The University of Central Florida brings innovation and solutions to some of society’s most pressing problems through research and the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge and avenues for progress.
Thu Feb 27
Amy Lebanoff, a mechanical engineering student at UCF, has the TV show Mythbusters to thank for her passion for engineering and biology. She always admired the Discovery Channel program because the hosts make science engaging, educational and accessible. “That’s a sure-fire recipe for making a positive impact,” says Lebanoff, a Jacksonville native. When she joined a robotics club at…
Thu Feb 27
Should you steal medicine to save someone’s life? That question is the core of the Heinz dilemma. Thanks to Dr. Mark Fagiano, you may soon experience the dilemma in virtual reality. An example of philosopher Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, the Heinz dilemma is a thought experiment on what someone should do in the face…
Thu Feb 27
UCF leads the state and ranks third in the nation for the number of National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipients this year. UCF has nine confirmed awards as of this week and NSF has recommended two more for funding. In Florida a total of 21 awards have been given so far, including four to University…
Thu Feb 27
Overweight and obesity are common conditions in the U.S. pediatric population, but children with autism spectrum disorder are 1.5 times more likely to have these health conditions than their same-aged peers. Researchers at UCF are developing a program to teach children with ASD how to make better food choices. Jeanette Garcia is the lead researcher and…
Wed Feb 26
A new $970,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will allow biologists to deepen their research into the biological makeup of parasitic fungi that hijack the behaviors of their hosts. The five-year CAREER grant also paves the way for Assistant Professor Charissa de Bekker, Ph.D., to develop an upper level insect behavior course and broaden…
Wed Feb 26
. The awards are piling up for UCF McKnight Fellow Karla Badillo-Urquiola ’14 ’15MS who in the past two months has been named a McKnight Award winner and an Order of Pegasus Award recipient. Badillo-Urquiola, a doctoral candidate in modeling and simulation, is committed to academic excellence, diversifying the STEM field and making an impact in her community. Badillo-Urquiola’s research…
Wed Feb 26
For the first time, a team of scientists at the University of Central Florida has created functional nanomaterials with hollow interiors that can be used to create highly sensitive biosensors for early cancer detection. Xiaohu Xia, an assistant professor of chemistry with a joint appointment in the NanoScience Technology Center, and his team developed the…
Tue Feb 25
A University of Central Florida researcher’s novel work in nanoscale antioxidants is continuing to show promise in the medical field, with a new study that shows their effectiveness in helping to heal diabetic wounds. The study, published recently in the journal Acta Biomaterialia, showed that gels containing cerium oxide nanoparticles, whose therapeutic properties were discovered by UCF,…
Mon Feb 24
Speculation about where laws come from ranges from crediting judges and legal scholars to God. However new research co-authored by a University of Central Florida researcher and appearing in the journal Nature Human Behaviour today offers evidence that criminal laws come from an intuitive and shared, universal sense of justice that humans possess. “We sometimes think of…
Fri Feb 21
James Whitworth, associate professor in the School of Social Work, has devoted his career to helping veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Before coming to UCF, Whitworth served as a clinical social worker and mental health officer in the US Air Force for 21 years. He is intimately aware of the challenges veterans face. Veterans have…
Thu Feb 20
Antonio Torres’ research experience fuels his passion – to become an oncologist so he can help cancer patients like his mother.
Tue Feb 18
Conducting research is a vital part of the university experience, which is why the Burnett Honors College is hosting its second Research Match Day from 2-4 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 24, in the Student Union’s Pegasus Ballroom. The free event is intended to help honors students match with faculty who are conducting cutting-edge research in…
Mon Feb 17
University of Central Florida researchers are helping to close the gap separating human and machine minds. In a study featured as the cover article appearing today in the journal Science Advances, a UCF research team showed that by combining two promising nanomaterials into a new superstructure, they could create a nanoscale device that mimics the…
Mon Feb 17
NASA’s New Horizons team, which has been studying the asteroids in the Kuiper Belt, has found more clues about the earliest days of the solar system. “What we found is a remarkable window into the past,” says University of Central Florida Physicist Dan Britt, who is part of the mission. “(Asteroid) Arrokoth turned out to…
Thu Feb 13
Afsaneh Razi is working to develop software that will help keep teens safe from sexual propositions online. She conducts her work in the Socio-Technical Interaction Research (STIR) Lab at the University of Central Florida. Her area of interest is at the intersection of human-computer interaction and machine learning, and she seeks to understand how new…
Wed Feb 12
Days after resuming operations post-earthquakes, Arecibo scientists make rare find.
Thu Feb 6
Physics doctoral candidate John Beetar spends his day studying how electrons interact on an extremely short timescale, called attoseconds. At this scale, electron dynamics are still not very well understood, especially in solid materials. That’s one reason Beetar is driven to conduct his work. He wants to contribute to the understanding of this highly evolving…
Thu Feb 6
Bhimsen Shivamoggi, Ph.D., recently capped three years of research with a publication that presents new ideas about the dynamics of stellar winds. But that’s not what makes him most excited. Shivamoggi is an applied mathematician by trade, but he ventured into the new territory of mainstream astrophysics as an intellectual tribute to his mentor Gene…
Wed Feb 5
If you’re sitting in a downtown office building in a major U.S. city, access to rural healthcare may seem like a distant concern. But consider this: About 60 million people, or more than one in five Americans, live in rural areas, according to the U.S. Census. In Florida, half the counties are rural. Getting affordable…
Wed Feb 5
Atiny piece of a protein could be key to keep breast cancer from growing. A discovery at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine may in the future help detect cancer cells in patients before these cells have a chance to metastasize or spread through the body. Annette Khaled, a UCF professor and cancer…