Florida Inventors Hall of Fame

Last updated
Florida Inventors Hall of Fame
AbbreviationFIHF
Formation2013
Type NPO
Legal statusOrganization
Location
Region served
United States
Official language
English
Website http://www.floridainvents.org/

The Florida Inventors Hall of Fame is an organization that honors Florida inventors, and is housed in the USF Research Park at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, Florida. It was founded in 2013 by Dr. Paul R. Sanberg, senior vice president for research and innovation at USF, and is one of five state-specific halls of fame dedicated to inventors in the United States. In April 2014, State Senator Jeff Brandes sponsored the recognition of it, honoring the hall of fame for its commitment to invention, discovery, innovation, and excellence. [1] [2]

Contents

History

The FIHF was founded by Paul Sanberg, after visiting the National Inventors Hall of Fame, located in Alexandria, Virginia, and noticing a lack of Floridians in the Hall. [3] The Florida Inventors Hall of Fame was formed in 2013 and the first induction ceremony was held September 10, 2014, in Tampa Florida. [4] The first inductees included historic inventors Thomas Edison (who had a laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida), [5] Robert Cade, [6] [7] John Gorrie, and William Glenn, [8] [9] [10] as well as currently active scientists, Shin-Tson Wu, and Shyam Mohapatra. [11] [12] The second annual induction ceremony has been announced for October 2, 2015, in Tampa.

Operations

The FIHF is led by an advisory board, chaired by Sanberg. [13] The FIHF inducts new honorees annuallythrough a nomination and review process. [14] Eligible inductees are any living or deceased person who has lived or worked in Florida, held at least one U.S. patent, and have demonstrably improved life quality for the state and people of Florida and the United States. [15]

Notable Living Inductees

Among the first inductees to the hall of fame were optics physicist Shin-Tson Wu, a University of Central Florida professor. [16] [17] Wu is most notable for improving liquid crystal displays which are used in the screens of appliances like computers, smart phones, and televisions. [18] [19] [20]

Another living inductee was Shyam Mohapatra, a pioneer in the field of biomedical nanotechnology and a USF Health Distinguished Professor at the University of South Florida as well as research scientist at the James A. Haley VA Medical Center. [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Roy Selmon</span> American football player (1954–2011)

Lee Roy Selmon was an American professional football player who was a defensive end for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football as a defensive tackle at the University of Oklahoma, the youngest of three brothers to play football there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of South Florida</span> Public university in Tampa, Florida, US

The University of South Florida (USF) is a public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, and other campuses in St. Petersburg and Sarasota. It is one of 12 members of the State University System of Florida. USF is home to 14 colleges, offering more than 240 undergraduate, graduate, specialist, and doctoral-level degree programs. USF is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. USF is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and is designated by the Florida Board of Governors as one of three Preeminent State Research Universities.

The 1988 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 24–25, 1988, at the Marriot Marquis in New York City, New York. The league also held a supplemental draft after the regular draft and before the regular season.

The 1978 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held May 2–3, 1978, at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, New York. The league also held a supplemental draft after the regular draft and before the regular season.

The South Florida Bulls football team represents the University of South Florida. The Bulls began playing in 1997 and compete in the American Athletic Conference of the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) within the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The team plays its home games at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Florida Bulls</span> University of South Florida athletic team

The South Florida Bulls are the athletic teams that represent the University of South Florida. USF competes in NCAA Division I and is a member of the American Athletic Conference for all sports besides sailing, a non-NCAA sanctioned varsity sport which competes in the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association within the Inter-Collegiate Sailing Association. The current athletic director is Michael Kelly, who has held the job since 2018. The school colors are green and gold and the mascot is Rocky D. Bull.

Sylvester Bembery is a former American football lineman in the Arena Football League (AFL). Bembery, #78, was an offensive and defensive lineman for the Tampa Bay Storm from 1994–99, and once again joined the Storm for the 2001 campaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">War on I-4</span> Rivalry between the South Florida Bulls and UCF Knights

The War on I-4 is a college rivalry between the University of Central Florida Knights and University of South Florida Bulls. The rivalry is best known for its college football matchup which originated in a series of football games played from 2005 to 2008 and now takes place on Thanksgiving weekend, the de facto "rivalry weekend" for FBS football. From 2013 to 2023, when both schools were part of the American Athletic Conference, the schools began competing annually in all sports both schools sponsored. In 2016, the schools officially adopted the "War on I-4" as an official competition series. Each year, the team with the most wins across all sports receives a gold trophy styled after an Interstate 4 (I-4) road sign with the logos of each school. The winner of the annual football game also receives a similar trophy.

The official Transformers Hall of Fame was created by Hasbro to honor the most distinguished people behind the Transformers toy and entertainment franchise, along with some of the more popular Transformers characters. The Hall of Fame contains 32 characters and 22 humans as of April 2022.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florida Women's Hall of Fame</span> Honor roll of women who contributed to Florida life

The Florida Women's Hall of Fame is an honor roll of women who have contributed to life for citizens of the US state of Florida. An awards ceremony for the hall of fame was first held in 1982 and recipient names are displayed in the Florida State Capitol. The program was created by an act of the Florida Legislature and is overseen by the Florida Commission on the Status of Women (FCSW), a nonpartisan board created in 1991 to study and "make recommendations to the Governor, Cabinet and Legislature on issues affecting women". The FCSW also manages the Florida Achievement Award for those who have improved the lives of women and girls in Florida, an award is focused on outstanding volunteerism. FCSW members serve by appointment and the commission is housed at the Office of the Attorney General of Florida.

Paul R. Sanberg is an American scientist and inventor. His early work focused on the causes of brain cell death. His recent research has been on methods of repairing damaged brain tissue, and, in tandem with other scientists, demonstrating that stem cells derived from the blood of bone marrow and umbilical cords can be converted to neural cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shin-Tson Wu</span>

Shin-Tson Wu, is an American physicist and inventor of Taiwanese origin. He is currently a Pegasus professor at CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, University of Central Florida. Wu's contributions to liquid-crystal research and the resulting patent portfolio for next-generation liquid crystal displays (LCDs), adaptive optics, laser-beam steering, biophotonics, and new photonic materials, have had a major impact on display technology worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Florida–UCF football rivalry</span>

The South Florida–UCF football rivalry, better known as the War on I-4, is an American college football rivalry between the South Florida Bulls football team of the University of South Florida and UCF Knights football team of the University of Central Florida. As of the 2022 meeting, the Knights hold a 8–6 lead in the series.

Dharendra Yogi Goswami is an U.S. inventor, entrepreneur, author, and educator. He has few times advised the US Congress on energy policy and the transition to renewable energy. Goswami is a Distinguished Professor and the director of the Clean Energy Research Center at the University of South Florida. He is the emeritus editor-in-chief of the journal Solar Energy, and has published more than 400 peer-reviewed articles and a number of books and book chapters. He is also the inventor of the Goswami thermodynamic cycle. His inventions have been commercialized and in 2016 Goswami was inducted into Florida Inventors Hall of Fame. He co-founded Molekule, which markets an air purifier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dick Bowers</span> American athletic director (1930–2007)

Richard T. "Dick" Bowers was an American college athletics administrator. He was the first athletic director at the University of South Florida (USF) from 1966 to 1982.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WWE Hall of Fame (2021)</span> WWE Hall of Fame induction ceremony

The 2020-2021 WWE Hall of Fame was a professional wrestling event produced by WWE that featured the induction of the 21st and 22nd classes to the WWE Hall of Fame. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Hall of Fame ceremony did not occur—as a result, the originally announced Class of 2020 was inducted alongside the Class of 2021 at the 2021 induction ceremony. The event was taped on March 30 and April 1, 2021, at the WWE ThunderDome, hosted at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida, and aired on April 6 on Peacock in the United States and the WWE Network internationally. Jerry Lawler served as the host for the Class of 2020 portion of the show while Corey Graves and Kayla Braxton were the hosts for the Class of 2021 portion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of South Florida Athletic Hall of Fame</span> University Hall of Fame in Tampa, FL

The University of South Florida Athletic Hall of Fame was established in 2009 to recognize and perpetuate the memory of student athletes, teams, coaches and administrators who have made demonstrably outstanding and significant contributions to the success, tradition and heritage of USF Athletics, and who demonstrate the character and values that define the highest principles of sport. Induction in the University of South Florida Athletic Hall of Fame is the highest honor afforded by the USF Athletics Department.

Sumita Basu Mitra is an Indian-American inventor who is a professor at the University of South Florida. She developed the nanomaterials used in state-of-the-art 3M dental composites, which have been used in billions of procedures around the world. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors and the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Norma A. Alcantar is a Mexican–American chemical engineer. She is a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of South Florida. In 2019, Alcantar was elected a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering for "outstanding contributions in providing drinking water for low-income communities and contributions to disrupting amyloid fibril formation in Alzheimer's research".

The University of South Florida (USF) College of Engineering consists of seven ABET accredited learning disciplines at the public research university's main campus located in Tampa, Florida. The college has 11 undergraduate degree programs in biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, industrial engineering, information technology, and mechanical engineering.

References

  1. "The Florida Senate recognizes the florida Inventors Hall of Fame," Tampa Bay Newswire, 3 May 2014.
  2. "Florida Inventors Hall of Fame Announces 2014 Inductees". The Business Journals. ACBJ. 8 July 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  3. "State University System of Florida | Board of Governors : Press Room". www.flbog.edu. Archived from the original on 2014-01-09.
  4. Gregory, Dale. "Florida Inventors Hall of Fame: First induction Ceremony Will Be In 2014," Archived 2014-11-29 at the Wayback Machine icoast.com, 5 October 2013.
  5. Hayes, Stephanie (11 October 2013). "USF launches Florida Inventors Hall of Fame". Tampa Bay Times. Times Publishing Company. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  6. http://www.theledger.com/article/20140724/news/140729447
  7. http://www.gainesville.com/article/20140711/ARTICLES/140719943
  8. "News Desk".
  9. "FAU Professor Emeritus Inducted into Florida Inventors Hall of Fame".
  10. http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/lifestyles/fathers-of-invention/nhTxn/
  11. "Florida Inventors Hall of Fame Announces 2014 Inductees". Reuters.com. Reuters. 8 July 2014. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  12. "Florida Inventors Hall of Fame Announces 2014 Inductees Thomas Edison and the inventors of Gatorade and air conditioning among innovators elected as part of the inaugural class". wn.com. World News Network. 8 July 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  13. "Inventors unite for recognition". Business Observer. No. 18 April 2014. Observer Media Group. Retrieved 2 September 2014.
  14. Trigaux, Robert (10 September 2014). "First six inducted into Florida Inventors Hall of Fame". Tampa Bay Times. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
  15. "Florida Inventors Hall of Fame Issues Call for Nominations for Inaugural Class of Inventors". wn.com. World News Network. 27 March 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  16. Manning, Margie. "Lightbulbs to Gatorade, Florida Inventors Hall of Fame inductees pave the way". Tampa Bay Business Journal. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
  17. Burnett, Richard (10 August 2014). "UCF optics whiz turns lab work into marketable products". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  18. "LCD pioneer and SPIE Fellow Shin-Tson Wu named to Florida Inventors Hall of Fame".
  19. "UCF Inventor Named to New Florida Inventors Hall of Fame". UCF Today. University of Central Florida. 9 July 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  20. Doan, Christine (11 August 2014). "UCF professor named to Inventors Hall of Fame". Central Florida Future. Gannett. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  21. Parker, Elisabeth (24 July 2014). "USF professor says nanotechnology holds key to curing cancer". Tampa Bay Times. Times Publishing Co. Retrieved 3 September 2014.