UCF in the News

The National Endowment for the Humanities recently selected a University of Central Florida assistant professor for a highly competitive research award. The university said Stephen Hopkins received a $60,000 fellowship for his book, “The Infernal Laboratory: Vernacular Theology and Hell in the Medieval North Sea.” Hopkins said the book explores the concept of the afterlife in texts during the Middle Ages. Hopkins focuses on English subjects but also teaches linguistics, early medieval literature and mythology, UCF said. According to the NEH website, Hopkins is one of 70 NEH fellowship recipients, with a total of $3.9 million granted overall.

When you or your family calls police for help, chances are the officers who arrive are going to be men. Law enforcement agencies in Central Florida told News 6 they have been working for years to recruit more women, but many said it has been a challenge. U.S. Census numbers show women make up 51% of the country's population, but they make up only 12-14% of law enforcement, according to the latest data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. “We have different positions that we have available,” Orange County Sheriff’s Deputy Cindy Zayas said. Zayas works as a field recruiter for the agency, and she spent Florida Classic Weekend at a job fair at Amway Center. Zayas said female officers and deputies have an inherent skill that helps them more than men. “Research has shown that we are better with the victims, especially with sexual assault and child abuse. We are very compassionate,” she said. “We have a really big role in law enforcement that’s very beneficial to the community, as well as our fellow officers.” “Law enforcement has been calling me since I was little, and that’s when I decided to do it,” said Madison DaSilva, a criminal justice major at the University of Central Florida. She stopped by Zayas’ booth at the job fair and expressed interest in joining OCSO. “I’m like any woman that wants to know more women in law enforcement, but it’s more important to me about who’s right for the job,” she said. “You know, you do need women so that you can connect with other women in the community, but the most important thing to me is the safety of the community -- whether that be men or women.”

The roar of engines was no longer echoing throughout the Daytona International Speedway, another thrilling Daytona 500 had ended just a few hours earlier, and I was moments from delivering a live TV report from the quiet of pit road at that hallowed venue. Save for a smattering of TV crews preparing live shots back to their respective stations, there were few of us left in the area. Buddy Pittman’s 50-year career in television ended this week with his retirement from WUCF, the University of Central Florida’s public TV station. It was a remarkable run, most of it spent here in central Florida, where Buddy became an icon at WESH. Some of us are born without talent. Buddy was born without an ego. He was a director, a producer, a terrific sportscaster. Once a news photographer. The film from the still-infamous, grisly Ziegler Winter Garden furniture store murder scene in 1975? The camera was on Buddy’s shoulder that night. To the very day of his retirement, he schlepped a camera around the state for WUCF, one-man-banding his way through brilliant interviews, then shooting his own cover video before editing the stories himself. Buddy turns 71 in May. Still no ego.

An ant, no longer in control of its body, crawls away from its colony, hangs perilously on a leaf, and waits to die as a fungus consumes its body, emerges from its head, and releases spores into the air. “They’re like these grim little Christmas ornaments out in the forest,” says Ian Will, a fungal geneticist at the University of Central Florida, where these zombified ants can be found. What if this parasitic fungus could do the same thing to us? That’s the premise of the new television show based on the video game The Last of Us in which, as a result of warming temperatures caused by climate change, a fungus takes over the world and turns humans into parasite-controlled zombies. “In a fantastical way, the logical links are there, but it’s not likely to happen in real life,” says Will. But while scientists aren’t worried about fungi evolving to turn people into zombies, rising temperatures do pose a real risk of making fungal infections worse.

NASA is partnering with Boeing, but this time it's not about rockets. It's about airplanes and the future of flight. When we think of NASA, usually rockets, the space station or deep space exploration come to mind. But one of those A's stands for Aeronautics, and the big announcement on Wednesday was about the next generation of airliners. Like with space programs, NASA has launched a private-public program with Boeing for the next generation airliner, greener and more fuel efficient. "It's going to be able to help meet President Biden's goal to achieve net-zero aviation emissions by 2050. So congratulations to the team at NASA, congratulations to Boeing," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. NASA will invest $425 million in the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator research program, looking to cut emissions by 30%. "The design architecture is transformative. It's something that has been under study for years, many years by Boeing," Joshua Colwell of the University of Central Florida said. So while Boeing's work out on the Space Coast is focused more on the stars, the schools and aerospace talent pool will play a role in this next-gen aircraft. "Florida and the Space Coast have a huge aerospace infrastructure, UCF is a proud producer of a huge number of highly-trained aerospace engineers," Colwell said.

Theatre students at the University of Central Florida are looking to shine a spotlight on a group of people whose story doesn’t get told very often. Rehearsals, set and costume design are underway for Theatre UCF’s performance of “Home of the Brave.” “Home of the Brave” highlights the real experiences of children whose parents serve in a different branch of the military. “It comes from a Hawaiian native playwright,” said Julia Listengarten, Theatre UCF artistic director and professor. “The process of developing this play is somewhat unique. She interviewed the children and their families and that was part of the development process.” UCF graduate student and “Home of the Brave” tour manager Bethany Post said as the child of an Air Force service member, this project is personal for her. Post said being a part of the production has been a reflection of her own childhood.

University of Central Florida student Ashley Cariño placed fifth overall at the 71st Miss Universe pageant this weekend. Cariño competed in multiple rounds at the pageant Saturday, making it to the top five finalist spot. Miss USA, Miss Venezuela, Miss Dominican Republic, and Miss Curacao joined her as finalists, according to the Associated Press. Cariño won the Miss Florida title in July 2021, her first pageant competition. She also placed third in the Miss USA competition in Nov. 2021. Last year, Cariño won the Miss Puerto Rico title and represented her heritage in Miss Universe. According to the university, Cariño was born in Puerto Rico but moved to Kissimmee when she was young. UCF said Cariño is also an aerospace engineering major. She said she hopes to finish her degree even with her duties as a Miss Florida. Cariño told UCF that she was always interested in science and astronomy.

Adding another dot to the pattern, a NASA report on climate published this week affirms the continuing warming of our spaceship Earth. The agency found that 2022 was the fifth hottest year on record. “I did a count from a mile-and-a-half down the river, along the shoreline, through the basin and out to this final vessel out here,” Whitmore said. “We lost ten boats that I know of down here that either sunk or were on shore.” On Friday, we spoke with Dr. Joao Morim, a coastal climate researcher with the University of Central Florida’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering, about NASA’s latest report. Given his extensive research in the field, he wasn’t surprised by NASA’s findings, but said it might be novel for some folks. “For a lot of people it can be surprising because the trends are very strong and we are having groundbreaking temperatures every two, three years now,” Morim said. “2020 was a very warm year and now this year, it’s absolutely crazy because we’re having mean monthly temperatures that sit within the top fifth of all the last five decades. So, that tells us that it’s no coincidence. He pointed the fact that not only are we continuing to set records, but the rate is getting progressively faster. Morim described the trajectory as “a steep trend towards the 1.5 degrees of warming at a global level and that is scary.”

Orange County has teamed up with UCF Global and Rosen Hotels & Resorts to offer English as a Second Language instruction to hotel workers on I-Drive. The pilot program provides twice weekly English instruction to about 65 Rosen Hotels & Resorts employees. Rosen provides the space for classes and pays employees to participate. Orange County’s Renuka Sastri said the program is a win-win for employers and employees. Employers guarantee workers can easily communicate with guests. And workers gain a new skillset and possibly a promotion. “The majority of them have said they want access to better work opportunities to have access to interact better within the community, to participate in what their children are learning," said Sastri. "There's a whole range, but really the number one reason was access to better work opportunities.”