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Physics Assistant Professor Named UCF’s First Sloane 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 […]
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OSIRIS-REx on Final Approach to Bennu
There’s no better tool to teach students about physics than to see it at work in the real world. That’s why UCF professor Humberto Campins decided to teach this semester despite the heavy research load he knows will be coming. “I thought about taking time off to complete my work for NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission,” Campins […]
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UCF Coastal Working to Find Solutions for our Coastal Communities
By Rachel Stamford Recently, Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency due to red tide, a toxic algae bloom, that is devastating the southwestern coast of Florida. The UCF National Center for Integrated Coastal Research, also known as UCF Coastal, will serve as a mechanism to find solutions to this problem and many […]
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UCF Professor Discovers First-of-its-Kind Material for the Quantum Age
A UCF physicist has discovered a new material that has the potential to become a building block in the new era of quantum materials, those that are composed of microscopically condensed matter and expected to change our development of technology. Researchers are entering the Quantum Age, and instead of using silicon to advance technology they […]
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UCF Researchers Develop App for Farmers
Canadian farmers have a new tool to help them fight pests thanks to the ingenuity of researchers at the University of Central Florida and the University of Manitoba. Researchers, led by UCF Associate Professor of biology Barbara Sharanowski, have developed the Mobile IPM app, which allows farmers to quickly identify crop pests and suggests effective integrated pest management […]
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UCF Physics Professor: Yes, The Rock’s ‘Skyscraper’ Jump is Possible
In the soon-to-be-released film Skyscraper, a war veteran with a prosthetic leg sprints across the arm of a construction crane, launching himself in a seemingly insane jump toward the broken, open window of an adjacent building. The building is ablaze, and his family is trapped in a 240-floor building, above the fire line. Dwayne “The Rock” […]
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Physicist Selected for $750,000 Early Career Energy Grant
UCF physics Assistant Professor Michael Chini is one of 84 scientists across the nation selected today for a Department of Energy grant through the Office of Science Early Career Research Program. Chini, who has been an assistant professor at UCF since 2015 and earned his doctorate here in 2012, will receive $150,000 each year for the […]
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Physicist Works to Make Science Accessible
Jackie Chini is one of the UCF Department of Physics’ most well-funded junior faculty. Her awards from the National Science Foundation total over $1 million, and she’s achieved one of the most prestigious awards: The NSF CAREER Award. It all started in high school in her hometown in rural New Jersey in a physics class. […]
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Society and the Seven Deadly Sins
James Wright is no stranger to publishing, having already written 25 books and over 300 articles and essays. Now, this retired sociology professor adds another publishing success under his belt- as of May 16, his new book, Lost Souls: Manners and Morals in Contemporary American Society, is out in the world! In Lost Souls, Wright […]
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Hawaii Looks at Banning Sunscreen Ingredient Because of UCF Research
A University of Central Florida biologist is seeing a wave of action from his work, which links a certain sunscreen ingredient with the death of coral reefs around the world. Associate Professor John Fauth and a team of international researchers in 2015 published a study that showed the ingredient oxybenzone disrupted coral reproduction and caused bleaching. Coral […]
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UCF RESTORES Clinic Receives $10 million Grant
UCF’s cutting edge RESTORES clinic, which helps people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, has been awarded a $10 million grant to expand its work. The U.S. Army is funding RESTORES to establish programs at Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center in Georgia, Naval Medical Hospital Portsmouth in Virginia and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. […]
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National Geographic Selects State Steward from UCF
UCF Assistant Professor of Geographic Information Systems Timothy Hawthorne, Ph.D., has been named The Florida Geography Steward by National Geographic. As the Geography Steward for the state of Florida, Hawthorne will work with National Geographic staff, government staff, teachers, parents, business leaders and other stakeholders to enhance K-12 geography education and research in Florida and […]
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Helping the Helpers
If you build it, they will come. This isn’t the saying that comes to mind when thinking of a facility dedicated to treating anxiety, trauma and PTSD. But it’s been the case for UCF RESTORES, a one-of-a-kind clinic founded by Deborah Beidel, Ph.D., in 2011. “How do you get over a fear of driving? You […]
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UCF Planetary Physicist Crowned Space Engineering Rock Star
By Zenaida Gonzalez Kotala UCF planetary physicist Philip Metzger has been crowned one of space engineering’s rock stars by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Metzger, who is an associate in planetary science research at UCF’s Florida Space Institute in Central Florida Research Park, was honored with ASCE’s Outstanding Technical Contribution Award this month. The award […]
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UCF on Track to Become National Leader in Space Research
When the University of Central Florida took the helm of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico on April 1, the university entered a new era. “We are forging new ground for UCF,” said Elizabeth Klonoff, vice president for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies. “We already have outstanding research in planetary sciences, […]
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Congratulations, 2018 Pegasus Professors!
UCF’s annual Founders’ Day Honors Convocation celebrates outstanding achievements of the university’s faculty members, staff and students. Among the recognitions this year are five Pegasus Professors, three from the College of Sciences. View a full list of Founders’ Day Honors Convocation honorees. The Pegasus Professor Award is the highest academic honor an educator can receive at UCF and rewards highly […]
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Declining Bee Population to get Helping Hand
Bees are going to get a helping hand next year when a UCF biologist launches her nationwide Bee Wild project. Funded by the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, Barbara Sharanowski will coordinate a nationwide team of citizen scientists who will convert lawns into native wildflower havens especially designed to attract native bees and other […]
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Understanding Charge Transfers in Molecular Electronics
An international research team, which includes University of Central Florida Professor Enrique del Barco and Christian A. Nijhuis of the National University of Singapore, has found a way to understand and manipulate the transition of charges in molecular junctions. A molecular junction connects molecules to two metallic electrodes, such as gold. For electrons to flow […]
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Could This Toy Help Save Our Planet?
By Robert Stephens UCF Professor Fernando Uribe-Romo is merging his love for chemistry and nature to create a new form of energy — artificial photosynthesis — that actually cleans air. The conversation is supposed to be about deep topics like renewable energy, global warming and scientific methods. But less than a minute in, Fernando Uribe-Romo […]
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Opioid Misuse Isn’t White or Black Issue
Although the opioid epidemic has been portrayed in the media as a largely “white” epidemic, a UCF study finds this drug doesn’t discriminate. The abuse of opioids affects whites and blacks almost equally, according to a study led by sociology doctoral student Harvey Nicholson. His findings were recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Drug and Alcohol […]