The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has recognized four faculty members from Florida State University as 2025 NAI Senior Members.
NAI Senior Members consist of productive faculty, researchers, and administrators who have achieved success in patents, licensing, and commercialization, contributing technologies that have significantly influenced societal welfare. Collectively, these Senior Members hold over 5,700 U.S. patents and represent more than 100 NAI affiliated institutions globally.
FSU’s inductees for 2025 include Hoyong Chung, Yaacov Petscher, Prashant Singh, and Branko Stefanovic. The university now boasts five Senior Members among its faculty.
“Congratulations to these FSU faculty who have been honored by the National Academy of Inventors,” stated Vice President for Research Stacey S. Patterson. “Their research is effecting meaningful and enduring changes beyond the laboratory. The faculty celebrated by NAI come from four separate colleges within Florida State, highlighting the diverse excellence and influence of FSU educators.”
Chung is an associate professor within the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. Serving in both the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, his research spans conventional engineering fields to deliver significant advancements in polymer science. He holds 16 patents.
He is working on sustainable substitutes for petroleum-based polymers and polymers designed for controlled degradation and recyclability. Although some bio-based polymer feedstocks are available, they frequently encounter obstacles like high costs, limited accessibility, subpar performance, and a lack of techniques for producing high-value functional materials.
Chung has directed efforts toward creating technologies to address these challenges, including a recent innovation that synthesizes polycarbonate from biomass lignin and carbon dioxide, resulting in a highly durable and endlessly recyclable polymer. This technology is currently licensed exclusively to a biofuel company that is leveraging it to utilize lignin byproducts from biofuel production.
Additionally, Chung has developed adhesive polymers that can bond to both internal organs and skin, delivering medications to targeted regions with accuracy and assisting in disease diagnosis. These innovations have been licensed to a biomedical materials firm, presenting possibilities in wound care, drug delivery, and diagnostics.
Petscher serves as the associate dean for research and professor in the College of Social Work, also serving as the associate director of the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR), and director of the Quantitative Methodology and Innovation Division at FCRR. His focus is on measurement, causal modeling, exploring individual variances in reading through intricate methodologies, and creating data-driven assessments and tools to facilitate literacy development.
He leads a team of researchers who implement stringent research techniques and advanced statistical analyses on projects aimed at enhancing social, educational, behavioral, psychological, and emotional outcomes throughout the developmental continuum from infancy to adulthood. Their tools have been licensed to educational publishers for application in schools.
Petscher is a co-inventor on four patents, including a system for employing assessments without formal testing. This initiative is part of a collaboration with Cambium Learning Group, whose Core 5 reading development framework has aided over 18 million students in the U.S. in transitioning from learning to read, to reading for learning.
Singh is an associate professor in the Anne Spencer Daves College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences whose research focuses on the rapid detection of foodborne pathogens. He holds two patents, with eight more pending as a result of his research efforts.
He has conducted groundbreaking research on methods for identifying seafood species and pathogenic Escherichia coli. In his latest research, he devised a swift and economical method to verify the authenticity of seafood samples. His testing solution has been licensed by SeaD Consulting, a seafood corporation aiming to create innovative solutions for the seafood market. Recently, data collected using his seafood testing approach has led to a surge of news reports exposing widespread shrimp species mislabeling.
Findings from Singh’s lab were included in a 2024 filed complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, resulting in new FTC directives for the restaurant industry regarding the illegal nature of misleading customers about seafood origins — helping to assure that customers receive what they are paying for.
Stefanovic is a professor at the College of Medicine who investigates the molecular mechanisms underlying liver fibrosis. He holds four patents for pivotal research advancements that have enabled him to lead the way in developing new antifibrotic drugs targeting essential molecular interactions involved in this condition.
Organ fibrosis is projected to account for 45 percent of all fatalities in developed nations. Efforts to create treatment options for this condition have produced drugs that come with significant adverse effects, rendering them unsuitable for long-term use.
Stefanovic identified the molecular interactions that regulate excessive type I collagen biosynthesis, the protein implicated in the pathogenesis of fibrosis. His research has sparked a new avenue for creating specific antifibrotic medications, designed to precisely target the altered collagen biosynthetic pathway, thus representing pioneering therapeutics in antifibrotic treatment.
Chung, Petscher, Singh, and Stefanovic will unite with other new NAI Senior Members for an induction ceremony during the NAI annual meeting scheduled for June 23-26 in Atlanta.
Visit the NAI website for a comprehensive list of Senior Members and additional information regarding the Senior Members program.
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