UCF in the News

University of Central Florida student Ben Briggs sometimes waits six minutes or longer to cross Alafaya Trail. Briggs, 21, majoring in emerging media, a degree blending art and technology, said he occasionally gets impatient on the opposite side of the high-volume, state road in an area where nine pedestrians have died in the past decade. “But I always make sure to just wait it out because of the stories I’ve heard,” he said. Those stories — of young people maimed or killed by speeding cars — have made him wary at the crossing and spurred Orange County with UCF and the Florida Department of Transportation to begin a $13.2 million safety project.

When it comes to missions to Mars, NASA has been on a winning streak in recent decades. Its Spirit, Opportunity, Phoenix, Curiosity, InSight, and Perseverance missions have all landed successfully on the Martian surface, and we’re learning more than ever before about how to land on and explore the planet safely. The agency’s next plans for Mars, however, are a whole new level of ambitious. With a rocket firing its engines hard enough to take off from the ground, “the amount of energy that you have to blow out the back is gigantic,” explained Phil Metzger of the University of Central Florida, a launch pad expert who worked for NASA for many years. When that energy hits the surface of Mars, which is covered in a dusty material called regolith, the material being thrown up can cause serious problems and even damage the rocket itself.

About 5,000 Hispanic students graduate from the University of Central Florida (UCF) annually — many with bachelor’s degrees — and per the monthly magazine Hispanic Outlook on Higher Education, that makes UCF No. 4 in the nation in awarding four-year diplomas to Hispanic students. Hispanic Outlook released rankings Monday that put UCF among the top in the nation for Hispanic students. The UCF numbers are representative of the geographic area it serves and the nation at large, according to UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright. “UCF looks like the future of America,” Cartwright said. “We are proud to have the tremendous opportunity to help our Hispanic and Latino students succeed and fuel the talent pipeline for industry.”

A new partnership at the University of Central Florida plans to unleash the potential of Hispanic graduate students who want to become leaders in the tech workforce. Thanks to a $250,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the academic consortium wants to cultivate engineering and science opportunities plans to increase the success rates of Latino graduate students in stem majors. UCF wants to increase the number of Latinos in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) programs to raise the number of Hispanics working in tech around the country.

For the first time, a NASA mission is setting off on a distant journey to visit a metal world in our solar system. Getting up close with the asteroid known as Psyche is the only way to determine whether it’s the rare exposed core of an early planetary building block, according to scientists. “Psyche is something of the poster child of the M-type asteroids,” said Dr. Zoe Landsman, science adviser to the Exolith Laboratory at the University of Central Florida, via email. “Of a group of weird and mysterious asteroids, it is the biggest, weirdest, and most mysterious.”

Last week, the Orlando Sentinel published an article referencing a report that I recently authored (“Opioid overdoses fall in Central Florida for the first time in years”). This report detailed how overdose deaths in Central Florida declined 11% between 2021 and 2022, but this only tells part of the story. As a researcher deeply entrenched in the field of addiction and overdose, I have witnessed the devastating impact of the opioid crisis up close. In my role as a researcher, I am driven by a profound sense of purpose. The overdose crisis is not just a statistic; it’s a harrowing reality that demands our unwavering dedication. With medical advancements and harm reduction initiatives on the horizon, my mission is to contribute to the knowledge base that will save lives. I devote my efforts to educating and bringing awareness and expertise to help inform the public health response for prevention and treatment to save lives. I encourage others to do the same, get involved to prevent overdoses, and save lives. The media must play its part, shedding light on the magnitude of this crisis and pushing for the changes needed to combat it effectively. Together, we can make a difference and turn the tide on this silent epidemic. - Kendall Cortelyou is the interim director of the School of Global Health Management and Informatics at UCF.

The University of Central Florida is embracing the future of robotics and introducing a cutting-edge robot dog named “Tape Measure” to expand research opportunities for UCF students and faculty. The doglike robot, manufactured by Boston Dynamics, will be used by students to research concepts such as human and robot interactions and to develop new robot tasks and applications that benefit humanity. “It allows our students to see how their work can be applied in different ways,” mentioned Grace Bochenek, Ph.D., director of UCF SMST. “Research is often not a linear line, and we build on each other’s work. This robot, although different than our other projects, integrates many of the same principles. It is a continuation, not a culmination, of the technology.”

Former UCF football coach Gene McDowell and former school president John Hitt are among six former administrators, coaches and athletes named to the athletic departments’ 2023 Hall of Fame class Thursday. Kyle Bono (baseball), Marc Daniels (broadcaster), DeLaina Sarden (volleyball), Shelby Turnier (softball) and the 2007 national champion UCF cheer team are joining McDowell and Hitt in the class. The group will be inducted into the HOF during a banquet on Friday, Nov. 1. Hitt spent 26 years as UCF’s fourth school president from 1992-2018, building up the university’s academic standards while bolstering its national reputation. He was integral to getting an on-campus football stadium built and championed for the school’s admittance into the Big 12 Conference. Hitt died on Feb. 20, 2023, at the age of 82.

Researchers from the University of Central Florida (US) created the first environmentally friendly, large-scale and multicolor alternative to pigment-based colorants, inspired by butterfly wings. Common paints and colorants are pigment based, which means new molecules need to added for every color present. In nature, such as butterfly wings, on the other hand, colors are structural, and typically two colorless materials produce all colors with their geometrical arrangement. With this, they control the way the light is reflected, scattered or absorbed. These structural colors use only metals and oxides, and tare therefore more environmentally friendly than pigment-based colors that use artificially synthesized molecules.