University of Central Florida faculty members are the foundation of the university. They energize students, academic programs, research and service through academic excellence and innovation.
Thu Apr 8
Here are the 2021 honorees: Students Awards Founders’ Day Award Ryan Polk, College of Arts and Humanities Isabella Bustamante, College of Community Innovation and Education Riley Shurack, College of Health Professions and Sciences and Burnett Honors College Jaylen Brown, College of Business David Wright, College of Sciences and Burnett Honors College Chloe Geller, College of Engineering and Computer Science Cathy Le, College of Medicine Chloe…
Thu Apr 8
When Ken Hanson began working for a TV station in the Middle East in the â80s, he had no idea that his experience creating content across a war border would come in handy for teaching his online classes more than 30 years later. Hanson, who has been teaching Judaic studies at UCF since the early â90s, became…
Wed Apr 7
This year’s Reach for the Stars honorees really live up to the award name. They are tackling some huge problems and are conducting research that betters society and improves the possibilities of the human race. The five honorees are: making space travel safer to expand our species’ reach into the galaxy; figuring out how to…
Wed Apr 7
Five UCF faculty members have been chosen for this year’s Pegasus Professor award, the university’s highest faculty honor. Professors who receive this distinction have well-established careers at UCF and beyond, with national and international recognition for their impact on their area of expertise. The group of Pegasus Professors crosses all disciplines from playwrights who captivate…
Wed Mar 31
Thirty UCF graduate programs and areas have been recognized among the nation’s best, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2022 Best Graduate Schools Rankings. UCF’s Master of Emergency and Crisis Management program placed No. 2 in the nation for the second consecutive year. The program is the only one in Florida to rank in the top 10 in…
Wed Mar 31
Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz is a renowned interdisciplinary artist and associate professor who seeks to use art as a medium for social awareness and change. As a woman of Puerto Rican descent, she creates from an autobiographical place that reflects what she has endured and witnessed. In her most recent art project, she considers the topic of violence against…
Tue Mar 30
10 Years in Botswana Karen Biraimah, a UCF professor of curriculum and instruction, has traveled to Africa for more than 50 years focusing on educational equity – exploring factors of race, ethnicity, class and gender – within an international context. She first taught on the continent through the Peace Corps in Ghana, and since that time…
Mon Mar 29
Not many people may imagine that an expertise in applied mathematics would make someone a “rock star.” But UCF mathematics Professor Bhimsen Shivamoggi is certainly a celebrity in the world of physics these days. American Scientist magazine this month notified Shivamoggi that a blog featuring his work — the first systematic theoretical formulation to describe the…
Mon Mar 22
The National Academies of Practice (NAP) has inducted Veronica Decker, DNP, MBA, APRN, PMHCNS-BC, FNAP, assistant professor in the UCF College of Nursing, in the Class of 2021 Distinguished Fellows (FNAP). Fellows were recognized in a virtual induction ceremony during the NAP Annual Meeting & Forum on Friday, March 19, 2021. Decker was honored as a…
Mon Mar 22
From sleeping on her apartment floor as an early career physician to preparing astronauts for spacewalks, Esther Beltran has never given up following her passions. Her advice to others: Never stop dreaming. Beltran is the director of space medicine and life sciences at the University of Central Florida’s Florida Space Institute. At UCF, her projects include…
Mon Mar 22
Michele Gill founded the Galileo School for Gifted Learning to create a learning environment where children can thrive. “All children can learn given the right circumstances. I wanted to create a school culture where students and teachers could learn and work in a safe, nurturing environment that gave them âvoices and choices’ in the learning…
Fri Mar 19
The Florida Academy of Sciences today named UCF Biology Professor Linda Walters its 2021 Medalist during its annual conference. The Academy, which is an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, honors one Floridian each year based on the nominee’s contributions to the advancement of science and outstanding efforts to share that…
Fri Mar 19
UCF RESTORES, which began as a government-funded research initiative in 2011, has grown to serve as an invaluable resource to the Orlando community, the state of Florida and beyond. The nonprofit’s unique approach to treatment — including the first-of-its-kind (in the U.S.) three-week intensive outpatient program — combines exposure therapy, emerging technology, and one-on-one and…
Thu Mar 18
When Bethany Backes isn’t testing new recipes in the kitchen with her two young daughters, perfecting her famous pumpkin bread or cheering on her favorite college sports teams, she’s focused on something much more intense — researching violence against women. Backes joined UCF’s Violence Against Women faculty cluster in 2019. In addition to her position within the…
Thu Mar 18
Professor Mindi Anderson, inaugural director of UCF’s Healthcare Simulation graduate program in the College of Nursing, today was named 2020 Educator of the Year by the International Society for Simulation in Healthcare. An educator for more than two decades, Anderson was an early pioneer in adopting healthcare simulation in academic settings and today is one of the…
Wed Mar 17
Sharing the news of a miscarriage can be a difficult conversation, particularly with younger children. As a board-certified OB/GYN with decades of practice experience, College of Medicine faculty member Dr. I. Cori Baill knows firsthand the stress of an early pregnancy loss on a family’s youngest members, and often wished she had a resource to…
Tue Mar 16
A psychology professor’s work at the intersection of people and machines recently earned him the U.S. Army’s Civilian Service Achievement Medal. Pegasus Professor and Provost Distinguished Research Professor Peter Hancock, Ph.D., specializes in human factors, a unique discipline that blends human behavior and engineering. It’s behind the design of everything from medical equipment to smartphones…
Tue Mar 16
The history and tradition of excellence at CREOL, College of Optics and Photonics, is detailed at length in a new publication from Information Display, the official magazine of the Society for Information Display. The article appears in the January/February edition, and charts CREOL’s origins in the 1980s as former Florida Gov. Bob Graham’s vision for a high-tech…
Tue Mar 16
A faculty member and an alumnus are among the newest class of fellows named by the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE). The honor goes to Professor Axel Schülzgen, Ph.D., who studies and specializes in fiber optics. He is already a fellow in the Optical Society of America; his awards at UCF include the…
Mon Mar 15
Four of every 10 college students reported not registering for a course due to the high cost of textbooks and other required materials, according to a 2018 survey by the Florida Virtual Campus. Faculty from across UCF have worked with the Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) to cut student costs through the Affordable Instructional Materials…