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.).

Now a global project manager for wire technology at Alleima Advanced Materials, the materials science and engineering alum has earned the company’s 2026 Innovation Prize for her work advancing wires used in critical medical devices such as continuous glucose monitors, hearing implants and pacemakers. The annual award recognizes excellence in product development.

“The work I do is very rewarding. Every day, I get to contribute to advancing medical care and treatment,” McDorman says. “If it’s a medical device and it has a wire, Alleima is likely contributing to it somehow.”

McDorman earned her doctoral degree from UCF under Associate Professor Swaminathan Rajaraman, who directs the , where researchers develop micro- and nanoscale solutions spanning biotechnology, pharmacology, plant sciences and medical devices.

“I chose UCF because the [materials science and engineering] program was highly rated … and had a wide variety of research areas …”

Before coming to UCF, McDorman earned her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in physics, but discovered a passion for applied research that required a deeper focus on materials.

“When I decided to pursue a Ph.D., materials science and engineering was a natural choice,” she says. “I chose UCF because the program was highly rated, small and had a wide variety of research areas that I was interested in.”

Through her doctoral studies, McDorman found a more biology-focused side of materials science. Her work with biosensors in Rajaraman’s lab ultimately inspired her to pursue a career in the medical device industry.

She credits her research experience at UCF with preparing her for work at Alleima, where 90% of her unit’s business supports medical device manufacturing.

“The company has a rich history of materials innovation in steel and nickel-based alloys,” McDorman says. “Since we produce wire, I am constantly using base materials science knowledge to process the material in a way that achieves a specific set of properties in the end product.”

She says she has always aimed for a position that would allow her to make a positive contribution to society, an opportunity she is grateful to have at Alleima.

For new graduates considering a similar path, McDorman encourages them to connect with UCF alumni on LinkedIn and to explore job opportunities in Florida’s growing manufacturing industry, particularly in Volusia and Flagler counties.

“We put a lot into our work every day because we truly care about ensuring the best possible patient outcomes,” she says. “It is great that our efforts have been recognized by the business.”

Now, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has taken notice.

Deneé Lichtenberg was awarded the DOE’s Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship, giving her the opportunity to further her research at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. This premier multidisciplinary research institution is advancing breakthroughs in science and technology to address national security challenges.

The opportunity brings her closer to achieving one of her biggest goals: working at a national laboratory, where she’ll collaborate with experienced researchers and learn how large-scale scientific projects are conducted.

Raised in Titusville, less than an hour away from UCF’s main campus, Lichtenberg says she always knew she’d attend UCF, especially given the strength of its engineering programs. What she didn’t yet know was how far that decision would take her.

“The ability to design and improve materials that impact a variety of fields really motivated me to pursue this discipline.”

She found her path in materials science — a field where physics, chemistry and engineering intersect — which would allow her to study materials from the atomic level to real-world applications.

“Ultimately, everything is made up of materials,” she says. “By changing a material’s structure or composition, you can drastically alter its performance. The ability to design and improve materials that impact a variety of fields really motivated me to pursue this discipline.”

That curiosity has evolved into something bigger: tackling the challenge of sustainably recovering rare earth metals that are vital to the future of energy and technology.

Advancing Sustainable Extraction

Over the past year in the , led by Assistant Professor of Engineering Kausik Mukhopadhyay, Lichtenberg has focused on a breakthrough approach that uses a naturally occurring protein, lanmoudulin.

“The protein can capture rare earth elements from dilute waste streams, and then a small temperature change can trigger the protein to release them so they can be collected,” she says. “This could create a more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly way to recover valuable materials.”

Those materials are critical to everything from renewable energy systems to manufacturing; however, traditional extraction methods rely heavily on large amounts of energy and chemicals sourced from acid mine drainage, coal byproducts and electronic waste.

Lichtenberg’s work points to a sustainable future.

“By developing protein-based systems that selectively capture and release these elements, we could potentially reduce the reliance on traditional extraction,” she says.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lichtenberg will take that work further, designing modified proteins, producing them in the lab and testing how effectively they bind and release rare earth elements.

“It is a very exciting interdisciplinary project that combines protein engineering, materials science and sustainability,” she says. “I hope to continue this research after the internship ends.”

It Takes a Lab — and a Team

But just as impactful as the research has been, the environment that’s shaped it has been.

“Dr. Mukhopadhyay is a fantastic mentor who creates a very supportive and positive environment that encourages learning [both] in and out of the lab,” Lichtenberg says. “The graduate students in the lab have [also] played a huge role in … helping me learn new techniques and [understand] the experiments and science itself.”

Next, she plans to continue her journey as a Knight by pursuing a doctoral degree at UCF, advancing her research as a graduate member of the KM Lab.

For Lichtenberg, the DOE internship isn’t the finish line — it’s just the beginning of reimagining how the world sources its most essential materials.

The Thermo Fisher Talos F200X analytical transmission electron microscope enables researchers — both at UCF and in industries across Florida — to observe and analyze materials at the atomic scale. Equipped with advanced nanoanalysis tools, the instrument allows direct observation of elemental, chemical, electrical and magnetic states, dramatically enhancing what scientists can measure and understand.

The instrument will be housed in UCF’s AMPAC Materials Characterization Facility (MCF), directed by Professor Jiyu Fang, and will operate as a shared university resource supporting interdisciplinary research and external partnerships.

“The new Thermo Fisher Talos F200X analytical transmission electron microscope will revolutionize materials science and engineering at the nanoscale,” says Professor Sudipta Seal, chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. “Its advanced analytical capabilities will enable unprecedented insight into structure–property relationships, accelerating innovation across next-generation semiconductors, quantum materials, space and hypersonic systems, and cutting-edge biomedical applications.”

“This instrument is a catalyst for discovery,” says Vice President for Research and Innovation Winston Schoenfeld. “By giving our researchers and students the ability to see and understand materials at the atomic scale, UCF is unlocking new pathways for innovation across energy, aerospace, semiconductors and beyond.”

A Unique Capability in Florida

While other institutions in Florida operate microscopes within the Talos series, UCF’s system offers a distinct combination of capabilities.

It is the only Talos F200X in the state equipped with both a cold field emission gun and a super X energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy detector. This configuration significantly enhances energy resolution and high-contrast imaging, enabling exceptionally precise chemical mapping at the atomic scale.

According to Professor Akihiro Kushima, the cold field emission gun allows advanced atomistic-scale analysis even for beam-sensitive materials — samples that can be damaged under conventional imaging conditions. The improved resolution and signal collection make it possible to analyze delicate materials in ways that were previously difficult or impossible.

In addition to supporting engineering and computer science research, the instrument will expand capabilities in fields such as planetary science, where nanoscale characterization of extraterrestrial materials can provide new insight into the origins and composition of planetary bodies.

Supporting Florida’s Innovation Ecosystem

Beyond academic research, the microscope is expected to strengthen partnerships with Florida’s high-tech industries.

The Talos F200X enables deep structural understanding of advanced materials, opening new opportunities for collaboration with companies across aerospace, defense, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, electronics, semiconductors, energy and environmental sectors.

Kushima notes that the microscope is already supporting collaborations with local industry partners developing advanced battery materials. Using the Talos F200X, researchers can study how material structures evolve during charge and discharge processes, providing deeper insight into reaction mechanisms and helping optimize performance. The acquisition was made possible by the UCF Office of Research, with support from the Office of the Provost.

Training the Next Generation

The Talos F200X will be incorporated into undergraduate and graduate coursework in electron microscopy and advanced characterization techniques. Students conducting research can also gain hands-on experience after completing required training.

Understanding materials at the nano and atomic scales is essential in advanced manufacturing and semiconductor sectors, where structural insights inform synthesis optimization and failure analysis. Students trained in advanced characterization techniques such as transmission electron microscopy are highly valued in industry, positioning UCF graduates to contribute directly to Florida’s advanced manufacturing and semiconductor workforce.

Industry partners interested in utilizing the AMPAC Materials Characterization Facility may request instrument time by contacting ampacmcf@ucf.edu.

“AI should learn chemistry the way humans do — by seeing molecular structures, not just reading linear strings,” Vyas says. “While large language models have shown promise for molecular property prediction, their reliance on representations like SMILES or SELFIES [textual representations] limits their ability to capture the rich structural cues chemists rely on.”

According to Vyas, this work opens a new pathway for chemical predictions and molecular analysis, by creating an AI system that operates more intuitively.

A Challenging Vision

According to Vyas, one of the biggest challenges facing the field of artificial intelligence and computer vision is in shifting AI models from a textual to a visual understanding of chemical reactions.

“Molecular images represent a very different data domain compared to the natural images or text that vision-language models are typically trained on.” Vyas says, “Molecules contain highly specific structural relationships — bonding patterns, stereochemistry, and functional group arrangements — that are subtle yet crucial for property prediction.”

Many VLM models have limited exposure to visual representations of scientific data, which makes training and adapting them to understand the nuances of molecules and their atomic structure a primary challenge.

Transforming How Scientists and AI See Chemistry

To address these challenges, Vyas and her research team developed a multi-modal data set for MolVision to refer to during its training. The data set pairs 2D diagrams with text-based descriptions on a variety of molecules and different atomic structures. Using this data set was crucial for training the MolVision VLM to integrate textual and visual information effectively. Using a LoRA (low rank adaptation) algorithm, the MolVision VLM is able to engage in billions of parameters worth of data enabling it to complete complex tasks such as molecular property prediction or chemical description without the cost of full retraining.

“Recent advances in vision–language models have transformed how AI understands the world, but most of that progress has focused on natural images and everyday language,” says Yogesh Singh Rawat. “With MolVision, we’re bringing those same AI capabilities into chemistry — allowing models to reason about molecules visually, in ways that are much closer to how scientists actually think.”

This work has the potential to transform drug discovery, the personalization of medicine, and even sustainable design and engineering. The research team also expects that “over the next few years we can expect this multimodal approach to reduce experimental screening burdens, support faster identification of promising drug candidates and materials, and offer more interpretable insights into structure-property relationships,” Vyas says.

Vyas and her team here at UCF plan to scale up the MolVision VLM project in terms of its data set and capabilities. The team plans to integrate the VLM model in chemistry with technologies using current AI neural networks and large molecular simulators to create hybrid systems that can combine symbolic, visual and physical reasoning.

Vyas will also participate in the upcoming where she will be presenting an exhibit on AI for chemistry and molecules. Those interested in viewing the exhibit can attend from 7:45 to 11:00 p.m. this Saturday on the 4th Floor.

January is National Mentoring Month, celebrating the value of mentorship and its positive impact on individuals and communities.

The Florida Education Fund (FEF) unanimously selected Assistant Professor Kausik Mukhopadhyay as the recipient of the 2025-26 William R. Jones Outstanding Mentor Award, honoring faculty who demonstrate extraordinary commitment to mentoring and supporting McKnight Doctoral fellows.

It Began with a Nomination

For Mukhopadhyay, the recognition carries added meaning because it came from the people he prioritizes most: his students.

He was nominated by Amanda Bernard ’22, a first-year doctoral student, McKnight Doctoral fellow and member of Mukhopadhyay’s . A faculty member in materials science and engineering, Mukhopadhyay says the award came as a complete surprise, as he didn’t even know he was nominated.

“It’s special knowing that this is a student-nominated award,” Mukhopadhyay says. “Special thanks to my student, Ms. Amanda Bernard, for secretly nominating me for this award. This is also my first award for mentorship, so it is very special to me. I am so thankful to the FEF committee for this.”

Support That Opens Doors

Bernard’s path to doctoral study reflects the kind of trajectory Mukhopadhyay works to develop. She first joined the KM Lab as an undergraduate biology student and has remained a member for the past year. After earning her bachelor’s degree, she planned to pursue a master’s degree in materials science and engineering, until Mukhopadhyay — known simply as “Dr. K” to his students — encouraged her to aim for a doctoral degree.

“Rarely do you meet a professor whose passion is to see his students succeed without expecting anything back.” — Amanda Bernard ’22, UCF doctoral student

Mukhopadhyay quickly began helping Bernard envision a future she hadn’t fully considered for herself. Within weeks of her joining the KM Lab, Bernard says that he was researching fellowships and internships to support her graduate journey, which led her to the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship.

“Once you join Dr. K’s lab, he always has your back,” Bernard says. “He defends his students, advocates for them and does the behind-the-scenes work most mentors never bother with.”

When Bernard learned she could nominate a professor for the Outstanding Mentor Award, it wasn’t a question of who; it was just a matter of winning.

“During my time at UCF, I have met many professors, some of whom have passions in research, teaching, social service and more,” Bernard says. “Rarely do you meet a professor whose passion is to see his students succeed without expecting anything back.”

Mentorship That Starts with Students

That belief defines Mukhopadhyay’s approach to mentorship. Over the years, he has mentored nearly 50 students, including visiting scholars, postdoctoral researchers and high school students. His advising philosophy has evolved over the years, shaped by what he’s learned from conferences, books and his personal experience.

“Every scholar is like a puzzle, and I love being able to serve as a resource to help connect the pieces for each one.” — Kausik Mukhopadhyay, UCF assistant professor

Mukhopadhyay says the key to his success as a mentor lies in how he approaches his mentees. He views them as colleagues, not students, and listens to their thoughts and questions.

“I believe a faculty’s success depends on how successful their students are,” Mukhopadhyay says. “Every scholar is like a puzzle, and I love being able to serve as a resource to help connect the pieces for each one — whether by answering questions about a plan of work and training, pointing them to resources, helping them set and achieve academic and career goals, or simply offering words of encouragement and support when plans don’t get going.”

For Bernard, that support has been transformative. It reflects the power ɫ���� — a university where mentorship fuels momentum and where faculty invest not only in solving the world’s greatest problems, but also in its people.

“Being intentional about creating or modifying my philosophy allows me to reflect on how I interact with [students], make space for their independence and improvement as needed, and contribute to society and the next generation of students,” Mukhopadhyay says.

For the students who walk into his lab, it often marks the moment they begin to see a bigger future and realize they’re capable of achieving it.

UCF researchers Needa Brown and Aleksandra Petelski-Kulik, assistant professors in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, plan to study the microenvironment of TNBC to understand how age may play a role in the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors, a promising therapy for the disease. Their work is supported through a $100,000 grant from the Florida Breast Cancer Foundation.

“Recent studies suggest that younger and older women may respond differently to breast cancer therapies due to differences in their immune systems and tumor biology,” Brown says. “However, we still do not fully understand how age affects the immune response in TNBC.”

The researchers aim to discover how age shapes the immune landscape of TNBC and if this age-driven dysfunction can be reversed, leading to improved patient outcomes.

The team’s approach combines Brown’s knowledge of cancer biology with Petelski’s expertise in proteomics, the large-scale study of protein abundance and functional networks in biological systems. Using advanced mass spectrometry techniques, the team hopes to identify the age-related proteomic biomarkers associated with TNBC progression, immune invasion and a poor response to ICI treatment. With Florida’s aging population, Petelski says these findings could have a significant impact on treatments within the state and across the nation.

“By understanding how age influences TNBC and immune therapy response, our findings could translate to improved outcomes for thousands of patients both in Florida and beyond,” Petelski says. “New biomarkers identified could set the stage for age-specific health screenings and personalized treatment strategies.”

One promising therapeutic strategy involves targeting the STING pathway, a critical immune pathway that can either inhibit or promote cancer growth. The team plans to investigate how the STING pathway could be used to turn “cold” tumors that evade immune detection into “hot” tumors that could be attacked by the immune system.

Brown and Petelski will co-mentor a postdoctoral researcher who will gain hands-on experience with the project while fostering collaboration between the two labs.

“We’re excited to have the chance to work together on new research opportunities that can help shape the future of cancer therapies.” — Aleksandra Petelski-Kulik, assistant professor

“Through this project, we will jointly mentor a postdoctoral fellow to allow for professional development in cross-disciplinary fields,” Brown says. “We hope this project will set-up a pipeline of next-generation doctoral students who can traverse the fields of materials science, proteomics and cancer biology.”

While the researchers are also open to collaborations with other UCF faculty, they look forward to working with each other. Ironically, they followed a similar path from Boston to Orlando this past year.

“We both started at UCF in Fall 2024 and were looking for opportunities to merge our respective fields to allow us to make an impact within the Florida community,” Petelski says. “Although we both had been a part of Northeastern University in Boston, our paths never crossed until we met at UCF. We’re excited to have the chance to work together on new research opportunities that can help shape the future of cancer therapies.”

Annette Khaled, who leads the College of Medicine’s cancer research division, recently received more than $2 million in grant funding to expand her work with Z-TOP, a peptide she discovered in 2012 that stops the spread of metastatic cancer cells. She is collaborating with colleagues to design a better cellular delivery system for the treatment.

An almost $258,000 grant through the Casey DeSantis Cancer Research Program’s Florida Cancer Innovation Fund will help Khaled’s team further their efforts to stop metastatic breast cancer by disrupting the cellular activities that allow cancer cells to spread. And nearly $1.8 million in funding through the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), in partnership with the Orlando Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, will allow her to develop the treatment for men with late-stage metastatic prostate cancer.

Khaled says her research has expanded thanks to the support of the Orlando Sports Foundation, which funds cancer research through sports-related fundraising events. The nonprofit’s flagship event is the StaffDNA Cure Bowl, a unique college football game with the goal of ending cancer.

“When you get funding for a research project, you can only do the work that is described in the specific aims of the project,” she says. “The donations from the Orlando Sports Foundation do not have this limitation. Without their support, I would not have been awarded the DOD grant. Using the donations, I was able to generate the preliminary data that made me competitive for the DOD and the Florida Department of Health (FDOH) grants we received this year.”

Alan Gooch ’84 ’89MA, CEO of the Orlando Sports Foundation and executive director of the StaffDNA Cure Bowl, says he’s grateful to continue partnering with UCF.

“We’re all about bringing teams together,” says Gooch, who played football at UCF and later coached the team for 22 years. “Our relationship with Dr. Khaled is outstanding, and we are honored to continue to partner with her and sponsor her research.”

The Science Behind Khaled’s Work

The two new grants expand Khaled’s portfolio of research to understand how and why cancer cells spread.

“Cancer treatments are very effective when the cancer is localized, but the problem is that cancer doesn’t stay at one site,” she says. “It spreads to other sites of the body. Usually, the cause of death is not the primary cancer, but metastasis. Preventing that can be a cancer cure, and that is what we’re looking at here in our lab.”

Khaled’s latest research focuses on the spread of cell fragments called extracellular vesicles that are shed by cancer cells during the early stages of the disease. These vesicles are resilient to early cancer treatment and can travel through the bloodstream, acting as tumor “seeds” by preparing future sites for metastasis.

The vesicles are mediated by a molecular structure called a chaperonin. Chaperonins help fold proteins that support the body’s normal cell function. But cancer cells hijack the folding process because they need more chaperonins to grow and spread.

Khaled’s breast cancer research project aims to distinguish which chaperonins help facilitate cancer cells’ growth and stop them without harming normal chaperonins. She hopes to develop a treatment that could regularly deliver her peptide to cancer patients to prevent metastasis. Patients, Khaled says, could receive her treatment while they are receiving chemotherapy and radiation to kill the original tumor.

Her prostate cancer research will confirm the chaperonin as a viable treatment target for prostate cancer, and if so, optimize the peptide specifically for use in men who have lethal forms of metastatic prostate cancer. Unlike breast cancer treatment, which seeks to prevent metastasis, prostate cancer research will see if a strengthened variant of the peptide can eliminate cancer that has already spread.

Fielding a Team Against Cancer

In the lab, Khaled’s peptide has shown success in preventing cancer cells from spreading. The challenge is how to engineer and deliver the treatment. For that, she is collaborating with Lorraine Leon, associate professor of materials science at UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.

They are working to create a system that delivers the peptide to where the cancer has spread and at the same time protects the peptide from being destroyed in the bloodstream by the body’s immune and digestive systems.

“The College of Engineering and Computer Science is a great collaborator,” Khaled says. “Normally this peptide is very fragile but we’re working with materials sciences to create a protected peptide and then find [a] way to get it to the right spot. By having a variety of expertise and interests, we can work together to find new technologies and new ways to combat cancer.”

Leon specializes in biomaterials and polymer science. Her team studies how to build and program molecules to form assemblies for many purposes, including biomedical transport. She developed a specialized polymer that binds to the peptide, forming a large, water-soluble molecule. This allows it to travel easily through the bloodstream while keeping the peptide intact as it reaches its destination. The system drives the molecules to form self-assembled structures called micelles, which are assemblies of around 100 or so individual molecules, Leon says.

“In addition, we can tune the shape of these micelles, decorate them with targeting elements and make mixed versions of them where we incorporate different functionalities,” she says. “Our original designs have had great preliminary results so far. We will continue to optimize the designs moving forward.”

Leon is excited to team up with Khaled, and she says she looks forward to achieving more breakthroughs together as the projects progress.

“Working with Dr. Khaled has been very fun,” she says. “Our labs really complement each other. This is the beginning of a very long collaboration.”

Khaled and Leon are also working with Cancer Specialist and Associate Professor of Medicine Deborah Altomare, along with Burnett School of Biomedical Science Biostatistician Xiang Zhu, on the prostate cancer research project.

Khaled says strong research and community collaborations are critical to beating cancer.

“Cancer is a tough enemy,” she says. “But we have a great team.”

These studies are the first phase of preclinical research that may lead to new drugs in the future.

This work was supported by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs,��in the amount of $1,771,271,��through the Prostate Cancer Research Program Idea Development Award under Award No. HT9425-25-1-0487. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Researchers’ Credentials:

Khaled joined UCF in 2002 after receiving her doctoral degree from the University of Florida and doing post-graduate training at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). A tenured professor, she has been funded by multiple R01 grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the FDOH. She has published more than 100 manuscripts and abstracts and presented her research at numerous national and international scientific meetings. She has been recognized with research, leadership and teaching awards, including the NCI CURE Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to her research responsibilities, she teaches molecular immunology to UCF graduate students and serves as the College of Medicine’s assistant dean for faculty affairs.

Leon joined UCF in 2017 after postdoctoral appointments at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory, and she received her doctoral degree from the City University of New York. She is a recently tenured professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, where she also serves as the education director for the U.S. National Science Foundation PREM Center for Quantum Materials Innovation and Education Excellence. She has published more than 20 refereed publications. Other accomplishments include her being named a 2019 Emerging Investigator by the Journal of Materials Chemistry B, receiving an NSF CAREER award in 2021 and a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty award in 2022.

All five awardees teach and conduct research through UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS), and together their funding totals an estimated $3 million to advance real world technologies and positively impact the world.

The annual award program from NSF supports an estimated 500 early-career STEM faculty nationwide from either institutes of higher education or academic nonprofit organizations who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

Since the program launched in FY 1995, nearly 100 UCF faculty have qualified for NSF CAREER grants, generating more than $40 million in research funding. It has supported a pathway to implement their research through UCF’s Office of Technology Transfer, which helps bring discoveries to the marketplace through licensing UCF technologies and providing information about sponsored research opportunities.

UCF Associate Professors Sidong Lei and Truong Nghiem along with Assistant Professors Kevin Moran, Wen Shen and Hao Zheng continue to accelerate research in their respective fields through their NSF CAREER projects.

Studying Specialized Semiconductors

Sidong Lei

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

NanoScience Technology Center (NTSC)

Project Title: Van der Waals Semiconductor Integration via Surface and Interface Tailoring

Award: A total of $516,085 over five years, with $449,136 over three years at UCF

Sidong Lei endeavors to meet the demand for better materials to help make smaller devices run more efficiently.

“We all want our phones, smartwatches and laptops to be lighter, faster and more powerful,” says Lei, an associate professor of materials science and engineering. “To make that happen, we need to shrink the size of the electronic circuits so that more components, such as transistors, which are tiny switches for computing, can fit onto a single chip.”

Lei researches new methods of developing innovative microelectronics by studying electronic and optoelectronic properties of emerging materials.

“As we push the limits of traditional silicon technology into the sub-10 nanometer range, it becomes extremely difficulty to make the chips even smaller,” he says. “At the same time, new technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning are demanding faster speeds, lower energy use and many more. All these make current microelectronics struggle and urge new materials and device architecture.”

Through the NSF CAREER award he received in 2023 and brought with him to UCF the following year, Lei is exploring how Van der Waals semiconductors may be integrated at the 3D level versus the 2D level. These specialized semiconductors represent a major frontier in materials science, offering a path to ultrathin, flexible and high-performance electronic and photonic devices— pushing beyond the limits of traditional bulk semiconductors such as silicon.

“The question is how can we produce functional devices with these materials?” Lei says. “Other than fundamental investigations, we want to see our explorations and innovations find practical applications in critical fields. My research aims to find pathways towards this purpose.”

His NSF CAREER project, much like the advanced materials he studies, integrates well with his group’s portfolio of research and translates into real-world applications.

“We are developing methods to fabricate very large-scale integration circuit based on 2D materials and looking for strategies to combine them with mature silicon technology to further enhance their functionality,” Lei says. “We are also investigating strategies to fabricate very-large-scale integrated circuits in flexible and stretchable packaging materials. This research will allow us to implement next-generation wearable and implantable electronics devices for health monitoring and disease treatment, for example, on Parkinson’s disease.”

The vast opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration to advance research at UCF were a significant factor in Lei’s decision to expanding his career here.

“UCF offers a comprehensive platform to elevate my research,” he says. “Modern scientific and technological challenges are typically highly complex, requiring the integration of expertise from different fields. The integration is truly happening here. Only a few months after joining, I have already become acquainted with many new colleagues who are experts in their respective fields, continually refreshing my perspective.”

Lei considers his triumph in earning an NSF CAREER award funding a shared effort, and he credits UCF and his colleagues for their unwavering support and guidance.

“The award represents a meaningful confirmation from my peers of my efforts and endeavors,” he says. “However, the most enjoyable and exciting part was the journey itself, which included deciding on research directions, building a research team and then gradually generating results.”

Improving User Interface Experiences

Kevin Moran

Department of Computer Science

Cyber Security and Privacy Cluster

Project Title: Enhanced UI Engineering via Automated Semantic Screen Understanding

Award: $582,308 over five years

Whether it’s a smart phone or a computer, the user interface (UI) is a critical gateway for people interacting with software and technology.

An intuitive UI can make a world of difference to new users and ultimately be the deciding factor for users when it comes to feeling comfortable with technology, says Kevin Moran, assistant professor of computer science.

His research group at UCF aims to make it easier for software engineers to build complex yet user-friendly systems that translate into practical use.

“More aspects of daily life rely on software than at any point in human history,” he says. “From banking to social media, the importance of the quality of the software that we interact with on a daily basis has never been more important. My lab at UCF aims to help provide engineers the tools that they need to wrangle this complexity, using machine learning, program analysis, and careful tool design.”

Through his Software Automation, Generation, and Engineering (SAGE) Lab, Moran and his research group help simplify the difficulties engineers may face in building and troubleshooting such complicated systems. His research tackles two challenges in software engineering: making issue tracking (also known as bug reporting) more robust and improving the UI engineering process.

UI engineering is the practice of developing, testing and managing UI software, which is an emerging topic his group specializes in, and it is the focus of his newly awarded NSF CAREER project.

“My team and I have done quite a bit of work on UI engineering, a research area we pioneered,” Moran says. “Building the user interfaces for software has long been documented to be a particularly challenging task. My team and I were among the first to combine program analysis, computer vision, and machine learning techniques to develop tools to help aid developers in engineering high quality UIs.”

His project focuses on automating tedious tasks for software engineers through artificial intelligence (AI). The proposed AI model will learn from UI interactions, understand UI features, and automatically translate them to code for engineers.

Ultimately, this may save software engineers time and increase their efficiency in developing UIs, Moran says.

“Our aim with this work is to get our developed programming tools to software engineers so that they can improve the quality of the UIs they are building,” he says. “For the general public that uses software, this means UIs that are easier to use and contain fewer bugs.”

The path to earning such a prestigious grant like the NSF CAREER award requires a high level of detail and Moran says receiving one is incredibly gratifying.

“CAREER proposals are rigorously reviewed by other scientists in my area of research, and receiving the grant is tremendous validation for a very ambitious future research agenda related to improving UI engineering,” he says. “This award will fund students who will be working on projects to help make it easier for developers to build high quality user interfaces, so that hopefully in the future, we can reduce the frustrating interactions that users may have when interacting with software.”

Moran says UCF provided a space for professional growth. The university’s vast resources, which include welcoming and collaborative faculty, helped to further hone his skills that ultimately led to receiving his NSF CAREER award.

“Being a part of this academic community lead to the formation of some of the ideas in my proposal and I am excited to be a part of computer science at UCF, particularly as we expand our department and expertise in AI,” Moran says. “CECS has a CAREER mentoring program where I was paired with senior scientists in my area of work who were able to give me early feedback on my proposal. They helped me to refine the plan of work and gave me invaluable suggestions. UCF played a key part in my success for this award”

Machine Learning Guidance to Make Smart Systems Even Smarter

Truong Nghiem

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Title: Composite Physics-Informed Learning of Dynamics Systems

Award: $477,585 over five years

Associate Professor Truong Nghiem came to UCF in Fall 2024, bringing expertise in machine learning and autonomous systems.

His research focuses on developing new methods that blend machine learning with physical principles to improve complex systems such as autonomous vehicles, smart buildings and industrial automation systems.

“My work aims to help create the intelligent, autonomous systems of the future—systems that will enhance productivity, improve safety, and make everyday life more convenient and sustainable,” says Nghiem, whose research group is called the intelligent Cyber-Physical Systems (iCPS) Lab. “I specialize in intelligent cyber-physical systems — engineered systems that seamlessly integrate the cyber world, which includes computation, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), with the physical world, which includes mechanical and dynamic systems like vehicles, buildings and robots.”

His CAREER project, which he transferred from his previous university, directly supports his ongoing efforts and broadens the scope of his machine learning research.

“This research aims to create a composite physics-informed machine learning (CPIML) framework,” Nghiem says. “Physics-informed machine learning (PIML) embeds the laws of physics into the learning process, leading to models that are more accurate, physically consistent and interpretable compared to traditional machine learning approaches. CPIML takes this a step further by enabling the composition of both physics-based models and PIML components — along with their physical properties — to model more complex, large-scale systems.”

Applications of machine learning that may be integrated into everyday life include improved response times of autonomous vehicles and robots, smarter energy systems that optimize energy use and temperature control, and more reliable industrial robotic systems that require minimal supervision.

Nghiem says he strives for his research to not only provide foundational knowledge but to also have a direct impact on real technologies that people are using right now.

“As our world becomes increasingly automated, ensuring that systems are safe, efficient and trustworthy isn’t just a scientific goal — it’s a societal necessity,” he says. “I have developed efficient models for HVAC systems in buildings that improve energy management, and I’ve also worked on predictive models for autonomous racing cars, pushing the boundaries of what AI can do in dynamic, high-speed environments.”

Like the complex systems Nghiem studies, a university’s network of resources should be robust and reliable. He says he’s fortunate that his research fits perfectly into UCF’s supportive interdisciplinary ecosystem.

“UCF’s commitment is evident through initiatives like the and the ,” Nghiem says. “This work also underscores the importance of combining knowledge from different domains, bringing together AI, engineering and physics to create solutions for real-world problems.”

Elevating Rare Earth Elements to Make Powerful Magnets

Wen Shen

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)

NanoScience Technology Center

Project Title: Manufacturing of Rare Earth Permanent Magnets via Three-dimensional Printing and Decomposition of Hydrogels

Award: $697,264 over five years

Rare earth permanent magnets (REPMs) — composed of alloys containing rare-earth elements — are the strongest permanent magnets with numerous applications across aerospace, automotive, electronics, medical devices and renewable energy industries due to their exceptional magnetic properties.

REPMs generate strong magnetic fields through aligned atomic structures, attracting ferromagnetic materials by inducing a magnetic field, enabling them to lift heavy loads, power motors and generate energy in various technologies.

Despite their widespread use, current REPMs manufacturing techniques are energy- intensive, complex and struggle to fabricate magnets with intricate shapes and minimal defects.

That’s where Wen Shen, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UCF, comes in. Her NSF CAREER project aims to develop a new hydrogel-based additive manufacturing process that fabricates high-quality REPMs more efficiently.

The new fabrication process, which uses 3D printing and decomposition of hydrogels containing rare-earth elements, has tremendous potential, Shen says.

“This research will enable an energy-efficient and laser-free additive manufacturing process that fabricates REPMs with near-zero defects as well as excellent magnetic and mechanical properties,” she says. “If successful, the outcome of this research will significantly impact the global REPMs market.”

Shen says she’s honored to be an NSF CAREER award recipient and continues to elevate her impactful research.

“The CAREER award allows me to conduct in-depth studies,” she says. “It fits well into my career, allowing me to advance my goals as both a researcher and educator while fostering impactful contributions to academia and industry.”

UCF encourages state-of-the-art research through its resources, educational opportunities and collaborative environment. Shen says that she and her colleagues are grateful for the vast availability of university-wide support that helps advance their research and allows faculty to thrive.

“The fellowships as well as the research facilities and infrastructure provided by the MAE department, CECS [the College of Engineering and Computer Science] and NSTC [NanoScience Technology Center] to my group allowed me to conduct unique and transformative research that can make potential societal impacts,” Shen says. “I would like to acknowledge my department chair, the CECS dean, [and] the NSTC director, who have been very supportive of my research since I joined UCF.”

New Chips to Keep Pace with Modern Processing Demands

Hao Zheng

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Title: A Scalable, Polymorphic, and Efficient Architecture for Irregular and Sparse Computations (APEX)

Award: $550,000 over five years

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, while transformative, has created new challenges for today’s computing hardware.

Hao Zheng, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, says he’s determined to navigate these challenges and arrive at solutions. His NSF CAREER project, much like his research, focuses on how to enhance the performance, energy efficiency and utility of chip processors to support the evolving landscape of AI workloads.

“My research lies in the area of computer architecture and machine learning,” Zheng says. “I aim to design versatile chip processors that can greatly speed up machine learning applications with significantly reduced power consumption.”

Creating general-purpose or fully customized chips have been the most common methods of addressing emerging challenges in computational tasks, but both approaches have drawbacks.

Zheng’s bold solution is to design a chip that can adapt to any applications with various computing tasks. His research group, the Intelligent Computer Architecture and Technology (iCAT) Laboratory, is working to revolutionize current chip architectures, such as graphics processing units (GPUs), to handle the rising complexity of modern AI workloads. These include not just large models but multimodal systems, robotics, simulations and real-time decision-making.

“Specializing the underlying hardware architecture has become a trending solution to meet the computational demands of modern applications,” Zheng says. “However, current specialized hardware, in the form of accelerators, is either fully customized for regular applications or lacks the generality to support a wide range of applications. However, today’s applications are evolving rapidly with increasingly complex workloads such as large language models, multi-modal models, embodied AI, among others.”

Some real-world applications of his research can directly affect how robotics, augmented and virtual reality, autonomous driving, simulations and biological discoveries operate.

“This award will introduce a transformative concept — the polymorphic chip processor — to support ubiquitous irregular and complex applications with intensive data,” Zheng says. “The research will invent a new class of chip processors, grounded in graph theory, that can dynamically adapt to irregular and complex workloads at runtime. We believe this can have a transformative impact on computer architecture, compilers, scheduling and many other key areas in computing.”

Zheng says his NSF CAREER award is just the beginning of what he can achieve here at UCF.

“This honor is a testament to the collective efforts of my entire research team,” he says. “I truly appreciate the collaborative research culture here at UCF. I’ve also benefited greatly from the guidance and encouragement of my colleagues, and I would like to thank our department chair, Dr. Reza Abdolvand, for his support over the past several years. Most importantly, I feel incredibly fortunate to have worked with four exceptional Ph.D. students who have grown alongside me throughout this journey.”

Opportunities for growth and enrichment at UCF are plenty, Zheng says. Exploring emerging unconventional applications for chips, strengthening educational development and collaborating with industry are three pillars he aspires to focus on and expand as he continues his research.

“First, I plan to establish a solid theoretical foundation for irregular application acceleration,” Zheng says. “Second, I intend to collaborate with industry to prototype the concept. By the end of the award period, we aim to have a functional chip processor running in the lab, demonstrating the practicality of our idea.”

One of the most important and personal components of his future efforts is his emphasis on education.

“This is the core mission of both our university and the academic community,” Zheng says. “As a first-generation college student, I am aware that a significant number ɫ���� students come from similar backgrounds. I will provide mentorship to both undergraduate and graduate students interested in the chip industry.”

Two UCF researchers, Department of Materials Science and Engineering and CREOL Assistant Professor Leland Nordin, and CREOL Professor Shuo Sean Pang, are developing an infrared imager that can overcome these limitations. Their team is led by Sandia National Laboratories, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratory. The three-year, $450,000 project is funded by the Photonic Enabled Tera-scale InfraRed Imager (PETRI) Grand Challenge Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, which asks researchers to create the next generation of infrared-imaging technologies.

“The Grand Challenge programs bring people with expertise together to solve a problem for a period of three years, says Shuo Sean Pang, a professor in CREOL and co-principal investigator of the project. “Through the program, we can tackle solving a technology problem that we choose.”

Building a Better Camera

The lead on the project is Nordin, who shares a joint appointment between the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and CREOL. He is using his knowledge of materials and his expertise in photonics to create some of the hardware for the camera while Pang and his team work on data encoding and transmission.

Nordin will use radiation-tolerant materials and a form of nanostructuring known as atomic layer deposition to fabricate the semiconductor that can detect infrared light.

“You put the wafer, known as the substrate, and different target elements inside the chamber, you then warm up the ovens which hold the elements so they come out of the oven and fly toward the substrate, building it up atomic layer by atomic layer,” he says. “It’s like spray-painting with atoms.”

At the same time, Pang and his team, which includes optics and photonics doctoral student Andrew Klein, will determine how to transmit a high-resolution image from space with minimum energy consumption from the hardware. Pang says the collaboration with Sandia allows them to try out different ideas, including non-traditional forms of data encoding to achieve high efficiency in communication, while maintaining the image quality.

The Key Component: Collaboration

For this team, collaboration is a key component of the project. Pang has worked with Sandia for three years now and Klein previously completed an internship with the national laboratory.

Klein says his internship provided a great training ground for this current project and he hopes to work for a national lab or a space-focused engineering organization after graduation.

“I love the Space Coast,” he says. “I think there are lots of opportunities to apply space photonics. Engineers don’t usually consider using optics to solve problems like communication, but they can benefit from seeing things differently.”

Nordin says he’s particularly excited about working with fellow CREOL researchers and is glad this national challenge fostered a partnership with someone who literally works next door.

“These projects are fun because it’s a new modality,” he says. “You get to learn about problems and find solutions to things that you don’t particularly do.”

About the Researchers

Leland Nordin is an assistant professor in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and holds a joint appointment with CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics. His cutting-edge research focuses on next-generation semiconductor materials and devices, covering design, growth, fabrication and characterization. For his work, Nordin has received the Army Research Office Early Career Program Award. Prior to UCF, Nordin was a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University’s Geballe Lab for Advanced Materials. He earned his doctoral and master’s degrees in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.De

Sean Pang is an associate professor at CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Caltech and conducted his postdoctoral research at Duke University. His current research focuses on the intersection on computing and imaging systems. His group is interested in modeling and developing optoelectronic system for sensing, imaging and computing applications, including the application of AI in solving imaging and photonic design problems.