Skip to main content

College of Optics and Photonics

UCF Hosts Summer 2023 Commencement Aug. 4-5

UCF will award more than 3,860 degrees during three commencement ceremonies at Addition Financial Arena Aug. 4-5, sending a talent pipeline of highly skilled graduates into careers that are vital for our region and our state. Of the degrees UCF expects to award, 2,986 are bachelor’s, 615 are master’s, 152 are doctoral and 6 are education specialist…

3 Faculty Named UCF Trustee Chairs for 2023-28

new professor has been named and two others reappointed to prestigious UCF trustee chair professorships that recognize faculty with national and international reputations for excellence and with extraordinary accomplishments in teaching, research and service. New trustee chair Ayman Abouraddy and reappointees Aristide Dogariu and Jayanta Kapat are among a handful of faculty members to have…

UCF is Trustee Chair Professor, Inventor Shin-Tson Wu’s Mountaintop

Shin-Tson Wu remains quiet whenever someone pulls out a smartphone or turns on a tablet. He’s too humble to mention that he helped invent the screens they’re viewing. The technology used for the LCD screen is among an astonishing number of patents issued for Wu’s inventions — 96 at last count. In 2014, he was one…

Research in 60 Seconds: Making Molecules Sing to Better Understand Them

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 plan…

UCF Ranks as a Top 25 U.S. Public University for Patents Granted

The University of Central Florida has moved into the ranks of the top 25 public universities in the nation for patents granted, according to the latest report from the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). UCF secured 63 patents in 2022, ranking it No. 52 in the world and No. 23 among public universities in the…

UCF Hosts Spring 2023 Commencement May 5-6

UCF will award more than 9,000 degrees during six commencement ceremonies at Addition Financial Arena May 5-6, sending a talent pipeline of highly skilled graduates into careers that are vital for our region and our state. Of the degrees UCF expects to award, 7,548 are bachelor’s, 1,291 are master’s, 171 are doctoral and 12 are education specialist…

Awardees Announced for 2023 Founders’ Day Faculty Honors Celebration

UCF will showcase more than 200 faculty members for academic excellence and service Wednesday at the Founders’ Day Faculty Honors Celebration in the Student Union’s Pegasus Ballroom. The celebration runs 3-5 p.m. and includes a reception after the formal program. Highlighted are recipients of the Pegasus Professor Award, UCF’s highest faculty honor; recipients of the…

UCF Researcher Creates World’s First Energy-saving Paint – Inspired by Butterflies

University of Central Florida researcher Debashis Chanda, a professor in UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center, has drawn inspiration from butterflies to create the first environmentally friendly, large-scale and multicolor alternative to pigment-based colorants, which can contribute to energy-saving efforts and help reduce global warming. The development was published today in Science Advances as a featured article. “The range of…

2 UCF Professors Honored as Fellows in the World’s Largest Scientific Society

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its Science family of journals. Election as a fellow is a lifetime honor and considered one of the most distinguished recognitions within the scientific community. UCF professors Peter Delfyett and Ronald DeMara are…

Three Optics and Photonics Students Receive 2022 SPIE Scholarships Including Top Honor

n 2022, SPIE awarded $293,000 in education scholarships to 78 outstanding SPIE student members, based on their potential contribution to optics and photonics, or a related discipline. Three University of Central Florida optics and photonics students received scholarships. CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics doctoral student Matthew Cooper received the largest and most prestigious SPIE scholarship,…

UCF Researcher Receives Samsung International Global Research Outreach Award 

Debashis Chanda, a professor in UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center, recently received Samsung’s International Global Research Outreach Award for the year 2022 in the Future Camera and Sensor category. This is the first such award to UCF. The Samsung Global Research Outreach program is designed to foster international technological innovation. The award from the multinational electronics…

UCF Wins Air Force Research Lab Competition

An interdisciplinary team of faculty researchers from CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, and UCF’s physics department has won the opportunity to develop a system that uses photonics to more accurately visualize space debris — an increasing problem since the start of the space age. The UCF team won the National Security Innovation Network…

UCF’s Optics Program Ranked Among Top 25 Best Global Universities

UCF has once again been named one of the world’s top 25 universities for optics, recognizing CREOL, The College of Optics and Photonics, for excellence in research, international collaboration, and contributions to scientific literature. In U.S. News & World Report rankings released this week, UCF’s optics program ranks No. 24 among worldwide universities — positioning UCF among…

Wu Chosen as Academician by Academia Sinica of Taiwan

The clear and sharp resolution of LCD screens is ubiquitous today, but their debut came in part through the hard work of Trustee Chair Professor Shin-Tson Wu, Ph.D. Those contributions to the field of display science and technology were recognized recently by the Academia Sinica (National Academy of Taiwan), which elected Wu as an Academician during their 34th Convocation…

Path to Photonics, Career Goals Shared by Junior in LIA Today Spotlight

Daniel Enix is a junior studying Photonic Science and Engineering at UCF. His path to UCF and future career plans were recently featured for the student spotlight in the March/April 2022 issue of LIA Today. You can read the original article here. (Reprinted with permission.) When you were you first introduced to photonics/electro-optics? “I was first…

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…

Remembering CREOL alumnus Gabriel Popescu

It is with great sadness that we report the loss of CREOL alumnus Gabriel “Gabi” Popescu ‘02, who suffered a fatal collision while riding his motorcycle near his home in Romania on June 16. Gabi, who received his PhD in 2002 under the supervision of Aristide Dogariu, was on the faculty at the University of…

CREOL’s Founding Director, MJ Soileau, Retires from UCF

After devoting over 35 years of his career to UCF, MJ Soileau retired on Friday, June 17, 2022.  MJ came to UCF as the Founding Director of CREOL in January 1987 and spent over a decade building CREOL from a foundling research center into one of the major educational institutions for optics in the world.…

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…

Barron Mills Joins CREOL as Director of Industrial Affiliates

Switching gears in his career was a welcome change for Barron Mills, one of the newest staff members at CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics. Stepping into a new role as the director of industrial affiliates is an opportunity for Mills to apply over 20 years of military experience in a new way. “I…