A psychology professor’s work at the intersection of people and machines recently earned him the U.S. Army’s Civilian Service Achievement Medal. Pegasus Professor and Provost Distinguished Research Professor Peter Hancock, Ph.D., specializes in human factors, a unique discipline that blends human behavior and engineering. It’s behind the design of everything from medical equipment to smartphones […]
A thermal infrared camera aboard a lunar lander scheduled to head to the moon as early as 2022 could help determine which regions on the lunar surface have water trapped in them. Assistant Professor of Physics Kerri Donaldson Hanna is working with University of Colorado Boulder Professor Paul Hayne on NASA’s Lunar Compact InfraRed Imaging […]
Impactful community research in rural Belize will continue for another three years thanks to renewed funding from the National Science Foundation. The $465,000 grant supports fully funded research experiences for eight undergraduate students and two K-12 teachers each year. The team will perform drone-mapping and citizen science to mitigate flooding and litter in Hopkins Village […]
Students interested in big data science careers will benefit from a new Bachelor of Science degree coming this fall. The bachelor’s in Data Science spans a variety of sub-disciplines within the greater field of data science, including mathematics, statistics, specialized programming and algorithm design. It also teaches students how to draw useful conclusions from data […]
By CHRIS SPINALE and KELVIN CURRY An Orlando chapter of Boys & Girls Club that shares a partnership with the Lou Frey Institute (LFI) recently earned recognition as top club in the state. The 2020 Best Overall Program Impact Excellence Award comes from Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Florida Area Council. It’s awarded […]
Each March, Faculty Excellence honors 31 women for their impact on students and UCF’s campus community. This year, as we continue to charge on during a pandemic, our women faculty have not wavered in their commitments as mentors, role models, friends, researchers and teachers. This blog post will be updated daily during the month of […]
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft that collected a sample from an asteroid 200 million miles from Earth in October, is going to take one final look at the collection site before heading home. In April, the spacecraft will focus its cameras on the site it disturbed when it removed a sample of asteroid Bennu’s soil. The images […]
Viewing fish as a source of global nutrition instead of only as a commodity holds potential to fortify global food security and diminish world hunger, a new international study shows. The paper, published in the journal Ambio, includes an analysis by Professor Peter Jacques, Ph.D, an expert in global environmental politics and ocean policy from […]
UCF has named 23 students as recipients of the Order of Pegasus, the university’s most prestigious student award. The 2021 recipients were selected from a pool of 83 nominations. The 2021 class includes 15 Burnett Honors College students, six LEAD Scholars, six Student Government leaders, three President’s Leadership Council members, one Greek member, one student-athlete […]
Today’s global pandemic was just a worst-case scenario when Deanna Sellnow, Ph.D., and Timothy Sellnow, Ph.D., developed a communications plan for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2006. Still, the husband and wife team, both faculty in the Nicholson School of Communication and Media, are encouraged they could play a part in how […]
Thirty-seven UCF teams will split $1 million in UCF SEED funding to conduct preliminary research the university hopes will lead to bigger individual grants from other agencies and breakthroughs in a variety of fields. The Office of Research and the Provost Office began the pilot SEED program with $1 million last year. Those recipients will […]
UCF is excited to offer spring graduates and their families the opportunity to choose one of two in-person options to celebrate their achievements. Recognitions of graduates will occur April 30 to May 9. Spring 2021 graduates will have the option of either participating in UCF’s Grad Walk or their college’s in-person commencement. Both recognitions will […]
It all started with an inexpensive toy telescope Theodora Karalidi’s father gave her when she was 5 years old. “I looked through it and I was wowed,” says Karalidi, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Central Florida. “To five-year-old me, it was like millions of sparkling stars and I was hooked. Of […]
Doreen Horschig, a doctoral candidate in the Security Studies program, has been awarded the Roger L. Hale Fellowship. This highly competitive one-year fellowship provides an exemplary individual with an outstanding opportunity to develop professional skills by working at a leading peace and security institution. She was also recently accepted into the Nuclear Scholars Initiative by […]
The genetic expertise of University of Central Florida researchers is extending all the way to the land down under in a new study of a unique animal of Australia’s waters – the weedy seadragon. In the study, which appeared recently in the journal PLOS One, UCF researchers helped discover that the weedy seadragon found off […]
An upcoming internship at one of the most storied laboratories in the world represents a big first step into a career as a nuclear scientist for Travis Hager. The Department of Chemistry senior is poised to wrap up two years of study and research under the mentorship of Assistant Professor Vasileios Anagnostopoulos,Ph.D.. Adding to his […]
Like many Central Florida teens, Jonathan Kessluk ’20 got a summer job at one of Universal’s theme parks in 2014. Little did he know that a job working lights for some of the park’s shows, would lead him to a UCF engineering degree and a job at Kennedy Space Center. Kessluk, who graduated in August […]
UCF Alumni has announced its annual 30 Under 30 Award winners. These accomplished graduates were chosen for their great professional success, commitment to helping others and track record of giving back to UCF and their local community. “Every year, UCF Alumni’s 30 Under 30 classes are made up of extraordinary young alumni. This year’s class […]
University of Central Florida researchers are homing in on the cause of a major disease of sea turtles, with some of their latest findings implicating saltwater leeches as a possible factor. The disease, known as fibropapillomatosis, or FP, causes sea turtles to develop tumors on their bodies, which can limit their mobility and also their […]
When Peter Delfyett first fell in love with science during elementary school, he imagined he would grow up to be a paleontologist. Instead, the Pegasus Professor of optics and photonics has spent his career developing futuristic technology. From lasers that are used to cut Gorilla Glass for Samsung phones to fiber-optic cable technology that allows […]
Practicing medicine is as much about compassionate, human interaction as patching up broken bodies. Pre-med graduate Emily Vernet ’20 got a firsthand understanding of this fundamental truth through an undergraduate research project in partnership with the Department of Sociology. The results, which were published in the Journal of American College Health on January 31, 2021, […]
The Mid South Sociological Association annual meetings provide sessions on the cutting edge of research interests. In addition, each meeting includes round tables and panels focusing on professional growth in the areas of teaching, tenure, and applications to graduate schools. The MSSA is one of the most diverse organizations around in terms of the demographic […]
The American Association for the Advancement of Science will induct Pegasus Professor Talat Rahman, Ph.D., as a fellow in an official ceremony this weekend. The storied society traces its history back to the mid-19th century; Rahman shares her fellow status with scientists as varied as Thomas Edison, sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois and anthropologist Margaret Mead. […]
Recent UCF graduate, Michael Greenberg ’20, is the recipient of the January Distinguished Undergraduate Research Award for his work on functionally engineered deoxyribozymes and their biomedical applications. With an interest in the medical sciences, Greenberg dove headfirst into his research opportunity with Department of Chemistry’s Yulia Gerasimova, Ph.D, and her accompanying research group. “A close […]
Mental health clinicians across Florida will benefit from free PTSD training thanks to a new educational scholarship program offered by UCF RESTORES. The scholarships open access to UCF RESTORES’ six-hour, fully online Trauma Management Therapy training course, designed to give Florida-based mental health counselors the opportunity to apply the successful methods used within […]
More than 30 years in the lab advancing our understanding of lasers recently earned Pegasus Professor Peter Delfyett, Ph.D., one of the highest recognitions in his industry: membership in the National Academy of Engineering. While there are other NAE members on UCF’s faculty, this is the first membership earned from work completed at the university […]
NASA has selected a University of Central Florida nanotechnology team as one of seven university groups from around the country tasked with developing ways to stop the negative effects of moon dust during lunar missions. The selection, which was announced recently, is part of a year-long initiative known as the Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, […]
Model United Nations (MUN) conferences have a long history. Dating back to 1921 (then – Model League of Nations), these simulations introduce students to the parliamentary procedure of the organization, increase their understanding of the international order and engage them in discussing crucial matters of diplomacy, human rights, security and humanitarian assistance around the […]
A dream internship with the Smithsonian Institute is where non-traditional student Jennifer Larsen ’20 has put her degree in the Integrative Sciences to work. When she’s not balancing the homeschooling of her two boys and managing a personal disability, Larsen is virtually assisting the data collection in the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, a collaborative […]
In recognition of Black History Month, the College of Sciences asked the Department of Sociology to write a short editorial on its current work to address racism in the workplace. By Drs. Elizabeth Mustaine, Scott Carter, Shannon Carter, Amy Reckdenwald and Yingru Li Committing to anti-racism requires that we not only examine individual-level interactions that […]