February 23, 2012
Zhao Wang is the winner of the 2011-2012 University Award for the Outstanding Master’s Thesis. Wang is a Ph.D. student with Dr. Aman Behal’s research group. His thesis is titled, “Lyapunov-Based Control Design for Uncertain MIMO Systems.” Wang’s thesis was selected by the University of Central Florida Graduate Council from a group of finalists. This…
February 20, 2012
Qun Huo has been named one of sixteen finalists for the 2012 Cade Museum Prize. Open to all Florida residents, the Cade Museum Prize is designed to encourage innovation and invention by providing an incentive for early-stage companies to move ideas and products closer to marketplace viability. Huo’s entry is titled “Nanoparticle-Enabled Bioanalytical Technology.” She…
February 9, 2012
For the first time ever, stem cells from umbilical cords have been converted into other types of cells, which may eventually lead to new treatment options for spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis, among other nervous system diseases. “This is the first time this has been done with non-embryonic stem cells,” says James Hickman, a…
February 3, 2012
Qun Huo has been recognized by the Florida High Tech Corridor Council as part of its “Faces of Technology.” She is featured in the Faces of Technology video library, and she will also appear in florida.HIGH.TECH 2012, the Corridor’s annual magazine. To see Qun’s video interview, visit www.facesoftechnology.com. Huo is the founder and president of…
January 31, 2012
Materials Science and Engineering Ph.D. student Shashank Saraf will receive a coveted poster award from MS&T 2011. He presented his poster at the Prof. J. Narayan Acta Materialia Gold Medal Symposium earlier this year. Speaking and presenting at this event is by invitation only. This particular symposium is also attended by NSF and other funding…
January 28, 2012
Amit Kumar won an award for Best Poster at the 2011 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting. His poster, entitled “Effect of radiation on Ceria NP surfaces (A NSF funded project),” was presented on Thursday, December 1, 2011. The MRS conference is very prestigious, and Amit’s poster was deemed to be one of the top two…
January 21, 2012
Current UCF student Rene Diaz is a winner of the National Science Foundation’s 2011 Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) competition. The fellowship will allow Rene to continue his education in engineering with UCF’s Materials Science Engineering graduate program. The NSF wrote that the selection was based on his outstanding abilities and accomplishments as well as…
December 20, 2011
Testing the effectiveness of new pharmaceuticals may get faster thanks to a new technique incorporating quantum dots developed at the University of Central Florida. Some drug testing can take a decade or more, but UCF associate professor Swadeshmukul Santra and his team have created an electronic quantum dots (Qdots) probe that “lights up” when a…
December 1, 2011
Undergraduate student Ashton Lee and her faculty mentor Dr. Swadeshmukul Santra have been awarded UCF’s SMART Grant for spring 2012. Ashton and Dr. Santra will receive $1,000 each to help fund their research. As part of the SMART program, Ashton will participate in Directed Independent Research with Dr. Santra through the Burnett School of Biomedical…
November 22, 2011
University of Central Florida researchers, for the first time, have used stem cells to grow neuromuscular junctions between human muscle cells and human spinal cord cells, the key connectors used by the brain to communicate and control muscles in the body. The success at UCF is a critical step in developing “human-on-a-chip” systems. The systems…