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UCF Experimental Space Dirt Used by NASA, Private Companies to Advance Space Exploration
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 […]
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Recipients of the 2022 Seed Funding Program Announced
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 […]
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COS Employees Honored For Years of Service, Performance Excellence in 2022 Knight Star Awards
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 […]
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PHOTOS: Knights Celebrate World Wildlife Day
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 […]
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Faculty Honored at UCF’s 3rd Authors Celebration
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 […]
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Movie Maker Finds True Calling in Teaching Next Generation of Film Students
Associate Professor Robert Jones has more than 50 productions to his name as a filmmaker —and he’s not content to keep all that experience to himself. Jones moved to Los Angeles in 1991 like so many before him with big dreams to become a famous director. And, like so many others, Jones found himself looking […]
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Commitment to Affordable Curriculum Earns Chemistry Faculty Member Inaugural Award
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 […]
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UCF Researcher to Collaborate with MIT on DARPA Night-vision Project
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,” […]
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Ballot Education Video Produced Through Partnership With Lou Frey Institute, Orange County
A collaboration between the Florida Supervisors of Elections and UCF’s Lou Frey Institute will leave first-time voters feeling a little less overwhelmed when stepping up to the poll. The videos stem from a law passed July 1, 2021 by the Florida legislature requiring students to show competency in understanding the state’s uniform ballot system. That […]
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Florida Sea Turtles Get a Boost with Gift of New Boat
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 […]
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UCF Names 2022’s 30 Under 30 Alumni Award Winners
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 […]
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UCF Joins Program to Strengthen Data-based Research at Minority-serving Institutions
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 […]
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Computer and Political Science Mesh For Fresh Perspective on Redistricting
Politics has always been a point of passion for graduate Craig Wilding, M.S.’21, who is using his background in the computer sciences to make an impact on the local political landscape. Wilding recently won the Maps Across America “Redistricting Contest,” where he was tasked with redistributing a population of over 21.6 million people in a […]
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UCF Selected for New NSF Student Research Program in Conservation, Restoration, Communication
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. […]
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Pushing the Boundaries
Kathleen Loftin ’89 ’00MS ’09PhD is in her happy place on a Saturday morning: pulling weeds in her garden. The work is peaceful, filthy, and as down to earth as you can possibly be. “Papayas grow without much effort,” Loftin says, sounding more like a wonder-struck gardener than the center chief technologist at Kennedy Space […]
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UCF Researchers Share Their Insights into Innovation and Inspiration
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 […]
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UCF Alumnus Ranked Among Top Laser Scientists in Global Communications Competition
Fiber optics and other communications channels continue to evolve toward faster speeds through the work of physicists like John Beetar, ’20, who was recently nominated for the Carl E. Anderson Division of Laser Science Dissertation Award. “The goal for the research was to take industrial laser technology and find a way to employ it for […]
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Associate Provost for UCF Downtown Named
The new associate provost for UCF Downtown is a seasoned academic leader and distinguished criminal justice scholar who helped launch the campus in Fall 2019. The appointment of Ross Wolf ’88 ’91MPA ’98EdD by Michael D. Johnson, provost and executive vice president for Academic Affairs, elevates his role from assistant provost for UCF Downtown that […]
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New Virtual Reality Lab Opens Fresh Psychology Research Avenues
A new advanced virtual reality system in the Department of Psychology expands the experimental capabilities of researchers studying human behavior. Virtual reality is prized for its capacity to recreate immersive real-world environments without compromising safety or the high costs linked to building and maintaining physical sets. It also offers the flexibility to quickly change parameters […]
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UCF Student Nanotech Team Designs Space Suit Material for NASA Competition
A group of six University of Central Florida students and alums from a range of fields designed and won the Best Technical Poster award as finalists in NASA’s recent Lunar Dust Challenge. They received the honor after NASA’s 2021 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge Virtual Forum in November 2021. As part of NASA’s […]
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Online Psychology Degree Hits No. 6 Nationally In New U.S. News and World Report Rankings
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 […]
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Beloved Psychology Professor is Remembered By Colleagues for Kind Heart
A beloved psychology faculty member who was often the first introduction to UCF for new students passed away over the 2021-2022 Winter Break. Associate Lecturer Paula Reynoso, Ph.D., began teaching at UCF in 2003, primarily at the Valencia West (Metrowest) campus. Her broad range of courses were primarily for undergraduates, giving her the privilege and […]
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Two Knights Awarded 2022 Foreign Affair Fellowships
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 […]
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Viral Videos Lead Film Grad to Produce Series With Comedian Bill Burr
A former UCF film student’s viral videos recently landed him a dream gig producing a dark comedy TV series narrated by comedian Bill Burr. UCF alumnus Tyler Falbo, BFA ’14, created, wrote and directed the series, then collaborated with Burr and comedian Bobby Lee to bring “Immoral Compass” to life. The stories are often crude […]
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UCF Scientist with Stake in James Webb Space Telescope Closely Monitoring Unfolding Mission
Planetary Scientist Noemi Pinilla-Alonso has become addicted to NASA TV because of its live feeds of the James Webb Space Telescope mission. The telescope, more than 20 years in the making and after multiple delays, launched on Dec. 25, 2021. The telescope is traveling quickly to reach its destination — 900,000 miles away from Earth […]
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New Funding Will Help UCF Researcher Develop Nanotech to Detect Animal-Borne Diseases
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 […]
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Fall ’21 Ph.D. Grads Given Warm Sendoff In Return of Longstanding COS Tradition
Eight doctorate graduates were given a warm congratulations and sendoff Thursday in a continuation of a longstanding College of Sciences’ tradition. The final toast was led by new COS Dean Maggy Tomova. Click here to see the full gallery of photos. Below is the full list of Ph.D. graduates for Fall 2021. Security Studies Tutku […]
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UCF Research in 60 Seconds: Understanding the Impact of Diversity
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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Graduation Marks Major Milestone for Student Veterans
The educational and career journey often looks different for those who chose military service. Meet three student veterans — Bryce Frase, Margarita Figueroa and Craig Plummer — who all served our country and are now preparing to graduate from UCF. Despite their different ages, careers, service branches and learning modalities, they’ve found a home and […]
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UCF Develops the World’s First Optical Oscilloscope
A team from UCF has developed the world’s first optical oscilloscope, an instrument that is able to measure the electric field of light. The device converts light oscillations into electrical signals, much like hospital monitors convert a patient’s heartbeat into electrical oscillation. Until now, reading the electric field of light has been a challenge because […]