UCF in the News

When baby sea turtles wriggle out of their sandy nests on Atlantic beaches, they enact an age-old ritual and head for the open sea. Then what? Scientists at the University of Central Florida attached tiny solar-powered tracking devices to 21 green sea turtles’ shells, then tracked them for 152 days.

In a matter of three weeks, UCF’s IT department built an application to help the university ensure the timely delivery of vaccines. Despite the quick turnaround, the app was a success. In under two months, the university vaccinated about 2,300 faculty and staff members and 6,000 students.

This week, Politico reported that Florida Rep. Val Demings is planning to challenge Marco Rubio for his Senate seat in 2022. Slate spoke with Aubrey Jewett, a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, to learn what Demings needs to win in a Republican-controlled state.

Madison Jarocha endured multiple hospitalizations to treat her autoimmune disease during high school and a cancer diagnosis in college. She graduated this spring from UCF with a nursing degree. She said she pursued a nursing degree because she wants to help others the way nurses have cared for her.

Chung Park, director of the UCF Symphony and Chamber Orchestra, is giving back with the sound of music by helping underserved young people find their own beat through a music program for students.

Michael Kinzel, a UCF mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, is working on NASA’s Dragonfly Mission, a robotic helicopter heading to Saturn’s moon Titan. NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter recently performed the first powered flight on another planet.

COVID-19 turned travel inside out – prices plummeted, travel policies became shockingly consumer-friendly, people were nice and they respected your personal space. Some, but not all, of those things will revert to pre-2020 travel norms once the pandemic fades. “Pandemic travelers have enjoyed the simplicity of travel,” says Alan Fyall, a tourism marketing professor at UCF.

For Larry Lentz Jr., a stroke survivor, the Knights on the Go Café in the Health and Public Affairs building offered a social outlet where he could work part time and also work on his physical therapy. When the pandemic shut everything down, UCF physical therapy faculty maintained contact with him regularly to help keep his spirits up.

The need for mental health professionals and substance-use specialists in the Central Florida region was urgent even before COVID. This week, the first cohort of students are graduating from a grant-funded program at UCF that trains students to fill these in-demand jobs in the region.