Interview with VP for Research,
Dr. Stacey Patterson
BY: Nicole Viverito | PUBLISHED: December 5, 2022
We sat down with Florida State University's new Vice President for Research, Dr. Stacey Patterson, to learn more about her immediate goals for her new role, the journey that led her to Tallahassee, and the people who inspired her along the way.
What do you hope to achieve in your first 6 months here?
In the first 6 months, I’m really trying to meet as many people and learn as much about FSU as I can. I want to see how this wonderful university engages with the Tallahassee community and the potential areas where we can have the greatest impact on our local community, on this region, and on the nation. I’m thinking about how the Office of the Vice President for Research can help to support and move those things forward. That’s really what I’m hoping to achieve in the first 6 months – to get a really good picture in my mind and then articulate that to the broader FSU community, about what our vision and plans will be to help take FSU Research and Creative Activities to that next level.
What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about FSU so far?
One of the most endearing parts about FSU is the people – it’s a very welcoming, collegial community. It’s also a beloved institution in this region and in Tallahassee. People love FSU. They’re very passionate about it. They believe in the overall mission and it’s clear to me that everyone is behind President McCullough’s vision to take us to this next level. The expanded emphasis on research, scholarship, and creative activities, and seeking membership in the AAU, will really help FSU have an even greater impact on the state.
You mentioned in your Open Forum presentations that you decided at 8 years old you wanted a PhD in Microbiology. What’s the longer story there?
My dad always talked about a high school friend named Dr. Lola Stamm. She did a PhD in Microbiology and served as a faculty member in Public Health Microbiology at UNC Chapel Hill for decades and is now an Emeritus Professor. I didn’t know Lola growing up, but my dad spoke so highly of her and had so much admiration for her that I told my grandmother at 8 years old, “I’m going to be Lola.” I didn’t meet Lola until graduate school and now we connect about once a year at professional meetings and we stay connected via social media. But I’m really nothing like Lola, in fact. She served as an inspiration to me, unknowingly, and I think that’s an important part of what we need to do. People need to see themselves in their mentors, they need to see people who look like them, so they can see that they can actually do that, too. This is one of the reasons why Diversity and Inclusion initiatives are so key, because people need to see themselves in the leaders that they aspire to be.
"People need to see themselves in the leaders that they aspire to be."
Do you have any advice for first generation aspiring researchers and entrepreneurs?
My advice would be to find a mentor. Find somebody you aspire to be like. Meet them. Hear their story. Hear lots of people’s stories. But also, be willing to lean forward and take a little risk. Sometimes that’s hard when you’re first generation – I was a Pell grant student who grew up without a lot of means. So, taking a risk is harder because you don’t have a safety net. I would also say, always stay true to yourself and determine what your principles are. For me, that’s being honest, working hard, and being direct and willing to share my thoughts and ideas pretty openly. Those are some things that I live by. As long as people stay true to themselves and don’t break their own rules, everything will work out.
Can you share a moment early in your research career that wound up defining your trajectory?
Early in my PhD, I had a meeting with a company out of California that was interested in some of the technology that the laboratory I was working in was developing. My project was very early stage at that point, and my PhD adviser said to the company, “On a risk factor of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest risk, Stacey’s project is probably an 8 or a 9.” I thought to myself, “Wow, I wish you would have told me that earlier.” But what that moment did for me was that it gave me an opportunity to see that what I was doing was leaping forward in a way that others hadn’t in the past. Because I was able to take that risk and complete that project, that work ended up being the foundation of the start-up company 490 BioTech. The collaboration with that company ended up being a license for some other technology I had developed. That was really the start of my interest in translational research and the importance of taking basic ideas and translating them into products and services that can change the world. Really understanding the importance of that, getting excited about it, feeling the adrenaline of that collaboration and what it could mean really changed the trajectory of what I thought I wanted to do in my career.
"That was really the start of my interest in translational research and the importance of taking basic ideas and translating them into products and services that can change the world."
How would you describe 490 BioTech to someone who knows nothing about autobioluminescence?
490 BioTech is a company that is focused on taking the autonomous bioluminescence enzyme system, which is a bacterial enzyme system, and putting it in multiple cell types to measure metabolic activity. We developed different cell lines to be used in high-throughput drug efficacy screens, we’ve used them as cancer models in mice – a variety of different applications at this point. I would say the technology was a little bit ahead of its time. There was 20 years of literature that said what 490 BioTech is doing was probably impossible. So, the fact that we were able to get that going was really exciting. It’s mostly a company that’s focused on developing research tools for companies and universities, and someday we hope to be in all of the catalogues and have cell lines that are easy to get a hold of. The goal is to really change the face of how we look at different drug screenings or metabolic pathways.
Who is one influential person you would like to have dinner with and where would you eat?
My influential person is my grandmother. She just passed away 3 years ago. She raised me and she made the impossible possible for me. I would just love to be able to tell her one more time that I love her and tell her what an impact she had on my life. She was influential to me and to our entire family – she was the rock. Her favorite restaurant is a place in Fairmont, West Virginia called Muriale’s. It’s a hometown Italian place. I would definitely take her there because she loved Muriale’s.
Final thoughts.
I just want to thank the FSU Community for such a warm welcome. We have a lot of work to do, lots of opportunity, and I’m just really excited to be a part of the future here.
Nicole Fearnbach Viverito | Research Development Coordinator for Health & Life Sciences | Office of Research Development
Dr. Nicole Fearnbach Viverito specializes in research development for the Health and Life Sciences, with an emphasis on increasing competitiveness of grant proposals to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other health-oriented funding agencies. She also coordinates the Mock Review Panel Program.
Prior to joining the Office of Research Development, Nicole was an Assistant Professor in the Clinical Sciences Division at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, after completing a T32 postdoctoral fellowship. She was a USDA NIFA predoctoral fellow during her PhD in Nutritional Sciences at Penn State. She received her bachelor's degree in Exercise Science from Florida State. During that time, Nicole was a member of the Flying High Circus and now serves as the President of the FSU Circus Alumni Association.
