Joshua Taggart knew he wanted to work for the space industry the day he experienced his first launch while attending a camp at Kennedy Space Center, seeing the space shuttle Endeavour soar into the sky. He’s now closer to making that dream a reality after being recognized with one of the industry’s most distinguished awards.

Taggart is the latest Knight to receive the coveted Astronaut Foundation Scholarship, a national award that provides more than 70 scholarships of up to $15,000 each for some of the nation’s very best STEM students. He will be recognized with the 2026 class of scholars at the foundation’s gala, to be held next month in Houston.

Taggart says he chose UCF for its reputation in engineering as the No. 1 supplier of talent to the nation’s aerospace and defense industries (Aviation Week Network). He is in good company as part of a trio of Astronaut Scholars this year from the College of Engineering and Computer Science, joining mechanical engineering student Keanu Brayman and computer engineering student Kyle Coutray (a biomedical sciences double major), who have received the scholarship for second consecutive year.

As Taggart works to complete his final year at UCF, his latest accomplishment fuels his path to make an impact as a future space researcher.

Future Focused

Driven to contribute to humanity’s exploration of our universe, Taggart is already working on future-focused innovations that can benefit the space industry.

Through NASA Office of STEM Engagement, he interned at the Johnson Space Center working on communications, avionics, propulsion and flight software for CubeSat subsystems.

This summer at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, he is researching packaging materials for silicon carbide pressure sensors, working to make sure they perform reliably above 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit), and on integrating thermocouple sensors for temperature compensation.

“I chose this field of research because I want to be involved in next-generation electronics that can withstand the extreme nature of outer space.” — Joshua Taggart

“With the harsh environment that outer space is and planet surfaces like Venus, electronics must survive very high temperatures and radiation effects,” he says. “I chose this field of research because I want to be involved in next-generation electronics that can withstand the extreme nature of outer space.”

His work as an undergraduate researcher for the Q-Sim Lab, directed by Assistant Professor Jaesung Lee, also centers around developing technology designed to operate in outer space. Taggart is working on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) resonators designed to perform under extreme conditions, such as elevated temperatures and increased exposure to radiation.

He recently won a Judge’s Choice Award at UCF Student Research Week for his Honors Undergraduate Thesis, “Robust AlN MEMS Resonators for High Temperature Space Environments.”

His passion for space has only grown over the years, reflected by his ongoing research at UCF and for NASA. As an Astronaut Scholar, Taggart is launching into a future full of possibilities.

“Aside from the financial support that this scholarship will provide me as I complete my undergraduate program, I am very eager for all of the networking opportunities I will have,” Taggart says. “I look forward to networking with other students and industry leaders to learn and grow as much as I can thanks to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.”

Those interested in the Astronaut Scholarship and other opportunities should reach out to the Office of Prestigious Awards at��OPA@ucf.edu.

That’s the future a team of UCF researchers is building, and their groundbreaking work has earned international recognition.

A team of UCF researchers has won an industry award for using robotics and digital twins to blend human intuition with technological innovation.

Their work, Be There Without Being There: Humanoid Robot Immersive Telepresence, received the Auggie Award for Best Interaction Product at this year’s Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. Auggie Awards, which received over 330 entries across 18 categories, are among the world’s most recognized honors in the augmented and virtual reality industry.

The award-winning UCF team includes computer science student researchers Judah Rowe ’23 ’25MS, junior Liam Abramov, seniors Seniah McField and Megan Bailey, Assistant Professor Mohsen Rakhshan, and is led by UCF Institute for Simulation and Training Interim Director and Agere Chair Professor of Computer Science Carolina Cruz-Neira. In addition to this honor, Cruz-Neira received the 2026 Auggie Award for Innovator of the Year.

Together, they developed a system that pairs a humanoid robot with an immersive digital environment, allowing a person to interact with a remote location as if they were physically there.

The technology creates a real-time digital twin of the robot’s surroundings while mapping the user’s body movements directly onto the robot.

“From a technical [standpoint], this is perhaps the first working product or system that actually [allows] a human to be physically functional in a remote location as if they were really there,” Cruz-Neira says. “We map the body of the human to the robot. So the human walks, the robot walks. The human moves, and the robot moves. The human turns the head, the robot turns the head. It’s almost like the concept in the movie Avatar.”

While Cruz-Neira and Rakhshan guided the project, she says the talented UCF students are responsible for successfully implementing physical telepresence.

“This project was done entirely by UCF students,” she says. “They are the ones who solved all the problems. They brought it to this level of sophistication to win the award.”

The technology has applications across industries wherever people cannot safely or easily be physically present.

A robot could enter buildings damaged by hurricanes or earthquakes to assess structural damage and search for survivors. Healthcare providers could remotely examine patients with limited mobility or those living far from medical facilities. ��Someone unable to travel could experience strolling along the Champs-Élysées in Paris through the robot’s perspective.

The most important aspect of the work is its ability to blend human intuition with technological innovation, Cruz-Neira says.

“At the end of the day, we have a human element, and robots can help us extend our human capabilities through this amazing technology,” she says. “This project is about [using] technology to augment or extend our human capabilities to help us do things more safely and more effectively.”

The team continues refining the technology to enhance the human experience. Future developments include incorporating artificial intelligence to give the robot greater autonomy and adding a sense of touch that would allow users to remotely feel temperature and texture, as well as manipulate objects.

Cruz-Neira says the project demonstrates not only what’s possible through emerging technologies, but also what UCF students can accomplish when given the opportunity to tackle complex real-world challenges. The students have taken this project from the lab into the real world. They’ve built a robust working prototype that’s an exceptional display of real value for the community.

“Ů��AV is making [its] mark in the world as the technology university,” she says. “This project demonstrates that as a university, we’re part of the future that we like to talk about. [We’re helping build it.]”

Over millions of years, flowing water etched valleys, shaped mountainsides and formed the branching blue and green scars visible across Earth — and potentially those on other celestial bodies.

Now, UCF researchers and collaborating institutions developed a framework capable of reconstructing realistic 3D landscapes using only 2D river network patterns. By combining computer models that simulate how river networksform with principles of hydraulic geometry — the study of how rivers naturally shape themselves over time — the researchers were able to estimate terrain features such as elevation, channel depth, slope and sediment transport.

The approach could help scientists better understand how landscapes evolve under different environmental conditions on Earth and potentially other planetary bodies such as Mars and Titan.

Rivers as Geological Records

According to Arvind Singh, an associate professor in UCF’s Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering, river networks preserve traces of the physical processes and external forcings that shaped them over time.

“River networks encode the integrated effects of hydrologic and geomorphic processes, reflected in metrics such as drainage structure, channel geometry, relief and hypsometry (the measurement of elevation and depth),” Singh says.

Reconstructing Landscapes from Networks

Traditionally, researchers study river systems by starting with 3D topographic data gathered through satellite imaging and digital elevation models, then extracting river networks from the terrain.

The new framework flips that process.

Instead of beginning with terrain itself, the researchers investigated whether river networks contain enough information to reconstruct landscapes from the ground up.

“Because traditional approaches require full topography and only describe patterns, reverse engineering (e.g., from networks) can reveal the underlying physical processes that govern landscape form,” Singh says.

The researchers say river networks can reveal far more than simple drainage patterns. Under the framework, the geometry of the networks can also help estimate hidden environmental variables tied to landscape formation.

“A key insight is that realistic 3D landscapes, and even unobservable quantities like discharge or sediment transport, can be reconstructed from 2D network structure alone, revealing strong constraints imposed by fundamental scaling laws,” Singh says.

Testing Alien Worlds

Because the framework is dimensionless and scalable, researchers were also able to adapt the model to hypothetical landscapes on Mars and Titan by changing variables such as gravity and sediment density.

The resulting simulations revealed how river valleys and terrain formations may differ across planetary environments. Compared to Earth and Mars, Titan’s lower gravity and unique environmental conditions produced wider channels, deeper river systems and flatter overall landscapes.

“Mars and Titan provide natural laboratories with different gravity and fluid/sediment properties, allowing the framework to test how identical network structures yield different landscapes under altered physical conditions.”—Arvind Singh, associate professor

The planetary comparisons allowed the researchers to test how different environmental conditions influence landscape formation even when river structures remain similar.

“Mars and Titan provide natural laboratories with different gravity and fluid/sediment properties, allowing the framework to test how identical network structures yield different landscapes under altered physical conditions,” Singh says.

The simulations also demonstrated how gravity and sediment behavior can dramatically alter the shape of landscapes over time.

“Differences in gravity and sediment properties directly alter channel width, depth, slope, and relief, leading to distinct landscape geometries even with the same network structure,” Singh says.

The researchers say the framework may also help scientists better understand how precipitation, sediment size and watershed structure influence the evolution of landscapes over time. Unlike many traditional landscape evolution models, the framework explicitly resolves river channels and their physical characteristics, including depth, slope and gravel transport.

A New Framework for Landscape Evolution

The researchers say the framework differs from many traditional landscape evolution models because it directly incorporates the physical properties of river channels into the simulations.

“This framework couples probabilistic 2D channel network generation with physically based, dimensionally consistent hydraulic geometry and hillslope models, explicitly resolving channel properties and producing fully scalable 3D landscapes,” Singh says.

By revealing how river networks preserve hidden information about the worlds they shape, the researchers hope the framework can help scientists better understand not only Earth’s geological past, but also the ancient landscapes of distant planetary environments.

��The study was conducted by researchers from UCF, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and collaborating institutions, with support from the UCF P3 program and other funding sources.

For scientists working on NASA’s proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory, that question is no longer purely philosophical. It is increasingly becoming an engineering problem.

Researchers at UCF’s are helping develop technology designed to help future space telescopes detect potentially habitable planets orbiting distant stars.

The NASA-funded project, known as PEEPSS (Photonics-Enabled Exoplanet Spectroscopic System), aims to help astronomers directly observe planets hidden within the overwhelming brightness of their parent stars.

“If they’re in the habitable zone, that means they are orbiting close to their host star, and that host star is typically going to be 10 billion times brighter than the planet,” says Professor Stephen Eikenberry, principal investigator on the project.

To explain the difficulty, Eikenberry compares the task to trying to spot “a tiny blinking light while someone is shining a spotlight directly in your face.”

The work supports the long-term goals of NASA’s proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a future flagship space telescope intended to search for Earth-like planets beyond our solar system and analyze their atmospheres for signs of life.

Solving One of Astronomy’s Hardest Problems

Astronomers already know planets are common throughout the universe. The challenge now is identifying Earth-like planets that are extraordinarily faint compared to the stars they orbit.

Astronomers use instruments called coronagraphs to block a star’s glare while allowing faint planetary signals to reach a telescope’s detectors.

Even then, however, microscopic imperfections in a telescope’s optics can allow enormous amounts of starlight to leak through the system.

“And you can say, ‘Well, that’s only a part in a million,’ ” Eikenberry says. “Guess what? A part in a million means it’s still 10,000 times brighter than your exoplanet. You’re doomed.”

The system performs an advanced form of wavefront sensing that detects and corrects tiny distortions in incoming light before they overwhelm planetary signals.

Unlike many existing systems that monitor light earlier in the optical process, PEEPSS performs wavefront sensing directly at the telescope’s focal plane, the same location where scientific imaging occurs.

That distinction is important because it allows researchers to detect and correct optical errors that emerge after light passes through a telescope’s coronagraph. Scientists refer to these distortions as “non-common-path aberrations.”

To explain the concept, Eikenberry compares the system to trying to monitor a room you cannot fully see.

“Imagine you’re in a house and you want the entire house to be perfectly clean,” he says. “You can see people walking into the bedroom, but you can’t actually see inside the bedroom itself. That’s the non-common path.”

By monitoring the complete optical pathway all the way through to the focal plane, researchers hope PEEPSS can help future observatories achieve the extraordinary precision necessary to detect habitable worlds.

A New Approach Using Photonic Lanterns

At the center of the project is an emerging technology known as a photonic lantern.

The device separates complex incoming light into individual optical channels, allowing researchers to recover not only brightness information, but also phase information carried by light waves, data that conventional imaging systems typically discard.

“Traditional detectors wipe that information out,” Eikenberry says. “Photonic lanterns allow us to recover it.”

That additional information enables what researchers describe as “quantum-inspired imaging,” an emerging technique that uses light behavior to improve image resolution and filter out the remaining starlight.

Researchers at CREOL have become major contributors to the rapidly growing field of astrophotonics, which combines astronomy, fiber optics and advanced photonic technologies.

“There are really only two major centers doing cutting-edge work on photonic lanterns,” Eikenberry says. “Us and the University of Sydney in Australia.”

The project brings together collaborators from UCF, University of California, Santa Cruz, the University of Sydney, and the Space Telescope Science Institute. At UCF, Eikenberry works alongside graduate student Genevieve Markees and researchers including Rodrigo Amezcua Correa, Miguel Bandres and Jose-Enrique Antonio-Lopez, whose expertise in fiber optics and photonics helped establish the collaboration.

Looking Toward Habitable Worlds

The current PEEPSS project is structured as a three-year effort focused on building and testing prototype photonic lantern systems in laboratory and telescope environments.

Some versions of the technology have already undergone testing on telescopes in Hawaii through collaborations with the Air Force Research Laboratory and international research partners.

Ultimately, researchers hope the technology could become part of the future NASA missions searching for habitable planets around distant stars.

“If we can identify habitable worlds around other stars and show they possess conditions where Earth-like life could survive, that’s already revolutionary,” Eikenberry says. “If we discover actual evidence of life, then we’re talking about one of the greatest scientific discoveries in human history.”

For Eikenberry, humanity may now be approaching a historic turning point.

“We are one mission away,” he says.

And if future observations succeed, humanity may no longer simply wonder whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. For researchers involved in the project, that possibility is what makes the work so compelling.

“We’ll look up and know.”

The PEEPSS project is supported by NASA through award No. 80NSSC26K0577 and brings together researchers from UCF, the University of Sydney and the University of California, Santa Cruz to develop advanced photonic technologies for future exoplanet imaging and spectroscopy missions, including NASA’s proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory. The initial PEEPSS concept development was supported by the Ů��AV through its SPICE Academic Excellence Program.

Two UCF researchers have received U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Awards supporting separate engineering research projects focused on how complex systems sense, adapt and respond to changing environments.

The awards were presented to Chinwendu Enyioha, an assistant professor in , and Mohiuddin Quadir, an associate professor in . Among NSF’s most prestigious recognitions for early-career faculty, the CAREER Award supports researchers who show strong potential as academic leaders while integrating research, education and student development.

Recognizing Emerging Research Leaders

While Enyioha and Quadir work in different engineering fields, both researchers are developing systems designed to respond under complex conditions — including autonomous systems coordinating under limited communication and nanoparticles interacting with biological signals in complex environments.

Enyioha says the award will enable his group to build on years of prior work, including early doctoral students who helped lay the foundation for the project.

“It gives us the opportunity to study these problems and acknowledges the effort that has gone into making important findings in this area,” Enyioha says. “It will enable us to continue training doctoral students and make contributions to the broader cyber-physical systems research community.”

For Quadir, the award will help support the long-term development of ideas his research group has been pursuing for years for engineering ‘smart’ materials with programmable form and function.

“This recognition means a very significant impact for our research group and for the progression of our ideas,” Quadir says. “This is a core idea that we want to develop over time, and for that, you need logistic support, intellectual support, collaborations, and of course, newer ideas.”

Designing Autonomous Systems Under Communication Constraints

Enyioha’s CAREER project, “Limited-Communication Control of Teams of Autonomous Systems” focuses on developing mathematical frameworks and distributed algorithms that allow teams of autonomous systems to coordinate effectively under bandwidth-limited communication constraints.

The research examines how spatially distributed systems — including robotic networks, wireless sensors and autonomous infrastructure systems — can continue operating cooperatively even when communication bandwidth becomes constrained or unreliable.

“One way to think about it is if you have a bunch of robots that need to solve a particular task. Clearly they have to talk and agree and coordinate,” Enyioha says. “The question we are interested in is how can they solve that problem when they are not able to talk freely with one another?”

Communication constraints are common in real-world environments, including disaster zones, underwater systems and crowded networks where many devices compete for limited bandwidth.

“Our focus isn’t on situations where we have no communication, but on being efficient in how we use limited communication resources down to single bits,” Enyioha says.

To explain the concept, Enyioha compares the challenge to compressing navigation instructions.

“If you want to go from Orlando to Houston, Google Maps gives you a long list of instructions,” he says. “But if you only had two pieces of information to give someone, you might say, ‘Go north. Then go west.’”

The project also studies resilient systems capable of continuing to operate even when communication channels fail or individual components become compromised, an important challenge in areas such as disaster response, autonomous infrastructure and large-scale robotic systems.

“In the community we call this designing autonomous systems that gracefully degrade,” Enyioha says.

Engineering Materials That Respond to Biological Signals

Quadir’s CAREER project, “Nanoscale Interactions of Stimuli-responsive Nanoparticles with Enzymes,” investigates how engineered nanoparticles can be designed to recognize and respond to biological signals in ways that mimic certain characteristics found in living systems.

“As you know, in [human] physiology, in the physiology of the plants, in the physiology of any living materials around the world, there is a very basic paradigm that goes on, which is selective responsiveness to a particular stimulus within the myriad of noises,” Quadir says. “This sensitivity means a system can register and isolate signals from a complex external environment and translate them into an action.”

Quadir says his research group is trying to translate that biological principle into the materials world by engineering nanoparticles capable of recognizing specific molecular signals and producing targeted responses.

The research focuses on enzyme-responsive nanomaterials — particles capable of interacting with enzymes at the molecular level. Quadir says his research group designs and engineers the molecular building blocks of nanoparticles so they can recognize specific enzyme signals and respond accordingly.

Potential applications could include medicine, aging research, environmental science, and adaptive materials capable of responding to dynamic biological environments.

Supporting Long-Term Research and Education

Both CAREER projects include education and outreach components designed to train students and expand engagement with emerging areas of engineering.

Education and workforce development are central components of Enyioha’s CAREER Award, he says. His research group includes doctoral, master’s and undergraduate students who participate in research on autonomy, machine learning, and distributed optimization theory, with applications to networked cyber-physical systems. Beyond the university, he also introduces younger students to these fields through programs such as UCF Camp Connect, where K-12 participants are introduced to decision-making algorithms and autonomy during a week-long summer program.

“Seeing real demonstrations helped them understand how core concepts from math and physics apply to real problems,” Enyioha says.

Quadir acknowledges the work done by the graduate students and postdocs towards the research goal. He is grateful to his mentors, collaborators and colleagues at the department and college for their guidance and inspiration, and the National Science Foundation for research support.

Quadir says scientific and engineering research ultimately aims to improve the lives of others.

Together, the awards highlight how UCF researchers are advancing engineering systems capable of adapting to increasingly complex biological, computational and real-world environments.

Enyioha’s CAREER Award project, “Limited-Communication Control of Teams of Autonomous Systems,” is supported under NSF award GR110760. Quadir’s CAREER Award project, “Nanoscale Interactions of Stimuli-responsive Nanoparticles with Enzymes,” is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under awards GR111180 and GR111181 (Award number�� – 2609681)

UCF Professor Michal Masternak and his team have identified molecular changes in the liver that happen when space travelers experience radiation and microgravity. These changes – that resemble accelerated aging – provide new insight into how prolonged space missions may increase health risks for astronauts and reveal potential targets for therapies that could combat age-related diseases on Earth.

“Just 24 hours after radiation exposure, there are many genetic changes in the liver that are remarkably similar to what happens during aging.” — Professor Michal Masternak

“We focused on the liver because it is one of the major metabolic organs in our body,” says Masternak, leader of the College of Medicine’s aging and space medicine research efforts. “What we found was that just 24 hours after radiation exposure, there are many genetic changes in the liver that are remarkably similar to what happens during aging. We can assume that if someone were in space much longer, the damage could be much greater.”

The findings were recently published in��GeroScience.

Navigating the Science

For their study, UCF researchers and scientists from the U.S. created a simulated deep space environment in the lab. The team exposed animal models to simulated microgravity for 14 days and galactic cosmic radiation and solar particle events at NASA Space Radiation Laboratory trying to mimic the dosage that astronauts would be exposed to during a trip to Mars.

The exposure triggered noticeable and potentially harmful changes in the liver, including increased cellular senescence (aging and decreased cell function), inflammation and fibrosis. Left untreated, these conditions can eventually lead to declining and even failing organ function.

The research team then compared their results with data collected from astronaut blood samples taken during the NASA Twins Study and Inspiration4 astronauts. They saw similar genetic changes in blood.

“We’ve got this raw data from human studies, and they show that some of these changes are similar,” Masternak says. “That tells us we’re identifying useful molecular targets that one day could help protect astronauts during long-duration space missions.”

They��also��went a step further to see��whether the��changes could be treated. They��identified��a group of molecules known as antagomirs that alter several aging and inflammatory genetic pathways��by interacting with the body’s��microRNA. This system could pinpoint promising��future��therapies for space travelers.

Understanding Aging in the Space Age

Masternak says��the nation’s��growing space industry provides a unique opportunity to study aging at an accelerated pace.

“Very often when we study different aging processes, it takes time,” he says. “Even in humans, it’s almost impossible because it would take decades. But if we see some acceleration of aging in space, then we can translate it to human studies. We can observe processes happening much faster, understand them better and eventually use that knowledge to improve health for people here on Earth.”

“If we see some acceleration of aging in space, then … we can observe processes happening much faster, understand them better and eventually use that knowledge to improve health for people here on Earth.” — Masternak

Those discoveries could eventually lead to therapies that slow age-related diseases, preserve organ function and improve quality of life for everyone as they age.

“Our understanding of aging is very complex,” Masternak says. “Aging isn’t simply wrinkles or cosmetic changes. It’s the gradual and cascading failure of multiple organs and biological systems that happen at the same time. By understanding what starts that process and where it happens, we have a better chance of preventing many diseases before they develop. That is one of the biggest outstanding questions.”

Students Positioned at the Forefront of Space Medicine

College of Medicine students are also benefitting from space medicine research. Biomedical sciences Ph.D. student Md��Tanjim Alam��’25MS��joined Masternak’s laboratory during his��biotechnology��master’s program after initially planning to study cancer in relation to aging biology. Then he was introduced to space medicine, including processing astronaut samples from commercial space travelers to study how extreme environments affect human biology. That research has inspired him.

“I want to keep exploring the unknown,” Alam says. “I really want to understand how space travel influences human health, particularly its effects on aging and cancer.”

Biotechnology��graduate��student��Sarah��S.��Siddiqi��’24��says the interdisciplinary nature of the research attracted her to the space medicine and aging lab.

“When people think of aging, they think only about elderly populations,” says Siddiqi, who earned her bachelor’s degree as a Burnett Honors Scholar in biomedical sciences. “But we study aging across different stages of life and different environments, including space. I’ll always be focused on improving quality of life. I want to better understand diseases that are increasingly prevalent and find ways to recognize them earlier, before they progress to later stages.”

Funding and Disclosure:

Representing��UCF,��Natalie Hayslip��’24��served as first author, while��Sarah Ashiqueali��’21MS ’24PhD, Xiang Zhu, Ridwan Hussein��’22��and��Mishfak��Mansoor also contributed to the research.��Researchers from��Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine,��Universidade��Federal de Pelotas,��the��University of��Pittsburgh��and��the��University of North Carolina at Chapel��Hill��also��contributed.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Award Number (FAIN): 2317758(MMM), Ed and Ethel Moore Alzheimer’s Disease Research Program of the��Florida Department of Health,��Public Health Research, Biomedical Research Program��24A12 (MMM), and the National Science Centre, Poland UMO-2023/51/B/NZ5/00498 (MMM).

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the awarding agencies.

Previously based in downtown Orlando, the FDLE Orlando Toxicology Lab handles approximately 10,000 cases per year. Working more closely with Ů��AV in Lake Nona supports FDLE’s mission to deliver timely, high-quality forensic testing for law enforcement agencies across Central Florida and the state, helping investigators and prosecutors rely on sound science in pursuit of justice.

“This partnership reflects what UCF was built to do — bring talent, technology and applied research together in service to Florida,” says Alexander N. Cartwright, Ů��AV president

“This partnership reflects what UCF was built to do — bring talent, technology and applied research together in service to Florida,” says UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright. “By welcoming the FDLE Orlando Toxicology Lab to UCF’s Academic Health Sciences Campus, we are bringing state forensic operations closer to faculty expertise and future workforce, creating opportunities to make smarter use of public resources while strengthening the knowledge, talent and tools available to keep Floridians safe.”

FDLE leaders say the partnership reflects a broader strategy to modernize forensic services while building a strong talent pipeline.

“Through this partnership between FDLE and UCF, we are investing in the future of forensic science,” says��FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass. “This partnership enhances our ability to recruit highly trained forensic scientists, develop new techniques and deliver timely, high-quality results to law enforcement agencies for investigations.”

Research Driving Real-World Impact

Now part of Lake Nona Medical City, FDLE experts will benefit from proximity to UCF researchers as they — together��— aim to strengthen the region’s role as a hub for biomedical research, health innovation and forensic science. This includes work to advance drug detection methods, study emerging synthetic substances, improve toxicology workflows and develop faster analytical tools to support criminal investigations.

“The closer our researchers are to operational labs, the more responsive and impactful their work becomes,” says Jack Ballantyne, UCF chemistry professor and director of the National Center for Forensic Science. “We’re able to identify challenges in real time and immediately begin working on solutions.”

From Classroom to Crime Lab

Over the years, numerous UCF alums have built impactful careers at FDLE. Many credit their hands-on training, research opportunities and mentorship at UCF, as well as guest speakers from FDLE, for preparing them to excel in high-stakes forensic environments.

“I was lucky enough to complete my internship with FDLE Toxicology, where I was able to experience firsthand what the day-to-day workflow is like before graduating,” says Lauren McCool ’15, a UCF forensic science alum and FDLE crime laboratory analyst who remains engaged with UCF as an FDLE guest lecturer. “When I began my career with FDLE I was able to navigate the laboratory with confidence due to the real-world and hands-on experience I had at UCF.”

With FDLE’s new proximity, students will have even greater access to internships, experiential learning and professional networking — accelerating the pathway from classroom to career and helping prepare more graduates for forensic science roles that serve Florida’s communities.

Leading Forensic Science Education

UCF brings the academic depth, research capacity and student pipeline needed to support FDLE’s long-term forensic science needs. The partnership reinforces UCF’s role as Florida’s Technological University and a national leader in forensic science education and research.

UCF ranks No. 6 in the nation for Bachelor’s in Forensic Science Degree Programs, according to CriminalJusticeDegreeSchools.com. UCF’s undergraduate program was established in 1974, making it one of the oldest forensic science programs in the country. About 500 students are currently enrolled across UCF’s bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral forensic science degree offerings.

Established in 1997, the National Center for Forensic Science, based in Central Florida Research Park, is made up of UCF faculty and staff whose research touches everything from DNA analysis to chemical analysis of trace evidence.��Their work often contributes to industry-wide advancements in forensic science. This includes research earlier this year on the “fantastic four” chemical standards to provide a consistent and critical reference point for forensic anthropology and toxicology work.

Berinstain, director of the Florida Space Institute at UCF,�� has more than 30 years of experience spanning government, industry and academia. Throughout his career, he has led major space initiatives, advanced international collaborations and worked to expand opportunities across the rapidly evolving space sector.

Founded in 1963 to fuel the space race, Ů��AV is America’s Space University. Berinstain’s appointment to lead the Florida Space Research Consortium underscores UCF’s leadership and expertise in this evolving field.

The consortium is a statewide partnership uniting Florida’s major research universities — Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University, Florida A&M University, Florida Institute of Technology, Florida International University, Florida State University, UCF, the University of Florida and the University of South Florida — with government, industry and investment partners.

“I am honored to lead the Florida Space Research Consortium at a time of tremendous opportunity for space research and innovation.” — Alain Berinstain, Florida Space Institute director at UCF

“I am honored to lead the Florida Space Research Consortium at a time of tremendous opportunity for space research and innovation,” says Berinstain, who is a resident of Florida’s Space Coast. “Florida is the world’s busiest and best place to launch to space. I look forward to working with Florida universities, industry and government partners to accomplish together what no individual member of the consortium can achieve on their own and to advance Florida’s leadership in space.”

From 1997 to 2013, Berinstain worked at the Canadian Space Agency, including serving as director of planetary exploration and space astronomy. He has advised companies such as Virgin Galactic and served as chief strategy officer at Space Tango and at CSS Inc.

“Dr. Berinstain brings a unique combination of leadership experience, strategic vision and deep knowledge of the space sector,” says David Norton, vice president for research at the University of Florida and chair of the Florida Space Research Consortium board. “He has a proven ability to build partnerships and advance the collaborative mission of the Florida Space Research Consortium.”

“Dr. Berinstain brings a unique combination of leadership experience, strategic vision and deep knowledge of the space sector.” — David Norton, ��chair of the Florida Space Research Consortium board

Faculty and students at the member universities are advancing a wide range of space research that supports everything from exploration and discovery to practical technologies needed for future missions. Ongoing work across the consortium includes developing smarter spacecraft and satellites; improving propulsion, navigation and communications systems; designing new materials that can withstand the harsh conditions of space; and creating technologies to manufacture, build and operate in space and on the lunar surface.

“Researchers are also focused on using space for the benefit of Earth, addressing human health issues including aging, cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease,” Berinstain says. “As Earthlings prepare to explore the moon, mars and beyond, understanding the human side of spaceflight is key. This includes studies of how people, plants and biological systems function in space; efforts to grow food in lunar and Martian conditions; and research in planetary science, astrophysics, space weather and Earth observation. As a team, we can take on bold, new challenges.”

Together, these efforts reflect a shared commitment to advancing knowledge, supporting long‑duration space missions, strengthening the space economy and translating scientific breakthroughs into real‑world benefits, Norton says.

A new educational partnership between UCF and the U.S. Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) is creating opportunities for research, student training and workforce development in one of the country’s most specialized scientific fields. The collaboration strengthens critical scientific capabilities, facilitates the sharing of resources and expertise, helps build the radiochemistry talent pipeline and positions UCF at the forefront of nuclear chemistry research that supports national security missions.

“Through collaborative research projects and summer internships, UCF students gain hands-on experience working alongside federal scientists and access to AFTAC’s facilities and instrumentation for research supporting national security missions,” says Vasileios Anagnostopoulos, associate professor of chemistry in the UCF College of Sciences and principal investigator of the partnership.

Only a small number of universities nationwide have established this type of relationship with AFTAC, the Department of the Air Force responsible for monitoring nuclear treaty compliance and detecting nuclear events worldwide.

A Nationally Recognized Program

“The fact that we were invited by AFTAC to be one of their official academic partners says a lot about the recognition of our program and the important role chemistry and radiochemistry play in the national security landscape.”

According to Anagnostopoulos — director of UCF’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fellowship and Ů��AV principal investigator for the multi-institutional NNSA-funded Consortium for Nuclear Forensics — UCF’s growing reputation in radiochemistry and analytical chemistry helped distinguish the university as a strong academic partner.

The collaboration also reflects UCF’s broader role in supporting Florida’s rapidly growing aerospace, defense and national security ecosystem through research, workforce development and federal partnerships.

“Our radiochemistry program is gaining national recognition through multiple research grants and collaborative proposals,” Anagnostopoulos says. “The fact that we were invited by AFTAC to be one of their official academic partners says a lot about the recognition of our program and the important role chemistry and radiochemistry play in the national security landscape.”

The partnership builds on UCF’s advanced research infrastructure, including radiochemistry laboratories, mass spectrometry capabilities and materials characterization resources. Together, these facilities enable researchers to analyze complex nuclear materials and conduct detailed characterization studies for national and international security applications.

“We have cutting-edge facilities and instrumentation for sensitive and precise analysis,” Anagnostopoulos says. “The combination of radiochemistry, advanced analytical capabilities and access to radioactive materials allows us to address complicated real-world problems and provide technical information that can support our federal partners’ missions.”

Unique Opportunities for Students

For students, the partnership opens the door to hands-on experiences rarely available in a traditional academic setting.

Through internships and collaborative research projects, students will work alongside multidisciplinary teams of chemists, engineers and scientists while gaining exposure to federal laboratory environments and national security protocols.

Few universities nationwide offer students direct pathways into operational nuclear security environments, making the partnership a unique training opportunity for UCF students interested in chemistry, national security and federal science careers.

“Beyond the technical training, they gain exposure to mission-focused work, interdisciplinary collaboration and communication skills that are essential in federal and defense environments,” Anagnostopoulos says.

Building the Future Workforce

The agreement also addresses a national need for trained experts in radiochemistry and nuclear chemistry, highly specialized disciplines offered at only a limited number of institutions nationwide, Anagnostopoulos says.

As federal agencies and national laboratories work to strengthen expertise in nuclear security, treaty monitoring and advanced nuclear technologies, partnerships like this help ensure a pipeline of future highly skilled scientists is ready to contribute.

“This partnership helps prepare the next generation of scientists while keeping the country at the forefront of nuclear security and global safety,” Anagnostopoulos says.

As the collaboration grows, it’s expected to expand opportunities for faculty, researchers, and students in other fields, such as big data analytics and cybersecurity, while further establishing UCF as a hub for radiochemistry, defense-related chemistry, and national security research.

In aquatic ecosystems, some species use active sensing systems, emitting echolocation sounds or electric fields to navigate dark or murky waters.

This sensory ability can come with trade-offs. For electric eels and their weakly electric knifefish prey, generating electric fields helps them navigate and hunt, but those same signals can also reveal their location.

In a recent study published in , UCF researchers found that both electric eels and knifefish strategically suppress and resume their electric signals to avoid detection.

The findings provide new insight into how animals balance sensing their surroundings while remaining hidden from predators or prey, a challenge that also appears in technologies such as sonar and radar. This work also expands scientific understanding of how active sensory systems evolve in competitive environments where being detected can mean losing a meal or becoming one.

“Our findings show that active sensing creates a paradox: the same electric signals these animals need to navigate and hunt can also reveal them to eavesdropping predators or prey,” says Professor of Biology William Crampton, who co-led the study with biology doctoral graduate Lok Poon ’26PhD. “Both eels and knifefish appear to resolve this paradox through electric stealth, briefly suppressing their signals when concealment matters, then resuming them when sensing becomes more important.”

Tracking Electric Signals in the Amazon

To test these predator-prey interactions, the researchers deployed six custom-designed electric signal loggers along a 150-meter section of an Amazonian stream. Each logger recorded 60-second segments of electric signals over 27 nights. In total, nearly 107,000 minutes of data were collected.

“Electric fish are ideal for this kind of study because their signals let us monitor their presence and movements electronically, simply by recording how often they pass near submerged electrodes,” Crampton says. “Our loggers allowed us, for the first time, to monitor predator-prey electric signaling interactions continuously in the wild.”

Researchers then analyzed the recordings to distinguish species by their unique electric signal signatures.

How Eels and Knifefish Use “Electric Stealth”

“With knifefish, we found that when they detect electric eel signals, some flee while some pulse-type species switch off their own electric discharges for several seconds. “—William Crampton, professor of biology

“With knifefish, we found that when they detect electric eel signals, some flee while some pulse-type species switch off their own electric discharges for several seconds,” Crampton says. “In our logger recordings, a knifefish could be producing its normal train of pulses to sense its environment, then suddenly become electrically silent as soon as eel signals appeared.”

Laboratory tests showed that low-frequency components of electric eel signals play a key role in triggering this response, with knifefish reacting far less when those components were reduced.

Electric eels were also found to pause their low-voltage electrolocation pulses before high-voltage bursts used to probe for or stun prey. This silence would make an approaching eel less detectable to electroreceptive prey such as knifefish. Once the eel produces a high-voltage burst, however, it has revealed its presence, temporarily reducing the benefit of stealth. ��The eel promptly resumes its regular low-voltage pulses, likely to rapidly relocate, track or capture prey.

“The field recordings revealed these phenomena in the ecological context,” Crampton says. “The laboratory experiments then allowed us to isolate the eel signal features that trigger knifefish responses.”

Parallels in Nature and Technology

In nature, the only well-studied comparison to this behavior is the predator-prey dynamic between killer whales and their toothed-whale prey.

“Killer whales and smaller toothed whales such as beaked whales use echolocation, relying on sound rather than electric signals to sense their surroundings,” Crampton says. “Mammal-eating killer whales can suppress echolocation and calls while hunting, while beaked whales and other prey species may reduce vocal activity or take evasive action when they detect killer whale sounds. The eel-knifefish system shows a remarkably similar trade-off in the electric sense.”

The findings suggest convergent evolutionary pressures favoring the ability of both predators and prey to modulate active-sensing signals to improve survival.

Similar trade-offs also occur in human active-sensing technologies such as sonar and radar. A submarine, for instance, can use active signals to detect its surroundings, but each outgoing ping can also reveal the vessel’s location.

“Just as we found in electric eels and knifefish, operators of these systems balance the need to gather information with the need to remain hidden,” Crampton says. “In submarines, that can mean alternating between active sonar and passive listening depending on the situation.”

Electric eels, knifefish, echolocating whales and human operators all face the same challenge: balancing the benefits of active sensing with the risk of detection.

Future Research Applications

Electric fish have long contributed to scientists’ understanding of concepts beyond biology, including electricity, nerves and sensing.

“Electric fishes have played an outsized role in the history of biology and physics,” Crampton says. “For example, their discharges helped shape early research on electricity, including Alessandro Volta’s invention of the first battery, and their electric organs later became important model tissues for studying acetylcholine receptors — protein channels that help nerves send signals to other cells.”

The new findings build on this legacy, showing how electric fish can reveal principles related to sensing, stealth and decision making. Similar trade-offs shape sonar, radar and autonomous sensing technologies, suggesting that nature’s solutions to stealth and detection may offer insights for future adaptive sensing systems.

“This study shows that active sensing is not just about gathering information, but also about managing the risk of being detected,” Crampton says. “This opens opportunities for future research, from understanding how other aquatic species respond to electric signals to uncovering whether similar stealth strategies occur in other sensory systems.”

This work was funded by National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program grant 2035702 (L.P.), an American Philosophical Society Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research grant (L.P.), and National Science Foundation grant DEB-1146374 (W.G.R.C.).