UCF in the News

Mars is out; the moon is in. And this time, we may be going there to stay. On March 24, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman announced new plans to build a "sustained human presence" on the moon, complete with a permanent lunar base. Construction of humanity's new home away from Earth could begin as soon as 2027, Isaacman said. Without the soft blankets of Earth's atmosphere and magnetic shield, moon inhabitants would also be constantly blasted by radiation. Cosmic radiation is "pretty much omnipresent anywhere you go into space," including on the moon, Dr. Emmanuel Urquieta, an aerospace medicine researcher at the University of Central Florida, told Live Science. "It's incredibly difficult to shield." Cancer is a potential risk, but because health effects of radiation take time to develop, we wouldn't know for certain if this is a major risk factor until potentially decades after landing human settlers on the moon. "Every person that goes to space… will absolutely be test subjects," Urquieta said.

On this week's "Are We There Yet?" podcast on space topics, two experts from UCF appear: Phil Metzger, space scientist and Director of the Stephen W. Hawking Center for Microgravity Research and Education, on mining space, and Amy Gregory, UCF Endowed Chair of Space Tourism Programming & Initiatives, to talk about food and lodging in space.

More than 40,000 people are killed on U.S. roads each year, and in many cases, help does not come right away. A group of students at the University of Central Florida College of Engineering is working on new technology that could change that. The project focuses on a critical gap in roadway safety. While crashes happen every day, roads themselves do not respond when something goes wrong. That delay can be the difference between life and death. Benjamin Mingst, a senior at UCF, said the idea came from his own close calls in-line skating on Central Florida roads. “This really just built a frustration in me when I realized that nothing was being done reactively by our infrastructure,” Mingst said. Mingst and a team of fellow seniors created a system to respond in real time. When a crash happens, multiple sensors using radar, lidar, and thermal sensors feed data into an artificial intelligence system. “Ideally, these would be up everywhere, and any time an accident happens, it goes straight off to emergency responders,” said fellow student Caleb Rosenfeld. The speed of that response could be especially important in hit-and-run cases, where victims may not be able to call for help.

Every rocket ready to blast off to a new frontier needs an ignition to light the fires, and Barry Miller never expected to have the chance to be that spark for the University of Central Florida. The 54-year-old co-founder and president of Voloridge Investment Management, a Jupiter-based quantitative hedge fund, has supported UCF before, including the creation of the Barry Miller Family First Generation Scholarship, but this is different. This time, he is a central figure in UCF's $3.5 billion "Go For Launch: The Campaign for UCF’s Next Mission" — the largest fundraising campaign UCF has embarked on since its founding in the 1960s. Miller made a $50 million commitment April 15 to the UCF College of Business — the largest in the university’s history — and marked a key moment for the Go For Launch campaign.

University of Central Florida students are excavating artifacts used by Native Americans between 900 and the 1500s near Cape Canaveral's Banana River shoreline. CCAMP, a 10-year partnership between UCF and the military, has documented archaeological sites on the Space Force base.

UCF researchers have uncovered evidence that some movement-related symptoms of Alzheimer's disease may originate outside the brain, which could change how the disease is diagnosed and treated in the future.

Two robot dogs walked across the Walt Disney Theater stage during Theatre UCF's production of Legally Blonde - operated live, in real time, by theater students trained in the university's engineering labs. The moment came during "What You Want," a nine-minute number in which Elle Woods turns her Harvard application into a full-blown performance piece. The idea started at a football game. During last year's UCF Space Game, director Michael D. Jablonski watched the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering's robot dogs cross the field and saw storytelling potential. When Legally Blonde - a show built on defying expectations - became this year's UCF Celebrates the Arts marquee musical, the pairing made sense. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering houses 15 robot dogs, nine of which are in Rakhshan's Laboratory for Interaction of Machine and Brain, where they're used for coursework and research on navigating real-world environments.

A University of Central Florida graduate and investment firm president who credits the school for his financial success will donate $50 million to the institution, the largest philanthropic gift in UCF’s history, the university announced Wednesday. Barry Miller’s donation will grow UCF’s business college, allowing it to hire new faculty with expertise in fields such as artificial intelligence strategy and financial strategy, the university said. “My success was only made possible by the village of people here,” Miller said at the announcement at the business school. “UCF needs the support of a village to achieve our lofty goals. UCF isn’t going to wait for the future. We’re going to build it,” he said. Miller is a 1995 finance graduate and president and co-founder of the Jupiter-based Voloridge investment firm.

After 10 days in space, the Artemis II crew is headed back to Earth. The four astronauts are expected to splash down off the coast of San Diego on Friday evening. Dr. Addie Dove, a planetary scientist and professor of physics at the University of Central Florida, joins Good Day Orlando to talk about the reentry process.