UCF in the News

UCF Associate Professor Chen Chen is part of the team who developed BioMed GPT, an artificial intelligence tool designed to help underserved hospitals diagnose and treat conditions faster. Chen joined FOX 35's Garrett Wymer on FOX 35 News+ to break down his research and how it can help hospitals across the country.

Paramdai “Vicky” Somwaru is one of the fourth-grade teachers at Hamlin Elementary School. She goes above and beyond for her students every day; leads the school’s chess team; spends countless hours planning, preparing and teaching her students each year and sets high expectations both academically and socially that help her students to grow and be successful. She also is an adult ESOL teacher. She has been named Teacher of the Year, received the Disney “Teacherrific” award for two years and earned National Board Teacher Certification. The Lockheed Martin-University of Central Florida program paid for her Master of Mathematics and Science Education.

Allison McGinley, a seasoned leader in the media industry, is set to embark on a new chapter as she transitions from her role as News Director at News 6 to join the University of Central Florida (UCF) Advancement and Partnerships division. McGinley will assume the position of Executive Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations, where she will leverage her extensive experience to foster partnerships and drive strategic initiatives. During her tenure at News 6, McGinley has been instrumental in shaping the newsroom’s direction and ensuring the delivery of high-quality journalism. Her leadership and dedication have left an indelible mark on the station and its audience. McGinley started with WKMG News 6 as an intern in 1994. From intern to news director, Allison has served the Central Florida community through a variety of roles at the station.

Any astronauts reaching the surface of the moon will be greeted first by a plume of dirt, sent flying by the boosters of their spacecraft. They will emerge and put bootprints in the dirt, take samples and study the dirt, and eventually they may use the dirt to make the fuel and other supplies needed to maintain a long-term lunar presence. When it comes to exploring the moon, it’s all about dirt. Planetary physicist Philip Metzger at the University of Central Florida is the king of moon dirt, or regolith. In 2013, he cofounded a group of research labs at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida, where research teams spend their days working with artificial lunar regolith, like the sample pictured below, to learn how it behaves and what we will be able to do with it. With NASA’s Artemis programme aiming to put humans back on the surface of the moon in 2027 and eventually set up a permanent base there, that knowledge is becoming increasingly important.

In 2021, the team launched MoveApps – a free platform of analytical tools to help scientists make sense of all that data. The system allows programmers to develop data-analysis tools that scientists can apply to the animal-tracking data stored in the Movebank database. Tracking turtles in the open ocean is one way it’s being used to do this. An enduring mystery in conservation biology is what happens to sea turtles in the period between emerging as tiny hatchlings on beaches around the world, to returning to coastal waters as dinner-plate-sized juveniles. “Those early life stages are the foundation of the rest of their lives,” says Dr. Kate Mansfield, a professor of conservation biology at the University of Central Florida, who is collaborating with ICARUS on a project that will track the movements of sea turtles in the open ocean. “If you’re working with protected species or animals that are of conservation concern, you really want to know everything you can about them at every single life stage,” Mansfield says. Currently, “that early dispersal stage that’s associated with the sea turtles’ lost years is really the biggest data gap”, in sea turtle biology, she explains.

With an eye on Florida’s space future, NASA has partnered with three universities as it works to advance space research. The University of Florida, University of Central Florida and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University are now working with the Kennedy Space Center in the new Florida University Space Research Consortium. It makes Florida the only state consortium affiliated with one of NASA’s centers. The alliance will be supported by Space Florida, which will facilitate collaboration on projects between the consortium and NASA. The new partnership is touted as combining the strengths of the top space technology educational institutions to enhance research capabilities and maintain Florida as a top leader in the ever-growing and changing space economy. Officials say the goal of the partnership is to provide unique opportunities for Florida students and researchers to join forces on scientific projects. UCF President Dr. Alexander Cartwright said 29% of the Kennedy Space Center workforce are UCF grads, so continuing to bring students into technology careers through the new consortium makes sense. “We were founded to be the workforce for the Space Coast, and we take that very seriously," Cartwright said. "And we continue to be a partner with them, developing programs, getting them the degrees that they need. We produce such a large number of engineers, that they hire a lot of those people."

This month, Martin Luther King Junior would have turned 96 years old. Each year we celebrate the civil rights trailblazer on January 20th. It’s a day widely celebrated with acts of service and parades. As we remember MLK Junior and his work to demand equal opportunities for all, we’re looking at how the next generation is following in his footsteps, and galvanizing supporters from their phones. Even in the early days of the civil rights movement. Activists used powerful images to raise awareness of racial injustice. “Emmett Till’s mother, to do an interview in Jet, and for that to be covered by the masses and whatnot, was a big turning point,” said Don Harrell, Professor of Africana Studies, University of Central Florida. Today, social media has emerged as a primary outlet for people to demand change. From recording police brutality to documenting protests in real time. Take the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by police in 2020. “There were youth and people of all races, creeds and colors who joined together en masse and demonstrated not only domestically, but around the world,” explained Harrell.

The University of Central Florida is among the top 100 most selective institutions in the nation. An analysis of acceptance rate, matriculation rate and admission data by The Business Journals shows the Orlando university is No. 71 in the nation for selectivity, up three spots from last year, and is No. 3 in the state behind only the University of Florida and Florida State University. UCF saw a 39.5% acceptance rate of its 60,627 applicants in the fall 2023 semester, admitting 23,961 students.

In the dark depths of the solar system, astronomers have discovered a truly baffling object. Named 2060 Chiron, this 125-mile-wide (200km) asteroid-comet hybrid is a type of body known as a Centaur, named after the mythical creature that is half-horse and half-man. Centaurs are solar system bodies found between Jupiter and Neptune that move and behave like asteroids but produce glowing tails of gas and dust like comets. Now, astronomers from the University of Central Florida have used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to show that Chiron is 'like nothing' they've seen before. By analysing near-infrared images, the researchers have carefully reconstructed the chemical makeup of this interplanetary chimaera. They found that Chiron's surface contains a cocktail of chemicals from a time predating the formation of the solar system including CO2, methane, and frozen water. Co-author Dr Charles Schambeau says: 'These results are like nothing we've seen before. 'These detections enhance our understanding of Chiron's interior composition and how that material produces the unique behaviours as we observe Chiron.'