UCF in the News

NASA is sponsoring research proposals from three university-based teams over the course of the next year to examine the economic, social, and regulatory concerns related to space sustainability as part of its efforts to address orbital debris. Human-made objects orbiting Earth that no longer serve a purpose are considered orbital debris. Such “space junk” includes mission-related and fragmentation debris, abandoned rocket stages, and nonfunctional spacecraft. “Communication and Space Debris: Connecting with Public Knowledges and Identities,” submitted by Patrice Kohl, Sergio Alvarez, and Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida.

Just when we thought we had COVID-19 beat, it comes right back with a different strain and different symptoms. "The reality is that we are learning to live with COVID," said Ben D. Sawyer, the director of LabX at the University of Central Florida. For the past two years, scientists have been using data and computers to predict where the virus will spread next and how many people may get sick. Now, scientists are testing a new method of forecasting COVID that could help cities prepare information that is localized, much like a daily weather forecast.

With so much strife in the world, it’s time to celebrate something good — the people who work tirelessly to make the community we all call home a better place to live. The idea of this annual feature is to spotlight those who don’t normally make headlines but who definitely make a difference. Readers nominated close to 200 people for this year. That says a lot about about how much good we have going on. One of those people is Maya Tolentino, a UCF police officer. Most police officers are brave public servants. But Maya Tolentino has repeatedly gone above and beyond the call of duty. She spends her own time volunteering with nonprofits that help underprivileged kids learn to do everything from tell stories to start businesses. Yet she’s also a leader within the department. When UCF needed a chaplain for its stress-management response team, Tolentino went to school to get her degree. She was honored for her crisis-response work a few years ago after answering a call involving a potentially suicidal student — one who would later say Tolentino’s team helped save his life.

While working on camera targeting for an Apache helicopter during his internship with Lockheed Martin, Alex Ward discovered that at minus-40 degrees Celsius the camera was not meeting a prescribed time requirement for it to properly focus at that temperature. Ward, who participated in the UCF Lockheed Martin College Work Experience Program, went to work on testing a drive screw fixture and putting it through all the necessary system checks to achieve the desired result.

For breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy, bone damage is a common and painful side effect. New research by University of Central Florida faculty finds nanoparticles could help cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy reduce their risk of bone damage. UCF professor of medicine, Melanie Coathup, said radiation makes bones brittle, and women are more susceptible. “It becomes weaker, it becomes more fragile and more likely to fracture,” she said. “In breast cancer patients, for example, that can increase the likelihood of long-traumatic rib fractures.” The researchers designed a cerium oxide nanoparticle and treated animals with it. “When we gave … nanoparticles, the bone maintained its strength, it maintained its air, we didn’t get this loss of bone,” she said.

Experts say that roads submerged under flood waters for days and weeks following Hurricane Ian may have lasting damage. Carolina Faircloth, the Homeowners Association president for University Acres, says more than half of the homes in her community were destroyed by flooding. On top of that, after days of flooding, she said she noticed new cracking on the streets once the waters receded. “These cracks — we started noticing them once the water started receding and they have not been here before,” said Faircloth. “So we are getting concerned about the integrity of the roads now.” University of Central Florida professor of civil engineering Manoj Chopra visited the area with Spectrum News to check out the roads in University Acres. “Under this asphalt there is soil — that’s the soil bed and if it gets weaker, from flowing water over it or standing water, it’s possible it’s much weaker, and over time we may see more and more cracking,” said Chopra.

There’s much potential for Orlando to be what Austin is to Texas, what Atlanta is to Georgia — a booming hub where startups flock from around the world to dream, innovate, and grow. The numbers are already showing potential: New PitchBook data found that in the first half of this year, a little more than $360 million was invested in the Orlando-Kissimmee metro area, way more than the $144 million invested in H1 last year. It has an emerging art scene, an incubator of talent from the University of Central Florida, which is one of the largest schools in the United States, and good weather with a low cost of living compared to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and even Miami.

Hurricane Ian is now the deadliest hurricane in the continental United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It made landfall on September 28 along Florida’s gulf coast at Category 4 strength, with sustained winds of 155 mph driving a storm surge as high as 18 feet, flinging boats and sweeping homes off foundations. “I think we, as Floridians especially, we know that we are always going to have hurricanes,” said Abdul-Akeem Sadiq, a professor of public administration at the University of Central Florida who studies disaster response and recovery. “We cannot let our guard down.” “We have to always remember that this could happen again and we should be ready for the next one,” Sadiq said. In addition, there wasn’t much effort made to interrogate past hurricane forecasts and to educate the public about how to respond to uncertainties, particularly when a storm takes a different course than what was predicted, according to Sadiq. It can also be hard to appreciate how much planning and evacuations saved lives, even if they may be an overreaction in some cases. “The next time a prediction like that is made, people are less likely to heed that warning,” Sadiq said.

While many questions still linger, Florida has learned a lot about itself, the National Hurricane Center and the future of forecasting in the 10 days since Hurricane Ian ravaged the state. The Category 4 hurricane roared ashore in Southwest Florida with 150 mph sustained winds, making landfall at Cayo Costa State Park and headed up into Charlotte Harbor just like Hurricane Charley in 2004. Ian then traveled northeast up the state knocking on Central Florida's door with Category 1 winds. Dr. Kelly Stevens, an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida with a background in state meteorology, pointed to not only the NHC’s consistent forecasting but also the extreme difficulty in projecting a path for this particular storm due to atmospheric factors. “The leading factor that made this challenging was that there was a cold front that was forecast to come down from the continental United States, which would eventually turn the storm to the right,” she said. “But the forecasting on where that cold front would be, how strong it would be, how far south it would make, was really undetermined.”