UCF in the News

The two people killed early Friday in a mass shooting in downtown Orlando have been identified as Timothy Schmidt Jr., 19, and Tyrek Hill, 25, according to the Orlando Police Department. OPD on Saturday afternoon provided the names and ages of the two men. No additional details were available about Hill. Schmidt, of Weston, was a freshman at the University of Central Florida, according to a GoFundMe page set up for his family. “Please join the Alpha Epsilon Pi Nu Delta Chapter of Central Florida in raising money for Timothy Schmidt Jr’s family as Tim was tragically and innocently murdered in a shooting in Downtown Orlando in the hours following Halloween, on November 1st, 2024,” the page said. “He was an extraordinary person, loving son, caring friend, talented soccer player, astounding teammate, kind soul, hardworking student and individual with an extremely warm heart and a witty sense of humor.”

Food Insecurity on Campus: The UCF Knights football team will host undefeated Brigham Young University on Saturday. BYU Cougars fans are putting a twist on their game day tailgating. They’re bringing clothes, canned goods, and other critical supplies to their tailgate area at Carillon Elementary School in Oviedo. BYU Alumni Chapter Chair for Orlando Christian Rasband joins Engage to tell us how the Cougs Care program will support UCF students and the Knights Helping Knights Pantry this weekend. The Knights Helping Knights Pantry was created by UCF students who wanted to help their classmates struggling to access or afford essential items like food, clothes, or personal hygiene products. UCF senior Chloe Milliron started volunteering with the Knights Helping Knights Pantry as a freshman and is now the manager of the student-run organization. She joins Engage to discuss the resource to combat food insecurity on campus.

With hypersonic travel, people can fly from New York to London in less than 15 minutes or explore space — and the University of Central Florida wants a piece of the action. The school launched a new center to study the technology for hypersonic travel — which is up to 17 times the speed of sound or 13,000 mph. UCF President Alexander Cartwright celebrated this week’s opening of the Center of Excellence in Hypersonic and Space Propulsion — or the HyperSpace Center — in the Central Florida Research Park by the main campus. “What we create here and across UCF will define the aerospace and defense industries for generations,” Cartwright said in front of U.S. Reps. Darren Soto and Daniel Webster and State Rep. Susan Plasencia as well as other officials. At the new center, UCF faculty, graduate students and undergraduates will be working to develop the technology fueling hypersonic travel. The school has received millions of dollars in U.S. Department of Defense grants.

Navigating the Dark Side of the Moon America is looking to return to the moon – it’s been more than fifty years since the last Apollo mission and the Artemis program has set a goal of putting people back on the lunar surface by 2026. The mission is focused on the moon’s south pole, where there is believed to be a presence of ice. Because this is an relatively unexplored region, NASA has initiated a challenge to professional and citizen scientists – devise a navigation and mapping system to help astronauts orient their way to and from a lunar lander without getting lost. This may seem like a simple concept in 2024, but remember – this is the moon: no GPS, no compasses, no Google Maps or Waze. The prospect of getting lost on the lunar surface is terrifying so we asked Dr. Addie Dove, a planetary scientist and associate professor in the Department of Physics at UCF to set us at ease.

As office manager of an Indiana recruiting firm, Jolene Rosario enjoyed the predictable nature of her weekly duties – handling payroll and workers’ compensation insurance, paying invoices and answering employment questions from state agencies. Several months ago, her boss asked her to also take on the responsibilities of front-office coordinator after a colleague was laid off because of declining revenue at the firm, called Express Employment Professionals. That meant responding to in-person visitors (from the UPS delivery person to job applicants), interviewing job candidates, onboarding new employees, sometimes answering phone calls and more. Some experts also worry about burnout, which was widespread when many Americans left the labor force in the early days of the pandemic, leaving colleagues with bigger workloads. "When your work increases beyond the point where you have the resources to succeed and successfully do the work...you do get burnout, fatigue and workers looking for other jobs," said Mindy Shoss, a professor of industrial and organizational psychology at the University of Central Florida. "It's a well-being crisis, it's a public health crisis and it's an economic crisis." Such a scenario harms both workers and their employers, she said. At the same time, she said, if workers are given the tools to do their jobs, increasing their skills and responsibilities can help them advance in their careers.

On Episode 133 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik talk with Greg Autry on the progress of the Artemis moon program, space science, and the challenges posed by a fast-rising Chinese space program. Dr. Autry is the Associate Provost for Space Commercialization and Strategy at the University of Central Florida, visiting Professor at Imperial College London, former NASA transition team member, and author of "Red Moon Rising." We'll also highlight the recent launch of SpaceX's Starship and the amazing catch of the booster by the Mechazilla Launch tower, Michael Bloomberg's recent article condemning the slow progress of the Artemis program, and this weekend's Orionids meteor shower!

Mandatory evacuations along Florida's west coast are underway as Hurricane Milton churns toward the state and could make landfall as one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the area in over a century. "Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida,” the National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday. "The wide continental shelf with shallow water allows storms like Helene and Milton to create very large storm surges," Thomas Wahl, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Central Florida who studies flood-prone areas, tells NPR. Excessive rainfall and elevated river discharge can combine with storm surge to create what's known as compound flooding, Wahl says. Excessive rainfall and elevated river discharge can combine with storm surge to create what's known as compound flooding, Wahl says.

As space agencies and private companies plan to build colonies on the Moon and Mars, the ability to produce building materials on site will be crucial. Recent breakthroughs in this area are bringing humankind one step closer to making sustainable space settlements a reality. Furthermore, these developments have the potential to revolutionize construction practices on Earth. One of the key advantages of these regolith-based bricks is their electrical conductivity. This allows them to serve as internal sensors, monitoring the structural health of extraterrestrial buildings. A few years ago, a team of University of Central Florida researchers found that bricks made of lunar regolith and saltwater could help NASA establish a long-term presence on the Moon by building a base camp that includes a modern lunar cabin, rover and mobile home. Associate Professor Ranajay Ghosh of UCF's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, along with his research group, created 3D-printed bricks of lunar regolith that are able to withstand the extreme environments of space. To create the bricks, Ghosh's team used a combination of 3D printing and binder jet technology (BJT), an additive manufacturing method that forces out a liquid binding agent – in this case saltwater – onto a bed of powder.

Nemours Children’s Health in Orlando, Florida, has announced a $5 million commitment to the University of Central Florida (UCF) in support of pediatric nursing training and interdisciplinary research. The investment includes $2.5 million for a pediatric nursing training unit at UCF’s Dr. Phillips Nursing Pavilion and $2.5 million for an interdisciplinary research impact fund. The investment includes $2.5 million for a pediatric nursing training unit at UCF’s Dr. Phillips Nursing Pavilion and $2.5 million for an interdisciplinary research impact fund. The new pediatric unit will include specialized pediatric equipment, neonatal, pediatric, and expectant mother mannequins, as well as augmented reality simulations. Simulation scenarios will give UCF nursing students hands-on, clinical experiences.