Category: Stories

University of Florida postdoctoral researcher Ziqin Ding, Ph.D., and his team are working on a project to protect cell towers and other tall objects from lightning strikes. Using a novel combination of antennas, sensors, and algorithms, Ding’s system is able to detect if a particular lightning strike has impacted a given structure or not. 

Standing 14 feet tall and serving no obvious purpose, the steel sculpture located outside Weil Hall is a jumble of beams, bolts, welds and supports fastened into a concrete pad. Part of the revitalized Engineering Plaza — also home to the revamped Engineering Clock Tower — at the corner of Gale Lemerand and Stadium Road, the nondescript-looking structure was recently sandblasted and repainted (orange and blue, naturally).

The University of Florida SaferPlaces Lab, which is developing crime-prevention tools for Gainesville communities, won the Win Phillips Town Gown Relations Award on Friday. 

To get a good window into what the University of Florida is doing in the quantum space, spend some time with Laura Kim, Ph.D., and Yingying Wu, Ph.D. Both are award-winning assistant professors in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and both are gaining attention for their work in quantum research and education.

AI has entered a phase where the limits are no longer set by algorithms or transistor counts but by energy and speed.   For years, the industry relied on a simple strategy: Deploy more Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). That approach is now colliding with physics. Datacenters push megawatts of power, airborne and orbital systems cannot dissipate […]

iVelas, short for Interdisciplinary Virtual Exchanges with Liberal Arts and Sciences, brings together the University of Florida’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering, Santa Fe College, the College of Central Florida and Sao Paulo State University in Brazil. The idea is to give ambitious students early access to research, global collaboration and the kind of real-world problem solving that builds both competence and confidence.

For years, the courtyard in front of Weil Hall, with its clock tower and time capsule, has been a work in progress. In October, the clock tower was, for the first time, filled with four clock faces.

Faculty members from the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering took home some impressive hardware Monday during the University of Florida International Center’s 2025 Global Awards ceremony. 

University of Florida chemical engineering researcher Helena Hagelin Weaver, Ph.D., is uncovering how the structure of catalyst materials can dramatically improve the efficiency of methane conversion. Her team’s findings, recently published in ACS Catalysis, reveal how manipulating nanoscale support structures can boost methane oxidation at lower temperatures — a key step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enabling more sustainable chemical production.

ISE senior Corey Reynolds balances his passion for basketball with the precision of engineering as a student manager for the national champion Gators. From logistics to leadership, he’s learning what it takes to support a winning program on and off the court.