Faculty and Graduate Students

Dr. Josh Colwell is a Planetary Scientist and Professor of Physics at the University of Central Florida. Since 2011 he has been Associate Chair of the Department of Physics, Assistant Director of the Florida Space Institute, and Director of the Center for Microgravity Research. He came to UCF in 2006 from the Laboratory for Atmospheric…

Joseph J. LaViola Jr. is the Charles N. Millican Professor of Computer Science and directs the Interactive Computing Experiences Research Cluster at the University of Central Florida. He is also an adjunct associate research professor in the Computer Science Department at Brown University and the former director of the Modeling and Simulation graduate program. His primary research interests…

Dr. Jay Kapat is the Pegasus Professor and the Trustee Chair Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He is also the Founding Director of the Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research or CATER, and Associate Director for Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion. Dr. Kapat joined UCF in 1997. He received his…

Dr. Bridge’s research group focuses on the analysis of trace evidence forensic materials to understand the uniqueness of chemical features. Using a variety of mass spectrometry techniques, they look to develop analytical methods that can increase the validity and evidentiary value of forensic evidence, which is determined using chemometric statistical techniques. Her group researches types…

The main goal of my research is to advance the frontiers of analytical techniques for the determination of chemicals of environmental, forensic and toxicological importance, research with high intrinsic scientific merit and far-reaching societal impact. STEM students joining our efforts will participate on developing analytical methodology for monitoring polycyclic aromatic compounds in the Gulf of…

Dr. Alain Kassab is a professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UCF.  His primary research interests are in bio-engineering, computational heat transfer and fluid flow, inverse problems, boundary elements and meshless methods.  He has over 300 scientific publications including 108 journal papers, 218 refereed international and national archival…

Dr. Wisniewski is a Human-Computer Interaction researcher whose work lies at the intersection of Social Computing and Privacy. She is particularly interested in the interplay between social media, privacy, and online safety for adolescents. She has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications and has won multiple best papers (top 1%) and best paper honorable mentions (top…

Lori Dunlop-Pyle is an Associate Instructor of Mathematics. She started at UCF as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in 1996 and became an Instructor after graduating. Her research interest is mathematics education.