Category: In the Headlines

A team of UF researchers has partnered with campus police to test a newly developed mobile application aimed at easing tensions and preventing misunderstandings during traffic stops between drivers and law enforcement.

UF is expanding its successful pilot program, which aims to equip Florida youth with essential skills needed in an emerging AI-enabled workforce, to 12 school districts.

David O. Prevatt, Ph.D., professor of Civil & Coastal Engineering, studied the damage caused by Hurricane Ian and said Floridians continue to be slow to make the changes needed to fortify themselves against the costly impacts of storms. “When we rise to the occasion, we learn from our failures,” he said. “I contend that our learning from failure in a context of wind hazards is too slow and the growth of housing — being built in very vulnerable areas — far exceeds our ability to do something about it.”

Forrest Masters, a civil engineer and interim dean of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, and his team take field data gathered during storms and compare it to wind tunnel modeling performed at UF’s Powell Family Structures & Materials Laboratory. With support from the National Science Foundation, UF is developing new tools that test hazardous winds on a variety of artificial landscapes inside the lab’s wind tunnel to help better understand how storms impact cities and towns.

Enrique Orozco Lopez, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate at the Center for Coastal Solutions (CCS), spoke with FOX 4 Southwest Florida about the AI model he has been developing to better manage the water flow from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee River, with the goal of reducing the amount of released nutrients that produce harmful algal blooms.

Technologically advanced research partnerships, like the one between UF’s Applied Research in Engineering (FLARE) program and the U.S. Department of Defense, open the door to opportunities in higher education.

Retailers across the globe are turning to researchers with the University of Florida to try to cut back on retail theft. Cory Lowe with UF’s Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) walked FOX 35 through what the team calls its Simulation Lab.

An engineering alumna who is a pioneer in the semiconductor polishing industry is among 10 new members of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.

UF researchers say the age-old partnership between people and horses can teach us something about building robots designed to improve our lives.

Amanda Studnicki, a graduate student in BME, and her advisor, Daniel Ferris, Ph.D., have discovered that the brains of table tennis players react very differently to human or machine opponents.