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NSU Research History

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Where Research Thrives

Nova Southeastern University was founded as a graduate research institution rooted in the physical and social sciences. Today, as Florida’s largest private research university, NSU is one of only 59 universities recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for both High Research Activity and Community Engagement. We are striving for a Carnegie R1 Research designation and the new rankings are expected to be released in 2025.

We are committed to leading-edge performance across all domains of our research, including health care, biotechnology, life sciences, environment, and social sciences. Our impact on society grows with each new discovery.

Join us as we celebrate recent milestones in NSU Research history.

NSU Research Merits

130
Invention disclosures received
72
Patent applications filed
39
Patents issued, 19 of which occurred from 2020 to 2023

 

2012

The opening celebration of a facility housing the nation’s largest dedicated coral reef research center included a keynote speech by former Vice President of the United States Al Gore. The building would come to be known as
the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center, named in recognition of Guy Harvey’s longtime support for scholarships and research.

Guy harvey oceanographic research center group photo opening celebration

Neuro immune medicine nsu professional

2013

  • NSU opened the nation’s first Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine. By studying individual genes and what they code for, institute scientists can find ways to better understand and treat such complex diseases as chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War Illness, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and long COVID.
  • NSU’s long-term rating of university bonds was upgraded to Baa1 by Moody’s. The university also earned a “Perfect Financial Responsibility Score” from the U.S.
    Department of Education.
  • Named to the President’s Higher Education Community
    Services Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and
    Community Services, NSU received the highest honor a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning, and civic engagement.

2014

  • Florida’s Agency for Healthcare Administration issued
    its approval for HCA East Florida’s application to relocate Plantation General Hospital to NSU’s Fort Lauderdale/Davie Campus. The hospital will be the anchor tenant in the Academical Village.
  • NSU was selected as 1 of only 12 organizations to receive a portion of a $140 million grant dedicated to ongoing research on oil spills and their response from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.
  • NSU received two Title V grants totaling approximately $7 million to help increase the number of Hispanic and other minority students pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Outdoor entrance sign Florida University Hospital

Person conducting a research using microscope

2015

  • NSU launched the NSU Cell Therapy Institute,
    an international collaboration with prominent medical
    research scientists from Sweden’s world-renowned
    Karolinska Institutet to help pioneer cell-based, biomedical research.
  • NSU restructured its colleges, schools, and centers
    (renaming several) with the goal of maximizing and leveraging graduate and professional degree programs
    to attract the best and brightest undergraduate students.
  • NSU medical clinics implemented the medical home
    model and were recognized by the National Committee
    for Quality Assurance as an accredited Patient-Centered
    Medical Home for using evidence-based, patient-centered approaches that focus on highly coordinated care and long-term, participative relationships.
  • NSU’s Biomedical Informatics Program was ranked
    number 6 out of the top 25 in the United States and
    the highest in Florida by BestMedicalDegrees.com.
  • The Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography, created through NSU’s realignment, was named in recognition of the philanthropic support from the Halmos Family Foundation.
  • NSU’s law library was named the Panza Mauer Law
    Library to honor scholarship support from attorneys and
    NSU alumni Thomas Panza and Susan Horvitz Maurer

2016

  • NSU celebrated the opening of the gold LEED certified Center for Collaborative Research, located on NSU's Fort Lauderdale/Davie campus. This 215,000-sq.-ft., six-story facility is equipped with wet and dry labs, five core research facilities, state-of-the-art research equipment, and access to a high-performance computing environment and other resources, such as Florida LambdaRail, a high-speed broadband service delivery network with connectivity throughout the nation.
  • For the first time, NSU made U.S. News & World Report’s
    ranking list of the nation’s Best Colleges, coming in at 214 out of the more than 4,000 colleges and universities in the country. The publication also ranked three of NSU’s online programs among the top in the country: nursing, criminal justice, and education.
  • NSU’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign,
    Realizing Potential, kicked off its public phase with the
    lofty goal of raising $250 million through philanthropy.
    Concurrently, NSU endeavored to raise an additional $300 million in sponsored research, service, and training projects.
  • Community leaders Rita and Rick Case established a
    scholarship endowment to attract outstanding undergraduate students, which led to the university honoring the couple by naming the Rick Case Arena within the Don Taft University Center.
  • The Craig and Barbara Weiner Holocaust Reflection
    and Resource Center opened at NSU’s Alvin Sherman
    Library, Research, and Information Technology Center.
  • The AutoNation Institute for Breast Cancer Research and Care opened in NSU’s Center for Collaborative Research.

Campus drone image

Students outside Tampa campus

2017

  • The Drs. Kiran and Pallavi Family Foundation contributed a $55-million philanthropic gift to make NSU 1 of only 4 U.S. universities with D.O. and M.D. medical schools. The Patels’ additional investment of $150 million in real estate and facilities to develop a new NSU Tampa Bay Regional Campus in Clearwater, Florida marked their commitment as the largest in NSU’s history to date.
  • With an emphasis on marine education and interactive learning, NSU and Broward County Parks and Recreation opened the Marine Environmental Education Center at the historic grounds of the Carpenter House at Hollywood North Beach Park.
  • The Shepard Broad College of Law marked its 40th
    anniversary in part by establishing the Sharon and Mitchell W. Berger Entrepreneur Law Clinic.
  • NSU dedicated the Ron and Kathy Assaf College of Nursing.

2018

  • The Drs. Kiran and Pallavi Patel Family Foundation donated $25 million to NSU’s new M.D. college, which was named the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine.
  • NSU’s Realizing Potential Campaign exceeded its $250-million goal, raising $267 million two years ahead of schedule, making it the largest fundraising effort in Broward County’s history and prompting leadership to roll momentum forward into what will become NSU’s Campaign to Preeminence.
  • NSU’s Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine received funding for two grants from the U.S. Department of Defense Gulf War Illness program. One was for $8 million, and the other was for approximately $1 million. The funding supports continued efforts to study military veterans who suffer from Gulf War illness.
  • NSU dedicated the Gail and Martin Press Health Professions Division Library.

Health group of students studying at desk

nsu marine and ocean researchers on boat

2019

  • After an extensive review process that lasted two years, NSU was granted the honor of having a chapter of Sigma Xi (the Scientific Research Honor Society) installed. Sigma Xi comprises 500 chapters in North America and around the world with 100,000+ total membership.
  • A team led by scientists from NSU’s Save Our Seas Foundation Shark Research Center and Guy Harvey Research Institute, Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, and Monterey Bay Aquarium completed the white shark genome. This was a major
    scientific step to understanding the biology of the great white shark and sharks in general.
  • The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded NSU two separate grants totaling more than $4 million. A $2.7 million grant was allocated toward a research project focusing on deep-pelagic fauna. A second $1.6 million grant went to research on highly migratory species in the Northwest Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico by scientists from NSU, the University of Maine,
    Mote Marine Laboratory, and Auburn University.
  • The Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine received a $3.5 million grant to fund the South Florida Coastal Geriatrics Workforce Enhancement Program
    supporting education and training for the primary care and geriatrics workforce.
  • The Mailman Segal Center received a $500,000 gift from the Kapila Family Foundation to provide scholarships for families who would otherwise not be able to receive the evidence-based clinical treatments provided by the Kapila Family Foundation Feeding Disorders Clinic and the Kapila Family Foundation Challenging Behaviors Clinic.
  • The Shepard Broad College of Law Health Law Program was ranked 56th nationally and the Legal Research and Writing Program was ranked 20th nationally by U.S.
    News & World Report.
  • The Denny Sanford and Horatio Alger Association provided a $1 million gift to support the education of more than 100 undergraduate students enrolled in the
    Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice.

2020

  • NSU merged the College of Arts, Sciences, and Social Sciences and the Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography into the new, combined Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center. The new college offers nearly 30 undergraduate degree programs and has more than 2,500 students.
  • The Marilyn Segal Early Childhood Studies Center now comprises every endeavor at NSU which impacts the well-being, education, and health of young children. It includes everything from the Baudhuin Preschool and NSU University Preschool to specialized programs housed in three colleges and pediatric services provided by NSU Health.
  • NSU was awarded a $4-million federal grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study long-term health issues caused by COVID-19, building on the expertise of NSU’s Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine, which has studied Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other related neuroimmune disorders for years.

Senior lady at child park

Group of people at event

2021

  • The Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center celebrated its 20th anniversary. Throughout its existence, the library has operated as a private-public partnership between NSU and Broward County.
  • Partnering with Broward County once again, the Alan B. Levan | NSU Broward Center of Innovation opened on the fifth floor of the Alvin Sherman Library.
    Within the first year, the Levan Center was awarded a $742,000 grant as part of the U.S. Economic Administration’s “Build to Scale” program and named “Best Emerging Entrepreneurship Center” by the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers.
  • The state-of-the-art HCA University Hospital opened at the Fort Lauderdale/Davie Campus. As part of NSU’s partnership with HCA, the hospital will offer additional learning experiences for students.
  • The graduate counseling program in the College of Psychology received its first-ever eight-year accreditation from the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs.

2022

  • The NSU Drs. Kiran and Pallavi Patel International Dental Program expanded to NSU’s Tampa Bay Regional Campus. The program, intended for internationally trained dentists, occupies a 19,000-square-foot space, complete with simulation labs and a 69-chair student clinic.
  • The inaugural M.D. class graduated from the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine.
  • For the third straight year–including the year of remote learning spurred by the pandemic–NSU’s incoming
    undergraduate class broke enrollment records, with 2,277 students.
  • Halmos College of Arts and Sciences and Guy Harvey Oceanographic Research Center received a $1.2-million
    grant from the U.S. Department of Defense—Office of Naval Research to help protect marine life, mitigate hurricane destruction, and predict the impact of oil spills.

Inaugural md class graduated from allopathic medicine on stage

2023 dental first bullet kawai lab

 

 

 

Students looking through 3d simulation technology

2023

  • The College of Dental Medicine was awarded a $2.3-million grant from the National Institutes of Dental and Craniofacial Research to treat periodontal disease, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. A collaborator on the project is a faculty member from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.
  • Researchers from the College of Psychology and the Barry and Judy Silverman College of Pharmacy received two National Institutes of Health grants totaling approximately $1 million to investigate risk factors and treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
  • Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine received a $1-million grant from the Health Foundation of South Florida to inform the development and implementation of innovative and community-based programs and collect and evaluate data to identify/ address the root causes of health inequity in South Florida. The grant includes participation from the H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship and clinical partners such as NSU Health and Memorial Healthcare System.
  • Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine received full accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME).
  • H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business and Entrepreneurship was accredited by AACSB International—The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
  • Thanks to a major gift in support of ALS research, NSU Health created and dedicated the David and Cathy Husman Neuroscience Institute, the David and Cathy Husman Endowed Chair for Neuroscience, and the NSU Health Cathy J. Husman ALS Center.