University of Florida Homepage

Winter 2017

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 […]

Portrait of Stephanie Abrams

In Any Weather

By Gigi Marino Stephanie Abrams ’99 hasn’t taken a sick day in nearly 14 years. If she’s feeling under-the-weather, she has to put on her TV face because, for many, she is the face of the weather. Co-host of The Weather Channel’s America’s Morning Headquarters, Abrams grew up in West Palm Beach. As a child, […]

Photo of Gabriella Larios at the Harn Museum.

Student Profile — Gabriella Larios

Breaking the Color Barrier Gabriella Larios ’17 enjoys putting the pieces together — literally. This aspiring lawyer discovered jigsaw puzzles for stress relief while studying for the LSAT and now regularly assembles 500-piece puzzles when she’s not leading student government or leadership training. A women’s studies and political science double major from an all-girls Catholic […]

Photo of Tom Bianchi kneeling next to Lake Alice.

Faculty Profile — Thomas S. Bianchi

Delta Blues “Burn and burial,” offers Thomas S. Bianchi, the Jon L. and Beverly A. Thompson Endowed Chair of Geological Sciences, as a central theme of his research. He’s referring to carbon cycling, especially the release of carbon into the atmosphere or its sequestration in flora in “blue carbon” areas, such as wetlands and rivers. […]

Photo of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey telescope against the dusk.

Recent Discovery Questions the Origins of the Universe

Astronomers find the first binary–binary. Everything we know about the formation of solar systems might be wrong, say Professor of Astronomy Jian Ge and postdoc Bo Ma. They’ve discovered the first “binary–binary,” or two massive companions around one star in a close binary system — one so-called giant planet (12 times the mass of Jupiter) […]

photo of bright blue water of Florida springs

Humanities and the Sunshine State

High school students enjoy a different kind of summer camp. Water is Florida’s largest resource. UF’s Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere, in collaboration with UF’s Center for Precollegiate Education and Training, has developed a distinctive weeklong program that teaches high schoolers Florida history and culture through the perspective of water use — […]