Stempel College faculty and staff are proud to be affiliated with cutting-edge research centers at Florida International University in Miami, Florida.
These collaborative hubs of excellence serve as epicenters for groundbreaking research and foster a vibrant intellectual community that propels us towards addressing complex societal and health challenges.
Research Spotlight:
FIU World Trade Center Florida
The FIU World Trade Center Florida is conducting research that aims to understand the long-term impact of 9/11 exposure on the physical and mental health of WTC responders and survivors now residing in Florida.
Director: Dr. Mario De La Rosa
The Center for Research on US Latino HIV/AIDS and Drug Abuse (CRUSADA) at Florida International University (FIU) is a community-engaged, multidisciplinary research and training center dedicated to improving the health of Latino populations in the United States. Led by Founding Director Dr. Mario De La Rosa, CRUSADA was established in 2003 to address the twin epidemics of HIV/AIDS and substance use. This focus has since expanded to include community-engaged research and training that targets communicable and noncommunicable health conditions, such as mental health, diabetes, and obesity. CRUSADA has been awarded over $75 million in grant awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including: two S21 endowment grants, four Center of Excellence grants, five R01 and two R24 grants, four K-awards, and eight F31 grants. The Center has provided research training and mentorship to 49 PhD students, 13 Postdoctoral scholars, and 19 Faculty members. CRUSADA faculty, students, and staff have produced over 250 papers in peer-reviewed publications and over 250 presentations in scientific conferences and meetings.
Funded by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) P50 Center of Excellence grant, the Center for Latino Health Research Opportunities (CLaRO) is a jointly administered, innovative partnership between the University of Miami (UM) and Florida International University (FIU). Led by Dr. Mario De La Rosa (FIU) and Dr. Guillermo Prado (UM), CLaRO aims to promote scientific innovation, research excellence, career development, and community engagement to help address critical public health issues affecting communities in South Florida and elsewhere in the United States. Specifically, CLaRO provides early-stage investigators with opportunities to leverage input from community stakeholders, as well as scientific mentorship and training, to develop new research and knowledge and, ultimately, translate findings into communities. The overarching aim of CLaRO's community-engaged research training is to develop new cohorts of highly skilled, multidisciplinary public health researchers that will work to improve the health of American communities.
Director: Dr. Zoran Bursac
The Center for Statistical Consulting and Collaboration (FIU-STATCONSULT) has the mission to enhance FIU’s research enterprise by providing infrastructure support relevant to biostatistics, bioinformatics, data science, data management and data quality enhancement. It supports faculty investigators, research staff and graduate students for grant proposal preparation, study and experimental design concepts, data collection, data management, statistical analyses, study operations, report and manuscript preparation and beyond. It is integrated both in terms of drawing on expertise from and providing support to investigators within and outside of FIU.
Director: Dr. Eric Wagner
Co-Associate Directors: Dr. Staci Morris & Dr. Michelle Hospital
The FIU-Community-Based Research Institute (CBRI) is a State of Florida Board of Governors-approved research center established in 2011 at Florida International University. CBRI is focused on promoting health and wellness across the lifespan and has a long record of success in large-scale university-community research partnerships. CBRI’s work has been supported with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIAAA, NIDA, NIMHD), the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (SAMHSA, HRSA), and private foundations (Ware Foundation, Aetna Foundation). CBRI prioritizes culturally responsive research, working closely with communities to enhance the relevance and local impact of the research we conduct. CBRI faculty also are very proud of our protégés; we have mentored, trained, and provided financial support to hundreds of FIU undergraduate and graduate students, and Post-Doctoral Fellows, across a wide range of disciplines including Psychology, Social Work, Public Health, Nursing, Biology, Biostatistics, Medicine, Education, and Dietetics and Nutrition.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Eric Wagner
Core Leads: Dr. Zoran Bursac, Dr. Mary Jo Trepka, Dr. Michelle Hospital, & Dr. Tomás R. Guilarte
Research Study Leads: Dr. Diana Azzam, Dr. Shanna Burke, Dr. Diana Sheehan Delgado, & Dr. Sabrina Sales Martinez
The Research Center in Minority Institutions at Florida International University (FIU-RCMI) is supported by the largest NIH award ever in the history of FIU, $16M for 2017-2022 and another $20M for 2022-2027. The FIU-RCMI is devoted to the training of early career faculty from FIU, conducting three major research projects on urgent health problems facing South Floridians (pediatric cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, & living with HIV), and fostering an extensive array of university-community health research partnerships. The FIU-RCMI includes over 60 FIU faculty investigators spanning 5 colleges and 23 departments.
Director: Dr. Carlos Espinal
The Global Health Consortium (GHC) is an accelerator program for public health interventions. GHC’s top priorities—universal health, communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, health and the environment and health security—include acute problems affecting large populations around the world. The GHC has technical and scientific collaborative partnerships with organizations such as the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
