FSU Research News 2022

 

FSU ranked among top 100 universities for patent production

Florida State University is ranked among the world’s top universities for creating patented technology, according to a new report from the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association.

FSU was ranked 57th worldwide among universities for producing U.S. utility patents in 2021, up from its previous ranking of 84th. The university produced 46 such patents for a range of different technologies in 2021, compared to 35 the year prior.

“This is an incredible recognition of the efforts of Florida State’s research community,” said Interim Vice President for Research Mark Riley. “As a research university, it is part of our mission to put new technology and research out in the world so that they may ultimately be turned into viable commercial opportunities that can touch more lives. We are so pleased to be able to support our faculty as they do this important work.”

The report uses data obtained from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and highlights the vital role patents play in university research and innovation.

Center for Advanced Power Systems building tools for the future of energy

When Roger McGinnis was an officer serving on U.S. Navy ships, a problem with the onboard electrical system typically meant enduring a power outage that could last up to several hours.

Now, as a director of Florida State University’s Center for Advanced Power Systems, or CAPS, McGinnis oversees an entity dedicated to finding solutions that would instantly resolve those problems.

That’s just one example of work underway at CAPS, a multidisciplinary research center established in 2000. Researchers there are developing improvements for electric power systems modeling and simulation, power electronics and machines, control systems, cybersecurity for power systems, superconducting power devices and more.

“CAPS takes on big challenges in the fields of several power and energy engineering areas, with a large investment in power systems technology,” McGinnis said. “The work happening here is helping Florida and the nation meet current and future energy needs in a variety of ways.”

The research center has been at the forefront of all-electric ship technology for the U.S. Navy, in which the ship would use an integrated power source for propulsion, weapon systems, computer systems and other electric components. In 2016, CAPS received a $35 million grant from the Office of Naval Research for electric ship research. In 2021, the center earned a $31 million contract from Naval Sea Systems Command to develop onboard electrical power and energy systems as well as a $30 million, five-year grant to continue leading the Electric Research and Development Consortium.

The Navy also named the center as an accredited test site for power equipment, the first such test site at a university facility.

“The trust placed in CAPS faculty is a testament to their research abilities,” McGinnis said. “The researchers here solve complex, multiyear engineering problems that are of vital importance to the country.”

The military is not the only entity coming to CAPS to help find solutions to their research questions. The center also has several industry partners sponsoring research projects.

CAPS has worked with large companies such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, General Electric, General Dynamics, Curtiss-Wright, Eaton, ABB, TECO-Westinghouse and Google. Researchers at the center also have excellent relationships with small businesses such as Hepburn & Sons, IREUS Technologies and others through initiatives such as Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.

Businesses often have great ideas but lack the facilities or specialized knowledge to develop or test prototypes. CAPS researchers have frequently helped fill that gap.

CAPS Associate Director Sastry Pamidi has worked with Colorado-based Advanced Conductor Technologies to develop a ready-to-use superconducting cable system. The work has been funded by SBIR grants that encourage businesses to partner with universities to conduct high-level research and product development.

The sponsored research projects cement the relationships between CAPS and industry, but they also provide a learning environment for the next generation of engineers. Work on research projects sponsored by technology companies gives students opportunities to apply knowledge learned in the classroom and to connect with business leaders who see them in action. The work at CAPS often involves advanced engineering tools that students wouldn’t otherwise have opportunities to explore.

FSU lands world-renowned research team to bolster ‘unprecedented growth’ at College of Nursing

As part of its expansion of health care and clinical research, Florida State University is adding two esteemed digital health experts with long records of funding from the National Institutes of Health to its ranks.

Lisa Hightow-Weidman will begin her role as a distinguished and endowed professor on Oct. 3. Kathryn Muessig will start her role as a professor on Dec. 1. Together, they have garnered $100 million in NIH funding.

“We are delighted to welcome these distinguished researchers to Florida State,” said Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Jim Clark. “Dr. Hightow-Weidman and Dr. Muessig have built impressive careers in the digital innovation and public health fields. As FSU continues to expand its research enterprise, particularly in health-related areas, these new faculty can help us grow while also training our students to be the researchers and practitioners of tomorrow.”

Hightow-Weidman and Muessig come from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where they co-founded and directed the Behavior and Technology Lab (BATLab), a multidisciplinary team of researchers and public health practitioners dedicated to the advancement of technology-assisted behavioral interventions focused on addressing health inequities among sexual and gender minority populations.

“The FSU College of Nursing has a mission to boldly tackle challenges in how health care workers deliver the best care to patients,” said Jing Wang, dean of the College of Nursing. “Dr. Hightow-Weidman and Dr. Muessig are both accomplished researchers whose work will reinforce the college’s commitment to training the next generation of health care workers while also conducting research that promotes equitable care using novel digital solutions. We’re honored for them to join us, and I look forward to working with them both in advancing health and health care in Florida and beyond.”

“I am delighted and honored to join the Florida State University College of Nursing at this unprecedented time of growth and leadership investment in expanding and promoting health research and innovation,” Hightow-Weidman said. “I look forward to becoming an active and engaged member of the FSU family and working collaboratively across the university to further strengthen FSU’s reputation as a premier research institution.”

Muessig echoed her colleague’s sentiment, saying: “This is such an exciting time to be working in the fields of health and health care research. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to become part of the Florida State University College of Nursing team and contribute to initiatives across campus to advance FSU’s research, training and service missions to the state and beyond.”

At UNC-Chapel Hill, Hightow-Weidman served as a tenured professor of medicine at the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases and a tenured professor of health behavior in the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Before arriving at UNC, where she completed a fellowship in infectious diseases, she completed her medical school training at the University of Virginia and a three-year residency in internal medicine at Stanford University.

Hightow-Weidman is an internationally renowned expert in the development, implementation and evaluation of digital health interventions to address the HIV Care Continuum for adolescents and young adults. She has been at the forefront of translating evidence-based science into digital applications, specifically through the inclusion of game-based elements, self-monitoring and tracking and provision of support to increase engagement and impact health behavior.

She is the principal investigator (PI) of five active NIH research grants, and for the past six years she has served as the PI of a grant that created the UNC/Emory Center for Innovative Technology (iTech), which is one of three research hubs that make up the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions (ATN).

Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, ATN is a multicenter research network devoted to the health and well-being of adolescents and young adults with or at risk for HIV. The same grant that created iTech also supported the implementation of 12 studies involving the development and evaluation of digital health interventions and novel technologies among 15- to 24-year-olds.

Hightow-Weidman is also the PI of a multi-site grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention focused on the use of new biomedical HIV prevention strategies.

Muessig is a tenured associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior at UNC-Chapel Hill. She earned her doctorate in public health from Johns Hopkins University and received postdoctoral training at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

As a public health scientist, Muessig focuses her research on the prevention and care of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in the United States, China and South Africa. She develops interventions combining digital health tools, behavior-change strategies and health systems navigation to decrease HIV transmission and improve health care for people living with HIV.

She is the PI of three NIH research grants, including a six-city pilot trial supporting HIV medication adherence, a national RCT testing stigma reduction to improve HIV outcomes and an implementation study to increase the availability of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in rural health clinics.

Over the past six years, she has co-led the analytic core of iTech. As part of that network, she fostered the development of the Behavior and Technology lab’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Research Consultants – a diverse national group of young adults with representation from areas with the highest HIV burden among youth.

Hightow-Weidman and Muessig have worked together for the past 12 years on many projects at UNC-Chapel Hill and with their collaborative partners across the globe. This includes collaboration on an evidence-based digital health intervention platform that aims to impact health behaviors such as medication adherence and care engagement and is currently being tested across 10 funded studies globally.

FSU Department of Computer Science receives $4.2M to boost nation’s cybersecurity workforce

To help meet the growing demand for cybersecurity experts, the National Science Foundation’s CyberCorps Scholarship for Service program has awarded Florida State University a $4.2 million grant to support students pursuing careers in cybersecurity.

This is the second round of funding the Department of Computer Science has received to operate this program.

“We are excited to receive the renewal from the National Science Foundation,” said Xiuwen Liu, chair of the department. “With the support from the deans, over the years, we have invested a lot of resources to develop, implement and maintain a technically strong cybersecurity program to be able to educate very capable cyber professionals. This award allows us to continue to help address the workforce shortage in cybersecurity, an issue of national security.”

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that job openings for information-security analysts are projected to increase 33% from 2020 to 2030, much faster than the average rate for all occupations.

The department’s grant-winning project aims to address the shortage of cybersecurity workers and improve diversity within the cybersecurity workforce. The project will provide scholarships, tuition waivers and professional-development funding to support 32 graduate and undergraduate students in FSU’s cybersecurity degree program.

The renewal is tied to the initial grant, which first received funding from the NSF CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (SFS) program in 2016.

The program aims to recruit and train the next generation of information-technology professionals, industrial-control-system security professionals and security managers to meet the cybersecurity needs of federal, state, local and tribal governments. The program provides scholarships, funded by NSF grants, for up to three years of support for cybersecurity undergraduate and graduate education. FSU’s SFS-affiliated program is among the largest of the 90 programs at U.S. universities.

$4.9M FSU College of Medicine grant seeks to reduce HIV infections among young adults

A lack of relatable messaging around HIV diagnoses and prevention could be a reason infection rates aren’t falling among young adults, despite dramatic decreases among all other demographics.

With a $4.9 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, Florida State University behavioral scientist Sylvie Naar hopes to change that.

“The No. 1 issue is that this is a population that is not accessing HIV testing as much as they should be,” said Naar, a professor in the FSU College of Medicine. “The question is, ‘Why?’ What we hear is there are a lot of factors, but one of the factors is stigma and their experience when they go get tested.”