During UCF Celebrates the Arts 2026, Legally Blonde took the stage with a twist audiences didn’t see coming — one that blurred the line between performance and possibility.

The story still delivered the heart: College student Elle Woods chases love, faces doubt and ultimately discovers her own strength along the way. But this production layered something new into that journey: state-of-the-art robotics. At UCF, Florida’s Technological ����ֱ��, innovation shows up in unexpected places — even onstage.

The result was a show that felt both nostalgic and forward-looking, where dynamic musical theater met emerging tech.

Musical theatre major Lyric Stratton played the perfect protagonist, Elle Woods, whose dreams of settling down after college graduation are cut short when her boyfriend, Warner, breaks up with her to attend Harvard Law School. Devastated and determined to get him back, Woods pulls together an unconventional application and charms her way into Harvard Law.

High-energy dance numbers powered the production from start to finish. In one standout scene titled “What You Want,” Woods turns her Harvard application into a full-scale performance, trading a traditional essay for a show-stopping number alongside the UCLA cheer team.

The number featured 25 students on stage and took 13 hours to stage.

Three characters led a Harvard admissions conference room scene, delivering sharp dialogue as they debated Woods’ fate.

From left: Joey Fields as Winthrop, Tristan Haberland as Lowell and Jasper Allen as Pforzheimer.

Just as the audience settled into the story, two robot dogs stepped into the spotlight. During the nine-minute number “What You Want,” they appeared in a Harvard campus scene where engineering students — played by theatre majors Mia Freeman and Isabel Ramos — walked them around as UCLA cheerleaders looked on in awe. In a brief but striking moment, technology wasn’t just a prop — it became part of the story.

Operated live on stage, the robots transformed the moment into a seamless blend of performance and engineering. Freeman and Ramos were trained by Mohsen Rakhshan, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, and his graduate teaching assistant, Chinmay Dhanraj Nehate.

“We’re seeing the incorporation of robotics into different things at an accelerated rate, including art. It’s exciting,” says Rakhshan, who closely collaborated with the production’s director to bring the robots into the show.

The electrical and computer engineering department houses 15 state-of-the-art robot dogs, nine of which are in Rakhshan’s Laboratory for Interaction of Machine and Brain. There, he and his graduate teaching assistant use them for both instruction and research — teaching an Introduction to Robotics course and training the robots to navigate the uncertainties of real-world environments.

During last year’s annual UCF football Space Game, Michael Jablonski, assistant professor of musical theatre in the College of Arts and Humanities, watched the ECE department’s robot dogs in motion across the field. At that moment, he saw more than entertainment — he saw the potential for storytelling. A way to take something typically confined to classrooms and labs and give it emotion and meaning.

When planning Legally Blonde, a story rooted in breaking expectations, the idea came naturally: why not let innovation share the stage?

Even with its high-tech twist, the show stayed true to its roots — including Bruiser, Woods’ loyal (and stylish) Chihuahua, brought to life by a real dog named Marty McFly.

During “Whipped Into Shape,” fitness guru Brooke Wyndham, played by theatre major Isabel Ramos, led her cellmates through a relentless workout. Accused of murder, Wyndham refused to reveal the truth when Woods visited — unless she could keep up — turning the moment into a high-energy number where actors sang while performing intense jump rope choreography.

In the climactic courtroom scene, Woods took the lead, defending Wyndham and using sharp instincts, wit and confidence to expose the real culprit. It was a defining moment where she proved she belongs, blending intelligence, intuition and boldness to win the case.

Front row from left: Lyric Stratton as Elle Woods, Isabel Ramos as Brooke Wyndham and Jaxon Ryan as Emmett Forrest.

Along the way, Woods stops chasing approval and finds her confidence, purpose and voice. This central theme drew Jablonski, Legally Blonde production director, to the female-driven story.

“This story showcases how a very strong, intelligent woman [Elle Woods] finds her way in a male-dominated world. She initially follows love, but through it, she finds a space where she fits perfectly,” Jablonski says. “Through being misjudged and stereotyped, we come to see that she’s far above the people around her in her thinking and in the way she brings humanity into her work as a lawyer.”

What audiences saw was only part of the story. Behind every scene change, lighting cue, and musical number is a network of students, faculty, and staff working in sync — often just out of sight. Behind the curtain, more than 50 people managed lighting, sound and scene transitions in real time.

The music didn’t just support the story — it drove it. Legally Blonde, presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International, featured music and lyrics by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin, with 23 total musical numbers. The book is by Heather Hach.

Projection-mapped animations and imagery — created with QLab software and delivered through two high-brightness front projectors — were precisely timed to the music, blending seamlessly with choreography and lighting to shape the show’s visual rhythm.

“Each scene had its own visual identity, with projections adding specific details that help it stand out,” says Tim Brown, associate professor of theatre design and technology. “The goal is to support the show’s fun, colorful world in a clear and energetic way.”

Costuming defined each character with bold color and precise detail. Huaixiang Tan, professor of costume and make-up design in the School of Performing Arts, led the design, with support from assistant costume designers Sabrina Cervilla and Aisha Bader-Ortega. The production featured more than 100 costumes, each the result of hundreds of hours of craftsmanship.

In the Theatre UCF scene shop, students began using hands-on technical skills to build and refine set pieces in January.

Built through layers of paint, planning and precision, the set came together as a large-scale collaboration among more than 40 students.

Designed for transport, much like a touring production, the set added an extra layer of complexity and was built to be assembled at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. It was completed and delivered on March 30.

Big ideas don’t wait — and neither do the researchers behind them.

The 2026 Reach for the Stars honorees — six UCF assistant professors — are already making a substantial impact on their respective fields through meaningful research and creative work that extends far beyond campus, with national and international influence.

Across disciplines, their work and research reflect a shared mission to advance ideas into impact — uncovering what shapes ethical decision-making in the workplace; exploring the origins of our solar system; developing computational solutions to meet future energy demands; designing more intuitive and reliable software experiences; strengthening education for students with disabilities; and engineering faster, more energy-efficient artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

Together, this brilliant group represents the kind of bold, forward-thinking innovation UCF continues to champion.

Each year, the Reach for the Stars awards recognize early-career faculty opening new doors for what’s possible across their fields. The prestigious award is second only to Pegasus Professor as UCF’s highest faculty honor.

In recognition of their achievements, each honoree will receive a $10,000 annual research grant for three years in addition to the distinction of being an award recipient.

The UCF community is cordially invited to come and congratulate the recipients from 3-5 p.m. Wednesday, April 1, in the Pegasus Ballroom at the Student Union as part of the 2026 Founders’ Day Faculty Honors Celebration.

This year’s Reach for the Stars honorees are:

John Bush

Assistant professor of management in the College of Business

What’s something few people know about you?

Working at UCF is a homecoming for me. Growing up in Florida, I had the opportunity to experience all the great things this state and its universities have to offer. And while my younger self might not have predicted I’d end up in Black & Gold, UCF and Orlando have been incredible homes.

What does your research focus on?

I study when, why, and how employees cross ethical lines, and what role leaders, management policies, and organizational systems play in those decisions. A big part of what makes my work unique is that I focus on an important puzzle: how things we typically think of as “good” can promote unethical behavior. We tend to assume that well-intentioned management practices will always lead to good outcomes. However, my research shows that’s not always the case, and the unintended consequences can be significant.

What drives you to take on this challenge?

Before I entered academia, I worked in corporate finance and accounting. That experience meaningfully shaped how I think about ethics in organizations.

There’s a common assumption that unethical behavior is a “bad apple” problem, or rather, that it comes down to an individual’s character or integrity. But as my work has shown, it’s often a “bad barrel” problem. The environments organizations create, the systems they put in place and the ways managers approach leadership profoundly influence how people behave.

What makes UCF the right place for you to do this kind of work?

I’m a firm believer that the people make the place — and the faculty, staff and students of UCF are truly what make it such a great place to be. The College of Business has a management department full of colleagues who are both excellent scholars and genuinely collaborative people.

What’s next for you or your research?

I’m excited about several new directions, each of which builds upon my existing work. I’m particularly interested in examining more nuanced, less studied drivers of ethical decision-making. For example, what happens when someone becomes an accidental witness to unethical behavior? How does that experience shape what they do next and the moral burden that’s placed on them?

Ana Carolina de Souza-Feliciano

Assistant professor at the

What’s something few people know about you?

While many people know I’m not afraid to face challenges, few know that I’m afraid of roller coasters.

What does your research focus on?

I study the small bodies of our solar system (objects such as asteroids, Trojans and trans-Neptunian objects) from an observational perspective to try to understand how our planetary system formed and evolved. The small bodies that remain from the early solar system still preserve clues about the materials and conditions that existed when planets formed. By observing their surfaces, compositions and physical properties, we can piece together the history of how the solar system came to be.

What drives you to take on this challenge?

The solar system still holds many unanswered questions, and every observation has the potential to reveal something completely new about its history. I’m especially motivated by the idea that these small and distant objects preserve a record of the earliest stages of planetary formation, and since we still don’t know much about them, we need to better characterize these groups to have a chance of getting closer to important scientific answers.

What makes UCF the right place for you to do this kind of work?

UCF provides a dynamic research environment with strong collaborations and access to facilities that help me achieve my scientific goals.

What’s next for you or your research?

I aim to expand my research group and continue developing new projects exploring the composition and physical properties of small bodies in the outer solar system.

Shyam Kattel

Assistant professor of physics in the College of Sciences

What’s something few people know about you?

I enjoy long, quiet walks or runs. It’s when I do my best thinking and come up with new ideas for teaching and research.

What does your research focus on?

My research group is interested in understanding chemical processes through computer simulations. These chemical processes are central to many energy and fuel generation and energy conversion processes. We are exploring the design of catalytic materials that selectively convert abundant small molecules, such as CO2, N2, NO3, O2 and H2O, to a wide variety of synthetic chemicals and fuels in a carbon-neutral way to fulfill the growing energy demand of the future.

What drives you to take on this challenge?

I’m a huge advocate of sustainability. I’m fascinated by the rapid development and advancement of modern computers, machine learning (ML) and AI, which have enabled us to understand complex science on a time scale that’s impossible with traditional trial and error methods. This unique opportunity to utilize supercomputers with ML and AI to tackle energy and sustainability challenges keeps me awake at night.

What makes UCF the right place for you to do this kind of work?

By training, I’m a physicist, but my research focuses on looking into chemical reactions. UCF’s physics department is among a handful of institutions in the U.S. with a very strong catalysis program. This allows me to collaborate within the department and teach a physics course, which I enjoy. Additionally, the university’s large size and research facilities present opportunities to recruit the best students and to collaborate both within and beyond the department.

What’s next for you or your research?

My lab is developing capabilities to integrate ML and AI into our methods for understanding structure-materials property relationships across a large set of materials, driving the development of the next generation of clean and sustainable energy and fuel generation technologies. Our goal is to develop an integrated materials design framework that anyone can use for their research and for teaching research-based undergraduate and graduate courses.

Kevin Moran

Assistant professor of computer science in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, director of the Software Automation, Generation and Engineering Research Lab and affiliate of the Cyber Security and Privacy faculty cluster initiative

What’s something few people know about you?

I was a Division 1 rower as an undergraduate at the College of the Holy Cross. Our team competed in the national championship regatta my senior year and was ranked among the top 20 teams in the country.

What does your research focus on?

If you’ve ever been frustrated by glitches in apps or websites, my students, collaborators and I aim to give engineers the tools they need to build more reliable software. My group has pioneered work in user interface engineering, focusing on user-facing systems and making software easier to use.

What drives you to take on this challenge?

Since I was young, I’ve enjoyed building things, taking them apart and understanding how they work. I view software as the ultimate engineering medium, where abstract ideas can quickly become reality. What excites me most is tackling the complexity of modern software systems by developing tools that engineers can easily adopt. Seeing those tools save engineers hours or days of time is truly fun.

What makes UCF the right place for you to do this kind of work?

UCF has been an excellent place to grow as an early-career researcher. I’ve received invaluable mentorship from department and college leadership, as well as senior faculty. The university’s connection to the local tech industry is also exciting, and I look forward to forming connections with local companies to put our tools into practice.

What’s next for you or your research?

Software engineering is rapidly shifting toward agentic workflows, where AI-powered agents perform engineering tasks autonomously. While this increases speed, it also introduces complex errors that are harder to spot. My lab aims to understand these software engineering agents, improve their reliability and create tools that help developers use them effectively.

Soyoung Park

Assistant professor of teacher education in the College of Community Innovation and Education (CCIE)

What’s something few people know about you?

When I travel for conferences, I love to explore local bookstores and cafes.

What does your research focus on?

My research focuses on transforming educator preparation to better support students with disabilities. Supported by more than $3.75 million in U.S. Department of Education funding, my work prepares special education teachers, speech-language pathologists and school psychologists to serve students with autism spectrum disorders and high-intensity needs. I also develop evidence-based mathematics interventions for students with learning disabilities.

What drives you to take on this challenge?

Mathematics remains an area where both research and practice need stronger alignment. Teachers need accessible, evidence-based guidance on how to teach effectively, but it isn’t always easy to find or interpret. Students need consistent access to high-quality instruction that meets their individual needs. I’m interested in helping bridge that gap so that research can better support educators and the students they serve.

What makes UCF the right place for you to do this kind of work?

UCF’s strong infrastructure for research and collaboration further amplifies my work. Support from the Office of Research has been instrumental in advancing my research development, grant capacity and interdisciplinary collaboration. As a CCIE research fellow and affiliated faculty member at the Toni Jennings Exceptional Education Institute, I have valuable opportunities to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration across colleges.

What’s next for you or your research?

Our next project focuses on synthesizing large data sets to help educators identify mathematics interventions that align with their students’ needs. We’re also exploring how AI can support this process through pedagogical AI chatbots and interactive web-based platforms that guide educators in interpreting and applying research evidence in practice. Ultimately, this work aims to strengthen both instruction and student outcomes at scale.

Hao Zheng

Assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering and Computer Science

What’s something few people know about you?

I enjoy traveling, especially visiting national parks and exploring new cities. Each trip helps me recharge, and I often come back with fresh perspectives and new ideas.

What does your research focus on?

My research focuses on making today’s AI systems faster, more energy-efficient and more reliable by bridging the gap between algorithms and hardware. AI has reshaped daily life, but behind the scenes, modern AI models require enormous amounts of computation and energy. My work explores new ways to co-design hardware and software so AI can run efficiently, especially for irregular or sparse data structures, such as graphs.

What drives you to take on this challenge?

I’m driven by both the importance and the difficulty of the problem. We’re at the turning point of rethinking future computing systems. Defining a new computing paradigm, despite its challenges, can have a far-reaching impact across society. Our research can fundamentally reshape how future computers are designed and how AI is deployed at scale.

What makes UCF the right place for you to do this kind of work?

UCF is an ideal place to pursue bold research ideas, supported by strong momentum in engineering, computing and interdisciplinary collaboration. The university also offers an exceptional and supportive community of mentors and collaborators, including students, who set a high bar for excellence. I’ve been fortunate to work with many outstanding colleagues, and those experiences have shaped how I think about building a high-impact research program and growing as a scholar.

What’s next for you or your research?

Next, we’re expanding our work toward real-world deployments, including applications in healthcare and robotics. We’re also continuing to strengthen our research in building processors for AI and scientific computing so that our ideas can translate into improvements in performance and energy efficiency.

For computer engineering major Kamalakkannan Ravi ’20MSCpE ’25PhD, the goal was never to just earn a doctorate — it was to build artificial intelligence (AI) systems people could trust in the moments that matter most.

That bold vision found its momentum at UCF. As a student, Ravi was drawn to a university that encouraged big questions and interdisciplinary thinking, along with strong engineering fundamentals — the kind UCF is rapidly becoming known for as a rising force in engineering and technology. The university’s dynamic research environment gave him the freedom to explore where machine learning, biomedical applications and human-centered AI converge, while mentorship in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering helped sharpen his purpose.

Now, he’s carrying that UCF-driven determination to Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, where he’ll begin a research fellowship with the Division of Genetics and Genomics to advance trustworthy AI for clinical decision-making in healthcare.

At Harvard, Ravi will work on a project that aims to help physicians identify rare diseases earlier and respond more quickly. His research focuses on developing and evaluating clinical decision support tools that analyze electronic health record data and natural language processing to detect patterns that may signal a rare condition. These tools are designed to support clinicians in identifying patients who may benefit from further genetic evaluation, testing or a specialist referral. Ravi’s role centers on creating trustworthy, transparent AI methods that align with clinical systems, helping ensure these technologies are used responsibly in real-world healthcare.

Overcoming Obstacles Without a Blueprint

Ravi’s path to this opportunity was shaped by his persistence and commitment to making an impact long before he arrived at UCF.

Originally from Chennai, India, he’s a first-generation college student who entered higher education without a family blueprint to guide him. That experience influenced how he navigated graduate school and advanced research environments, reinforcing the importance of mentorship, community and resilience.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Anna ����ֱ��, Ravi worked as a research assistant at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. There, he gained early exposure to data-driven modeling and applied systems research at the intersection of engineering and medicine — experiences that shaped his interest in applying computational methods to biomedical and societal challenges. He’d take this interest on his pursuit of graduate education abroad.

Finding Interdisciplinary Opportunity at UCF

Ravi chose UCF specifically for its strength in engineering combined with opportunities for interdisciplinary, human-centered research.

Within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, he found an environment that encouraged him to explore machine learning, biomedical applications and ethical AI.

Under the mentorship of Pegasus Professor Jiann-Shiun Yuan, who oversees the NSF-sponsored Multi-functional Integrated System Technology Center and specializes in developing the next generation of smart systems, Ravi refined his research, which bridges technical innovation with societal impact.

At UCF, Ravi’s research focused on trustworthy and comprehensible AI in critical settings, including healthcare and public safety. His dissertation, “Artificial Intelligence for Social Wellness: Threats and Ideology Detection in Online Texts,” examined how scalable and ethically grounded AI systems can be designed for real-world applications. His work emphasized interpretability, reliability and evaluation with human decision-makers in mind.

His doctoral work led to the development of several datasets and frameworks, including:

• RICo, a large-scale dataset analyzing ideological discourse in online communities
• ALERT, a threat detection framework that combines active learning with AI to support transparency and reduce labeling burden
• TRuST-M, a human-subject study exploring how explanation quality affects user trust in AI-assisted moderation systems.

Portions of this work were supported by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — a testament to its national relevance and real-world value.

Growing Through Leadership, Mentorship and Community

Beyond his studies, Ravi immersed himself in the UCF graduate community, taking on leadership roles that reflected his commitment to service and mentorship.

He served as senator for the in student government, director of professional development for the Graduate Student Association and president of the . He also led Alpha Alpha Alpha, the national honor society for first-generation college students, advocating for the success of first-generation graduate students.

Mentorship remained central to his experience through his involvement in the NSF-funded L.E.A.R.N. (Learning Environment and Academic Research Network) program, a STEM-focused living-learning community for first-year and transfer college students, and his service as a senior design project judge.

Ravi’s academic excellence, leadership and mentorship at UCF were recognized through multiple awards, including the ORCGS Doctoral Fellowship, the Graduate Presentation Fellowship, the Graduate Research Mentor Award, the UCF Alumni Fellows Leadership Scholarship and the Reuel Buchanan Aspire to Inspire Scholarship. These honors provided valuable support and enabled him to focus on research throughout his doctoral studies.

Advancing Impact Beyond UCF

As Ravi prepares to begin his fellowship at Harvard Medical School, he credits UCF with shaping both his research approach and his sense of responsibility as a scholar. He hopes his journey encourages other students, especially first-generation scholars, to pursue ambitious, interdisciplinary work while remaining grounded in mentorship, ethics and service to the broader community.

Abdolvand has been elected to the National Academy of Inventors’ (NAI) 2025 class of fellows. He’s the only UCF faculty member selected in 2025 for the honor, the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors whose work has made a tangible impact on society.

“I hope to use this position to inspire my young colleagues and students to deepen their belief in the power of innovation.”

The 2025 class includes 169 inventors from across the globe, representing every major field of discovery. NAI fellows will formally be recognized at the NAI 15th Annual Conference in California in June.

For Abdolvand, an expert in microelectromechanical systems and chair of UCF’s , this recognition is deeply humbling.

“Personally, this achievement serves as a powerful reminder that curiosity and persistence eventually yield a meaningful harvest,” he says. “Professionally, I view this induction not just as a milestone, but as a platform. I hope to use this position to inspire my young colleagues and students to deepen their belief in the power of innovation, encouraging them to sharpen their creativity and pursue every opportunity to translate complex research into real-world solutions.”

Curiosity as a Catalyst

Invention and innovation have been the hallmark of Abdolvand’s career, though becoming an inventor was never a goal he set out to achieve. Instead, it blossomed naturally from his curious nature.

“For me, invention is not an isolated goal; it is the natural byproduct of trying to understand,” he says. “I find my mind is constantly ‘connecting the dots’ between my existing knowledge and new information. Once that clarity is achieved, innovation follows naturally.”

That mindset fuels the work of Abdolvand’s , where he and his students design microsystems that apply the principles of energy conversion at the micro-scale. Their research focuses on developing efficient transducers — devices that allow electronic systems to interact with their environment with minimal energy loss.

Recently, the team developed a device that converts high-frequency signals into direct current, enabling easy sensing without sophisticated electronics. One of Abdolvand’s former students is now working to commercialize the technology, which he says is the most satisfying part of the research process.

Abdolvand works closely with the Technology Transfer team to ensure these promising innovations are not only properly protected through patent filing but also strategically positioned for commercial success.

Embracing Failure to Find Breakthroughs

“It is almost always the lessons learned during those unsuccessful attempts that provide the clarity needed to reach a … breakthrough.”

For the next generation of inventors, Abdolvand’s advice is refreshingly candid: reconnect with childhood curiosity, find the “why” behind everything and don’t shy away from failure — even when it happens often.

“Invention is a process of elimination,” he says. “We should not fear failure but rather embrace it as a necessary teacher. It is almost always the lessons learned during those unsuccessful attempts that provide the clarity needed to reach a new understanding and, ultimately, a breakthrough.”

Through his research, mentorship and leadership, Abdolvand is shaping a future where innovation is fearless — driven not just by answers, but by the courage to keep asking questions.

All five awardees teach and conduct research through UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS), and together their funding totals an estimated $3 million to advance real world technologies and positively impact the world.

The annual award program from NSF supports an estimated 500 early-career STEM faculty nationwide from either institutes of higher education or academic nonprofit organizations who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

Since the program launched in FY 1995, nearly 100 UCF faculty have qualified for NSF CAREER grants, generating more than $40 million in research funding. It has supported a pathway to implement their research through UCF’s Office of Technology Transfer, which helps bring discoveries to the marketplace through licensing UCF technologies and providing information about sponsored research opportunities.

UCF Associate Professors Sidong Lei and Truong Nghiem along with Assistant Professors Kevin Moran, Wen Shen and Hao Zheng continue to accelerate research in their respective fields through their NSF CAREER projects.

Studying Specialized Semiconductors

Sidong Lei

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

NanoScience Technology Center (NTSC)

Project Title: Van der Waals Semiconductor Integration via Surface and Interface Tailoring

Award: A total of $516,085 over five years, with $449,136 over three years at UCF

Sidong Lei endeavors to meet the demand for better materials to help make smaller devices run more efficiently.

“We all want our phones, smartwatches and laptops to be lighter, faster and more powerful,” says Lei, an associate professor of materials science and engineering. “To make that happen, we need to shrink the size of the electronic circuits so that more components, such as transistors, which are tiny switches for computing, can fit onto a single chip.”

Lei researches new methods of developing innovative microelectronics by studying electronic and optoelectronic properties of emerging materials.

“As we push the limits of traditional silicon technology into the sub-10 nanometer range, it becomes extremely difficulty to make the chips even smaller,” he says. “At the same time, new technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning are demanding faster speeds, lower energy use and many more. All these make current microelectronics struggle and urge new materials and device architecture.”

Through the NSF CAREER award he received in 2023 and brought with him to UCF the following year, Lei is exploring how Van der Waals semiconductors may be integrated at the 3D level versus the 2D level. These specialized semiconductors represent a major frontier in materials science, offering a path to ultrathin, flexible and high-performance electronic and photonic devices— pushing beyond the limits of traditional bulk semiconductors such as silicon.

“The question is how can we produce functional devices with these materials?” Lei says. “Other than fundamental investigations, we want to see our explorations and innovations find practical applications in critical fields. My research aims to find pathways towards this purpose.”

His NSF CAREER project, much like the advanced materials he studies, integrates well with his group’s portfolio of research and translates into real-world applications.

“We are developing methods to fabricate very large-scale integration circuit based on 2D materials and looking for strategies to combine them with mature silicon technology to further enhance their functionality,” Lei says. “We are also investigating strategies to fabricate very-large-scale integrated circuits in flexible and stretchable packaging materials. This research will allow us to implement next-generation wearable and implantable electronics devices for health monitoring and disease treatment, for example, on Parkinson’s disease.”

The vast opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration to advance research at UCF were a significant factor in Lei’s decision to expanding his career here.

“UCF offers a comprehensive platform to elevate my research,” he says. “Modern scientific and technological challenges are typically highly complex, requiring the integration of expertise from different fields. The integration is truly happening here. Only a few months after joining, I have already become acquainted with many new colleagues who are experts in their respective fields, continually refreshing my perspective.”

Lei considers his triumph in earning an NSF CAREER award funding a shared effort, and he credits UCF and his colleagues for their unwavering support and guidance.

“The award represents a meaningful confirmation from my peers of my efforts and endeavors,” he says. “However, the most enjoyable and exciting part was the journey itself, which included deciding on research directions, building a research team and then gradually generating results.”

Improving User Interface Experiences

Kevin Moran

Department of Computer Science

Cyber Security and Privacy Cluster

Project Title: Enhanced UI Engineering via Automated Semantic Screen Understanding

Award: $582,308 over five years

Whether it’s a smart phone or a computer, the user interface (UI) is a critical gateway for people interacting with software and technology.

An intuitive UI can make a world of difference to new users and ultimately be the deciding factor for users when it comes to feeling comfortable with technology, says Kevin Moran, assistant professor of computer science.

His research group at UCF aims to make it easier for software engineers to build complex yet user-friendly systems that translate into practical use.

“More aspects of daily life rely on software than at any point in human history,” he says. “From banking to social media, the importance of the quality of the software that we interact with on a daily basis has never been more important. My lab at UCF aims to help provide engineers the tools that they need to wrangle this complexity, using machine learning, program analysis, and careful tool design.”

Through his Software Automation, Generation, and Engineering (SAGE) Lab, Moran and his research group help simplify the difficulties engineers may face in building and troubleshooting such complicated systems. His research tackles two challenges in software engineering: making issue tracking (also known as bug reporting) more robust and improving the UI engineering process.

UI engineering is the practice of developing, testing and managing UI software, which is an emerging topic his group specializes in, and it is the focus of his newly awarded NSF CAREER project.

“My team and I have done quite a bit of work on UI engineering, a research area we pioneered,” Moran says. “Building the user interfaces for software has long been documented to be a particularly challenging task. My team and I were among the first to combine program analysis, computer vision, and machine learning techniques to develop tools to help aid developers in engineering high quality UIs.”

His project focuses on automating tedious tasks for software engineers through artificial intelligence (AI). The proposed AI model will learn from UI interactions, understand UI features, and automatically translate them to code for engineers.

Ultimately, this may save software engineers time and increase their efficiency in developing UIs, Moran says.

“Our aim with this work is to get our developed programming tools to software engineers so that they can improve the quality of the UIs they are building,” he says. “For the general public that uses software, this means UIs that are easier to use and contain fewer bugs.”

The path to earning such a prestigious grant like the NSF CAREER award requires a high level of detail and Moran says receiving one is incredibly gratifying.

“CAREER proposals are rigorously reviewed by other scientists in my area of research, and receiving the grant is tremendous validation for a very ambitious future research agenda related to improving UI engineering,” he says. “This award will fund students who will be working on projects to help make it easier for developers to build high quality user interfaces, so that hopefully in the future, we can reduce the frustrating interactions that users may have when interacting with software.”

Moran says UCF provided a space for professional growth. The university’s vast resources, which include welcoming and collaborative faculty, helped to further hone his skills that ultimately led to receiving his NSF CAREER award.

“Being a part of this academic community lead to the formation of some of the ideas in my proposal and I am excited to be a part of computer science at UCF, particularly as we expand our department and expertise in AI,” Moran says. “CECS has a CAREER mentoring program where I was paired with senior scientists in my area of work who were able to give me early feedback on my proposal. They helped me to refine the plan of work and gave me invaluable suggestions. UCF played a key part in my success for this award”

Machine Learning Guidance to Make Smart Systems Even Smarter

Truong Nghiem

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Title: Composite Physics-Informed Learning of Dynamics Systems

Award: $477,585 over five years

Associate Professor Truong Nghiem came to UCF in Fall 2024, bringing expertise in machine learning and autonomous systems.

His research focuses on developing new methods that blend machine learning with physical principles to improve complex systems such as autonomous vehicles, smart buildings and industrial automation systems.

“My work aims to help create the intelligent, autonomous systems of the future—systems that will enhance productivity, improve safety, and make everyday life more convenient and sustainable,” says Nghiem, whose research group is called the intelligent Cyber-Physical Systems (iCPS) Lab. “I specialize in intelligent cyber-physical systems — engineered systems that seamlessly integrate the cyber world, which includes computation, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), with the physical world, which includes mechanical and dynamic systems like vehicles, buildings and robots.”

His CAREER project, which he transferred from his previous university, directly supports his ongoing efforts and broadens the scope of his machine learning research.

“This research aims to create a composite physics-informed machine learning (CPIML) framework,” Nghiem says. “Physics-informed machine learning (PIML) embeds the laws of physics into the learning process, leading to models that are more accurate, physically consistent and interpretable compared to traditional machine learning approaches. CPIML takes this a step further by enabling the composition of both physics-based models and PIML components — along with their physical properties — to model more complex, large-scale systems.”

Applications of machine learning that may be integrated into everyday life include improved response times of autonomous vehicles and robots, smarter energy systems that optimize energy use and temperature control, and more reliable industrial robotic systems that require minimal supervision.

Nghiem says he strives for his research to not only provide foundational knowledge but to also have a direct impact on real technologies that people are using right now.

“As our world becomes increasingly automated, ensuring that systems are safe, efficient and trustworthy isn’t just a scientific goal — it’s a societal necessity,” he says. “I have developed efficient models for HVAC systems in buildings that improve energy management, and I’ve also worked on predictive models for autonomous racing cars, pushing the boundaries of what AI can do in dynamic, high-speed environments.”

Like the complex systems Nghiem studies, a university’s network of resources should be robust and reliable. He says he’s fortunate that his research fits perfectly into UCF’s supportive interdisciplinary ecosystem.

“UCF’s commitment is evident through initiatives like the and the ,” Nghiem says. “This work also underscores the importance of combining knowledge from different domains, bringing together AI, engineering and physics to create solutions for real-world problems.”

Elevating Rare Earth Elements to Make Powerful Magnets

Wen Shen

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)

NanoScience Technology Center

Project Title: Manufacturing of Rare Earth Permanent Magnets via Three-dimensional Printing and Decomposition of Hydrogels

Award: $697,264 over five years

Rare earth permanent magnets (REPMs) — composed of alloys containing rare-earth elements — are the strongest permanent magnets with numerous applications across aerospace, automotive, electronics, medical devices and renewable energy industries due to their exceptional magnetic properties.

REPMs generate strong magnetic fields through aligned atomic structures, attracting ferromagnetic materials by inducing a magnetic field, enabling them to lift heavy loads, power motors and generate energy in various technologies.

Despite their widespread use, current REPMs manufacturing techniques are energy- intensive, complex and struggle to fabricate magnets with intricate shapes and minimal defects.

That’s where Wen Shen, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UCF, comes in. Her NSF CAREER project aims to develop a new hydrogel-based additive manufacturing process that fabricates high-quality REPMs more efficiently.

The new fabrication process, which uses 3D printing and decomposition of hydrogels containing rare-earth elements, has tremendous potential, Shen says.

“This research will enable an energy-efficient and laser-free additive manufacturing process that fabricates REPMs with near-zero defects as well as excellent magnetic and mechanical properties,” she says. “If successful, the outcome of this research will significantly impact the global REPMs market.”

Shen says she’s honored to be an NSF CAREER award recipient and continues to elevate her impactful research.

“The CAREER award allows me to conduct in-depth studies,” she says. “It fits well into my career, allowing me to advance my goals as both a researcher and educator while fostering impactful contributions to academia and industry.”

UCF encourages state-of-the-art research through its resources, educational opportunities and collaborative environment. Shen says that she and her colleagues are grateful for the vast availability of university-wide support that helps advance their research and allows faculty to thrive.

“The fellowships as well as the research facilities and infrastructure provided by the MAE department, CECS [the College of Engineering and Computer Science] and NSTC [NanoScience Technology Center] to my group allowed me to conduct unique and transformative research that can make potential societal impacts,” Shen says. “I would like to acknowledge my department chair, the CECS dean, [and] the NSTC director, who have been very supportive of my research since I joined UCF.”

New Chips to Keep Pace with Modern Processing Demands

Hao Zheng

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Title: A Scalable, Polymorphic, and Efficient Architecture for Irregular and Sparse Computations (APEX)

Award: $550,000 over five years

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, while transformative, has created new challenges for today’s computing hardware.

Hao Zheng, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, says he’s determined to navigate these challenges and arrive at solutions. His NSF CAREER project, much like his research, focuses on how to enhance the performance, energy efficiency and utility of chip processors to support the evolving landscape of AI workloads.

“My research lies in the area of computer architecture and machine learning,” Zheng says. “I aim to design versatile chip processors that can greatly speed up machine learning applications with significantly reduced power consumption.”

Creating general-purpose or fully customized chips have been the most common methods of addressing emerging challenges in computational tasks, but both approaches have drawbacks.

Zheng’s bold solution is to design a chip that can adapt to any applications with various computing tasks. His research group, the Intelligent Computer Architecture and Technology (iCAT) Laboratory, is working to revolutionize current chip architectures, such as graphics processing units (GPUs), to handle the rising complexity of modern AI workloads. These include not just large models but multimodal systems, robotics, simulations and real-time decision-making.

“Specializing the underlying hardware architecture has become a trending solution to meet the computational demands of modern applications,” Zheng says. “However, current specialized hardware, in the form of accelerators, is either fully customized for regular applications or lacks the generality to support a wide range of applications. However, today’s applications are evolving rapidly with increasingly complex workloads such as large language models, multi-modal models, embodied AI, among others.”

Some real-world applications of his research can directly affect how robotics, augmented and virtual reality, autonomous driving, simulations and biological discoveries operate.

“This award will introduce a transformative concept — the polymorphic chip processor — to support ubiquitous irregular and complex applications with intensive data,” Zheng says. “The research will invent a new class of chip processors, grounded in graph theory, that can dynamically adapt to irregular and complex workloads at runtime. We believe this can have a transformative impact on computer architecture, compilers, scheduling and many other key areas in computing.”

Zheng says his NSF CAREER award is just the beginning of what he can achieve here at UCF.

“This honor is a testament to the collective efforts of my entire research team,” he says. “I truly appreciate the collaborative research culture here at UCF. I’ve also benefited greatly from the guidance and encouragement of my colleagues, and I would like to thank our department chair, Dr. Reza Abdolvand, for his support over the past several years. Most importantly, I feel incredibly fortunate to have worked with four exceptional Ph.D. students who have grown alongside me throughout this journey.”

Opportunities for growth and enrichment at UCF are plenty, Zheng says. Exploring emerging unconventional applications for chips, strengthening educational development and collaborating with industry are three pillars he aspires to focus on and expand as he continues his research.

“First, I plan to establish a solid theoretical foundation for irregular application acceleration,” Zheng says. “Second, I intend to collaborate with industry to prototype the concept. By the end of the award period, we aim to have a functional chip processor running in the lab, demonstrating the practicality of our idea.”

One of the most important and personal components of his future efforts is his emphasis on education.

“This is the core mission of both our university and the academic community,” Zheng says. “As a first-generation college student, I am aware that a significant number of UCF students come from similar backgrounds. I will provide mentorship to both undergraduate and graduate students interested in the chip industry.”

UCF is No. 1 in Florida and among the top 5% nationally for computer and information sciences expenditures. The university also ranks in the top five in Florida for research backed by several national departments, including:

• No. 2 for NASA funding in Florida — and top 7% nationally (Up from 9% last year)
• No. 2 for Department of Defense funding in Florida — and top 11% nationally(Up from 15% last year)
• No. 2 for Department of Energy (DOE) funding in Florida — and in the top 12% nationally(Up from 20% last year)

Over the year, UCF’s projects were tied to several agencies and scientific disciplines:

Computer and Information Sciences

UCF is first in Florida and among the top 5% nationally
UCF is one of three universities that are part of a three-year $927,203 grant for advancing future quantum information science (QIS) education by using identifying and addressing misconceptions related to it. Assistant Professor of Computer Science Ryan McMahan is the lead principal investigator for the project and providing an iterative development of QubitVR, a quantum-education VR application. These efforts include the machine-learning-based intelligent tutoring versions of the application, conducting the lab-based studies and evaluating QubitVR through an undergraduate QIS course.

Engineering

UCF is first in Florida and among the top 14% nationally for aerospace engineering expenditures
UCF is also third in Florida and among the top 13% nationally for mechanical engineering expenditures
UCF Pegasus Professor Jayanta Kapat and researchers Marcel Otto and Ladislav Vesely have invented a way to cost-efficiently convert excess renewable energy to hydrogen and oxygen and store it long-term — days, weeks or even months. Later, when the energy is needed, it’s reconverted and added to the electrical grid. That on-demand capability enables power companies to meet and balance the energy needs of a community not just from day to day, but from season to season.

Physical Sciences

UCF is second in Florida and among the top 7% nationally
Charles Schambeau ’18PhD, an assistant scientist with UCF’s Florida Space Institute, is working on a new, NASA-funded project that will gather the most comprehensive collection of data on active centaurs and distantly-active Jupiter-family comets to date. The work will inform research into the origins of the solar system, as these bodies contain materials from the dawn of its formation.

Physics

UCF is second in Florida and among the top 4% nationally
Instead of pigment-based colored paint, which requires artificially synthesized molecules, Debashis Chanda, a professor in UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center, has developed an alternative way to produce colored paint that is more natural, environmentally friendly and lightweight. Chanda’s interest in structural color and the development of the paint stemmed from the vibrancy of butterflies.

NASA

UCF is second in Florida and among the top 7% nationally
UCF received funding designed to foster long-term partnerships between NASA and other institutions and to give eligible research projects the chance to pursue larger grants in the future. Research projects include the development of a wireless multimodal sensor that can monitor conditions such as temperature, pressure, acceleration and airflow. Another project is studying the emissions of sustainable aviation fuels, while a third is developing a simulation engine that will allow NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and researchers around the world to digitally develop and test new artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that manage aircraft and converged network system technologies, including cybersecurity measures that could protect unmanned aerial vehicles from malicious attacks.

Department of Defense

UCF is second in Florida and among the top 11% nationally
Kareem Ahmed, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, received a $450,000 Naval Research Laboratory grant to develop a hypersonic engine that can morph or transform its configuration during flights to optimize performance. Ahmed is also heading a $1.5 million U.S. Department of Defense award to develop high-performance fuels for hypersonic propulsion.

Department of Energy

UCF is second in Florida and among the top 12% nationally
UCF’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has received a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to enhance the current understanding of artificial intelligence reasoning. The project focuses on developing algorithms to create robust multi-modal explanations for foundation, or large, AI models through the exploration of several novel explainable AI methods. The DOE recently awarded $400,000 to fund the project.

UCF is one of 16 universities in the U.S. that have formed a consortium on nuclear forensics. The association is supported by a $25 million cooperative agreement with the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The goal of the consortium is to engage in research that supports the NNSA’s nuclear security and nonproliferation missions while building a next-generation workforce of nuclear scientists, engineers and researchers.