UCF in the News

Cyber Florida aims to make Florida the most “cyber-secure” state by working with universities to roll out sweeping initiatives in education, research and outreach. UCF and its nationally ranked hacking team is helping develop a national intercollegiate cybersecurity competition under a NSA grant.

Ray Villegas is the new program manager of UCF’s Mentorship and First Customer Program, which is part of UCF’s Innovation Districts that are small business support networks centered around UCF incubators in downtown Orlando, Lake Nona and Research Park. His first priority on the job is to get to know the clients and their products, and start reaching out to the right enterprises to make those connections.

Necati Catbas, structural engineering professor at UCF, is interviewed by Leila Fadel of NPR about the sudden collapse of the Champlain Towers South building near Miami Beach. He explains a “pancake failure,” which involves issues with the foundation and leads to the progressive failure of multiple stories on top of each other.

Lynne Cheek is battling stage 4 cancer and following an intense treatment plan. A surprise lunch planned by her friends, who she bonds with over a love of UCF, helped lift her spirits. The UCF band, some football players and Knightro all were in attendance.

WUCF provided 150 families from Title 1 schools in Orange County with kindergarten readiness kits.

The UCF athletic department is introducing a new program that will assist its athletes in creating economic opportunities made available through impending name, image and likeness legislation. The LAUNCH program was created in partnership with Opendorse and COMPASS as a way to provide UCF athletes with the help needed in building and managing their own brands. It’s also meant to help athletes navigate the challenges of the upcoming NIL legislation that takes effect July 1 in Florida. That legislation allows college athletes to receive compensation for the use of their image and likeness. "Our LAUNCH program incorporates multiple new elements to assist our student-athletes with navigation of these opportunities — and we are excited to add the Opendorse and COMPASS platforms to what we already were offering to them,” says UCF athletics director Terry Mohajir.

The University of Central Florida once again improved its standing among U.S. universities as an invention engine. UCF ranked 25th among public U.S. universities for patent production last year, with 46 patents awarded, according to the National Academy of Inventors & Intellectual Property Owners Association. The Orlando university improved from its spot at No. 29 in 2019. “We want to find the best licensee, the industry partner that really can get this technology out there and will commit the resources to develop the technology,” said Director of UCF’s Office of Technology Transfer Svetlana Shtrom. “Sometimes it’s an external company, sometimes it’s a startup.”

University of South Florida and University of Central Florida researchers are building a bridge — both literally and figuratively — with a transportation-technology-focused project. Rasim Guldiken and Necati Catbas, who represent USF and UCF respectively, have teamed up with Transtek International Group, hosted at the UCF business incubator. The entities will use their technology to monitor and collect data about the health of U.S. bridges. The eventual goal is to get a vehicle system that allows detection while driving, to avoid significant lane closures.

The University of Central Florida is one of two Florida schools given hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money, putting its researchers right on the front lines of the pandemic. Taj Azarian is leading the charge at UCF of tracking the spread of COVID-19, virus re-infection and vaccine breakthroughs. The research is a collaborative effort with the University of Florida through a $340,000 Rockefeller Foundation Award. "One of the things is really raising awareness in terms of the need for vaccination. Right now, it's really a race between the virus evolving or mutating and us getting vaccinations to as many people as we can in the community," Azarian said. "We're looking for instances of vaccine breakthrough, so somebody who may have received one of the vaccines and still get sick with COVID as well as re-infections."