“Postdocs are highly trained professionals, not students,” says Jade Laderwarg, director of postdoctoral affairs at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½. “They contribute significantly to the university’s research enterprise by supporting grant activity, co-authoring publications and carrying out day-to-day research.”

Since postdoctoral scholars typically have fewer teaching and service responsibilities than tenured faculty, they can devote significant time to making new discoveries and are a vital part of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s research infrastructure.

In 2025, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ employed 250 postdoctoral scholars, 25% higher than the postdoctoral scholar requirement for preeminence in Florida. The university’s investment in this researcher demographic in recent years emphasizes a strengthened focus on research growth and supporting postdoctoral scholars’ success.

Their impact can be seen across Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s research community.

Protecting Marine Ecosystems: Ian Silver-Gorges

As a biology postdoctoral scholar at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, Ian Silver-Gorges is investigating how environmental stress influences disease in green sea turtles throughout the Gulf of Mexico. His research is supported through the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology program.

“Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ has given me important teaching experience and provided resources critical to my success,â€� Silver-Gorges says.

Support from both the NSF and Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ has been pivotal to his research and professional development.

The NSF funds fundamental research and provides fellowships that help coverÌýsalary and research costs during this pivotal career stage. Meanwhile, strategic initiatives such as the help Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ recruit nationally competitive scholars by providing matching funds to faculty.

“I believe that by completing both a P3 and an NSF fellowship at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, I’ll be a competitive candidate for faculty or research positions when I start applying,â€� Silver-Gorges says.

Advancing the Future of Cancer Detection: Dhruvam Pandey

In the Han Lab at CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics, postdoctoral scholar Dhruvam Pandey is combining super-resolution microscopy and high-throughput imaging to develop tools that provide clinicians with faster, more precise cancer diagnostics. His work bridges the gap between experimental photonics and deep learning algorithms to improve cancerdetection.

“What drew me to Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ is the unique research ecosystem at CREOL,â€� Pandey says. “It’s a place where cutting-edge optics and computation come together.â€�

Building a Research Powerhouse

Postdoctoral scholar numbers are one of 12 metrics used by the Florida Board of Governors to determine eligibility for designation as a Preeminent State Research University — the state’s highest classification for public universities. In 2025, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ met all 12 metrics, fueled by an expanding research enterprise and more than $285 million in annual research expenditures.

Programs such as P3 and Short-Term Postdoc Support (STePS) have helped drive this growth by providing resources that enablefaculty to recruit talented scholars and strengthen mentorship opportunities.

“We’re incredibly proud of all the progress we’ve made,� says John Weishampel, dean of the . “The tireless work of our faculty and staff, along with the success of programs like P3 and STePS, has allowed us to expand our postdoctoral community in meaningful and lasting ways.�

As Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ continues its rise as a leading research institution, its expanding postdoctoral community is both a symbol of progress and a catalyst for future breakthroughs.

To build the ultrafast computers of the future, scientists are looking beyond the electrical charge of electrons to another property: their spin. While conventional hardware relies entirely on the movement of charge to process data, the ability to tap into this intrinsic quantum property could enable researchers to completely reinvent how information travels through a circuit.

Now, a team led by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Professor of Physics has identified a promising candidate. Neupane and his collaborators found evidence of altermagnetism, an emerging form of magnetism that combines useful characteristics of the two more familiar types of magnetism: ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism.

Ferromagnetism produces the behavior most people associate with everyday magnets. In these materials, magnetic moments align in the same direction, creating a magnetic field. That property can be useful in electronics, but the resulting stray magnetic fields can interfere with nearby components.

Antiferromagnets behave differently. Their magnetic moments point in opposing directions and cancel one another out, largely avoiding the stray fields. However, they lack some of the useful electronic properties found in ferromagnets.

Altermagnets offer another possibility by combining desirable characteristics of both.

Like antiferromagnets, they can avoid producing unwanted stray magnetic fields. But they can also generate and detect spin currents — the movement of electron spins through a material — that researchers hope to use for future electronics.

Neupane and his collaborators experimentally identified signatures of this unusual magnetic state in Co�/₄TaSe₂, a layered material containing magnetic cobalt atoms. The discovery gives researchers a promising, versatile platform for studying altermagnetism and could help advance future electronic and spintronic technologies.

“These materials are distinguished from more conventional antiferromagnets by their ability to generate and detect spin currents without the negative effect of producing stray fields,� Neupane says. “This new property makes them very well positioned for use in many different applications — including spintronics, ultrafast memory devices, terahertz networks and energy-efficient electronics.�

Tracking the Signs of Altermagnetism

To determine whether Co�/₄TaSe₂ exhibited altermagnetism, the researchers needed to examine how its electrons behaved.

They used a technique called angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, or ARPES, which allows scientists to measure the energy and movement of electrons and map a material’s electronic structure.

“Our approach was to use higher-resolution methods that were insensitive to the electron’s spin to measure the splitting in the energy levels,� Neupane says. “Then, we complemented this measurement with spin-resolved ARPES to conclusively tell if this looks like altermagnetism.�

The team first detected a characteristic splitting in the material’s electronic bands. They then used spin-resolved ARPES to take a closer look and found that those split states carried opposite spin polarizations, key evidence of altermagnetism.

Getting a clear look at that behavior presented another challenge. Photoemission measurements are extremely sensitive to a material’s surface, so researchers needed exceptionally clean samples to accurately observe what was happening.

While collaborators produced high-quality Co�/₄TaSe₂ samples, Neupane’s team carefully screened them for ultra-clean surfaces before mapping the material’s electronic behavior.

“The significance became clear once the experimental measurements consistently matched our theoretical predictions,� Neupane says. “Seeing those independent pieces of evidence converge gave us confidence that we had identified a genuine layered altermagnet.�

Why Layered Materials Are Changing the Game

Finding evidence of altermagnetism was only part of what made Co�/₄TaSe₂ interesting to researchers.

The material is built from extremely thin layers stacked on top of one another. Because those layers are weakly bound, scientists can separate and combine them into extremely thin structures, making layered materials promising for use in thin-film devices and other emerging technologies.

Scientists call this family of layered materials transition-metal dichalcogenides, or TMDs.

In Co�/₄TaSe₂, magnetic cobalt atoms inserted between the layers help create the material’s unusual magnetic properties. Its layered structure also makes the material highly tunable, allowing researchers to modify it and study how those changes affect its electronic and magnetic behavior.

The team also wanted to understand where that unusual electronic behavior originated. Before the study, it was unclear whether the key signatures of altermagnetism in layered materials would come primarily from the surface or from deeper within the material.

Their measurements showed that the relevant electronic state originated primarily within the material itself and displayed clear signatures of altermagnetic order.

“Evidence for altermagnetism in a versatile materials platform opens a lot of new possibilities,� says Milo Sprague, the study’s lead graduate student researcher. “There’s currently a lot of debate in altermagnetic theory about how the spin-polarized electronic states interact with other magnetic phenomena. Now we have a material that we can easily modify to explore these new questions.�

Building the Foundation for Future Technologies

Most conventional electronics rely on the electrical charge of electrons to transmit and process information. But electrons possess another property, their spin, that researchers are exploring as another way to carry information.

This emerging field is known as spintronics.

Altermagnets could be particularly useful for spintronics because they can generate and detect spin currents without producing the stray magnetic fields that can interfere with densely packed electronic components.

“As electronic devices continue to shrink, researchers need new materials that can operate faster while consuming less energy,� Neupane says.

Layered materials are already being investigated for use in extremely small transistors, optical technologies and other electronic devices. At the same time, researchers are exploring whether spin currents can provide new ways to transmit digital information.

Layered altermagnets could bring those two areas of research together, providing extremely thin, adaptable materials capable of controlling electron spin without producing the same unwanted magnetic interference as conventional magnets.

“If this approach proves viable, then layered altermagnets will be at the forefront of electronics development,� Neupane says.

What Researchers Still Don’t Know

The study gives researchers something particularly valuable: a material they can use to investigate the many unanswered questions surrounding altermagnetism in Co�/₄TaSe₂.

Scientists still don’t fully understand why this unusual magnetic state forms or why it can become favored over other possible magnetic structures — including ferromagnetism and other forms of antiferromagnetism — and how it behaves.

Theoretical studies suggest that competition among different interactions between electrons may help determine which magnetic state forms, but researchers are still working to determine how completely those theories describe the behavior of real materials.

“There are many details to the theory of how altermagnets work that haven’t been explored or verified yet,� Neupane says. “Now that we have identified several platforms for answering these questions, more advanced studies into these materials are underway.�

Because scientists can modify Co�/₄TaSe₂ and observe how its properties change, the material provides researchers with a new experimental platform for investigating unanswered questions and exploring how altermagnetism interacts with other magnetic and electronic phenomena.

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science under Award Number DE-SC0024304.

Deaner’s dissertation centers on a first-of-its-kind Florida scrub jay translocation initiative examining genetic rescue, a conservation strategy that introduces individuals from other populations to increase genetic diversity and improve the health and viability of an imperiled population.

“This project gives us a unique opportunity to understand the effects of a large-scale translocation on population recovery, how mate choice is influenced when birds from different genetic units are brought together and how genetic variation changes over time,� Deaner says.

The project build on regional recovery efforts that began in the late 1990s through mitigation efforts led by the with guidance from the late , a prominent Florida avian biologist. Raoul Boughton, senior manager of ecology and wildlife at the Mosaic Company, leads the current recovery effort, with Deaner and Sahas Barve, program director of avian ecology at Archbold Biological Station, serving as co-principal investigators.

Testing Genetic Rescue at an Unprecedented Scale

Researchers translocated 48 Florida scrub jays to a new recipient site — enough birds to fill the site to its estimated carrying capacity. Previous translocations typically moved smaller numbers of birds over several years. All 48 birds were hatched in 2025, minimizing age-related competitive advantages.

Six months after the translocation, Deaner has already observed promising signs.

Florida scrub jays typically do not become breeders until they are 2 or 3 years old.Ìý Across six decades of monitoring at Archbold Biological Station and two decades of data from the local population, fewer than 0.25% of recorded nesting attempts involved pairs of one-year-old birds.

At the recipient site, however, four of the 10 newly formed pairs of one-year-old birds attempted to nest this year — a rate of 40%. Researchers had expected approximately half of the groups to include young birds serving as helpersÌý but instead, most translocated birds sought their own breeding positions.

The early breeding activity is significant because genetic rescue ultimately depends on translocated birds establishing themselves, reproducing and passing their genetic variation into the recipient population. Although it is too early to determine the translocation’s long-term effect, the nesting attempts allow researchers to begin studying whether and how that genetic integration occurs.

Combining Genomics and Field Monitoring

Genomic data allows researchers to examine genetic variation among source populations, while long-term field monitoring provides information about survival, reproduction, territory establishment, dispersal and population growth. The team combines this data using Vortex, a population viability analysis software, to assess how genetic, environmental and demographic factors could affect the species’ long-term survival.

Researchers also equipped the birds with RFID tags and established feeding stations where each jay must stand on an antenna to access peanuts. The system allows Deaner to track visits and social feeding behavior, including patterns that may indicate pair formation and help researchers target birds for reproductive monitoring.

Deaner says Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ was the right place to pursue those questions because of the university’s collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to biology.

“My dissertation combines conservation genomics, population ecology, behavior, spatial analysis and population modeling and Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ has given me access to researchers with expertise across those fields,â€� she says.

Deaner conducts her research in Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Department of Biology Chair and Professor , where she works alongside students studying similar conservation questions.

Building on Nearly Two Decades of Fieldwork

Deaner’s path to Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ has been shaped by her years working directly with Florida scrub jays.

Between earning her undergraduate degree at the University of Delaware and her master’s degree at Georgia Southern University, she spent six years conducting early translocations involving the same Florida scrub jay population she studies today.

“Collecting those data and knowing so many answers lie just beneath the surface of each spreadsheet is what first inspired me to pursue graduate school,� Deaner says.

After earning her master’s degree, she returned to the Florida scrub jay recovery project, where her work reinforced the importance of genetic recovery to the population’s long-term persistence. At Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½, Deaner has been able to bring those experiences together, combining the perspective of a field biologist with the tools of a researcher.

She hopes the research will ultimately help conservationists recover imperiled species more quickly and with fewer resources. In September, Deaner presented preliminary findings at the International Conservation Translocation Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland.

“It’s not the taxa (group of organisms) that’s important, it’s the questions,â€� Deaner says. “As long as the questions are the ones that trigger your curiosity, you are heading in the right direction.â€�

¹ó´Ç°ùÌýseven consecutive years, theÌýRosen College of Hospitality ManagementÌý°ù²¹²Ô°ì²õÌýNo. 1 in the nationÌýfor Hospitality and Tourism Management Programs, according toÌýShanghaiRanking’s 2026 Global Ranking of Academic Subjects.

“The ranking recognizes what Rosen College has accomplished over the past two decades,â€� Rosen College Dean Cynthia Mejia says. “What excites me most is how we build on that foundation. Our goal is to influence the future of hospitality through the students we educate, the research we produce, the partnerships we create and the solutions we help develop for the industry’s most important challenges.â€�

Additionally, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ ranksÌýNo. 2 in the nationÌýfor Transportation Science and Technology — and in the top 10 for the seventh year in a row. The recognition reflects the breadth of research underway across Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ to develop solutions and advancements for the future of the transportation industry while improving safety and mobility on the nation’s most critical and busiest roadways.

“I am happy that our hard work and expanding our transportation faculty have paid off in this continuous recognition,â€� Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Pegasus Professor Mohamed Abdel-Aty says. “We have opened new fronts in transportation systems, technology and ideas looking to the future. We balance traditional transportation research with cutting-edge and high-impact new directions.â€�

The rankings represent significant industries that drive international economies with travel and tourism contributing to a global GDP (gross domestic product) of $11.6 trillion and supporting about one in every nine jobs around the world, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council’s 2025 report.

The ShanghaiRanking Global Ranking of Academic Subjects evaluates universities by academic discipline using research-focused indicators, these include measures related to research output, research quality, international collaboration and academic influence.

A Global Leader in Hospitality and Tourism Research

Located in the nation’s top tourism destination, Rosen College students, faculty and staff are embedded in industry, allowing them to directly explore emerging areas in the field.

“This ranking reflects the depth, quality and consistency of the research being produced by our faculty,â€� Manuel Rivera, associate dean of research at Rosen College says. “To be recognized once again among the world’s leading hospitality and tourism programs is a testament to the collective efforts of our faculty, students, alumni and industry partners. The ranking recognizes the foundation Rosen College has built over the past two decades. Building on that foundation, Rosen College is helping shape the future of hospitality through impactful research, innovation, industry partnerships and the development of future leaders.â€�

Faculty research spans areas including tourism, lodging, events, food service, consumer behavior, technology, and the management of destinations and hospitality organizations, including:

• HFTP Professor of Hospitality Financial Management and Technology Mehmet Altin’s study on entrepreneurial ecosystems in hospitality and tourism with a comparative analysis across economic contexts, which was published in Tourism Economics.
• Associate Professor Yun Ying Zhong, a research faculty member of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Disability, Aging and Technology faculty cluster initiative, completed a systematic review of 30-year research on hospitality in healthcare, which was published in the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
• Assistant Professor Frank Badu-Baiden’s study of the factors influencing consumers’ acceptance of drone food delivery, including the role of usefulness, emotions and perceived risk, which was published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management.

The No. 1 ShanghaiRanking placement builds on Rosen College’s continued excellence in curriculum, research and workforce impact as Universal Destinations & Experiences (UDX) joined Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ as a Pegasus Partner in June to establish the Universal School of Experience Leadership & Innovation. Through this partnership, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ and UDX will further explore:

• Service robotics and human-centered approaches to shape guest and employee interactions

• AR and VR simulation technologies for training, operations, and immersive environments
• AI and digital twins for optimizing and personalizing the guest experience

Advancing Transportation Safety and Technology

With more than 23.4 million residents in 2025, Florida is the nation’s third most populated state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In the same year, the Sunshine State welcomed 143.3 million visitorsÌýas America’s No. 1 domestic travel destination, according to Visit Florida.

As residents and tourists navigate around the state, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ researchers are working to improve transportation challenges related to roadway safety, emerging mobility technologies and other areas.

Abdel-Aty and Associate Professor Shaurya Agarwal lead multiple projects funded by U.S. and Florida Departments of Transportation to develop safety plans and demonstrate technologies across various Florida counties.

One examines Florida’s Regional Advanced Mobility Elements, or IFRAME, project along Interstate 4 between Orlando and Tampa. The study is evaluating the performance of advanced transportation technologies to inform decisions about future investments to enhance safety and mobility.

Research Assistant Professor Zubayer Islam and Abdel-Aty’s Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) project — the first of its kind in the Southeast — evaluates the effectiveness and enhancements of the agency’s Flex Lanes Program on sections of its expressway. It is the latest development in Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s longstanding partnership with the CFX.

For nearly 14 years, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ has worked to make highways safer by tackling wrong-way driving, one of the nation’s deadliest roadway hazards. An international expert in transportation engineering, planning and operations, Professor Haitham Al-Deek, in partnership with CFX, designed, implemented and evaluated wrong-way driving and prevention system technology to detect and deter wrong-way driving on high-speed roads. Deployed across the CFX system, it has achieved an 88.5% driver self-correction rate, the highest known worldwide, which is well supported by the largest amount of data collected on the performance of the invented technology.

Al-Deek and his students also invented the nation’s first algorithm to help transportation agencies identify wrong-way driving hotspots and prioritize improvements for greatest safety impact with maximum economic efficiency. Through competitively won contracts at state and national levels, this algorithm was implemented for five transportation networks throughout Florida and Idaho.

“According to the data we collected, the deployed lifesaving technology on CFX transportation network helped 2,541 out of the detected 2,870 wrong-way drivers self-correct and turn around safely as of June 2026,� Al-Deek says.

Research That Translates to Daily Impact

Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s performance in transportation science and technology and hospitality and tourism management reflects two distinct research strengths while also demonstrating how the university is improve daily life across the region, state and nation. The 2026 ShanghaiRanking Global Ranking of Academic Subjects also show Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ is making an impact in Public Administration as the No. 11 program in the nation and Law as the No. 25 program across the U.S.

As artificial intelligence (AI), virtual assistants and robots become increasingly woven into everyday life, more researchers are asking this question: What happens when technology stops being just a tool and becomes something we can communicate with?

Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ faculty have spent years helping create a field dedicated to finding the answers.

“Human-machine communication is about studying how humans perceive and interact with technology as a communicator rather than simply as a tool.”

This summer, human-machine communication (HMC) reached a major milestone when the International Communication Association (ICA) elevated it from an interest group to an official Division, recognizing it as an established area of communication research. The achievement reflects the rapid growth of a field exploring how emerging technologies are reshaping the way people communicate, form relationships and make decisions.

“Human-machine communication is about studying how humans perceive and interact with technology as a communicator rather than simply as a tool,” Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Sciences Professor Jihyun Kim says. “It’s about communicating with machine agents as interaction partners.”

Among those who helped shape the field are faculty members Kim and Professor Patric Spence, whose leadership has contributed to HMC’s development both at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ and within the international research community.

When Technology Becomes the Communicator

Traditional studies of technology-mediated communication typically examine technology as a channel connecting people. HMC shifts the focus to interactions between people and technologies such as AI assistants, social robots and virtual companions.

Researchers explore how these interactions can influence everything from trust and relationships to decision-making and communication.

Although scholars have studied human-computer interaction for decades, HMC is a relatively young field within the communication discipline. It formally emerged in 2015, bringing together researchers interested in studying machines not simply as tools, but as communicators.

Since then, the rapid adoption of generative AI has accelerated both public interest and scholarly research.

Kim, who recently completed a four-year leadership term with ICA’s Human-Machine Communication Interest Group, witnessed that growth firsthand.

“During my four years in leadership, I saw a drastic increase in the volume of HMC research,” she says. “I also saw scholars from interpersonal communication, organizational communication, public relations and many other communication specialties begin collaborating to better understand AI from their own perspectives.”

“We’re studying how humans perceive AI and communicate with it for good outcomes.”

But as public conversations increasingly focus on whether AI could replace human work or relationships, Kim says that’s a common misconception about human-machine communication research.

“A lot of times people assume we’re glorifying AI, but that’s not what we study,” Kim says. “We’re studying how humans perceive AI and communicate with it for good outcomes.”

Her own research explores how people perceive and interact with AI or machine agents and how people can instead use AI to strengthen, rather than replace, human relationships.

“I’m studying augmentation,â€� Kim says. “How can AI help strengthen the relationships we already have? How can we communicate with AI more effectively, so it enhances our social relationships instead of replacing them?”

Building a Scholarly Home

As interest in HMC grew, so did the need for a dedicated scholarly community.

Spence was among the founding members who organized the first HMC post-conference in 2016, creating one of the first formal spaces where researchers with shared interests could collaborate and exchange ideas.

“Through our research and leadership, we’ve helped put Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ on the international stage.”

He later helped establish the journal, which launched in 2020 and is hosted under a Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ domain. Before its creation, researchers published HMC studies across broader communication journals, as no publication was dedicated exclusively to the emerging field. The journal provided a central platform for sharing HMC research and scholarship, building an international academic community, and further positioning Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ as a leader in the discipline.

“Whenever we do something meaningful in this field, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ is represented alongside that achievement,” Kim says. “Through our research and leadership, we’ve helped put Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ on the international stage.”

Kim continued that work during her tenure as vice chair and later chair of ICA’s Human-Machine Communication Interest Group.Ìý She focused on mentoring early-career researchers, expanding the field’s international presence and helping prepare the review dossier that ultimately led to HMC’s elevation to Division status.

From Momentum to Milestone

For Kim, the new designation signals more than organizational growth.

“[The recognition] especially matters for junior scholars because they’re contributing to a discipline that’s formally recognized by the world’s largest communication association.”

“Having this formal recognition within the International Communication Association sends the message that human-machine communication is now an established field,” Kim says. “It especially matters for junior scholars because they’re contributing to a discipline that’s formally recognized by the world’s largest communication association.”

The milestone is expected to create new opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration, including partnerships with researchers studying AI from technical, behavioral and social perspectives.

And as AI continues to evolve, Kim believes HMC will continue growing alongside it, helping researchers better understand not only the technologies themselves but also the people who use them.

“We want to make sure it’s not about studying bad things,” Kim says. “It’s about how we can leverage what AI offers to improve our lives and how we can communicate more effectively.”

For generations, scientists have looked to the genetics inside immune cells for ways to improve how the body fights disease.

Now, a research team led by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ College of Medicine assistant professor Hung Nguyen is examining an understudied molecule within T cells as a pathway to treatments for cancers, infections and autoimmune disorders.

Their study, recently published in Trends Open, focuses on transfer RNA (tRNA), molecules within cells that help build proteins to energize themselves. Nguyen is working to chemically modify these molecules to expand the function of T cells, specialized white blood cells that are the cornerstone of the body’s immunity. The findings represent an important first step toward understanding whether tRNA can eventually be manipulated to fine-tune immune responses to multiple diseases.

T cells play a key role in identifying and killing invasive abnormalities within the body, including infections and cancers. The cells also allow the body to remember previous infections and respond more quickly if re-infected or attacked, says Cuong Pham, a biomedical sciences Ph.D. candidate working under Nguyen who served as the study’s first author.

“T cells are already central to modern medicine,� Pham says. “At the same time, we still do not fully understand all the molecular mechanisms that determine how T cells become activated to respond. Our review brings together emerging evidence showing that tRNA modifications can help support and regulate these responses.�

This discovery comes as a continuation of Nguyen’s efforts to find innovative immunotherapies for a wide range of conditions. An early career researcher, Nguyen earned a “Reach for the Starsâ€� award from Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ in 2024 for his potential for significant impact.

An Innovative Approach to Immunity

Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s research is the first time scientists have tested modifying mitochondrial tRNA in T cells to change their behavior, Nguyen says.

“We are looking at the tRNA modification within T cells that have never been reported,� he says. “In the field, tRNA modification is not so new. For T cells, researchers have been focusing on all the other parts before now.�

The discovery came as a result of an active project in Nguyen’s lab that is examining how diet can affect the immune response inÌý cancer patients.

“I wouldn’t say we found this by accident, but we were very lucky,� Nguyen says. “We examined the mitochondria of the T cell, and we kept looking at all the different layers and targets and then we arrived at the tRNA.�

Studying tRNA is challenging because the molecules are short and densely packed, making them difficult to analyze and modify, Nguyen says.

So the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ team used cutting edge technology called liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). The highly sensitive technique separates massive quantities of molecules in a sample and then identifies and measures them.

“It is very new for use in detecting tRNA, and it was so important for us to see how everything worked,� Nguyen says.

Results Could Impact Other Immunity Research

In the study, the team genetically engineered the tRNA to give T cells signals to activate against specific disease cells.

While the research is still in its early stages, Nguyen says that they have already identified ways to modify T cells to pinpoint and fight melanoma, colon cancer and lupus.

Nguyen says he hopes his new findings will provide a way for other researchers to create new immunotherapies.

“We want to share these ideas with the greater science community and bring everyone together to help us validate them and ultimately benefit more people,� he says.

Drawn to Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ for its opportunities for interdisciplinary research, Pham says he’s looking forward to being a part of what’s next in the College of Medicine’s immunology efforts.

“The next step is to move deeper into the mechanisms behind these observations,� Pham says. “Our lab has strong and ambitious research directions in immunometabolism. We want to understand how those changes in tRNA influence T cell metabolism and function, and whether specific pathways can eventually be targeted to ultimately help patients.�

Minh Tuyet Le Nguyen, a Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ postdoctoral scholar, and the Hanoi University of Pharmacy in Vietnam also contributed to the research.

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Heart, Lung, And Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01HL166820. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

“NSF invests in small businesses that bring the most innovative cutting-edge technologies to the market and society,� says Erwin Gianchandani, NSF assistant director for TIP. “By closing this gap that is known as the ‘valley of death,’ NSF aims to strengthen our commitment to translational research and further develop innovation ecosystems in the United States.�

The “valley of death� refers to a stage at which a new technology innovation has been substantially de-risked but the technology has not yet been commercially proven, making it difficult to attract funding or other support needed to achieve commercial viability.

“NCTI builds on Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s growing national leadership in helping promising technologies become products, companies and economic growth.â€� — Alexander N. Cartwright, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ president

“Many NSF-supported small businesses have the potential to become great commercial successes and contribute significantly to economic growth and job creation throughout the nation,� says Lesia Crumpton-Young, TIP section head for small businesses. “We want to support small businesses to overcome the hurdles common to commercializing deep technology innovations.�

Led by the Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s National Commercialization and Translation Institute (NCTI), the pilot will examine the factors, conditions and approaches that lead to the successful transition of deep technology innovations to nationally impactful technologies.

The institute represents the latest evolution of a commercialization pipeline Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ has spent years developing. Through initiatives including the Southeast Hub of NSF I-Corps, NSF Accelerating Research Translation (ART) and the Florida Semiconductor Engine, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ has helped researchers evaluate commercial opportunities, advance emerging technologies and strengthen regional innovation. NCTI will build on that foundation by expanding Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s commercialization efforts to companies nationwide.

Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems , principal investigator for NCTI, will lead the institute, which will provide commercialization funding, expert mentorship and investor connections to SBIR/STTR Phase II and Phase IIB funded companies, while evaluating which approaches most effectively help deep technology Ìýcompanies reach the marketplace.

“We are grateful to the National Science Foundation for its continued confidence in Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ and for the opportunity to help shape the future of research translation and commercialization,â€� says Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ President Alexander N. Cartwright. “Discovery reaches its greatest potential when it moves beyond the laboratory and improves lives, strengthens industries and creates opportunity. NCTI builds on Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s growing national leadership in helping promising technologies become products, companies and economic growth. With Central Florida’s extraordinary concentration of talent, industry and innovation, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ is well positioned to build a model that can deliver impact for Florida and across the nation.â€�

“Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s readiness to lead this national effort is anchored by our highly integrated entrepreneurial infrastructure critical in the ‘lab-to-market’ pipeline,â€� says Winston Schoenfeld, vice president for research and innovation. “NCTI will ensure that federally funded technologies successfully transition into investor-ready commercial enterprises.â€�

“Providing a ‘bridge’ to support our late-stage NSF-funded companies will move their impactful innovation to the market more quickly and thereby benefit the national economy.� — Peter Atherton, program director for NSF Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer.

“A validated technology is a scientific achievement, but it isn’t yet a business. Many NSF SBIR Phase II companies hold genuinely de-risked technologies, yet still lack the business expertise, infrastructure, and capital access to turn that validation into a viable company,� Garibay says. “NCTI completes that pipeline rather than duplicating any part of it: we coordinate the full continuum of federal resources, managing the handoffs from I-Corps customer discovery through to commercialization support, so each company knows where it stands and what comes next.�

The pilot will support a select group of NSF-funded small businesses at the later stages of deep technology research and development through funding, mentoring, and connections, paired with concierge-level individualized support: diagnostic triage, an individualized commercialization plan, dedicated mentor teams, and curated introductions to customers, investors, industry, and national laboratories.

“Providing a ‘bridge’ to support our late-stage NSF-funded companies will move their impactful innovation to the market more quickly and thereby benefit the national economy,� says Peter Atherton, program director for NSF Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer.

Each stage of the pilot will be structured and independently evaluated. Designed as a scalable model, the results of the pilot will determine whether to establish a long-term program.

Learn more about the .

Florida firefighters routinely respond to people enduring the worst moments of their lives. But understanding when those experiences — along with the professional and personal stresses firefighters face — place the responders themselves at risk has historically been difficult.

Now researchers at Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ RESTORES r have created one of the clearest statewide pictures yet of suicide among Florida fire service members, identifying 307 deaths between 1999 and March 2026 by linking nearly three decades of state records.

Founded in 2011, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ RESTORES provides its evidence-based clinical treatment services to individuals experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-related concerns — with 76% of first responders no longer meeting the criteria for PTSD after treatment.

The research was led by , Ph.D., Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ RESTORES deputy executive director and research associate professor, and , Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow and licensed clinical psychologist at the clinic. Working with the Florida Department of Health and Florida Division of State Fire Marshal, they connected previously separate state datasets to identify patterns that could help inform suicide prevention efforts throughout firefighters’ careers and beyond.

“The driving factor was to have a more reliable and valid mechanism to track suicide in the state,� says O’Dare says. “But really to inform prevention efforts because we don’t want to just quantify the deaths. We want to use the information to be able to help inform what we’re doing to prevent as many of those losses as we can.�

Building a Clearer Picture

Historically, researchers have lacked a reliable way to track deaths by suicide among first responders. While organizations have attempted to document these deaths, O’Dare says available information often relied on self-reporting or other methods that made it difficult to establish a consistent baseline.

Finding a better approach required bringing together information that already existed across different state agencies.

“What’s made it possible? Really, partnerships,� O’Dare says. “It’s a complex problem, and one person or one group can’t do it all.�

Researchers linked de-identified vital statistics with firefighter certification and emergency medical services licensure records. Winch then helped clean and analyze the data, allowing the team to examine patterns across age, career status, veteran status and method of death.

“It’s a complex problem, and one person or one group can’t do it all.â€�—Kellie O’Dare, deputy executive director of Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ RESTORES

The findings revealed several potential areas for prevention. Deaths were most concentrated among fire service members ages 35-54 years, while nearly one-third occurred among those 55 and older. More than a third of members with known licensure status were inactive at the time of death, and firearms accounted for 66.4% of the deaths identified. Veterans also represented 30.5% of cases with known veteran status.

According to an earlier study by O’Dare and Winch, annual counts were lower in earlier years but increased around 2009 and continued trending upward after 2014, including 21 deaths in 2024 and 18 in 2025. To better understand this increase, the researchers are examining factors such as changes in workforce size, credentialing, occupational conditions and data collection methods.

The researchers emphasize that the findings represent descriptive counts rather than rates and cannot determine why any individual death occurred. Instead, the patterns provide a foundation for identifying questions and opportunities for further research and prevention.

Supporting Firefighters Throughout Their Careers

For O’Dare, one particularly important finding was the number of people who were no longer active in the fire service when they died.

Leaving a department can mean losing access to the relationships and sense of community that can become an important source of support for firefighters throughout their careers.

“The fire service culture is incredibly important,� O’Dare says. “The kitchen table at the firehouse is an incredibly important component of social support.�

That transition can also happen relatively early. O’Dare says firefighters may retire in their 40s or 50s and then face the challenge of adjusting to life outside a profession that provided a strong sense of identity and purpose.

The findings point toward the importance of viewing behavioral health as something that should be supported throughout a firefighter’s career — not only after someone reaches a crisis.

For Winch, that also means recognizing that behavioral health among first responders extends beyond PTSD.

“PTSD, I always like to say, is part of the picture, but it’s not the whole picture,� Winch says. “Unfortunately, there is this misrepresentation that trauma equals PTSD, and that’s not necessarily true.�

Repeated exposure to traumatic and high-stress situations can intersect with anxiety, depression, substance misuse, occupational pressures and challenges at home. At the same time, Winch says firefighters may hesitate to seek treatment because of stigma or concerns about what acknowledging a behavioral health problem could mean for their careers.

Building trust, she says, requires more than simply making resources available.

“You have to show up and you have to make yourself known to these departments so that stigma gets reduced,� Winch says.

Moving From Response to Prevention

The findings come alongside the rollout of the Florida State Fire Marshal’s Zero Suicide Prevention Framework, which adopts the nationally recognized Zero Suicide model for Florida’s fire service.

Rather than relying on isolated mental health or suicide prevention trainings, the framework is designed to integrate prevention into leadership, training, access to care and department operations throughout firefighters’ entire careers. It’s seven interconnected elements — Lead, Train, Identify, Engage, Treat, Transition and Improve — provide a structure for departments to build sustained behavioral health support.

Ultimately, O’Dare says she hopes the work helps continue a cultural shift away from viewing behavioral health only through illness or crisis and toward treating wellness, resilience and readiness as parts of a firefighter’s entire career.

Winch hopes the findings can help accelerate that change before another department experiences a loss.

“I would love for this report to be a wake-up call without needing more devastation,� Winch says. “There are plenty of agencies that fully buy into having more prevention, but we need that to be statewide.�

Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ RESTORES is now conducting related research to move from these descriptive findings toward more advanced analyses of relative risk, geographic distribution, protective factors and prevention opportunities.

Support and treatment are available to those in need. Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ RESTORES provides no-cost, evidence-based trauma care, and its  peer support network offers firefighters, law enforcement officers, and emergency dispatchers confidential, 24/7 access to peers who understand the realities of the job. Learn more at . If you are in crisis, please call, text, or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

Researchers in Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½â€™s Department of English and (CHDR) are slated to (NEH) to create searchable digital editions of Webster’s historic dictionaries, giving scholars, educators and the public unprecedented access to foundational texts that helped shape American English.

The two-year grant will support Noah Webster’s Dictionary Online: Preserving America’s Revolutionary Language Heritage. The project is led by Beth Young, associate professor of English, with co-principal investigators CHDR Associate Director Brook Miller and Professor of English Mark Kamrath, who is co-director of CHDR.

The project will also expand educational opportunities for Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ students.

Undergraduate and graduate students will contribute to proofreading, digital editing and semantic text tagging while gaining internship and research experience across several academic programs. Postdoctoral fellow Abigail Moreshead ’11 ’17MA ’23PhD will help conduct research and supervise the student team, and XML (extensible markup language) Specialist William Dorner ’07 ’10MA ’15PhD will oversee the technical encoding.

Bringing Webster’s Words Into the Digital Age

The project builds on two previous NEH-funded digital humanities initiatives. Drawing on the experience of creating Johnson’s Dictionary Online, the team will create comprehensive digital editions of Webster’s The Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806) and An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).

“This grant enables us to provide digital editions … that are as reliable, accurate and searchable as today’s scholarship demands.” — Beth Rapp Young, Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ associate professor of English

“Noah Webster believed that our new nation needed its own language, not just its own government,â€� says Young, an affiliate scholar with CHDR. “He correctly predicted that American English would one day be spoken by ‘300 millions’ of people. This grant enables us to provide digital editions of Webster’s dictionaries that are as reliable, accurate and searchable as today’s scholarship demands.â€�

Unlike existing online versions, which primarily consist of scanned pages or basic text transcriptions, the new editions will include advanced search capabilities, complete transcriptions, high-quality images and scholarly annotations.

The team aims to complete the searchable 1828 edition in time for its 200th anniversary in 2028, followed by the 1806 edition.

Together, the dictionaries capture American English as it was developing during the nation’s formative years, preserving the language used in early American law, politics, education and everyday life.

The project also builds on the , an initiative led by Mark Kamrath that aims to identify, transcribe, organize and ultimately edit the post-revolutionary author’s uncollected writings, making them searchable in an electronic environment. Webster’s dictionaries are from the same era and provide a bridge to understanding Brockden’s texts.

More Than a Dictionary

Webster’s dictionaries remain valuable resources for literary, historical and legal scholarship more than two centuries after their publication. According to the project proposal, courts continue to reference the dictionaries when interpreting the original meaning of constitutional and legal terms, while educators use them to help students understand the language of America’s founding era. The Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ team has already seen evidence of this type of use with Johnson’s Dictionary Online, with the resource being cited by The Atlantic, The New York Times, and U.S. federal and district courts.

By making the texts easier to search and study, the project will enable users to explore Webster’s work in ways that scans can’t.

CHDR’s Susan Xiao will serve as the project’s lead programmer, overseeing development of the digital platform that will power the searchable editions. The website currently hosts full-page images and will ultimately feature advanced search tools, scholarly annotations, and high-resolution entry images designed to make Webster’s landmark dictionaries more accessible to researchers, educators, and the public.

CHDR will host and maintain the project, building on its experience supporting digital humanities initiatives.

Noah Webster’s Dictionary Online: Preserving America’s Revolutionary Language Heritage will be made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this project do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.Ìý

As it drifts inward through the solar system, the frozen body known as Centaur 450P/LONEOS has begun releasing gas and dust — behavior more commonly associated with comets than with Centaurs, the small icy objects that typically orbit between Jupiter and Neptune.

Now, researchers led by Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Planetary Scientist and Associate Professor Charles Schambeau say they may be witnessing the early stages of a centaur transforming into a comet.

Using observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, scientists detected carbon dioxide gas, icy dust and signs of recent thermal activity surrounding 450P/LONEOS.Ìý The findings, accepted for publication in the Planetary Science Journal, could provide new insight into how distant icy bodies evolve into active comets as they migrate inward through the solar system.

“Centaurs are scientifically important because they are thought to be transitional objects that originated farther out in the solar system and are slowly evolving toward becoming Jupiter-family comets. In that sense, they give us a way to study relatively primitive material from the outer solar system while it is beginning to respond to stronger solar heating.�

A Close Encounter with Saturn

Researchers believe 450P/LONEOS began “waking up� after a close gravitational encounter with Saturn in 1992 significantly altered its orbit.

The research team, which included Researcher Scientist Maria Womack and Professor Yan Fernandez and graduate student Aren Beck, found that the interaction moved the object inward from a more distant trajectory bringing its perihelion, the point in its orbit closest to the sun, closer to Jupiter.

As the centaur moved closer to the sun, researchers observed the gradual formation of a faint coma, a cloud of gas and dust surrounding the object commonly associated with cometary activity. Continued monitoring between 2019 and 2024 showed that the coma became increasingly visible as the object’s distance from the sun decreased.

“That increased solar heating can warm the surface and subsurface layers of the nucleus,� Schambeau says. “As those layers heat up, volatile ices or trapped gases can be released, which can drag dust away from the surface and produce a coma.�

Detecting Carbon Dioxide in Deep Space

One of the study’s most significant discoveries came from the James Webb Space Telescope, which detected carbon dioxide gas surrounding 450P/LONEOS at a distance where ordinary water ice would typically vaporize efficiently.

Researchers found strong evidence of carbon dioxide emission but no signs of water vapor or carbon monoxide, suggesting carbon dioxide is likely driving the centaur’s activity.

The observations also revealed icy dust grains within the coma, including possible signs of crystalline water ice — material that may preserve evidence of the object’s thermal evolution as it warms in its new orbit.

“The carbon dioxide detection was important because it directly identified one of the gases likely driving the activity,� Schambeau says. “At 450P’s distance from the sun, the nucleus is too cold for normal water-ice sublimation to be the main activity source, so detecting CO₂ gives us an important clue about what is powering the coma. The possible crystalline water ice is also interesting because it suggests that some of the ice in the coma has experienced heating or physical processing, rather than remaining completely unchanged since formation.�

Understanding How Comets Begin

Only a relatively small fraction of known centaurs show visible activity, making objects like 450P/LONEOS especially valuableÌý for studying how primitive icy bodies evolve over time.

The research suggests the object’s recent activity may be linked to warming beneath its surface. As buried amorphous ice — an irregular form of ice that traps gases inside its porous structure — warms and transforms intoÌý crystalline ice, it releases carbon dioxide gas into space, carrying dust with it and creating the coma.

“Studying objects like 450P helps us connect different stages of small-body evolution.�— Charles Schambeau, research associate professor, Florida Space Institute

“We think this process may explain how 450P became active after its orbit changed and it began receiving more sunlight,� Schambeau says. “The released gas can escape through the porous nucleus and lift dust grains into the surrounding coma.�

Together, the findings may provide scientists with a better understanding of how distant icy bodies gradually evolveÌý into the active comets that periodically visit the inner solar system.

“Studying objects like 450P helps us connect different stages of small-body evolution,� Schambeau says. “Centaurs are likely related to trans-Neptunian objects, and some will eventually become short-period comets. By studying their activity, surface properties, and volatile composition, we can learn how comet nuclei change as they move inward through the solar system, how long they preserve primitive ices, and what physical processes turn an otherwise quiet icy body into an active comet.�

This research was supported by NASA’s Solar System Observations Program under award number 80NSSC23K0678, the Space Telescope Science Institute through award JWST-GO-02416 and the Florida Space Research Initiative.