Last term, Drexel University faculty members were recognized for their scholarly research and prolific academic and professional contributions. This update offers a snapshot of activity courtesy of the Office of the Provost.
Sponsored Research
Three faculty members in the Nick Howley College of Engineering and Computing received Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the agency's most prestigious recognition for early-career faculty. The program funds a five-year research agenda paired with an education and outreach plan.
- Lifeng Zhou, PhD, assistant professor in Howley College’s School of Engineering, will develop compact AI models small enough to run onboard individual robots, allowing teams of aerial and ground robots to coordinate in cluttered environments without relying on a central computer, with applications in disaster response, infrastructure inspection and precision agriculture.
- Jill Wenderott, PhD, Anne Stevens Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering, will study a class of ceramics that use visible light to drive chemical reactions, examining how the little-understood compounds form during synthesis in order to reduce waste and make larger scale manufacturing practical.
- Afsaneh Razi, PhD, assistant professor in Howley College’s School of Computer and Information Sciences, will study how adolescents form attachments to AI companion chatbots and will design and test interventions with teens, caregivers and educators to address unhealthy use.
Faculty in Howley College’s School of Biomedical Engineering and Science secured more than $11.2 million in new and renewed research funding across 15 awards over the past five months, with support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NSF, the Pennsylvania Departments of Health and of Community and Economic Development, and industry partners including CeramTec, Stryker Orthopaedics and Breakthrough T1D. The largest of these include a renewed National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases R01grant to Lin Han, PhD, to study how a key protein governs the assembly and breakdown of cartilage; a National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke R01 grant to Catherine von Reyn, PhD, to map the neuron networks behind collision avoidance; and a National Institute of General Medical Sciences R35 grant to Xiao Huang, PhD, to investigate how nanoscale ligand design controls drug delivery into cells.
Jane Greenberg, PhD, Alice B. Kroeger Professor of Information Science in Howley College’s School of Computer and Information Sciences, is a co-principal investigator (co-PI) on a Purdue University-led project selected for the National Science Foundation’s $380 million initiative to build a nationwide network of artificial intelligence-enabled automated laboratories. The Purdue Intelligent Codesign Cloud Lab for Non-Equilibrium and Low-Dimensional Materials, known as ICoN-PCL, is one of 20 teams funded under the program. Greenberg will lead the participation of Drexel's Metadata Research Center, which is responsible for developing the framework that allows data generated across the network to be shared, trusted and reused. The center's team is comprised of Howley College School of Computer and Information Sciences’ faculty members: Yuan An, PhD, associate professor; Mat Kelly, PhD, assistant professor; Michelle L. Rogers, PhD, associate professor; David E. Breen, PhD, professor emeritus; Xiaohua “Tony” Hu, PhD, professor; and Heather Willever-Farr, PhD, assistant teaching professor. Alongside graduate and undergraduate researchers, they will design the project's metadata standards, assign persistent identifiers to datasets and equipment, and apply ontology tools to keep terminology consistent across sites. The team will also guide data governance and community engagement across the network, work that underpins reproducible and AI-ready materials research.
Greenberg is the principal investigator and Kelly and Willever-Farr the co-PIs on a project for which Drexel received an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program award of $166,334 to lead CAMP-250 (Computational Archival Science and Metadata in Practice for America 250), a national initiative focused on strengthening librarian and archivist workforce development, professional practice and infrastructure readiness for managing the nation's rapidly growing digital archival record. They will convene archivists, librarians and educators to establish shared frameworks for computational archival science, metadata practices and AI-enabled archival work.
Jason Silverman, PhD, associate dean for faculty affairs and research professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ School of Education, received an NSF grant for $299,900 for the project “AI Supplement: Online Reflection and Community-based Instructional Development System for Mathematics Education (ORICDS).”
Christopher Wright, PhD, associate dean of culture and community and associate professor in the School of Education, received an NSF grant for $886,804 for the project “Materials Engineering for Middle School Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Learning.”
Luis Arturo Valdez, PhD, assistant professor in the Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health, received an NIH R01 award for “¡GANAS!: A men's health intervention to improve sleep, increase social connectedness and reduce stress among low-income men.” The project seeks to address important health challenges affecting underserved populations through innovative, community-focused intervention strategies.
Kofoworola D.A. Williams, PhD, assistant professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health, received an NIH K01 Career Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health for her project, “A human-centered, multi-stakeholder approach to develop and test a digital intervention for Black male emerging adults with depression.” This five-year award supports the design, development and testing of a web-based digital mental health intervention to improve engagement with care and mental health outcomes among Black emerging adult men.
Brandy-Joe Milliron, PhD, associate professor in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, will serve as co-investigator on a project titled, “From Kitchen to Clinic: A Family Centered, Food-As-Medicine Approach Using Medically Tailored Meals and Caregiver Coaching in Pediatric Oncology Care” with collaborators at CHOP. The project is funded by MANNA and Milliron was awarded $12,000.
Annalisa Na, PhD, DPT, assistant research professor in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, was awarded $16,600 from the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center and will utilize her specialized skills and training to contribute to a study titled “A Remotely Applied Behaviorally-Designed Intervention Incorporating Gamification, Social Incentives, and Health Coaching to Improve Durability of Physical Therapy for Knee Osteoarthritis (ReAKTIV).”
Liz Kimball, PhD, associate professor, and Scott Warnock, PhD, associate dean of academic affairs for undergraduate education and professor, both at the College of Arts and Sciences, were awarded a $200,000 grant from the Teagle Foundation to develop a new humanities minor that will foster critical thinking, meaningful dialogue and civic engagement through transformative texts and Philadelphia-based learning experiences.
Amanda McMillan Lequieu, PhD, associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, received a $590,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to fund an ongoing project to survey county governments across the U.S. to better understand the challenges they face in providing services and enacting policies that improve economic growth and well-being in rural communities.
Jessica Barson, PhD, associate professor, and Jacqueline Barker, PhD, associate professor and assistant dean for mentoring and support, both at the College of Medicine, received a five-year, $564,306 grant from the NIH for their project “Suppression of Ethanol Dependence-Induced Maladaptive Appetitive and Consummatory Behavior by the GLP-1 System.”
Elias El Haddad, PhD, professor in the College of Medicine, was awarded a two-year, $249,656 NIH grant for the project “Defining and Targeting the Adenosine-ADA-1 Axis in HIV-Specific CD8+ T Cell Dysfunction.”
Major gifts, honors and recognition
The Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center (PIRC) named Richard Frankel, JD, associate dean of experiential learning and professor in the Thomas R. Kline School of Law, as their 2026 Pro Bono Attorney of the Year.
Igor Burstyn, PhD, associate professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health, was awarded Springer Nature's Editor of Distinction Award and the Author Service Award. The Editor of Distinction Award reflects important contributions made in supporting the journal and research community. The Author Service Award recognizes the contributions of Springer Nature editors in providing an outstanding author experience, ensuring the peer review process is efficient, constructive and fair.