Forward Anzhané Hutton attempts a jump shot to score in the Addition Financial Arena. UCF defeated Wichita State 59-56.

Kareem Ahmed, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is the principal investigator of a new Naval Research Laboratory-funded project to create a morphing hypersonic engine for ultra-fast travel.

The UCF/Universal Creative Lab, which launched Spring 2023, brings immersive design learning experiences to students to cultivate the next generation of themed entertainment innovators. The class opened to graduate students in UCF’s , which is directed by Professor Peter Weishar.

Pushing the frontier of space research, Associate Professor of Physics Adrienne Dove is co-leading NASA’s $35 million science mission to the moon’s Gruithuisen Domes, which is expected to launch in 2026.

A participant in the 15th annual UCF Iron Knight Challenge drags weights across a field in a race to complete eight physical fitness tasks along a military-style obstacle course.

Forward Taylor Hendricks is UCF men’s basketball’s third NBA Draft selection in program history. Hendricks was selected by the Utah Jazz with the No. 9 overall pick of the first round of the 2023 NBA Draft.

Jane Gibson, from the College of Medicine, was selected as one of four 2023 Pegasus Professors, the university’s highest faculty honor. Professors Stephen Fiore, Jennifer Kent-Walsh and Marianna Pensky were also selected.

Rapper and singer Doechii performed at UCFest Concert Knight presented by Campus Activities Board at the Addition Financial Arena.

During UCF Celebrates the Arts — a multi-day showcase of creativity — student cellists and other UCF musicians performed orchestral classics at the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts.

Backstage during a UCF Celebrates the Arts production at the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts in downtown Orlando.

Ballet dancers captivated the stage during TECH-nique: A Dance Concert at UCF Celebrates the Arts, which focused on the intersection of arts and technology this year.

Knights posed for photos in the Student Union during UCF Day of Giving 2023; an impactful celebration that ended with Knight Nation raising over $6.8 million — the most in university history — to support our local community, fund life-changing scholarships, power championship athletics, build 21st century learning facilities, fuel innovative research and enhance the university’s global reputation.

A graduate from Spring 2023 commencement celebrates with loved ones.

UCF students spend a day outdoors in downtown Orlando, which ranks as the No. 1 Best College City in Florida, according to WalletHub.

Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Helen Huang works with student Jordan Grubb to understand how the brain and body work together — valuable research to assist those with impaired movement.

The Charging Knight statue — representative of UCF’s excellence in academics, its partnerships with the community and its athletics program — sits near the main entrance of FBC Mortgage Stadium.

College of Optics and Photonics Associate Professor Kyu Young Han works with doctoral student Katelyn Canedo ’16 in the , which focuses on optical nanoscopy. Han is an expert in designing new optical tools for biological applications, including ones that could aid in the understanding of human protein linked to diseases.

Student researchers gain hands-on experience with lasers in a lab in the College of Optics and Photonics.

Two students take a selfie with Knightro during the Welcome Back Popsicle Social event hosted by the Office of the President at the Reflecting Pond on the first day of the fall semester.

Political science student Sebastian Jimenez dives into a book outside of the John C. Hitt Library — carrying on the late president emeritus’ core belief that education transforms lives.

Jersey Shore star and DJ, Pauly D, gets the crowd pumped during his pregame set at Bounce House Live at IOA Plaza before UCF football’s first Big 12 home game.

Fans filled FBC Mortgage Stadium for the first Big 12 home football game against Baylor.

The School of Modeling, Simulation and Training secured an advanced dog-like robot named TapeMeasure — allowing them to bring students, faculty and new technology together for innovative research and teaching.

UCF Creative School for Children held a foam splash event to provide its own Spirit Splash-like experience for preschoolers during Homecoming Week.

Knightro surfed over a crowd of students at Spirit Splash during Homecoming Week.

Knights charged into the Reflecting Pond to catch coveted homecoming rubber ducks at Spirit Splash.

During Spirit Splash, the dance team amped up the crowd before Knights rushed into the Reflecting Pond.

Knightro hyped up the crowd from the sidelines at the homecoming football game against West Virginia.

Assistant Professor of Theme Park and Attraction Management Carissa Baker (middle) works with students to understand theme park storytelling. Baker is a 2023 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching awardee.

Track and field sprinters Latasha Smith (left) and I’Asia Wilson (right) pose with their collection of championship rings at a tailgate event before UCF football’s Space Game.

Football in tow, tight end Alec Holler moves up the field during UCF’s annual Space Game. The Knights defeated Oklahoma State, 45-3, marking their seventh consecutive win since the Space Game debuted in 2017.

Pegasus Professors are selected by the president and provost and are recognized for excellence in the teaching, research and service. This year’s honorees include innovative researchers who have not only made a difference at UCF, but nationally and internationally.

Stephen Fiore’s classrooms and cognitive science gatherings have birthed hundreds of ideas for dissertations, publications, research projects and even apps, in settings he calls “anti-disciplinarian.”

Jane Gibson is a medical geneticist and molecular pathologist who uses genomic technology to improve patient diagnostics and treatment, and shares a career of knowledge with the next generation of medical professionals.

Jennifer Kent-Walsh built a center from the ground up at UCF to help people of all ages who live with barriers caused by communication disorders.

Marianna Pensky opened new doors 28 years ago as the first woman faculty in UCF’s Department of Mathematics, and has influenced the field through research and mentorship.

The four professors will be recognized Wednesday during the Founders’ Day Faculty Honors Celebration from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Student Union Pegasus Ballroom.

Stephen Fiore

Professor, cognitive sciences
Director, ,
,

Few people know: He spent so much time working in restaurants during college that he once considered a career in the restaurant business.

Stephen Fiore arrives 30 minutes early to move the furniture for the classes he leads. A handwritten note sometimes greets him. “Please put the chairs where you found them when you’re finished.”

Fiore is half-tempted to ask, “Why?”

The circular format he employs has proven to open the gates to some of the most constructive conversations about some of the strangest questions you can imagine. Do dogs think about the future? What does a tick experience when landing on a person’s flesh?

If the topics sound odd, that’s perfect.

“The best ideas across every discipline start with a little mind wandering,” Fiore says. “Then we move from wandering to actual ideas. The best discussions lead to the most important phase: how to do something with the idea.”

His students have done plenty with their off-the-wall questions over the years. They’ve pursued research projects, published papers and written dissertations. Two students recently joined Fiore’s Cognitive Science Lab, helping work on grants studying social cognition in human-robot interaction and how AI affects teamwork.

The common denominator is the questions that no one would dare ask out loud anywhere other than Fiore’s group settings. He calls his classes “gatherings.” He says they are “anti-disciplinary.” He never lectures.

“My role is to create the right environment for conversation,” he says, “and then I shut up and listen.”

The computer scientist learns perspectives from the anthropologist. The sociology graduate listens to the biology graduate. Together, they dig deeper than they could ever dig within their own colleges or own heads.

Does the ocean have a memory? The question could, and has, led to ideas to study beach erosion. How about ants … does the shape of their nests alter social behavior? This one has spawned theories about architecture.

“When we’re specialists in a field, we might not see the big picture, what I call ‘disciplinary myopia,’” Fiore says. “Or we might look down on ideas from other fields, what I call ‘disciplinary disdain.’ I try to help others avoid these see me practicing what I preach.”

Fiore’s methods are so intriguing that he’s been invited to give more than 120 presentations around the world and co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. He’s played a role in securing more than $30 million in grants. One question, however, causes him to stumble when it comes up: “How did he get here?”

“That’s not so easy to answer,” he says.

To summarize, Fiore attended junior college out of high school “for the heck of it.” He realized he enjoyed learning and studied at the ����ֱ�� of Maryland before moving to the beach with two degrees and a craving for fun.

“I experienced the retirement life at 21 years old,” he says, “and got tired of it pretty quickly. It was time to find a real job.”

Fiore happened to pick up a brochure describing a seminar on the brain. A little more research led him to a field called “cognitive psychology.” He quit his job and went back to school to study how people think, remember, and solve problems. He also volunteered in labs where he worked with researchers from all fields of expertise.

“That’s where I learned how productive we can be when we work across disciplines,” Fiore says, “because no one is afraid to ask the ‘out there’ questions.”

Like, what new knowledge can be created from the collisions of ideas from people with vastly different perspectives?

“You know the saying, ‘Many hands lighten the load?’ It works with minds, too. We need to invite more of it.”

Jane Gibson

Professor, pathology
Chair,
Associate dean for Faculty Affairs
Director, Molecular Diagnostics

Few people know: She was a candidate for the astronaut program in the 1990s before realizing claustrophobia “probably wouldn’t bode well in a spaceship.”

As one of the foremost researchers and clinicians in medical genomics and genetics, Gibson knows the literal definition of “groundbreaking.” In fact, 15 years ago she could have taken her expertise anywhere in the country. She’d already set up the genetics program for Orlando Health and directed another for Ameripath (before it became Quest Diagnostics). But in 2008 she chose to take all her expertise  to an empty field in Lake Nona.

“There was nothing but dirt, bulldozers and cows,” Gibson says of the site that would become UCF’s College of Medicine. “We didn’t even have running water. But that’s what excited us: we had a blank slate to create something extraordinary.”

Gibson’s mother always encouraged her to “shoot for the stars,” to look beyond what is and see what could be. Instead of seeing a field of cows and the shell of a building, Gibson and half a dozen other doctors envisioned the home of a world-class medical center. There would be a hospital, labs and freedom to extend the boundaries of medical science. Most important, there would be students with equally big dreams.

“It comes down to this: We want to expose them to the latest discoveries and technologies of a precision medicine and genomics era and then send them into the world to make lives better,” Gibson says.

She doesn’t simply talk about discoveries in genomics and precision medicine. She makes them. Her dad did the same thing as a plant geneticist. Gibson would watch him crossbreed vegetables to find more resilient varieties in his greenhouses. Early in her career, Gibson attended a conference in Colorado and happened to sit around a campfire with Mary-Claire King, who said she’d been researching how breast cancer and ovarian cancer ran in families. Her groundbreaking research is now legendary: A mutation of the gene called BRCA1, which causes hereditary breast cancer and is now tested along with other genes as a standard of patient care

“The genetic cause of cancer was mostly unproven at the time,” Gibson says. “But right after that, the field just exploded. Now we use the genomic testing every day in patient care. I’m blessed to have been on the leading edge of it.”

It all fits her decision to choose a pasture over an established institution 15 years ago. “To whom much is given, much is expected,” she says, quoting a verse that directs her life. Gibson and her colleagues consider the College of Medicine a gift to the Orlando community. From it, more than 1,000 graduates have gone out to advance research and to care for patients who need something more tangible than a ray of hope: they need smart practitioners.

A week before learning she had been selected as a 2023 Pegasus Professor, Gibson went to a doctor’s appointment — this time as a patient. In the office, she saw a reminder of why she chose this path: a former student, now a doctor, making lives better in our community.

“That’s what we envisioned when we entered uncharted waters,” Gibson says, “and it still inspires me every day.”

Jennifer Kent-Walsh

Professor, communication sciences and disorders
Founder and director,

Associate dean of Research,

Few people know: She was a Highland dancer and traveled across Canada and to Scotland to compete and perform in festivals representing her Scottish heritage.

Before she dove into speech-language pathology as her calling and before she developed the FAAST Assistive Technology Center at UCF from scratch, Jennifer Kent-Walsh learned to pay attention. She grew up in communities on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, where people expected an honest answer when asked, “How are you?” And they’d listen.

“People looked out for one another,” Kent-Walsh says.

Her father was a minister, and her mother was a teacher and vice principal. Not surprisingly, Kent-Walsh started her career in classrooms, teaching in England and Canada. Something kept grabbing her attention.

“The students,” she says. “Some had communication disorders that created barriers to the power of education. In math, for example, the numbers weren’t necessarily the problem. It was often the words and understanding the language that caused students challenges.”

Her interest shifted to speech-language pathology for her graduate education. During a clinical placement, she met a young woman who completely lost the ability to speak due to complications during a routine surgery. Kent-Walsh saw it as another example of the profound impact communication disorders can have on patients and their families.

“When a person is unable to effectively communicate, it affects everything in life. I realized that I wanted to be involved in research so I could help find meaningful solutions to provide every person with effective ways of communicating, whether or not they have functional speech.”

Turns out, Kent-Walsh would build a place to do just that at UCF, where she was offered the opportunity to create an advanced research and educational center focused on assistive technology.

“The university had an openness to innovating and developing new curriculum and clinical experiences for students. For me, it was exciting and intimidating at the same time,” she says.

With encouragement from the department chair, Jane Lieberman, Kent-Walsh wrote the first research and service-delivery grants to get things started. She pulled together clinical faculty, academic faculty, students and community stakeholders, and together they began to work with clients and families to help break communication barriers experienced by adults and children with significant speech impairments. Along with her primary research collaborator at the ����ֱ�� of New Mexico, Cathy Binger, the UCF team paired language therapy with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies to support clients, their loved ones, and service providers. Since then, Kent-Walsh and her team have secured millions of dollars in funding from local, state and federal sources to advance their research and service-delivery missions.

“We’ve been intentional about leveraging the power of AAC technologies by employing both direct language interventions with clients and indirect interventions with the other significant people in their lives from day one,” Kent-Walsh says. “Parents of the children who participate in our research often tell us their kids are speaking more and they’re excited to use technology as one of many modes of communication — whether it’s a high-tech device like an iPad with a speech output application, picture symbols in a communication book, or gestures.”

Twenty years ago, Kent-Walsh had to convince others, one by one, to give these ideas a chance. Today, professionals from around the world access the published findings and contact her team of collaborators to learn how to apply them and to report the positive outcomes they have seen from implementing the AAC interventions developed at UCF. Thousands of undergraduate and graduate students have taken what they’ve learned into their own work. Some of them have returned to UCF after practicing clinically to join Kent-Walsh and her team to advance research.

“We’re light-years ahead of where we were, not because of me, but because so many people have invested themselves in this mission to ensure every person is able to communicate effectively. … And there is still much more work to be done to ensure every person enjoys the right to communicate and to achieve their full potential,” she says.

Marianna Pensky

Professor, mathematics
,

Few people know: She’s only had one job interview in her life — at UCF.

In 1995, Marianna Pensky, a single mother from Russia with two sons, interviewed at a university in Orlando she’d never heard of. Pensky was a good match for the Department of Mathematics since they needed redeveloping of the probability and statistics sequence for the newly approved mathematics Ph.D. program, and she was an expert. The job was hers if she wanted it. At the urging of her sons, Pensky accepted it.

“I had only four days to sign the offer commit to immigrating and be completely on my own with children. I was scared to death,” Pensky says. “But everything worked very well.”

Pensky’s hiring is a milestone in UCF history, as she’s the first woman faculty in the mathematics department.

“It is a huge mistake that many girls think that they have to choose between career and family, or that they cannot succeed in sciences,” she says. “Boys are not any better at sciences than girls.”

Pensky says the culture at UCF helped her to explore and experiment with her research. She’s authored more than 100 publications, including a major work on reliability theory and journal articles about statistical inverse problems, Bayesian statistics, statistical genetics, wavelets and signal analysis. She’s also received uninterrupted U.S. National Science Foundation funding for more than 20 years.

Her work has paved the way for more women to join the math and statistics faculty. They serve as role models for female students to pursue careers in science and teaching.

Pensky has also influenced dozens of graduate students as an advisor and by serving on Ph.D. committees. She’s developed a variety of special topic graduate courses that covered novel areas of statistics. And through these course materials she’s impacted the research of computer science, engineering, physics and statistics students.

UCF’s mathematics department carries significance to Pensky’s personal life, too. It was there she met her husband. Their daughter arrived the same week as Pensky’s tenure letter. Now, she is a grandmother, and her family keeps growing.

When asked what makes her most proud of the Pegasus honor, Pensky stumbles over the word “proud.” She’d rather use “happy” because she values the feeling over pride and achievements.

Mustafa Kinaan has shown his dedication to the Central Florida community throughout his graduate medical education (GME) journey.

In 2014, he was one of UCF’s first 17 residents when the medical school began its first internal residency program in partnership with HCA Healthcare and the Orlando VA Medical Center. After graduating from the program, he became chief resident, overseeing residents at the VA. A year later, he entered UCF-HCA’s endocrinology fellowship, caring for patients at the VA and HCA Florida Osceola Hospital. In 2020, he joined Premier Endocrinology in Kissimmee and St. Cloud, saying he was staying in greater Orlando to “care for the new family I love.”

Now, he is leading the endocrinology program that trained him — creating more physicians who treat conditions including diabetes, thyroid and pituitary gland disease.

“Dr. Kinaan is the first GME trainee to go from resident in one of our programs, to fellow, to core faculty member and now to become a program director leading our endocrinology fellowship,” says Stephen Cico, the medical school’s assistant dean for graduate medical education. “Recruiting the best, training the best and retaining our residents and fellows has been a goal of the UCF-HCA GME Consortium since its inception in 2016.  Dr. Kinaan is a skilled educator, compassionate physician and engaged faculty member — he is exactly the kind of physician we want representing our consortium in leadership positions.”

Kinaan graduated from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and did clerkship rotations and conducted research on the impact of diabetes on heart disease at Cornell ����ֱ�� in New York. He says his experience helping to build new residency and fellowship programs at UCF has given him an unprecedented experience.

“You’re not just learning, you’re building the program. It was a rich environment for me. At UCF, I was given all the tools I need to help shape the future.” — Mustafa Kinaan, endocrinologist

The fellowship program currently trains four physicians per year, with fellows caring for patients in out-patient and hospital settings. While he leads the program, Kinaan continues to care for patients at Premier Endocrinology and also serves as an attending physician and faculty member at HCA Florida Osceola Hospital.

Abdo Asmar has led the Greater Orlando Internal Medicine Residency program since it began, and says he saw the young physician’s promise early in his training.

“I cannot tell you how honored and proud I am that Mustafa is our program director,” he says. “This is what we want to do with our GME programs — grow the next generation of outstanding physicians who are also extraordinary teachers. This is how we improve healthcare.”

Throughout his UCF career, Kinaan has received awards for teaching, and this year received the College of Medicine’s faculty award for outstanding GME clinical teaching and mentorship. He also helped create a new research infrastructure to better support scholarship by residents and fellows. Asmar says his mentee was an innovative and engaging teacher even as a resident – known for his compelling case review reports. “He is a learner-focused educator,” he says. “He knows how to share information based on a learner’s needs.”

As he moves forward training tomorrow’s endocrinologists, Kinaan says he is committed to building a fellowship that is recognized locally, regionally and nationally.

“Our goal is to create extraordinary physicians who have the expertise and the compassion to create long-term relationships with their patients,” he says. “Our patients have chronic illnesses, and many have suffered for years because of their conditions. We want our physicians to be passionate about endocrinology and the opportunity to be part of the patient’s support system for years to come.”

Doctors cannot care for patients independently immediately after they graduate from medical school. They must first go through residency training — three to seven years depending on the specialty. After residency, many go into fellowships for even more specialized training.

The UCF-HCA Healthcare GME consortium is one of the fastest growing in Florida, now training nearly 560 physicians in Tallahassee, Gainesville, Ocala, Pensacola and the greater Orlando area — with more planned. Residency programs are a key to solving the state’s physician shortage as the majority of physicians begin practicing where they do their residency training. UCF-HCA has 36 accredited programs in specialties including surgery, psychiatry, internal, family and emergency medicine, geriatrics, and neurology.

The funding for the collaborative research project comes from the UCF Strategic Investment Program, supporting UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright’s vision that UCF will become a “����ֱ�� for the Future” as a top public institution and the world’s leading public metropolitan research university

The Infectious Disease and Travel Health Initiative has three major areas of focus:

• To provide an advance warning system through its data collection methods.
• To bring travelers and those who serve them closer to science, bridging the gap between basic science and behavioral science.
• To create a resource for small to medium-sized businesses in tourist areas to help them manage future health crisis situations that may arise.

The primary investigator on the initiative, Professor Robertico Croes, focuses his research on tourism economics, human development, poverty, and tourism management with a special interest in small and developing economies.

Croes says the Infectious Disease and Travel Health initiative is critical given travelling’s economic impact on the world and its ability to alleviate poverty and elevate human development.

“We began this project in the early days of the pandemic,” Croes says. “Health crises like this are not an anomaly, they are becoming more and more frequent. Sometimes they are isolated to one area of the globe, but as we saw with COVID, they can devastate entire segments of the economy and small businesses often can’t recover as they don’t have the resources that large corporations have in order to mitigate a crisis.”

Griffith Parks, a collaborator on the initiative and professor and director of the at UCF’s College of Medicine, says he is enthusiastic about the project.

“We are thrilled to have the support from the university on this important and unique initiative,” Parks says. “We aspire to build an initiative that will draw in faculty and students from other colleges, not just the three currently involved, such as nursing and health professions, who have an interest in population health, travel and tourism and in infectious diseases. Most importantly, a goal of the initiative is to have a strong impact on our Central Florida communities by creating connections that will help to improve and support the health of our tourism workforce and industries.”

Pandemics can have devastating consequences for regions where tourism and travel are the economic lifeblood. According to Visit Florida it’s estimated the local economy in Central Florida took a $40 billion hit from lower rates of travel during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taj Azarian, an assistant professor at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences who investigates the emergence and spread of bacterial infectious diseases is collaborating on the project.

“Florida is a major tourist destination, as well as an international corridor to the United States. Further, its recent history has been marked by several notable public health events, as such, Florida is an ideal location to focus translational infectious disease research.” Said Azarian. “Here, or initiative will serve to strengthen business continuity, improve health and safety of travelers, and establish a sentinel network for early detection of emerging threats.”

Rosen College Associate Dean and Professor Alan Fyall, a collaborator on the initiative, says the work could have a global impact.

“The pandemic has woken the world up to the fragility and vulnerability of the global tourism industry,” Fyall says. “The time is thus ripe to bring together an internationally recognized and highly experienced interdisciplinary team to develop new science-based solutions and strategies to build future economic and social strength for Central Florida and beyond.”

The initiative’s collaborators also includesReseResea Kenneth Alexander, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida, who says this is crucial work for future generations.

“It is important that Nemours Children’s Hospital joins in this initiative with UCF for two reasons,” Alexander says. “First, many of our tourist guests here in Florida are children. Second, many in our tourism labor force are raising families. Therefore, the health of children is central to the success of our tourism industry.”

The Infectious Disease and Travel Health Initiative research project received funding in the Academic Excellence Category of the UCF Strategic Investment Program. The funding will help in hiring research faculty who can secure additional funding for the project; establishing new courses and a Travel & Health track of study within the Master of Public Health degree program; and developing partnerships within the hospitality, healthcare, and science industries. Current UCF faculty from several disciplines are engaged with the initiative.

“The interdisciplinary nature of the project and the involvement of engineering and nanoscience will have a tremendous impact on combatting future infectious disease and travel health,” says Sudipta Seal, chair of the in the College of Engineering and Computer Science and co-principal investigator on the grant.

Seal’s statement was echoed by project collaborator Jane Gibson, a professor of pathology at UCF’s College of Medicine.

“We are excited to harness the collective expertise at UCF to support the health and well-being of our tourist industry colleagues, visitors and community,” Gibson says.

The Infectious Disease and Travel Health Initiative is ongoing with work on the initiative starting this summer.

As distribution begins to open up across the state of Florida, it may lead many of us to wonder: Does it matter which vaccine I get?

The short answer is no. They all prevent severe disease and death by teaching our immune systems how to recognize and fight the virus that causes COVID-19.

The short answer is no. They all prevent severe disease and death by teaching our immune systems how to recognize and fight the virus that causes COVID-19. Furthermore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stresses that COVID-19 vaccination is an important tool to help us get back to normal.

“In order for us to regain normalcy we need to achieve what is called ‘herd immunity’ ” says Jane Gibson, chair of clinical sciences and professor of pathology at UCF’s College of Medicine. “Herd immunity means that the chances of the disease spreading among individuals is lowered because the majority of the population — in this case estimated to be approximately 70-80% — will have antibodies. You can achieve herd immunity naturally, which may involve more rounds of infection surges and many more deaths, or we can achieve it through vaccination, which is why getting any one of these three vaccines is critical.”

How does the Janseen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine differ from the Pfzier and Moderna vaccines?

The CDC explains typically, most vaccines — like the Janseen/Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine — use weakened or inactivated versions or components of the disease-causing pathogen to stimulate the body’s immune response to create antibodies. In contrast, mRNA vaccines — like Pfzier and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines — take advantage of the process that cells use to make proteins in order to trigger an immune response and build immunity to the virus that causes COVID-19. Although this technology is new, mRNA vaccines have been studied for more than a decade. Like all vaccines, COVID-19 mRNA vaccines have been rigorously tested for safety before being authorized for use in the United States.

How are each of the vaccines administered?

Pfzier: 2 shots, 21 days apart

Moderna: 2 shots, 28 days apart

Janssen / Johnson & Johnson: 1 shot

Why the difference in number of shots or number of days in between? The dosages and schedule are derived from the clinical trial process.

“Those studies informed the dosing regimens which were used in the initial clinical trials and may differ among vaccines based on their efficacy in animals and performance in laboratory studies to determine if the vaccine produced neutralizing antibodies,” Gibson says. “Future clinical trials with these vaccines may offer additional modifications to dosing recommendations based on larger pool of data researchers are tracking as the vaccines are more widely distributed.”

Is one vaccine more effective than another?

Pfizer: 95% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in those without prior infection.

Moderna: 94.1% effective at preventing symptomatic infection in people with no evidence of previous COVID-19 infection.

Janssen/Johnson & Johnson: 72% overall efficacy and 86% efficacy against severe disease in the U.S.

Of note, mRNA trials were held and the efficacies of Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines were reported before more contagious variants of the virus began to spread.

“Although there have been no head-to-head trials to compare the vaccines to each other, the reported efficacies of each of the COVID vaccines determined during clinical trials appear to be better than recent flu vaccines,” Gibson says. “For example, as cited in the 2021 CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the current influenza vaccine has been 45% effective overall against 2019-20 seasonal influenza A and B viruses.”

When am I considered fully vaccinated?

According to the CDC, people are considered fully vaccinated:

• 2 weeks after their second dose in a 2-dose series, like the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines
• 2 weeks after a single-dose vaccine, like Janssen/Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine

If it has been less than two weeks since your shot, or if you still need to get your second dose, you are NOT fully protected. Furthermore, experts are still monitoring whether getting a COVID-19 vaccine will prevent you from spreading the virus that causes COVID-19 to other people, even if you don’t get sick yourself.

It’s important for everyone to continue using all the tools available to help stop this pandemic, so that means wearing a face covering, physical distancing, washing hands frequently and avoiding large crowds should still be a part of your daily life right now.

Once you are fully vaccinated, the CDC recently OK’d:

• Gathering indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask.
• Gathering indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household (for example, visiting with relatives who all live together) without masks, unless any of those people or anyone they live with has an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.
• If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you do not need to stay away from others or get tested unless you have symptoms.

Where can I get vaccinated?

College educators and staff of all ages are eligible to receive the vaccine at the Orange County Convention Center and other sites within the county. UCF encourages all eligible faculty and staff to take advantage of sites offering vaccines.

The Orange County Convention Center is a drive-thru site that requires appointments. For more information on making appointments and to see other locations where educators are eligible to receive the vaccine, including a federally run walk-up site at Valencia College’s West Campus, go to Orange County’s Vaccine Information page.

Providers in other counties also are offering the vaccine to residents who qualify, and members of the UCF community may elect to receive their vaccinations through one of those offerings if they are eligible.

More information about why vaccines are important and what to expect at your appointment is being shared here. Those with questions can email covid19vaccine@ucf.edu.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “to trigger an immune response, many vaccines put a weakened or inactivated germ into our bodies. Not mRNA vaccines. Instead, they teach our cells how to make a protein — or even just a piece of a protein — that triggers an immune response inside our bodies. That immune response, which produces antibodies, is what protects us from getting infected if the real virus enters our bodies.”

Vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are being administered in the U.S. right now, and Johnson & Johnson is expected to join them. Darin Edwards ’97 ’10MS ’11PhD applied his degrees in biology, molecular biology and biomedical sciences to lead the research and development of Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine.

Although the state of for the COVID-19 vaccine are limited to certain age and profession demographics, that may be changing soon after President Joe Biden announced March 2 that he expects that the United States will have enough COVID-19 vaccines for every adult by the end of May.

With widespread accessibility to the vaccine on the horizon, two medical professors with expertise in infectious diseases and pathology break down the science behind the vaccine and answer common questions about its safety, effectiveness and who should be getting it.

Professor of Clinical Sciences Kenneth Alexander is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics/Infectious Diseases and earned his medical degree in 1989 from the ����ֱ�� of Washington. In addition to his role at UCF, he is chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Nemours Children’s Hospital.

Professor of Pathology Jane Gibson is chair of the department of clinical sciences. She is board certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics and earned her Ph.D. pathology/laboratory medicine from the ����ֱ�� of Florida College of Medicine.

If you enjoy this video, you can find more “What Makes…” content — including topics on space, love bugs, hurricanes and more — on UCF’s YouTube channel.

After you recover from COVID-19, your body contains antibodies to the disease that remain in the plasma of your blood. And the FDA has approved convalescent plasma — the process of transfusing a recovered person’s plasma into a person critically ill with the coronavirus — as an experimental treatment. These added antibodies can boost the critically ill patient’s immunity and reduce their body’s infection load, reducing their risk of death. Convalescent plasma can also be used to manufacture hyperimmune globulin, a biological product that can also be used to treat patients with COVID-19.

So as a COVID-19 survivor, how do you donate plasma? OneBlood, our state’s not-for-profit blood center, has information and FAQs . There are several things you need to remember:

• You must free of symptoms for at least 14 days before donating. Please do not donate plasma if you have a fever or other flu-like symptoms.
• Have a copy of your test results confirming you had COVID-19 or a letter from a testing facility notifying you of your positive result and the date your test was taken.
• Follow the OneBlood donation process to see whether you are eligible to donate plasma. This process and educational materials on blood donation are outlined on their website .
• Schedule your donation time and location. Do not just show up to a location to donate plasma. Because of COVID-19, you must make an appointment.

Donating your plasma does not compromise your own immunity and you are required to wait 28 days between donations to be sure you maintain adequate antibodies so you don’t harm your immune system. In addition to , you can get more information on convalescent plasma at the , the FDA. Also, please check with your doctor before you decide to donate.

For answers, we’re turning to Jane Gibson, an expert in molecular diagnostics at the UCF College of Medicine and chair of the . She authors this week’s health tip:

Antibodies are proteins your immune system creates any time your body is under attack from bacteria that cause diseases like tuberculosis or a virus like COVID-19. Antibodies are what your body sends out as a first line of defense against these invaders.

A positive COVID-19 antibody test tells us you have been exposed to the virus and that your body reacted to that exposure. The challenge we face in medicine right now is that no one knows if those antibodies give you immunity from the virus – and if they do, for how long.

A positive antibody test can show if you were one of those asymptomatic carriers.

We have decades of experience with viruses like the seasonal flu. We know that if you get it, you are probably immune for about 12 to 18 months. That’s why your physician recommends you get a flu shot every year. But COVID-19 is so new and unique that we have many unanswered questions about how it impacts the body. We are working to develop accurate, more advanced tests that will tell us your level of immunity.

But for now, currently available antibody tests only tell us that you’ve been exposed to the virus. That information is helpful because people can have the disease and not feel ill. So a positive antibody test can show if you were one of those asymptomatic carriers. We also know that COVID-19 affects people in many different ways. Some become seriously ill, requiring a formal diagnosis and treatment, perhaps hospitalization. Others have only mild symptoms they attribute to a cold or minor respiratory ailment. Many of us had respiratory infections – fever, coughing, congestion – in December and January and wonder if it was COVID-19. An antibody test can help answer those questions, and you should make the decision to be tested after discussing with your healthcare provider.

Widespread antibody testing also can help us better understand the impact of COVID-19 on our community and provide a more accurate measurement of how many actual cases we’ve had.

Widespread antibody testing also can help us better understand the impact of COVID-19 on our community and provide a more accurate measurement of how many actual cases we’ve had. It can help us better understand how many people were asymptomatic or had only minor symptoms. A positive test can give you information on whether you should ask about donating plasma for treatments. But a positive antibody test shouldn’t give you false confidence. It doesn’t say you can’t get COVID-19 again. It isn’t a “get out of jail free card” to stop taking safety precautions like social distancing, wearing a mask in public and frequent hand washing.

As scientists and physicians, we are working hard to better understand COVID-19. Antibody testing can help us do that. But such testing does not provide all the answers.