We are making exciting progress on our next strategic plan; launching Workday, our new, cloud-based ERP system; aligning our HR and finance processes through our service enhancement transformation (SET); and rolling out a new budget model that is more transparent and will allow for a more strategic allocation of our resources. I am thankful for everyone’s dedication to these efforts — I know many of you have accepted new responsibilities and will make long-term, positive impacts through these transformations.

To ensure we are best positioned to build on this momentum, I am excited to share several leadership updates with the campus community.

Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs

It is my pleasure to announce that after consultation with members of the campus community and the Board of Trustees, I have appointed Dr. Michael D. Johnson as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. After two years as Interim Provost and a 31-year career at UCF as a dean and professor, Provost Johnson will provide consistent leadership and stability as we focus on our future. He will serve in this position through at least June 2025, and we will launch his five-year review in late 2024. His strong leadership, character, passion for faculty and students, and institutional knowledge are invaluable. He has been critical to UCF’s pandemic response and the success of key strategic initiatives across campus. I congratulate him and consider our institution fortunate to have him at the helm of the Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs.

Research and Graduate Studies

Since arriving in 2016, Dr. Elizabeth Klonoff has served as both Vice President for Research and as Dean of the College of Graduate Studies. Under her leadership, UCF saw records set for sponsored research awards five years in a row — including $212.9 million in the last fiscal year. The profile and ranking of our graduate programs have also soared.

UCF has reached a point in our research and graduate education endeavors where we cannot expect a single person to lead both areas. For this reason, the provost and I have decided to separate the two positions, and we have asked Dr. Klonoff to continue serving in the role of Dean of the College of Graduate Studies. We will launch a search for a Vice President for Research later this spring. Dr. Klonoff will continue to provide leadership for our research activities until a new Vice President is named. We are thankful for all she has contributed to UCF and for her continued leadership and commitment to this institution’s bright future.

Analytics and Integrated Planning

As we focus on our future, it will be vital for UCF to be data-driven and to operate in a fully data-enabled environment where analytics help to guide our decisions and improve our operations. To this end, I have appointed Dr. Paige Borden ’95MBA ’00EdD, our current Associate Provost and Chief Analytics Officer for Academic Affairs, to serve on my cabinet as the university’s Chief Analytics Officer. UCF’s Analytics and Integrated Planning team, led by Dr. Borden, has already provided powerful insights and direction that have enhanced our decision-making, outcomes improvements, and efficiencies; I look forward to broadening their impact across the institution.

I could not be more enthusiastic about the future of this university and the team we are building. I also look forward to completing the searches for our Sr. Vice President for Advancement and Partnerships and Sr. Vice President for Student Success before the end of the fiscal year.

I am inspired every day by the amazing work and devotion I see from each of you and our students. We are working to enhance our operations and align our leadership to create the best possible outcomes for all of Knight Nation.

Go Knights. Charge On!
Alexander N. Cartwright
UCF President 

The UCF entry, Real-Time Crash Visualization Tools for Traffic Safety Management, is a computer program that uses big data to predict — and hopefully prevent — traffic accidents before they happen.

The U.S. Department of Transportation, which sponsors the competition known as the Solving for Safety Visualization Challenge, named the finalists this week.

Mohamed Abdel-Aty, a Pegasus Professor and chair of UCF’s , leads the team.

“Conducting research at UCF means solving real-world problems,” says Elizabeth Klonoff, vice president for research and dean of the . “I can’t think of a better application than using big data, predictive analytics and other innovations to help keep us safe on the road. The other finalist is a vehicle manufacturer, so we are pretty excited that our Dr. Abdel-Aty’s work is being recognized.”

“Conducting research at UCF means solving real-world problems.” – Elizabeth Klonoff, vice president for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies

Abdel-Aty’s team became a finalist after beating four other teams, including one from Uber, during the semifinals. They had entered the semifinals in December.

As a finalist, the team receives part of a $100,000 prize purse and will compete for the final prize, which is a share of $250,000.

As it has advanced through the competition, the team has developed its entry from an idea in stage I, to a prototype for the stage II semifinals, and will now develop a fully working version for submission in stage III, the final part of the competition.

Using information including real-time traffic data, weather, history of past accidents and violations, and other data, the team’s program predicts if the risk of an accident is increasing or decreasing in a situation and presents the probability in an easy-to-understand visual readout alongside a map overlaid with current traffic-flow conditions.

The idea is that if the risk of an accident rises, then transportation officials could implement measures immediately to reduce the risk, such as reduced speeds, metered ramps and messages warning drivers of perilous conditions ahead, says Abdel-Aty.

“Reducing risk can reduce the possibility or the severity of an accident,” Abdel-Aty says.

Abdel-Aty says his team’s tool represents a proactive approach to helping vehicular travel become less dangerous by recognizing dangerous roadways, intersections and conditions before the statistics about their hazards pile up.

There are about 37,000 traffic fatalities per year in the United States and millions of injuries,” Abdel-Aty says.

He says the team’s program is designed to make real-time improvements in traffic safety based on rich data and sophisticated algorithms. Seeing different trends and dynamics will allow operators to make better decisions.

Abdel-Aty received his doctorate in civil engineering from the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of California, Davis, and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in civil engineering from Alexandria şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą. He joined UCF in 1995.

The research team was comprised of students and researchers from the College of Engineering and Computer Science, including students Yina Wu, Jinghui Yuan, Morgan Morris, Qing Cai, Yaogang Gong, Ou Zheng, Jacob Lites, Jiajia Dong, Whoibin Chung, Moatz Saad, Lishengsa Yue, Jorge Ugan, Shile Zhang, Zubayer Islam, Md Sharikur Rahman, Md Hasibur Rahman, postdoctoral associates Yina Wu and Qing Cai and professors Samiul Hasan and Jaeyong Lee.

The beginnings of some of these stories unfold in the new 2018 annual research report by the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ąâ€™s Office of Research.

“Each year we report how many projects and how much money have been generated through our researchers’ efforts,” says Elizabeth Klonoff, UCF’s vice president for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies. “We closed the fiscal year with $183 million in research funding, but a dollar figure doesn’t really tell the whole story. Research and scholarship are not just about money. They’re about the impact they are having on our students, our community, our nation and the world.”

Some of the stories have been published as news releases, and some are making their debut in the new report. However, each one tells the story of researchers who are driven to make life better for us all.

Integral to making these achievements happen is funding.

UCF’s research funding jumped nearly 23 percent in the last year from $148.8 million in 2017 to a record $183 million in 2018. Key funding sources included the Department of Defense, NASA, National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.

Research at UCF is conducted across the campus including in the College of Arts and Humanities, College of Business, College of Engineering and Computer Science, College of Health Professions and Sciences, College of Community Innovation and Education, College of Medicine, College of Nursing, College of Optics and Photonics, College of Sciences and Rosen College of Hospitality Management.

The Office of Research is home to several specialized hubs, including the Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center, Florida Space Institute, Florida Solar Energy Center, NanoScience Technology Center, Center for Research in Computer Vision, and BRIDG (Bridging the Innovation to Development Gap), a versatile, boutique microelectronics-fabrication facility. UCF also helps manage the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the world’s largest and most powerful single-dish radio telescope.

The Office of Research also houses nine interdisciplinary research clusters that synergize researchers’ work to make breakthroughs. The clusters are Cyber Security and Privacy; Disability, Aging and Technology; Energy Conversion and Propulsion; Genomics and Bioinformatics; Learning Sciences; Prosthetic Interfaces; Renewable Energy Systems; Sustainable Coastal Systems; and Violence Against Women.

Of all the research funding collected, $73.9 million came from federal sources, $41.1 million from private industry and $21 million from state and local government agencies.

The College of Engineering and Computer Science garnered the largest proportion of the total with $33 million, followed by the College of Sciences with $16 million and the Institute for Simulation and Training $14 million.

“We’re off to a good start with funding,” said Elizabeth Klonoff, vice president for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies. “But where we truly see the impact is in what our researchers are doing to help our communities — from finding new ways to make solar energy systems more efficient and affordable, to improving forecasting methods for sea level rise, to exploring vaccines that have the potential to eradicate disease. It is in this broad array of areas where you can see UCF making a big difference. As we continue to grow our funding, we’ll have more opportunities to have an impact in our Central Florida community and beyond.”

UCF’s research is already getting national attention.

Earlier this year the National Academy of Inventors and Intellectual Property Owners Association announced the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą ranks 41st in the world for the number of U.S. patents issued in 2016. From this report, UCF ranks 21st among public universities in the nation.

The recognition is an important one because patents often lead to industrial innovations that impact daily life.

UCF was ranked in the top 25 in the nation in technology transfer, the process of disseminating technology developed as a result of research, along with Columbia şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą, MIT and Carnegie Mellon şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą in a report from The Milken Institute, a nonprofit think tank.

U.S. News & World Report’s Best College guide this month (September) also named UCF one of the most innovative universities in the nation, alongside Harvard, Stanford and Duke.  UCF was No. 25 out of nearly 1,400 universities and colleges in the nation. UCF also was ranked No. 91 in engineering doctorate programs. Earlier this year, U.S. News & World Report’s Best Graduate Schools of 2018 also recognized 22 UCF programs in the top 100 in their respective fields.

Professors are working on projects that could potentially revolutionize industries and save lives.

For example, Engineering Professor Shawn Putnam is working to change the way electronic devices use and dissipate heat. His work is designed to help keep up with the global demand for faster, more powerful and smaller devices such as computers, radars and lasers. He was awarded a $510,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support this work.

The Department of Energy this past year supported UCF researchers at the Florida Solar Energy Center and the College of Engineering and Computer Science with almost $4 million of funding to expand their work in solar energy, energy efficiency and improving air quality in homes.

UCF researchers from the College of Medicine, the NanoScience Technology Center, the College of Science and the College of Engineering & Computer Science received more than $1.3 million from the state to come up with ways to combat the Zika virus.

And an assistant professor of philosophy conducted fieldwork at the Dunhuang Mogao Caves along the Silk Road in China this summer. Lanlan Kuang is one of a select group of international scholars with access to the caves which house the largest and most complete repository of Buddhist art, murals and painted sculptures in the world. She will share her findings at conferences around the world including the International Symposium on Cultural and Art Exchanges and Cooperation in Dunhuang, China, in October and at the national conference of Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory in November.

All this research and the funding that comes with it is also important for one other reason.

“Research is fundamental to our mission of educating our students,” Klonoff said. “Hands-on research is essential to preparing the next generation of scientists and engineers, so they can help us with tomorrow’s challenges.”

From this listing, UCF ranks 21st among public universities in the nation.

The recognition is an important one because patents often lead to industrial innovations that impact daily life. Of the 56 patents UCF obtained from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2016, more than half were related to inventions in health care – 38 percent – and optics and photonics – 18 percent – which are among UCF’s strengths and Central Florida’s regional economic priorities.

“UCF continues to compete in the top tier of the nation’s public research universities for patents because of the emphasis we place on innovation that not only elevates knowledge, but also solves real-world problems,” said Elizabeth Klonoff, UCF’s vice president for Research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies.

The report, Top 100 Worldwide Universities Granted U.S. Utility Patents in 2016, is based on the number of U.S. utility patents obtained by universities in 2016. To see the full list, visit .

Universities aim to take scientific discovery from the research bench to the marketplace, and patents are one step in that process.

UCF offers a variety of programs to help entrepreneurs reach the market. Programs include the UCF Business Incubation Program and the Venture Accelerator, which assist with market research and business planning. I-Corps leads qualified entrepreneurial teams through a five-week “boot camp” geared toward bringing products to market, and GrowFL helps qualified companies grow to the next level.

And these programs’ success is being recognized. The Milken Institute recently ranked UCF 22nd in the nation for its success in technology transfer.

Some examples of patents generated in 2016 include:

UCF, the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Florida and the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of South Florida, which together represent the Florida High Tech Corridor, had 261 total U.S. patents in 2016, compared to 152 granted to universities in North Carolina’s Research Triangle (Duke şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą, North Carolina State şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą and the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of North Carolina) and 234 patents granted to Silicon Hills universities in Texas (the entire şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Texas system, Rice şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą and Texas A&M şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą).

This is the fifth consecutive year that the Florida High Tech Corridor universities have outpaced other well-known research hubs nationwide.

“For an unbelievable five years in a row, The Corridor has continued to climb the ranks in terms of patents to stand alongside notable high-tech hubs across the country,” said Ed Schons, president of the Florida High Tech Corridor Council. “The outcome of this report is a testament to the work of our talented researchers, scientists and innovators, and it illustrates the promising and continued growth of our region.”

UCF has hundreds of innovations that have been developed by professors, researchers and students, ranging from diagnostics tools to displays, sensors to simulators, nanotechnology to clean tech, and many more available for licensing.

To learn more about licensing opportunities and other ways to partner with UCF to bring inventions to market, visit .

These are among the many questions UCF students have tackled for Research Week, which kicks off Monday, April 3. The week is dedicated to sharing the work of graduate and undergraduate students. Students present their work during two showcases, and organizers present a series of workshops that look at everything from how to get started doing research at a university to how to communicate their findings.

“Our students do  amazing work,” said Elizabeth Klonoff, UCF’s vice president for Research and dean of Graduate Studies. “We want those who haven’t engaged in research to realize how important it is to their education, to our local community, and to improving the world in which we live. The ability to ask critical questions and to develop ways to answer these questions is crucial in an environment where we often hear about ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts.’ Whether a student is  studying math, English, biology or the fine arts, research is an enriching educational experience that teaches valuable skills. And the research students do, especially at the graduate level can really make an impact in the real world. These students are tomorrow’s leaders.”

Ying Chao, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in hospitality management, is looking at Taiwan and how the city turned itself into a medical-tourism destination. Medical tourism refers to the travels made to improve or maintain health, a niche market that is mature in Asia but hasn’t taken hold in Florida, Chao said. He is working with Rosen Associate Professor Po-Ju Chen who specializes in social psychology, with an emphasis on generational studies, sustainability and cross-cultural research in hospitality and tourism, to delve into the topic.

Meanwhile, Karla Badillo-Urquiola is examining the balance between providing teens in foster care access to networked technologies while also protecting them from cyber risks. Her preliminary findings suggest that teens in foster care face unique threats in the real world, such as sex trafficking or rape, which makes them more vulnerable to online risks that lead to equally tragic ends. Badillo-Urquiola found very little existing research in this area and hopes to find ways to address this problem.

She earned her undergraduate degree in psychology at UCF and decided to pursue a Ph.D. in modeling and simulation to harness the power of this new technology and apply it to psychology.

“Many of the foster parents (I interview) tell me that my research is very timely and beneficial to them and thank me for my dedication to the topic,” Badillo-Urquiola said. “At the beginning of one of my interviews, a parent burst to tears. I did not know how to react at first and had not realized the sensitivity of my topic. However, it was a reminder to me of how important my work is and the major needs of this community.”

Graduate student Tianyu Zheng is working with Associate Professor Treen Qun to develop a nanoparticle-embedded blood test for active viral infection detection. The hope is to develop a quick and accurate screening tool during epidemic or pandemic outbreaks.

Zheng, who plans to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry at UCF this summer, is looking at how gold nanoparticles can be used to measure a body’s immune response. An immune response triggers the production of antigen-specific antibodies, especially of the IgG isotypes, following an acute viral infection. Proteins and biomolecules from blood can spontaneously absorb the gold nanoparticle surface to form a protein corona. By analyzing the amount of protein, scientists can determine if there is an ongoing immune response, Zheng explained.

“This novel nanoparticle test provides a new means to detect active viral infections,” Zheng said in his abstract. “My research project pretty much is for real-world biomedical applications. I am pursuing this kind of research because diseases cause so many families to suffer and have laid a huge burden on the whole society. I would like to contribute my time and my energy to finding something out in this field that helps. I am fulfilled by what I am doing right now.”

There are more than 200 graduate-student posters being presented from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 4, in the Pegasus Ballroom.

Another 500 undergraduate students will present their work from noon to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 6, as part of the Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence. Up for grams during the showcase, $25,000 in scholarships.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information .