Category: Stories

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – It wasn’t just chemistry gone awry that resulted in thousands of deaths when a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, leaked tons of poisonous gases in a single evening 30 years ago. The recipe for the disaster also included ingredients of politics, economics, history and culture. So says Ranganathan “Ranga” Narayanan, a University of […]

Dr. C. Vernon Shaffer passed away on January 17, 2014. He was 91. Senior faculty and alumni will remember him warmly, and the college and university are grateful for his contributions. Before retiring and becoming a professor emeritus in 1985, Dr. Shaffer spent 39 years as a professor of electrical engineering. He served as assistant […]

The Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce honored Dr. Winfred Phillips last month with their Legacy Award. Phillips was acknowledged for being a “game changer” for the University of Florida, a key catalyst in shaping UF’s role as an innovator. Phillips is both a professor of mechanical engineering and the Don and Ruth Eckis Professor of […]

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The University of Florida College of Engineering has named Panos Pardalos as the Paul and Heidi Brown Preeminent Chair in Industrial and Systems Engineering. Pardalos came to UF in 1991 and has been a distinguished professor since 2005. He is the first engineering faculty member to be awarded a chair under the preeminence initiative. […]

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Citrus crop-yield estimates may be more accurate, thus ensuring higher productivity and more revenue, if an algorithm proves as successful as it did in a recent University of Florida study. Wonsuk “Daniel” Lee’s study, published in the January issue of the journal Biosystems Engineering, could eventually help Florida’s $9 billion-a-year citrus industry. […]

The global industry association Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) awarded its highest honor to two University of Florida engineering professors this month:  Mark Law and Kevin Jones. The two men were recognized for developing a flexible code in 1990 that modeled semiconductor fabrication processes. It later became a cornerstone for the modern era of […]

Students at Centro Paula Souza (CPS) in Sao Paulo, Brazil will soon study curriculum developed jointly by the University of Florida’s Engineering Innovation Institute and Inova Paula Souza, the CPS innovation agency. An initial course will focus on technology-based entrepreneurship using a combination of the Engineering Innovation Institute’s coursework and the Business Model Canvas approach […]

Appeared in ASEE’s First Bell, January 9, 2014 (Reuters) – Researchers in Florida believe they have come up with a low-cost way to improve football helmets and better protect players against the glancing blows that experts say contribute to most concussions. Protective sports helmets on the market today are largely designed to absorb shock from […]

Since graduating from UF in 1988, with high honors and an electrical engineering degree, Randy Glein’s career has trended with the growth of the technology industry itself – as venture capital investor, operating executive and entrepreneur. Glein is managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), a venture capital firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. He oversees […]

https://youtu.be/iBwW_tFcbOg Engineering is considered by some to be a rigid academic discipline, but problem-solving requires creativity. Enter Elif Akcali, an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering, who expanded the mindsets of her students this past semester with two major projects aimed at introducing them to the world of artistic expression. “Creativity and problem solving […]