The Pegasus Professor award is the highest academic award a professor can receive at the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą. During an entire career at UCF, faculty who are exceptional in every area — teaching, research and service — are recognized for their work. These awards are determined by the president, and recipients receive a $5,000 stipend and a $5,000 research grant.

Josh Colwell, Naim Kapucu, Tison Pugh ˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýMartine Vanryckeghem have been selected as the 2019 Pegasus Professors who have impacted students, fellow faculty and the community through their research and dedication to education.

Josh Colwell

Department of Physics, Florida Space Institute, College of Sciences

Josh Colwell has been interested in space exploration and science since he was a child. His mother likes to joke that he was bit by the space bug when she was eight months pregnant and saw the launch of Gemini 1. His career started in research, but after 17 years at the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Colorado he came to UCF to pursue his passion for teaching.

“One of my goals is to make science, physics and astronomy more accessible to people. I love seeing that light bulb moment with students.” — Josh Colwell

“One of my goals is to make science, physics and astronomy more accessible to people,” he says. “I love seeing that light bulb moment with students. I’m always looking for new ways to make complicated subject matters relatable and understandable.”

While Colwell loves his students, he’s also known for conducting experiments in what’s sometimes called the vomit comet — a plane that descends rapidly to create weightless conditions. Has he thrown up? Too often to count, but many of his students have fared better on the plane.

His research works to uncover the story of the solar system and the formation of habitable planets like Earth throughout the galaxy. Colwell has been involved in multiple NASA missions, most notably the Cassini mission that orbited Saturn 13 years sending back views of the ringed planet and its dozens of moons never seen before. He also hosts a podcast, Walkabout the Galaxy, which he calls “accidentally educational.”

His advice to students is simple: “Take advantage of the resources at UCF. Go see your teachers. They want to be asked questions, and they want to help you understand so you can succeed.”

Naim Kapucu

Director, School of Public Administration, College of Community Innovation and Education

Naim Kapucu came to UCF in 2003 fresh off of his doctoral program at the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Pittsburgh with his dissertation about emergency and crisis management during 9/11. His father wanted him to become a politician and eventually a governor, but he told his father he would one day become “a professor of governors,” specializing in public administration and policy.

While his work on 9/11 became well-known, Kapucu planned to never touch emergency-management research again, but the opposite happened after his move to Florida.

“My passion is being an academic, scholar leader and having a big vision for our school.” — Naim Kapucu

“I’ve focused on leadership and emergency and crisis management,” Kapucu said. “My passion is being an academic, scholar leader and having a big vision for our school.”

For the past four years, Kapucu has directed the School of Public Administration. He’s led creation of six new degree programs, including the fully online Masters in Research Administration, and has brought top journals in the field to UCF. Kapucu’s leadership and relationships put the school’s programs on the map. The school has two U.S. News & World Report nationally ranked graduate degree programs: No. 7 emergency management and No. 8 nonprofit management.

The Emergency Operations Center at UCF was one of the first in the nation at a university – thanks to a grant that Kapucu helped secure.

“Coming to UCF was the best decision I ever made,” he says. “I tell students, faculty and staff to be yourself, know yourself and let other people be themselves. Have a vision with a solid plan to accomplish your goals. But keep in mind: In the world of public administration and policy, a vision without execution is hallucination.”

Tison Pugh

Professor, Department of English, College of Arts and Humanities

Tison Pugh is best known among students for his Harry Potter studies class, but that’s not what he’s most proud of. He arrived at UCF in 2001 after receiving his doctorate in English literature from the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of Oregon, and he has also published 19 books in 17 years.

“Two of the things I’m proud of is the minor in medieval and renaissance studies. And I was the founding faculty editor of the UCF undergraduate research journal, The Pegasus Review,” Pugh says. “These are curricular initiatives that will still be available to students after I’m long gone.”

“I always stress to students that I love literature and that I love to read and study it.” — Tison Pugh

Pugh hopes his enthusiasm and love for literature shines through in his teaching, even for any resistant students. He believes the key to keeping students engaged is to tap into their passions.

“I always stress to students that I love literature and that I love to read and study it,” he says. “I don’t think I would be a good professor if I didn’t do that for my students. When they start reading, they find the hidden humor — and once they find it — they are addicted to it as well.”

Martine Vanryckeghem

Professor, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Health Professions and Sciences

Martine Vanryckeghem began her work in fluency disorders in Belgium, which has shaped her international career. A fluency disorder involves the interruption in the flow of speaking, and the most common one is stuttering. Vanryckeghem is an expert in how to diagnose and treat stuttering in children and adults.

Her research in fluency disorders has led her to co-author standardized diagnostic tests for children and adults that investigate the emotional, behavioral and cognitive effects stuttering can have on an individual. Her work has been translated, researched and published in 30 different countries.

“The tests provide an inventory and give a good idea of the different dimensions that surround the person who stutters,” she says. “An individual who stutters typically thinks negatively about him or herself and will use coping mechanisms to not stutter. The tests give the clinician a good assessment of the disorder and how to treat it.”

Vanryckeghem credits her late husband with a lot of her success. They met while he was in Belgium giving a workshop.

“UCF made me an all-around citizen.” — Martine Vanryckeghem

“His high standards and scientific rigor served as a role model for me,” she says. “I have tried to continue to lead by that model and if I can use the Pegasus mythology, he was the wind beneath my wings.”

As for her students, Vanryckeghem hopes to make a small impact on their lives through academic and clinical instruction and research.

“UCF made me an all-around citizen. I don’t see myself as only an academician or researcher, I see myself as a faculty team member and leader – a UCF ambassador around the world,” she says.

Yes, Rowling, as in J.K. Rowling, creator of Harry Potter. As you might guess, it’s the Rowling class that fills up the fastest. “We can learn a lot from the Harry Potter books,” says Pugh, a voracious reader who knows a good literature lesson when he sees one. Pugh acknowledges that after he read the first novel in the series, The Sorcerer’s Stone, he had no idea he would one day be teaching Harry Potter courses to college students.

You could say I was late to the party.
Honestly, I thought of Harry Potter as a book for kids and teens. I finally picked it up to see what all the fuss was about. Any skepticism vanished after I read the very first line — “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” It’s one of the best opening lines in all of literature, and it’s my job to read a lot of literature.

No one knew Harry Potter would be such a big hit.
Scholastic won the U.S. rights to publish the books for about $100,000. The craze just snuck up on us. People like me opened that first book and were swept into this strange world of wizards. We were hooked.

Some might question why we have a Harry Potter class.
It’s just as meaningful as my literature classes on Chaucer or the King Arthur legends. The character development and trajectory of plots are so deep. I can use that to challenge students to become better thinkers. By the end of a semester, students have not only read books totaling 4,000 pages, they’ve analyzed them — and they’ve done a lot of analytical writing themselves.

Class time is not trivia time.
Many of my students have never read a Harry Potter book, even though they’ve grown up around the series from birth. But they take the course to be motivated to read all the books for the first time.

I’ve read the entire series eight times.
But students sometimes remind me of details that I’ve forgotten or missed. It’s like a student asking a history teacher about the specific date of an event. You learn not to be embarrassed if you don’t remember the answer. Again, our goal is to inspire critical thinking and analysis.

My favorite book is probably The Goblet of Fire.
The story has a plot you cannot leave. It took me about 16 hours to read 800 pages. The book really makes you think — and that makes it a great teaching tool.

We can learn a lot from the author, J.K. Rowling.
She isn’t just a fantasy novelist. She’s a voracious reader, and you can see her interest in British literature embedded into the Harry Potter stories. There are deep levels to the plots, yet they aren’t difficult to follow. Peeling back those layers, that’s the challenge for the class.

The students motivate me to think, too.
They’ll draw parallels between the details in the books to actual cultural issues of the day. Or they’ll suggest what Rowling might have been thinking during the train ride that supposedly inspired the books (which, if the legend is true, must have been a multi-year train ride considering the depth of the stories).

There’s often a waiting list for the class.
We have 100 seats and they’re usually full. Most English courses at the 300 level have 30-40 students. So this one is popular coming in. Hopefully, it’s popular going out.

Boredom has no place in a literature class.
To me, this is exciting. And remember, I have to engage 100 young adults, which would be impossible if I didn’t love the subject matter. I hope they would agree that my enthusiasm shows.

Then there’s the money.
There are so many students that I divide them into teams or Harry Potter “houses”: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin. In each class I give them a challenge inspired by one of the books, such as coming up with as many connections to fairytales as they can in eight minutes. At the end of the semester, the winning house receives $100 to celebrate their victory. It gets their attention and makes them think. That’s what it’s all about. A little competition doesn’t hurt either.