About Doctor Pollenz

Richard S. Pollenz earned a BS degree in Toxicology from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (now St. Joseph's University) and a PhD in Cellular, Molecular and Structural Biology from Northwestern University Medical School. He was a tenured faculty member at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) where he was the only faculty awarded the Top Educator and Top Researcher awards. In 2000, Dr. Pollenz took a position in the Biology Department at the University of South Florida. Dr. Pollenz's research program has been funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and focused on aspects of molecular toxicology where he helped establish the field. His research included studies of gene regulation, signal transduction, receptors and the impact of protein degradation mediated by environmental chemicals such as TCDD. His lab published over 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts in many of the top journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Molecular Pharmacology, Journal of Biological Chemistry and Toxicological Sciences. He was named a Fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his contributions to the field of Molecular Pharmacology in 2013. In 2022, Dr. Pollenz was listed by Stanford University in the top 2% of all researchers worldwide, based mostly on the impact of his publications.

Dr. Pollenz served USF as the Associate Dean in the USF Graduate School between 2008-2011 where he developed numerous professional development workshops for graduate students and used institutional data analysis to help inform practices and procedures. He rebuilt and rebranded the USF Office for Undergraduate Research with innovative training and hands-on attention to students and served as its Director between 2011-2016. Under his direction, the USF Undergraduate Research Colloquium, that included research across all disciplines, was one of the largest in the country. USF hosted the National meeting of the Council on Undergraduate Research in 2014.

Dr. Pollenz developed the very successful STEM Academy Program that was funded by the Science Education Alliance (SEA) at Howard Hughes Medical Institute that was designed to empower first-year STEM majors entering the university for maximal engagement and success. Between 2015-2019, nearly > 1,000 Scholars participated in the program many whom engaged in undergraduate research across multiple disciplinary areas. The program resulted in > 90% overall university retention for this diverse group of students due to the increased personal attention and community that the program created. See the publications from Life Sciences Education that discuss the validated analysis of the program outcomes. The program ended when the USF administration decided that they would not contribute funds to sustain it.

Dr. Pollenz was awarded the ability to run the Howard Hughes Medical Institute supported SEA PHAGES program in 2017 (10th cohort) and the SEA GENES program in 2020 (2nd cohort). SEA PHAGES is an authentic research opportunity for incoming first-year students and SEA GENES is an upper level extension of the SEA PHAGES program. Due to the great work of undergraduate in these programs, Dr. Pollenz has developed several research projects that support opportunities for students beyond these programs. Many students from these programs have won prestigious National awards and gone on to outstanding Graduate and Medical school programs. Dr. Pollenz also serves the SEA PHAGES program and has been a trainer/facilitator for new schools and is part of the SMART team that does quality control review of phage annotations each year.

Throughout his career, Dr. Pollenz has been fiercely dedicated to providing an inviting, yet challenging active learning environment for the diverse cohorts of student he mentors. Many of his mentees have won prestigious National awards (Fulbright, Goldwater, AMGEN Scholars etc) and have earned Pharmacy, Medical and Ph.D degrees at top institutions around the world. In a typical year he writes > 50 letters of recommendation for students who are moving onto the next level. He is honored to serve all Phages Hunters!

Doc P sporting the SEA PHAGES lab coat that every student receives for being in the program.