Faculty Awards

UMSL Faculty Research, Creativity and Innovation Awards

Each year, the University of Missouri-St. Louis Office of Research and Community & Economic Development honors outstanding faculty in the areas of research, creativity and innovation.

2026 Early Career Investigator of the Year

Azim Ahmadzadeh, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science 

Dr. Azim Ahmadzadeh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His research focuses on applying artificial intelligence to advance physicists’ understanding of the Sun and the fundamental processes driving its activity. At UMSL, he founded the Earth-Space AI Research Lab (ESAIR), where his team investigates extreme space-weather events with significant societal and economic implications for critical infrastructure and astronaut safety. Dr. Ahmadzadeh's team has conducted novel research on forecasting solar events and evaluating AI algorithms used in this field. He has established collaborative partnerships with leading institutions, including Georgia State University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the National Solar Observatory. Dr. Ahmadzadeh received his PhD and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from Georgia State University. Prior to joining UMSL, he served as a Research Professor at Georgia State University and as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Data Mining Lab also at Georgia State University. Dr. Ahmadzadeh is currently the Primary Investigator on two research projects funded by the National Science Foundation.

2026 Mid-Career Investigator of the Year

Jodi Woodruff, Ph.D.

Associate Research Professor
Missouri Instiute of Mental Health

Shortly after receiving her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Missouri-St. Louis Dr. Jodi Woodruff joined MIMH where she currently serves as an Associate Research Professor. Her research focuses on the use of data-driven methods to inform healthcare practices across systems, teams, and individuals with chronic health conditions such as HIV, severe and persistent mental illness, diabetes, asthma, and cardiovascular disease. Her research team integrates data from public health sources, medical records, and environmental factors to evaluate the effectiveness, safety, and overall impact of healthcare practices, treatments, and interventions. Additionally, they analyze the implementation of interventions in community-based settings to identify practices that yield optimal health outcomes at both individual and population levels. The data and analyses inform medical decision-making, policy development, and the improvement of healthcare systems. Dr. Woodruff collaborates with hospitals, clinics, mental health providers, the state of Missouri, and with researchers at Washington University, Mizzou, UMKC, and University of Washington. Her research has been funded by PCORI, Missouri Primary Care Association, Missouri Behavioral Health, Missouri Department of Mental Health, SSM Health Care System and others generating $1,601,935 in external funding in 2025 and over $13 million in cumulative awards.

2026 Senior Investigator of the Year

Erika Gibb, Ph.D.

Professor & Department Chair
Department of Physics and Astronomy

Dr. Erika Gibb is a Professor of Astronomy and Chair of the Department of Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, & Statistics at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. After earning a PhD in Physics in 2001 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and spending two years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and two years at the University of Notre Dame, she joined UMSL as a faculty member in 2005. She is an astrophysicist who studies the chemical composition of comets using high-resolution, near-infrared spectrographs on various telescopes around the world, particularly Keck and the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility located on Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. She is particularly interested in what comets can tell us about how the molecules necessary for life were distributed through the early solar system and how comets may hold molecular clues to the Earth’s water and to life itself. She has built regional and national partnerships that support student research and developed an outstanding publication record. NSF, NASA Ames Research Center, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. currently fund Dr. Gibb’s work Her work has been consistently funded by NASA and NSF since 2005.

2026 Research Collaboration and Team Science Award

Jalene LaMontagne, Ph.D.

E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Botanical Studies
Department of Biology

Dr. Jalene LaMontagne joined the Department of Biology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) in Fall 2024 as the E. Desmond Lee Professor in Botanical Studies, in collaboration with the Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT), and she is a faculty affiliate with the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center at UMSL. Dr. LaMontagne is a forest ecologist, macrosystems biologist, and global change ecologist, with broad interests in the patterns and environmental drivers of synchrony and variability over space and time – with a focus on tree reproduction (“mast seeding”). She has been studying mast seeding for 25 years and has been a contributing member and leader of multiple international collaborative research groups working on continental to global scale research. In 2025, a paper from the NSF-funded Long-Term Ecological Research Synthesis Working Group led by Dr. LaMontagne was awarded the Robert P. McIntosh Award for best paper in Vegetation Ecology by the Ecological Society of America Vegetation Section. Dr. LaMontagne received her B.Sc. in Ecology and MSc. in Conservation Ecology at the University of Calgary, and her PhD in Environmental Biology and Ecology at the University of Alberta. She is currently the Primary Investigator on three NSF-funded collaborative research projects. She has been consistently funded by NSF and her work has also been funded by USDA and the U.S. Department of Energy.

2026 Arts and Humanities Award

Jill Delston, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy

Dr. Jill Delston is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, director of Graduate Studies for Philosophy and Director of the Graduate Bioethics Certificate. She holds affiliations with University of Missouri System NextGen Precision Health, MU Center for Health Ethics and UMSL Gender Studies. Dr. Delston is a bioethicist, and her research examines medical bias and health disparities, and the ethical use of AI used to predict, prevent, and treat a variety of conditions. Her book Medical Sexism: Contraception Access, Reproductive Medicine, and Health Care has received wide critical acclaim, and her next book Imprecise Medicine: Precision Health Ethics is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in early 2027. She is a contributing author to several books and is co-editor of Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, Eds. 5 and 6. Dr. Delston has published widely in philosophy journals, and her bioethics work has been published in Bioethics. She collaborates with faculty across many disciplines including MIMH, Social Work and Psychology. Delston received her B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining the department in 2012, she was visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Mount Holyoke College. Recent funding includes serving as a co-investigator on NIH-funded research with Rob Paul and internal funding.

2026 Innovator of the Year Award

Claire Wolf, MSW 

Education Director
Community Development & Regional Economic Development; Creating Whole Communities

Claire Wolff, MSW, serves as the Education Director for Community Development & Regional Economic Development and as Director of Creating Whole Communities. In these roles, Claire leads teams that connect university research and resources with community priorities, advancing leadership, belonging, contribution and vitality across Missouri. Her work centers on building civic muscle to strengthen local capacity for change. She is passionate about cultivating place-based leadership and leveraging lived experiences to address complex challenges. She is the co-founder of the Neighborhood Leadership Program that works to build civic leadership capacity and improved decision-making of residents serving on boards and commissions and she is working to expand the reach of this curriculum across cultures and international geographies including South Africa. Before her current roles, Claire served as Director of Community Development at Grace Hill Settlement House and as a Community Engagement Specialist with Old North St. Louis Restoration Group. She holds a BA and MSW from Washington University in St. Louis and is also a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, using a strengths-based lens to support individuals and teams in reaching their full potential. Claire’s work is funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health and the James S McDonnell Foundation.

National Academy of Inventors Inductees

Cynthia Dupureur, Ph.D.

Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Xin Wang, Ph.D., SMIEEE

Professor
Department of Electrical Engineering

Previous Winners

Eligibility and Selection Criteria

External Funding

UMSL research, creative work and innovation is supported by a number of external funders. Learn more about external awards here.

Recognition

Each winner receives $500 dollars and is recognized at the annual UMSL Research, Creativity & Innovation reception event.

Note: Not every award is given each year. No awards were given in 2016 as no recognition event could be held due to budget restrictions.