USF St. Petersburg today announced the appointment of Professor Tiffany Chenneville as the Marie E. and E. Leslie Cole Endowed Chair in Ethics.
Chenneville, professor and chair of the Psychology Department, was nominated for the position and a committee of USF College of Arts and Sciences professors from the St. Petersburg and Tampa campus unanimously recommended that she be awarded the endowed professorship.
“I’m just absolutely thrilled,” said Chenneville. “It’s an exciting opportunity to focus my efforts in an area that is really important to me and where I’ve done work in a variety of different contexts, including research, teaching and service.”
The endowed chair was created in 1990 with a $500,000 gift from Edward L. Cole Jr., a former St. Petersburg mayor and City Council member, which was combined with a $100,000 gift from Florida Progress Corp. and a matching $420,000 contribution from the state of Florida. Cole served as St. Petersburg mayor from 1985 to 1987. During that time, city officials agreed to spend $11.8-million to buy 35 acres for the expansion of USF St. Petersburg’s campus.
The holder of the position is responsible for organizing and hosting an annual public symposium in the field of ethics and is expected to engage in research, as well as academic and community initiatives, on the subject. The endowed chair was previously held by Philosophy Professor Hugh LaFollette, who retired in May 2019.
“Any holder of the chair will necessarily be a well-published and well-regarded scholar whose work focuses on ethics,” said Dr. Magali Cornier Michael, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at USF St. Petersburg. “Dr. Tiffany Chenneville is such a scholar, with expertise in the field of ethics in terms of scholarship, teaching and service to her profession. She is highly deserving of holding the Cole Endowed Chair and I am confident that she will work energetically to promote ethics and new initiatives focused on ethics.”
Chenneville teaches ethics at the undergraduate and graduate level and currently serves as the vice-chair of the American Psychological Association Ethics Committee. In addition to her duties at USF St. Petersburg, she holds a joint appointment in the USF Department of Pediatrics, where she serves as a behavioral health consultant for the Pediatric and Adolescent Infectious Disease program.
Her research centers on pediatric and adolescent HIV with a focus on the psychosocial issues affecting children and youth living with perinatally and behaviorally acquired HIV.
Her many research activities include a $1.2-million program funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fogarty International Center to help build the infrastructure for research ethics committees in medical schools in India. Chenneville also received a Fulbright Specialist Award to conduct training and consultation on ethical issues related to HIV research and treatment among minors at the perinatal HIV research unit at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa.
She has published extensively on ethical issues related to integrated care and HIV, including the decisional capacity of children and adolescents to participate in medical treatment and research, the confidentiality versus duty to protect dilemma facing mental health professionals treating clients with HIV and HIV criminalization. In 2017, Chenneville published “A Clinical Guide to Pediatric HIV: Bridging the Gaps between Research and Practice.”
Her contributions have been recognized through many awards and honors, including the USF World Global Achievement Faculty Award for International Research; the USF Faculty Outstanding Research Award; the USFSP Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research; the USFSP Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Service; and the USF Outstanding Faculty Award.
Chenneville earned her undergraduate degree in Psychology from USF, a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from the University of Hartford, a master’s degree in School Psychology from USF, and a doctorate in School Psychology from USF.