Faculty

Leland Nordin’s educational and professional journey has taken him to almost every directional extreme in the contiguous United States. He grew up in the northern state of Minnesota before attending Grinnell College in nearby Iowa where he earned a bachelor’s degree in physics. He moved south to the University of Texas in Austin where he…

Five new faculty members have joined the UCF Department of Materials Science and Engineering for the 2023-24 academic year. The faculty bring with them a wide range of experience and expertise in biosensors and biowearables, semiconductor materials, electron microscopy, machine learning and much more. The new faculty are: Paria Gharavi – Assistant Professor Leland Nordin…

One-hundred-forty-three UCF faculty members, including two from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, recently achieved significant career milestones in earning promotions and tenure for the 2022-23 cycle. The approved faculty­ — 93 for promotion, 49 for promotion and tenure and one for tenure — underwent a rigorous evaluation of their work and performance by…

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its Science family of journals. Election as a fellow is a lifetime honor and considered one of the most distinguished recognitions within the scientific community. UCF professors Peter Delfyett and Ronald DeMara…

Most people realize the climate impacts of carbon dioxide. Not many people, however, know that methane, the main component of natural gas, is much more potent than carbon dioxide. While methane doesn’t remain in the atmosphere as long as CO2 (which can linger for thousands of years), it is 84 times more potent at trapping heat…

A University of Central Florida researcher has developed technology that could prevent electric vehicle fires, like those caused by saltwater flooding from Hurricane Ian. The technology, an aqueous battery, replaces the volatile and highly flammable organic solvents found in electric vehicle lithium-ion batteries with saltwater to create a battery that is safer, faster charging, just…

Assistant Professor Lorraine Leon has been named a recipient of the 2022 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. This honor is given to early career faculty in recognition for their outstanding research, experience and leadership in STEM. All recipients are nominated by 3M researchers and receive a discretionary award of $15,000 per year, for up to three…

Kathleen Richardson, a Pegasus Professor of optics and photonics and joint professor of materials science and engineering, has been named a Darshana and Arun Varshneya Frontiers of Glass Lecturer. This honor is awarded by the American Ceramics Society to individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of glass science and technology. Individuals must…

The U.S. National Science Foundation has named eight UCF professors 2022 NSF CAREER award recipients. All of the recipients are engineers by training who are working on interdisciplinary projects that aim to improve health or to develop new technology that promises to improve our lives. The awardees represent the most promising junior researchers in the…

Eighty-nine UCF faculty received promotions and another 48 earned tenure for the 2021-22 cycle following a rigorous evaluation process. Four of these faculty are from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Consideration for promotion and tenure takes nearly an entire academic year as faculty are evaluated on three main areas: research, teaching and service. UCF’s…

Jim Fenton, the director of the Florida Solar Energy Center and a professor of materials science and engineering, has been elected the third vice president of The Electrochemical Society. Fenton has been a member of the industry organization for 40 years and previously held the title of ECS Secretary. In his candidacy statement, he said…

This year’s five Reach for the Stars honorees have two common traits – outside-the-box thinking and a relentless passion to make the world a better place. From creating resilient communities that can withstand natural disasters to educating the public through fiction that explains real science, this year’s honorees are using research to help create a…

Twenty-six students — including one affiliated with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering — have been named as 2021-22 recipients of the Order of Pegasus, UCF’s most prestigious student award for those who display incredible academic achievement, university involvement, leadership and community service. Chuck Didier, a biomedical science student who studies under Professor Swaminathan…

Dr. Yang received CECS Researcher of the year at the Associate Level award. The University Research Council and the Office of the Vice President for Research are proud to offer the Excellence in Research Awards. Each college may select one research award recipient. One Excellence in Research award is available to the combined research faculty…

Professor Swaminathan Rajaraman will join the leadership team of the Multifunctional Integrated System Technology (MIST) Center as a deputy director of the UCF site. The MIST Center was established in 2014 and is a research consortium housed under the Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers program, which is led by the National Science Foundation. MIST is a…

The International Association of Advanced Materials has named Professor Jiyu Fang a Fellow of the organization in recognition for his outstanding contributions to the area of biological and biocompatible materials. This distinction is one of the highest honors for scientists, engineers, and researchers in the advanced materials community. To select new Fellows, IAAM uses scientific…

 Yeongwoong Jung Assistant Professor College of Engineering and Computer Science Materials Science and Engineering PhD Research Focus: Emerging nanoscale materials While working in nanoscience, Assistant Professor Yeongwoong Jung has made strides on a large scale. In the last five years, he’s spent at UCF, his lab has investigated everything from electronic “tattoos” that monitor a person’s…

Five UCF researchers have been awarded more than $450,000 in SEED funding thanks to a new collaboration between the UCF Office of Research and the international nano and digital technology research and development company imec. Researchers from the College of Engineering and Computer Science, College of Optics and Photonics, College of Sciences, and College of Medicine are expected to commence…

Assistant Professor Lorraine Leon has been named a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award. The award will fund Leon’s research that develops biomaterials-based reactors that could make industrial products such as fuels, pharmaceuticals, and fine chemicals in more efficient, selective, and ecofriendly ways. The biomimetic design is based on liquid droplets that form…

The academy, which selected UCF Pegasus Professors Deborah Beidel and Sudipta Seal among this year’s inductees, is a group that brings together the nation’s most distinguished scholars who live and work in Florida. BY KIMBERLY J. LEWIS | APRIL 23, 2021 UCF Pegasus Professors Sudipta Seal and Deborah Beidel will be honored at an induction ceremony in…

Prof. Crawford was invited by the Bioelectronics – Fundamentals and Applications organizers to give a talk at the Spring 2021 Virtual MRS Conference on April 21st. Her talk highlighted recent discoveries made by the Crawford Lab on nonlinear optic polymers.

Prof. Jung delivered an invited speech at the recent American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting, virtually held on Apr 12. He received the invitation from the PHY division/session of 2-D Materials for Energy, Sensing and Quantum Information Science Synthesis and Light Harvesting. His invited talk was entitled “Wafer-scale integration of 2D TMD heterostructures of controlled layer orientation…

2021 Founders’ Day Honorees The annual recognition celebrates the outstanding academic achievements of our faculty members and students. The Founders’ Day Awards celebrate the outstanding academic achievements of our faculty members and students. As we recognize these achievements, we remember the efforts of those women and men who made this university a reality, and we…

2021 Founders’ Day Honorees The annual recognition celebrates the outstanding academic achievements of our faculty members and students. The Founders’ Day Awards celebrate the outstanding academic achievements of our faculty members and students. As we recognize these achievements, we remember the efforts of those women and men who made this university a reality, and we…

 Every March, Faculty Excellence honors 31 women for their impact on students and UCF’s campus community. Honoree bios will be updated daily on the Provost’s website each day during the month of March to feature each woman and her accomplishments. https://provost.ucf.edu/news/faculty/2021-womens-history-month-honorees/ Kaitlyn Crawford has contributed to at least 17 peer-reviewed research articles and has received…

UCF Funds Second Round of $1 million SEED Initiative to Support Faculty Research Thirty-seven teams are awarded grants to investigate a variety of research including the use of artificial intelligence to improve battery performance and gaming to develop leadership skills. Thirty-seven teams will be conducting research in a variety of areas including nanotechnology, energy, space,…

AELM Article 2021

BIOFLORIDA: July 28 Hesperos demonstrates an innovative Human-on-a-Chip® approach to modeling the innate immune system response following tissue damage and acute inflammation. Read More…   BusinessWire: August 11 UCF Researchers Utilize Human-on-a-Chip® Approach to Model ALS Pathology. Read More…   Dr. Hickman’s group research highlighted in APL Bioengineering C. Oleaga, G. Jalilvand, G. Legters, C.…

Prof. J. Hickman (NSTC, Chemistry, and MSE) is Elected as a Fellow, National Academy of Inventors (NAI) https://academyofinventors.org/fellows/  

UCF Researchers Selected for 4 Solar Awards from U.S. Department of Energy — Most of Any University Issued by the Solar Energy Technologies Office, the awards total $9.64 million and will be used on projects ranging from securing our nation’s power grids to optimizing solar energy. BY LAURA J. COLE | NOVEMBER 23, 2020 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 20,…

Top 2% of World Scientists Ranked by Stanford University. Yongho Sohn Linan An Sudipta Seal Link for the excel file This is the paper where they described the process

Dr. Seal recognized as the 2020 American Ceramic Society Fellow at The American Ceramic Society 2020 Virtual Awards Celebration Dr. Kathleen Richardson received Greaves-Walker Lifetime Service Award at The American Ceramic Society 2020 Virtual Awards Celebration We congratulate all of the 2020 ACerS awardees and hope you enjoy watching the celebration! Link for the video

Kathleen Richardson, Pegasus Professor at the University of Central Florida, discusses her career developing next-gen materials and her mentorship roles within this What is your favorite aspect of working with optical materials? It’s a ‘chemistry thing’ blended with a ‘people thing.’  What makes optical materials science so exciting is that the needs of any new…

Dr. Le Zhou, who has been a familiar face around UCF MSE, will be leaving UCF to embark on the next career challenge, namely a tenure-track assistant professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dr. Le Zhou earned his B.S. degree in materials science and engineering from Beihang University in 2010 and came to UCF…

Ellen Hyeran Kang, Xiaofeng Feng, Akihiro Kushima – Congratulations!!   UCF leads the state and ranks sixth in the nation for the number of National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipients in 2019. As of July 22, UCF confirmed 12 awards. In Florida, a total of 41 awards have been given so far, including seven to…

Here are a few of the people at UCF who are holding everything together — even during a pandemic. Sudipta Seal Professor and Chair for the Department of Materials Science and Engineering “We’re working to research if a nanoparticle coating can be applied to protective equipment to safely reuse supplies.”  

Sudipta Seal is one of 23 fellows recognized for his contributions which have impacted the area of space, medicine and the environment. BY ZENAIDA GONZALEZ KOTALA | JUNE 11, 2020 Sudipta Seal is a Pegasus Professor, trustee chair and is affiliated with UCF’s Advanced Materials Processing Analysis Center and Nanoscience Technology Center, in addition to his role…

Backed by the National Science Foundation, researchers are working on developing a nanoparticle film that would “catch” and kill viruses to better protect healthcare providers. Protecting against COVID 19 As the pandemic rages on, it’s the first responders on the frontlines that are most at risk. A team of engineers at the University of Central…

What it’s Like Being Essential Personnel at UCF During COVID-19 Meet some of the people at UCF who hold everything together — even in the worst of times. Sudipta Seal Chair and Professor of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering Chair for the NanoScience Technology Center and Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center We’ve seen a shortage of…

Announcing the 2020 Class of Inventors! For the full biographies of 2020 Inductees, please visit the Florida Inventors website.

His program will focus on understanding the fundamental reaction mechanisms in all-solid-state batteries to identify the root causes of the failures at the electrochemical interfaces. He will develop a novel in-situ transmission electron microscopy technique that enables precise evaluation of the interplay between the strain/stress evolutions and the changes in the microstructure/chemistry at the interface…

After a busy award-winning year, Dr. Sudipta Seal closed out 2019 with two more achievements for his distinguished work in his field: the Albert Sauveur Achievement Award from ASM International and Fellow Member honors from the Indian Institute of Metals. Dr. Seal is a Pegasus Professor, trustee chair and is affiliated with UCF’s Advanced Materials Processing Analysis Center and Nanoscience…

Watch at Welsh2-TV Solar panels could save you hundreds of dollars a month, but is the initial investment worth the cost in the long run? In the past few years, Florida’s solar industry has started to take off. “We’re building almost a nuclear power plant worth of solar every year in the state of Florida,”…

The sensor will use terahertz waves to detect fire and chemicals whose unique molecular signatures can be determined based on how the waves interact with them. BY ROBERT WELLS | DECEMBER 3, 2019 Video: Homeland Security, FEMA partner with UCF to help improve firefighter safety Kausik Mukhopadhyay, a senior lecturer and researcher at UCF’s Department of Materials…

– Dr. Seal an inductee of the Hall of Fame, research showcase at the exhibit.

Congratulations Dr. Yongho Sohn! The Scroll & Quill Induction Ceremony  will be on Tuesday, October 29, 2019 During Spring 2016, Faculty Excellence relaunched a streamlined and contemporary UCF Scroll & Quill Society. This society is based on two prestigious faculty clubs established in the 1980s to honor faculty members who brought recognition to the university…

Sudipta Seal, an engineering professor and chair of UCF’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has been named a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, one of the oldest chemical societies in the world. “Getting recognized by the Royal Society of Chemistry is not only a humbling experience but will also create a lot…