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Genetic Rescue of Florida Panthers May Have Had Unintended Consequences
The introduction of Texas pumas to Florida in the 1990s as part of a genetic rescue may have helped save Florida panthers from extinction, but it also brought some harmful mutations with it along the way. In a new study led by UCF, researchers show that nearly half of the harmful mutations found in recent […]
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3 UCF Students Selected for 2022 Astronaut Scholarship
Three UCF students have been awarded the highly competitive Astronaut Scholarships this year — raising the university’s student awards from the organization to 54 since 1989. Each year, over 60 students across the country are awarded up to $15,000 each through the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF). ASF awarded its first seven scholarships in 1986, sponsored […]
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Annual Belize Trip Trains Students, Assists International Community
Traveling to Hopkins Village, Belize, feels like a homecoming for Citizen Science GIS after six years of research and community work. Each summer brings a surprise, though. A new degree of urgency was injected into this year’s projects when Associate Professor Timothy Hawthorne, Ph.D., and the student team saw just how badly the beach had […]
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Summer ’22 PhD Graduates Given Warm Send-Off
Doctorate graduates were given a warm and personal send-off Thursday in a longstanding College of Sciences tradition. Remarks by Dean Maggy Tomova, Ph.D., were followed by individual recognition of the Summer ’22 graduates in attendance. A toast sent them forward into their next milestones, which varied from academia to postdoctoral research and national laboratories. Click […]
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Recent UCF Graduates Have Accepted Tenure-track Positions at Top Universities
Getting a tenure-track faculty position at a university has become harder, but several UCF recent graduates are beating the odds. For many students, an academic position is the goal. For others, it’s industry. Getting into academia is challenging. The American Association of University Professors reports tenured faculty positions have declined to approximately only 21% of […]
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UCF Student Selected for International Optica Women Scholars Award
Isabella Pardo has been recognized as one of the first 20 Optica Women Scholars in the world. The award supports women majoring in optics, physics, chemistry, math, or engineering who are pursuing careers in optics and photonics. Launched this past January, the program received more than 160 applications from 36 countries from both undergraduate and […]
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Survey Certificate Program Offers Useful Tools Across all Disciplines
Asking the right questions is one of the key things Sandra Montenegro has taken from the Survey Certificate Program offered by the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs. The I/O psychology master’s student is studying ways to mitigate the emotional toll of bi-vocational church ministers. Often that stress stems from clergy switching between roles […]
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Nanodevice Work Recognized in Top Global Physics Publication
A new research article on molecular devices is making its way to publication in one of the top five scientific journals in the world. The research article was published on the Advanced Materials website and acknowledges the work by Postdoctoral Associate Ran Liu, Ph.D. Physics and Pegsus Professor Enrique del Barco, Ph.D. Physics. Their research […]
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UCF Researchers Eagerly Awaiting First James Webb Space Telescope Images
UCF physics graduate student Olga Harrington Pinto is counting down the minutes until July 12. She is one of eight UCF researchers and one alumna who will be using the world’s mightiest space telescope as soon as NASA gives the go-ahead on Thursday. That’s when final checks on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) should […]
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UCF Student Summer Project: Getting an Early Start on Space Rover Design
Catherine Millwater has been dreaming of space long before arriving at UCF. In 2018, the eager 17-year-old reached out to UCF’s Planetary Sciences Group in hopes they had room for a high school student willing to learn how to be a researcher. Spoiler alert: They did. Millwater, who expects to graduate from UCF in May […]
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World Uniters: Five Knights Receive 2022 Fulbright Awards
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 […]
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Arecibo Observatory Scientists Help Unravel Surprise Asteroid Mystery
When asteroid 2019 OK suddenly appeared barreling toward Earth on July 25, 2019, Luisa Fernanda Zambrano-Marin and the team at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico jumped into action. After getting an alert, the radar scientists zoned in on the asteroid, which was coming from Earth’s blind spot — solar opposition. Zambrano-Marin and the team […]
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Experts Share Insights on U.S.-India Trade
By Kassidy Menk In the Spring semester, the India Center hosted Atman Trivedi, senior vice president at Albright Stonebridge Group and non-resident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council in a virtual discussion titled “D.C. to Delhi: Charting the Course of U.S.-India Trade Relations.” James Bacchus, distinguished university professor of global affairs and director of […]
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Medical Experts in India and the U.S. Discuss Covid-19 Response
In April 2022, the India Center hosted a discussion on the COVID-19 pandemic response in India and the U.S. Associate Professor Varadraj Gurupur, Ph.D., from UCF’s School of Global Health Management and Informatics led a panel discussion with Dr. Anuradha Pichumani, executive director of the Sree Renga Hospital, and Dr. Amitha Marla, medical administrator of […]
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UCF Professor to Moderate State Department Discussion on Planetary Defense
In June, at least five asteroids — some as large as a Boeing 747 — will buzz by Earth, coming as close as 431,000 miles from the planet. Asteroids are always moving through our solar system. Although none of them pose a serious threat to Earth now, they could in the future. As a civilization […]
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UCF Researchers Develop Technology for AI that Mimics the Human Eye
University of Central Florida researchers have developed a device for artificial intelligence that mimics the retina of the eye. The development could lead to advanced AI that can instantly recognize what it sees, like automatic descriptions of pictures taken by a camera or phone. The technology also has applications in self-driving vehicles and robotics. The […]
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UCF RESTORES Receives $1.4 Million to Expand Support, Suicide Prevention Training for First Responders
UCF RESTORES has received a $1.4 million First Responder Regional Support Grant from the Florida Department of Children and Families to expand its nationally recognized peer support and suicide prevention training for first responders in a 12-county region in Central Florida. The award establishes UCF RESTORES — a leading nonprofit clinical research center and trauma treatment clinic […]
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UCF Researcher Receives Department of Energy Early Career Award to Study Elusive Chemical Compounds
A University of Central Florida researcher has been selected for an Early Career Award by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to investigate elusive chemical compounds that could help mitigate the impact of combustion on climate change. The researcher, Denisia Popolan-Vaida, will receive $800,000 for a period of five years to support her research. The […]
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Doctoral Candidate Receives FEMA Advanced Poster Award
BY: SARA BELLIGONI Emmitsburg, Maryland, 9 June 2022 School of Politics Security and International Affairs doctoral candidate Sara Belligoni received the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Advanced Poster Award while participating in the 24th FEMA Higher Education Symposium in Emmitsburg, Maryland. At the Symposium, held at the National Emergency Training Center, Belligoni presented her […]
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Mentoring Work Gains National Recognition for Pegasus Professor
A UCF Trustee Chair Professor and Pegasus Professor in physics was recognized with the American Vacuum Society (AVS) Recognition for Excellence in Mentoring Award for guiding the next generation of scientists and engineers. Talat Rahman, Ph.D. was selected to receive the AVS award to honor her work in mentoring. Rahman was recognized for helping underrepresented […]
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UCF Researchers Are Contributing to World Oceans Day
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 […]
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Artificial Intelligence Holds Promise to Revolutionize Pottery Reconstruction
The time-consuming process of piecing together broken pottery vessels found during archaeological excavations is getting a boost from artificial intelligence. Pottery provides key insights into how ancient people lived, but most archaeological sites uncover pottery in broken sherds. To use this evidence to its full potential requires piecing them back together like a jigsaw puzzle […]
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Study of Civil-Military Relations Leads to Diversity Fellowship for SPSIA Student
Advocating for inclusion and researching civil-military relations are just a few of the things Salah Ben Hammou does in the School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs. The Security Students Ph.D. student became interested in politics at the age of 14 after observing the Arab Spring, a series of anti-government protests in the 2010s that […]
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What Is Allyship? And Other Questions You May Have
While Pride Month is a time to recognize and celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, it’s an important time for allies to reflect on their efforts in support of these individuals. Being an ally is not a self-asserted identity, it is one that people within a community assign to others based on their efforts to combat and raise awareness for issues affected individuals face, says LGBTQ+ Services Director Michael Nunes […]
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NASA Selects UCF for $35 Million Mission to the Moon’s Mysterious Gruithuisen Domes
NASA today tapped UCF’s dynamic duo, planetary scientists Kerri Donaldson Hanna and Adrienne Dove, to lead a $35 million science mission that will land a spacecraft on a part of the moon never visited before — the Gruithuisen Domes. The domes, located in the western portion of the Imbrium basin rim, remain a mystery to […]
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Research in 60 Seconds Video: Examining Effective Crisis Communication
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 […]
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SPSIA Awards Two Graduate Students for Outstanding Work
The School of Politics, Security, and International Affairs recently recognized two graduate students for outstanding work in the terms of Summer and Fall 2021 and Spring 2022. Andrew Boutton, Ph.D., the MA Program Coordinator, chaired the committee that selected Gabriella Cuber and Craig Wilding to receive the Outstanding MA Thesis and Pollock-Ellsworth Award for […]
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5 UCF Scholars to be Inducted into Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida
Five University of Central Florida scholars are among 15 honorees selected for induction to the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL), a group that brings together the nation’s most distinguished scholars who live and work in Florida. With the induction of Grace Bochenek ’98 PhD, UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright, Demetrios Christodoulides, […]
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UCF’s Planetary Science Rock Stars Guests at MegaCon 2022
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 […]
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Controlled Arboretum Burns Lead to Discovery of new Grass Species
A new grass species was discovered in the UCF Arboretum thanks to regular controlled burns that mimic nature’s wildfire season. Sporobolus osceolensis is a type of dropseed grass sensitive to fire-stimulated flowering, according to Florida ecologists Edwin Bridges and Steve Orzell, who identified the blooming grass in 2018 on one of UCF’s prescribed burn sites. […]