A double-barreled T-shirt launcher that can fire shirts higher than the 60-foot walls of Acrisure Bounce House.

A decked-out golf cart, rescued from its fate at the salvage yard and repurposed instead into Knightro’s preferred mode of transportation.

A 3D-printed, robotic Citronaut piloting a spaceship that blasts AC/DC’s Thunderstruck through surround-sound speakers.

And set to make its debut later this year, a powerful projection spotlight designed to summon Knightro onto the field — his own version of Batman’s iconic bat signal.

As the students explain the ins-and-outs of these custom innovations — all built in university labs with tools, technology and machines at their disposal — facility manager Pete Alfieris stands off to the side with a dash of pride on his face.

“Remember what Pete stands for,” the longtime UCF staff member calls out. “Preparing engineers through e��ܳ����پ��Dz�.”

They collectively groan, but in a tone that clearly shows they cherish this man and his dad jokes.

“If you graduate from [UCF’s] engineering college without meeting Pete, you didn’t really go to the engineering college,” says Caden Peters ’26, a computer engineering alum who co-created the Knight signal. “He really shows that anyone can make an impact. You don’t have to be a professor. You don’t have to be an advisor. He’s the facilities manager of the engineering building. And he still has such a strong impact on the college and inspires so many students. There’s really no one like him.”

Alfieris oversees daily operations, lab safety and security for UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science buildings since he took the role in 2008. Nowhere in his job responsibilities does it list mentoring and collaborating with students.

Yet for the past five years, since the football season ticket holder was first inspired to introduce a T-shirt launcher at UCF football games, Alfieris has been the driving force behind the growing partnership between the college and UCF Athletics, pitching his ideas to elevate the game-day experience for fans.

The partnership reflects what UCF does best: connecting classroom learning with real-world experience. As SpaceU, UCF Athletics provides a fitting stage for students from the College of Engineering and Computer Science — the nation’s No. 1 supplier of talent to the aerospace and defense industries, according to Aviation Week Network — to apply their academics and flex their skills.

“For years I have seen the potential in these students,” Alfieris says. “A lot of them go on to work at SpaceX, NASA, Blue Origin, L3 Harris, Northrop Grumman. They’re so smart and talented.”

The students are always on board to oblige in bringing his visions to life because he believes in them; sometimes more than anyone.

“There are only a few people here that I would say even scratch the surface compared to Pete when it comes to their belief in students,” says recent mechanical engineering grad Ayden Jordan ’26, who also created Knightro’s signal. “Pete believed in us from day one.”

Peters interjects: “Day zero.”

That belief and hard work have led to some of the most engaging moments in UCF football’s game day experience today.

The Idea That Started it All: A T-Shirt Launcher

Austin Harkins ’24 ’26MS had listened through two weeks of senior design project ideas, waiting for one worth claiming. The year-long group projects require engineering students to design, build and present a functional prototype before graduation.

Then his professor said two words: T-shirt launcher.

“You could just see everyone’s ears kind of perk up around the room,” says Harkins on a call from Texas, where he’s currently working as a mechanical design engineer for L3 Harris. “I grew up in Oviedo, Florida. My parents went to UCF. I couldn’t tell you how many UCF football games I’ve been to. I thought, ‘Yeah, I’m doing this.’ ”

Harkins led one of the teams to score the project. Mechanical engineering graduate student Luciana Carreras ’25 led another.

Over the next several months, both teams designed launchers capable of firing dozens of shirts into the stands during the brief 30-second window they’d have on the field between plays.

When the prototypes were ready, Carreras and Harkins brought them to the football stadium in the summer for a test run in front of UCF Athletics’ game day operations staff.

“I think [UCF Athletics] had some hesitations, which I understand because they didn’t know who we were,” Alfieris says. “We were launching [T-shirts] all over the field — one even went out of the stadium — and [UCF Athletics staff] all looked at me and said, ‘Oh, we’re definitely doing this.’ ”

While the athletic department staff has worked hard to build and protect traditions that span generations of Knights fans, they always embrace trying new things.

“I think some of UCF’s best qualities have always been a spirit of collaboration and an attitude of, ‘what if we try…?’ Pete and the engineering students embody that completely,” says Alex Cesarano, associate athletics director for brand experience. “What they’ve delivered over the last few years is a testament to what’s possible when we have a strong partnership between the university and athletic department. We are immensely grateful for all they’ve added, and continue to add, in service of our fans and student-athletes’ experiences.”

Beyond practicality, the teams took design aesthetic into account.

Harkins’ launcher resembles a rocket, a nod to UCF’s SpaceU identity. Carreras’ team chose a double-barreled design that maximizes the number of shirts they could launch before leaving the field.

“I never went to a football game until I had to launch this thing,” Carreras says. “But seeing it out there on game day and seeing the excitement from everyone, it’s great to leave something behind, especially when it’s a place that you’ve gotten education from, and you’ve found your friends and a life around the campus.”

Knightro’s Wheels

Once word spread that Alfieris and the engineering students were behind the T-shirt launchers, the UCF spirit team wanted in.

Knightro head coach Michael Callahan ’05 ’09MBA ’17EdD, who also serves as director of knowledge management for UCF’s College of Medicine, invited Alfieris to tour the Kenneth G. Dixon Athletics Village and discuss future collaborations.

As they drove around in a standard golf cart with Knightro on board, Alfieris couldn’t help but notice the mascot clinging to the seat.

“Knightro was holding on for dear life, and I looked at Michael and said, ‘How come Knightro doesn’t have his own cart?’ ” Alfieris says. “He looked at me and said, ‘Good question.’ ”

Without a dedicated budget or funding, Alfieris has gotten good at being resourceful. He scoured the university’s surplus property system database, which offers discounted equipment and items in need of repair. One person’s trash is another’s treasure.

He found a cart in serious need of electrical work to run again. He turned to the looking for some talent.

Josh Alper, then a first-year mechanical engineering student, answered without knowing a single detail about what he was showing up for.

Alper, who is primarily self-taught, rewired the cart’s electrical system and fixed the battery charger. He installed LED lighting, four surround-sound speakers and a custom “Bounce Button” horn to the tune of Zombie Nation’s Kernkraft 400. He even rigged a “Knightro phone” that pauses the music for Team Knightro to interact with fans while tailgating. When the phone is placed back on the receiver, the music immediately resumes at maximum vibe levels.

“I was a new student who basically knew nothing about the school, and in my first few weeks, Pete was touring me around and introducing me to lab managers and faculty,” Alper says. “I was able to use 3D printers and tools in the . I’ve gone to football games and shot the T-shirt cannon, which was a really cool experience for my first football season. Working with Pete has opened so many doors.”

Here Comes Citronaut

Alfieris’ next big idea was a robot. Mechanical engineering student Andrew Anderson thought Citronaut seemed like a logical choice.

Anderson, who has completed professional internships with Pegasus Partner Universal Orlando Resort and Walt Disney World Resort refurbishing high-profile rides, spent a year creating what the team affectionately refers to as “Citronaut’s Thunderstruck” — a 3D-printed Citronaut piloting a spaceship that rolls through campus blasting AC/DC’s hit song.

The project began as an oversized foam cube measuring roughly 5 feet on each side.

“Figuring out how to safely cut the foam and see it take that saucer shape, it felt like I was working at Disney,” says Anderson, who has dreamed of developing theme park rides since he was 9 years old.

The team equipped the spaceship with tilting and movement capabilities and an accelerometer to give it a sense of flight.

Meanwhile, computer science major Melanie Allen became Alfieris’ go-to team member for precision work. She designed, laser cut and 3D-printed the Citronaut figure to fit snuggly in his spaceship.

“I’ve taken advantage of our machine shop, our 3D printers, laser cutters [and] the 5-axis CNC machine to make aluminum parts. I didn’t think I would ever be good at painting, and now I know how to paint. So I think a lot of these experiences have given me skills that really make me stand out,” Allen says.

Citronaut’s Thunderstruck debuted at the 2025 Mission IX Space Game as part of the pregame march to the stadium and was an immediate hit.

“A lot of kids were really excited when they saw it, and fans wanted to take pictures with it. It was fun to be part of the march and know that I helped create something that looks cool and something that people want to interact with,” Allen says. “I didn’t feel like I was just another student commuting and taking classes. I felt like I was making a difference and actually contributing to the university.”

Coming Soon: Knightro’s Own ‘Bat’ Signal

One of Alfieris’ most theatrical, ambitious ideas yet is expected to debut this year thanks to Peters, Jordan and the other three engineers of their senior design project team.

Similar to Batman’s “bat signal,” the team designed a custom cylinder-shaped light projector capable of summoning Knightro into action to amp the crowd.

“We faced a lot of questions and doubt when we pitched this for senior design. Could the physics actually work out? Will [the light] actually project at that far of a distance?” Jordan says. “When you have a good team, anything is possible. And we believed we could make the impossible happen.”

The biggest hurdle came early.

The specialized lights required for the design cost $700, leaving Jordan unsure if the project would ever get off the ground.

A week later, his team got an email that the lights were in, purchased by the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering from the budget dedicated to supporting senior design projects.

“Pete worked his magic,” Peters says.

Engineering this from a concept drawing into an actual functioning contraption was no small feat.

The high-powered lights generated enough heat to require radiators and a water-cooling loop. The team also developed an innovative method to display the projected image by using a laser cutter to burn away the coating on mirror slides. And ensuring safety throughout their design, down to the emergency stop button, was paramount.

When their first successful test happened at 3 a.m. on the side of Engineering II, the first person they told was Alfieris.

“I remember walking up my apartment stairs that night thinking, I want this feeling for the rest of my life,” Peters says.

Funds and hours in a day are the only things holding back Alfieris and the students at this point. They have a few more ideas and projects in the works that they’re eager to share with Knight Nation when they’re ready.

Alfieris says he’s grateful to his supervisor, College of Engineering and Computer Science Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and NCAA faculty representative Manoj Chopra, for allowing him to engage with the students in these ventures. It’s been one of the greatest gifts of his career.

“All [the] stuff that I wanted to do is coming to life, and it’s so much fun,” Alfieris says. “I don’t have any kids, so they’re like my kids. I get that proud parent moment when they come to me and say, ‘Thank you.’ And I’m like, ‘What are you thanking me for?’ And they say, ‘You helped me. You were just always there.’ And it just makes me feel really good. It really does.”

Natalie Otero ’26 may have missed her graduation ceremony this spring, but she had a good excuse. She’d just landed in Japan for a long-awaited vacation that was three years in the making. She says the trip — where she discovered new interests (sword-making), traversed a mountain and bonded with friends — symbolized her UCF experience.

“Building knowledge and strengthening friendships,” Otero says. “�ճ󲹳�’s my story at UCF.”

Those relationships led her to pivot from pre-med to accounting and opened her up to learn new skills like coding. Friends fueled her drive, brought her joy and encouraged internships, all of which she credits for her induction into the Order of Pegasus, the highest honor for UCF students.

“When I started at UCF, I didn’t know anyone,” says the Jacksonville, Florida, native. “Everything changed quickly.”

Discovering Her Own Calling

Otero didn’t really want to be a doctor. She just heard she was supposed to be a doctor.

“When you do well in high school, people say, ‘Oh, be a doctor and cure cancer.’ �ճ󲹳�’s where my mind was when I arrived as a freshman,” says Otero, who began her UCF journey studying biomedical sciences.

Then an elective class, Principles of Financial Accounting, intervened.

“The professor, Jeff Reinking ’13PhD, broke the mold of what it means to be an accountant,” she says. “The concepts made such perfect sense that I switched my major to accounting and saw a clear path ahead. For a freshman, that’s exciting.”

That same year, Otero’s friends introduced her to KnightHacks, a student organization that hosts UCF’s biggest software-building marathon annually for hundreds of students from throughout the nation.

“I said I’d go for fun. Only one girl in our group was a computer science major, but we were able to use basic coding theories to build a program from scratch in 36 hours,” she says. “We didn’t need to win. Learning and becoming closer, those were our awards.”

A Powerful Cycle for Success

Otero needed no push but says her friends at UCF became like iron sharpening iron. They’d talk about work experiences, which made Otero feel as if she needed to catch up. As a sophomore, she applied for the (CWEP), a year-long paid opportunity that enables undergraduate and graduate students to gain real-world work skills and abilities relevant to their academic and career goals.

“I guess they sensed something genuine because they offered the position to me,” she says.

A few months later, she was chosen for another internship, this one with Deloitte. By the time she started her junior year, she had experience with two corporations, had become a hackathon regular and developed a hunger for accounting coursework.

“It all comes full circle. The instructors bring business experiences to the lessons, and we take lessons into businesses,” she says. “I’d leave [Associate Professor] Sean Dennis’s class and think auditing must be the most exciting subject ever. All along, my friends and I kept encouraging each other.”

Her True Inspiration

Word about Otero’s accounting skills spread until people began asking her to help with their taxes. She routinely gives her time and skillset to the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, where she serves people limited by income, language and disabilities.

“My dad walked me through financial knowledge, and with VITA I have the privilege of doing the same for others,” she says.

Otero has drawn more than financial knowledge from her family. Her paternal grandparents came to the U.S. from Cuba at young ages as part of Operaçion Pedro Pan, an agreement of cooperation between the U.S. State Department and Catholic Charities of Miami in the 1960s that saw more than 14,000 unaccompanied children sent by their parents to Miami, away from the growing communist regime in Cuba.

“This has been so much better than I imagined when I came to UCF and didn’t know anyone.” — Natalie Otero ’26

“It was hard, but my grandparents talk about how happy they were to be in the U.S., even with limited resources and not knowing when they’d see their parents again,” Otero says. “They’ve always been optimistic because they know the value of opportunities and they worked hard to make the most of them.”

Otero’s own optimism engages friends, and her work ethic has led to the Order of Pegasus award, another internship with Deloitte this summer and graduate school in the fall at UNC Chapel Hill.

“It’s hard to believe,” Otero says. “This has been so much better than I imagined when I came to UCF and didn’t know anyone. Everything is more rewarding, too, because of all the people who have made it possible.”

Five years after UCF computer science students first helped the U.S. Army Reserve (USAR) build a tech solution to enhance efficiency, Knights are still improving the platform — and the impact keeps growing.

Reserve Mercury, a mobile and web application designed to replace slow, paper-based administrative processes used by Army Reserve units, is now being used by thousands of reservists nationwide. What started as Project Mercury — a student-led effort to replace paper forms — has evolved into a long-running collaboration between student developers in UCF’s Senior Seminar Course, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) and the USAR.

Originally launched in 2023, the app digitized the Army Reserve’s DA 1380 submission process — a manual workflow that once required soldiers to print forms, physically route paperwork through chains of command and wait for approvals tied to compensation and service records.

Now, soldiers can digitally submit pay, absence and medical forms within the platform from any device. Leaders can then review and approve submissions instantly, helping reduce delays and ensure soldiers are paid on time.

But the momentum behind Project Mercury didn’t end at launch.

Each semester, new student teams continue building on the work of those before them, refining features, fixing issues and expanding the platform based on direct user feedback from soldiers.

“As technology continues to advance, it’s important that critical systems like those used by the Army Reserve evolve as well,” says Shaun Gorllapati ’26, functional test and continuous improvement lead on the Fall 2025–Spring 2026 Senior Design II team. “Projects like this help bridge that gap by introducing more efficient, scalable and modern solutions that improve overall operations.”

Inheriting a Mission Already in Motion

Under the guidance of Associate Lecturers Matthew Gerber and Richard Leinecker in UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, Project Mercury has become one of the university’s most ambitious long-term software projects since its inception in 2021.

Senior Design students work alongside Army Reserve subject matter experts led by Reserve Mercury Program Manager Lt. Col. Jonathan LacKamp while gaining experience in large-scale software engineering, testing and deployment management.

This year’s team included 15 students with expertise in data science, artificial intelligence and application and web-based development. Organized into three groups, they focused on backend development, bug fixes and maintenance, and new feature development.

At the start of the semester, the team inherited a nearly five-year-old codebase from previous students. Through documentation reviews, handoff meetings and collaboration with prior developers, they learned how to maintain and expand a living software system already serving military users nationwide.

New Features Focus on Speed, Security and Simplicity

For Spring 2026, 84 new users from the 6th Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment were onboarded and trained on the platform. Their feedback directly shaped several new improvements.

Among the latest updates was a Pay Type Limits feature that helps commanders monitor annual submission thresholds tied to DA 1380 compensation requests. Students also improved the app’s dental form process by adding required field validation, submission confirmation and better signature handling to help ensure medical documentation is completed accurately for deployment readiness.

Another major upgrade was a redesigned notification system.

“I’m especially proud of the notification system, which significantly improves how reservists stay informed and act within the application,” Gorllapati says. “Previously, … users had to rely on an activity log to view updates. Notifications were not actionable, lacked clear read and unread indicators, and did not guide users to the relevant part of the app.”

Additional enhancements currently in development include multi-factor authentication for stronger security and a large-scale user interface redesign to modernize the platform and improve accessibility.

The response from reservists has reinforced the project’s impact.

“We recently onboarded a unit that was struggling with an HR administrator shortage across multiple companies,” says Maj. Jeffrey Garner, Reserve Mercury onboarding and implementation lead. “After they started using Reserve Mercury, the feedback was immediate — they called it a ‘game changer’ and asked to onboard their additional units as soon as possible.”

Developing Career-Ready Skills Through Mission-Driven Work

For students, the experience goes far beyond the classroom.

“Working on a project with real-world, national-level impact while still a student has been a very meaningful experience,” Gorllapati says. “[It has] prepared me to handle real-world engineering challenges more effectively and has reinforced my goal of pursuing a career in software engineering, where I can contribute to large-scale, impactful systems.”

Senior Design team members build experience in frontend and backend development, AWS services, deployment management, software testing, and release cycles while collaborating directly with military stakeholders in an environment that mirrors professional software engineering teams.

But for many, the most rewarding part is knowing their work directly supports service members.

“Knowing that the end users are real service members adds purpose to every feature we build,” Gorllapati says. “It motivates us to learn new tools, improve our technical skills, and apply best practices to ensure the application is reliable, efficient, and easy to use.”

That purpose continues driving Reserve Mercury forward — one update, one deployment and one student at a time.

“What we’ve seen over the life of the project is the power of collaboration between reservists as both customers and subject matter experts, innovation sponsors like DIU and the incredible dedication of successive student teams,” LacKamp says. “The program is currently poised for wider adoption across USAR, but that wouldn’t be possible without the strong foundation built by our UCF partners.  At Reserve Mercury, we believe that administrative efficiency is directly related to both operational readiness and the retention of qualified soldiers. UCF is helping make this belief a reality.”

As Preston Strenth prepares to cross the stage at commencement, he finds himself flashing back to the moment his journey to this milestone started in 2023 with the South Carolina National Guard.

Strenth was on deployment in Kuwait with his unit. Among his fellow infantrymen was 20-year-old Jayson Haven. Haven had been accepted to his dream school, the ����ֱ�� of Michigan, and was fulfilling the final two months of his year-long assignment before shipping off to college. He was tragically killed in a non-combat vehicle rollover accident.

“I think all of us who were on that deployment understood you’re here and somebody else isn’t. What are you going to do with your life?” Strenth says.

“I think all of us who were on that deployment understood you’re here and somebody else isn’t. What are you going to do with your life?”

Seven months later, Strenth envisioned that life and voiced his goals to his wife, Kriselle. He proposed a two-year timeline to earn a college degree in computer science and start a new career path.

“I feel like everything in my life now is all clicking together,” says Strenth, who landed three job offers before graduating and is in the process of purchasing his first home. “I have achieved the American dream in a sense.”

The Right Place

A Central Florida native, Strenth moved to South Carolina at 17 and joined the National Guard two years later. He extended his contract twice — his current contract ends in 2027 — as he pursued a degree in criminal justice from the ����ֱ�� of South Carolina.

He took advantage of the educational benefits the U.S. Army offers and obtained a certification in computer programming, which introduced him to coding software.

After that fateful deployment in Kuwait, he and his wife set their sights on Orlando and UCF, where Strenth knew of the university’s reputation as one of the nation’s top military friendly schools, its strength in computer science and our many industry partnerships.

Learn more about Preston Stenth’s journey from his .

“Without a doubt, coming to UCF is the best thing I ever did,” he says.

His credits from the ����ֱ�� of South Carolina transferred over to help keep him on track for his two-year timeline. He thrived, in part, because of his willingness to take advantage of the many resources offered through the .

His experience here also tested him in ways that led to great growth and confidence.

In his second semester, while taking Computer Science I, he was stuck on his first programming assignment. Every time he willed the coding to work, he was met with the same result: fail.

His frustration turned to tears as he voiced his doubts to his wife. What if he just screwed up his life? What if he couldn’t do this?

She encouraged him while leveling with him at the same time — he wasn’t the first to attempt this class or this degree. If he wanted to be here, he was going to figure it out.

She was right.

“I think that is kind of the point — they will make you go to that line and ask yourself, ‘Do you want to be here?’ ” Strenth says. “Because it’s a program that can lead you to a financially stable future. I have offers that no one in my family has ever had in front of them before. But you’ve got to work for them.”

Opportunity Calls with BNY

He applied that same grindstone mentality to maximizing opportunities outside of the classroom — all the while driving to South Carolina once a month to fulfill his National Guard duties.

“I have offers that no one in my family has ever had in front of them before.”

In Spring 2024, he attended a lunch and learn with BNY, which was organized by the Office of Military and Veteran Student Success. The leading global financial services company announced a formal partnership with UCF that establishes a co-located educational innovation hub on UCF’s main campus — the first-of-its-kind in Florida.

Strenth turned the connection he made with the BNY recruiter into a summer internship as a software engineer and vowed to himself to secure a job offer.

He wasn’t deterred by the fact that many of his fellow interns had started programming as middle-schoolers while he, at 24, had just learned the basics a year prior.

He committed to being the first one in the door and one of the last to leave. He reached out to fellow veterans he found in an interdepartmental staff directory to seek advice about integrating into the company. He emailed a weekly recap to his supervisor that listed how his accomplishments that week aligned with BNY’s core values.

“I was trying to showcase that I wanted to be here, and I wanted this job offer more than anything,” Strenth says.

When the internship ended, he stayed connected, even as he lined up another software engineering internship with Hatalom Corporation, a service-disabled veteran-owned small business.

Strenth had three job offers lined up before graduation day with BNY, Hatalom and Northrop Grumman. BNY’s career growth potential, military leave policy and proximity to his home were too good to pass up.

“BNY has a future leaders program that I’ve already expressed interest in even though I’m not eligible for another two years. But I’m already telling them, ‘This is something I want to do. How can I?’ ” he says.

He draws upon that memory of his conversation with his wife from years ago — in his story, he refers to it as “the gamble” — as he sits here today, once again, betting on himself.

“Now two years later, I’m like, ‘We won. We did it,’ ” he says. “Celebrating this moment at graduation is a testament to the sacrifices that my wife has made, my family has made, and the countless other people who have supported me to get to this point.”

Under a high-stakes, simulated cyberattack and mounting pressure, the UCF Collegiate Cybersecurity Competition (C3) team proved it can defend, adapt and outperform — earning first place at the 2026 Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC).

The team rose above nine competitors, including Tennessee Tech ����ֱ��, Clemson ����ֱ��, the ����ֱ�� of South Florida and the ����ֱ�� of Florida. With the win, UCF advances to the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, which will be held virtually next month.

Twelve students make up this year’s C3 team: sophomore information technology (IT) majors Gabriel Edwards and Maksim Shostak; junior IT majors Logan Autry, Anthony Donnelly, Joseph Durand, Adam Raczynski and Jonathan Styles; senior IT major Ardian Peach; sophomore computer science major Tyler Waddell; junior computer science major Benjamin Williams; cyber security and privacy master’s student Andy Pompura ’23; and senior prelaw major Noah Magill, who serves as team captain.

UCF’s Legacy of Cybersecurity Success

Their stellar performance marks UCF’s ninth first-place finish at the Southeast CCDC regional since 2013. UCF earned runner-up finishes in 2017 and 2025, along with first-place titles in special at-large CCDC regionals during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

“UCF has historically maintained high service availability levels while under attack by the red team.” — Tom Nedorost ’02MS, senior instructor and C3 team coach

The team not only clinched the top spot but also swept all three categories, winning Best in Uptime Service, Best in Business and Best in Defense.

“UCF has historically maintained high service availability levels while under attack by the red team,” says Tom Nedorost ’02MS, C3 team coach and senior instructor of computer science and IT. “We lived up to that expectation again this year, which resulted in winning the Best in Uptime Service award.”

Nedorost adds that the team strengthened its ability to complete technical service requests while hardening systems against vulnerabilities to protect their network, key improvements that led to the two additional category wins.

Putting Cyber Defense Skills into Practice

At each competition, teams are tasked with defending a fictional company’s network against cyberattacks launched by red team members attempting to infiltrate it. All the while, competitors must maintain business operations and respond to customer service requests.

Each obstacle mimics real-world scenarios cybersecurity professionals face, allowing competitors to demonstrate their technical skills, business acumen and ability to collaborate.

It’s fun to go up against people [who, collectively,] would be a force to reckon with in the cyber world .” — Noah Magill, prelaw major and C3 team captain

Magill says the Southeast CCDC is among the most competitive, with red team members from leading companies such as Amazon Web Services and Cisco.

“All of them put together make up one of the scariest real-world life adversaries,” Magill says. “It’s fun to go up against people [who, collectively,] would be a force to reckon with in the cyber world — and a lot of [them] are [UCF] alumni.”

Next Up: Nationals

As the team sets its sights on the national competition, the work is far from over. Magill says a few more 100-hour weeks are likely ahead.

“Everyone on the team is incredibly adept at what they do and world-class [in] their specialty,” Magill says. “Leading this team [and relying] on such amazing teammates with such a diverse amount of skills has been really awesome.”

Interim (IST) Director Carolina Cruz-Neira’s career in virtual reality (VR) began as a backup plan.

She spent her childhood training as a ballet dancer. When a knee injury at 21 ended her professional dance aspirations, she leaned on the engineering degree her father had encouraged her to pursue.

While earning her doctoral degree in electrical engineering and computer science at the ����ֱ�� of Illinois Chicago, she discovered the Electronic Visualization Laboratory — and with it, a way to merge art and technology.

“My philosophy as a researcher has always been to take on projects that are a little risky.”

In 1992, she unveiled the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), an immersive VR system that transforms a room-sized cube into an interactive 3D digital world. Unlike early VR headsets that isolated users, the CAVE allows multiple people to step inside the same digital environment, fostering shared exploration and real-time collaboration.

Today, CAVE systems are used worldwide, from gaming and art installations to military training and automotive design, helping industries visualize complex problems, improve safety and refine products before building them in the real world.

Powering the Future of Simulation

Over nearly four decades, Cruz-Neira has made significant contributions to the fields of VR, interactive visualization, high-performance computing and digital twins, which are dynamic virtual replicas of real-world objects used for simulation and testing across industries. Her innovations have influenced training and research for NASA, the U.S. military and U.S. National Laboratories.

By the Numbers: A Lasting Impact

• Secured more than $200 million in research funding
• Authored more than 100 publications
• Elected to the National Academy of Engineering — one of the highest professional distinctions for engineers in the U.S.
• Named an IEEE fellow and Forbes’ 50 Over 50 honoree for innovation
• Inducted into the inaugural Augmented World Expo XR Hall of Fame and the Orlando Tech Community Hall of Fame for her contributions to Central Florida’s tech ecosystem
• Recognized in the U.S. Congressional Record for the national impact of her work

“My philosophy as a researcher has always been to take on projects that are a little risky,” says Cruz-Neira, UCF’s Agere Chair Professor of computer science. “I tell my students that we do research with a purpose. And yes, it’s challenging. But if we have that vision of where this thing is going, our talent and creativity have a terrific playground.”

That bold spirit of exploration drew her to UCF in 2020 — a university recognized for its strength in computer science and deep partnerships and collaborators across several sectors, including space, defense, entertainment and healthcare.

“There’s a whole community of researchers, faculty and students here who are passionate about this kind of work.”

Since arriving, she says she has found something even more powerful: a culture that pairs high-level excellence with a nurturing environment — where ambitious ideas are energized, challenged and brought to life through collaboration.

“There’s a whole community of researchers, faculty and students here who are passionate about this kind of work. That has allowed us to expand our ideas tremendously,” Cruz-Neira says. “We’re now collaborating with teams across the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the College of Medicine, the College of Arts and Humanities and the , which broadens what we’re able to do. It’s nice to have a tribe around you, where everyone helps each other and works together.”

Among those collaborators is longtime colleague and IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Service awardee, Gregory Welch. Cruz-Neira says they first met as “Ph.D. babies,” beginning a collaboration that has now spanned nearly 38 years. Since joining UCF, she has continued working closely with Welch and his team on several joint research projects and publications.

What’s Next: Blending Physical and Virtual Worlds

As IST director, Cruz-Neira is helping broaden UCF’s modeling and simulation legacy while leading several cutting-edge research projects in collaboration with talented students and faculty. One such project explores humanoid robots as extensions of the human body, allowing a person to navigate remote or inaccessible locations in real time. Using artificial intelligence, the robot captures its surroundings and transmits a live digital replica into the CAVE, where a human operator’s movements control the robot, creating a seamless exchange between physical and virtual worlds.

“This project opens a lot of possibilities and aligns with where we want to go at IST and UCF,” Cruz-Neira says. “We do a lot of work with defense, first responders and healthcare professionals, and in many cases, we see the need for a human [presence in locations] that aren’t feasible. By combining mature technologies available in the commercial world with some of our more advanced algorithms and system designs at UCF, we’ve finally been able to come together to make this prototype and showcase it in December 2025 at [the Interservice/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference], a major defense training environment.”

Cruz-Neira continues to push boundaries, bringing people together and asking questions like, “What can we create next?” and “How far can we take this?”

And despite a lifetime achievement award, she’s clear about one thing: “I’m not done yet.”

LaViola is one of 11 computer science academics and professionals selected for induction into the Association of Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM SIGCHI) Academy this year. He will be honored during an awards ceremony at the 2026 CHI conference in Barcelona, the leading international conference on human-computer interaction.

“It means a great deal to me, both personally and professionally, to be included with so many outstanding HCI researchers and pioneers in the field,” LaViola says. “This honor helps recognize the work I have done over the last 20-plus years in the field, and I am truly humbled to be part of this select group.”

LaViola manages the Interactive Computing Experiences Research Laboratory at UCF, where his work with 3D user interfaces, 2D and 3D gesture recognition and sketch- and touch-based interfaces contributed to his induction into the ACM SIGCHI Academy. He and his team are currently developing multimodal interfaces that use visual language models to track users’ movements and eye gaze and interpret their speech. The goal is seamless human-computer interaction, enabling computers to predict user needs without requiring exact commands. He’s also the lead author of the second edition of 3D User Interfaces: Theory and Practice, the first comprehensive book on the topic.

Since joining UCF in 2007 as an assistant professor, LaViola has risen to become the Charles N. Millican Professor of computer science and director of the Interactive Computing Experiences Research Cluster. He has published more than 200 refereed journal and conference articles and written eight book chapters. He contributed to leading research that demonstrates how stereoscopic 3D viewing, head tracking, gestural control and eye tracking can affect a player’s performance in video games.

In 2025, LaViola was inducted into the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Visualization and Graphics Technical Community’s Virtual Reality Academy. He is a senior member of both IEEE and ACM.

LaViola says his induction is a shared achievement and thanks those who helped him along the way.

“Being inducted into the SIGCHI Academy is not an honor that is achieved in isolation,” he says. “I would like to thank my Ph.D. advisor, Andries van Dam, for his guidance over the years, as well as Robert Zeleznik, with whom I have collaborated closely on many human-computer interaction projects during my career. I would also like to thank my book collaborators Doug Bowman, Ernst Kruijff, Ivan Poupyrev and Ryan McMahan, as well as my graduate students who did a lot of the work that I am being recognized for. Finally, I would like to thank Steve Feiner for nominating me for inclusion into the SIGCHI Academy.”

Nothing motivates Ilkin Isler ’22MS ’25PhD quite like this phrase: “It can’t be done.”

When Isler says candidly, “Working on my Ph.D. is the most difficult thing I’ve ever faced,” there’s a montage of difficult things in her life to consider — physical and mental, past and present.

For example, in August 2025, the recent computer science doctoral graduate began work as a senior artificial intelligence (AI) engineer at Universal Creative. Her role involved analyzing complex white papers and developing state-of-the-art AI systems from scratch — all for the purpose of improving the safety of park guests.

“I find solutions for high-risk applications,” Isler says, “which is a good description for what I love to do.”

“… when I hear something can’t be done, it motivates me to make it happen.” — Ilkin Isler ’22MS ’25PhD

The fact that her work requires fortitude also fits Isler well. In high school in Turkey, she once walked into a gym “just for something to do.” A trainer immediately suggested she head to the cardio area, where she’d blend in easily. Isler, however, saw the powerlifting space and thought, “�ճ󲹳�’s what I want to do.”

“I had to teach myself how to do [powerlifting],” she says. “People probably thought I’d give up, but when I hear something can’t be done, it motivates me to make it happen.”

Self-taught and competing despite her small frame, Isler went on to become a European powerlifting champion.

All of this is important for understanding the person who, while studying at UCF, helped develop an AI model to assess cancerous tumors.

Using Computer Imaging to Enhance Patient Care

Guided by a team of advisors, Isler came up with a way to feed medical imaging into an algorithm that measures shapes and textures with more speed, precision and consistency than is currently possible. Given such accurate information, an oncologist could make quicker, more confident decisions — improving overall patient care.

“… [Ilkin’s] work helps push the field forward in an important and timely way.” — David Mohaisen, UCF computer science professor

“The problem she chose to work on is inherently difficult for several reasons,” says David Mohaisen, UCF computer science professor and one of her advisors. “Medical imaging is a high-stakes domain where errors have serious clinical consequences.”

“It’s also a mature and crowded research area, with competitive works focusing on incremental benchmark gains rather than addressing deeper issues, such as reliability, uncertainty and clinical integration,” Mohaisen continues. “Instead of chasing marginal improvements, Ilkin focused on meaningful outcomes. Her work helps push the field forward in an important and timely way.”

Yet the breakthrough alone, and the work that went into it, does not fully capture what Isler faced at the dizzying start of her doctorate journey.

Taking a Chance to Change Her Life and Others

Isler arrived from Turkey with two suitcases and a hotel reservation near UCF.

“My mom filled one of the suitcases with Turkish food,” Isler says. She can laugh now, but at the time, she had no clear path beyond the airport. “I had to figure everything out.”

A few years earlier, she traveled across the globe to UCF as an undergraduate, having earned a competitive internship in the Synthetic Reality Lab, where she worked with Pegasus Professor Charles Hughes and then computer engineering doctoral student Kamran Ali ’21PhD on facial expression recognition.

“She committed herself to the research,” Hughes says, “and even contributed to writing and editing the resulting report after she returned to Turkey.”

Days away from starting doctorate-level research, with all her belongings in a single piece of luggage, Isler would do what she does best: find a way. She moved from the hotel to an unfurnished apartment.

But with her, Isler brought two specific interests to her postgraduate research at UCF. Her mother, a dentist in Turkey, inspired an interest in medical advancement. Her father, a computer science professor, recognized in his daughter the curiosity and determination required for the field.

“If I know an idea can be impactful, I’ll do whatever is necessary to make it a reality,” she says. “The higher the stakes, the more driven I become.”

Those stakes led her to focus on medical imaging solutions for cancer care worldwide. Without a medical background, she collaborated with doctors. It helped that she never looked at her research as an academic exercise. She wanted only to deliver something trustworthy that clinicians everywhere could use to eliminate gray areas in image analysis.

“I’ve been fortunate to work with many doctoral students over the years, and Ilkin stands out on multiple levels,” says Mohaisen, pointing out her motivation, energy and curiosity, before adding: “I’d say she is among the most driven.”

Fueled by Challenge and Service

By now, the source of Isler’s uncommon drive is clear. Every time someone showed skepticism about her powerlifting, she responded by breaking a national record. Although she could have attended a private college in Turkey, where she would have been surrounded by familiar language and culture, she instead chose to move across the world to study AI.

There’s one more motivation that consistently guides her: others.

Isler considers her greatest accomplishment in powerlifting to be the doors she helped open for others in Turkey to try any form of fitness they choose. And she says she would gladly move to another continent again, with just a suitcase and her AI skills, if it meant helping improve the lives of others.

“When I look back, I can see that I’ve often traded comfort for growth,” she says, “and I will not hesitate to do it again.”

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has named Solihin to its 2025 class of fellows — a distinction awarded to just 71 professionals worldwide for their remarkable achievements, technical innovations and lasting contributions to the field.

Selected from ACM’s 100,000 members, the new fellows will be formally inducted at the ACM Awards Banquet in June.

For Solihin, the recognition represents something deeper than a title.

“Being one out of 71 selected for this designation worldwide in 2025, I feel deeply honored,” he says. “This recognition is the culmination of decades of research in computer architecture, with contributions from my former and current Ph.D. students and collaborators.”

A Pioneer in Computer Architecture

Long before today’s cloud-powered, security-conscious computing era, Solihin was asking questions others weren’t.

In the early 2000s, as research focused on single-core processors, he turned his attention to multicore systems and uncovered a hidden flaw. His research group identified a critical performance challenge in shared cache architecture: uneven slowdowns caused by cache sharing. When multiple programs run simultaneously and share a common cache, some slow down more than others due to resource limitations.

“I feel deeply humbled because, at the time I chose to work on these problems, it was not clear how important they would turn out to be.”

Groundbreaking when it emerged in 2003, this phenomenon is now widely known and studied by computer scientists. Solihin and his group coined the term “fair cache sharing” and introduced a technique to partition the cache so programs slow down equally, ultimately improving overall performance. They also coined the term “cache quality of service,” advocating for cache policies that enable differentiated performance levels. Solihin also pioneered research on secure processors, which allow applications to run in an environment protected from vulnerabilities in system software.

Today, those once-theoretical ideas are foundational. Cache partitioning and secure processors are now standard features in graphics processing units and central processing units, particularly those powering cloud computing systems worldwide.

“I feel deeply humbled because, at the time I chose to work on these problems, it was not clear how important they would turn out to be,” Solihin says. “I started working on … cache partitioning when the hot research topics of the day were single-core processors. I started working in secure execution environment design when it was still unclear if hardware architecture should play a major role in computer security.”

Making an Impact in Industry and Education

After earning his doctorate in computer science from the ����ֱ�� of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Solihin worked as a professor at North Carolina State ����ֱ��. He then joined the U.S. National Science Foundation, where he served as a program director for secure and trustworthy research on cyberspace and computer systems.

When he joined UCF in 2018, that bold ambition and pioneering spirit came with him.

As director of the at UCF, Solihin helped expand the university’s research footprint and developed the Cyber Security and Privacy master’s program within the Department of Computer Science. Under his leadership, the program has grown to 200 students, the research cluster has added 13 faculty members and his findings have been incorporated into the computer processing industry’s design and development of computer architecture.

Yet Solihin doesn’t claim any of these achievements as his greatest.

“The achievement I am the proudest of is the positive impact I have made on students that I have advised,” he says. “Some of my past students have established good careers of their own, including becoming professors at Oxford ����ֱ��, Northeastern ����ֱ��, UC Santa Cruz and Binghamton ����ֱ��.”

Thanks to ’s dedicated support for STEM students, he had access to resources so he would not have to navigate that journey alone.

“Engineering is hands-down our most active liaison area,” says Taylor Sandifer ’23MA, assistant director of employer relations in Career Services who supports all STEM majors, including the College of Engineering and Computer Science. “CECS students show up to everything. They’re really engaged, and they take advantage of every opportunity.”

For Knights like Nguyen, that means access to employers through engineering-focused employer-led workshops, resume reviews, mock interviews, and the highly attended , which occurs annually in the fall at the Addition Financial Arena, where as many as 300 employers fill the venue.

Big Companies Recruit Knights

Before Expo, students can participate in the Career Readiness Program, a two-week series including industry-specific, employer-led sessions where recruiters host one-on-one resume reviews and mock interviews to help students prepare.

UCF’s employer-relations model attracts major companies such as Google, Meta, Amazon, Siemens Energy, Lockheed Martin, L3Harris and Walmart directly to campus for tabling, information sessions, and networking events.

“Employers coming in to recruit STEM talent will work with us to get connected,” Sandifer says. “We help them get into the engineering atrium, set up information sessions, reach students through Handshake, and collaborate with CECS to spread the word.

“We want students to see a clear path from UCF to a career.”— Taylor Sandifer ’23MA, assistant director of employer relations in Career Services

“We want students to see a clear path from UCF to a career. When they put in the effort, and we can help make those connections, it all comes together.”

Sandifer has seen firsthand how transformative this can be.

“One computer science student (Nguyen) showed up on the wrong day — in a suit — but stayed anyway,” she recalls. “He came back the next day, met with recruiters, and we connected him with Deloitte & Touche. He ended up getting the job. His hard work and willingness to show up made the difference.”

Real World Ready

Nguyen credits the Dixon Career Development Center in helping him shape his career path.

“I wasn’t very prepared initially and had no idea where to even start. It was overwhelming just thinking about it,” he says. “I attended an event I found off Handshake and it turned into me getting resume reviews, mock interviews, and attending events that got me to meet employers I was passionate about joining.”

He took advantage of summer appointments, interview strategies, and also printed business cards to hand out to the company representatives at the Internship and Career Expo. Those efforts paid off with an opportunity at Deloitte — a place he was drawn to for its culture and its constant flow of new challenges.

His biggest takeaway from his experience with the Career Center is to be persistent and open to every opportunity.

“You never know what conversation you have with someone that could turn into a huge career opportunity,” he says.

�ճ���� will take place on Tuesday, March 10.