(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, �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ�� 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 �鶹ԭ��, 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 �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ��,” 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 �鶹ԭ��, 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.

�鶹ԭ�� 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 �鶹ԭ��’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, �鶹ԭ�� 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, �鶹ԭ�� 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, �鶹ԭ�� 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

�鶹ԭ�� 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 �鶹ԭ��’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.

�鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ�� research centers, such as (IST), , and the Center of Excellence in Hypersonic and Space Propulsion (HyperSpace Center).

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

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

The Tour

Grady began his visit with a meeting alongside �鶹ԭ�� President Alexander N. Cartwright, where they discussed �鶹ԭ��’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, �鶹ԭ�� 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

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

�鶹ԭ��’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.

�鶹ԭ�� 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.

�鶹ԭ�� 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. �鶹ԭ��’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, �鶹ԭ��’s close ties to the defense industry are amplified through Central Florida Research Park, a $7 billion hub for modeling and simulation adjacent to �鶹ԭ��’s main campus, which is also home to six DOD headquarters. �鶹ԭ�� 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. �鶹ԭ��’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.

At �鶹ԭ��, 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, �鶹ԭ�� 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, �鶹ԭ�� continues to build its reputation as SpaceU. NASA, with more than 50 years of research support from �鶹ԭ��, has advanced its Artemis program with the goal of establishing a sustainable human presence on the moon and preparing for missions to Mars. Prominent �鶹ԭ�� space researchers are actively engaged in multiple collaborations with NASA — particularly within the Artemis program — and 29% of Kennedy Space Center employees are �鶹ԭ�� 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 of �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ�� are created from crushed minerals. Once produced by �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ�� 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 �鶹ԭ��.

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 �鶹ԭ�� 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 of �鶹ԭ��’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 of �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ�� — 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 �鶹ԭ�� 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 �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ��, 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 �鶹ԭ��, they’ll be guided through their educational journey to the personal future they desire.”

How �鶹ԭ�� Makes Flying Safer

Jentsch arrived at �鶹ԭ�� 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, �鶹ԭ�� was one of five or six universities doing work in this space. Since then, many others have attempted to emulate �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ��’s Department of Computer Science; John Murray, an assistant professor in �鶹ԭ��’s Nicholson School of Communication and Media; and Rui Xie, an assistant professor in �鶹ԭ��’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 �鶹ԭ�� in 2011.

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

Beever received his doctorate in philosophy from Purdue University and joined �鶹ԭ�� in 2015.

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

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

Xie received his doctorate in statistics from the University of Georgia and joined �鶹ԭ�� in 2019.

Pegasus Professors are selected by the president and provost and are recognized for excellence in the teaching, research and service. This year’s honorees include innovative researchers who have not only made a difference at �鶹ԭ��, but nationally and internationally.

Stephen Fiore’s classrooms and cognitive science gatherings have birthed hundreds of ideas for dissertations, publications, research projects and even apps, in settings he calls “anti-disciplinarian.”

Jane Gibson is a medical geneticist and molecular pathologist who uses genomic technology to improve patient diagnostics and treatment, and shares a career of knowledge with the next generation of medical professionals.

Jennifer Kent-Walsh built a center from the ground up at �鶹ԭ�� to help people of all ages who live with barriers caused by communication disorders.

Marianna Pensky opened new doors 28 years ago as the first woman faculty in �鶹ԭ��’s Department of Mathematics, and has influenced the field through research and mentorship.

The four professors will be recognized Wednesday during the Founders’ Day Faculty Honors Celebration from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Student Union Pegasus Ballroom.

Stephen Fiore

Professor, cognitive sciences
Director, ,
,

Few people know: He spent so much time working in restaurants during college that he once considered a career in the restaurant business.

Stephen Fiore arrives 30 minutes early to move the furniture for the classes he leads. A handwritten note sometimes greets him. “Please put the chairs where you found them when you’re finished.”

Fiore is half-tempted to ask, “Why?”

The circular format he employs has proven to open the gates to some of the most constructive conversations about some of the strangest questions you can imagine. Do dogs think about the future? What does a tick experience when landing on a person’s flesh?

If the topics sound odd, that’s perfect.

“The best ideas across every discipline start with a little mind wandering,” Fiore says. “Then we move from wandering to actual ideas. The best discussions lead to the most important phase: how to do something with the idea.”

His students have done plenty with their off-the-wall questions over the years. They’ve pursued research projects, published papers and written dissertations. Two students recently joined Fiore’s Cognitive Science Lab, helping work on grants studying social cognition in human-robot interaction and how AI affects teamwork.

The common denominator is the questions that no one would dare ask out loud anywhere other than Fiore’s group settings. He calls his classes “gatherings.” He says they are “anti-disciplinary.” He never lectures.

“My role is to create the right environment for conversation,” he says, “and then I shut up and listen.”

The computer scientist learns perspectives from the anthropologist. The sociology graduate listens to the biology graduate. Together, they dig deeper than they could ever dig within their own colleges or own heads.

Does the ocean have a memory? The question could, and has, led to ideas to study beach erosion. How about ants … does the shape of their nests alter social behavior? This one has spawned theories about architecture.

“When we’re specialists in a field, we might not see the big picture, what I call ‘disciplinary myopia,’” Fiore says. “Or we might look down on ideas from other fields, what I call ‘disciplinary disdain.’ I try to help others avoid these see me practicing what I preach.”

Fiore’s methods are so intriguing that he’s been invited to give more than 120 presentations around the world and co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed papers. He’s played a role in securing more than $30 million in grants. One question, however, causes him to stumble when it comes up: “How did he get here?”

“That’s not so easy to answer,” he says.

To summarize, Fiore attended junior college out of high school “for the heck of it.” He realized he enjoyed learning and studied at the University of Maryland before moving to the beach with two degrees and a craving for fun.

“I experienced the retirement life at 21 years old,” he says, “and got tired of it pretty quickly. It was time to find a real job.”

Fiore happened to pick up a brochure describing a seminar on the brain. A little more research led him to a field called “cognitive psychology.” He quit his job and went back to school to study how people think, remember, and solve problems. He also volunteered in labs where he worked with researchers from all fields of expertise.

“That’s where I learned how productive we can be when we work across disciplines,” Fiore says, “because no one is afraid to ask the ‘out there’ questions.”

Like, what new knowledge can be created from the collisions of ideas from people with vastly different perspectives?

“You know the saying, ‘Many hands lighten the load?’ It works with minds, too. We need to invite more of it.”

Jane Gibson

Professor, pathology
Chair,
Associate dean for Faculty Affairs
Director, Molecular Diagnostics

Few people know: She was a candidate for the astronaut program in the 1990s before realizing claustrophobia “probably wouldn’t bode well in a spaceship.”

As one of the foremost researchers and clinicians in medical genomics and genetics, Gibson knows the literal definition of “groundbreaking.” In fact, 15 years ago she could have taken her expertise anywhere in the country. She’d already set up the genetics program for Orlando Health and directed another for Ameripath (before it became Quest Diagnostics). But in 2008 she chose to take all her expertise  to an empty field in Lake Nona.

“There was nothing but dirt, bulldozers and cows,” Gibson says of the site that would become �鶹ԭ��’s College of Medicine. “We didn’t even have running water. But that’s what excited us: we had a blank slate to create something extraordinary.”

Gibson’s mother always encouraged her to “shoot for the stars,” to look beyond what is and see what could be. Instead of seeing a field of cows and the shell of a building, Gibson and half a dozen other doctors envisioned the home of a world-class medical center. There would be a hospital, labs and freedom to extend the boundaries of medical science. Most important, there would be students with equally big dreams.

“It comes down to this: We want to expose them to the latest discoveries and technologies of a precision medicine and genomics era and then send them into the world to make lives better,” Gibson says.

She doesn’t simply talk about discoveries in genomics and precision medicine. She makes them. Her dad did the same thing as a plant geneticist. Gibson would watch him crossbreed vegetables to find more resilient varieties in his greenhouses. Early in her career, Gibson attended a conference in Colorado and happened to sit around a campfire with Mary-Claire King, who said she’d been researching how breast cancer and ovarian cancer ran in families. Her groundbreaking research is now legendary: A mutation of the gene called BRCA1, which causes hereditary breast cancer and is now tested along with other genes as a standard of patient care

“The genetic cause of cancer was mostly unproven at the time,” Gibson says. “But right after that, the field just exploded. Now we use the genomic testing every day in patient care. I’m blessed to have been on the leading edge of it.”

It all fits her decision to choose a pasture over an established institution 15 years ago. “To whom much is given, much is expected,” she says, quoting a verse that directs her life. Gibson and her colleagues consider the College of Medicine a gift to the Orlando community. From it, more than 1,000 graduates have gone out to advance research and to care for patients who need something more tangible than a ray of hope: they need smart practitioners.

A week before learning she had been selected as a 2023 Pegasus Professor, Gibson went to a doctor’s appointment — this time as a patient. In the office, she saw a reminder of why she chose this path: a former student, now a doctor, making lives better in our community.

“That’s what we envisioned when we entered uncharted waters,” Gibson says, “and it still inspires me every day.”

Jennifer Kent-Walsh

Professor, communication sciences and disorders
Founder and director,

Associate dean of Research,

Few people know: She was a Highland dancer and traveled across Canada and to Scotland to compete and perform in festivals representing her Scottish heritage.

Before she dove into speech-language pathology as her calling and before she developed the FAAST Assistive Technology Center at �鶹ԭ�� from scratch, Jennifer Kent-Walsh learned to pay attention. She grew up in communities on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, where people expected an honest answer when asked, “How are you?” And they’d listen.

“People looked out for one another,” Kent-Walsh says.

Her father was a minister, and her mother was a teacher and vice principal. Not surprisingly, Kent-Walsh started her career in classrooms, teaching in England and Canada. Something kept grabbing her attention.

“The students,” she says. “Some had communication disorders that created barriers to the power of education. In math, for example, the numbers weren’t necessarily the problem. It was often the words and understanding the language that caused students challenges.”

Her interest shifted to speech-language pathology for her graduate education. During a clinical placement, she met a young woman who completely lost the ability to speak due to complications during a routine surgery. Kent-Walsh saw it as another example of the profound impact communication disorders can have on patients and their families.

“When a person is unable to effectively communicate, it affects everything in life. I realized that I wanted to be involved in research so I could help find meaningful solutions to provide every person with effective ways of communicating, whether or not they have functional speech.”

Turns out, Kent-Walsh would build a place to do just that at �鶹ԭ��, where she was offered the opportunity to create an advanced research and educational center focused on assistive technology.

“The university had an openness to innovating and developing new curriculum and clinical experiences for students. For me, it was exciting and intimidating at the same time,” she says.

With encouragement from the department chair, Jane Lieberman, Kent-Walsh wrote the first research and service-delivery grants to get things started. She pulled together clinical faculty, academic faculty, students and community stakeholders, and together they began to work with clients and families to help break communication barriers experienced by adults and children with significant speech impairments. Along with her primary research collaborator at the University of New Mexico, Cathy Binger, the �鶹ԭ�� team paired language therapy with augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies to support clients, their loved ones, and service providers. Since then, Kent-Walsh and her team have secured millions of dollars in funding from local, state and federal sources to advance their research and service-delivery missions.

“We’ve been intentional about leveraging the power of AAC technologies by employing both direct language interventions with clients and indirect interventions with the other significant people in their lives from day one,” Kent-Walsh says. “Parents of the children who participate in our research often tell us their kids are speaking more and they’re excited to use technology as one of many modes of communication — whether it’s a high-tech device like an iPad with a speech output application, picture symbols in a communication book, or gestures.”

Twenty years ago, Kent-Walsh had to convince others, one by one, to give these ideas a chance. Today, professionals from around the world access the published findings and contact her team of collaborators to learn how to apply them and to report the positive outcomes they have seen from implementing the AAC interventions developed at �鶹ԭ��. Thousands of undergraduate and graduate students have taken what they’ve learned into their own work. Some of them have returned to �鶹ԭ�� after practicing clinically to join Kent-Walsh and her team to advance research.

“We’re light-years ahead of where we were, not because of me, but because so many people have invested themselves in this mission to ensure every person is able to communicate effectively. … And there is still much more work to be done to ensure every person enjoys the right to communicate and to achieve their full potential,” she says.

Marianna Pensky

Professor, mathematics
,

Few people know: She’s only had one job interview in her life — at �鶹ԭ��.

In 1995, Marianna Pensky, a single mother from Russia with two sons, interviewed at a university in Orlando she’d never heard of. Pensky was a good match for the Department of Mathematics since they needed redeveloping of the probability and statistics sequence for the newly approved mathematics Ph.D. program, and she was an expert. The job was hers if she wanted it. At the urging of her sons, Pensky accepted it.

“I had only four days to sign the offer commit to immigrating and be completely on my own with children. I was scared to death,” Pensky says. “But everything worked very well.”

Pensky’s hiring is a milestone in �鶹ԭ�� history, as she’s the first woman faculty in the mathematics department.

“It is a huge mistake that many girls think that they have to choose between career and family, or that they cannot succeed in sciences,” she says. “Boys are not any better at sciences than girls.”

Pensky says the culture at �鶹ԭ�� helped her to explore and experiment with her research. She’s authored more than 100 publications, including a major work on reliability theory and journal articles about statistical inverse problems, Bayesian statistics, statistical genetics, wavelets and signal analysis. She’s also received uninterrupted U.S. National Science Foundation funding for more than 20 years.

Her work has paved the way for more women to join the math and statistics faculty. They serve as role models for female students to pursue careers in science and teaching.

Pensky has also influenced dozens of graduate students as an advisor and by serving on Ph.D. committees. She’s developed a variety of special topic graduate courses that covered novel areas of statistics. And through these course materials she’s impacted the research of computer science, engineering, physics and statistics students.

�鶹ԭ��’s mathematics department carries significance to Pensky’s personal life, too. It was there she met her husband. Their daughter arrived the same week as Pensky’s tenure letter. Now, she is a grandmother, and her family keeps growing.

When asked what makes her most proud of the Pegasus honor, Pensky stumbles over the word “proud.” She’d rather use “happy” because she values the feeling over pride and achievements.

The study, “Six Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Grand Challenges,” was published in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction.

Ozlem Garibay ’01MS ’08PhD, an assistant professor in �鶹ԭ��’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, was the lead researcher for the study. She says that the technology has become more prominent in many aspects of our lives, but it also has brought about many challenges that must be studied.

For instance, the coming widespread integration of artificial intelligence could significantly impact human life in ways that are not yet fully understood, says Garibay, who works on AI applications in material and drug design and discovery, and how AI impacts social systems.

The six challenges Garibay and the team of researchers identified are:

• Challenge 1, Human Well-Being: AI should be able to discover the implementation opportunities for it to benefit humans’ well-being. It should also be considerate to support the user’s well-being when interacting with AI.

• Challenge 2, Responsible: Responsible AI refers to the concept of prioritizing human and societal well-being across the AI lifecycle. This ensures that the potential benefits of AI are leveraged in a manner that aligns with human values and priorities, while also mitigating the risk of unintended consequences or ethical breaches.

• Challenge 3, Privacy: The collection, use and dissemination of data in AI systems should be carefully considered to ensure protection of individuals’ privacy and prevent the harmful use against individuals or groups.

• Challenge 4, Design: Human-centered design principles for AI systems should use a framework that can inform practitioners. This framework would distinguish between AI with extremely low risk, AI with no special measures needed, AI with extremely high risks, and AI that should not be allowed.

• Challenge 5, Governance and Oversight: A governance framework that considers the entire AI lifecycle from conception to development to deployment is needed.

• Challenge 6, Human-AI interaction: To foster an ethical and equitable relationship between humans and AI systems, it is imperative that interactions be predicated upon the fundamental principle of respecting the cognitive capacities of humans. Specifically, humans must maintain complete control over and responsibility for the behavior and outcomes of AI systems.

The study, which was conducted over 20 months, comprises the views of 26 international experts who have extensive backgrounds in AI technology.

“These challenges call for the creation of human-centered artificial intelligence technologies that prioritize ethicality, fairness and the enhancement of human well-being,” Garibay says. “The challenges urge the adoption of a human-centered approach that includes responsible design, privacy protection, adherence to human-centered design principles, appropriate governance and oversight, and respectful interaction with human cognitive capacities.”

Overall, these challenges are a call to action for the scientific community to develop and implement artificial intelligence technologies that prioritize and benefit humanity, she says.

The group of 26 experts include National Academy of Engineering members and researchers from North America, Europe and Asia who have broad experiences across academia, industry and government. The group also has extensive educational backgrounds in areas ranging from computer science and engineering to psychology and medicine.

Their work also will be featured in a chapter in the book, Human-Computer Interaction: Foundations, Methods, Technologies, and Applications.

Five �鶹ԭ�� faculty members co-authored the study:

• Gavriel Salvendy, a university distinguished professor in �鶹ԭ��’s College of Engineering and Computer Science and the founding president of the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida.

• Waldemar Karwowski, a professor and chair of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems and executive director of the Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering at the �鶹ԭ��.

• Steve Fiore, director of the Cognitive Sciences Laboratory and professor with �鶹ԭ��’s cognitive sciences program in the Department of Philosophy and Institute for Simulation & Training.

• Ivan Garibay, an associate professor in industrial engineering and management systems and director of the �鶹ԭ�� Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Initiative.

• Joe Kider, an associate professor at the IST, School of Modeling, Simulation and Training and a co-director of the SENSEable Design Laboratory.

Garibay received her doctorate in computer science from �鶹ԭ�� and joined �鶹ԭ��’s Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, part of the College of Engineering and Computer Science, in 2020.