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UCF’s Highest-achieving Students are Making an Impact through Research
BY NICOLE DUDENHOEFER ’17 Several of the 2019 Order of Pegasus honorees have studied fields as diverse as tidal flooding, migraine headaches, plastic pollution and other topics. Several of the 22 undergraduate students who received the 2019 Order of the Pegasus award, the university’s highest student honor, have participated in research during their time at UCF. This year’s […]
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Upcoming STEM Day Opens Learning Opportunities At Children’s Hospital
There’s not many opportunities that blend marine conservation and medical sciences. So Jacob Hromyak considers himself lucky to volunteer at PedsAcademy at Nemours Children’s Hospital. PedsAcademy is a pediatric school program that provides hospitalized children research-backed educational opportunities. It was founded earlier this year under the leadership of Megan Nickels, Ph.D., an assistant professor of […]
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Mobile Learning Lab Gets Fresh, Updated Exterior
A new mobile learning lab focused on geospatial technologies like maps, apps and drones just edged closer to its public debut with a brand new look. The GeoBus is the vision of Citizen Science GIS, an international research organization led by UCF researchers to enhance public knowledge and application of mapping with geographic information systems […]
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An Invaluable Learning Experience
Every year, more than three thousand students from all over the world gather in New York City to discuss international priorities and issues. All this takes the name of National Model United Nations (NMUN) – the world’s largest and oldest conference in the world simulating the work of the United Nations (UN). A team of […]
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Psychology Lecturer Awarded for Innovative Writing
Martha Hubertz, Ph.D., a lecturer in Psychology, has been awarded the 2019 Schell Award for Innovative Writing in the Disciplines by the Writing Across the Curriculum Program. The program improves student learning through discipline-specific writing instructions. The WAC Program collaborates with UCF faculty from all departments and disciplines to assist with the creation of college-wide […]
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Sociology Club Brings Human Touch To Research
Sociologists research and quantify the way humans treat each other — and the often-terrible results of those actions. But topics like racism, sexism, homelessness and poverty are just words on a screen if you never leave the office. That’s the purpose behind Knights for Social Justice (KSJ), a student-run organization on a mission to put […]
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$750K Awarded To Physics Professor To Improve Online Ed
A UCF assistant professor’s reimagined approach to optimizing online physics education has landed him a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The NSF award to Zhongzhou Chen, Ph.D., lasts for five years. In collaboration with the Center for Distributed Learning at UCF, Chen is developing a series of new online learning modules optimized for […]
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Haiti Trip Confirms Career Path For Pre-Med Student
It’s one thing to dream of one day serving a disadvantaged community. And then there’s actually doing it. Javier Cintron recently had the opportunity to test drive his career goals with a weeklong trip to an impoverished community in Haiti. UCF has had a permanent presence in the rural mountain village of Mare-Brignol through a […]
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UCF Takes Lead on 5-Year, $7.5M Project for Department of Defense
The University of Central Florida is taking the lead on a five-year, $7.5 million investigation into machines that can operate at trillions of cycles per second for the Department of Defense. The grant award comes from the DoD’s highly competitive multidisciplinary university research initiative (MURI), which combines the brainpower of top scientists in their respective fields […]
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COS Faculty and Students Recognized for Outstanding Achievements at Founders’ Day Convocation
The dedication and high quality of instruction provided daily by College of Sciences (COS) faculty was recognized recently at the 2019 Founders’ Day Convocation. COS students were also praised for their outstanding academic work. Multiple faculty received awards for their contributions to teaching and research at UCF. They are: College Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate […]
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New Book Spotlights Food Insecurity
The U.S. has so much food that an estimated 133 billion pounds was thrown away in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. So why are people still going hungry? The root of the problem is “food insecurity,” or inconsistent access to food. So, for instance, someone who can only afford one meal […]
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UCF Marks 1st Year at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico
BY ZENAIDA KOTALA UCF celebrates its first anniversary this month of operating the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The observatory is the first national research center that UCF has led. It is home to one of the world’s most sensitive Incoherent Scattering Radar systems, which detects microscopic fluctuations due to thermal motions in the […]
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College of Sciences Welcomes New Pegasus Professor and Honors Reach for the Stars Recipient
BY ZENAIDA GONZALEZ KOTALA AND ALLISON HURTADO ’12 Two College of Sciences professors were among those honored Wednesday for their dedication to teaching UCF students and their innovation in the classroom. Josh Colwell, Ph.D., was one of four new Pegasus Professors, the highest academic honor a professor can receive at the university. Tim Hawthorne, Ph.D., […]
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U.S. Air Force Taps Psychology Professor For Scientific Advisory Board
UCF is now represented on the scientific advisory board that supplies independent guidance to U.S. Air Force research. Peter Hancock, Ph.D., was appointed recently to the roughly 50-member board, which studies topics considered of critical importance by the secretary and chief of staff of the Air Force. While many members are engineers or provide similar […]
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‘Paying It Forward’ Motivates Distinguished Alumna
Gloria LeQuang, ’97, always wanted to give back to the Central Florida community that gave so much to her. LeQuang, who grew up in Lake Mary, Florida, is the director of marketing and community relations at BRIDG, which is a not-for-profit that provides research and development solutions to bridge technology capability gaps in microelectronics […]
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Research Unlocks Mystery of Premature Brain Cell Deaths
Certain toxic proteins have long been suspected as the culprits killing off brain cells, a process eventually leading to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. But exactly how those proteins were prompting the premature death of the cells was, up until recently, a mystery. UCF researchers developed a method by setting up a synthetic reconstitution of the […]
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2015 Political Science Department 30 Under 30 Awardee
The UCF Alumni Association was proud to host its inaugural 30 under 30 awards dinner Friday, Nov. 20, honoring the outstanding achievements of 30 successful Knights. Nine of the 30 alumni awarded are graduates from the UCF College of Sciences. Young alumni currently make up one-third of UCF’s alumni population, making them the university’s largest […]
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30 Under 30 Awardee Sara Singer ’10
After obtaining her bachelor’s degree from UCF, Sara Singer attended the University of Miami Law School and became an assistant public defender. She practiced criminal defense at both the misdemeanor and felony level and obtained significant trial experience. Currently, she is an associate attorney and practices family law at Brydger & Porras. She continues to […]
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30 Under 30 Awardee Amber Mariano ’17
Amber Mariano made history in 2016 when she became the youngest person elected to the Florida House of Representatives at the age of 21. As an advocate for higher education in the Legislature, she has worked on expanding Bright Futures Scholarship funding, renewing the Florida Prepaid College Savings Plan, and refunding the excess credit hour […]
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30 Under 30 Awardee Arielle Bardzell ’13
Arielle Bardzell ’13 is a corporate attorney practicing at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, a prestigious law firm in New York City. While at Georgetown Law, she represented and advised victims of family violence as a student attorney in Georgetown Law’s Domestic Violence Clinic. She has also been published multiple times in the Georgetown Journal […]
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Attosecond Physics Focus of Upcoming Mini-Workshop
European scientists will be on campus Tuesday, April 2, to discuss the latest developments and future challenges of experimental and theoretical attosecond physics. The mini-workshop, hosted by the Department of Physics, will explore the most current research using attosecond laser techniques to probe the ultrafast electron motion that underlies light-induced chemical reactions in molecular gases, liquids […]
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Professor Recognized For His Work Combating Human Trafficking
A UCF Sociology professor was recognized recently for his work to combat human trafficking in Central Florida. Jay Corzine, Ph.D., received the Polaris Award from the Greater Orlando Human Trafficking Task Force in conjunction with three years of researching criminal trends and patterns among phone calls to hotlines and trafficking survivors receiving services. The task […]
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Ending Human Trafficking In Central Florida Focus Of Three-Day Event
Knights for Social Justice is raising awareness around human trafficking this week with a three-day event featuring panel discussions with local experts and a documentary screening. This week’s events are made possible with the support of McCain Institute. Florida consistently ranks high in the U.S. for human trafficking. Florida is currently third in the U.S., […]
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Global Perspective’s John Bersia Pushed for International Awareness
BY GENE KRUCKEMYER ’73 John C. Bersia ’77, director of UCF’s Global Perspectives Office, a professor of international issues, and a Pulitzer Prize recipient while an editorial writer at the Orlando Sentinel, died Thursday of metastatic cancer. He was 62. Bersia started working at UCF in 2001, later became a special assistant to the president […]
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Locating Happiness: A UCF Psychology Professor Weighs In
Psychology Assistant Professor Kristin Horan, Ph.D., recently contributed to WalletHub’s “2019 Happiest Cities in America.” Horan spoke about the different factors that can affect a person’s happiness, such as political climate, career, age, and income. “They [American Psychological Association] found that almost two-thirds of Americans feel that worrying over the nation’s future was a “significant” […]
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27 UCF Graduate Programs Ranked Among the Top 100 in the Nation
Twenty-seven UCF programs were nationally ranked today in the top 100 of their fields by U.S. News & World Report, and 35 graduate programs total were included in the publication’s 2020 Best Graduate Schools edition. This is a record number of programs ranked for the university. The list shows the university’s upward trajectory in the number of programs […]
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Asteroid Bennu Gives NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission Team Lots of Surprises
BY ZENAIDA GONZALEZ KOTALA Sometimes the unexpected is more exciting than finding exactly what you thought you’d find, and this is indeed the case for the science team involved in NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid-sample mission. This mission, a first for the United States, aims to collect a sample from the near-Earth asteroid 101955 Bennu and bring […]
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International Experts Bring Insights To Kurdish Studies Conference
By Tutku Ayhan On March 1, 2019, the Kurdish Political Studies Program (KPSP) hosted an international and interdisciplinary conference titled “Borders, Identities and Refugees: The Kurdish Experience in the Middle East.” The conference included three panels of renowned scholars and researchers, and a documentary film covering various issues related to the Kurdish experience with […]
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Book Explores Treatment of Mentally Ill in Mexico
The attitudes toward mental illness, treatment options and overall quality of living at a Mexican hospital for the mentally ill provide a microcosm of Mexico’s overall attitude toward the mentally ill, according to a book by Beatriz Reyes-Foster, Ph.D., an associate professor of anthropology. “The question that guided my work is ‘What can we […]
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Compelling Research on Disabilities in Ancient Cultures
A new article in Science Magazine includes a UCF anthropology professor’s research into attitudes ancient civilizations had toward people with conditions like dwarfism and cleft palates. The article reports on research presented at the first Workshop on Ancient Rare Diseases, which was hosted in Berlin, Germany. Overwhelmingly, scientists challenged the conventional view that people with […]