Jacobs Faculty, Staff Receive SUNY Chancellor’s Awards

The Chancellor’s Awards acknowledge and provide system-wide recognition for consistently superior professional achievement and the ongoing pursuit of excellence.

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities recognizes the work of those who engage actively in scholarly and creative pursuits beyond their teaching responsibilities.

Recipients in the Jacobs School are:

• Kara M. Kelly, MD, professor of pediatrics and chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology
• Jonathan F. Lovell, PhD, SUNY Empire Innovation Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, a joint program between the Jacobs School and UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

The Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching honors those who consistently demonstrate superb teaching at the undergraduate, graduate or professional level.

A recipient in the Jacobs School is Filip Stefanovic, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering.

Nargis Hossain, PhD, MBA, department administrator in the Department of Surgery in the Jacobs School, was honored with the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Professional Service, which honors professional staff performance excellence “both within and beyond the position.”

In her role in the Department of Surgery, Nargis Hossain’s major duties include leading and supervising a team of 12 clerical, administrative and technical staff members, and overseeing special projects and departmental initiatives. Hossain manages and coordinates the department’s budget; develops and writes grant proposals for philanthropic initiatives, as well as assisting with the preparation of materials related to sponsored research; and coordinating marketing initiatives and managing web content.

Moreover, she helps coordinate institutional research, training and educational programs in the department. She develops strategies and policies to improve health care education for UB RISE, a surgical simulation and innovation center, and oversees both the UB Drone STEM Competition and the Surgery Escape Room, which offer local children interactive, hands-on experiences that highlight exciting opportunities in STEM and medicine.

Peers praise Hossain for her work with the next generation of STEM professionals, noting in particular that through her leadership of the UB Drone STEM Competition, she has “provided students from the Buffalo Public Schools with invaluable exposure to the medical field, creating opportunities for them to visit a college campus for the first time and engage in hands-on activities.”

Colleagues call Hossain a tireless advocate for minority representation in medicine who works diligently to strengthen community partnerships. Her efforts to foster inclusivity and equity demonstrate a deep commitment to leadership, problem-solving and serving the broader community, and make her a professional role model within SUNY and in Western New York.

Dedicated to her department and university, Hossain has served on or currently serves on numerous UB committees, including the Department of Surgery’s Social Justice and Health Equity Committee, its Research Council, Strategic Planning Committee, Executive Committee and Leadership Council.

She also served as treasurer of United University Professions Health Sciences Chapter from 2020-22 and, since 2015, has been a mentor with UB’s LeaderCORE program, which helps students develop skills for personal and professional success.

Kara M. Kelly, MD, is hailed by her peers as “an eminent pediatric oncologist and an international leader” in Hodgkin lymphoma biologic research. She plays a major role in developing, conducting and analyzing the clinical trials that have improved how children with cancer are treated.

In 2022, she was senior author on a New England Journal of Medicine paper describing a clinical trial of a new treatment for children with high-risk, advanced stage Hodgkin lymphoma resulting in a nearly 10% improvement in event-free survival. It was the first significant breakthrough for this disease in many decades and resulted in the FDA changing the standard of care.

Kelly is currently principal investigator or site PI on grants totaling $10.8 million from the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Defense, industry and other private sources.

Prior to her appointment at the Jacobs School in 2016, Kelly was a faculty member in pediatrics at Columbia University; her last position there was as the James A. Wolff Professor of Pediatrics.

A Jacobs School alumna, Kelly is also the Waldemar J. Kaminsky Chair of Pediatrics and a professor of oncology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, where she serves as associate director of translational research, care delivery and outcomes. In addition, she serves as associate dean for pediatric translational and population health research at the Jacobs School and program director of the Roswell Park Oishei Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Program.

Earlier this year, she was named to Becker’s Hospital Review’s list of top national leaders in health care.

Since joining UB in 2012, Jonathan F. Lovell, PhD, has distinguished himself as a stellar scholar and excellent educator. He has established multiple patents, pursued entrepreneurial endeavors and secured substantial research funding — all while teaching dozens of undergraduate and graduate courses and developing curriculum.

Appointed a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in 2020 — and promoted to full professor in 2022 — Lovell conducts research on topics including light-activated drug delivery systems, cancer immunotherapy and optically responsive nanomaterials.

He currently serves as principal investigator on projects funded by more than $8 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense that focus on tuberculosis-vaccine development and cancer immunotherapy. In total, his research has garnered more than $16 million in external funding.

As co-founder of POP Biotechnologies, Lovell holds 14 U.S. patents spanning multiple areas — from photoacoustic imaging agents to next-generation vaccine platforms. Many of the technologies developed through his company focus on drug delivery that — unlike chemotherapy treatments — limits potential harm to the body. During the coronavirus pandemic, he developed the EuCorVac-19 that successfully advanced into human clinical trials.

Lovell has written six book chapters and published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals, including Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Chemistry, and Nature Communications. He has also participated in more than 100 scientific conferences and workshops, and delivered the keynote and plenary talks at such prominent international events as the World Vaccine Congress and the American Society for Photobiology.

In addition, Lovell has been lauded as an excellent teacher and mentor who has guided 12 PhD and 10 master’s students to graduation — many of whom have earned prestigious awards and secured positions in academia and industry.

Filip Stefanovic, PhD, is a committed educator and innovative scholar who expertly weaves traditional classroom methods with experiential learning to prepare the next generation of engineers.

Stefanovic worked in private industry and academia in Canada, Serbia and Denmark before joining UB’s Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2015. Over the past decade, he’s made a significant mark on the department, designing four new upper-level courses and integrating additional hands-on experiences and practical applications into existing courses.

His students have had the opportunity to analyze movement in UB’s SMART Motion Capture Lab, learn about rehabilitation technology at Kaleida Health’s Gates Vascular Institute, and design 3D-print and test prosthetic devices.

“Dr. Stefanovic’s teaching does more than impart knowledge,” Ciprian Ionita, associate professor of biomedical engineering and co-director of the Engineering Division at the Canon Stroke & Vascular Research Center, wrote in his supporting letter. “It also encourages students to apply what they’ve learned in innovative ways, preparing them for both academic and professional success.”

Stefanovic has repeatedly received accolades for his teaching methods, including the 2018 School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Best Teaching Faculty of the Year Award, the 2020 UB Student Accessibility in Teaching Award and the 2023 UB Teaching Innovation Award.

And he’s received excellent student feedback. Each of his courses has received an average student evaluation of approximately 4.8 out of 5. Many of his students have gone on to pursue advanced degrees at UB and other institutions, publish articles, win awards and present at conferences.

Stefanovic has also made large strides as a scholar. He’s received four grants totaling more than $450,000, primarily from the National Science Foundation; published 12 journal articles; and presented at numerous conferences. He has one patent, with an additional three patent submissions pending or under review.