Burke was recognized for her exceptional contributions to advancing the science and practice of industrial-organizational psychology, as well as her sustained impact on the professional community. The distinction of SIOP Fellow is awarded to individuals who have made significant, enduring contributions to research, leadership and application within the field.

“I’m honored to be named a SIOP Fellow,” says Burke, director of IST’s Team Research and Adaptability in Complex Environments (TRACE) Lab. “This recognition reflects the collaborative efforts of the students, researchers and partners I’ve had the privilege to work with, and the importance of advancing training and decision-making in complex environments.”

“This recognition reflects the collaborative efforts of the students, researchers and partners I’ve had the privilege to work with, and the importance of advancing training and decision-making in complex environments.” — Shawn Burke, research professor

ɫ���� IST, Burke leads the TRACE Lab, where her work focuses on team performance, adaptive training and human-centered approaches to complex systems. Her research has supported advancements in high-stakes environments across defense, healthcare and industry, reinforcing UCF’s leadership in modeling, simulation and training.

“This honor recognizes not only Dr. Burke’s scientific contributions, but also her leadership and mentorship within the research community,” says Carolina Cruz-Neira, executive director ɫ���� IST. “She has played a vital role in developing the next generation of scholars and practitioners in industrial-organizational psychology.”

New fellows will be formally recognized during the SIOP Annual Conference, with a ceremony held on April 29 in New Orleans. The honor represents a significant milestone in Burke’s career and highlights the continued impact ɫ���� IST in shaping the future of workforce research, training and performance.

About UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training

UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training is an internationally recognized, interdisciplinary institute conducting basic and applied human-centric research that affects nearly all sectors of industry and government, from healthcare to national defense and education to manufacturing. UCF and IST have built the industry, together with more than 200 Central Florida modeling, simulation and training companies and the U.S. Department of Defense. IST is an early adopter whose vision and leadership have spurred new applications and opportunities. (ist.ucf.edu)

They proclaimed there is no better place than UCF, the closest medical school to Kennedy Space Center, to create a new frontier in healthcare as humans prepare for longer missions to the moon, Mars and beyond.

“You are in a global destination for medical innovation,” Michal Masternak told participants in the Star Nona 2026 event in Lake Nona’s Medical City. An anti-aging and cancer researcher at the UCF College of Medicine, Masternak organized the event as part of the Lake Nona Research Council, which is focused on encouraging interdisciplinary scientific partnerships between industry, academia and healthcare.

Space medicine is one of the council’s priorities. Deep space travel and the commercialization of space bring unique health challenges that science is just beginning to explore. The College of Medicine’s focuses on how factors such as microgravity, radiation and isolation impact the human body in space and how that knowledge can drive innovation into diagnostics, treatment and disease prevention for patients on Earth.

Former NASA Administrator and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson told attendees the Artemis voyage’s return to the moon should inspire space medicine experts to make new discoveries.

“We’re in a whole new era, an exciting era, of space exploration that makes this time so special,” Nelson said.

Star Nona’s goal was to bring together experts to understand current research on the health impacts of space travel and what challenges need to be addressed as more professional and commercial space travelers go to the moon and beyond.

The Physical Challenges of Space Flight

Former NASA astronaut Robert Curbeam holds the record for most spacewalks on a single mission. He described how the body feels during launch and splashdown when G-forces are so strong you must remind yourself to breathe. He presented with his former NASA flight surgeon, Smith Johnson, now a faculty member at UCF’s new Center for Aerospace and Extreme Environments Medicine (CASEEM). The two discussed the important relationship between physicians and space travelers before, during and after a mission.

“I loved being an astronaut and flying space shuttles,” Curbeam says. “The only problem with space travel is that not a lot of people get to do it.”

Your Brain Actually Shifts in Space

Living in space causes the body’s fluids to move up to the head and brain. But symptoms of that condition do more than cause puffy faces. Space travel actually causes the brain to shift. Jogi Pattisapu, of the Hydrocephalus and Neuroscience Institute, said as astronauts go to Mars for years-long missions and settle on the moon, scientists will have to understand how living in space affects brain function and create predictive tests and preventative measures. Eye health will be key, as fluid buildup has caused spaceflight-associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS) in 70% of astronauts on the International Space Station, leading to farsightedness, optic nerve swelling and eyeball flattening.

“What are we going to do if the pilot goes blind 210 million miles from Earth?” he said.

Team Dynamics in Space

Interpersonal communication is key to any team’s success, but how do relationships change for crews in confined spaces and face additional challenges such as sleep deprivation, isolation and differences in rank and roles. Shawn Burke and Stephen Fiore from UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training have researched team dynamics in space to understand and prevent collaboration failures that can impact mission success.

Their research has also identified the formal and informal roles crew members play in encouraging positive social interactions and teamwork, especially in long-term missions. Missions to Mars may take up to 36 months and include 20-minute communications delays to and from Mission Control. Team dynamics will impact performance, mental health and affect, Burke said, because “you’re stuck with the people you have.”

Conducting Medical Research in Microgravity: Everything’s Upside Down

The weightlessness of space provides a unique research environment for new discoveries in areas including nutrient production, waste treatment, crystallization and biomanufacturing, said Alain Berinstain, director of the Florida Space Institute at UCF.

“Terrestrially, whenever space can make a difference, it’s a great economic driver,” he said.

In space, air doesn’t slow down processes, he explained, so experiments that involve weight, separation, sedimentation, fluid flow and buoyancy change. His advice to researchers considering space as a lab?

“Turn your experiment upside down. Does it still work? If the answer is no, you have a lot of work to do.”

(IST) Director Carolina Cruz-Neira’s career in virtual reality (VR) began as a backup plan.

She spent her childhood training as a ballet dancer. When a knee injury at 21 ended her professional dance aspirations, she leaned on the engineering degree her father had encouraged her to pursue.

While earning her doctoral degree in electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Illinois Chicago, she discovered the Electronic Visualization Laboratory — and with it, a way to merge art and technology.

“My philosophy as a researcher has always been to take on projects that are a little risky.”

In 1992, she unveiled the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), an immersive VR system that transforms a room-sized cube into an interactive 3D digital world. Unlike early VR headsets that isolated users, the CAVE allows multiple people to step inside the same digital environment, fostering shared exploration and real-time collaboration.

Today, CAVE systems are used worldwide, from gaming and art installations to military training and automotive design, helping industries visualize complex problems, improve safety and refine products before building them in the real world.

Powering the Future of Simulation

Over nearly four decades, Cruz-Neira has made significant contributions to the fields of VR, interactive visualization, high-performance computing and digital twins, which are dynamic virtual replicas of real-world objects used for simulation and testing across industries. Her innovations have influenced training and research for NASA, the U.S. military and U.S. National Laboratories.

By the Numbers: A Lasting Impact

• Secured more than $200 million in research funding
• Authored more than 100 publications
• Elected to the National Academy of Engineering — one of the highest professional distinctions for engineers in the U.S.
• Named an IEEE fellow and Forbes’ 50 Over 50 honoree for innovation
• Inducted into the inaugural Augmented World Expo XR Hall of Fame and the Orlando Tech Community Hall of Fame for her contributions to Central Florida’s tech ecosystem
• Recognized in the U.S. Congressional Record for the national impact of her work

“My philosophy as a researcher has always been to take on projects that are a little risky,” says Cruz-Neira, UCF’s Agere Chair Professor of computer science. “I tell my students that we do research with a purpose. And yes, it’s challenging. But if we have that vision of where this thing is going, our talent and creativity have a terrific playground.”

That bold spirit of exploration drew her to UCF in 2020 — a university recognized for its strength in computer science and deep partnerships and collaborators across several sectors, including space, defense, entertainment and healthcare.

“There’s a whole community of researchers, faculty and students here who are passionate about this kind of work.”

Since arriving, she says she has found something even more powerful: a culture that pairs high-level excellence with a nurturing environment — where ambitious ideas are energized, challenged and brought to life through collaboration.

“There’s a whole community of researchers, faculty and students here who are passionate about this kind of work. That has allowed us to expand our ideas tremendously,” Cruz-Neira says. “We’re now collaborating with teams across the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the College of Medicine, the College of Arts and Humanities and the , which broadens what we’re able to do. It’s nice to have a tribe around you, where everyone helps each other and works together.”

Among those collaborators is longtime colleague and IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Service awardee, Gregory Welch. Cruz-Neira says they first met as “Ph.D. babies,” beginning a collaboration that has now spanned nearly 38 years. Since joining UCF, she has continued working closely with Welch and his team on several joint research projects and publications.

What’s Next: Blending Physical and Virtual Worlds

As IST director, Cruz-Neira is helping broaden UCF’s modeling and simulation legacy while leading several cutting-edge research projects in collaboration with talented students and faculty. One such project explores humanoid robots as extensions of the human body, allowing a person to navigate remote or inaccessible locations in real time. Using artificial intelligence, the robot captures its surroundings and transmits a live digital replica into the CAVE, where a human operator’s movements control the robot, creating a seamless exchange between physical and virtual worlds.

“This project opens a lot of possibilities and aligns with where we want to go at IST and UCF,” Cruz-Neira says. “We do a lot of work with defense, first responders and healthcare professionals, and in many cases, we see the need for a human [presence in locations] that aren’t feasible. By combining mature technologies available in the commercial world with some of our more advanced algorithms and system designs at UCF, we’ve finally been able to come together to make this prototype and showcase it in December 2025 at [the Interservice/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference], a major defense training environment.”

Cruz-Neira continues to push boundaries, bringing people together and asking questions like, “What can we create next?” and “How far can we take this?”

And despite a lifetime achievement award, she’s clear about one thing: “I’m not done yet.”

Carolina Cruz-Neira, director of (IST) and Agere Chair Professor of Computer Science, received the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Lifetime Achievement Award — an honor recognizing an individual’s lifetime contribution to the field.

Gregory Welch, Pegasus Professor, AdventHealth Endowed Chair in Healthcare Simulation at the College of Nursing and co-director of the Synthetic Reality Lab at IST, received the IEEE VGTC Virtual Reality Service Award, which celebrates outstanding dedication, support and service contributions to the virtual/augmented reality community.

Their recognition comes full circle. Cruz-Neira (2007) and Welch (2018) are both past recipients of the IEEE VGTC Technical Achievement Award, which honors seminal technical achievements in VR. In 2022, they were both inducted into the inaugural class of the VGTC VR Academy, a prestigious distinction recognizing pioneers whose work has shaped the discipline at the highest level.

UCF is among a handful of institutions with multiple recipients of the IEEE VGTC awards.

For Cruz-Neira, the Virtual Reality Lifetime Achievement Award is deeply personal.

“[This award] is dear to me because I was part of the founding team of the IEEE VR community back in 1992, when I was still in the early stages of my career — a Ph.D. student,” Cruz-Neira says. “It is especially meaningful to see that, having been there from the very beginning, the VR community recognizes [my contributions]. This honor truly belongs to the teams of students and collaborators who have worked alongside me to build and shape the field over the years. Awards like this also help sustain and elevate UCF’s excellence, strengthening its national standing and reinforcing its reputation as a preeminent university.”

For Welch, the Virtual Reality Service Award underscores his driving principle of servant leadership.

“There is so much that we can and should do to help our communities,” Welch says. “It takes people to step up, commit and invest time to make things happen. I hope my service and leadership inspire others.”

Learn more about why Cruz-Neira and Welch received honors for their significant and sustained contributions to the VR community in the following stories:

• IEEE 2026 Awardee Carolina Cruz-Neira: Turning a “Plan B” Into a Global Legacy

• IEEE 2026 Awardee Gregory Welch: Strengthening the VR Research Community Through Leadership and Service

This year, UCF honored 84 faculty members during the fifth biennial Faculty Authors’ Celebration, held Feb. 17 in the Solarium Room at the John C. Hitt Library on the university’s main campus. The event celebrates faculty whose published books — from novels and poetry to textbooks and manuals — contribute to scholarly excellence and creativity in their respective fields.

The event, which is sponsored by the Office of Research�����Ի���, drew many guests, including Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs John Buckwalter and Vice President for Research and Innovation Winston Schoenfeld.

Professor of English and Director of Graduate Programs Anastasia Salter delivered the keynote address. Salter is the author or co-author of 10 books on digital culture and electronic literature, including most recently Undertale: Can a Game Give Hope, which invites readers to rethink their relationship with gaming and game characters.

2026 Faculty Author Honorees

• Yara Asi ’07MA ’15PhD, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Jonathan Annand,
• Greg Autry, College of Business Administration
• William Ayers, College of Arts and Humanities
• James Bacchus, College of Sciences
• Morris Beato, College of Health Professions and Sciences
• James Beckman, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Martha Brenckle, College of Arts and Humanities
• Andrea Borowczak ’92, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Wayne Bowen, College of Arts and Humanities
• Sarah Bush, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Jessica Campbell ’12MA ’20PhD, College of Arts and Humanities
• Shannon Carter, College of Sciences
• Robert Cassanello, College of Arts and Humanities
• Necati Catbas, College of Engineering and Computer Science
• Thomas Cavanagh ’06PhD, Center for Distributed Learning
• Karl Chai, College of Medicine
• Baiyun Chen ’07PhD, Center for Distributed Learning
• Amy Cicchino, College of Arts and Humanities
• Brian Collins,
• Ilenia Colón Mendoza, College of Arts and Humanities
• Joshua Colwell, College of Sciences
• Aimee Denoyelles ’00, Center for Distributed Learning
• Taseen Desin, College of Medicine
• Ahmad Elshennawy, College of Engineering and Computer Science
• Katia Ferdowsi, College of Health Professions and Sciences
• Julie Feuerstein, College of Health Professions and Sciences
• Scot French, College of Arts and Humanities
• Martha Garcia ’97 ’00MA, College of Arts and Humanities
• Amrita Ghosh, College of Arts and Humanities
• Carolyn Glasshoff ’11MA ’21PhD, College of Arts and Humanities
• Donita Grissom ’14PhD, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Gulsah Hancerliogullari Koksalmis, College of Engineering and Computer Science
• Kenneth Hanson, College of Arts and Humanities
• Duncan Hardy, College of Arts and Humanities
• David Head, College of Arts and Humanities
• Bari Hoffman ’96 ’98MA, College of Health Professions and Sciences
• Emily Johnson ’15PhD, College of Arts and Humanities
• Naim Kapucu, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Lauren Kehoe,
• Haidar Khezri, College of Arts and Humanities
• Nolan Kline, College of Medicine
• Alla Kourova, College of Arts and Humanities
• Lanlan Kuang, College of Arts and Humanities
• David Lerner Schwartz, College of Arts and Humanities
• Hsiu-fen Lin, College of Health Professions and Sciences
• Robert Littlefield, College of Sciences
• Ty Matejowsky, College of Sciences
• Stephen Masyada, College of Sciences
• Jonathan Matusitz, College of Sciences
• Kevin Meehan, College of Arts and Humanities
• Lisa Nalbone, College of Arts and Humanities
• Hakan Özoğlu, College of Arts and Humanities
• Jason Phillips, UCF Libraries
• Laurie Pinkert, College of Arts and Humanities
• Ghaith Rabadi ’96MSIE ’99PhD, College of Engineering and Computer Science
• Luis Rabelo, College of Engineering and Computer Science
• Sherry Rankins-Robertson, College of Arts and Humanities
• Jorge Ridderstaat, Rosen College of Hospitality Management
• Lee Ross, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Mary Rubin ’12 ’19MA, UCF Libraries
• Houman Sadri, College of Sciences
• Anastasia Salter, College of Arts and Humanities
• Scott Carter, College of Sciences
• Melina Sherman, College of Sciences
• Marwan Simaan, College of Engineering and Computer Science
• Christopher Spinale ’04MEd ’24PhD, College of Sciences
• Mel Stanfill, College of Arts and Humanities
• Sandra Sousa, College of Arts and Humanities
• Bulent Soykan, Institute for Simulation and Training
• Sidney Turner, College of Arts and Humanities
• Jennie Wagner, College of Nursing
• Linda Walters, College of Sciences
• Chung Ching (Morgan) Wang, College of Sciences
• Keri Watson, College of Arts and Humanities
• Taylar Wenzel ’11EdD, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Amanda Wilkerson ’16EdD, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Florence Williams, Center for Distributed Learning
• Andrew Williams Jr., College of Community Innovation and Education
• Ross Wolf ’88 ’91MPA ’98EdD, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Sharon Woodill, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Kuppalapalle Vajravelu, College of Sciences
• Jill Viglione, College of Community Innovation and Education
• Staci Zavattaro, College of Community Innovation and Education

UCF will aid in the development of this technology through a new regional research hub led by the University of Florida. The goal is to use digital twins, virtual representations of physical objects or processes, to optimize semiconductor manufacturing. The Florida/Caribbean hub is one of seven research hubs across the U.S. that comprise the Manufacturing USA institute called SMART USA, which was funded through a $285 million award from the federal administration earlier this year.

The funding was highly competitive and is a result of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s CHIPS Manufacturing USA Institute competition, which selected the SMART USA proposal from dozens of entries. SMART, which stands for Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Research with Twins, is led by the Semiconductor Research Corporation.

“The focus of this hub is going to be on digital twins,” says Professor Reza Abdolvand, the chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering who co-led UCF’s portion of the proposal alongside Grace Bochenek ’98PhD, the executive director of the Pegasus Research Institute and the director of the Institute for Simulation and Training. “The goal is to accurately virtualize the manufacturing process so we can find out what could go wrong before starting the costly and time-consuming manufacturing process.”

The Problems With Semiconductor Manufacturing

Semiconductor chips aren’t simple to make. They are fabricated in huge facilities called semiconductor fabrication plants which consist of highly controlled environments called cleanrooms. Here, the air is constantly filtered to remove small particles that could create defects in the final product. Most chips are made from silicon wafers, which are more brittle than glass, and the process of turning these silicon substrates into semiconductor chips is lengthy and complex — it can take hundreds of steps and up to six months to produce one batch of silicon wafers from start to finish.

“Mistakes in this process are very expensive and they can be made in many steps,” Abdolvand says. “In the design, for example — if what you design is faulty, the end product will be faulty and you could lose billions of dollars.”

Currently, the industry can and does use modeling and simulation in the design process, so they can better predict if the final product will work as intended. But this technology has not caught up to the manufacturing process.

“Manufacturing is basically trial and error until you’re happy with what you see,” Abdolvand says. “The hope is to extend the modeling concept to what the tool can do with the substrate. What if we can simulate what the tool does before it happens?”

The tools used in the manufacturing process can become outdated and obsolete very quickly, which have also posed challenges for the industry, specifically increasing the modeling reiteration cost for manufacturing.

UCF’s Role in the Research Hub

Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning now allows for development of realistic models that could solve the semiconductor industry’s challenges. AI-enabled digital twins can be used to mimic the manufacturing process, allowing tech businesses to predict what errors could be made before they occur, saving both time and money.

Abdolvand and Bochenek are leading the charge for the university. Together, ECE and IST researchers will gather, collect, analyze and interpret data that can be used to create a digital twin.

“We’re excited about this partnership and UCF’s contributions to SMART USA’s effort to achieve national security goals through innovative digital transformation,” Bochenek says. “This region will be key in ensuring the U.S. global competitive advantage in this semiconductor chip manufacturing.”

Bringing semiconductor manufacturing to the U.S. is a key goal for the institute, to not only remain dominant in the global market, but to be more cost effective.

“The largest companies with semiconductor business are in the U.S. They do the design here, but the manufacturing is outside the U.S.,” Abdolvand says. “The plan is to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. If manufacturing cost could be reduced through digital twining, manufacturing can be done in the U.S. and still be very cost competitive.”

The tour included visits with key UCF research centers, such as (IST), , and the Center of Excellence in Hypersonic and Space Propulsion (HyperSpace Center).

While Grady toured UCF’s defense-related research, his wife, Christine Grady, visited UCF’s Office of Military and Veteran Student Success; , a clinic dedicated to treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); and met with UCF Army and Air Force ROTC cadets.

“The visit from Admiral and Mrs. Grady underscores the vital role UCF plays in advancing national security and defense research, supporting critical DOD needs, and preparing the next generation of military leaders,” says Winston V. Schoenfeld, UCF’s vice president for research and innovation. “Over 30% ɫ����’s federal funding has come from the DOD for more than a decade, positioning UCF as a national leader in delivering key innovations to the DOD.”

The Tour

Grady began his visit with a meeting alongside UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright, where they discussed UCF’s longstanding commitment to supporting the nation’s defense through cutting-edge research and workforce development.

While with CREOL, Admiral Grady received a briefing on directed energy research and its applications for DOD missions, particularly the capabilities of the Townes Institute for Science and Technology Experimentation Facility. The institute, located at Kennedy Space Center, supports multidisciplinary research with a focus on space science, optics and other advanced technologies.

At IST, UCF showcased the latest advancements in digital twin technology, such as real-time 3D digital twins of structures and areas, and artificial intelligence for DOD-decision making tools.

Grady’s visit to the HyperSpace Center focused on the integration of students into the research process and the timeline for the hypersonic technology, which would allow air travel at speeds of up to 13,000 miles per hour (Mach 17).

Commitment to National Defense and Military Success

UCF is a national leader in supporting military and defense initiatives through education, research and industry partnerships.

UCF’s Office of Military and Veteran Student Success supports more than 3,200 military-connected students, including veterans, active-duty and dependents, by providing academic advising, transition assistance and tailored guidance.

UCF RESTORES offers innovative, no-cost PTSD treatment for veterans and first responders, with clinical trials achieving a 100% success rate in just 14 days for participants completing VR-assisted exposure therapy. The program has treated more than 500 veterans and 950 first responders, with the majority no longer meeting PTSD criteria.

UCF also boasts top-ranked ROTC programs, with the Army ROTC Fighting Knights Battalion and Air Force Detachment 159 preparing leaders for military and civilian careers. UCF’s AFROTC program, which has been developing officers for the Air Force and Space Force for more than 50 years, has earned the DOD’s ROTC and Educational Institutional Partnership Excellence Award for multiple areas of excellence.

In research, UCF’s close ties to the defense industry are amplified through Central Florida Research Park, a $7 billion hub for modeling and simulation adjacent to UCF’s main campus, which is also home to six DOD headquarters. UCF also ranks No. 1 in Florida for VA certifications, is leading the nation in the number of cybersecurity championships, and is the top supplier of graduates to the aerospace and defense industries.

The robot rovers won’t be going into space — but they will face the next best challenge: to build a berm structure which would be useful to NASA’s Artemis program for navigating during lunar landings and launches, shading cryogenic propellant tank farms, providing radiation protection around a nuclear power plant and other mission-critical uses.

NASA created the Lunabotics Challenge in support of the Artemis program. UCF’s Florida Space Institute and its Exolith Lab will host the first round, sponsored by Caterpillar Inc., on May 11-14. The top 10 teams will advance to the demonstrations phase of the competition at the Kennedy Space Center May 15-17.

ɫ����, students will be testing and showcasing their rovers in the same regolith bin that NASA, the European Space Agency and many companies use to evaluate and improve new equipment and technologies before launching them into space. Leaders in key industries that are important to Florida’s and the region’s workforce will serve as judges.

“Lunabotics gives students from throughout the United States an unrivaled opportunity to apply their knowledge of robotics and space to NASA’s design and construction processes,” says Winston Schoenfeld, UCF interim vice president for research. “The future of our space and many other high-tech industries depends on preparing a talented workforce that can innovate and work in highly collaborative team environments.”

Each team of college students has spent months designing and building a robot rover to NASA specifications that, during this challenge, will autonomously navigate a lunar-simulated arena and excavate regolith. They will compete two teams at a time per round, being given a set amount of time to collect regolith from the construction zone and dump it into a berm zone. Teams will be judged on a variety of factors, chiefly, the size of the berm they are able to build up in the regolith material with the rover.

The top 10 teams then travel to Kennedy Space Center for the culminating event, to demonstrate the operation of their functional tele-operated or autonomous robot to complete the lunar construction tasks. Students benefit from participating and having their work evaluated by NASA and private sector engineers, technicians and educators. NASA benefits by assessing student designs and data the same way it does for its own designs, encouraging innovation in student designs and identifying clever solutions to the many challenges inherent in future Artemis missions.

“NASA’s Artemis program is our plan to return humanity to the surface of the moon in a way that is sustainable over the long term.  And the task of robotically building berm structures will be important for preparation and support of crewed lunar missions.  These competing teams are not only building critical engineering skills that will assist their future careers, but they are literally helping NASA prepare for our future Artemis missions,” says NASA Software Developer & In-Situ Resource Specialization (ISRU) Researcher Kurt Leucht.

Founded to help fuel talent for the nearby space industry, UCF continues to build its reputation as SpaceU. NASA, with more than 50 years of research support from UCF, has advanced its Artemis program with the goal of establishing a sustainable human presence on the moon and preparing for missions to Mars. Prominent UCF space researchers are actively engaged in multiple collaborations with NASA — particularly within the Artemis program — and 29% of Kennedy Space Center employees are UCF alums.

“Students are taking on a challenge that also faces all of our top space agencies and companies — how can we design and build an autonomous vehicle that can reliably perform tasks on the surface of the moon?” says Julie Brisset, interim director ɫ����’s Florida Space Institute. “The hands-on experience is invaluable for students and will help set them up for success on their campuses and in their future careers.”

Soil simulants used in the Lunabotics Challenge at UCF are created from crushed minerals. Once produced by UCF’s Exolith Lab, this regolith is now manufactured by a successful spinoff company, Space Resource Technologies. Other sponsors include Allen & Company, Lunar Outpost, Riegl USA and Venturi Astrolab.

As for the UCF Team, comprised of nine mechanical engineering and computer science students, learning how to work together as a team was as worthwhile an output as the lunar robot itself.

“Our ‘move fast and break things’ mindset has led to lots of creativity flowing to solve problems that came up with the design,” says Lee Marshall, who serves as team lead for UCF.

Their biggest challenge was creating a custom mechanical solution from scratch for the controls, according to Marshall. For the robot rover, materials came from 3D printers, an Xbox Connect being used as a camera and depth sensor, and other materials found in the Robotics Club lab.

“From observing the team, you can see their dedication, innate drive and determination to make it through the qualifying event,” says Crystal Maraj, faculty advisor for the UCF Robotics Club and an assistant professor with the Institute for Simulation and Training. “It takes a lot of time and effort, and I applaud these students for their success to iterate the design and utility of the robot for competition.”

Members of the public will be able to watch the competition rounds of the Lunabotics Challenge on the Florida Space Institute’s YouTube Channel. The Lunabotics .

“The culture for producing leading-edge talent has been here for decades,” says Florian Jentsch ’97PhD, chair ɫ����’s Psychology Department and director of the Team Performance Lab at the Institute for Simulation and Training (IST). “The aviation industry as a whole is better because ɫ����’s roles, and employers are very much aware of that.”

A casual reader might wonder how a university with no airfield could be ranked as the nation’s No. 1 supplier of talent six times by Aviation Week Network. Or why professors in fields like psychology and digital media play such prominent roles in the advancement of that talent.

Start with Jentsch. For 30 years he’s been an integral part of one of the world’s premier programs in human factors at UCF — and what could be more important than “human factors” before and during a flight? In the same area of IST, David Metcalf and Michael Eakins ’09BA ’17MFA are creatively using multimedia to bring K-12 students into the widening aviation funnel (forecasts from Boeing indicate the industry will need more than 600,000 new pilots over the next 20 years).

“As much as I like to use new gadgets,” Eakins says, “I get the biggest charge from watching the next generation use them. When I see the lightbulbs go on for the first time, I know we’re doing something impactful.”

How UCF Fills the Talent Funnel

To trace the dots from digital media to aviation talent, let’s start with Eakins’ and Metcalf’s backgrounds. Both grew up near aerospace and aviation centers. Eakins was raised on Florida’s Space Coast, where his grandfather was part of the team that built NASA’s first lunar module. Metcalf spent his formative years near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“As a kid, I’d hear conversations about space and aviation,” Metcalf says. After studying computer graphics at the University of Texas, he used his multiple interests to help NASA establish its first multimedia lab. In 2006 he took another leap and launched UCF’s Mixed Emerging Technology Integration Lab (METIL) at IST. The simulation lab has since spawned innovations in dozens of fields, including mobile healthcare, mobile learning, and … here it is … aviation training.

“Our students are never bored in the lab,” Metcalf says.

Eakins was one of those students early on.

“When I started my education at UCF, I thought I’d pursue a career in gaming,” Eakins says, “but once I met David and had my first exposure to simulation, I got hooked.”

Eakins is now the creative lead of METIL, developing simulation and training tools to hook others who least expect to be hooked. The lab hosts K-12 field trips so kids can see and touch those tools.

In February 2022, Metcalf and Eakins initiated the STEM Aviation Showcase, taking headsets and tablet-based simulators to events in Central Florida. Through partnerships with Orange County Public Schools, the Boys and Girls Club, and Junior Achievement, to name a few, they’ve already made a presence at 16 events and had hands-on interactions with 1,600 curious kids.

“We’re able to bring aviation to people who have never met a pilot or maybe have never seen an airport,” Metcalf says. “The airplanes flying high over their neighborhoods might be the closest they’ve ever come to a plane. We can use the portable tools that we’ve developed in IST to cast a wider net and grow more interest among people who thought it wasn’t a reachable goal. It’s also a great way to bring more women to the front of planes.”

Most recently, Eakins developed a more advanced training aid in collaboration with Boeing. Using an AR headset and a virtual captain — an avatar designed from a real pilot — users can experience flight training without the need for a plane, an airport, or an expensive, non-portable simulator.

“Anyone who has access to this can practice flying anywhere, without any risk,” Eakins says. “It could be a gamechanger.”

The dots that lead from digital media to gaming to portable flight simulation come to a question that parents of high schoolers often ask: “What’s the next step for my son or daughter?”

“We can point out the best classes to prepare them for a career in aviation,” Metcalf says. “If they decide to come to UCF, they’ll be guided through their educational journey to the personal future they desire.”

How UCF Makes Flying Safer

Jentsch arrived at UCF in the early-mid 1990s to study for his doctoral degree in a crucial research field that, at that time, relatively few people knew anything about: human factors psychology. The application to aviation was always clear to Jentsch and his colleagues.

“The reliability of aviation is directly tied to the behavior of everyone in the system,” Jentsch says. “The gate agent. The security person. The baggage handler. The maintenance engineer. The pilot. Every person must know when to speak up and say, ‘we can’t leave the ground yet.’ Technology helps, but at the end of the day we rely on good behavior for high positive consequences — in this case, safe travel.”

In the ‘90s, UCF was one of five or six universities doing work in this space. Since then, many others have attempted to emulate UCF’s approach to research and training.

“We’re always a few steps ahead because many of our government and corporate partners are right here in Orlando,” Jentsch says. “People are always amazed that when you come into [Central Florida Research Park], you can find anyone and everyone who makes a flight simulator working here. This gives us access to tools at IST that allow us to explore the most realistic factors in aviation training.”

The control stick, however, is only as effective as the person using it. When the human factor fails, we call it “human error.” And human error is responsible for at least half of all aviation accidents.

“Our research and training in human behaviors have significantly reduced accidents since the 1980s,” Jentsch says. The Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives (BAAA), an organization established in Geneva in 1990 for tracking aviation safety, reported 337 accidents in 1989. By 1999, the number had dropped to 234, and in 2022 the BAAA charted 97 accidents. “You can corelate the value of those results to the value of our students in the aviation industry.”

Jentsch and his research team were among the first to trace errors back to fixable, trainable factors. Communication is a good example. They concluded that instead of trying to figure out a flurry of issues at once, it would be safer to bring each issue to a resolution before opening the next issue — closed-loop communication. The strategy has since been adopted in other industries, like medicine. The reduction in surgical errors in hospitals is partly from the implementation of checklists and briefings during nurse shift changes.

“It originated from our research for aviation,” Jentsch says. He says he’s still excited after doing this type of research for 25 years.

“What we do is meaningful, and it goes hand-in-hand with meaningful simulation training and meaningful real-world jobs, Jentsch says. “At the end of the day, when employers know that people influenced by our research can tackle any situation and make flying safer, then we’ve done our jobs well. And we don’t even need an airfield to do it.”

Called the Virtual Experience Research Accelerator, or VERA, the system will enable researchers to carry out large studies in extended reality (XR) environments, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality and mixed reality, with large and wide-ranging populations. The four-year project will be led by Professor Greg Welch, a computer scientist and engineer, and the AdventHealth Endowed Chair in Healthcare Simulation in UCF’s College of Nursing. Welch also holds secondary appointments in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, and the School of Modeling, Simulation and Training (SMST).

The NSF announced the funding today as part of a $16.1 million investment the agency is making in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure through its Computer and Information Science and Engineering  (CISE) Community Research Infrastructure — or CCRI — program.

“VERA could transform the way XR researchers carry out human subjects research,” Welch says. “It will allow researchers to run studies relatively quickly, using a large number of study participants with wide-ranging demographics, to realize faster generation of better-quality results that are more generalizable to the larger population.”

One goal of the VERA project is to provide researchers with a new and powerful tool that could lead to improved XR technologies that are more effective for the user and make XR research more available to underrepresented groups, such as older adults or people with disabilities, who could potentially benefit from the technology, Welch says.

Other institutions also receiving NSF CCRI awards this year are the University of Pennsylvania; the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; UCLA; and Penn State.

The 2023 CCRI projects will provide researchers and students across the nation with access to transformative resources through platforms for carrying out AI research on social robotics and research in immersive virtual environments that could also benefit AI research.

“A critical element to the success of the AI research revolution is ensuring that researchers have access to the data and platforms required to continue to drive innovation and scalability in AI technologies and systems,” says NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “This infrastructure must be accessible to a full breadth and variety of talent interested in AI [research and development], as that is the driving force behind modern discoveries.”

While VERA is primarily aimed at human subjects research in XR, it will also contribute to the success of AI research by providing researchers with a tool for collecting large data sets of realistic human behavior that is representative of the general population, Welch says.

About VERA

The VERA project will address a critical problem in human subjects research in XR — a vast majority of the studies rely on relatively small convenience samples of college-age participants that are not demographically mixed and take a relatively long time to carry out, Welch says.

“Because laboratory-based studies are relatively slow, they are typically limited to relatively small population samples, and because those samples are not typically representative of the general population, the findings typically are not either,” he says.

VERA will combine the ideas of distributed lab-based studies, online studies, research panels, crowdsourcing and virtual environments into a unified system for carrying out XR-based human subjects research. To create a large, wide-ranging pool of research participants, the team will recruit participants from around the country to serve in a standing participant pool.

The system will be comprised of a study management program, the participant pool, and a virtual metaworld where participants can join studies, and researchers can attend meetings and events as well as interact with 3D visualizations of final study data.

Individuals recruited for the VERA participant pool will include those who already own VR equipment as well as those who will have it provided to them. The system will allow for participants to take part in studies remotely, without having to come to a lab.

The VERA Team

In addition to Welch, the VERA team includes principal investigators Shiri Azenkot, an associate professor with Cornell Tech and a co-founder and Director of XR Access; Jeremy Bailenson, a Thomas More Storke Professor at Stanford University; Gerd Bruder, a research associate professor with UCF’s Institute of Simulation and Training, SMST; Tabitha Peck, an associate professor with Davidson College; and Valerie Jones Taylor, an associate professor with Lehigh University.

Co-investigators are Jonathan Beever, an associate professor in UCF’s College of Arts and Humanities; Nicholas Alvaro Coles, a research scientist with Stanford University and the Director of the Psychological Science Accelerator; Carolina Cruz-Neira, an Agere Chair Professor in UCF’s Department of Computer Science; John Murray, an assistant professor in UCF’s Nicholson School of Communication and Media; and Rui Xie, an assistant professor in UCF’s Department of Statistics and Data Science.

Several industry and nonprofit organizations are involved, as is the XR Association.

Next Steps

The VERA team will begin developing the system and curating a participant pool during the first year of the work, as well as build a community around the project.

“It’s really a joy to be working on this,” Welch says. “With VERA, both established and advancing researchers will have a new power tool to do more great research, and researchers who do not have a laboratory where they can run XR human subjects research, due to perhaps money or space limitations, will now have a practical and powerful way to run studies. VERA offers a chance to do something for the amazing XR research community, by making high-quality human subjects research accessible to more researchers.”

Researcher Credentials

Welch received his doctorate in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and joined UCF in 2011.

Bruder received his doctorate in computer science from the University of Hamburg in Germany and joined UCF in 2016.

Beever received his doctorate in philosophy from Purdue University and joined UCF in 2015.

Cruz-Neira received her doctorate in computer science/virtual reality from the University of Illinois Chicago and joined UCF in 2020.

Murray received his doctorate in computer science from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and joined UCF in 2018.

Xie received his doctorate in statistics from the University of Georgia and joined UCF in 2019.