All Student Highlights

Select a department from the list (to the right) to view only that department's highlights.

December 2008:

Tyler Hether and Mary Beth Manjerovic have both been awarded grants by the Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research program.

December 2008:

Former anthropology student Margaret "Tess" Bonacci was formally sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer; her assignment is in Zambia, where she will be living for two years, focusing on HIV and AIDs education to teenagers.

December 2008:

Congratulations to Zenobia Carver for receiving the Who's Who Among Students at UCF award for the 2007-08 year. Zenobia is a major in Anthropology and Psychology.

December 2008:

Congratulations to former Anthropology BA students, Shayna Michaels and Benjamin Marshal, who married on August 30, 2008. Both also earned master's degrees at UCF (Shayna in Social Science Education and Ben in Business). Shayna teaches high school in Seminole County and Ben is starting a computer LAN business. Shayna also makes art and Ben is writing a novel.

December 2008:

Melinda Donnelly, PhD Candidate in Conservation Biology, received an Outstanding Presentation Award at the Restore America's Estuaries Conference in October in Providence, Rhode Island.

November 2008:

Recent undergraduate, Wei Yuan, won the outstanding undergraduate poster competition at Southeastern Estuary Research Society (SEERS). The meeting took place in Tampa. Wei graduated in August.

November 2008:

Outstanding graduate programs:  U.S. News and World Report Best Graduate School guide. Physics, placed in the top 100 nationally.

October 2008:

Master’s alumni Mary Collins is currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

October 2008:

Meagan C. Arrastia has been hired as a full-time research assistant for Cognitive Performance Group of Florida Inc. The Company specializes in cognitive and decision-making research using primarily qualitative methods. It also conducts program design and evaluation for groups, like the Department of Defense. Currently, Megan is working on a project wit the US Marines to evaluate cultural competency of recent soldiers that were deployed. With the help of methods learned during the MA program, Meagan is now collecting data from soldiers at different bases around the country and assisting in the analysis and reporting of the findings.

October 2008:

Master’s alumni Val Margarit stopped by our table at the recent graduate fair and let us know that she is currently the Department Head for the Law Studies Department at New Dimensions High School in Kissimmee. In addition to keeping up with all her students she also made time to complete the New York City Marathon in four hours and thirty minutes!

October 2008:

Master’s alumni Brian Gentry is currently pursuing a Ph.D.
at Utah State University.

October 2008:

NSF has awarded a CSUMS (Computational Sciences Training for Undergraduate in Mathematical Sciences) grant to UCF. We are inviting all mathematics majors and minors who will have finished ODE and Linear and Matrix Algebra by the end of Fall 2008 to apply as student participants. We are working on an online application system and will put it in place as soon as possible. In the mean time, you can send your name to xli@math.ucf.edu with subject "NSF Project" so that we can inform you when the application system is available.

September 2008:

Jourdan Crumpler Hathaway (2002, Ad/PR) was recently promoted from senior account manager to director of client services at Evok Advertising, Inc.

September 2008:

Lisa Velardi (above), a senior in the journalism program, was named a winner of the 2008 Robert Walker Scholarship in Christian Journalism. The scholarships are $2,000 each and are awarded to five outstanding college journalism students in the United States who are pursuing careers in religious publishing.

September 2008:

For the first time in the UCF Nicholson School of Communication history, 31 students studied in Dublin, Ireland, for four weeks this summer.  Lead by communication faculty members Dr. Kristin Davis and Ms. Ryan Sheehy, the Communication, Culture and Connection excursion, which occurred May 17 June 13, 2008, immersed students in the sights, sounds and culture of the Emerald Isle.  The international program was created for students interested in either interpersonal or mass communications and featured two distinctively different tracks - intercultural communication and international public relations case studies.

click here for the article (.pdf)

September 2008:

Members of the UCF Chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists traveled to Chicago for six days in late July to attend the UNITY Convention, the largest gathering of journalists of color.  Eleven students represented UCF at the convention. Sophomore Journalism major Shahdai Richardson was selected to participate in the prestigious Student Campus project, a program intended to cultivate young journalists.  The students rubbed elbows with prominent broadcast and print journalists, including ESPN personality Stuart Scott, ABC correspondent Lisa Salters and Newsweek columnist Les Payne. The students also saw presidential candidate Barack Obama, who visited the convention to field questions from the crowd at an event broadcast live on CNN.

September 2008:

In early August, more than 10 Quotes members and Club Advisor, Ms. Ryan Sheehy, attended the 70th Annual Florida Public Relations Association conference at the Gaylord Palms Resort Hotel and Conference Center in Kissimmee.

September 2008:

Two UCF journalism alumni and longtime Orlando Sentinel veterans recently moved on and moved up.

Mike Griffin, deputy editorial page editor, left the paper after 23 years to become vice president of communications at Walt Disney World. Griffin will oversee Disney World's media relations and internal communications. During his long career at the Sentinel, Griffin served as city editor, political editor and reporter. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Mike Lafferty, who like Griffin graduated from UCF in the early 1980s, has been named editorial-page editor of the Orlando Sentinel. He is responsible for the newspaper's editorial and op-ed pages and the Sunday analysis-opinion section. Before his promotion, Mike was education editor at the paper. He joined the Sentinel in 1986 and has been a reporter, columnist, editor and bureau chief.

September 2008:

Cameron Smith graduated this May with a degree in radio/ television and a minor in creative writing.  Shortly after graduation he moved to California to pursue his dream of working in television.  After just two months, he has been hired as a Production Assistant on the Fox sitcom 'Til Death.

September 2008:

Sally Stader (Applied Experimental & Human Factors PhD student) was a co-winner of the Best Graduate Paper Award at the 2008 Florida Student Conference on Human Factors and Applied Psychology held at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Her paper was titled “Ergonomic Evaluation of a General Aviation Maintenance Task: Covering an Aircraft Wing”.

July 2008: Ryan Pelham, a summer 2008 graduate of the Journalism program, has accepted a job as a photojournalist at the New Britain, Conn., Herald, a community tabloid-format daily paper owned by the Journal Register Company. Pelham won first prize in the SPJ Mark of Excellence Region 3 competition for Breaking News Photography. He also won several awards for photojournalism in J-Day and Knight Image Awards competitions.

July 2008: Jessica Malavé (2005, Ad/PR) has joined Access Advertising/PR as a Design and Public Relations Account Executive. Prior to joining the Roanoke, Virginia, based advertising and public relations firm, she served as an Account Executive for the South Florida based advertising firm, Engelhardt & Partners.

July 2008:

Clinical Ph.D. students Diana Orem and Betsy Wack each won a cash prize for first and second place for poster presentations at the 2008 Florida Psychological Association research conference.

July 2008:

The Orlando Sentinel on Thursday expanded its partnership with the Journalism Division of UCF's Nicholson School of Communication.

Starting this fall, the news company's Web site, OrlandoSentinel.com, will offer expanded coverage of UCF by publishing news produced by UCF journalism students, with supervision from their professors.

The "U-News" page and its content will be produced and managed by students in the Journalism Division's advanced reporting and editing classes. Students will report about the people, events, issues and trends shaping and affecting Florida's second-largest university and its surrounding community. The UCF student population is expected to top 50,000 this fall.

The move represents a significant change for the Sentinel and UCF's Journalism Division. For the past two years, the Sentinel has published a half-page of student-produced UCF news in the regional sections of the newspaper. The move to the Web site will greatly increase both the number of stories and the ability to tell those stories with all of the tools of the digital age: text, photos, video and audio. It also means UCF journalism students will have a much larger audience for their news stories. The Orlando Sentinel reaches 1.2 million people each week in print and online.

"Journalism is changing," said Roger Simmons, the Sentinel's Associate Managing Editor for Online and a UCF alumnus (Liberal Studies, 1997). "The Web has become such a vital part of how people receive their news and information. We hope this partnership with UCF will not only help prepare a new generation of journalists but also help our community gain greater insight and understanding of the issues and events at one of our nation's top universities."

The partnership with the Sentinel adds to the growing vitality of UCF's journalism program, which is already a designated training center for the prestigious  Dow Jones Newspaper Fund copy-editing internship program.

"This is an enormous opportunity for UCF," said Rick Brunson, Journalism Division area coordinator, who will teach the U-News classes with Dr. Steve Collins. "It comes just as we are beginning to aggressively introduce multimedia storytelling skills across our curriculum. This partnership will help us better equip our students for the future and give them a digital platform on which to showcase their talents and serve their community as ethical and responsible journalists."

July 2008:

The 2nd and 3rd Ph.D. in Sociology degrees were awarded this summer.

On June 30, Amy Donley successfully defended her dissertation.  She will be on a postdoc with the Institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences at UCF next year.

On July 8, Michael Bachmann successfully defended his 
dissertation.  He will begin a tenure-track appointment as an 
Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Texas 
Christian University in fall 2008.

Drs. Donley and Bachmann join Dr. Monica Mendez who completed her work for the Ph,D. in Spring 2008 as the three students awarded the Ph.D. in the third year of our program.  Dr. Mendez will begin a tenure-track appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at East Carolina University in fall 2008.

We are very pleased with the number of doctorates awarded in the 
third year of our new program and with our students' employment 
successes.  Although prediction is always precarious, we believe 
that a minimum of three degrees will be awarded in 2008-09.

July 2008:

Matt McKinley, a senior in the journalism program recently received a Florida Press Association award in the 2007 Better Weekly Contest for an article he wrote while interning at the Orlando Business Journal last summer.  The awards are given for the previous year's publications. The article, "County growth threatens triathlon business," came in second place for the "Sports Feature Story" category in Division B, (circulation size 7,000-15,000).

July 2008:

Melissa Patterson, a May 08 Journalism graduate, is a reporting intern this summer at the Chicago Tribune.  Within a couple of days on the job as a metro reporter, Patterson made the front page for her story Hey, get out of the street.

July 2008:

Steve Mullis, class of spring 2008, has accepted a job as Associate Editor for Online News for Minnesota Public Radio. MPR is the nation's second-largest producer and distributor of national public radio programs. In this role Steve will edit radio stories for online, shoot and edit photos and video, and create new and creative ways to distribute MPRs news content online. His first major assignment will be helping MPR cover the Republican National Convention being held in Minneapolis this September.

June 2008:

Kerri Alexanderwas selected as a recipient of a $2,000 LeRoy Collins Memorial Scholarship.  The award will be presented June 26 at the Florida Association of Broadcasters Luncheon 2008 in West Palm.

April 2008:

The Journalism Division has been awarded a $3,000 Information Fluency Grant for 2008-09 from the UCF Quality Enhancement Plan Initiative Office to help teach students in reporting classes how to search for and publish information found in public records. The grant proposal, co-written by Profs. Rick Kenney and Rick Brunson, included a request to fund a workshop to be conducted by public-records expert Joe Adams for fall Journalism classes. Adams, who is an editorial writer for The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, received the national 2007 Eugene S. Pulliam First Amendment Award sponsored by the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. Brunson, the incoming area coordinator for Journalism and an alumnus of the school, will oversee implementation of the information fluency project.

April 2008:

Journalism Majors Clean Up In Society of Professional Journalists  Regional Mark Of Excellence  Competition at the March 29, 2008 luncheon.

Melissa Patterson, first place,
Breaking News

Adam Manzor, first place,
Editorial Writing

Brian Murphy, first place,
Sports Writing

Ryan Pelham, first place,
Breaking News Photography

Abe Aboraya, second place,
Breaking News

Melissa Heyboer, second place,
General Column Writing

Bart Zino, second place,
Feature Writing

Tara Young, third place,
Feature Writing

Amanda Moore, third place,
General News Photography

The staff of the Central Florida Future, under the consecutive editorships of Aboraya and Heyboer in 2007, won third prize for Best All-Around Non-Daily Student Newspaper.

UCF student Grant Lowther won the first place prize for General Column Writing.

April 2008:

UCF senior Journalism major Melissa Patterson was named Top Scholar among four students selected in April for 2008 membership in Kappa Tau Alpha, the nations third-oldest academic honors society and the most exclusive in Communication.  Joining her were Journalism majors Brandon Bielich, Stephanie de Sousa and Jessica Tuggle.

Students are selected for KTA from among print and broadcast journalism majors with exceptional academic records. Only the top 10 percent of students who have met certain criteria for credit hours and GPA are eligible each year.

April 2008:

Matt Epstein received the Best of Show Award at the March 29th ceremony. To view all other categories and their associated winners, please click here.

April 2008:

Amanda Moore, a journalism major, placed as a finalist in the 28th Annual Student Photography Contest, sponsored by Nikon, USA.  Over 4,000 students from the United States, Canada and around the world participated in the contest.  Her photograph will be published in the Best of College Photography Annual 2008.

April 2008:

Matt Morrison, a senior Journalism major, has been selected for a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund summer copy editing internship at the Naples Daily News. Morrison, who has held several key positions at the Central Florida Future, becomes the 10th UCF Journalism student to receive one of the 103 DJNF internships this year. UCF ranks second, to Missouri, in the number of DJNF interns for 2008.

April 2008:

Frank Muniz, a junior in the R/TV program, was offered an internship with Comedy Central at The Colbert Report in New York City for the summer semester.  Muniz was one of the 20 interns selected out of nearly 1000 applicants.  Last summer he completed an internship at Nickelodeon in NYC.

April 2008:

Students each receive a $1,000 award from this merit scholarship program and a plaque.   The spring 2008 scholarships winners below received their awards at the meeting of the Orlando Area Chapter of the FPRA on March 26:

Leon Finkler  (Ad/PR)
Catie Fry (Jou)
Jennilee Hwang (Ad/PR)
Christyn Lanza (Ad/PR)
Rex Riepe (Ad/PR
Amy Shanks (Ad/PR)

April 2008:

The following students were inducted in to the honor society, Sigma Eta Chapter of Lambda Pi Eta on April 14, 2008:

Gwendolyn A. Brunner
Daniel Byerley
Hillary Kotler
Angela Massey
Sharon Merkel
Alicia O'Connor
Elizabeth Pangborn
Brittany Rodriguez
Ashley Settl
Tara Young

April 2008:

The following NSOC students were honored for their commitment to excellence in academics, leadership and community service at the annual Founders Day Awards Ceremony on April 2, 2008:
Lauri A. Gagnon (Ad/PR)
Melissa Patterson (Jou)

April 2008:

The Sigma Xi Committee on Grants-in-Aid of Research has approved funding in the amount of $605 for the research grant proposal submitted by Melinda Donnelly. The Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research program has a highly competitive application process and only approximately 20% of applicants receive any level of funding. Some applicants receive an award less than the requested value. This is because the Committee prefers to recognize outstanding research potential via reduced awards rather than to forgo any award.

April 2008:

Physics graduate student Bob Macke won a Smithsonian Graduate Student Fellowship for this summer. He will spend 8 weeks working at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. It also carries a two-month stipend and funding for travel. Bob Macke is pursuing his PhD under Dan Britt in Planetary Science.

April 2008:

Two of UCF's Physic Ph.D students, Paul Stokes and Dan Maronde, have been selected to attend the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany from June 29,2008 to July 4, 2008. Congratulations to them both for receiving this great honor. A special thanks to Dr. Saiful Khondaker (holds joint appointments in Nanoscience and Physics) and Dr. Costas Efthimiou (Assistant Professor of Physics) for advising these two gentlemen and aiding them in receiving such an honor. Strokes and Marond are two of the 60 participants from the USA that will have the honor to listen to Noble prize winners lecture and interact with them during a seven day period. The Laureates give presentations on topics of their choice. Particpants from all over the world are able to engage the Noble Prize Winners in discussions for several hours throughout the afternoon. Social events bring the scientific newcomers into personal contact with the Nobel Prize Winners.

April 2008:

Congratulations to Alexandra Orlova who received the Founders? Award: Alexandra Orlova, a Biology student, was born and educated in Russia. After winning a contest to complete her senior year of high school in the United States, she realized her love for veterinary medicine and relocated to America to pursue her higher education. Her professors describe her as a diligent student who loves to learn and who sets a high standard that other students find hard to achieve. Orlova mentors younger students, volunteers as a technician in a local clinic and helps distressed animals. She has been accepted at several veterinary schools.

April 2008:

The Nicholson School of Communication's UCF Knightly News was recently named "Best College TV Newscast for 2007," by the Florida Associated Press. This was awarded from a show in Spring 2007. Additionally, one of Nicholson's Broadcast Journalist student, Diana Bosch, won 2nd place "Best Long Light Radio News Feature." Two big accomplishments for the Radio/Television Division in the Nicholson School of Communication.

April 2008:

Steve Shippee (Conservation Biology Ph.D. with Graham Worthy) received best Ph.D. Student Poster presentation at the recent SEAMAMMS conference in Charleston SC. This was for his research entitled "High -flyers vs Low-riders: a performance analysis of radio tag attachments on bottlenose dolphins" which was coauthored by Eric Zolman, Wendy Noke Durden, Forrest Townsend, and Greg Bossart.

April 2008: Alexis A. Greenberg won a 2nd place award in the Social Science I Division at the UCF Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence for her research entitled, ?AN EXAMINATION OF TRAINING ON STATES OF GOAL ORIENTATION AND MENTORING RELATIONSHIP SUCCESS.? Her research was based on her Honor?s in the Major paper (thesis chair, Dr. Kim Jentsch). Her award included a $400 scholarship.

April 2008: Psychology major, Micah G. Allen, won an award in the Social Science I category at the 2008 UCF Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE) conference for his poster presentation entitled, "Linguistic correlates of psychopathology in autobiographical narrative." This poster was based on his Psychology Department Honors in the Major project (Thesis Chair: Dr. Jeffrey S. Bedwell). His award came with a $200 prize.

April 2008: Psychology major, Daniela Jaramillo, won an award in the Social Science I category at the 2008 UCF Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE) conference for his poster presentation entitled, "DRIVER DISTRACTION: A BIO-BEHAVIORAL ANALYSIS " This poster was based on his Psychology Department Honors in the Major project (Thesis Chair: Dr. Mustapha Mouloua). His award came with a $200 prize.

April 2008: Psychology major, Kenneth S. Michniewicz, won an award in the Social Science II category at the 2008 UCF Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE) conference for his poster presentation entitled, "ORDINARY CRUELTY TELEVISED IN A JUST WORLD" This poster was based on his Psychology Department Honors in the Major project (Thesis Chair: Dr. Randy Fisher). His award came with a $200 prize.

April 2008: Psychology major, Iris Daniela Navarez, won an award in the Social Science II category at the 2008 UCF Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE) conference for her poster presentation entitled, "IMPACT OF SPEECH DELIVERY VS. CONTENT UPON VOTER PERCEPTION OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP" This poster was based on his Psychology Department Honors in the Major project (Thesis Chair: Dr. Leslie DeChurch). Her award came with a $200 prize.

April 2008:

Nancy Gillis (undergraduate with Eric Hoffman) received Outstanding Student Poster presentation at the recent 2008 Ocean Sciences conference in Orlando, FL. This was for her research entitled "Genetic Diversity and Population Admixture Contribute to Establishment of Mytella charruana, an Invasive Mussel" which was coauthored by Linda Walters and Eric Hoffman.

April 2008: Kevin Palmer won a first place award in the Social Science II Division at the UCF Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence for his research entitled, ?Change of Physical Context Impairs Cardiovascular Habituation to Stress.? His research was based on his Honor?s in the Major paper (thesis chair, Dr. Shannon Whitten). His award included a $700 scholarship. Kevin is a student on the Palm Bay campus and has also won a $1,000 Honors in the Major Scholarship and a $500 SGA scholarship. Kevin can be contacted via email through the following address: kpalmar@cfl.rr.com .

April 2008: Ashley Harper won a first place award in the Social Science I Division at the UCF Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence for her research entitled, ?Exploring How Pet Attachment and Existential Connectedness Influence Loneliness.? Her research was based on her Honor?s in the Major paper (thesis chair, Dr. Karen Mottarella). Her award included a $700 scholarship. Ashley is a student on the Palm Bay campus and has also won $500 SGA scholarship. Ashley can be contacted via email through the following address: akharper@mail.ucf.edu.

April 2008:

Nancy Gillis (undergraduate with Eric Hoffman) received Outstanding Student Poster presentation at the recent 2008 Ocean Sciences conference in Orlando, FL. This was for her research entitled "Genetic Diversity and Population Admixture Contribute to Establishment of Mytella charruana, an Invasive Mussel" which was coauthored by Linda Walters and Eric Hoffman.

April 2008: Maria Ricci-Twitchell won a first place award in the Social Science II Division at the UCF Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence for her research entitled, ?Exploring the Relationship between Patients? Health Locus of Control and Perception of Physician?s Support.? Her research was based on her Honor?s in the Major paper (thesis chair, Dr. Karen Mottarella). Her award included a $400 scholarship. Maria is a student on the Palm Bay campus. Maria can be contacted via email through the following address: mflricci@aol.com.

March 2008:

James Angelo (M.S. student in the GAMES Lab) received the best student poster award at the Southern Forestry and Natural Resource Management GIS Conference (SOFOR GIS 2008) in Kissimmee, FL for his study entitled: Using LiDAR and Field Data to Analyze Canopy Structure in a Sand Pine Forest. Co-authors were John F. Weishampel, Hilary M. Swain, and Edwin M. Everham III.

March 2008:

Congratulations to Nancy Gillis 2008 OSM - Outstanding Student Poster Awards at the Ocean Sciences Meeting, she was selected to receive an Outstanding Student Poster Award. This is quite an achievement- these awards were reserved for the top 6% of student presentations (21 out of 366 eligible student posters) as selected by volunteer judges.

March 2008:

The following students were Inducted to Order of Pegasus, the most prestigious student award given by the university. Stephanie Kyla Tan is a Political Science major in the College of Sciences. Tabatha L. Calabrese is a Political Science and Legal Studies double major in the colleges of Health and Public Affairs and Sciences. Megan A. Policastro is a Legal Studies major in the College of Health and Public Affairs with a minor in Political Science. Maria V. Pecoraro is a Political Science major in the College of Sciences with a minor in Spanish. Ashley E. Conyers is a Liberal Studies major with a minor in Interpersonal Communication in Undergraduate Studies. Congratulations to all!

March 2008:

Wendy Allen Brunner is a candidate for August graduation from the mass communication track and has been accepted into the doctoral program in Mass Communication Law at the University of Florida.

March 2008:

Melissa Emmett, a student in the master's program, plans to graduate in May from the interpersonal track. At the end of February she was accepted to Arizona State University's doctoral program. Emmett also received a telephone call from the director of the program offering her a teaching assistantship, and a recruitment grant from the university. "I am grateful that my experiences conducting research and teaching at UCF have cultivated my potential to succeed in the future" said Emmett. She plans to visit Tempe, Arizona, to meet with faculty and current Ph.D. students to discuss the potential of continuing her education at ASU.

March 2008:

The following students were Inducted to Order of Pegasus, the most prestigious student award given by the university. Stephanie Kyla Tan is a Political Science major in the College of Sciences. Tabatha L. Calabrese is a Political Science and Legal Studies double major in the colleges of Health and Public Affairs and Sciences. Megan A. Policastro is a Legal Studies major in the College of Health and Public Affairs with a minor in Political Science. Maria V. Pecoraro is a Political Science major in the College of Sciences with a minor in Spanish. Ashley E. Conyers is a Liberal Studies major with a minor in Interpersonal Communication in Undergraduate Studies. Congratulations to all!

March 2008: UCF I/O graduate student team (including Julia Fullick, Wendy Bedwell, Sallie Weaver, Becki Lyons, Jessie Wildman, and Samuel Wooten) won the Jeopardy tournament at the IOOB (Industrial Organizational and Organizational Behavior) conference held at Colorado State University at Denver. This is a competitive event with participation from graduate students in I/O and Management Ph.D. and Master's programs across the country. The Industrial Organizational and Organizational Behavior (IOOB) conference is an annual celebration of graduate student research that provides attendees with an opportunity to share research interests, ideas, and results.

March 2008:

Jenny Lister is a graduating senior in the Interpersonal/ Organizational Communication program. Recently she was notified that would be the volunteer services coordinator for the entertainment department of Give Kids The World in Kissimmee.

February 2008:

Abeer Abdalla, presented Martin Luther King Jr.s speech The Drum Major Instinct at the 11th Annual Joseph C. Andrews Mentoring Breakfast on February 4, 2008. Nontombi Naomi Tutu (race and gender activist, South Africa) was the keynote speaker.

February 2008:

Kerri Alexander, an RTV-Broadcast Journalism senior, led the celebration of Lift Evry Voice and Sing at the 11th Annual Joseph C. Andrews Mentoring Breakfast on February 4, 2008. The UCF Black Faculty and Staff Association and the Student Government Association sponsored the event.

February 2008:

Audra Martin, an RTV-Broadcast Journalism senior, recently was crowned Miss UCF and awarded a scholarship. She is sponsored by Zeta Tau Alpha Sorority and will go on to compete for the Miss Florida title in July.

February 2008:

Aisha Roberts, an RTV-Broadcast Journalism junior, is the second runner up in Miss UCF competition and also the recipient of a scholarship.

January 2008:

Cristina Delgado is a second semester student in the masters program. Her manuscript, Plans Require Participation: Disaster Recovery Plans are Ineffective Without People was peer reviewed and published in a national journal, The Journal of Emergency Management.

January 2008:

Brittany Jo Miller graduated with a 4.0, Summa Cum Laude from the AD/PR program and was named Top Honor Graduate for the College of Sciences at the December commencement ceremony.

January 2008:

Penny Jackson, an RTV major, received "Honors in the Major" for her thesis: The Effects of the 2003 Revision of the 1996 Telecommunications Act on Media Ownership Groups and Diversity.

January 2008:

Michael Bachmann (Sociology PhD) is the program's first doctoral student to accept a job. Michael will complete his PhD this summer on the topic of cybercrime, and then he is moving to Texas to work at Texas Christian University.

January 2008:

James Angelo (Biology MS) received funding from the NSF-sponsored National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) for his project entitled: Identification of Optimal Habitat for the Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) Using ALSM Data.

January 2008:

Nicole Blake, a junior journalism major, was selected in late December for a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund internship for summer 2008. She will be a full-time and fully paid business reporting intern for the Orlando Sentinel after undergoing a week of intensive training by writers and editors from the Wall Street Journal and educators from DJNF at New York University in late spring.

January 2008:

Day McClanahan (Biology MS), a student working in Dr. Fauth's laboratory, recently received a $20,000 contract from Seminole County to support her thesis research on "Amphibians as Bioindicators of Habitat and Water Quality of Central Florida Lakes."

December 2007:

Journalism Professor, Rick Brunson's Metro Reporting class created a multimedia storytelling project. The project, which includes multiple forms of media, can be viewed here.

December 2007:

A record eight UCF journalism majors have earned Dow Jones Newspaper Fund editing internships and will be headed for paid work on newspapers from Fort Lauderdale to Mankato, Minnesota, in summer 2008. The students, their news organization and their specialization: Padrick Brewer, Palm Beach Post, sports editing; Jessica Croy, Columbus, Ga., Ledger-Enquirer, news editing; Mary Knowles, The Wall Street Journal, news editing; Matthew Kuka, The Cullman, Ala., Times, online editing; Catie Fry, Florida Times-Union, news editing; Ileana Llorens, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, news editing; Zaileen Roach, The Mankato, Minn., Free Press, news editing; Megan Speer, The Buffalo News, news editing.

December 2007:

Two NSOC students have been awarded the inaugural Irene Farrell Pynn Endowed Scholarship. Seniors Jason Holic and Brittany Jo Miller, both Ad/PR majors, were selected based on their original essay on "My Role in Building UCF as an alumna or alumnae." Service to UCF and the community was also a criterion. Jason and Brittany will each receive $1,000.

December 2007:

Congratulations to the Fall 2007 Roast and Toast winners: Melissa Patterson, Jason Holic, Matthew Harper, Juliann Whitebread, Tabitha Bernabe, and Alexandra Schwartz. Melissa is a Journalism major and the other students are Ad/PR majors. Each student receives $1,000, a plaque and is added to the permanent plaques kept in the Nicholson School of Communication. There will be a call for entries in spring semester and six more awards will be given. To apply, students must be accepted into one of the four majors in the Nicholson School of Communication (Communication, Journalism, Radio/TV, Ad/PR), be a senior (90 hours), complete an application form, write a two-page essay as directed. Winners are selected by senior professionals in FPRA, the organization that raised the funds for these scholarships.

November 2007:

Congrats to: Julia (JJ) Leissin's award from the 2007 Estuarine Research Federation Conference in Providence, RI earlier this month. There were over 1200 presentations and 2000 attendees, and JJ's oral presentation was voted "first place undergraduate presentation". It came with $500 and a certificate. The title of the talk was: Allelopathic Effects of the Exotic Brazilian Pepper Schinus terebinthifolius on Growth of Native Saltmarsh Flora. Co-authors were Nicole Martucci (Undergraduate), Danielle Green (Undergraduate McNair scholar), Melinda Donnelly (Ph.D. candidate) and Linda Walters (faculty mentor).

November 2007:

Congrats! former anthropology student Margaret "Tess" Bonacci was formally sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer; her assignment is in Zambia, where she will be living for two years, focusing on HIV and AID's education to teenagers.

November 2007:

Former HIM in Anthropology student Paul Fisk is in his second year of the MA in the Department of Education, Culture, and Society at The University of Utah. He will be presenting papers at two professional conferences this year: LatCrit XI-Latino/a Critical Theory and the AESA-American Educational Studies Association.

November 2007:

Melissa Patterson a senior in the Journalism program, has been awarded a $1,000 grant from the Burnett Honors College Student-Mentor Academic Research Teams (SMART) research program. Her proposed textual analysis of newspapers construction of capital punishment since the Angel Diaz execution was deemed worthy in a year when, according to BHC, the quality of submissions was high and very competitive. Patterson will conduct her research as an independent study under the supervision of Dr. Rick Kenney. Patterson will write a research report and participate in UCFs Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE) in the spring semester. The Showcase will take place April 4.

November 2007:

Adriana Meneses a junior, in the R/TV Broadcast Journalism track - was informed recently that she won the $2,500 Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metro Orlando Scholarship.

October 2007:

Graduate students from Bipedal Apes (Anthropology Club) participated in the Olympics at UCF, an event to raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. They came in second place, but won the BIG trophy for donating the most!The team was, Charles Dionne, Sarah Kindschuh, Roberta Murphy, Mary Rezos, Andy Tetlow, Liz Wallace, and Dennis Wardlaw. Supporters included Lauren Britton, Ed Nuckols, and Jesse Sloan.They would also like to thank the Honor's Congress for hosting the event, they had a blast!For more information please contact Mary Rezos at mrezos@mail.ucf.edu.

October 2007:

Journalism major Melissa Patterson,on Oct. 16, was the recipient of the first Fedler Scholarship, a $1,000 honor bestowed by the award's namesake, veteran professor and journalism division head Fred Fedler. In Washington D.C., Patterson was elected to the national board of the Society of Professional Journalists as its campus representative during SPJ's annual convention. She was selected over candidates from larger journalism schools, including the University of Florida., Melissa learned that she was the recipient of Mary A. Gardner Scholarship, a $1,000 award that goes to outstanding journalism students recognized by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. She also spent last summer on a Pulliam Fellowship, reporting at the Indianapolis Star where her stories regularly landed on the front page. She also has interned at USA Today and is currently interning at the Orlando Sentinel. She has also served as news editor of the Central Florida Future.

October 2007:

Jennifer Giusti is a graduating senior in the Interpersonal/Organizational Communication major. Recently she got a job working for a local internet marketing company called Localtising Inc. Giusti said "I am looking forward to using my skills in my new position as a marketing assistant."

October 2007:

Melissa Patterson, recipient of the Mary A. Gardner $1,000 scholarship. Awarded to outstanding Journalism students, recognized by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

October 2007: Melissa Patterson was elected to the national board of Society of Professional Journalists (as campus representative at national convention).

September 2007: Diana Bosch, On Saturday, September 22nd, an R/TV major, was interviewed by Julie Banderas on The Big Story Weekend on Fox News. The segment was a live question- and-answer, discussing the recent deaths of three Central Florida boys linked to amoebas.

September 2007: Penny "Star" Jackson, a broadcast journalism senior and McNair Scholar, is traveling to Baltimore, Maryland on September 21-22, 2007 to present her research on "The Effects of the FCC's 2003 Revision of the Telecom Act on Media Ownership Groups & Diversity of Voice in the Media".

September 2007:

Amy Bunn, 2007-2008 Chair Alumni Chapter (September 2007) Amy graduated in 2002 with a degree in advertising/public relations and currently works as marketing/public relations manager for Turnstile Publishing Company. In addition to serving on the NSOC executive committee, Amy is actively involved with the Florida Public Relations Association and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

September 2007: Cynthia Lambert is the recipient of this year's Bob Davis Award from the Orlando Area Chapter of FPRA. She is an Ad/PR alumna from UCF and a public relations specialist with Metroplan Orlando

September 2007: Graduate Student Robert Scaife will be interning for the US House Subcommittee on Europe from September 1 - December 31, where he will be handling the administrative operations of the office and conducting legislative and foreign affairs research, as well as completing his thesis research on effects of EU conditionality on human trafficking.

July 2007:

Katie McCain works at Chapman Studios as a dolly technician. (http://www.chapman-leonard.com).

June 2007: Holly Trusiak, a journalism student, was hired as a copy editor at the North County Times, a daily news-paper that covers San Diego County, Calif. Holly was hired, according to her editor, because of her experience editing copy for the U-News page -- a joint project between the UCF Journalism Division and the Orlando Sentinel .

June 2007: ED201 (The Magazine Club) was named the Best New Chapter of the Year by the National Organization (although the chapter is in its second year, it still qualifies as a "new chapter."

June 2007: Melissa Patterson earned a prestigious Pulliam Fellowship.

May 2007: Dr. Joe Hall's "Advanced Video Post-Production" class produced public service announcements for the Orange County Victim Services Center as its final project assignment for Spring. Six of the 30 second PSA's have been selected to air on local broadcast stations in the coming months. Students selected were: Jared Clemons, Randy Coole, Shanna DiNobile, Lawnette Munday, Mike Ossola, and Lisa Wax.

May 2007: Frank Stansberry/ PRSA Scholarship was awarded to Alessandra Vaughan.

May 2007: Rodrigo Campos' film "Insane Delict" and Oren Schiff's "Three Dead Mimes" were both regional finalists in the Campus Moviefest competition. "Insane Delict won the UCF viewer's choice award and was nominated for the Golden Tripod Award for "Best Soundtrack".

May 2007: Danielle Lillig - Copywriter for YPB&R.

May 2007: Lauren Marie Caspanello is a recipient of Who's Who Among Students Award.

May 2007: Tracey Juergens ( Organization Comm.) Weddings and Special Events at the Mission Inn Resort.

May 2007: Jacey Brown graduated this past May with a master's degree in Mass Communication and has accepted the job of Education Manager with Junior Achievement of Central Florida. (June 2007)

May 2007: Corrine Schuler earned the Top Scholar Award for Kappa Tau Alpha Honor Society.

April 2007: Founders Day Scholars (students must complete 75 hours and be in the top one percent of students in the College of Sciences). The following Ad/PR students received recognition: Julie Zimmerman, Lauren Caspanello, Robert Foglia, Pamela Mackenzie, Brittany Miller and top undergraduate scholar to Ana Suarez in the School of Business but a double major in Ad/PR.

April 2007: Marquis Duncan - Massey Fellowship Winner (2006) completed 1 year term and was hired full-time by MPB Communications.

April 2007: Charles S. DaPra won a 1st place award in the Social Sciences I Division at the UCF Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence for his Senior Honors Thesis, ?Action Video Game Skill Level Predicts Performance on Target Detection and Identification.?

April 2007: Shari Swartz won an Honorable Mention award in the Social Sciences II Division at the UCF Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence for her Senior Honors Thesis, ?Premigtration Expectations and Postmigration Experiences of Hispanic Immigrants to the United States.?

April 2007: The American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS) recently honored our very own Vidya Kamath as an outstanding student advocate. Vidya, a clinical psychology doctoral student and the campus representative of APAGS Advocacy Coordinating Team (ACT), won the ACT Campus Leadership Award for her outstanding work keeping fellow students abreast of federal and state legislative issues that impact students and the profession of psychology.

April 2007: Jacqueline Alfonso (PhD) won Best in Category for her Poster Presentation in the Life and Health Sciences at the 2007 Graduate Research Forum for her poster titled "Using Feedback to Reduce Alcohol Use: A Meta-Analytic Review.?

April 2007: Julia Fullick (PhD) was a co-winner for Best in Category for her Oral Presentation in the Social Sciences at the 2007 Graduate Research Forum for her presentation titled, "Goal Orientations and Traits: Illuminating the Effects of the Three-Factor Model of Goal Orientation on Personality Traits and Academic Performance."

April 2007: Adams Greenwood-Ericksen participated in a special exhibit showcasing Art and Science at UCF. His work was titled, ?Image from the Carol Mundy Game Mod Project.?

March 2007: The Statistics Department would like to congratulate Tony Vaiciulis on winning the SAS poster contest. He presented his poster at the Data Mining M2006 Conference on October 23-24 in Las Vegas, NV.

March 2007: Husseim Jebailey, (class 2000) now University Director for Knight Newspapers.

March 2007:

The following students from the University of Central Florida have been selected to receive Region 3 Mark of Excellence Awards at regional conference in Gainsville, FL at the Paramount Resort and Conference Center.

Troy Hillier, General Column Writing, Column Collection : 3rd place
Melissa Patterson, Breaking News Reporting, SAE pledges found 'sobbing,' in costume: 1ST place
Matt Pollitt, General News Photography, Violence Hits : 1st place
Nada Taha, General News Reporting, Coping with grief, disbelief, 3rd place
Staff, Best All-Around Non-Daily Newspaper, Central Florida Future : 2nd place

February 2007: Lordins Geffard, a Radio/TV Production senior was awarded the Dr. Tee Collins Scholarship. The award was presented by the Black Faculty and Staff Association at the 12th annual Joseph C. Andrews mentoring breakfast.

February 2007: U-News debut - NSOC and the "Orlando Sentinel" debut a new page in the local & state section on Feb. 7th called U-News. The page features articles and photos produced and edited by journalism students at the NSOC. Steve Collins' Advanced Reporting class writes the stories and Rick Brunson's Editing 2 class edits them for publication. Appears weekly (started on Weds. was moved to Thurs. when the Sentinel added county sections.)

February 2007: Julie Zimmerman has been inducted into the Order of Pegasus. This is the most prestigious and significant student award that can be attained at the university. (Also Ana Suarez in the School of business, double major in Ad/PR.

February 2007: Fall 2007 Roast and Toast scholarship winners: Sara Lofty, Lauren Caspanello, Drenita Shelton, Katrina Mustakas, Jessica Porta & Cara Mielke.

February 2007: Gong Liu, won "Best of Show" at this year's (2007) Addy Awards sponsored by the Orlando Advertising Federation.

February 2007: Danyelle L Sutherland was selected as a ($2,000) recipient of the LeRoy Collins Memorial Scholarship by the Florida Independent College Fund.

February 2007: UCF's Society of Physics Students, led by adviser Costas Efthimiou, has been selected as an Outstanding SPS Chapter for 2005-06 by the society's national organization. The award is based on research, public science outreach, tutoring programs and other categories.

February 2007: Jacqueline Alfonso (PhD) recently received a Travel Award to attend the Association for the Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies national conference in Chicago.

December 2006: Andrea Barber (Biology MS, admitted fall 2005) recently received two research awards: $1500 from the Astronaut Trail Shell Club (this is the second award she has received from this organization) and $2000 from Florida Sea Grant Alyesworth Fund.

November 2006: Suzette Farquharson-Morgan (completed Communication MA Fall 2001) recently published released a self-published book titled "Living Testimonies."

October 2006: Stevie Mathews (Anthropology MA, admitted fall 2006) was elected to serve on the Board for the Graduate Student Association

October 2006: Delores Edelen (Sociology PhD, admitted fall 2005) received the prestigious American Sociological Association (ASA) Minority Fellowship. The ASA is the largest professional association for Sociology.

October 2006: Elizabeth Boughton (Conservation Biology PhD admitted fall 2004) received 2nd place in the poster competition for new doctoral students at the EPA Graduate Fellowship Conference. He presentation was titled "Factors affecting invasion success of native and exotic wetland plant species." outlining reearch on factors that promote exotic plant invasions and decrease persistence of native plant species in wetlands influenced by agricultural management.

October 2006: Monica Mendez (Sociology PhD, admitted fall 2005)received the Delores Auzenne Fellowship and recently co-authored an article in the Journal of Social Work Education titled "Social worker perceptions of the portrayal of the profession in the news and entertainment media: An exploratory study" with C. Zugazaga, R. Surette, M. Mendez, and C. Otto (COHPA faculty).

October 2006: Erin Nabors (Sociology PhD, admitted fall 2006)recently authored an article in Violence and Victims due in press in December titled "Domestic Violence Beliefs and Perceptions among College Students" with T. Dietz and J. Jasinski.

October 2006: Melissa Castora (Applied Sociology MA, graduated spring 2006) published an article in Care Management Journals: The Journal of Long Term Home Health Care titled "Americans’ Attitudes Toward Welfare State Spending for Old Age Programs: An Analysis of Period and Cohort Differences" with T. Deitz.

October 2006: Sara Neuenschwander (Applied Sociology MA, admitted fall 2006 ) received the graduate RAMP fellowship.

September 2006:

Doctoral student Monica Mendez has published an article in the Journal of Social Work Education. To read the article click here.

August 2006: Ann Spellman (Conservation Biology PhD, admitted fall 2004), working with Dr. Graham Worthy, was awarded the 2006 Manatee Conservation Award from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

August 2006: Nicole Browning (Conservation Biology PhD admitted fall 2004), working under Dr. Graham Worthy, received a Lerner Gray Fund for Marine Research Award from the American Museum of Natural History.

June 2006: Graduate Student Dave Feinman will be interning in the Washington DC office of U.S. Congressman Robert Wexler (FL-19) from June 5-30, monitoring congressional hearings and researching legislative issues, as well as completing his thesis research on congressional ethics reform.

May 2006:

Christine Dellert and Kim Calhoun were hired by the Orlando Sentinel immediately upon graduation. Within 90 days of Christine's hiring, she was named Sentinel employee of the Month for her front page coverage of the tragic Trenton Duckett case.

May 2006: Graduate student Robert Scaife was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship for Austria to complete his thesis research on human trafficking in Eastern and Central Europe. Robert will be in Graz, Austria, during the 2006-07 school year and attend classes at Karl-Franzens Universitaet.

April 2006: Daniel White was a recipient of the department's Bledsoe-Young Award, given out annually to a graduating senior with outstanding accomplishments, especially in the area of writing and creative activities.

April 2006:

Order of Pegasus Inductees (Ad/PR majors):
Noel Blanchet
Melissa Lanzone
Amy Schwartz

April 2006:

Quotes won an Image Award in the 2006 OAC/FPRA Image competition. This was the highest award given in Category D - student entries. The award was for the best student PR campaign. It was presented at the Image Award banquet on April, 27, 2006 at the Orange County History Center. Students were: Lauren Kern, Brittany Durcho, Courtney Austin, Kennedy Segler

April 2006: Stephanie C. Ernst won a 2nd place award in the Social Sciences I Division at the UCF Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence for her Senior Honors Thesis, ?Relationships Among Parenting Style, Parental Self-Efficacy, Parents? Perceptions of Children, and Preschoolers? Emotion Regulation.?

April 2006: Rachel E. Wiley won a 1st place award in the Social Sciences II Division at the UCF Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence for her Senior Honors Thesis, ?Psychological Correlates of the Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents with Cerebral Palsy.?

April 2006: Michael T. Strand won a 2nd place award in the Social Sciences II Division at the UCF Showcase for Undergraduate Research Excellence for his Senior Honors Thesis, ?Interactions between Visuo-Spatial Working Memory, Activity, and Ratings of ADHD.?

April 2006:

Kristine Schad Gross (M.S. Biology) received a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research to support her thesis research on the "Benefits of tree calls in the pine woods treefrog (Hyla femoralis)."

April 2006:

Marisol Garcia (graduate from the Chemistry MS program, spring 2006) and Dr. F. E. Hernandez of the Chemistry Department recently received accolades in Chemical and Engineering News, one of the first times a UCF student and faculty member's research has been acknowledged by this publication. You can read the article online [See Article].

March 2006: Katherine R. Brown (undergraduate senior) has been accepted to participate in the UCF Graduate RAMP Fellowship program, beginning in fall 2006. She also received a $1000 research grant for her upcoming work from the Wildlife Society. Katherine is also the only College of Science inductee into the prestigious UCF Order of Pegasus for 2006.

March 2006: Mary Davis (Industrial Organizational Psychology MS, admitted fall 2004) was a co-winner for Best Poster Presentation in the Social Sciences category of UCF's 2006 Graduate Research Forum for her presentation titled "Positive Psychology vs. Stress-oriented Occupations".

March 2006:

Meggan Jordan (Applied Sociology MA, admitted spring 2005) was a co-winner for Best Poster Presentation in the Social Sciences category of UCF's 2006 Graduate Research Forum for her presentation titled "It's a Major Choice! Gender Representation in College Majors at the University of Central Florida".

March 2006: Meggan Jordan (Applied Sociology MA, admitted spring 2005) was a co-winner for Best Poster Presentation in the Social Sciences category of UCF's 2006 Graduate Research Forum for her presentation titled "It's a Major Choice! Gender Representation in College Majors at the University of Central Florida".

March 2006: Michelle Boudreaux (graduated from the Biology Master of Science program Fall 2005) was awarded the University Award for Outstanding Masters Thesis. She will be recognized at the University Awards Breakfast on March 31, 2006.

March 2006: Melinda Donnelly (Biology MS, admitted spring 2004) won Best Oral Presentation in the Life and Health Sciences category of UCF's 2006 Graduate Research Forum for her presentation titled "Success of Water Dispersal as a Secondary Dispersal Vector for Brazilian Pepper(Schinus terebinthifolius)in a Florida Estuary".

March 2006: Carlos Anderson (Biology MS, admitted fall 2005) won Best Poster Presentation in the Life and Health Sciences category of UCF's 2006 Graduate Research Forum for his presentation titled "Reliability of Identifying Individual Polar Bears Using Whisker Spot Patterns".

February 2006:

Four students from Knightly News had news stories air on WESH-TV as part of the station's coverage of Campaign 2006. One of those students, Heather Ford, introduced her story live on WESH during a newscast, the first time in that station's history that a college student aired a live report on its prime newscast.

January 2006: Brandon Barton (graduated from the Biology Master of Science program in Spring 2005) and his advisor, James Roth, were quoted in an article in the January 20th edition of Science. The article incorporated Barton's thesis research on turtle egg predation by racoons and ghost crabs. Barton is now a doctoral student at Yale University.

January 2006: Michelle Boudreaux (graduated from the Biology Master of Science program Fall 2005) was awarded the Outstanding Masters Thesis Award from the College of Sciences.

November 2005: David Breininger (Conservation Biology Ph.D, admitted fall 2004) will publish a paper in Biological Conservation titled, "Landcover characterizations and Florida scrub-jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) population dynamics" (first author, in press) and published a paper in September 2005 in Biological Conservation titled "A rapid approach to modeling species*habitat relationships" (third author).

November 2005: Biology MS candidate Melinda Donnelly received the Outstanding Presentation Award at the Annual Sigma Xi Research Conference in Seattle, WA in November 2005 for her poster entitled, "Is the exotic Brazilian pepper, Schinus terebinthifolius, a threat to mangrove ecosystems in Florida?"

October 2005: Michelle Boudreaux (Masters student admitted Fall 2003) was given an award of Outstanding Student Presentation at the 18th Biennial Conference of the Estuarine Research Federation, in Norfolk, VA (October 16-21 2005). Her presentation was part of her masters research and was entitiled "Competition between oysters and barnacles: The impact of native and invasive barnacle density on native oyster settlement, growth, and survivorship."

October 2005: At the Origins of Life Symposium, held at UCF, two Physics majors (among eight student presenters) won student paper awards. Pontus Ahlqvist won first place for his paper on "Inflation in the Universe," and Tania D. Cubano-Cruz (double-major Physics and Chemistry) received Second Prize for her presentation on Liposome: A Perfect Medium for Life Formation."

October 2005: At the Origins of Life Symposium, held at UCF, two Physics majors (among eight student presenters) won student paper awards. Pontus Ahlqvist won first place for his paper on "Inflation in the Universe," and Tania D. Cubano-Cruz (double-major Physics and Chemistry) received Second Prize for her presentation on Liposome: A Perfect Medium for Life Formation."

October 2005: Linda Smith (Physics MS, admitted spring 2004) was recently selected for honorary recognition in The National Dean's List.

October 2005: Lisa McCauley (Conservation Biology PhD, admitted fall 2004) and David Jenkins had an article accepted for publication in the journal Ecological Applications titled, "GIS-based estimates of former and current depressional wetlands in an agricultural landscape." (volume 15, pp. 1199-1208)

October 2005: Elizabeth Boughton (Conservation Biology PhD, admmitted fall 2004) is a co-author of an article that was recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Vegetation Science titled, "Association of relative elevation and fire with ecotones in an upland Florida landscape." This study was conducted using a unique method called the split-moving windows analysis to detect ecotones. The researchers found that vegetation formed a continuum in composition along the elevational gradient in the absence of fire while the natural fire regimes maintained position and width of ecotones.

September 2005: Delores Edelen (Sociology Ph.D., admitted fall 2005) was recently awarded the 2005 Student Practitioner Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Sociological Practice. She was presented with this award at the annual meetings of the ASA which were held in August in Philadelphia.

September 2005: The Society of Physics Students (SPS) has awarded UCF's SPS Chapter the 2005 Blake Lilly Prize for Outreach Activities. The Chapter's outreach program was led by Erin Riley. In addition to a monetary prize, the Chapter will receive a 3-volume set of the famous Feynman Lectures on Physics.

September 2005: The UCF Student Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society received the Outstanding Student Chapter Award for 2005. Tony Andre announced the award and presented a certificate to the current (Jennifer Ross) and past (Sandro Scielzo) chapter presidents on September 27.

September 2005: Human Factors doctoral student Razia Nayeem received a 2005 HFES Student Member with Honors award from the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

September 2005:

Delores Edelen (Sociology Ph.D., admitted fall 2005) was recently awarded the 2005 Student Practitioner Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Sociological Practice. She was presented with this award at the annual meetings of the ASA which were held in August in Philadelphia.

August 2005: Physics major Erin Langsdorf received the Central Florida Astronomical Society's 2005-2006 UCF Astronomy Scholarship. Langsdorfa's faculty sponsor and advisor is Associate Professor Daniel Britt.

August 2005: UCF I/O Psychology doctoral student Renee DeRouin won the 2005 APA/APAGS Award for Distinguished Graduate Student in Professional Psychology.

August 2005:

Katherine (Katie) Schafer (admitted to Biomolecular Sciences PhD fall 2001, graduating summer 2005) successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation in the Biomolecular Science program, making her the third student to graduate from UCF with a Ph.D. in Biomolecular Science. Katie completed her M.S. degree in Industrial Chemistry from UCF in 1999, and was coauthor of four papers resulting from her thesis that have been cited over 180 times. While waiting for the Biomolecular Science Ph.D. program to be approved, she worked as a research associate in Dr. Kevin Belfield's laboratory, contributing to research that resulted in another four papers that have already been cited over 40 times, including a first author paper for her. During her Ph.D. research, she has been a coauthor of ten papers that have been published or are in print during 2004-05, most of which have already been cited 3 or 4 times each.

August 2005: Joyce Marie Brown (Conservation Biology PhD, admitted fall 2004) was recently awarded an Environmental Protection Agency: Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowship. This award provides full tuition support and a $20,000 stipend for three years as well as an annual $5,000 budget for research, travel, conferences and supplies. Her research will focus on the effects of forest management practices on amphibian assemblage composition and species interactions.

July 2005: Alex Suazo (Biology M.S., admitted fall 2001) and Angelique DeLong (Biology M.S., admitted spring 2003) along with Alice Bard (Biology M.S., graduated summer 1989) and Donna Oddy (Biology M.S., graduated fall 2000) have published a paper in the Journal of Mammalogy titled, "Repeated capture of beach mice (Peromyscus polionotus phasma and P. p. niveiventris) reduces body mass."

June 2005: Amanda (Mandy) Cooper (Conservation Biology Ph.D.) received a prestigious NASA Earth System Science Fellowship for $72,000 ($24,000 a year for 3 years). Her proposal, entitled "Detecting changes in vertical canopy structure of tropical rainforests using LiDAR," will focus on Costa Rican rainforests. [ See the NASA Announcement ]

June 2005:

Kristine Gross (Biology MS, admitted fall 2003) just received a student travel award from the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, to support her participation in their 2005 meeting in Tampa, Florida. Kristine will present a paper titled, "Tree calls of three hylid treefrogs: environmental triggers of calling frequency."

June 2005:

Lisa McCauley (Conservation Biology Ph.D., admitted fall 2004) has a paper in press in Ecological Applications entitled "GIS-Based Estimates of Former and Current Depressional Wetlands in an Agricultural Landscape." Ecological Applications is ranked 14 of 107 in the Journal Citation Reports rankings of Ecology-related journals.

June 2005:

Elizabeth Boughton (Conservation Biology Ph.D., admitted fall 2004) received a $1000 grant from the Florida Native Plant Society. She will use this grant to work on her dissertation.

April 2005: Psi Chi the honorary society in psychology inducted 102 new members in 2004-2005 school bringing the membership among current students to 240. The total membership in this National Honor Society from UCF is now 1377.

April 2005: Teri Napolitano Wise (of the first graduating class of the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program in 2003) recently earned her license as a psychologist in the State of North Carolina. She also accepted a full-time appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

April 2005: Denis Petrunak won a 2nd place award in the Social Sciences Division II at the UCF Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence for her Senior Honors Thesis, "Violence in Film: Narrative and Contextual Importance in Subjective Response."

April 2005: Heather Rozelle received 1st Place in the Social Science Division II of the UCF Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence for her project, "Father-Daughter Relationships in Divorced and Non-Divorced Families with Respect to Self-Esteem, Fear of Intimacy, and Views on Relationships."

April 2005: Mailyn Chen was awarded an American Psychological Society award for research on underrepresented populations.

April 2005:

Celeste Bulkley and Matthew Keaton were nominated to UCF Graduate Studies for a Provost Fellowship.

March 2005: Dana Kendall (admitted into the I/O PhD program fall 2003) was awarded one of two best in category awards (there was a tie) at the 2005 Graduate Research Forum with her oral presentation in the Social Sciences category titled, "An Investigation of Openness to Experience as a Predictor of Mentoring Behavior." She and her mentor, Dr. Kimberly Jentsch, were recognized at an awards breakfast later in the month where Dana was presented with a certificate and a $250 cash award.

March 2005: Sherri Rehfeld (admitted into the Human Factors PhD program fall 2001) was awarded the best in category award at the 2005 Graduate Research Forum with her poster presentation in the Social Sciences category titled, "Collaborative Teamwork with Unmanned Ground Vehicles in Military Mission." She and her mentor, Dr. Florian Jentsch, were recognized at an awards breakfast later in the month where Sherri was presented with a certificate and a $250 cash award.

March 2005: Sherri Rehfeld (admitted into the Human Factors PhD program fall 2001) was awarded the best in category award at the 2005 Graduate Research Forum with her poster presentation in the Social Sciences category titled, "Collaborative Teamwork with Unmanned Ground Vehicles in Military Mission." She and her mentor, Dr. Florian Jentsch, were recognized at an awards breakfast later in the month where Sherri was presented with a certificate and a $250 cash award.

March 2005:

Delia Goolsby (completed Political Science MA in Spring 2004) was selected for the College of Arts and Sciences 2004-2005 Award for the Outstanding Master's Thesis. This recognition nominated her to the university level, where Ms. Goolsby was selected by the UCF Graduate Council as a recipient of the University Award for Outstanding Master's Thesis.

March 2005:

Christine Bevc (completed Applied Sociology MA in Spring 2004) was selected by the College of Arts and Sciences to receive an Honorable Mention for Outstanding Master's Thesis.

March 2005:

Christian Glardon (admitted into the Biology MS in Spring 2003) was selected for the College of Arts and Sciences 2004-2005 Award for Excellence by a Graduate Teaching Assistant. This recognition nominated him to the university level, where Mr. Glardon was selected by the UCF Graduate Council as the recipient of the University Award for Excellence by a Graduate Teaching Assistant.

March 2005:

Michelle Alvarez (admitted into the Biomolecular Sciences PhD program fall 2002) was awarded the best in category winner at the 2005 Graduate Research Forum with her oral presentation in the Life and Health Sciences category titled, "Age Determination: The Identification of Newborns Using Messenger RNA Profiling Analysis." She and her mentor, Dr. Jack Ballantyne, were recognized at an awards breakfast later in the month where Michelle was presented with a certificate and a $250 cash award.

March 2005:

Susan Kaplan (completed Communication MA in Spring 2004) was selected for the College of Arts and Sciences 2005 Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching.

February 2005:

David Vogel (Ph.D. candidate) won First Prize in the Data Mining Competition sponsored by the German Classification Society. The award is $1,000 Euro and an expenses paid trip to Magdeburg, Germany to present a paper.

February 2005:

Hengchang Pan (M.S. 2002) recently passed the actuarial science exams that establish him as a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries.

September 2004: Denise Petrunak and Simone Chin were awarded UCF Honors in the Major scholarships.

September 2004: Seven Psychology students were selected for the RAMP/RAMP-UP Research and Mentoring Program: Heather Rozelle, Syreeta Brown, Yanina Fidel, Charles Knause, Sarah Mendoza Caitlyn Pruiksma, and Michelle Wrigt.

September 2004: Six students were awarded UCF McNair Scholars Program Scholarship: Simone Chin, Heather Rozelle, Yolens Pierre, Syreeta Brown, Sarah Mendoza, Kimba Pinkston, and Keyana Smith.

September 2004: The UCF Student Chapter won 2nd place in the National Ergonomics Month action plan for the second year in a row at the national Human Factors and Ergonomics annual conference.

September 2004: UCF's Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) Student Chapter was selected by the HFES Student Affairs Committee to receive the "Outstanding Student Chapter of the Year Award."

September 2004:

A UCF team consisting of Morgan Wang (Professor of Statistics & Actuarial Science), Eric Gottshalk (recent graduate of the Statistical Computing M.S.) and David Vogel (a working professional and a student in the Modeling & Simulation PhD program) won the 2004 KDD Cup. Awarded at the 10th ACM SIGKDD International Conference "On Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining," the KIDD Cup is an open competition which draws entries from Data Mining specialists world-wide. This year's competition had two tasks, in Protein Homology and Particle Physics. The UCF team received 1st Place Overall for the latter and tied for 1st Place Overall for the former.

July 2004: Each year the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students (APAGS) names one psychology department as "Department of the Year." This year, the University of Central Florida's Psychology Department was selected to receive this title. [ View Press Release ]

May 2004: Human Factors doctoral students Raegan Hoeft and Janeen Kochan, along with Team Performance Laboratory Director Dr. Florian Jentsch, authored the lead article in the April issue Flight Safety Digest, the flagship journal of aviation safety in the United States. [ View Press Release ]

May 2004: UCF I/O Psychology doctoral student Renée E. DeRouin received one of two 2004 Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) graduate student scholarships, worth $10,000, and the week before that, she earned the Wherry Award for the best student paper at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) conference. [ View Press Release ]

April 2004: Haydee M. Cuevas (admitted into Human Factors Ph.D. program in Fall 1998) received the 2004 Order of Pegasus honor, the most prestigious student award to be attained at UCF, based on academic achievement, professional or community service, leadership and publication or research experiences.

April 2004: Brian Fisak (admitted into Clinical PhD program Fall 2000) was selected by the College for the 2004 recognition of Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching. Brian has also presented at over 20 conferences and published materials in Anthrozoos and the Encyclopedia of Behavior Modification and Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Child Clinical Applications.

March 2004: At the 2004 Inaugural Graduate Research Forum, Jennifer Thropp (admitted into Human Factors program Fall 2002) received Best in Category: Social Sciences for her oral presentation: "Impact of observer disposition on performance workload." Abstract available: www.graduate.ucf.edu/researchforum

March 2004: Raegan Hoeft (admitted into program Fall 2000) At the recent 2004 Inaugural Graduate Research Forum, selected Best in Category: Social Sciences for her poster presentation: "Improving how pilots receive critical flight safety information." Abstract available: www.graduate.ucf.edu/researchforum

March 2004: Brian Smith was awarded the Graduate Student Honorable Mention Award in Anthropological Sciences at the 68th meeting of the Florida Academy of Sciences.

January 2004: Jessica Gokee (completed Clinical PhD program Summer 2003) co-authored a paper with Dr. Mike Dunn and Dr. Stacey Dunn. The article, entitled "An investigation of the cognitive organization of body comparison sites in relation to physical appearance-related anxiety and drive for thinness" was published in Eating Behaviors.

January 2004: Angela Rojas-Vilches (admitted into Clinical PhD program Fall 2001) and Wiveca Borjesson (admitted into Clinical PhD program Fall 2000) were listed on the UCF Top 100 Student list [Academics-Leadership] posted by the UCF SGA.

January 2004: Katherine Wilson (admitted into Human Factors program Fall 1999) recently completed her internship at the Civil Aeromedical Institute (CAMI) in Oklahoma City. Dr. Scott Shappell and the others at CAMI that worked with Katherine were tremendously impressed with her ingenuity and ability to competently perform her assigned tasks. Indeed, her contributions to the analysis of US Navy/Marine Corps accident data involving teamwork errors will have a significant and immediate impact on improving the Crew Resource Management training programs used by the Navy.

January 2004: Bryan Clark (admitted into the Human Factors program in Fall 2002) was recently appointed the Newsletter Editor for APA Division 21 (Applied Experimental and Engineering Psychology - a tri-annual production.

January 2004: Jennifer Ross (admitted into the Human Factors Ph.D. program in Fall 2002) was the primary Investigator in conjunction with Shawn Stafford (admitted into the Human Factors program in Fall 2003) on a Division 19 Military Psychology Student Grant Award ($1,500), entitled "Efficacy of Stress Training for Performance in Target Acquisition." Jennifer was also awarded the Division 19 Military Psychology Graduate Student Paper/Poster Award for poster presentation and paper entitled, "Performance, Workload, and Stress with Temporal and Spatial Task Demands," on which she was first author. Jennifer was also involved in a paper, entitled "Efficacy of Transfer in Simulation-Based Training: Implications for Stress Exposure Training," that was accepted for presentation at the conference SAWMAS 2004 (Swedish-American Workshop on Modeling and Simulation).

January 2004: Patrick Commaford's (admitted into the Human Factors program in Fall 1999) authored several technical reports including "Usability Evaluation of an IBM ViaVoice Product for Mobile Devices," "Recognition Accuracy and Information Display for an IBM Software Product," "Usability Evaluation of WebSphere Voice Access Application Version 4.1," "Web-Based Comparison of Two Styles of Auditory Presentation: All TTS versus Rapidly Mixed TTS and Recordings," and "Developing a voice-spelling alphabet for PDAs."

January 2004: Shawn Stafford (admitted into the Human Factors PhD program fall 2003) successfully patented an invention at UCF through the Office of Research. The invention is a seatbelt for first responders (police officers). The seatbelt is called the "First Responder Seatbelt". The First Responder Seatbelt is an ergonomically designed seatbelt designed for the driver/passengers rapid egress from vehicles both safely and efficiently. Current seatbelt design requires a trade off for first responders where they must choose between driving safety and job safety.

January 2004:

Dolores Edelen, a student in the MA in Applied Sociology Program, received a first place for best paper in the student problem competition given by the Society of Applied Sociology.

January 2004:

The Nicholson School of Communication established a student chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists. [ CFABJ Website ]

November 2003:

Mathematics students placed 8th out of approximately 270 participants at the 2003-2004 Virginia Tech Regional Mathematics Competition.

October 2003:

Radio-Television Division Broadcast journalism senior Anne Deason has received a Clarion Award from the Association for Women in Communication. The national award was presented in Tulsa, Oklahoma on October 2nd. Deason's television news feature, UCF Daycare won the only Clarion awarded in the student category. The report featured a UCF student's struggle as a single mother and the long waiting list for children's entry into the Creative School. The report aired on a fall 2002 edition of the WNSC Knightly News. The Clarion Awards is a renowned competition recognizing the best works from all communications fields. Entries are judged against the work of their peers in size and budget to ensure that everyone from the largest ad agency to the smallest newspaper are fairly considered. "This is just another example of why students should get involved in student chapters of professional organizations as soon as they can," said Deason. UCF's student chapter of AWC is advised by Carol Bledsoe in the Nicholson School of Communication.