The American Association for the Advancement of Science recognizes the world’s leading researchers.
TAMPA, Fla. - Eight University of South Florida professors whose research has set a global standard in a range of disciplines from environmental sciences to health and aging studies, and from chemistry to criminology, have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society.
The USF honorees include a faculty member whose work in pioneering a new treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder is helping save the lives of veterans; a criminologist whose research into why kids kill has helped guide criminal justice systems nationwide; a freshwater ecologist whose research has led to vital conservation efforts and sustainable policies across Florida and around the world; and a professor who led landmark research into the impact of caregiving for the families of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other chronic conditions.
They are joined in recognition by a marine biologist who has spearheaded a global network of satellite and other observation systems to chart biodiversity and changes in ocean environments from a local to global scale; an anthropologist whose work in understanding the relationship between people and their environment is helping renew neighborhoods near USF and improve environmental management around the world; a chemistry professor whose work is helping advance drug discovery, especially for treatments for cancer and infectious disease; and a neurobiologist whose research of the brains of birds is unlocking the secrets of the evolution of the brain in mammals.
Election as a Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers. This year, 416 members from institutions around the world have been awarded the honor in recognition of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.
This year, USF again ranks fourth worldwide for institutions with the most new AAAS Fellows elected –tied with Indiana University. USF has the highest number of new AAAS Fellows among universities in Florida, and this new class brings USF's total number of AAAS Fellows to 65.
“We are incredibly proud of the career achievements of these eight faculty members and the work they have done to advance knowledge in fields that touch the daily lives of people both in the Tampa Bay region and around the world,” said Paul R. Sanberg, USF senior vice president for research, innovation and knowledge enterprise. “To be named as an AAAS Fellow is one of the highest honors in academic research, and it is one that recognizes the monumental impact these individuals have had in addressing universal problems and in creating a healthier, safer and more compassionate world.”
New Fellows will be presented with an official certificate and a gold and blue (representing science and engineering, respectively) rosette pin on Feb. 16 during the 2019 AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. The tradition of AAAS Fellows began in 1874.
The 2018 Fellows from USF are:
Thomas L. Crisman, Ph.D.
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Biological Sciences Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to the field of freshwater ecology, management, restoration and conservation of freshwater ecosystems in Florida, Latin America, Africa, Middle East and the Balkans.
Wayne Charles Guida, Ph.D.
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Chemistry Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to computational biochemistry, particularly for developing MacroModel molecular modeling program, and structure-based drug discovery and design of enzyme inhibitors of therapeutic relevance.
William E. Haley, Ph.D.
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Psychology Section
Citation: For advancing understanding of the psychological, social, and health impacts on family members providing care for relatives with Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, cancer and terminal illness.
Kathleen M. Heide, Ph.D.
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Social, Economic and Political Sciences Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to the field of criminology, particularly with respect to juvenile homicide and parricide.
Kathleen M. Heide is a Professor of Criminology in the USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences. She is also a licensed mental health professional. Dr. Heide previously served as the Interim Dean of the USF College of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Heide is one of the nation’s leading scholars on parricide (when children kill their parents) and juvenile homicide (youths under 18 arrested for murder). She has been retained by the state and the defense to evaluate defendants charged with murder in 16 states and Canada. Her book, Why Kids Kill Parents: Child Abuse and Adolescent Homicide, was the first scholarly book on the subject and is considered a seminal publication. She is also an expert on understanding family violence and treating trauma. Dr. Heide is the author/co-author of four books, more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles, 30 additional publications, and more than 120 papers presented at professional conferences. Her work has received more than 3,100 citations, with an h-index of 31. Her research has also been featured by major news outlets around the world; and she has served as a consultant to the National Institute of Justice, National Institute of Health, many state agencies, and several law firms. Dr. Heide has served on more than a dozen community boards or councils, has held two gubernatorial appointments to the Florida Sentencing Commission, and is a court-appointed expert in matters relating to homicide, violence, and children and families. She has received several major awards from USF for teaching excellence, including the Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher Award and President’s Award for Faculty Excellence. Dr. Heide was elected to full membership in the American Psychological Association in recognition of her contributions to the field of psychology. She was invited by Queen Sofia of Spain to present her research at the International Meeting on the Biology and Sociology of Violence: Youth Violence (2004). She holds a B.A. from Vassar College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and earned both her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University at Albany, State University of New York, School of Criminal Justice, where she was recognized as a distinguished alumna in 2007.
Kevin E. Kip, Ph.D.
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Medical Sciences Section
Citation: For pioneering and groundbreaking research in the fields of interventional cardiology and psychotherapy, particularly for development of new treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder.
Kevin E. Kip is a Distinguished Health Professor in Epidemiology and Professor in the Morsani College of Medicine, Department of Cardiology, at USF. He also holds a joint appointment with the James A. Haley VA Hospital in Tampa. He previously served as executive director of the Research Center and interim associate dean for research for the USF College of Nursing, as well as interim chair for the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics for the USF College of Public Health. Dr. Kip is the leading researcher worldwide in the study of Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) — a brief, emerging, evidence-based treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related comorbidities. He led a $2.1 million Department of Defense grant that, to date, included the nation’s largest study on the effectiveness of ART for military service personnel and veterans. Dr. Kip also oversaw the training of military clinicians in ART at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Fort Hood, Fort Stewart, and Fort Drum. Leveraged in part by three studies of ART directed by Dr. Kip and subsequent peer-reviewed publications, more than 2,000 clinicians have now been trained in the ART protocol across the country and internationally. In addition, Dr. Kip’s more than 20-year career in epidemiology has had substantial impact on the fields of interventional cardiology and cardiovascular disease at large. For example, he was the first to show that in patients treated with angioplasty for coronary artery disease, those patients who also had diabetes had poorer long-term outcomes than those without diabetes. He also was Principal Investigator for the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Dynamic Registry of Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI), which, over a 20-year period, enrolled more than 10,000 patients and provided a comprehensive assessment of the evolution of PCI. Dr. Kip is a Fellow of the American Heart Association; and a member of the American College of Epidemiology, and Society for Epidemiologic Research. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and M.S. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Central Florida; M.S.P.H. in Epidemiology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham; and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh.
Frank E. Müller-Karger, Ph.D.
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Biological Sciences Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to marine science, particularly in advancing understanding of biodiversity and the dispersal of water from the largest rivers to the world’s oceans.
Frank E. Müller-Karger is a Professor in the USF College of Marine Science and the Director of the USF Institute for Marine Remote Sensing. As a biological oceanographer, Dr. Müller-Karger’s research focuses on how marine ecosystems change over time. Using a time series of observations to study changes in water quality, primary production, and biodiversity in coastal marine environments, he is advancing a broader understating of the impacts of large-scale phenomena such as climate change and human activities on ecosystems, and how these changes in turn affect society. Dr. Müller-Karger has made several significant contributions to the field. He pioneered efforts to map the dispersal of water from large rivers in the ocean, including water from the Amazon, Orinoco, Magdalena and Mississippi Rivers. He led a team that established the Carbon Retention in a Colored Ocean (CARIACO) Ocean Time Series Program. This 25-yearlong study tracked the seasonal variability in phytoplankton production at the Cariaco Basin off the coast of Venezuela and documented the links between large-scale ocean changes, biodiversity of the plankton, changes in fisheries in the region, and the fine sediments that settle to the bottom of the anoxic Cariaco Basin. Dr. Müller-Karger is internationally recognized for his work using satellite observations, and among other impactful outcomes, contributed to the first high resolution global map of shallow tropical coral reefs. Dr. Müller-Karger continues to use satellites that measure ocean color and sea surface temperature to assess the importance of continental margins in the global carbon budget. As a result of his leadership across a number of national and international studies, Dr. Müller-Karger was named a Commissioner to the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy by former President George W. Bush. He has served on the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council/National Academies. He currently serves as a Co-lead for the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network, an initiative supported by NASA, BOEM and NOAA. He serves as an expert on panels for NASA, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, and other professional science groups. He previously received the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Award for Outstanding Contributions and the NASA Administrator Award for Exceptional Contribution and Service for supporting development of satellite technologies for ocean observation. Over the course of his career, he has published more than 250 articles, book chapters and influential reports. Dr. Müller-Karger speaks Spanish, German, and English. He received a B.S. in biological oceanography from Florida Institute of Technology; a M.S. in oceanography at the University of Alaska, and he completed his Ph.D. in marine and estuarine sciences at the University of Maryland. He also holds a M.S. in management from the University of South Florida.
Toru Shimizu, Ph.D.
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Psychology Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to the fields of comparative psychology and behavioral neuroscience, particularly for multidisciplinary research and advancing understanding of the avian brain and behavior.
Toru Shimizu is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Psychology in the USF College of Arts and Sciences where he also leads the Comparative Cognition and Neuroscience lab. Dr. Shimizu’s research centers on comparative neuroscience and evolution of the brain and cognition in vertebrates, focusing specifically on the avian brain. An internationally renowned neurobiologist, Dr. Shimizu’s research examines the neural basis of visual and cognitive abilities in birds using behavioral, physiological, anatomical, and neurochemical research methods. Dr. Shimizu and his colleagues also conducted pioneering research using neuro-imaging techniques on the brain of live birds. Most recently, Dr. Shimizu has been involved in a collaborative research study computationally examining the extensive connection patterns of more than 50 brain structures of birds. These lines of research have led to discoveries of the similarity between non-mammalian and mammalian brain circuitry and functionality despite the lack of a neocortex in the non-mammalian brain. Dr. Shimizu’s overall contributions to comparative neural function in mammals and birds have transformed the field of comparative neuroscience and continue to provide important insights into the evolution of the vertebrate brain as well as the underlying neural mechanism for complex behavior. A highly regarded expert, he has been invited to present at dozens of scientific conferences around the world. He has led grants totaling more than $4.2 million, and has published over 100 articles and abstracts and co-authored two books. Dr. Shimizu received his B.A. in psychology from Keio University in Tokyo. He earned an M.S. in psychology as well as a Ph.D. in psychology, both from the University of Maryland, College Park. He served as a post-doctoral neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego.
E. Christian Wells, Ph.D
Elected AAAS Fellow in the Anthropology Section
Citation: For distinguished contributions to the field of environmental anthropology, particularly for research on ancient and modern soil and water systems, human and environmental health dynamics.
E. Christian Wells is Professor of Anthropology, Director of the Center for Brownfields Research and Redevelopment, and Director of the U.S. Peace Corps Coverdell Fellows Program in Applied Anthropology at the University of South Florida, where he has served previously as Founding Director of the Office of Sustainability and as Deputy Director of the Patel College of Global Sustainability. He is an applied environmental anthropologist and conducts research on environmental justice issues, sustainable and equitable development, anthrosol formation, water/wastewater management, and science-policy interactions, with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, and other organizations. Over the past 20 years, he has undertaken social and environmental science research in Honduras, Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, Antigua, and the United States. Closer to home, Dr. Wells has been instrumental in redevelopment projects in the neighborhoods adjacent to USF through an Environmental Protection Agency-funded planning effort to convert former brownfield sites to community assets, such as the new Harvest Hope Park and community garden. He has published more than 100 scientific articles and essays, 11 books and monographs, and his work has been featured by various media outlets including The New York Times and New Scientist. He recently received the Faculty Outstanding Research Achievement Award, the Outstanding Community-Engaged Teaching Award, the Global Achievement Award for Outstanding Global Student Success, and the Jerome Krivanek Distinguished Teacher Award from the University of South Florida, along with the Black Bear Award from the Sierra Club of Tampa Bay “in recognition of outstanding dedication to sustainability and the environment.” He received his B.A. from Oberlin College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Arizona State University.