Nine University of South Florida faculty members, including the deans of two USF colleges, have been named new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The honor, announced today, is one of the most prestigious among academic researchers worldwide. AAAS is the world’s largest scientific society, recognizing research and scholarly excellence in fields ranging from engineering to health sciences.
The group of nine from USF are part of a class of nearly 450 faculty members nationwide selected as AAAS Fellows by their peers. This class brings the total number of USF AAAS Fellows to 73.
“We are incredibly proud of the talented and highly-accomplished individuals from USF selected for the 2019 class of AAAS Fellows,” said Dr. Paul Sanberg, the university’s senior vice president for research, innovation & knowledge enterprise. “These individuals not only lead their respective fields on a national and global level, but are a guiding force here at USF as we continue to rise in the ranks of America’s great research universities.”
The full list of 2019 fellows from USF:
Dr. Robert H. Bishop
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Engineering Section
Citation: For pioneering research and exceptional development of spacecraft guidance
and navigation systems, advancing the field of control systems, and distinguished
leadership in engineering education.
Robert H. Bishop, Ph.D., is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Dean of the College
of Engineering. A pioneering leader in aerospace technologies and engineering, Dr.
Bishop’s research over the past 40 years has made foundational and transformative
advances in control systems for spacecraft navigation, particularly for the U.S. space
program. His many achievements include participating in the development of the control
system for the first Space Station, and creating a new filtering framework to improve
spacecraft capability to detect and respond to changes. His more recent work has focused
on developing technologies to enable precision landings. He has led several picosatellite
projects with NASA, and is the author of the foundational and definitive textbook
on control theory, continuously in print since 1995, and published in a dozen languages.
He has been recognized with NASA’s Advanced Exploration Systems Innovation Award;
the Dirk Brouwer Award of the American Astronautical Society; election as a Fellow
of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the American Astronautical
Society; the Lockheed Martin Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching; and the
John Leland Atwood Award from the American Society of Engineering Education. He holds
B.S. and M.S. degrees from Texas A&M University, and a doctorate from Rice University.
Dr. Michelle Suzanne Bourgeois
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Psychology Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to the field of cognitive communication
disorders, particularly for pioneering research and development of therapies for dementia
patients and their caregivers.
Michelle S. Bourgeois, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Communication Science
and Disorders in the College of Behavioral and Community Sciences. Dr. Bourgeois has
made significant advancements investigating behavioral treatments for persons with
neurogenic cognitive-communication disorders (i.e., dementia, TBI,MCI) as well as
training for their caregivers. She was one of the first to discover that aging people
with memory and cognition impairment do not lose their ability to read or communicate
entirely. She has developed and evaluated text-based stimuli that have shown to modify
a continuum of challenging behaviors. She also created and developed the innovative
patient-centered intervention, VoiceMyChoice™ that allows persons with dementia to
make reliable decisions. Bourgeois’ research has been consistently funded for nearly
40 years. She has authored or co-authored over 100 publications and has produced numerous
training manuals as well as online training programs. She is a fellow of the American
Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the Gerontological Society of America, and
she was recognized with the Barry Reisberg Award for Non-Pharmacologic Research, Theory
and Clinical Practice in Dementia from the Hearthstone Alzheimer’s Family Foundation.
Dr. Bourgeois earned
her Bachelor's degree at Georgetown University, her Master's degree at the University
of Washington, and her Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Robert D. Frisina
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Medical Sciences Section
Citation: For distinguished, interdisciplinary contributions to the field of hearing
science, particularly for seminal discoveries in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention
of Age Related Hearing Loss.
Robert D. Frisina, Ph.D., is a Distinguished University Professor and Director of
the Global Center for Hearing & Speech Research. He holds joint professorships in
the departments of Medical Engineering, Chemical & Biomedical Engineering, and Communication
Sciences and Disorders, and serves as the Chair of the Medical Engineering Department
and Director of Biomedical Engineering. Frisina leads the largest, longest running
NIH-funded research program on Age-Related Hearing Loss (ARHL) in the U.S. and the
largest study on ARHL in the world. His team’s research has produced a number of breakthroughs
in the field, including the identification of molecular and neural mechanisms of ARHL;
the discovery of neurodegenerative processes of ARHL as related to the aging brain;
the characterization of specific genes connected to ARHL in humans and animal models;
and groundbreaking developments of drug delivery options for the inner ear. He is
a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, the American Institute for Medical
& Biological Engineering, the Acoustical Society of America, and the American Academy
of Otolaryngology (Scientific Fellow). He is also a Senior Member of the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the National Academy of Inventors. Frisina
holds an A.B. from Hamilton College in experimental psychology and economics, and
a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the Institute for Sensory Research at Syracuse University.
Dr. Ivan Oleynik
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Physics Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to the field of computational materials
science that led to predictions of new materials phenomena and behavior of matter
at extreme conditions.
Ivan Oleynik, Ph.D., is a Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences.
As a computational physicist, Dr. Oleynik has made key contributions in several scientific
disciplines: condensed matter physics, materials science and chemistry. Dr. Oleynik’s
interdisciplinary research—at the intersection of chemistry, physics, planetary scienceand
engineering—involves studying materials at the atomistic and electronic structure
levels. He investigates how thematter responds to extreme conditions of high pressure,
high temperature, and high strain rates by developing and applying new simulation
methods to predict materials behavior. His work has also increased understanding of
two-dimensional materials, molecular electronics and magnetic tunnel junctions, the
novel systems where quantum-mechanical effects are being explored to provide new functionalities
to electronic devices. Dr. Oleynik is recognized as a Fellow of the American Physical
Society (APS) and the American Vacuum Society, and was recently elected to lead the
APS Topical Group on Shock Compression of Condensed Matter. He holds B.S. and M.S.
degrees from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, and a Ph.D. from Institute
of Chemical Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Julianne Serovich
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Medical Sciences Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to the medical sciences, particularly for
the discovery and development of interventions to reduce the spread of HIV.
Julianne M. Serovich, Ph.D., is Professor and Dean of the College of Behavioral and
Community Sciences. She is nationally and internationally recognized leading authority
on interventions to prevent the transmission of HIV. Dr. Serovich’s groundbreaking
research examined the relationship between HIV disclosure and the sexual and mental
health of HIV-positive individuals. She discovered that issues of disclosure for those
living with HIV are different by gender, and revealed links between an HIV-positive
individual’s disclosure of their status and subsequent psychological and behavioral
changes. She was also among the very first to demonstrate that successful disclosure
of HIV infection can be a key factor in reducing further transmission of HIV. As a
result, she developed the first evidence-based intervention to assist adults living
with HIV and their families and partners with that disclosure, and mitigate negative
effects of disclosure. This intervention, which includes facilitated communication
techniques on ways to disclose HIV status, is able to be customized to the specific
needs of diverse groups living with HIV. Since joining USF, Dr. Serovich has also
led several federal grants from NIMH, NIDA, and HRSA totaling more than $12 million.
Dr. Serovich earned her bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Loyola College, and her
Ph.D. from the University of Georgia.
Dr. Lindsey “Les” N. Shaw
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Biological Sciences Section
Citation: For distinguished advances in understanding mechanisms of pathogenesis in
drug-resistant bacteria, particularly for defining hierarchical control of disease
progression in MRSA and developing antibacterial agents.
Lindsey N. Shaw, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology, Microbiology
and Molecular Biology, and holds joint appointments in the departments of Infectious
Disease and Global Health. Dr. Shaw’s research focuses on the pathogenic and drug
resistance mechanisms of antibiotic resistant bacteria, with a primary focus on Methicillin
Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and the other ESKAPE pathogens. He has made
significant advances in defining the regulatory processes ongoing within bacteria
cells that contribute to virulence factor expression and the progression of disease.
His groundbreaking discovery of secreted protease as a key mediator of MRSA pathogenic
potential was a turning point in the field as it identified a key node of control
that governs the infectious process. In the area of therapeutic development, Dr. Shaw
was part of a team that isolated and identified a new chemical, Darwinolide, which
eliminates more than 98 percent of MRSA cells growing within a biofilm. He is also
amongst the small percentage of NIH awardees who have been a Principal Investigator
on an R01 grant before the age of 36. Dr. Shaw received a B.Sc. with honors from the
University of East Anglia (U.K.) and a Ph.D. from the University of Sheffield (U.K.).
Dr. Paul Elliott Spector
Elected AAAS Fellowin the Psychology Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to industrial-organizational psychology
and social science research methodology, particularly for pioneering research in counterproductive
work behavior, survey design and measure development.
Paul E. Spector, Ph.D., is a Distinguished University Professor of Psychology in the
College of Arts and Sciences. His pioneering work over the past nearly 45 years has
developed groundbreaking new concepts, research methods, and rating scales for organizational
behavior that have become the standards throughout the field. He is also considered
a pivotal leader in the emerging interdisciplinary field of occupational health psychology.
Dr. Spector and his colleagues (Fox and Miles) were the first to coin the phrase “counterproductive
work behavior,” and published the inaugural study characterizing these behaviors.
They described links between workers’ job stress and perceptions of being treated
unjustly/unfairly, and ruptured the long-heldconcept that negative employee behavior
was due to the employee’s own attitudes. Another large portion of Dr. Spector’s research
focuses on improving the quality, vigor, and effectiveness of quantitative research
methods and improvements to research design. His work provided evidence overturning
long held assumptions about the relationshipsamong variables within a survey, and
advanced improved procedures. Dr. Spector is a Fellow of the American Psychological
Association, the International Association of Applied Psychology, the Society for
Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and Southern Management Association. He
earned his bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of South
Florida.
Dr. Lilia Woods
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Physics Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to condensed matter and materials physics,
particularly for theory and predictions of thermoelectric transport mechanisms and
dispersive interactions in novel materials.
Lilia M. Woods, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Physics in the College of
Arts and Sciences. Dr. Woods’ research spans theoretical condensed matter physics,
materials theory and simulations and real practical devices. With her team she studies
the interplay between structural, electronic, mechanical, optical, and thermoelectric
properties of complex materials and related devices. Her work focuses on quantum materials
and their ubiquitous electromagnetic phenomena for fundamental understanding of novel
light-matter effects and interactions. She also investigates materials and transport
processes for sustainable and environmentally friendly methods of energy production
with the potential to inspire new technological developments. Her team develops analytical
models, simulations tools, and maintains strong collaborations with experimental teams.
She has published numerous papers in the forefront of condensed matter physics as
well as two US patents for her inventions. In 2017, Dr. Woods was elected as a Fellow
of the American Physical Society (APS) in recognition of her seminal contributions
to fluctuation-induced and thermoelectric phenomena. She has also been recognized
as an APS Woman Physicist of the Month and is member of the National Academy of Inventors,
among other honors. Dr. Woods earned her bachelor’s degree and M.S. degree from Sofia
University (Bulgaria), and her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee.
Dr. Sarah Y. Yuan
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Medical Sciences Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions in advancing molecular pathophysiology of
trauma, sepsis, atherosclerosis, diabetes; particularly for developing paradigm-shifting
theories and imaging technologies in microvascular permeability.
Sarah Yuan, M.D., Ph.D.,is Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology
and Physiology in the Morsani College of Medicine where she holds the Deriso Endowed
Chair in Cardiovascular Disease. Dr. Yuan is an internationally recognized leader
intranslational research who has made seminal contributions to the advancement inthe
molecular pathobiology of vascular permeability. She was the first to identify a key
signaling pathway underlying the development of atherosclerosis, and her recent work
has led to a paradigm shift in understanding the molecular basis of inflammatory response
to trauma and infection. She has also developed a number of innovative technologies
for studying microcirculation and blood/vascular cell interactions. Dr. Yuan received
her M.D. and Ph.D.from the First and Second Military Medical Universities in China.
She completed a surgical residency at the Trauma and Burn Center in Shanghai, a surgical
research fellowship at the University of Kentucky, and postdoctoral training at Texas
A&M University. Prior to joining USF, she was an Endowed Professor of Surgery and
Division Chief for Surgical Research at the University of California Davis. Since
1994, Dr. Yuan’s research has been continuously funded by the NIH and she has received
many awards and honors, including the prestigious Landis Award from the Microcirculatory
Society, Fellow of the American Physiology Society, and elected member of Alpha Omega
Alpha Honor Medical Society.
The tradition of AAAS Fellows dates back to 1874. The AAAS Fellow honor comes with
an expectation that recipients maintain the highest standards of professional ethics
and scientific integrity.
The new fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2020, at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Seattle. They will be celebrated by their USF colleagues at a luncheon on Feb. 19, featuring a keynote address by USF President Steven C. Currall, himself an AAAS Fellow since 2013.