Institute for Advanced Discovery & Innovation

McKinsey & Company, and the government of Rwanda. He has served as New York State Commissioner of Housing and Economic Development and trustee of the State University of New York, as well as on the Commission on Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Equality of the American Council on Education, the Division III President's Council of NCAA, ProPAC, and the New York State's Commissioner's Advisory Council on Higher Education. He was advisor to the Joint Special Representative of the African Union—United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID)—the then-largest peacekeeping operation in the world. As a leader in the field of education, he has served in several capacities, most notably as the tenth president of Manhattanville College and as the Interim Dean of the Patel College of Global Sustainability at USF. Previously, he was the executive vice president of NYU Medical Center and professor of health care management at the NYU School of Medicine. He is currently a member of the National Academy of Medicine and serves on the boards of EmblemHealth, the American University of Kosovo and the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development in Abuja, Nigeria, and expert consultant to the Joint Research Center of the European Union. He received his B.B.A., M.B.A., and M.P.H. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and holds honorary doctorates from Manhattanville College and New York Medical College.

Alcoa Laboratories, leading all of the R&D, engineering, and health and safety operations. In 1994, he was assigned direct responsibility for Alcoa's automotive market operations as well, where he was instrumental in expanding the use of aluminum in automobiles and integrating Alcoa's technical and commercial initiatives in the automotive market. Bridenbaugh has shared his technical expertise by serving on various corporate and advisory boards, acting as the double subject editor—corrosion and nonferrous metals—for the Encyclopedia of Materials: Science and Technology, and serving on the advisory committee for writing the history of Corning, Inc. He has chaired national conferences for the Federation of Materials Societies and the Industrial Research Institute (IRI). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering; Sigma Xi; the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers; the American Society for Metals (ASM); The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS); the Materials Research Society; and IRI. He is also the recipient of various honors, including the National Materials Advancement Award, Federation of Materials Societies; Hoyt Lecture, American Foundryman's Society; Fellow, ASM International; Zae Jeffries Lecture, ASM; Leadership Award, TMS; Alpha Sigma Mu Lecture, ASM-TMS; Andrew Carnegie Lecture, ASM; Distinguished Lecture on Materials and Society, ASM-TMS; and ASM Honorary Membership.

He has made important contributions in the field of marine physical chemistry—specifically, investigating the speciation of trace metals in seawater, developing new procedures for characterizing the carbon dioxide (CO₂) system in aqueous environments, and designing new instrumentation for measuring nutrients, trace elements, and CO₂ system constituents in freshwater and seawater. His field research has included more than 560 days at sea in the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic Oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico. He holds 15 U.S. and foreign patents and is one of the four co-founders of Ocean Optics, Inc (now Ocean Insight). He has written more than 230 peer-reviewed publications, serving as first or second author on two-thirds of these. He has also served as a reviewer and editor for various agencies and academic journals, including more than two decades as an associate editor for the journal Geochemica et Cosmochimica Acta. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Inventors.

He began his career in government service in the (then) Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, becoming assistant director of the National Institute of Mental Health, then director of the policy office for the Assistant Secretary for Health, and then director of the Bureau of Health Planning and Resource Development, where he was responsible for the implementation of the National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1973. From 1978 to 1982 he led the American Health Planning Association and its efforts to keep health planning alive. He then moved on to Blue Cross/Blue Shield, where he served in various leadership positions, including administering the Blue Cross Medicare prime contract and the Blue Cross Blue Shield components of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Post retirement, he taught at the College of William and Mary in the Graduate School of Business and in their adult education program. He also consulted with the Blues on health care reform from 2008-13. He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 1997 for excellence in health services, education, and research. He is the author of numerous papers on health planning, insurance, Medicare, and related health policy topics and has frequently been called to testify before Congress on a wide array of public health issues.

Arkansas Power & Light, Louisiana Power & Light, and Mississippi Power & Light. His success in guiding these companies led to his taking over Carolina Power & Light, where he served as president and COO and later as CEO and chairman, leading the company to financial success and new levels of efficiency in its operations and power generation. In 2000, he negotiated the purchase of Florida Progress Corporation, merging it with CP&L to become Progress Energy, a Fortune 500 energy company serving over three million customers. After his retirement from Progress Energy, he became chairman of the World Association for Nuclear Operations, where he oversaw the institution of a mandatory peer review process for member organizations, among other initiatives. He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 for "contributions to excellence in the generation of electricity from nuclear power by establishing and achieving exemplary levels of performance." He has received the William S. Lee Award for Industry Leadership from the Nuclear Energy Institute and the Walter H. Zinn Award from the American Nuclear Society.

This work had a great impact on hydro plants already in existence, allowing them to upgrade their facilities and improve performance. His turbine runner designs have been used in such iconic structures as the Aswan High Dam in Egypt and the Hoover Dam in the United States. Additionally, his designs have generated concrete improvements in efficiency, resulting in gains in power generation and reductions in costs and environmental impact. Lauded as a visionary, he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering "for pioneering three-dimensional finite element computations in mechanical and hydraulic design, leadership in hydro turbine research and development, and business stewardship," highlighting his status as an innovator and as a business leader. He is also the recipient of the National Hydropower Association's Henwood Award, the industry's highest honor, and holds eight U.S. patents for his work. In 2015, he became a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

guidelines in medical decision-making, the first Markov model applied to clinical problems, and the original criteria for coverage decisions; he was the first to use and publish the term 'evidence-based'." He was a professor at Stanford University and the J. Alexander McMahon Professor at Duke University before he left academia to become an independent researcher and entrepreneur. He founded Archimedes Inc., a health care modeling company, and was chief medical officer until he retired in 2013. The author of five books and more than 100 first-authored papers, including a series of 28 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, his writings span from technical mathematical theories to broad health policy topics. He has received national- and international-level awards in applied mathematics, health technology assessment, health care quality, environmental sciences, and outcomes research, as well as awards from five national and international organizations for lifetime achievement. In 2012, he was ranked the 13th most innovative person in health care by "Health Future 100." In 2015, he became a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and he was named a President’s Fellow by the University of South Florida in 2019.

liposomal human products. After 17 years in industry with numerous successful startups, three becoming public companies, he joined the University of South Florida serving in various administrative and faculty roles as a member of the President’s Cabinet, Executive Director of the Research Foundation, Founding Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Director of the Tampa Bay Research Innovation Center at CAMLS. He was the founding John and Beverley Grant Chair in Entrepreneurship in the Muma College of Business and held professorships in the Morsani College of Medicine, the Taneja College of Pharmacy and the USF College of Engineering. He is both a prolific researcher with over 80 publications and a book “Launching Successful Ventures” receiving the USF Distinguished Faculty Research and Innovation award, world renowned inventor holding over 100 US and international patents and a Fellow in the National Academy of Inventors, and a distinguished academic leader in entrepreneurship education recognized as a Longennecker Fellow by USASBE. His efforts have led to the establishment of one of the top ranked entrepreneurship education programs in the world at USF recognized by both the AACSB as a top 15 program worldwide and by the Princeton review as a top 25 programs for 15 consecutive years prior to his retirement form USF in 2020. His innovations include worldwide over 150 human and animal healthcare products using his patents. He has led nationwide entrepreneurship efforts working as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, serving as an Officer in USASBE, and on Boards of Public and Private organizations in the USA. He received his Honors BS from Samford University, MS and Ph.D. from Auburn University and MBA from Bristol University.

a Doctor of Engineering Science in 1969, both from Columbia University. His research was in the area of adaptive signal processing using early machine learning techniques. He was at Bell Labs for 32 years, where he was the co-inventor of breakthrough Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology and a pioneer in the application of advanced spatial signal processing (now known as MIMO) in wireless systems. At his retirement, he was Senior Vice President for communications and networking research, an organization of over 500 professionals. Next, he was CTO for Hammerhead Systems, a venture-funded Silicon Valley company and he also served on the Board of Directors of PCTEL [NASDAQ: PCTI]. He joined the USF faculty in 2007, where he was a Distinguished University Professor, State of Florida 21st Century World Class Scholar, and the Agere Systems Endowed Chair in Electrical Engineering. At USF his research had two themes: (1) the intersection of communications with medicine to advance minimally invasive robotic surgery and other cyber-physical health care systems and (2) creating foundational wireless technologies directed towards broadband speeds, ultra-reliability, and low latency for 5G/6G wireless and IoT (Internet of Things). He is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), member of the Academy of Science Engineering and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL),  Fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Bell Laboratories Fellow,  Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), co-recipient of the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award and the IEEE S.O. Rice Prize, and member of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame. Co-author of a graduate text on digital communications, published more than 150 papers, and holds 75 U.S. patents.

which have been commercialized around the world. He is a National Academy of Inventors Charter Fellow and a 2016 inductee of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame. He is also a Fellow of AAAS, ASME International, ASHRAE, the International Solar Energy Society (ISES), and the American Solar Energy Society (ASES), as well as a member of the Pan American Academy of Engineering and Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida. He has received the ISES' Farrington Daniels Award, ASME's Frank Kreith Energy medal, ASME's John Yellott Award for Solar Energy, the ASES' Charles Greely Abbott award, and more than 50 additional awards from various scientific and engineering professional societies. Most recently he received the Joan Hodges Queneau Palladium medal of the American Association of Engineering Societies and the National Audubon Society for Engineering Achievements for Environmental Conservation. He has served as a governor of ASME-International (2003-2006), president of the ISES (2004-2005), senior vice president of ASME (2000-2003), and president of the International Association for Solar Energy Education (2000-2002).

Inventing a series of material and processing concepts, they were able to improve the transparency of silica and doped silica glasses by a remarkable 100 orders of magnitude. This enabled optical fiber communications and without which, todays Internet would not exist. More than 7 billion kilometers of optical fiber based on their inventions encircle the planet. Keck is recognized as a pioneer in optical fiber communications for this work. Continuing at Corning, he became vice president and director of research, retiring in 2002. He then helped establish the Infotonics Technology Center in Canandaigua, New York. He holds 38 patents and has authored more than 150 papers on optical fibers and related topics. Keck is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Clinton; inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame; and received Optica and IEEE/Photonic Society Tyndall Award; U.S. Department of Commerce American Innovator Award; SPIE Technology Achievement Award; and Laurin Publishing's Distinction in Photonics Award. He received an honorary doctorate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is an honorary member of Optica (OSA), and a fellow of the IEEE. He served as editor of the IEEE/Optica Journal of Lightwave Technology. He has generously donated time to both the technology and wider communities. As a supporter of Steuben County Chapter American Red Cross, the Elmira-Corning Community Foundation, the Corning Salvation Army, he has served on their Boards. A member of Rotary International for over 30 years, he enjoys working on their community service projects. With spouse, Ruth, of 57 years they have two grown children, Lynne and Brian, both engineers, and two grandchildren, Annika and Arim.

Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and SPIE International Society for Optics and Photonics. He has several hundred publications and nine patents (ranging from enhanced LiDAR detection of tenuous objects for autonomous vehicles, laser fluorescence measurements of ocean and drinking water purity, to laser telecommunication using reflected lidar beams from clouds and air). Killinger earned a B.A. from the University of Iowa, M.S. from DePauw University, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan. Killinger was an early pioneer in the development and application of new high-resolution tunable lasers and their use in laser radar/Lidar and laser remote sensing of the atmosphere. His group is responsible for some of the major advances in this field, including the first laser remote sensing of atmospheric methane, CO emissions from automobiles, NO, HCl, hydrazine from rocket exhaust, ammonia gas emissions from farm fertilizers, precision measurements of CO₂ in the atmosphere, the detection of parts-per-trillion trace plastics (BPA) and organics leached into drinking water, and remote laser-induced-breakdown spectroscopy of explosives. Killinger's laser lidar technique to measure CO₂ in the atmosphere is now used by NASA and NOAA for global measurements of this important greenhouse gas. His group also established at USF the first state-police sanctioned vehicle traffic laser radar testing laboratory in Florida, and developed and commercialized the HITRAN-PC © software program used world-wide for spectroscopic analysis of lidar and laser beam transmission through the atmosphere.

can be provided and research can flourish. For many years he served as chairman of the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research Funding, the major coalition supporting increased appropriations for the National Institutes of Health. He is past chairman of the National Association for Biomedical Research and has held the offices of secretary and treasurer in the Federation of Associations of Schools of the Health Professions. He served on the Board of Trustees of the Inova Health System in Fairfax County, Virginia from 1983-2005 and was chairman from 1999-2003. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of West Virginia University Hospitals East in Martinsburg and Charles Town, West Virginia (2009-2016). Before becoming executive vice president of the AAMC, he was senior vice president, director of the Department of Teaching Hospitals, director of the Division of Teaching Hospitals, and director of a teaching hospital project. Previously, he served as an instructor in the University of Iowa’s graduate program in hospital and health administration. He was awarded his Bachelor of Arts degree from Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio in 1963 and received his Ph.D. degree in 1968 from the University of Iowa graduate program in hospital and health administration. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

He has served as a co-founder and/or board member/advisor for ten photonics companies and the MIT Center for Integrated Photonic Systems. Previously, he served as SVP/CTO of Uniphase (then JDSU, now Lumentum), a leading optical components supplier, where he was responsible for strategic technology and was closely involved in the M&A and IP activities of the corporation. He joined Uniphase upon its acquisition of UTP, an optical modulator company he co-founded and served as general manager. Prior to UTP, he was a research manager at the United Technologies Research Center; his group did pioneering work in optical modulators and fiber Bragg gratings. He was initially with MIT Lincoln Laboratory where he developed a variety of optoelectronic devices, first as a staff member and later as a group leader. He has over 160 archival publications/conference presentations and 20 patents on photonic devices and their applications. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Florida Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine, a Fellow of IEEE, Optica and the National Academy of Inventors, and has received the IEEE Photonics Award, the Optica Richardson Medal, and numerous other industry awards. He has served as President of the IEEE Photonics Society, chairman of several IEEE/Optica conferences and associate editor of two photonics journals. He received the B.S.E. degree from the University of Michigan, and the S.M., E.E., and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in electrical engineering.

This discovery moved the field of pharmacogenomics from one that concentrated on metabolizing enzymes to one that includes target proteins for determining drug responsiveness. He also developed biotechnical companies related to personalized medicine based on these discoveries. His fundamental studies in humans and genetically altered mice have led to new advances in the areas of heart failure, hypertension, and obstructive lung diseases. He holds 17 U.S. patents and has more than 250 publications. He is a fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, the National Academy of Inventors, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Engineering as well as the recipient of the Frontiers in Pharmacology Award from Case Western Reserve University and Excellence in Science Award from Thomas Jefferson University.

Cancer Center. He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University, received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master’s in Healthcare Management from the Harvard School of Public Health. He has published over 310 peer-reviewed publications (Google H-index of 88; 29,459 citations), 290 editorials, chapters and invited reviews, authored or co-authored monographs and co-edited 7 textbooks, 3 with multiple editions. He has multiple patents, led the research team that discovered fetal fibronectin as a predictor of impending preterm birth and discovered the role of decidual cell tissue factor expression in regulating endometrial hemostasis and menstruation. He has also served on multiple journal editorial boards and as the long-standing Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary OB/GYN where his editorials won 6 national publication awards. He has chaired and/or served on numerous NIH and FDA review panels, been an examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, chaired multiple American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) committees, and serves on the LCME, the allopathic medical school accreditor. He served as president of the Society for Reproductive Investigation (SRI) and the American Gynecological and Obstetrical Society and on boards of the March of Dimes and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) Foundation. He has been elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and Alpha Omega Alpha honor societies, been named to national and regional “Best Doctors” lists annually since 1995 and has received awards including the SRI’s Distinguished Scientist Award, the NICHD Frontiers in Reproduction Beacon Award and the SMFM Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a recipient of the ACOG Public Service Award for his “enduring commitment to women’s health,” the Clotilde Dent Bowen Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Award from the Ohio State College of Medicine, and the University of Maryland Dean’s Distinguished Gold Medal. He has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He maintains an active research lab at USF and is a professor in the institute.

of red tide and aquatic weeds. The Martins were editors of the Florida Scientist from 1984-2010. He is the author or co-author of over 450 publications, including six books. He received his B.A. from Grinnell College and his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University. In 1958-59, he was a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at University College London. He later received a Career Development Award from the Division of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, to study the chemistry and chemical environment of algal toxins. In 1970-71, he was a visiting professor of physiology and pharmacology at Duke University Medical Center. He is the recipient of the Grinnell College Alumni Award (1971), Florida Award, the Civic Service Award of the Florida Section, and the F. J. Zimmermann Award in Environmental Science from the Central Wisconsin Section, sponsored by Zimpro Inc. He is also a Lifetime Member and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Inventors. Dean and Barbara Martin were the co-recipients of the 1994 Medal of the Florida Academy of Sciences, its highest award. He has been active in the American Chemical Society, and he has held several positions in the Aquatic Plant Management Society.

Industrial Director of the Minnesota Dental Research Center of Biomaterials and Biomechanics at the School of Dentistry, University of Minnesota. Dr. Mitra is the creator and inventor of many new materials technologies and the developer of several new product segments for the dental and orthodontic market. Her inventions have been translated into the commercialization of numerous novel and innovative products for oral care. Her expertise is also in the management of innovation and new product/technology commercialization processes. She is the recipient of 100 US patents and their corresponding OUS equivalents and has numerous publications (100+) in the areas of polymer science, nanocomposites and dental materials, including 12 chapters in 9 books. She is an internationally recognized lecturer on these topics and has given numerous presentations and courses in various universities and colleges in 45 countries. Dr. Mitra received her Ph.D. in Organic/Polymer Chemistry from University of Michigan followed by postdoctoral work at Case Western Reserve University in Macromolecular Science. She has received numerous honors and awards among which are: Induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Election to the National Academy of Engineering, Recognition from the EPO Inventors Award, American Chemical Society Heroes of Chemistry Award, Peyton-Skinner Award for Innovation in Dental Materials and Hollenback Memorial Prize from the Academy of Operative Dentistry. She was elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2021. She is a guest lecturer at University of Minnesota, School of Dentistry. Her passion is in mentoring activities for STEM education at all levels.

Master of Science program in pharmaceutical nanotechnology with six concentrations including one in Drug Discovery and Development and another in Biomedical engineering. He has published over 250 papers and holds over 50 U.S. and foreign patents. He is recognized for his many inventions in the field of nanoscale biomedical diagnostics and therapeutics in cancers, asthma, viral infections, and traumatic brain injury. In cancers, his inventions and co-inventions have led to several technology platforms and products for innovative anti-cancer drug discovery, drug development, and personalized cancer treatment. His research has spawned inventions that have spun out companies. He co-founded Transgenex Nanobiotech Inc, and Agile Life Sciences as USF spin-out companies that focus on commercializing nanoscale innovations. He is a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors; a Fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology; American Association of Medical and Biological Engineers; and American Association of Advancement of Science; and is an inaugural inductee of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame. He also was a 2020 Florida Academy of Sciences Medalist for his contributions in the area of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology education and research in the State of Florida.

the U.S. to serve as an academic Pathology Chair. She previously held teaching appointments at Harvard Medical School, having completed her postgraduate training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Tufts University. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 1995. A graduate and former trustee of Wellesley College, she earned her M.D. in 1967 from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees/Advisors of Thomas Jefferson University, the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson, Tufts University School of Medicine and the KGI School of Medicine. She has received 17 Honorary Degrees of Science, Law, and Medicine. She was the first African American woman elected to Modern Healthcare’s Hall of Fame. The University of Virginia School of Medicine has named one of its four advisory medical student colleges as "The Pinn College," and also renamed its medical research and education building as "Pinn Hall." Recent honors include the 2020 American Medical  Association’s Distinguished Service Award, the 2021 Distinguished Service Award from the Association of Pathology Chairs, and Research!America’s Outstanding Achievement in Public Health Award in 2022. Lectures in women’s health named for her have been established at the NIH, the National Women’s Health Congress, and the National Medical Association of which she served as the 88^th President. Her oral history is included in the National Library of Medicine’s exhibit on women physicians, Changing the Face of Medicine; in the University of Virginia’s project Explorations in Black Leadership; and in The HistoryMakers collection which is now housed in the Library of Congress.

for treating heart failure. He is a founding fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the International Academy of Artificial Organ Pioneers of the International Center for Medical Technologies, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.  He is the recipient of the Mediterranean Institute of Cardiology Award (France), the Himet Award, the Barney Clark Award from the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs, was elected by his peers as the national "Engineer of the Year" (Design News, 1992), and received an honorary doctorate of Engineering from the University of South Florida. He was honored twice as a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus of Northeastern University as well as the Hastings Lecturer at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institute of Health as well as receiving many other awards. To document Mr. Poirier's accomplishments, the National Library of Medicine in Washington DC created a documentary video of his lifelong experience as a pioneer in the development of artificial heart technology. A permanent record of this video was deposited at the Smithsonian Institute Archives, the National Library of Medicine and the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He holds 21 US patents and has published over 110 papers in refereed journals.  He is currently exploring ways to teach innovation and innovative thinking practices and was lead author on a publication exploring that topic.

developed procedures for intravenous delivery that could penetrate the blood-brain barrier. His research also revealed brain areas damaged by stroke or neurological disease were able to be regenerated—a discovery reversing centuries of scientific understanding. He is a highly cited author, and his more than 700 articles and 14 books have received more than 40,000 citations. He has been granted 167 U.S. and foreign patents, a number of which have been licensed, and developed many pharmaceutical and cellular therapeutics based on his research. He holds numerous awards for his work, including being named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; a Fellow of Sigma Xi; American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering; IEEE; Biomedical Engineering Society; Royal Societies of Chemistry, Public Health, Biology and Medicine; American Psychological Association; International Behavioral Neuroscience Society; and American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair. He is also the founder and President of the National Academy of Inventors. He earned his B.S. degree, with honors, from York University (Canada); his M.S. degree from the University of British Columbia (Canada); and his Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees from the Australian National University.

elasticity, which is critical in diagnosing diseases such as melanoma or quantifying wounds and burn scars. He is also a pioneering leader in gait biometrics, a field that analyzes and catalogs the unique characteristics of how individuals walk. This development for identity detection has potential uses in security and threat assessment, as well as intelligent internet-of-things devices and smart rooms. He is also a leader in developing recognition systems to translate sign language videos into text sentences to facilitate communication between hearing-impaired and hearing individuals. He holds ten U.S. patents, licensed technology, and published high-impact journal and conference papers. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering on a University Presidential Fellowship from The Ohio State University. He was the recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award in 1994, the USF Teaching Incentive Program Award for Undergraduate Teaching Excellence in 1997, the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1998, and the Theodore and Venette Askounes-Ashford Distinguished Scholar Award in 2004. He is a co-Editor-in-Chief of Pattern Recognition Letters, a top-10 journal in computer vision and pattern recognition. He was the President of the IEEE Biometrics Council. Dr. Sarkar is an outstanding educator, having won the Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award and the Teaching Incentive Program Award at USF. He has directed 22 Doctoral and 23 Master's students. The Florida Education Fund awarded him the William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) and a charter member and member of the Board of Directors of the National Academy of Inventors.

He engaged in a number of early digital imaging projects. Among these was the design and construction of the first digital still camera and playback system in 1975. He continued to work throughout the 1980s in the emerging field of digital photography, receiving over 10 key digital imaging patents. In 1989, he led the development of the first prototype megapixel electronic digital camera utilizing DCT compression that stored images to flash memory cards. In the 1990s he developed one of the first photographic quality thermal printing systems, derivatives of which are still in use in self-service imaging kiosks around the world today. He has received numerous recognitions for his work, including his 2011 induction in the National Inventors Hall of Fame, 2009 Economist Magazine Consumer Products Innovation Award, selection as an AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador, and the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation, which he received in 2009 from President Obama.

for more than 12 years. After NIST, he moved to the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, where, as director, he had responsibility for the entire basic research program of the Air Force. He has played a significant role in shaping government policies on many materials issues. He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering for "leadership in materials research and in coordinating industry and government collaboration in materials engineering." He is a recipient of the Presidential rank of Meritorious Executive of the government's Senior Executive Service, the Gold Medal Award of the Department of Commerce, the National Materials Advancement Award of the Federation of Materials Societies, and the Leadership Award of the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society. His current interests include government policy for R&D, particularly for materials R&D, materials science education (STEM) at K-12 levels, and enhanced public understanding of the roles and importance of technology in society. He is participating in the HIBAR Research Association and its management group as part of his commitment to USF and the institute.

Engineering in 2013 for his seminal impact in the energy sector of mechanical engineering. He received Edison Foundation’s “Thomas Alva Edison Award” in 2015 for ecologically and environmentally impactful inventions. Rutgers University named him “South Jerseyan of the Year – 2016” for his significant beneficial impact on the South Jersey region. He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2017) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1987) for numerous contributions to heat exchange technologies; and an inductee of the University City Science Center (Philadelphia) Walk of Fame. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania (since 1974) and Michigan (since 1982), and a member of the American Nuclear Society (1979–present). A widely-published author in scientific journals (>70 technical papers, one textbook, and numerous symposia volumes) and a prolific inventor (180 patents), in recent years he has led Holtec in developing a "walk away safe" small modular reactor to make nuclear energy an economical “green power” alternative. An intrepid entrepreneur and a socially conscious industrialist, he built a $310 million Technology Campus on the Delaware River in Camden, NJ to create much needed employment in one of America’s poorest cities. He is an Emeritus member of the University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees (2009–2017), and a member of the university’s Board of Overseers for the School of Engineering and Applied Science (2005–present). In addition, he serves on the board of the Nuclear Energy Institute (1998–present), and the Cooper Health System (2013–present). He is also a director of the Washington, DC-based Atlantic Council, and member of the National Investment Council that advises the President of Ukraine. He chairs the KPS Foundation (2001–present), a charitable Singh family foundation whose signature contribution to the advancement of science is the completion of the “Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology” at the University of Pennsylvania (2013). The KPS Foundation is also active in improving child literacy and public sanitation in India.

labor organization play in the evolution of human cooperation and complex societies. His primary books include The Evolution of Human Co-operation (2017), Ancient Titicaca: The Evolution of Complex Society in Southern Peru and Northern Bolivia (2003), Ritual and Pilgrimage in the Ancient Andes (with B. Bauer, 2001) and Ancient Andean Political Economy (1992). He also works with a sustainable development group to preserve global cultural heritage through a combination of micro-lending, direct community grants, and tourist infrastructure development. He was a Senior Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, is an External Faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Prior to ANSYS, Inc., he was employed at Westinghouse Astronuclear Laboratory as Manager of the Stress Analysis Group. There he developed a series of special purpose simulation codes and foresaw the need for an integrated general-purpose finite-element software code to do complex engineering calculations. He holds a Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.S. and M.S in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University. He also maintains numerous industry, national and local accreditations and awards including the appointment as a Fellow Member and Pittsburgh Engineer of the Year by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He was named as the Entrepreneur of the Year in High Technology by the Entrepreneurial Services Group of Arthur Young and Venture Magazine. He has also been inducted into the Engineering Hall of Fame at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2004 he was awarded the John Fritz Medal by the American Association of Engineering; he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He currently consults and lectures on renewable energy, with a focus on photovoltaic applications.

insulators, nonlinear spectroscopy of atomic and molecular vapors, laser etching and fluorescence studies of human and animal tissue, and cluster science. He and two IBM colleagues discovered excimer laser surgery in 1981, laying the foundation for LASIK and PRK, techniques for surgically correcting myopia, astigmatism, and hyperopia. For this discovery, he has received many awards, including induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and the Russ Prize of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He is a member of the NAE, Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), member of the USF Chapter of the NAI, and a research collaborator with USF faculty. He holds 13 U.S. patents. His current research encompasses the development of novel applications of the excimer laser, especially its use as a "smart scalpel" for removing necrotic lesions of the skin while minimizing collateral damage to underlying and adjacent viable tissue.