USF, Draper Sign Affiliation Agreement
The University of South Florida and Draper Laboratory have signed an affiliation agreement that formalizes and expands upon their existing relationship to collaborate on research and development.The agreement, which was signed by USF President Judy Genshaft and Draper President Jim Shields, also enables Draper’s Florida staff to serve as adjunct faculty members at the university, allowing more effective collaboration between Draper and USF, including access to USF equipment and laboratories and co-supervision of student research.
“The partnership between the University of South Florida and Draper Laboratory has been a productive and promising one, and we look forward to even greater discoveries and innovations to come,” said USF President Judy Genshaft. “This partnership is an excellent example of what can be achieved when research entities work together and leverage their strengths to confront some of the world's most challenging diseases and medical disorders.”“This agreement deepens Draper’s already strong connection with USF,” Shields said. “It will help us expand our collaboration on biomedical engineering, and position us to move into new areas of joint research as well. Being affiliated with a university of USF’s caliber strengthens our Florida operations, which play a critical strategic role for Draper’s future.”
Draper opened its Biomedical Engineering Facility on the USF Campus in 2009, and also operates an MCM Facility in St. Petersburg. USF and Draper currently collaborate on projects including development of devices to study the life cycle of malaria and therapeutics to treat the disease. That work is conducted under a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Draper and USF are also collaborating as part of a national consortium studying ways to integrate all sources of medical data to provide real time decision support to clinicians in intensive care units and emergency rooms.The University of South Florida is a high-impact, global research university dedicated to student success. USF ranks 50th in the nation for federal expenditures in research and total expenditures in research among all U.S. universities, public or private, according to the National Science Foundation. Serving more than 47,000 students, the USF System has an annual budget of $1.5 billion and an annual economic impact of $3.7 billion. USF is a member of the Big East Athletic Conference.Draper Laboratory, which celebrates 80 years of service to the nation in 2013, is a not-for-profit, engineering research and development organization dedicated to solving critical national problems in national security, space systems, biomedical systems, and energy. Core capabilities include guidance, navigation and control; miniature low power systems; highly reliable complex systems; information and decision systems; autonomous systems; biomedical and chemical systems; and secure networks and communications.