Over the coming months, planes carrying five UCF Knights will land on various runways thousands and thousands of miles from home. The five will stroll off those planes into the purpose of the Fulbright Program for which they’ve been selected: to work, live, and learn with others on the ground. For them, the ground will […]
One of Florida’s most precious resources is its water from the aquifer to the 8,436 miles of coastline, boarded by the Gulf of Mexico, the Straits of Florida, and the Atlantic Ocean. Water is also a major player in the state’s economy, contributing $56 billion to the economy and generating 900,000 jobs according to a […]
If you’re a space expert you know your science but explaining it in a way that excites the public is not always easy. Several of UCF’s faculty are rock stars in both areas, which is why they are back at Megacon this year. Megacon is the Southeast’s largest science fiction and pop culture convention attracting […]
A few phenomena will occur as the audience settles into Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday, April 9. This is what happens when you drift into the seagrass with clown fish: Breathing eases. The blood pressure drops. Stress goes poof. For this two-hour show in the middle of […]
UCF planetary scientist Noemí Pinilla-Alonso was recognized as Orange County’s Distinguished Resident for 2022 during a surprise ceremony on March 28. The county says the award aims to spotlight individuals who “with their work or their actions, exemplify collaboration, innovation and inclusion.” Pinilla-Alonso became a resident of Orange County in 2015 — when she joined […]
UCF graduate student Huntir Bass, who is pursuing a master’s degree in math, knows the power of math to solve problems. And she’ll be presenting about the project at UCF’s annual Student Scholar Symposium, the cornerstone of Student Research Week. “Since I was little, I have always gravitated towards math,” says the Mobile, Alabama, native. […]
Twenty-six students — ranging in disciplines from engineering to biology to education and others across the institution — have been named as 2021-22 recipients of the Order of Pegasus, UCF’s most prestigious student award for those who display incredible academic achievement, university involvement, leadership and community service. This year’s honorees joined UCF already having accomplished […]
By HEATHER LOVETT The University of Central Florida’s graduate game design program is the best in the world for the third straight year, according to The Princeton Review and PC Gamer magazine. The Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA) has garnered the top spot, coming in ahead of New York University, Southern Methodist University, the University […]
Senior Katelyn Yarbrough of the UCF Department of Psychology has a mission to end the harmful misconceptions surrounding mental health diagnoses. That mission got a boost recently when she was invited to the Florida Capitol to present her research on anxiety, depression, eating disorders, ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder. “I’m looking to create dialogue about […]
An ingenious idea born out of a research lab at the University of Central Florida has led to a growing operation that is having a direct impact on space exploration. Chances are that some of the equipment landing on the moon and the methods that will be used to grow food or build shelter, will […]
Thirty-two teams representing colleges across the university and several centers were selected for 2022 Seed Funding awards, the third year the program has been available to faculty. The program, a result of a collaboration between the Office of Research and the Office of the Provost, is aimed at facilitating research, which is likely to attract […]
Every year, UCF Human Resources organizes a ceremony for faculty and staff to gather and recognize USPS and A&P employees who make the university such a great place to work. At the Knight Star Awards, honorees include employees celebrating years of service milestones, retirees and recipients of the USPS Employee of the Year Award and […]
UCF Knights conduct research around the globe to help understand and conserve wildlife. To celebrate World Wildlife Day, launched on March 3 by the United Nations in 1973 to help raise awareness about how people benefit from “fauna and flora,” we asked our Knights and our faculty to share some pictures from their field work. The […]
David “Jamie” Poissant kicked off UCF’s third Authors Celebration with a story about how he hated reading as a child and eventually became an associate professor of English and published author. Poissant was one of 47 honorees at the celebration Tuesday, March 1, at the Live Oak Room on main campus. The celebration, held every […]
A chemistry faculty member’s passion toward offering affordable course materials recently earned her the inaugural AIM High Student Nomination award. Lecturer Julie Donnelly, Ph.D., was nominated by a student for the AIM Knight’s Choice Award, which recognizes UCF faculty members that help reduce curriculum costs. “Students shouldn’t face barriers to getting the information they need […]
The four-year project is a collaboration between the laboratory of Michael Leuenberger at UCF and the laboratory of Dirk R. Englund ˙at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It’s funded by a $1.1 million-dollar grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). “The goggles that currently exist in the field are too heavy and bulky,” […]
Thanks to a trio of donors with a passion for supporting the state’s marine life , the new boat debuting this spring replaces a 1976 craft reaching the end of its lifespan. “I always joke our bimonthly team building exercise is fixing something on the boats,” says Kate Mansfield, an associate professor and director of […]
By ASHLEY CULLINS UCF Alumni has announced its annual 30 Under 30 Award winners. They are inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers, athletes, academics, teachers and nurses on the frontlines of the pandemic, and more. Each member of the 2022 class has demonstrated great professional success, a commitment to helping others, and a track record of giving back […]
UCF was recently tapped to participate in a national training program that strengthens the capacity for data-based research among historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic serving institutions (HSIs). This initiative builds evidence-based research through data analysis to promote the success of Black and Latino students in postsecondary education. The Leveraging Big Data to […]
Beginning this summer 10 undergraduate students from across the nation will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience working with UCF biologists to see how they conserve, restore, and communicate what they do and why it matters. The U.S. National Science Foundation has recently awarded UCF $369,000 over three years to run the new program. […]
Innovation at UCF is not an exception; It is the expectation. In 2021, U.S. News and World Report ranked the University of Central Florida as the 15th most innovative university in the United States — of the top 30, it was also the youngest. The classification drew from a survey of top college administrators, asking […]
BY RACHEL WILLIAMS ’15 ’20MA UCF’s high-quality online programs were recognized today by U.S. News & World Report, which ranked the university No. 7 in the country for Best Online Bachelor’s Programs. Those rankings include UCF Online’s Psychology Bachelor’s Degree, which reached No. 6. This year’s overall ranking is up seven spots from No. 14 just last […]
For the first time ever, two individuals with UCF affiliations have been awarded the Charles B. Rangel Graduate Fellowship and the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship in the same year. These are both highly coveted fellowships that give the recipients the opportunity to work as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. Department of […]
A University of Central Florida researcher will be leading a new project to use nanotechnology to advance research in the detection and mitigation of emerging animal-borne infectious diseases. The project is funded by a $50,000 grant from national philanthropic foundation Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The funding is part […]
Whether it’s solving the world’s biggest problems or investigating the potential of novel discoveries, researchers at UCF are on the edge scientific breakthroughs that aim to make an impact. Through the Research in 60 Seconds series, student and faculty researchers condense their complex studies into bite-sized summaries so you can know how and why Knights […]
UCF research stories were everywhere in 2021 from Smithsonian magazine to The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. The most popular research stories of 2021 focused on threats to our survival and opportunities to advance our species — from the impact of sea rise to technology that promises to propel our exploration of the solar system. […]
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. […]
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 […]