UCF in the News

University of Central Florida recently unveiled its new state-of-the-art microgrid control lab on campus. The lab is a partnership with Florida Power Light and General Electric.

Orlando Business Journal's 2021 Central Florida Power Players recognizes 50 business leaders and executives who are helping grow and innovate the way business is done throughout the region. Winners were chosen in five categories: Industry Giants, Disruptors, Deal Makers, Connectors and Heavy Hitters. The 11 businesspeople who were chosen in the Deal Makers category are those driving major transactions, policies, initiatives and/or projects, spearheading partnerships and relationships that generate new local business activity. They include Wendy Brandon, CEO, UCF Lake Nona Medical Center; Carol Ann Logue, director of programs & operations, UCF Innovations Districts & Incubation Program; and Rob Panepinto, president of Florentine Strategies; director of partnerships and strategy for UCF Business Incubation System & Innovation Districts.

The University of Central Florida’s Recreation and Wellness Center has a sports officiating class that pours people into the Central Florida community to officiate at all level of sport competition. The program is unique because the college and professional referees who come through often return to help train the next generation of whistle-blowers.

Before UCF theater professor Mark Brotherton passed away in March 2021 due to complications caused by cancer, he was slated to direct Theatre UCF’s production of “Welcome to the Moon and Other One Acts.” Brotherton served as an associate professor in theater performance, spending 25 years educating students and contributing to Central Florida stages as a director, writer and choreographer. The play will be presented in his honor at UCF Nov. 12-21.

Hundreds of recent UCF graduates returned to campus as the university held an in-person commencement for those who were denied the occasion last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ceremony was exclusively for UCF’s 2020 graduates from the spring, summer and fall semesters.

Despite many people traveling again, the hospitality industry is still working to recover its workforce. A new UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management study gives a glimpse of why some workers are now looking for opportunities outside the industry.

A time-honored tradition at the University of Central Florida had thousands of students rushing into the Reflection Pond for Spirit Splash. Students gathered for a pep rally on Friday in the rainy, stormy weather to splash into one of UCF's most notable landmarks to celebrate the university's homecoming week.

Sharon Park graduated from UCF with her bachelor’s degree in engineering in 2019 and her master’s in material science in 2020, and she’s returning to her alma mater this weekend. Park and 1,700 other alumni are participating in a makeup graduation on Friday after in-person ceremonies got canceled due to COVID last year. WMFE spoke with Park about what the ceremony means to her and to her family, who emigrated from South Korea to Orlando.

A combination of art and nature may be used to protect astronauts as they return to the moon later this decade. Doctoral graduate students at the University of Central Florida (UCF) are undertaking the project as part of NASA’s 2021 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge. The space agency chose seven university teams to participate and awarded nearly $1 million to develop solutions to the problem of protecting spacesuits from lunar dust.