After beginning her career with an emphasis on HIV disease, Debra Lyon eventually expanded her research to include oncology and venous leg ulcers. Throughout her prolific, 25-year career, Lyon’s scholarly pursuits have consistently received funding for innovative investigations into the biological underpinnings of patients’ subjective experiences across diverse populations. That work has included studying symptoms such as fatigue, depression, cognitive dysfunction and accelerated aging.

Sara Jo Nixon is an internationally renowned clinical researcher in the field of substance use and misuse. She is director of UF’s Center for Addiction Research and Education and only the fourth UF College of Medicine faculty member to be named a distinguished professor, the highest faculty honor at UF.

The fields of ecology and biology meet in the study of humanity’s relationship with our environment – paramount to the health of both. Biology Professor Todd Palmer is considered by many to be a leading researcher in both fields. Palmer is a community ecologist who studies how people directly and indirectly impact environmental change with a focus on ecosystems in East Africa and the Bahamas. Through his research, he aims to understand how species loss or invasion impacts ecological functions, which could inform how best to restore damaged ecosystems.

Addressing global food insecurity and enhancing the livelihoods of people across the world have driven Grady Roberts throughout his education and career.

Gavin Rumbaugh has dedicated his life to understanding how brain connections and circuits assemble to enable learning and adaptation, with a focus on genes that cause or increase the risk of severe neuropsychiatric disorders. His work aims to accelerate the development of therapeutic agents that correct impaired brain excitability, improve intellectual abilities and resolve behavioral maladaptation.

Sadie Ryan joined the Department of Geography a decade ago and quickly established herself as a leader in medical geography. She earned tenure and was promoted to professor in 2024, demonstrating her excellence in the classroom and laboratory. Ryan’s work is multifaceted but revolves around disease. As an expert on disease risk, she makes extensive use of modeling to analyze vector-borne and other climate-sensitive diseases in an ever-changing world.

Stephen Anton researches the influence of lifestyle factors on people’s health and performance as they age. Specifically, he investigates how lifestyle can affect the risk of chronic disease conditions such as obesity, cardiovascular disease and metabolic disease, and how those conditions impact quality of life and longevity.

Swarup Bhunia is a world leader in IoT and smart/connected systems. He specializes in hardware and systems security, food and medicine safety, adaptive and energy-efficient computing, and wearable and implantable systems.

Eduardo Candelario-Jalil, a professor of neuroscience, studies how inflammation contributes to injury following ischemic stroke. His research aims to better understand disease development, discover new ways to block inflammation and halt the progression of injury.

Larisa Cavallari aims to establish effective precision medicine approaches to drug prescribing that improve outcomes across populations. As a professor of pharmacotherapy and translational research, she concentrates on the discovery of genetic associations with drug response, the translation of pharmacogenetic evidence into clinical practice and the examination of clinical pharmacogenetic implementation outcomes.