UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science

We're so proud! ✨

UCF researcher and cybersecurity expert Yan Solihin has been named a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), an honor that recognizes innovators whose work has made a tangible impact beyond the laboratory. The Pegasus Professor is one of 230 emerging inventors who have been selected for this honor.

Learn more about Solihin's work: https://bit.ly/3PUJog1

Five years after UCF computer science students first helped the U.S. Army Reserve build a tech solution to enhance efficiency, Knights are still improving the platform — and the impact keeps growing.

Reserve Mercury, a mobile and web application designed to replace slow, paper-based administrative processes used by Army Reserve units, is now being used by thousands of reservists nationwide: https://bit.ly/3PMGZ71

We're pleased to announce that we have selected a new associate dean of graduate affairs! David Mohaisen, a professor of computer science, will step into the role following the appointment of Ali Gordon, the current associate dean of graduate affairs, as dean of the College of Engineering at Wichita State University. Mohaisen’s appointment goes into effect on June 8.

“I am grateful for the trust placed in me by the college leadership, faculty and colleagues,” Mohaisen says. “CECS has a strong graduate enterprise with exceptional students, faculty and programs, and I look forward to contributing to its continued growth and impact.”

Join us in congratulating Mohaisen and learn more about him: https://bit.ly/4nVB0cL

We're proud to share that not one, but TWO projects from the VARLab are finalists for the 2026 Auggie awards! 🎉

These entries are the only university projects that made it to the finals; the rest are from industry. Wishing all the best to the computer science and electrical and computer engineering student teams, to the faculty leads Carolina Cruz-Neira, Dirk Reiners, Mohsen Rakhshan and technical lead Carsten Neumann! The winners will be announced next month.

Check out the projects on YouTube:

Best Use of AI
✨ Your AI Sidekick: The Twin That Gets You - A friendly, trusted digital companion, a human digital twin (HDT), designed to enhance customer service and training experiences through personalized, real-time support: https://bit.ly/3Q1wLQq

Best Interaction Product
✨ Be There Without Being There: Humanoid Robot Immersive Telepresence - Through immersive teleoperation, users inhabit a robot in real time, with full-body motion seamlessly mapped to enable natural interaction in distant environments: https://bit.ly/4dDKMLO

Associate Professor Dazhong Wu is developing AI-driven methods to predict the performance of 3D-printed parts — a breakthrough that could reduce costs and speed up adoption across industries like aerospace and healthcare. He will receive a nearly $500,000 DARPA grant to improve the additive manufacturing testing and inspection process: https://bit.ly/4dMwkBg

Congratulations to materials science and engineering alumna Cacie McDorman '20PhD, a project manager at Alleima Advanced Materials, for earning the company’s 2026 Innovation Prize! She and her team work on advancing wires used in critical medical devices such as continuous glucose monitors, hearing implants and pacemakers. The annual award recognizes excellence in product development.

Learn more about her work: https://bit.ly/43mGbJi

Congratulations to Associate Professor Yang Yang! He and researchers at the UCF Nanoscience Technology Center have discovered a cost saving, energy efficient method of producing hydrogen peroxide. Their work was recently published in Nature Communications.

Learn more about their findings: https://bit.ly/3PgHM05

For National Inventors Month, we're putting the spotlight on a team of inventors who made a big splash at this semester's Senior Design Showcase: Destiny Elllenwood, Annesley Kolb, Jordan Merkel and Camilla Torres.

They took home the Best in Show award for Blocks o’ Code, a modular, physical computing kit designed to teach fundamental programming logic, like loops, conditionals, and event handling, to young learners without the need for a keyboard.

Check out their work: https://youtu.be/7qhfFVsCHCY

Making Coding Simple and Fun With Blocks o' Code