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Mission Reveals New Details About Saturn’s Rings
BY ROBERT WELLS | JUNE 17, 2019 Researchers are offering glimpses into the nature and composition of Saturn’s legendary rings by using data from some of the closest observations ever made of the main rings. Even though NASA’s Cassini spacecraft’s mission to Saturn ended in 2017, scientists are still poring over the copious amounts of data it […]
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Nuclear Sub Visit Opens New Opportunities For Physics, Engineering Students
A recent trip to San Diego by two UCF professors sets up new opportunities for students interested in nuclear physics. Both Physics and Engineering were represented on the visit to the U.S. Navy’s submarine base, with Robert Peale, Ph.D., representing the former, and Sam Richie, Ph.D., bringing the Engineering perspective. The pair headed home to […]
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Research Holds Life-Changing Potential For Malnutrition Victims
Research underway in the National Center for Forensic Science carries life-changing potential for people suffering from malnutrition or exposure to hazardous toxins. Malnutrition is the source of a host of health issues, including zinc deficiency. Low amounts of the mineral can delay growth in children, suppress the immune system and even cause brain damage. The […]
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Three College of Sciences Faculty Receive NSF CAREER Awards
BY ZENAIDA GONZALEZ KOTALA College of Sciences faculty represented half of the six grants awarded in the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development’s highly competitive CAREER program. The recipients represent some of the most promising early career scientists and engineers with high promise of leading major advances in their respective fields and who will serve as […]
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Professor Remembered For Changing Lives With Research
Professor Emeritus of Sociology James Wright, whose research was central to a modern understanding of poverty and homelessness, died Monday. He was 71. Wright was a prolific writer and academic, with more than 200 journal articles, 10,000 citations and 22 books to his name. He was also recognized as a Pegasus Professor in 2013 […]
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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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$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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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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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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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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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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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 […]
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UCF Research Laying Groundwork for Off-World Colonies
BY ROBERT WELLS Before civilization can move off world it must make sure its structures work on the extraterrestrial foundations upon which they will be built. University of Central Florida researchers are already laying the groundwork for the off-world jump by creating standards for extraterrestrial surfaces. Their work was detailed recently in a study published in the […]
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Seven COS Faculty Among UCF’s 2019 Women’s History Month Awardees
BY FACULTY EXCELLENCE UCF Faculty Excellence has chosen 31 women to honor during Women’s History Month, which begins today. The national observance was started in 1981 to recognize women who have shown a commitment to humanity and our planet. At UCF, these women have helped shape the university from its beginnings until today. For more […]
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Puerto Rico Research Hub Officially Opens Its Doors
The Puerto Rico Research Hub welcomed the public and the academic community to its new office space Wednesday at an official open house. Director Fernando Rivera, Ph.D., repeated his pledge to use the research expertise of the hub to improve the lives of the Puerto Rican community. “We want to be accessible. Our goal […]
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UCF Researchers Uncover Florida’s Past Before It’s Lost to the Sea
BY ROBERT WELLS As Florida’s Space Coast moves into the future, University of Central Florida archaeologists are taking a look back at some of the historic sites there before they succumb to erosion and rising seas. “People don’t realize how interesting it is and how valuable it is for our institutional and social memory to […]
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Physics Assistant Professor Named UCF’s First Sloan Research Fellow
By Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala Xiaofeng Feng has been named a Sloan Research Fellow, the first for the University of Central Florida. The award recognizes early career scientists that demonstrate high promise. Past Sloan Research Fellows have gone on to do big things. Collectively they have received 47 Nobel Prizes, 17 Fields Medals in mathematics, 69 […]
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UCF Film Professor Plays Huge Role in African-American Cinema Past and Future
By Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala Anthony Major, an associate professor of film at UCF, has spent more than four decades creating films that depict slices of the African-American experience in the United States. As an actor, producer, director, documentary filmmaker and professor, Major has worked with well-known actors such as Brad Pitt, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Redd […]
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Forensic Database Opens New Opportunities To Capture Sexual Assailants
Researchers from the University of Central Florida are a step closer to giving law enforcement officials a new tool to help track down rapists and other sexual offenders. Forensic scientist Candice Bridge, Ph.D., has spent the past two years leading a team in the development of a database detailing the chemical makeup of common […]
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Gizmodo Taps Anthro Prof for Take On Dangerous Food
Quick. What’s a hefty fruit that can not only kill you with the wicked one-inch thorns on its thick exterior, but is so sulfurous on the inside that eating high concentrations could also prove lethal? If you guessed Southeast Asia’s durian fruit, you’re right. It was also Ty Matejowsky’s choice when he was approached by […]
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Bottle Collection Sparks Lifelong Passion for Archaeology
Amanda Groff was certain in high school she had found the lost city of Atlantis. It was plotted on a map right next to all the ancient sites she would visit as a future archaeologist. “I was fortunate to grow up with a lot of curiosity in me. And I was doubly fortunate to […]
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Top European University Taps Physics Professor for Visit
A UCF Physics professor was honored this summer with a visiting professorship at one of the top universities in Europe. Alfons Schulte, Ph.D., spent two months at the Technical University of Munich as an August-Wilhelm Scheer visiting professor. The professorship is awarded to scientists with high international research reputations seeking to collaborate with TUM researchers. […]
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UCF Selling Experimental Martian Dirt — $20 a Kilogram, Plus Shipping
The University of Central Florida is selling Martian dirt, $20 a kilogram plus shipping. This is not fake news. A team of UCF astrophysicists has developed a scientifically based, standardized method for creating Martian and asteroid soil known as simulants. The team published its findings this month in the journal Icarus. “The simulant is useful […]
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UCF Lecturer’s Service-Learning Research is Cover of Academic Journal
By Rachel Stamford A UCF chemistry lecturer’s pioneering service-learning research on sucralose in the Orlando Easterly Wetlands has put her on the cover of a premier academic journal. Dr. Emily Heider was a postdoctoral research assistant at the University of Central Florida developing sensors to detect mercury in water before she was hired in 2015 […]
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The 2018-19 Distinguished Speaker Series is Here!
The UCF College of Sciences Distinguished Speaker Series is back for its fifth edition. Starting in September, six speakers will present on new technology and research in their respective fields. The 2018-2019 series will be held monthly (excluding November and December) at the Tuscawilla Country Club from September 2018 to April 2019 at […]
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Digging Up Rosewood
Anthropology visiting lecturer Edward Gonzalez-Tennant, Ph.D., spent the last decade of his life researching what happened almost a century ago in Rosewood, Florida. The recent release of his book, The Rosewood Massacre: An Archaeology and History of Intersectional Violence, and the last remaining house from Rosewood that was just put on the market, have brought the town […]
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Researchers Receive $1.25 Million Grant to Map Marine Ecosystems With Drones
By Rachel Wimmer You may soon be able to spot UCF drones collecting data all along the Pacific coast — from Baja California to Alaska. Timothy Hawthorne, assistant professor of GIS in the Department of Sociology, and his collaborators at the Smithsonian Institution, Cornell University and the University of California-Davis recently received a $1.25 million grant […]