UCF in the News

Credible Messengers of Florida is poised to soon begin its work with Orange County to pinpoint potential mentors for at-risk youth to help stem violent crime, months after the grassroots organization was passed over for a $150,000 contract. Meanwhile, a University of Central Florida researcher is studying what drove credible messengers to crime earlier in life. The goal, researcher Katherine Philp said, is to use the feedback from study participants to cultivate strategies for youth outreach and intervention.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and WFTV recently visited a UCF professor who continues to reinvent herself while helping the local community. Stella Sung’s work has been performed all over the world. Her most recent composition — Oceania — was performed at The Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando.

Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Gulnora Hundley, a counselor and lecturer at the University of Central Florida, has found a unique way to help the Ukrainian people. She provides free trauma therapy over Zoom to groups of psychologists working amid war and displacement. Hundley says she has helped 70 so far.

Salvador Almagro-Moreno, a native of southern Spain, graduate student in Ireland and researcher at Dartmouth College, arrived at UCF in 2017, where he is now an assistant professor of medicine. He’s diving into the mysterious world of flesh-eating bacteria, which is nasty stuff for sure, but there’s a bigger target on his to-do list. His main school of thought, from where he orchestrates research, instructs students and hopes to bring a difference, is from a concept called One Health, which the COVID-19 pandemic has ushered into prime time.

When we last saw UCF, the Knights whooped and hollered and celebrated a victory over Florida that was years in the making, one they will probably lord over the Gators forevermore. Case in point: The highlights from said game, a 29-17 win in the Gasparilla Bowl in December, were playing inside Spectrum Stadium before the UCF spring game last month. UCF finished the 2021 regular season 8-4, and it felt the ground the program had gained as the preeminent Group of 5 team had been ceded to the Bearcats, who will be joining the Knights in the Big 12. UCF has not appeared in the American conference championship game since 2018. So it makes sense why the bowl win, and finishing with nine wins in a season filled with so many ups and downs, was especially meaningful as a springboard not only into 2022 but into its long-term future. "It was big in a lot of ways," Malzahn said. "It helped us in recruiting. That and going to the Big 12, I think that combination. Recruits come on campus, and you can just see the atmosphere around that something really special is about to happen. You can kind of feel it, and you can feel it within our players and our staff. I really feel like recruits can sense that. A lot of people like being a part of something, instead of just plugging in to keep something going."

For the first time in school history, UCF softball will be hosting an NCAA regional. The Knights, a national 16-seed, were the final team picked Sunday night to host three other schools — Michigan, South Dakota State and Villanova — in an NCAA regional. “It’s a dream come true,” UCF sophomore Jada Cody said. “I’m excited to celebrate with the team.

When UCF coach Gus Malzahn and athletic director Terry Mohajir talk with Knights fans about their impending move from the AAC to the Big 12, the excitement is obvious. “This is what they’ve been hoping for, for many years now,” Mohajir said. “Hope is not a plan, though.” As that move approaches, Mohajir, Malzahn and the rest of the Knights are implementing an actual plan to have UCF competitive as soon as it rises into that Power Five league (potentially as soon as the summer of 2023).

At the center of our galaxy lies a supermassive black hole. It’s a region of space where gravity is so strong nothing can escape it, not even light. In 2019, a group of telescopes and scientists managed to image the first ever black hole, one at the center of the galaxy M87. That same group of scientists say they’ve got a major announcement related to our galaxy later this week. To talk more about the Event Horizon Telescope and what it may have spotted, we’ll speak with Josh Colwell, Addie Dove and Jim Cooney — physicists at the University of Central Florida and hosts of the podcast Walkabout the Galaxy.

The Mennello Museum of American Art’s latest exhibition, Contemporary Expression: Prints from Flying Horse Editions, went up in January and only has until May 31st before it’s taken down. The show features prints from the City of Orlando’s Public Art Collection, which is the largest and most complete collection of works that were produced by artists in collaboration with the printmakers at UCF’s Flying Horse Editions – a world-class printing program overseen by the University of Central Florida.