COS Professors Receive UCF’s Most Prestigious Award

To be recognized as a Pegasus Professor is the most prestigious award a faculty member can receive at UCF, and this year the College of Sciences was privileged to have three of its professors honored with this accolade. Deborah Beidel, Humberto Campins and James D. Wright were chosen from the College of Sciences for their contributions to their respective fields of expertise and to the UCF community. The award recognizes extraordinary contributions in the areas of research, teaching and service. Recipients of the award receive a UCF Pegasus statue, a gold Pegasus Professor medallion and a $5,000 check.

Deborah Beidel is a professor of Clinical Psychology in the College of Sciences. She was recognized for her exceptional contributions to the treatment of anxiety in children and veterans.  Dr. Beidel is a national expert in the area of anxiety, specifically anxiety disorders among children. She also has developed a novel approach using virtual reality and distinct smells to help veterans returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan who may be experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Humberto Campins is a Provost Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Sciences and head of the Planetary and Space Science Group. Students at the University of Central Florida have benefited from Campins’ expertise and passion since 2002. Dr. Campins’ research area is astronomy. He studies comets, asteroids and other small bodies in the solar system using a variety of ground based, airborne and space based telescopes. This research is funded by NASA and by the National Science Foundation. One of his current interests is the role that comets may have played in the origin of water and organic molecules on Earth and Mars.

James D. Wright is an author, educator, and the Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology. He also serves as the Director of the UCF institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences. His research interests include homelessness, poverty, inequality, applied and evaluation methods and survey methods. In addition to his University duties, Wright is an active member of the Orlando community.  He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida, the Homeless Services Network, the HOPE Helps Foundation in Oviedo, and several others.