By: Cassidy Delamarter, University Communications and Marketing
Faculty at the University of South Florida traded classroom lectures this summer for international adventures, embarking on research projects to solve global challenges. From unlocking the secrets of ancient civilizations in Italy to developing cutting-edge technology in Africa, their innovative efforts reflect USF's commitment to enhancing the overall wellbeing of society by advancing research and supporting student success.
Greetings from…
Davide Tanasi, professor and director of the USF Institute for Digital Exploration, spent the summer in the Mediterranean with five graduate students. The team excavated multiple sites in Malta and Sicily.
Malta
USF students and IDEx team members were invited to the U.S. Embassy in Malta for a private reception. Deputy Chief of Mission Ken Toko and his staff gave the team a tour of the compound and explained the work that the ambassador's office does in Malta.
In Malta, they continued their exploration of the Roman city Melite, which is known today as Rabat. They focused on the area west of the Roman Domus - a four-room house that Tanasi and his students identified last summer that was extensively excavated. This summer's efforts revealed the house was located in a lively district with stores and other elegant mansions. The excavations uncovered earlier phases of Roman occupation, beginning in the third century B.C.E., and highlighted cultural exchanges between Romans and the Punic inhabitants.
The site was digitized using terrestrial laser scanning and digital photogrammetry and is available to view online.
During their stay, the team was invited to the U.S. Embassy for a private tour with Ken Toko, the U.S. deputy chief of mission in Malta. "He was very excited about our work and very appreciative, knowing a group of Americans are so invested in doing research in the island," Tanasi said.
Learn more about this project here.
Sicily
Students excavating at the Roman Villa del Casale in Piazza Armerina, where they focused on the site's Medieval reoccupation.
In Sicily, the third excavation at the Roman Villa del Casale in Piazza Armerina focused on the site's medieval reoccupation. In collaboration with Italy's University of Bologna, the team found a 10th-12th century settlement above the villa ruins, featuring houses with kitchens and storage rooms containing two-handled storage jars. Two rare Arab metal amulets with Quranic prayers and an adult skeleton were also found. The site and artifacts from previous excavations were digitized using 3D recording for public outreach.
Tanasi will expand this research through new grants he was awarded from the International Catacombs Society and the Shelby White and Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications.
"Those two grants will open up new opportunities for international collaborations and experiences for our students, as well as advance the knowledge of the Maltese Archipelago in the context of the Roman Mediterranean," Tanasi said.
The International Catacombs Society project will document and digitally map the Late Roman cemetery of Binġemma near Mġarr, Malta, featuring hundreds of rock-cut tombs. The project will use drone mapping and traditional excavation to uncover hidden features and selected tombs. The project begins in September and will take approximately a year to complete.
The grant from Harvard University's Shelby White and Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications will reassess UCLA's 1983-1984 excavations at the Melita Esplanade in Rabat, Malta. These excavations uncovered a Roman commercial district, but were never published, and the artifacts were never studied. The project will use ground-penetrating radar to survey the Melita Esplanade and the area between it, as well as the Roman Domus to visualize the urban layout. The project begins in October and will run intermittently for 12 months.
Madagascar
With funding from the National Science Foundation, a team of USF engineers and public health experts spent the summer in Madagascar. Since 2022, the interdisciplinary team, which includes students, has been working together to improve water quality in Toamasina. The port city has a population of about 280,000 and the water contains more than 10 times the recommended limit of lead.
The three-year grant is led by Mahmooda Pasha, associate professor of public health social marketing; James Mihelcic, professor and director of USF's International Development Engineering Program; and Jeffrey Cunningham, associate professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering. The team is developing a process to improve the quality and safety of the city's water after they identified the source of the lead: The locally manufactured water pumps that were created with melted car batteries.
This summer, the team expanded their efforts by working directly with families to further purify their water by removing disease-causing pathogens. In a separate study, the team recently found stored household water often gets contaminated with fecal bacteria in Toamasina. By analyzing water samples from 10 households and testing three cleaning methods, their findings revealed higher bacteria levels in stored water.
This summer, they continued replacing the water pumps, while also educating families on proper cleaning supplies.
While this trip marked the final stage of the grant, Pasha says they will continue to review their research and publish their findings throughout the upcoming semester.
Learn more about their effort to replace water pumps.
Hawaii
Kaila Witkowski, assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University, and Dougherty with the Maui Food Bank, a group that has been instrumental in meeting the continued needs of Maui residents in the aftermath of the fires.
After the 2023 Maui wildfire - a wind-driven disaster that destroyed more than 2,200 structures and caused about $5.5 billion in damages - Ratna Dougherty, assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs, began examining nonprofit responses and recovery perceptions among residents.
The research is being done in collaboration with Florida Atlantic University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. With funding from the USF Humanities Institute and Natural Hazards Center, the team conducted field work and interviews to determine how cultural and social norms may dictate response and recovery efforts.
The findings reveal that many of the residents stress the importance of preserving the culture of Maui and directly helping the local residents.
"Throughout our time in Hawaii, we saw t-shirts, signs and art with messages of resilience and community support," Dougherty said.
The team will return to Maui mid-August, where their goal is to interview more non-profit organizations and individuals who feel comfortable sharing their experiences and vision for the recovery process. The team hopes to use the images they capture at gallery events to encourage students to learn about recovery efforts and ways they can become involved. This will be the photo component to their research-oriented expansion of the idea that "a picture is worth a thousand words."
The team consists of Christa Remington, assistant professor at USF; Kaila Witkowski, assistant professor at FAU; and Lauren Azevedo, assistant professor at UNC-Charlotte.
Botswana
USF students demonstrating the solar cell enhancements with BIU students.
A group of USF students, consisting of six STEM majors and one social science major from the St. Petersburg campus, spent the spring 2024 semester in Sarath Witanachchi's lab testing a portable renewable energy source for rural Africa. The semester prepared them for a trip to Botswana International University in June, where they trained local students on the technology and conducted further experiments.
The NSF-sponsored project led by Witanachchi, professor and chair in the Department of Physics, combines solar energy and waste heat from burning coal to demonstrate increased energy efficiency.
This is the third year the project is being conducted in Africa with different groups of USF students and BIU students. Witanachchi said the Botswana students, while knowledgeable in basic scientific concepts, have limited experimental experience, and were able to learn from his students.
Joshua Townsend, a graduate student in physics, was the team leader. "It has become a core experience of my own life," Townsend said. "There are so many aspects of other cultures that cannot be understood unless you are submersed in it. This not only gave us clarity for the impact of the work that we do in our everyday research by seeing the prevalence of renewable energy technologies in rural areas firsthand, but also into the lives of fellow students and researchers in other parts of the world and the challenges they must overcome on a day-to-day basis."
Although this is the final phase of the four-year NSF grant, Witanachchi plans to continue fostering respect for other cultures in a meaningful and practical way for his students.
