UCF in the News

WESH 2's Stewart Moore sat down with Jennifer Cicia of UCF's Center for Autism and Related Disabilities to discuss water safety. This comes after 3 children between the ages of 3 and 6 died in Central Florida drowning-related incidents. UCF-CARD aims to provide support to the Central Florida area, including Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Sumter and Volusia counties. More information on the organization can be found here. UCF-CARD is also holding a wandering and drowning prevention event. Register here to learn what steps could help save your child's life.

President Donald Trump’s ambition to establish a permanent American presence on the moon faces a costly challenge: figuring out how to keep astronauts alive, powered and supplied hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth. Building a lunar base will require reliable electricity, radiation-protected shelters, communications networks and systems to deliver food, water and equipment, according to NASA. While the agency aims to return Americans to the lunar surface in 2028, construction of a permanent outpost capable of supporting extended stays is not expected to begin until 2032 or later, according to NASA. The new push toward the Moon could create a new “lunar economy” in the coming decades. “If the American government is committed to long-term presence on the Moon, then we can easily do it,” Philip Metzger, a planetary science research professor at the University of Central Florida and director of the Stephen W. Hawking Center for Microgravity Research and Education, told the DCNF. “The current NASA budget is only about 1/3 of a penny per dollar of the federal budget, so we could easily afford to do more, including a lunar base. However, the most sustainable way to do this would be to bootstrap commercial businesses on the Moon. The business cases right now are shaky, but as transportation costs come down and as technologies mature, there are many commercial business cases for the Moon, and I’m sure they will be successful. The government is in a great position to make that happen.”

Natural infrastructure such as wetlands, salt marshes, and sand dunes can play a significant role in protecting coastal communities from floodwaters. But what type of natural infrastructure is best for each community? A group of interdisciplinary researchers from the University of Central Florida, Utah State University, and East Carolina University aim to answer that question through a new four-year project funded by the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS). This is one of three national projects that were funded under the NCCOS Effects of Sea Level Rise program. The total award amount is $1.5 million, with UCF receiving $338,000.

Staci M. Zavattaro is professor of public administration at UCF. She studies the public management of death. When I moved to Orlando 12 years ago, the hottest ticket in town wasn’t to one of our local theme parks or the latest restaurant. Instead, it was to hear Don Price tell stories under the moonlight at Greenwood Cemetery. As soon as the tickets for his free walking tours were released, people snapped them up just as quickly. When I finally got a chance to take my parents, I understood why.

The computers of the future may rely on more than the electrical charge carried by electrons. Researchers are increasingly interested in another fundamental electron property called spin, which could provide a new way to move and process information inside electronic devices. Conventional computers use the movement of electrical charge to handle data. If scientists can reliably control electron spin as well, they may be able to develop entirely new approaches to computing that operate faster and consume less energy. A research team led by UCF Professor of Physics Madhab Neupane has now identified a material that could help make that possible. Neupane and his collaborators found experimental evidence of altermagnetism, a recently recognized form of magnetism that combines useful features associated with two better known magnetic states: ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism.

A group of speech pathology graduate students are standing in front of a “patient." They listen as she tells them about the difficulties she’s encountered since returning to work after getting treatment for cancer. The “patient” is an interactive AI hologram speaking from within a lifelike holographic display, a device about the size of a refrigerator that creates the illusion of a 3D and life-size person. It’s all part of a pilot program at the University of Central Florida designed to utilize holographic AI avatars to help give students the experience of interacting with actual patients. Bari Hoffman, Associate Dean, Clinical Affairs and Healthcare Innovation, is leading this effort and is a proponent of hologram use in education. In 2024, she spoke with Tech & Learning about how holograms can provide lifelike lessons in STEM and other fields. The tools allow educators to “beam” in experts to speak in class, display intricate machinery, and provide more immersive examples of various kinds.

Dr. Alexander Cartwright is strengthening UCF’s role as a place where education, research and public-private partnerships produce practical results for Florida. In 2026, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement relocated its Orlando toxicology laboratory to UCF’s Academic Health Sciences Campus in Lake Nona. The laboratory processes approximately 10,000 cases annually and will give students greater access to internships, forensic experts and career opportunities while connecting FDLE with university researchers developing new drug-detection methods and analytical tools. “This partnership reflects what UCF was built to do — bring talent, technology and applied research together in service to Florida,” Cartwright said.

The University of Central Florida is expanding its space medicine program to train students in providing healthcare for astronauts during missions. "Space medicine is a relatively new field in the realm of things when you think about the history of medicine, which really started in the 1960s with the first humans flown into space," said Dr. Manny Urquieta, founder of the division of aerospace medicine at UCF.

The journey from a groundbreaking laboratory discovery to a commercially viable enterprise is fraught with complexity, often leaving promising innovations stranded in the gap between scientific validation and market reality. Researchers frequently find themselves ill-equipped to navigate the intricate landscape of customer validation, business model development, and capital acquisition. The University of Central Florida is addressing this critical bottleneck by leading a new $20 million National Science Foundation initiative designed to bridge this divide on a national scale. This effort represents a significant expansion of UCF’s decades-long commitment to transforming academic research into tangible economic impact for small businesses across the United States. The National Commercialization and Translation Institute, or NCTI, is a two-year pilot program specifically tailored to support late-stage federally funded technology companies.