabic University Students” at the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading Conference in Calgary, Canada.
Carla Wood, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science and Disorders) presented “Morphological Analysis Pathway to Reading” at the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading Conference in Calgary, Canada.
Ebe Randeree, Ph.D. (College of Communication and Information) presented “What Skills are Tech Employers Looking for?,” “Leadership Development through Student Engagement,” and “Building Effective Advisory Board” at the 59th Annual Florida Association for Career and Technical Education Conference and Trade Show in Orlando, FL.
Frank (“Frankie”) Y. Wong, Ph.D. (College of Nursing) presented “What to and How to Measure” at the XV International Conference in Memory of Dr. Alan Gabster in Santiago, Panamá. He also presented “The ABCs of the Social Determinants of Health” at the same conference.
Tingting Liu, Ph.D., RN, FAAN (College of Nursing) presented “The Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Cerebrovascular Health Among Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes” at the Advent Health Research Institute.
Kathleen P. Wilson, Ph.D., APRN, CPNP, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM and Alicia Craig-Rodriguez, DNP, MBA, APRN, FNP-BC, DipACLM (College of Nursing) co-presented “Happiness for the Health of it!” as a podcast at the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
Kathleen P. Wilson, Ph.D., APRN, CPNP, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM (College of Nursing) presented “Type 2 DM in CKD: Improving Cardio-Renal Outcomes” at the American Association of Nurse Practitioners National Conference in San Diego, CA. She also presented “Management Considerations of the Elder Diabetes Patient” at the same conference.
Kathleen P. Wilson, Ph.D., APRN, CPNP, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM and Alicia Craig-Rodriguez, DNP, MBA, APRN, FNP-BC, DipACLM (College of Nursing), presented “NP Practice with Vitality: Integrating Positive Psychology into Care” at the Florida Nurse Practitioner Network Statewide quarterly Webinar.
Kathleen P. Wilson, Ph.D., APRN, CPNP, FNP-BC, BC-ADM, FAANP, FNAP, DipACLM (College of Nursing) conducted the boot camp workshop “Preparing the Next Generation of Nurse Practitioners” for the Florida Nursing Practitioner Network Continuing Education Platform.
Anissa Ford, MA (Career Center) was a panelist for the June virtual session “Writing a Strong Conference Proposal” for Southern Association of Colleges & Employers.
Mackenzie Fisher, MS (Career Center) presented “Helping Helicopter Parents Land: Strategies for Navigating Parental Involvement in Career Advising Sessions” at the National Career Development Association Global Conference.
Casey Dozier, Ph.D., Shawn Einarson, MS (Career Center) and graduate assistant Danny Chiarodit co-presented “Revolutionizing Career Development: Leveraging AI in Career Advising, Teaching and Daily Practices” at the National Career Development Association Global Conference.
Casey Dozier, Ph.D. (Career Center) co-presented “Self-Care and Autonomy: Recognizing the Role Each Plays in Career Decision Making” at the National Career Development Association Global Conference.
Alice Maxwell, MA (Division of Student Affairs Marketing and Communications) presented “Strategic Marketing in Student Affairs for Student Success” at the 2025 National Association of Student Personnel Administrators National Conference on Student Success in Higher Education in Denver, Colorado.
Bonnie Spring, Ph.D. (College of Medicine) presented “Research Design and Methods in Behavioral Medicine” at the NIH-sponsored Behavioral and Sleep Medicine Summer Institute held at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She also gave the lecture “Navigating the Gap: Where mHealth Meets Real-World Implementation Challenges” and served as an on-site mentor to faculty selected to join the NIH-sponsored Mobile Health Technology Institute held at UCLA in Los Angeles.
Julie Decker, M.Ed. (Division of University Advancement) co-presented “Rethinking Engagement: Data-Informed Strategies for a Changing Advancement Landscape” at the CASE Summit for Leaders in Advancement in New York City.
Jenny Root, Ph.D. (Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences) was the keynote speaker at the 2025 PATTAN Math Conference. Her presentation, “Making Math Meaningful, Accessible, and Joyful,” explored common instructional barriers to mathematical proficiency and their impact on student learning and motivation.
Alda Balthrop-Lewis, Ph.D. (Department of Religion) presented “What Is an Archive and Why Do We Go There?” at the International Thomas Merton Society 19th meeting. He also presented “The Calligraphy of Snow and Rock and Sky” at Regis University in Denver, Colorado.
Hongyuan Cao, Ph.D. (Department of Statistics) presented “Testing Composite Null Hypotheses with High-Dimensional Dependent Data” at the NSF@75: Advancing Statistical Science for a Data‑Driven World conference hosted by the American Statistical Association.
Yushun Dong, Ph.D. (Department of Computer Science) presented “Harnessing Large Language Models for Disaster Management: A Survey” at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics in Vienna, Austria. He also presented “CEGA: A Cost-Effective Approach for Graph-Based Model Extraction Attacks” and “Towards Global-level Mechanistic Interpretability: A Perspective of Modular Circuits of Large Language Models” at the Forty-Second International Conference on Machine Learning in Vancouver, Canada, and “ATOM: A Framework of Detecting Query-Based Model Extraction Attacks for Graph Neural Networks” and “A Survey on Model Extraction Attacks and Defenses for Large Language Models” at the same conference as a corresponding author.
Suzanne Sinke, Ph.D. (Department of History) presented “The Framing of U.S. Immigration Policy: A Familiar or Exclusionary Lens?” as a part of the Colloquium for North American History at the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen in Germany. She also gave a guest lecture, “A Family in Flight: Expressing and Hiding Emotions in the Shadow of Hitler,” at the University of Augsburg in Germany.
Anuj Srivastava, Ph.D. (Department of Statistics) presented “Statistical Analysis of Complex Image Data: Applications in Medicine; Biology; and Beyond” at the NSF@75: Advancing Statistical Science for a Data‑Driven World conference hosted by the American Statistical Association.
Xin Henry Zhang, Ph.D. (Department of Statistics) presented “Tensor and Subspace Learning Methods with Applications to Medical Imaging” at the NSF@75: Advancing Statistical Science for a Data‑Driven World conference hosted by the American Statistical Association.
Rick Burnette, Ph.D. and James Hunt, Ph.D. (Office of the Provost ) presented “Designing Intelligence: Reimagining IR and Analytics for a Data-Engaged Campus” at the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities’ (APLU) Commission on Information, Measurement, and Analysis (CIMA) at their Summer Meeting in Washington, DC.
Paul Marty, Ph.D. (College of Communication and Information) co-presented “Leading the AI Revolution: Case Studies and Strategies for Campus-Wide Integration of Generative AI in Teaching, Learning, and Leadership” at the APLU’s CIMA at their Summer Meeting in Washington, DC.
Heather Epstein-Diaz (Office of Institutional Research) co-presented ” Cultivating Data Resiliency Through Literacy, Governance, and Collaboration” at the APLU’s CIMA at their Summer Meeting in Washington, DC.
Paul Marty, Ph.D. (College of Communication and Information) and Rick Burnette, Ph.D. (Office of the Provost) co-led the panel “CIMA Panel: Collaboration Between Traditional Data Offices and Academic Innovation Offices” at the APLU’s CIMA at their Summer Meeting in Washington, DC.
SERVICE
Kelly Farquharson, Ph.D. (College of Communication and Information) was recently appointed as the chair of the Scientific and Professional Education Board for the American Speech Language Hearing Association.
Michelle Torres-Chavarro, Ph.D. and Carla Wood, Ph.D. (School of Communication Science and Disorders) led a team of graduate students on the Team Enhanced Outcomes grant to a children’s hospital in David, Provincia de Chiriqui, Panama, to engage children with rare diseases in language enrichment activities.
Allison Justice, MMS PA-C (College of Medicine) was elected to the Florida Academy of Physician Assistants Board of Directors as the northwest Florida regional director and to the 2025-2026 American Academy of Physician Assistants House of Delegates.
Julie Decker, M.Ed. (Division of University Advancement) served on the summit planning committee of the CASE Summit for Leaders in Advancement in New York City. She was also elected “President-Elect” of the Council for Alumni Association Executives (CAAE) at their Summer Institute held in conjunction with Summit. She has served as the CAAE winter and summer institute co-chair for two years.
Rachel C. S. Duke, Ph.D. (University Libraries) was selected to serve a two-year term as the Associate Editor for “Case Studies on Teaching with Primary Sources”, a peer-reviewed journal sponsored by the Reference, Access, and Outreach Section of the Society of American Archivists (SAA).
Charles McMartin, Ph.D. (Department of English) was selected to participate in the 2025-2027 research seminar “Learning on Location: Place-Based Pedagogies in Higher Education” sponsored by Elon University’s Center for Engaged Learning.
Lauren Haughton Gillis, MFA (School of Theatre) was elected president of the Music Theatre Educators Association and will assume the position in January 2026.
Laurel Harbin, Ph.D., AICP, LEED-AP (Academic Affairs) was selected to serve on the 2025 American Planning Association Education Committee, joining the ranks of certified planning practitioners and university faculty across the U.S. in a strategic initiative to narrow the skills gap in response to emerging trends and technologies.
NOTABLE
Dalisha D. Herring, Ph.D. (College of Business) accepted an invitation to teach three classes at the Florida Bankers Association’s Florida Trust and Wealth Management School, a nationally renowned three-year program that gives students a well-rounded and practical understanding of the trust and wealth management industry.
Mafé Brooks, Michelle Kazmer, Ph.D., Stephen McDowell, Ph.D. and Jaejin Lee, Ph.D. (College of Communication and Information) hosted an alumni reception in Seoul, South Korea.
Kaylee Webb, MS (Career Center) earned a Certificate in Interpersonal Communication from Tallahassee State College. Additionally, she completed “Tune In to Strive Out Career Wellness Program Facilitator Institute” certification in June from the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions. Kaylee was also recently chosen to join Ascend, A Practitioner Mid-Level Management Program, by the Cooperative Education and Internship Association Academy.
Amanda Tazaz, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) completed the second summer of her project “Bridging the Gap into the Geosciences,” offering pre-college students an exciting opportunity to explore careers in geoscience through a dynamic summer camp at the Boys and Girls Club of the Big Bend. More than 50 teens participated in the program.
Bhushan Dahal, MBS (Learning Systems Institute) led and participated in the “Educational Conference on Enabling Innovations in Education Planning and Implementation” hosted by Kathmandu Metropolitan City Office.
Celia Reddick, Ph.D., Julie Twomey, M.Ed., and Brenda Wawire, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) completed 36 interviews with refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Syria. Of those interviews, 27 were with refugee children and 9 were with their parents and other caregivers as part of their “Strengthening School Experiences for Refugee Young People, Families and Their Teachers in Tallahassee” project.
Lakesia Dupree, Ph.D., Odalis Tavares, Ed.D., and Amanda Tazaz, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) spent two weeks working with educators in Hillsborough County on the Successful Start: Cognitively Guided Instruction year 2 program.
Vilma Fuentes, Ph.D. (Learning Systems Institute) traveled to Yerevan, Armenia to implement a project promoting STEM and Social Entrepreneurship through a collaboration between LSI, the Jim Moran College of Entrepreneurship and the Armenian State University of Economics.
Lauren Haughton Gillis, MFA (School of Theatre) organized and participated in a virtual panel “Navigating the Stage: Training Musical Theatre Swings and Understudies” at the Music Theatre Educators Association Summer Symposium.
Kathleen Powers Conti, Ph.D. (Department of History) served on the Bishir Prize Committee for the Vernacular Architecture Forum. The Catherine W. Bishir Prize is awarded to the scholarly article from a juried North American publication that made the most significant contribution to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes. The committee looks at how the article breaks new ground in interpretation or methodology and contributes to the intellectual vitality of vernacular studies.
Paul Renfro, Ph.D. (Department of History) signed a two-book deal with Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company. The first book, “Those Fearful Days,” is a work of historical true crime focused on the 1979-1981 Atlanta youth murders. The second, “The Passion of Matthew Shepard,” situates Shepard’s life and 1998 murder within the broader history of the LGBTQ+ movement in the United States.