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

Meisam Asgari, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
Research Areas: Nano-biomechanics of human aortic disease; Collagen mineralization in human tissue; Toughening mechanisms in mineralized tissues.
Office: ENB 357| Email | 813-396-0368

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
Neda Latifi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Research Areas: Tissue engineering; Tissue-mimetic biomaterials; Preclinical translation of engineered tissues; Cell-biomaterial interactions;Tissue culture bioreactors; Cardiovascular engineering; Collagen; Elastin.
Office: ENC 2510 | Email |813-396-0489
Alex Otten, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Instruction
Courses taught: EGN 3365, BME 4931/6931 Statistics for BME
Office: ENG 118 | Email | 813-396-0596
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.
Associate Professor of Instruction
Courses taught: BME 3053, BME 3082, BME 4882, BME 4883
Office: ISA 7031F | Email | 813-974-5203