College of Medicine

Dr. Nicole Ennis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences & Social Medicine in the College of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. from Kent State University in 2001 (Clinical Psychology, Health Psychology Track). Dr. Ennis completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Miami through a National Institute of Mental Health training grant focused on biopsychosocial research in immunology and AIDS.

Dr. Damaris Aschwanden is a Post Doctoral Researcher in the College of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology in 2018 from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. During the work on her doctorate, she was a fellow of the International Max Planck Research School on the Life Course (LIFE), a joint international Ph.D. program of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, the Freie Universität Berlin, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, and the University of Zurich.

Dr. Robert J. Tomko Jr. earned his Ph.D. from the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine and completed an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University. His lab probes the basic mechanisms that underpin failure of the cell’s protein quality control machinery in aging-associated protein misfolding diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and type II diabetes.

Dr. Antonio Terracciano received his doctoral degree from the Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli and Università degli Studi di Cagliari. Before joining the Department of Geriatrics, Dr. Terracciano was a staff scientist at the National Institute on Aging, NIH. His research focuses on how psychological traits and genetic factors contribute to physical and mental health across the lifespan. Dr. Terracciano uses longitudinal and cross-cultural methodologies to examine changes in traits with age, from adolescence to older adulthood.

Dr. Angelina Sutin earned her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of California, Davis, and did a postdoc at the National Institute on Aging before joining FSU's College of Medicine. Her work takes an intergenerational lifespan approach to address how psychological factors contribute to health and well-being.

Professor Sutin's lab currently focuses on the role of personality traits in cognitive aging and risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

Dr. Branko Stefanovic joined the faculty of the FSU College of Medicine in August 2002 after serving for eight years as a research assistant professor in the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition in the Department of Medicine at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. After earning his doctorate in molecular biophysics at FSU in 1991, he did post-doctoral training at the University of Bern in Switzerland. Dr. Stefanovic is a tenure track scientist who conducts research in the area of molecular mechanisms of liver fibrosis.

Dr. Jose Pinto earned his Ph.D. in 2006 from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. His research of study was Muscle Biochemistry and Biophysics. He researched as a postdoctoral scholar from 2006 to 2010 at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine, under the mentoring of Dr. James D. Potter. His postdoctoral research focus was on the Molecular Mechanisms of Inherited Cardiomyopathies. In 2010, Dr. Pinto became a research assistant professor until he joined the FSU College of Medicine’s Biomedical Sciences Department in 2011.

Dr. Timothy Megraw received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He investigates the functions of centrosomes and cilia in cell division, development and disease. This includes asymmetric division of stem cells, the regulation of centrosomal and other microtubule-organizing centers (MTOCs), metabolic disorders due to loss of centrosome proteins, and regulation of primary cilium assembly and function. Dr. Megraw’s lab uses Drosophila, mouse, and human cell culture models.

Dr. Martina Luchetti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine at Florida State University College of Medicine. She earned her Master’s Degree in Clinical and Community Psychology in 2009 and her Ph.D. in Psychological Sciences (Clinical Psychology) in 2015 at the University of Bologna, Italy.