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Month: March 2017

ferrofluid with nanomagnets

Professor of Chemistry Wins SEC Faculty Achievement Award

The Iron Man of UF has won again. Professor of Chemistry George Christou, known for his research in nano-magnets, has received the SEC Faculty Achievement Award for his accomplishments. The Southeastern Conference, an athletic association comprising 14 academic institutions, has honored one faculty member from each institution for the past six years. This year, they […]

gorilla sits in foliage

Mass Extinction: Are We Next?

Biologist Todd Palmer says the countdown clock has started. In the movie Avatar, so many magnificent animals have gone extinct that scientists can only study them virtually. This environmentally ravaged Earth is set in the near future, in the year 2154, but according to University of Florida biologist Todd Palmer, our Earth in 2016 is […]

Photo of Dean Dave Richardson teaching a chemistry class.

Dean Dave Richardson

Your Journey Begins Here When Dave Richardson, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, addressed the Class of 2019 at Convocation last August, he shared stories about jobs he had in high school and college — flipping burgers, bagging groceries, digging ditches, baling hay, and feeding pigs. From these experiences, he said, he […]

men wearing glasses and hard hats sign a beam

The Future of Chemistry at UF

New building set to open this fall semester is a game changer. The University of Florida held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new Chemistry/Chemical Biology Building at the corner of University Avenue and Buckman Drive on Oct. 10, 2014. Less than a year later, on Sept. 11, 2015, Skanska, the construction company building the facility, […]

Portrait of Mick Aschoff

Alumni Profile — Mick Aschoff

The Art of Giving Mick Aschoff ’71 has an undergraduate degree in art from the University of Florida and an MBA in finance, as well as a professional certification in computer applications and information systems, from New York University. He speaks three languages and has worked around the world in various fields, including hospital administration, […]

Van Truong standing next to her starry night artwork on a library whiteboard

Student Profile — Van Truong

Intrepid When she was three, Van Truong ’17 often slipped out of her parents’ house in their village of Hue, Vietnam, ambling into the homes of family and friends. Truong has been stepping out of her comfort zone for quite a while. In 2014, after her freshman year at UF, Truong set off for a […]

Photo of Professor Sid homan reading a book.

Faculty Profile — Sidney Homan

Blue-Collar Scholar English Professor Sidney Homan never imagined his blue-collar childhood in South Philadelphia would lead to his career as a Shakespearean scholar. Until fate – in the form of his mother — intervened and secured him an interview at Princeton, Homan expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. “My father worked hard installing phones […]

closeup of human skull

Tales Teeth Can Tell

Dental enamel reveals surprising migration patterns in ancient Indus civilizations. University of Florida researchers have discovered that ancient peoples in the Indus Valley did not stay put, as was previously thought. Equally surprising is how they found out: by examining 4,000-year-old teeth. As tooth enamel forms, it incorporates elements from the local environment. When the […]

soldiers wade out of sea onto Normandy Beach

War Stories

UF is a top contributor to Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project. World War II veteran Frank Towers landed on Utah Beach shortly after D-Day, survived the frigid nights of the Battle of the Bulge, and participated in the liberation of thousands of Jews headed to the death camps just before that terrible war ended […]

Green sea turtle swimming underwater in lagoon

Mickey and the Turtle

Disney partners with UF to save and protect sea turtles. The world’s seven sea turtle species are classified either as endangered or vulnerable; Walt Disney’s Conservation Fund is partnering with UF to save these creatures. In April, the Disney Conservation Fund announced that UF would be the only university partner in its new initiative, “Reverse […]

T-rex skeleton on display

What Really Killed the Dinosaurs?

UF researcher looks at ancient temperatures to resolve a scientific debate. University of Florida geochemist Andrea Dutton and colleagues at the University of Michigan have utilized a new technique of analysis to reconstruct Antarctic ocean temperatures that supports the idea that the combined impacts of volcanic eruptions and an asteroid impact brought about one of […]

Century Tower at night, lit with rainbow colors

What’s in a Name?

Center Makes LGBTQ+ Focus Explicit. UF’s Center for Women’s Studies and Gender Research recently affirmed its multifaceted approach to the study of LGBTQ+ issues by announcing a new name: The Center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women’s Studies Research. President Fuchs’ statement in support of the victims of the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack and the LGBTQ+ […]

Dennis Hays gestures off-camera

Alumni Profile — Dennis Hays

Career Diplomat As a member of the United States Foreign Service for 25 years, Dennis Hays ’76 served in Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. During three of these years, he worked as a presidential advance agent, organizing presidential and vice presidential trips to everywhere from China to Zimbabwe to Panama. In 1996, he was […]

Hector stands in front of bright orange device in physics building

Student Profile — Hector Lacera

How one boy’s love of physics started with a cat. Even as a small child, Hector Lacera ’18 wanted to understand the nature of things. He distinctly remembers the first time he felt the inexorable tug of physics. He was seven years old and living in Bogotá, Colombia. One afternoon, while petting the family cat, […]

Photo of Professor Sharon Austin at her desk.

Faculty Profile — Sharon Austin

Empowering Students In the era of President Obama, Black Lives Matter, and Shondaland, the field of African American Studies is timely and relevant. UF is one of only 232 academic institutions in the U.S. to offer a major in African American Studies, and its program has about 450 undergraduates. Sharon Austin, associate professor of political […]

Photo of Professor Christou holding a molecule model.

Small but Mighty

UF professor discovers the world’s smallest magnet. If you thought electronics couldn’t get any smaller or more powerful, consider this: Distinguished Professor of Chemistry George Christou has discovered the world’s smallest magnet. He recently received acclaim for his discovery of single-molecule magnets and other magnetic metal-oxo compounds — microscopic, long-lasting substances with applications to medical, […]

young woman prepares young boy's arm for vaccination

The Needs of the Many

Health disparities minor reaches out to underrepresented populations. Cathaerina Appadoo ’17 wants a revolution in healthcare. One of many pre-med students in the Health Disparities in Society minor at UF, she’s training to be a leader in “culturally competent” healthcare that’s sensitive to the needs of minority patients. She’s witnessed health providers who are ill-equipped […]

Jim and Susan Wiltshire standing in front of Lake Alice

Making the Most of the Sunset Years

Where you age affects how well you age. Jim ’54 and Susan Wiltshire ’55 met at the University of Florida in 1953, married in 1957 during Jim’s tour of active duty in the Navy, lived in various locations in the eastern United States, and ended up in Hamilton, Mass., where they raised two sons and […]

a Pequot artifact excavated from the banks of the Connecticut River

Story Keeper

Historian receives UF Distinguished Alumnus Award for colonial histories. The Pequot were an indigenous people who inhabited what is now southeastern Connecticut. Much of the tribe was largely lost to war and slavery between the 17th and 19th centuries, and academics have debated the cause of the battle between the Pequot and the Puritans. Historian […]

closeup of dictionary entry for legacy

A Bequest for the Best

French professor donates his estate to further the humanities at UF. After 57 years of teaching — 29 of them at UF — William Calin, Graduate Research Professor of French and Francophone Studies, is not planning to give it up anytime soon. He says he doesn’t plan to retire. “I love teaching and researching too […]