Emerging technology like augmented and virtual reality holds huge potential to increase safety for first responders, but it can do more harm than good if not tailored to their specific needs. That’s where human factors experts like Kate Kapalo, ’20, Ph.D., step in. Today Kapalo brings UCF psychology degrees and years of experience working closely […]
Making people care through the power of filmmaking is Vince Marcucci’s mission. The day after he graduates from UCF with a bachelor’s in film, he’ll show his first documentary series — an 80-minute, four-part feature following a day in the life of four Florida naturalists — during a private showing to cast, crew and local […]
Data science involves much more than crunching numbers, and a new bachelor’s starting this semester reflects the wide range of disciplines involved. Data science is the process of exploring and interpreting the world through data. The Data Science B.S. calls the Department of Statistics and Data Science home, but students in this emerging degree […]
Four University of Central Florida researchers have been named highly cited researchers in their field for 2021 by analytics company Clarivate, based on data from Web of Science. The annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. […]
NASA’s move to develop new destinations in space announced Dec. 2 is an exciting moment in history and UCF is right in the middle of it. UCF is a member of the academic coalition that is supporting Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef project to build a commercially owned and operated space station to reside in low-Earth orbit. […]
Chemistry Professor Michael Sigman, director of UCF’s National Center for Forensic Science (NCFS), will be presenting and leading a discussion at an international conference sponsored and hosted by VERIFIN, the Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, this week. The symposium is a continuation of a series of meetings held worldwide over the […]
The second annual Emerging Artist Festival, hosted in partnership between the Asian Cultural Association and the India Center at UCF, took place November 12, 2021 at the downtown UCF campus. The festival featured a short film competition with entries submitted by filmmakers from the United States and India. The goal of the festival is to […]
Diwali, or the festival of lights, is celebrated to symbolize the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. It is celebrated by various faiths, including most Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists around the world, over a period of 1 to 5 days. Many families decorate their homes and places […]
The UCF Arboretum’s success as a natural refuge from the bustle of campus life happens largely because of committed staff and volunteers, but there’s another ingredient, too. Agency partners such as the Florida Forest Service, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, St. Johns Water Management District, neighboring county natural resource departments, and many other brought together […]
Since the launch of the Learning by LeadingTM (LxL) program at the UCF Arboretum in 2019, the Urban Horticulture team has been busy designing and installing new gardens in the Arboretum Park, which is the 7-acre site surrounding the Arboretum’s main office. The team’s first project, Whittier’s Walk, was a tribute to the Arboretum’s founder […]
This spooky season at the Arboretum, we hosted two fun-filled nights of Halloween events full of carved pumpkin trails, a costume contest, terror trail, monster ball, and more! However, the star of our ghoulie season was our native bat colony, Myotis austroriparius, and they brought the spook! Students got to watch the bats emerge from […]
Hello, my name is Max! I am a 4th year Biology student with an Environmental Studies minor. I began at the Arboretum as a volunteer in 2019, and currently I am one of the Co-coordinators leading the team responsible for managing the greenhouse and developing the nursery. I love taking care of and working with […]
We are excited to reconnect with our friends and supporters through this fall 2021 edition of the UCF Arboretum newsletter. We were disappointed that we were not able to put out a summer newsletter this year, mostly due to the increased demands of our burgeoning program, and our preparations for the first face-to-face semester since […]
Imagine hitting a button and instantly creating a landing pad just moments before descending a rocket onto the moon or an asteroid. That’s the concept behind two research projects underway at the Florida Space Institute at UCF. FSI postdoctoral researcher Douglas Fontes worked with planetary scientist Phil Metzger and Masten Space Systems, a private company, […]
NASA’s mission to test out a technique to deflect asteroids is headed to a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) that the Arecibo Observatory helped identify. UCF manages the U.S. National Science Foundation facility under a cooperative agreement. Despite the telescope’s collapse in 2020, the data collected from Arecibo has played an invaluable role in past and ongoing […]
Growing up with a single mother who suffered from drug abuse and mental health issues, Diamond Whitley was determined to change her trajectory and pursue a path to a better future. Her motivation to go to college started at a young age. Even though her mother wasn’t always present, Whitley was surrounded by people who […]
The University of Central Florida today is one step closer to becoming the first American university to name a research center after the late, world-renowned theoretical physicist Stephen W. Hawking. The UCF’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved on Thursday that UCF’s Center for Microgravity Research, would now be known as the Stephen W. Hawking Center […]
A fascination with human behavior and a deep-rooted curiosity are the foundation of Devyn Escalanti’s academic career. The Security Studies Ph.D. student traces her fascination with political science specifically to a childhood watching political news and satire shows. That blossomed into a public health-security track of study through books like David Quamman’s “Spillover: Animal infections […]
Eileen Zelaya was born in Miami, but she was raised “all over the place” because her father was in the army. From a tiny town in rural Oklahoma to New York and back to bustling Miami, one thing remained consistent: Zelaya’s mother always made room for creativity. She crafted clothes, decorations, tablecloths, pillows, earrings, necklaces […]
Today, a broad coalition of collaborators including UCF received the HPCwire Readers’ Choice award for Best High Performance Computing (HPC) Collaboration across academia, government, and industry. UCF was recognized at the 2021 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis alongside partners Arecibo Observatory, the NSF Cyberinfrastructure the Center of Excellence Pilot (CICoE), […]
University of Central Florida researchers are starting a U.S. National Science Foundation-funded project to identify systemic gender inequities impacting university STEM faculty so that they can be addressed by the institution. The $300,000, two-year project will focus on UCF. The project will study STEM faculty’s perceptions of departmental culture through the frameworks of organizational justice […]
Central Floridians will have a chance to see the longest partial lunar eclipse of the century early Friday morning and it promises to put on quite the show. The best viewing opportunity in Orlando — weather permitting — will be between 3 and 4:30 am. The University of Central Florida will have telescopes out on […]
Rachel Williams ‘13, DVM, is in the business of making big impacts on communities of small animals. The graduate of the UCF pre-veterinary studies program notes there hasn’t been a time in her life where she was inclined to do anything other than take care of critters and creatures of all kinds. While Williams currently […]
Al Sattelberger, Ph.D., regularly surprises chemistry students with how readily he can predict the outcome of an inorganic or organometallic reaction. But that’s to be expected with a resume that spans 44 years — including scientific leadership positions at two DOE National Laboratories. Today Sattelberger is technically “retired”, but the pull of lab work was […]
UCF Physics Professor Humberto Campins has been named a Jefferson Science Fellow and will report to Washington D.C. beginning Nov. 21 to spend a year advising the U.S. Department of State. Campins is an international expert on asteroids. He is part of NASA’s historic OSIRIS REx mission, which is headed back to Earth with a […]
A psychology professor and an engineering professor from the University of Central Florida are among 15 honorees to be inducted Nov. 6 to the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL), a group that brings together the nation’s most distinguished scholars who live and work in Florida. The induction of Pegasus Professors Deborah […]
Vehicular collisions are a common cause of death for animals such as the endangered Florida panther and the state’s black bears, and a new international study has quantified how big of a threat roads can be to the survival of animal populations around the world. The study has identified four animal populations globally that are […]
Every day is a learning opportunity for Franklin Romero Vega, whether it’s in a fast-food kitchen or pursuing a career in nuclear fusion. The physics major’s path to a prestigious internship this fall with the Department of Energy Office of Science is a winding one. But Romero Vega sees each stop on the journey as […]
UCF Junior Kassidy Menk is the Fall 2021 India Center Intern in cooperation with UCF’s Global Perspectives and International Initiatives (GPII). Menk, a Burnett Honors College student and Sigma Alpha Pi Leadership Honor Society Member, is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. On being the India Intern, Menk states: “I am honored to have […]
BY: KASSIDY MENK The India Center hosted Milan Vaishnav, Ph.D., director and senior fellow of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a virtual discussion titled “Crucial Partners: The Future of U.S. – India Relations” on October 15, 2021. Nikola Mirilovic, Ph.D., associate professor in UCF’s School of Politics, Security, […]