UCF in the News

Colleges need to play a role in ensuring that students are prepared to use technology in the classroom and later on in the workforce, higher education leaders say. Colleges and universities are taking multiple approaches to ensure students are ready for software and technology requirements, including exploring how to integrate those skills into general education. And those basic technology skills are changing, said UCF President Alex Cartwright. Cartwright said that employers who recruit at the 70,000-student Orlando school have told him that they need graduates with skills not just in English and humanities, but also basic tech knowledge.

When a natural or humanitarian disaster occurs halfway around the world, the U.S. Space Force (USSF) aims to send a rocket filled with food, water and other essential supplies to the site in one hour. With the help of UCF researchers, they may be able to achieve this goal within the next decade. UCF is one of seven universities to receive funding through the USSF’s University Consortium Research Opportunity, which connects higher education institutions with the U.S. Department of Defense’s space-related research opportunities. Engineering researchers Michael Kinzel, Tarek Elgohary and Luis Rabelo were awarded the $350,000 grant, which makes them the first UCF researchers to receive funding from the USSF. “Although

There’s an Oviedo warehouse just north of the University of Central Florida that looks normal enough on the outside, but inside its staff and students are creating something otherworldly. Alien dirt — or regolith simulant — is the main product of UCF’s Exolith Lab and is gaining huge demand as the next era of space exploration and projects like NASA’s moonshot Artemis missions prepare to blast off. In 2018 the lab produced a little more than 1,000 pounds of regolith to the scientific community.

The State of Florida is now home to over 1 million Puerto Ricans, the majority of whom live in Central Florida. UCF’S Puerto Rico Research Hub partnered with the MLB for the very first Puerto Rico Baseball Day. Hundreds of kids showed up to the event.

The University of Central Florida’s graduate game design program is getting some kudos as downtown Orlando is becoming a pipeline for video game developers. The Princeton Review and PC Gamer magazine rated UCF’s program, which is called the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, as the No. 1 in the world for the third straight year.

A new mission called Lunar Trailblazer is set to launch two satellites by 2025 with the goal of mapping the lunar surface and understanding the form and distribution of water on the moon. “It’s cold enough at the South Pole, and at the North Pole, to house ice and water,” says UCF planetary geologist Professor Kerri Donaldson Hanna. “But we’ve never actually made real detections of it. This will give us our first opportunities to do that.” Donaldson Hanna is the co-investigator of NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer mission which consists of two science instruments about the size of a desk. They’ll launch to the moon together and orbit the moon and collect data from above the lunar surface

UCF President Alexander Cartwright joined USF President Rhea Law and UF President Kent Fuchs at Synapse Summit 2022 to celebrate a 25-year legacy of innovation as partners in the Florida High Tech Corridor and unveil a commitment to “unleash the region’s ‘expotential.’” The three university presidents participated in a discussion moderated by The Corridor CEO Paul Sohl, retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, about the hallmark partnership approach, the role of universities in Florida’s innovation economy and how their universities are preparing the next generation of innovators.

Dr. Gulnora Hundley works in the Counselor Education Program at UCF and is making it her mission to give back and use her experience as a Russian speaker to better connect with therapists over in Ukraine.

If you’ve seen the Marvel movie Black Panther, you know all about the power suit. Now, researchers at University of Central Florida are taking a note, and making their own power suit – for electric vehicles and NASA space flights. "This is the exact ‘Black Panther' suit like you see in the movie," said Deepak Pandey, a student at UCF. Researchers at UCF have spent the last four years turning this super suit into reality. "What we are trying to do is to store energy on the outer shell of electric cars," said Dr. Jayan Thomas, a professor of nanoscience technology at UCF. "This material is lighter than steel. It is lighter than even aluminum. At the same time, it can store energy," Dr. Thomas said. It quite literally would encase the vehicle as a suit. "You can use it as the roof of your electric car and it can harvest energy this part. And energy could be stored into this composite," Dr. Thomas said. Dr. Thomas and his students are also working with NASA to add the technology to space flights.