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The University of Florida recognized the rock icon and Gainesville hometown hero with an honorary Doctor of Music degree at the 2023 commencement ceremonies.

The Petty commitment to supporting music mentorship and artistic freedom lives on with a $100,000 gift from the family to establish the UF School of Music's Tom Petty Endowment for Guitars and Innovation. 

Honorary UF grad: Dr. Tom Petty

UF robotic researchers and horse experts are teaming up as the first to study human-horse behaviors in an effort to design robots capable of more natural, fun and efficient exchanges. 

Read more: https://news.ufl.edu/2023/04/human-horse-partnership/

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The future of human-robot interactions

Lightning strikes are the #1 cause of wildfires and each year there are around 12 million in Florida. These lightning-ignited fires usually take days to identify and control. 

Using artificial intelligence, Fire Neural Network has reduced this to 40 seconds — delivering accurate, real-time information to fire managers and  help stop uncontrolled wildfires. 

Finding fires with lightning speed

Women in science at the University of Florida are at the brink of creating world-changing innovations. One woman scientist in particular is bringing us closer to growing plants in space. Dr. Anna-Lisa Paul always knew she wanted to be a scientist, but never could have imagined she'd be the first woman to grow plants in lunar soil. Her team at UF/IFAS has sent experiments on space shuttles, to the International Space Station, and on suborbital flights.

Learn more about her work with lunar plants: https://fal.cn/3xuNV 

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UF women in science are bringing us closer to growing plants in space

The Pride of the Sunshine is headed to the Cork St. Patrick's Day parade, where over 340 students will share the sound of Gator Nation with Ireland for the first time.

Tune in for the Gator Band live performance on March 17 at 9 a.m. https://fal.cn/3wyXY

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The Fightin' Gator Marching Band travels to Ireland

UF and @NVIDIA are moving us toward a future with more women in AI. 

Women in AI are leading the way at UF

For the first time in 125 years, a team led by Dr. Tracie Baker embarked on a 130 mile coast-to-coast expedition to assess humanity's impact on the Florida Everglades — identifying harmful pollutants and working to preserve one of the world’s most important watersheds.

This critical research will bridge and improve human, animal and environmental health, inspire citizens to be better stewards of our shared habitat and better equip others to move this science forward. 

Read more on this expedition: https://news.ufl.edu/2022/10/willoughby-expedition/

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Retracing the 1897 Willoughby' Expedition in the Florida Everglades

Dr. Jeremy Waisome, assistant professor in the Department of Engineering Education at the University of Florida, is making mentorship a priority for UF engineers.

As a graduate student, Waisome didn't receive the advising that she had hoped for and this experience isn't uncommon. She attributes her success to her mentors, and she now strives to offer a community of mentors to students so they too can achieve their full potential.

Dr. Waisome also highlighted the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) as being a great resource for student exposure to the engineering field. Without this organization, many students wouldn't consider engineering as an option.

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Exploring passions and unlocking potential

GeoSPACE offers an accessible and inclusive geoscience field course to ensure that students with disabilities can participate in meaningful field experiences — removing barriers to STEM careers. 

Learn more about how this program is opening the Earth sciences: https://explore.research.ufl.edu/field-tested.html

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UF offers inclusive, accessible fieldwork opportunities

Research suggests that political stress can negatively impact the health of certain populations, regardless of party affiliation. 

A recent study by a University of Florida Health researcher and his collaborators might link presidential election stress to increased blood pressure, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities. Additionally, this trend appears to be driven by a rise in blood pressure among women. 

Read the full story: https://fal.cn/3vkt8

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Political stress can raise blood pressure around election season

From partnering with IBM and NVIDIA to developing a K-12 AI education program, we're using AI at UF to build the AI university of the future — addressing society's most pressing challenges and moving the world forward.

Learn more about AI at UF: https://ai.ufl.edu/

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AI Year in Review 2022

sunsentinel-what-happens-when-parents-go-beyond-sharenting

Sun-Sentinel: What happens when parents go beyond sharenting?

Director | Professor

 So many parents routinely share photos and news about their kids on social media that the behavior has a name: sharenting. Usually harmless and well-meaning, it can also take a dangerous turn, exposing children to online predators, allowing companies to collect personal information and creating pathways for children to become victimized by identity theft.

The risks are most pervasive when parents overshare to profit from their social media accounts. Whenever parents share, they are the gatekeepers, tasked with protecting their children’s information, but they are also the ones unlatching the gates. When parents profit from opening the gates, it is especially challenging to balance protecting their kids’ privacy against sharing their stories.

Federal and state laws typically give wide deference to parents to raise their children as they see fit. But the state can and does intervene when parents abuse their children. Those laws protect children in the physical world. However, few laws shield children when parents risk harming them online.

 Let’s consider this hypothetical situation based on a composite of real-life events. Mia (fictional name) is a 7-year-old girl growing up in Orlando. Her mother is a stay-at-home parent who has a public Instagram account and considers herself an influencer. Many lingerie brands pay Mia’s mom to model their clothing. When a lingerie company from overseas offers Mia’s mom some money to have Mia also pose in their clothing, Mia’s mom says yes.

Over the next few weeks, Mia and her mom model the clothing together in pictures and videos, sometimes wearing the outfits while reading together in bed, having pillow fights or being playful around the house — always in clearly intimate but arguably appropriate settings.

Mia’s mom’s social media page explodes with new followers, many of whom appear to be grown men. The images on the page receive hundreds of likes and multiple comments. Mia’s mom deletes the most inappropriate comments but leaves others, hoping to increase engagement. As Mia’s mom’s social media following grows, so does the amount of money she earns.

Mia tells her teacher about the social media page. Her teacher reaches out to Mia’s parents, to no avail. Mia’s mom keeps sharing.

The teacher sees this as a potential form of abuse and neglect and, according to her obligation as a mandatory reporter of abuse, she calls in a report to the state’s central abuse registry. The teacher isn’t trying to get Mia’s mom in criminal trouble, but she thinks the family could use some education surrounding safe social media use and possibly access to financial support if they need this type of online exposure to pay the bills. The intake counselor declines to accept the hotline call.

The counselor explains that the posting of pictures is not grounds for an abuse, abandonment or neglect investigation. The parent is sharenting, the counselor says, and that is within a parent’s right. Of course, child sexual abuse material is illegal, but the photos posted by Mia’s mom fall into a gray area — not illegal material, but likely harmful to Mia. Should there be a law to stop this?

I believe there should be.

Just as our views regarding child abuse have evolved, so must our views on sharenting. Merely 150 years ago, it was legal for parents to beat their children. It wasn’t until 1874, when a little girl named Mary Ellen was beaten severely by her caregiver, that courts began to step in. Drawing from existing laws prohibiting animal cruelty, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals argued that Mary Ellen had the right to be free from abuse. At the time, there were laws protecting animals from harm by their caregivers but no laws protecting children from such harm!

Back to the present: Mia’s disclosure to her teacher could have changed her life and led to her family getting online safety help, if only the child welfare laws were suitably tailored to protect her in the online world as they attempt to do offline. Child protection laws should be expanded to include harms that can be caused by online sharing.

The law can both protect parental autonomy and honor children’s privacy through a comprehensive and multidisciplinary new approach toward protecting children online — one that allows for thoughtful investigation, education, remediation and prosecution of parents who use social media in ways that are significantly harmful to their children.

This conduct, which falls beyond sharenting, is ripe for legal interventions that reset the balance between a parent’s right to share and a child’s right to online privacy and safety.

Stacey Steinberg grew up in West Palm Beach and now lives in Gainesville, where she is a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law; the supervising attorney for the Gator TeamChild Juvenile Law Clinic; the director of the Center on Children and Families; and the author of “Beyond Sharenting,” forthcoming in the Southern California Law Review. This piece was also published in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.  

the-health-challenges-astronauts-butch-wilmore-and-suni-williams-face-after-9-months-in-space

The health challenges astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams face after 9 months in space

Professor

 On June 5, 2024, astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams embarked on a brief mission to the International Space Station. But equipment failures turned what was supposed to be an eight-day trip into a grueling 9 month spaceflight.

This week, Wilmore and Williams finally returned to Earth. While their safe return is cause for celebration, the journey doesn’t end when astronauts touch down on Earth. They now face the significant task of recovering from the physical and psychological toll of long-duration spaceflight.

As part of the University of Florida’s ongoing research into astronaut health, Rachael Seidler, Ph.D., a leading expert in spaceflight-associated health changes, is studying the long-term effects of space travel on astronauts’ brains and bodies. Seidler’s research focuses on understanding how the central nervous system and brain structure adapt to the challenges of space travel, as well as how these changes affect performance, balance, and mobility once astronauts return to Earth.

“While the physical and psychological challenges astronauts face after returning from long-duration space missions are well-documented, the research we do at UF is helping us understand the intricacies of their recovery process,” said Seidler, deputy director of the Astraeus Space Institute at UF. “By following astronauts like Butch and Suni before, during, and after their missions, we can track how the human body responds to the extreme conditions of space.”  Behavioral and Brain Changes Post-Flight Seidler’s research tracks astronauts’ physical and neurological recovery by observing them both during their missions and after they return.

"One of the most immediate challenges astronauts face when they return to Earth is mobility and balance. These issues often recover more quickly compared to others, but it takes time for astronauts to readjust to gravity,” Seidler said. "The balance, mobility, and walking difficulties astronauts experience during the first weeks back are typically resolved in a short period, but brain function and structure require longer recovery periods."  Seidler’s research indicates that astronauts’ brains exhibit compensation when they return to Earth following spaceflight. This compensation occurs through the recruitment of additional neural pathways in order to return to their preflight performance levels. However, the recovery of brain function is a gradual process. "This brain functional compensation is typically no longer observed within one to six  months post-flight," Seidler said.

However, not all changes are reversible. "Brain structural changes, particularly related to fluid shifts in space, show little to no recovery even after six months to a year," Seidler said. Two significant structural changes include the brain physically sitting higher in the skull and the expansion of the brain’s ventricles — fluid-filled cavities in the brain — which can increase in volume by 25% or more. These changes are thought to result from the fluid shifts caused by microgravity, and they present long-term health considerations for astronauts.

 Long-Term Health Effects: Understanding the Impact As Wilmore and Williams embark on their recovery journey, the long-term impact of these changes becomes a critical focus for researchers like Seidler. "The long-term health impacts are crucial to understand because they could affect how astronauts recover and perform in their daily lives post-mission," she said.

Seidler’s team at UF is conducting a new study in which they are tracking astronauts for up to five years post-flight to better understand these long-term effects. "We’ve had astronauts in space for up to a year, and we know how to manage their physical health during those missions," Seidler said. "But the effects of space on the brain and body extend beyond the mission, and our work helps inform strategies to manage recovery."

Collaborating with NASA and Studying Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome Seidler's work is also part of a broader collaboration with NASA and other scientists to assess astronaut long-term health. The project is particularly focused on Spaceflight-Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome, which affects up to 70% of astronauts. This condition involves structural changes to the eye and optic nerve, leading to vision problems that may impact astronauts’ function.

"Neuropsychological assessments can help to measure astronauts’ brain health, while studies of the ocular system help identify potential vision issues that may arise during and after long-duration space missions," she said.  Simulating Space Conditions on Earth In addition to studying astronauts on Earth and in space, Seidler’s team conducts experiments to simulate the effects of spaceflight on human physiology. The UF lab runs experiments in head-down tilt bed rest studies, which keep participants lying down for weeks to months at a time to simulate the lack of gravity. "This type of study helps us understand how fluid shifts in the body during space travel affect mobility, balance, and brain structure," Seidler explained. "In addition, other publications have reported that astronauts describe that vestibular galvanic stimulation feels similar to what they experience when they first arrive in space and when they return to Earth. We have equipment to induce these effects in the lab."

Looking Toward the Future As space missions continue to grow longer and more complex, UF’s research is more important than ever. "We’re studying these issues now to ensure that future astronauts are prepared for the physical and cognitive challenges that await them in deep space," Seidler said. 

researchers-work-to-reduce-excessive-noise-in-florida-cities

Researchers work to reduce excessive noise in Florida cities

Associate Professor

  Excessive noise, or noise pollution, in cities has been linked in multiple studies to increased stress, sleep disturbances, and long-term health problems.

Researchers from the University of Florida are on a mission to quiet things down, working with local governments and a private firm to improve both public health and urban living.

Enter Martin Gold, an associate professor from UF’s School of Architecture, and his team of students. They recently partnered with Siebein Acoustic, a soundscape design firm that specializes in architectural and environmental acoustics. The team visited Fort Lauderdale, one of Florida’s busiest cities, known both as a party destination and a mecca for retirees. 

 The team studied areas throughout downtown and by the beach to provide recommendations for reducing the impact of sound in the city at large.

To inform their work, researchers recruited participants to walk the city and report on their observations about sound and sights, took photo documentation, acoustic measurements, geographical measurements and analyzed municipal code studies.   

The team proposed different improvement strategies including: Using vertical distance by requiring residential high-rise construction to limit residences in the lower floors of buildings. Limiting sound levels at windows or balconies of residential units. Building envelope systems, which are the building components that separate the indoors from the outdoors, that limit sound transmission and absorb sound. Designing new construction so buildings absorb and diffuse the sounds striking them rather than reflecting and subsequently amplifying the sounds or focusing the sounds in particular areas. Strategic zoning to incentivize designs along arterial corridors that fill the sites and provide acoustic barriers to the residential neighborhoods behind them.  “We need to take a closer look at how we are designing the next generation of urban environments. There’s a lot we can do with soundscape architecture to positively impact issues moving forward.” —Martin Gold, associate professor from UF’s School of Architecture  The findings and recommendations were presented at the International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering in Nantes, France. Gold and his students are currently surveying an area of Clearwater and plan to study more cities around the state and offer recommendations for reducing noise.


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