TAMPA – The National Academy of Inventors has selected three members of the University of South Florida community as 2025 Fellows — considered the highest professional distinction granted solely to academic inventors.
The professors are: Prasant Mohapatra, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs who also serves as a distinguished professor of computer science; Christian Bréchot, a professor in the Division of Infectious Disease & International Medicine at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine; and Chandrakant Patel, a professor in the USF Institute for Advanced Discovery & Innovation.
Mohapatra has made groundbreaking advances in security and robustness issues in wireless networks and the Internet of Things. He is recognized for pioneering an understanding of how to quantify the quality of surveillance in a wireless sensor network. He has published more than 400 articles, with more than 25,000 citations. Mohapatra, who holds nine U.S. patents and two international patents, is the founder of Airpackets, LLC and co-founder of Mapiz, Inc.
Bréchot was president of the Global Virus Network from 2017 to 2023, where he now serves as vice chair of the board and emeritus president. He cofounded three biotechnology companies, which are developing first-in-class therapeutic approaches to address insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases. Bréchot holds 12 U.S. patents, has authored more than 800 peer-reviewed publications and has been recognized as one of the world’s most cited researchers on hepatitis C.
Patel worked for 38 years at Hewlett Packard, serving as a senior vice president, chief engineer and senior fellow until his retirement in 2024. He shaped advancements in chips, high-performance computing systems, storage, networking, 3D additive manufacturing systems and software platforms. An Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers Fellow, member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame, Patel holds 165 U.S. patents and has published more than 150 papers.