Dr. Norma Alcantar joined USF in 2004. Her current research group consists of 2 Ph.D. students and 1 master’s students and she has supervised undergraduates through a USF college wide REU program and through the NSF REU nano bio site led by Dr. Sylvia Thomas. One of her USF undergraduate researchers won 2nd place for a poster in the Honor’s college research symposium. She has supervised teachers under a USF Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program, mentored high school under represented minority students, and she is the Research for Undergraduate Students coordinator and SLOAN Minority Ph.D.’s coordinator for USF’s Chemical Engineering department.

Dr. Thomas Crissman joined USF in 2005 and prior to that, he was a Professor in the Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida since 1977 and the Director of the Howard T. Odum Center for Wetlands since 1995. He has supervised at least three undergrads annually in his laboratory during the summers, and has directed one undergrad honors thesis. He is currently the Co-PI on an NSF funded GK-12 project placing science and engineering graduate students in partnership with teachers to develop effective science teaching programs in disadvantaged middle schools.

Dr. Jeff Cunningham joined USF in January 2005 and his research group consists of four doctoral students. REU students will be paired with a graduate mentor and attend and present at weekly group meetings held jointly with Dr. Trotz’s research group. He is the Chairperson of the Curriculum and Assessment Committee in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and is responsible for continuous assessment and improvement of the undergraduate curriculum, including ABET accreditation. He serves as a Faculty Mentor to Mr. Roland Okwen in the Alfred P Sloan Minority Ph.D. Program.

Dr. Sarina Ergas joined USF in 2009 and prior to that she was an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Dr. Vinay Gupta joined USF in August 2004. As a faculty at UIUC and USF, he has supervised 11 graduate and 13 undergraduate students. His students include 11 females (6 undergraduates and 5 graduates) and 5 from under-represented minority groups in science and engineering. He has participated in a minority Engineering Program (IMPRINT) at the University of Illinois for high school students and currently, he is a mentor in the Sloan and the NSF-Bridges to Doctorate Program for minority students. Dr. Gupta is the PI on a NSF grant to remodel the Chemical Engineering curriculum to better transition transfer students and has many contacts with community colleges whose students have few opportunities for research experiences.

Dr. Foday Jaward joined USF in May 2006 and his research group consists of one doctoral student. Dr Jaward has experience in supervising undergraduate students during the time he was pursuing his graduate degree in the United Kingdom and as a lecturer for many years. He has regular weekly meetings with the groups of three other faculty members in the environmental health concentration (Drs. Stuart, Yeh and Cunningham), where all group members have the opportunity to present and discuss their work. The College of Public Health does not have an undergraduate program though their air pollution courses are cross listed with Civil and Environmental Engineering. TIER will provide an opportunity for the two faculty mentors in the College of Public Health to mentor undergraduate students.

Dr. James R. Mihelcic joined USF in August 2008. Approximately one half of his 60+ graduate students have been female (4 of his 5 current doctoral students are female), and he has been the primary graduate advisor to 8 underrepresented minority M.S. and Ph.D. students. He served as PI on an REU project focused on Sustainability from 2005-2008. This REU project was a partnership with the Nelson Mandela School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Southern University and A&M College. Over the 3 summers, 49 students participated in the program. Students majored in engineering, social sciences, and business/economics; 57% were female and 37% were underrepresented minorities. He has written several peer-reviewed papers coauthored by REU students (e.g., Kate Goldstein and Heather Wright (see his biosketch: Zhang et al., 2008 and Wright et al., 2008).

Dr. Peter Stroot joined USF in January 2004 and is the REU coordinator for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He has supervised seven undergraduate REUs including two women and one underrepresented minority. He has also supervised three teachers through USF’s NSF-RET program, one of whom is an underrepresented minority female and has provided volunteer summer research opportunities for four high school students. Dr. Stroot has two female, minority PhD students, Andrea Rocha and Kathryn Bailey who have participated in research collaboration activities at two DOE National Laboratories, ORNL and BNL

Dr. Amy Stuart joined USF in January 2005. Her research group currently includes one MS/Ph.D. student, one ME/MSPH student and one MPH student. She is a faculty advisor for USF’s Honor’s College and has worked with two underrepresented minority undergraduate students. She has also served as a mentor for a local visiting high school teacher through USF’s RET program. She has worked with three underrepresented minorities and five women since beginning at USF in 2005. She also has an interdisciplinary research project with Dr. Trotz and faculty from the geography department on mercury transformations and exposure in the Tampa Bay and in Guyana which meets regularly. TIER REU students will be encouraged to present on their work to these two research groups.

Dr. Andrés E. Tejada-Martínez joined USF in January, 2007. He currently advises two Ph.D. students and one M.S. student. All three are female.

Dr. Sylvia W. Thomas (Co-PI) has been involved with student mentoring, recruitment, and development in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) areas for over 15 years. As Assistant Dean, Dr. Thomas has had experience managing summer research programs and working with undergraduate and graduate students. She has planned, delivered, and managed summer programs for high school and undergraduate students, established and maintained relationships with industrial supporters, university administrators, community organizations, parents, and prospective students. Prior to joining USF, Dr. Thomas served as recruiter and corporate liaison for the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities (GEM) and as a research engineer for many industrial entities. In these positions she designed and assessed programmatic activities related to recruitment/retention, scholarships, and academic support services for students of color; developed, presented, coordinated workshops on career development, decision-making, problem solving and leadership skills; and developed budgets and managed expenditures.

Dr. Maya Trotz (PI) joined USF in August 2004. Her current group consists of 5 Ph.D. students, 1 of whom is co-advised with TIER mentor Dr. Goswami. Two of her Ph.D. students are African American women. She has supervised three USF REU students and three teachers and a high school student under USF’s RET and Research Experience for Students and Teachers (REST) programs. She has graduated two female master’s students, both of whom are underrepresented minorities students and they are currently pursuing PhD degrees at USF and Berkeley. She is a co-PI on the USF SLOAN program for Minority Ph.D.s and is the Civil and Environmental Engineering co-ordinator of that program.

Dr. Daniel Yeh joined USF in January 2005. Over the past five years, he has directly supervised 12 REU students at Stanford and USF, including five women and one underrepresented minority. Some of the REUs have come as visitors from other universities (e.g., Vanderbilt, RPI and Kansas State) and mof the REUs have continued to conduct research through MS thesis work. All REUs actively contributed to presentations and publications and several had major roles in preparing proposals that were successful in securing funding. He has also worked with two high school teachers over three summers as part of the USF Research Experience for Teachers Program, conducted several lab tours to K-12 students, and visited elementary schools regularly on outreach efforts.