Awards

Awards and Grants Earned by Students

  1. Mark Wasuwanich received the award for the Most Outstanding Presentation at the Dr. Nelson Ying Orange County Science Fair. His presentation highlighted research conducted in the Vaida’s laboratory on 2D nanostructured photocatalytic materials for solar fuel generation (February 2018)
  2. Cody Jordan recives the UCF-OUR Student Research Grant for the proposal “Exploration of Charge Carrier Dynamics of TaS2 Nanoflakes on MoS2” (Dec. 2018)
  3. Trong Nguyen and Nikki Marrow received UCF-OUR Student Research Grant for the proposal “Ammonia Synthesis using Hexagonal Boron Nitride Catalysts with Au and Ag” Nanoparticles (Dec. 2018)
  4. Trong Nguyen received a research grant from the UCF-Burnett Research College for the research proposal “Mechanicistic Understanding of NH3 Synthesis on Novel 2D-Nanostructured Catalysts”, (Dec. 2018)
  5. Cody Jordan earned the second poster prize at 2019 FL-AVS Symposium (2019)
  6. Md Afjal Pathan received the third prize at 2019 AVS Short Course on Surface Science and Nanomaterials (March 10, 2019)
  7. Aakash Gupta earns a research grant from UCF-OUR for his project “Tracking ultrafast uni- and bi-molecular photoinduced reactions at surfaces with femtosecond extreme ultraviolet laser pulses” (Jul 2019)
  8. Md Afjal Pathan and Nikki Marrow received the grand prize for poster presentation at 2020 FL-AVS Symposium: Nikki Marrow, Md Afjal Khan Pathan, and Mihai E. Vaida, Synthesis and characterization of two dimensional TaS2 layers on Cu(111), Florida Chapter American Vacuum Society (March 2020)
  9. Md Afjal Pathan received third prize at AVS short course on Catalysis and Catalytic Materials (March 2020)
  10. Aakash Gupta received the third place in the Astrochemistry section at the AVS 2020 International Twitter Poster Competition for a poster presentation “Aakash Gupta, Md Afjal Khan Pathan, and Mihai E. Vaida, Investigation of Photoinduced Reaction in H2O Ice Layers using Femtosecond Soft X-Ray Lase Pulses, (Jul. 2020)
  11. Keith Blackman received the UCF Graduate Studies Summer Mentoring Fellowship (May 2021)
  12. Corine Smith received UCF-OUR Student Research Grant for the proposal “Enhancing the stability and efficiency of catalytic materials consisting of cerium oxide decorated with Pt single-atoms” (Dec. 2021)
  13. Corine Smith received the grand prize for poster presentation at 2022 FLAVS Symposium: Corine M. Smith, Sasha N. Berriel, Keith Blackman, Ariel Tarrago, Emily Martinez, Muktar Hussain, Parag Banerrjee, and Mihai E. Vaida, Cerium oxide thin films decorated with Pt clusters: Understanding the effect of cluster size and substrate composition on CO adsorption and oxidation, Symposium of the Florida Chapter of American Vacuum Society (Orlando,  FL, May 2022)
  14. Corine Smith received the UCF Distinguished Undergraduate Researcher Award, 2023 (Aug. 2023)
  15. George Turner received UCF-OUR Student Research Grant for the proposal “Understanding the effects of gas-phase pressure on the ultrafast molecular dynamics of surface reaction species” (Sept. 2023)
  16. Eric Segrest and Alejandro Rodrigues receives the UCF Distinguished Undergraduate Researcher Award, with the proposal “Understanding the carbon-carbon bond formation on copper-based catalysts that lead to high-value chemicals (Sept. 2024)
  17. Sebastian Cimino receives the UCF Distinguished Undergraduate Researcher Award, with the proposal “Investigating and Improving the Thermal Stability of Single Pt Atoms and Clusters on Two-Dimensional Materials and Ultra-Thin Films as part of the Student Research Grant” (Sept. 2025)
  18. Alejandro Rodriguez was honored with the 2025 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) by the UCF Office of Undergraduate Research, to facilitate his research endeavors within Vaida’s laboratory during the 2025 Summer semester (April 2025).
  19. Keith Blackman received the College of Sciences Dissertation Research Support Award (Feb. 2026)
  20. Eric Segrest won the Judges’ Choice Award for his poster Concurrently monitoring ultrafast surface and gas-phase dynamics in solid–gas interfacial reactions, presented at the 2026 UCF Student Scholar Symposium (April 2026)