Faculty Highlights: Recent Awards and Grants from Spring 2026

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Faculty Highlights: Recent Awards and Grants from Spring 2026

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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

Catherine von Reyn, PhD, associate professor in the Nick Howley College of Engineering and Computing, who was the principal investigator (PI), and colleagues received a two-year, $300,000 Charles E. Kaufmann Foundation grant for the project titled "Astrocyte Regulation of Synaptic Partner Specificity in Developing Neural Circuits."

Xiao Huang, PhD, assistant professor in the Howley College of Engineering and Computing and PI, received a two-year, $200,000 Margaret Q. Landenberger Research Foundation grant for the project titled "Biomaterial Reprogramming of BCMA-CAR T Cells for Durable and Scalable Therapies."

Tasneem Siddiqui, PhD, assistant professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences, received a Peer Mentoring Cluster grant from the Wabash Center providing up to $10,000 to support small groups of BIPOC faculty in religion and theology.

Peter J. Gaskill, PhD, and Jacqueline Barker, PhD, both associate professors of pharmacology and physiology at the College of Medicine, received a one-year, $684,123 National Institute on Drug Abuse grant for their project "Cross-Model Investigation on the Role of Inflammasomes in the Neurobehavioral and Transcriptomic Effects of Cocaine Exposure and HIV Infection."

Sandhya Kortagere, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology and vice dean of research and innovation at the College of Medicine, was awarded a one-year, $576,788 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for her project, "Design and Development of Glutamate Transporter Activators for Disease Modifying and Symptomatic Treatment of Epilepsy."

Robert Hand, DPT, assistant clinical professor of physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, and Tsao-Wei Liang, MD, medical director of The Jefferson Comprehensive Parkinson's Disease & Movement Disorders Center, received $20,000 from the Klein Family Parkinson's Rehabilitation Center Clinical-Research Integration Award for their research project titled "FAIRWAY-PD: Functional Assessment and Intervention for Recreational Wellness and Activity in Parkinson's Disease."

Constance Lyttle, PhD, clinical professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, received a grant for $13,457 from Guam University to support her project titled "Project Ina Mo'ma and Drexel University."

Toby Seay, PhD, professor of music industry in the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar award to New Zealand for the academic year 2026-2027. Seay will be examining the recorded music collections of the Archive of New Zealand Music within the National Library of New Zealand to explore music production practices within New Zealand, collaborate with the Alexander Turnbull Library on a best practice for digitally stored archival materials and examine affordances and values of recorded artifacts.

Afsaneh Razi, PhD, assistant professor in the Howley College of Engineering and Computing, has been awarded a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award in the amount of $681,393 over five years. The proposal is titled "CAREER: Investigating, Designing, Developing, and Evaluating Solutions to Prevent Adolescent Overattachment to Conversational AI Companions."

Howley College of Engineering and Computing faculty were awarded two 2026 Longsview Fellowships. Fernanda Campos da Cruz Rios, PhD, professor, PI, and Feng Liu, PhD, assistant professor and co-PI, received one to support their research on automated detection of façade-level material to advance urban material stock and flow analysis. Liu was also co-PI on a second fellowship, awarded to the PI, Matthew McDonald, PhD, professor in the Howley College of Engineering and Computing, for using generative AI for organic crystal structure prediction.

Zhiwei Chen, PhD, assistant professor, and Li "Harry" Zhang, PhD, assistant professor and co-PI, both in the Howley College of Engineering and Computing, received a 2026 Grimes Family Faculty Award to support their research on neurosymbolic learning for safe autonomous driving under ambiguous trust.

Edward Kim, PhD, assistant professor in the Howley College of Engineering and Computing, received a grant of $11,025 from trading firm Hard Eight Trading, LLC, that will support PhD research on comparative analysis of machine learning models for gold futures forecasting.

Major Gifts, Honors & Recognition

Yury Gogotsi, PhD, Distinguished University and Charles T. and Ruth M. Bach Professor in the Howley College of Engineering and Computing and director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute, was awarded an honorary doctorate by Belgium's Hasselt University for his pioneering contributions to materials science and nanotechnology.

Alex H. Poole, PhD, associate professor of information science in the Howley College of Engineering and Computing, received the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's SILS Rising Star Alumni Award. This award recognizes recent graduates who have demonstrated exceptional growth, early career achievement and meaningful contributions to the field of library and information science or to the SILS community.

Nancy Raitano Lee, PhD, associate professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Hasan Ayaz, PhD, professor in the Howley College of Engineering and Computing, were awarded a two-year, $400,000 award from the Eagles Autism Foundation.

Ayaz and colleagues won the Europe-based firm mBrainTrain Smarting Spectra Hyperscanning Neuroscience Contest for their cutting-edge social neuroscience study.

Jane Greenberg, PhD, Alice B. Kroeger Professor of information science in the Howley College of Engineering and Computing, was awarded the International Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research (2025) Distinguished Recognition Award for her steadfast support and lifelong dedication to the metadata and semantics research community.

David DeMatteo, JD, PHD, director of the JD/PhD program in law and psychology, professor of psychological and brain sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of law in the Thomas R. Kline School of Law, was awarded the Lawrence S. Wrightsman Book Award from the American Psychology-Law Society for the book "The Oxford Handbook of Psychology & Law."

Loni Philip Tabb, PhD, professor of biostatistics and senior associate dean for faculty affairs in the Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health, was selected as an American Statistical Association 2026 Fellow. This distinguished honor recognizes a select group of statisticians and data scientists whose established reputations reflect outstanding contributions to statistical science and a sustained commitment to advancing the field.

Sandhya Kortagere, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology and vice dean of research and innovation at the College of Medicine, received the 2026 Scientific Achievement Award in Drug Discovery and Development from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. The award recognizes outstanding investigators who have made significant contributions in drug discovery, translational research or drug development science.

Maureen Gonzalez, PhD, assistant clinical professor of nursing in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, was accepted into the Transcultural Nursing Society (TCNS) delegation for the UN Women's Summit, a cornerstone for advancing women's health and shaping their future.

Kymberlee Montgomery, DNP, clinical professor and chief nursing academic officer in the College of Nursing and Health Professions, was appointed to the American Academy of Nursing's Maternal and Infant Health Thought Leadership Collaborative. This collaborative is a primary thought leadership body to drive policy, research and practice improvements to reduce maternal/infant mortality and promote health equity.

Nicole Iannarone, JD, associate professor of law in the Kline School of Law, began service as a member of the board of directors of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards and CFP Board.

Christian Resick, PhD, J. Donald Rauth Term Professor in the Bennett S. LeBow College of Business, was named a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in recognition of exceptional contributions to the field, dedication to advancing the science and practice of industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology and his influence on the I-O professional community.

Raja Schaar, associate professor of product design in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design, is among the 2026 honorees of The Curious 100, from the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity. The Curious 100 is a celebration of one hundred brilliant minds embodying the transformative power of curiosity, building on the foundation laid by design icons Ray and Charles Eames.