Faculty & Staff

Core Faculty

Department Faculty

Robert Frisina, Jr., Ph.D.
Chair and  Distinguished University Professor
Research Areas: Development of Bio-therapeutic Systems, Devices and Compounds for Treating Sensory Deficits; Emphasis on Bench-to-Bedside Investigations of the Auditory System, and Translational Research on Deafness and Other Neuroengineering Applications.
Office: ENC 3504 | Email | 813-974-4394 |

Christopher Passaglia, Ph.D.
Associate Chair and Professor
Research Areas: Vision Systems, Neural Signal Processing, Computational Modeling, Retinal Physiology and Disease
Office: ENG 247 | Email | 813-974-7140 | Website

Olukemi Akintewe, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Instruction                                                                                                            Courses taught: EGN 3000L, BME 3312, BME 4056C, BME 4057C                                              Office: ISA 7031G | Email | 813-974-6152

Anna Bulysheva, Ph.D.                                                                                                                  Assistant Professor                                                                                                                       Research Areas: Gene Delivery, Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine                              Office: ENG 241| Email | 813-974-4649

Bo Ding, M.D., M.S.
Research Associate Professor                                                                                                    Research Areas: Investigate the molecular mechanism of age-related hearing loss and especially characterize the role of autophagy, a highly conserved cellular process, in the auditory system with aging.
Office: 3802 Spectrum Boulevard, Suite 210 (BPB 210) | Email| 813-974-4124

Loree C. Heller, Ph.D.
Associate Professor                                                                                                                          Research Areas: Nucleic acid electrotransfer, Non-viral gene therapies, Pattern recognition receptors                                                                                                                                              Email | 813-974-4637 | Website

Richard Heller, Ph.D.                                                                                                                 Professor                                                                                                                                                Research Areas: The major focus is to develop effective drug and gene delivery.  The emphasis is on translational studies that include the development and testing of new protocols or devices that can be utilized for potential therapies for cancer, wound healing, metabolic disorders and vascular diseases (peripheral and coronary ischemia) as well as vaccine and immunotherapy protocols.                                                                                                                          
Email  | 813-974-1221

Dr. Mark Jaroszeski, Ph.D.
Professor
Research Areas: Drug and Gene Delivery, Electrofusion, Biomedical Instrumentation, Electrophoresis
Office: ENG 243 | Email | 813-974-4662

Huabei Jiang, Ph.D.
Professor
Research Areas: Diffuse optical tomography (DOT), photoacoustic tomography (PAT), fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT), and bioluminescence tomography (BLT).
Office: ISA 7030A | Email | 813-974-5253

Albert Kim, Ph.D.                                                                                                                          Assistant Professor                                                                                                                       Research Areas: Acousto-Bioelectronics, Sensor & Actuator, Implantable Microdevices, BioMEMS                                                                                                                                                Office: ISA 7031D | Email |                                                                                                              
Guilan Shi, Ph.D.                                                                                                                           Research Assistant Professor                                                                                                       Research Areas: Cancer immunotherapy                                                                                           Email
George Spirou, Ph.D                                                                                                                                Professor                                                                                                                                                    Research Areas: Research in the Spirou laboratory is focused on formation of neural circuits in early development and on construction of connectomes, or neural wiring diagrams, at nanoscale resolution. The generation of large image volumes for this work necessitated development of tools to understand these complex data sets. Leveraging long-standing interest in 3D reconstruction of brain structure, he and collaborators joined the revolution in immersive virtual reality to develop software for viewing, annotating and analyzing images. Their software, called syGlass, is marketed by their company, IstoVisio, Inc., which began operation in summer, 2017.                                                                                                                                                        Office: 7037C ISA | Email | 813-974-1425| Website

Hao Yang, Ph.D.
Research Faculty
Research Areas: Optical-based imaging technologies for in vivo visualization of tissue at both the macroscopic and microscopic scales.
Office: ISA 7030B | Email | 813-974-4923

Souheil Zekri, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Instruction                                                                                                            Courses taught: BME 3053, BME 3082, BME 4882, BME 4883
Office: ISA 7031F | Email | 813-974-5203