{"id":21463,"date":"2017-05-12T13:36:35","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T17:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sciencescosmaincms.cm.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=21463"},"modified":"2017-05-16T15:52:03","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T19:52:03","slug":"rising-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/rising-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The COS Dean\u2019s Distinguished Researcher and Rising Star Awards recognize the efforts of\u00a0the most \u2018research productive\u2019 faculty and the outstanding value that they bring to their classroom teaching, as well as to the unambiguous value of the research mentorship that they offer to undergraduate and graduate students that are their apprentices.<\/p>\n<p>The applicants must have an outstanding research, scholarly, and\/or creative record that advances the body of knowledge in their field.<\/p>\n<p>The College of Sciences would like to congratulate\u00a0following 2017 recipients:<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_21469\" style=\"width: 272px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/physics\/people\/chang-zenghu\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21469\" class=\"wp-image-21469 \" src=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2017\/05\/Chang-Zenghu-265-e1494522300527.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"262\" height=\"355\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-21469\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Zenghu Chang, Ph.D.<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><strong>Dean\u2019s Distinguished Researcher Award: \u00a0Zenghu Chang, Ph.D.,\u00a0Department of Physics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Chang\u2019s research focuses on one of the frontiers of physics: the generation, characterization, and application of isolated attosecond pulses. His team uncovered a new regime of below-threshold harmonics generation in the vacuum ultraviolet. His work was published in <em>Nature Photonics<\/em> in 2014 and selected for a SPIE Newsroom report. Dr. Chang has published over 170 papers in the field of ultrafast high power lasers, ultrafast XUV\/X-ray science, and strong field atomic, molecular and optical physics.<\/p>\n<p>His notable contributions include inventing the Double Optical Gating for the generation of single isolated attosecond pulses. His group generated the shortest laser pulse, 67 attoseconds, which is the current world record. He is the author of the book <em>Fundamentals of Attosecond Optics<\/em>. His work has been cited over 9,000 times (~2,600 in the last three years), leading to an H-index of 49.<\/p>\n<p>He has been highly successful in garnering research funding, with over $10M in the last three years including as PI of a DOD Multi-University Research Initiative grant. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the Optical Society of America.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_21472\" style=\"width: 272px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/chemistry\/people\/yuan-yu\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21472\" class=\"wp-image-21472 \" src=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2017\/05\/Yuan-New-250.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"262\" height=\"327\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2017\/05\/Yuan-New-250.jpg 250w, https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2017\/05\/Yuan-New-250-240x300.jpg 240w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 262px) 100vw, 262px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-21472\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Yu Yuan, Ph.D.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Dean\u2019s Assistant Professor Rising Star Award: \u00a0Yu Yuan, Ph.D.,\u00a0Department of Chemistry<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Yuan seeks to identify and develop naturally occurring small molecules as potential cancer chemotherapeutic agents and as antibiotics. Candidate molecules should have good potency to kill cancer cells or bacteria and be chemically accessible for extensive modifications in order to achieve favorable drug properties.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Dr. Yuan\u2019s team has set up a drug discovery platform based on a novel peptide teixobactin. This molecule has a unique bacterial inhibition pathway, and the optimization efforts have identified several lead molecules to treat methicillin-resistant <em>S. aureus<\/em> (MRSA) and tuberculosis.<\/p>\n<p>He has been funded by the National Institute of Health and the Gates Foundation. His work is published in high impact journals including <em>Nature Communications<\/em> and has had a notable effect on other researchers. For example, a recent review article described his effort as having turned around the remaining hurdle to the total synthesis of teixobactin.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_21468\" style=\"width: 272px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/math\/people\/gurel-basak\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21468\" class=\"wp-image-21468 \" src=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2017\/05\/Gurel-Basak-250x265.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"262\" height=\"277\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-21468\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Basak Gurel, Ph.D.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Dean\u2019s Associate Professor Rising Star Award: \u00a0Basak Gurel, Ph.D.,\u00a0Department of Mathematics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Gurel\u2019s research lies at the interface between symplectic and contact geometry and Hamiltonian dynamical systems, with a particular focus on the question of the existence of periodic orbits. The study of periodic orbits (i.e., cyclic motions) is connected to many areas of mathematics (e.g., Riemannian geometry, applied mathematics, number theory) and other sciences (e.g., physics and astronomy, chemistry, biology).<\/p>\n<p>Her recent work has focused on the question of the existence of infinitely many periodic orbits (the Conley conjecture). One major difficulty here is that there is no intuitive reason to expect the conjecture to hold or fail, and no method readily applicable to attack the question. Dr. Gurel has sought to investigate this problem from every angle: geometrical, dynamical and topological approaches, proving existence results of a general nature and also concerning particular systems such as the motion of a charge in a magnetic field, and constructing non-trivial examples of Hamiltonian systems without periodic orbits.<\/p>\n<p>Her work has been published in top-tier journals and she has been invited to speak at international conferences and institutions including Stanford and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. She has also received an NSF CAREER Award. A recent publication, \u201cLusternik-Schnirelmann theory and closed Reeb orbits,\u201d was awarded the Acad\u00e9mie Royale de Belgique prize, Concours Annuel, Classe des Sciences, in December, 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The COS Dean\u2019s Distinguished Researcher and Rising Star Awards recognize the efforts of\u00a0the most \u2018research productive\u2019 faculty and the outstanding value that they bring to their classroom teaching, as well as to the unambiguous value of the research mentorship that they offer to undergraduate and graduate students that are their apprentices. The applicants must have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":21481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,35,38,39,12,13,14,28,29,1],"tags":[394,3457,3497,3585,3608,4638,3935],"class_list":["post-21463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards","category-chemistry-departments","category-breaking-news","category-faculty-news","category-mathematics","category-news","category-physics-departments","category-top-news","category-ucf-news","category-uncategorized","tag-basak-gurel","tag-ucf","tag-ucf-chemistry","tag-ucf-mathematics","tag-ucf-physics","tag-yu-yuan","tag-zenghu-chang"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Rising Stars - College of Sciences News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/rising-stars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rising Stars - College of Sciences News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The COS Dean\u2019s Distinguished Researcher and Rising Star Awards recognize the efforts of\u00a0the most \u2018research productive\u2019 faculty and the outstanding value that they bring to their classroom teaching, as well as to the unambiguous value of the research mentorship that they offer to undergraduate and graduate students that are their apprentices. 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