Featured Post from University of Florida

The World Cup proved to be big for sports and Qatar's business future

Jul 5, 2023

2 min

The 2022 FIFA World Cup was one of the world’s most-watched sporting events, but it also provided an opportunity for exponential growth for business development in the Middle East.

Qatar was selected as the first country from the Middle East to host the worldwide tournament over 12 years ago, allowing plenty of time to prepare for the competition and create everlasting business relationships.

Kyriaki Kaplanidou, a UF professor and researcher, published a study in 2016 for the Journal of Business Research, working alongside her fellow colleagues.

The study followed the industrial progress made in Qatar after its 2010 selection and demonstrated how their networking efforts improved the Persian Gulf region business infrastructure.

“The country has invested a great deal of time and money to expand its physical and human resources. They’ve had to understand how business is done in other countries, learn innovative construction techniques and develop their human capital in areas of knowledge, skill and awareness of other cultures and business practices,” Kaplanidou said.

Kaplanidou and her team interviewed 24 Qatar sports organizations stakeholders, both indirectly and directly involved with the 2022 World Cup.

Her research found that almost all the interviewees highlighted Qatar’s characteristics that either impede or improve their current development status.

The most highlighted criteria pertained to labor cases pertaining to hazardous working conditions and displayed racial discrimination, as the United Nations put Qatar on blast for their treatment of infrastructure workers.

The government decided to implement changes and with the introduction of new, stricter labor laws, Qatar is now considered one of the most worker-friendly places in the Gulf Region.

Despite all the controversy surrounding the FIFA World Cup host country, fans were still excited to cheer on their team of choice, and the tournament provided Middle East countries with something to be proud of.

“It will be interesting to see if the country can reposition itself in the business world and establish its presence in other industries now that it has gained new experience and knowledge through the process of preparing for this mega event,” Kaplanidou said.

By Halle Burton

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Kyriaki Kaplanidou

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Kyriaki Kaplanidou's research explores the impacts and legacies of sport events on communities.

Olympic GamesSport Consumer Perceptions About Event ExperiencesImpacts and Legacies of Sport Events on Community DevelopmentSport Event Tourism

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Mar 17, 2026

2 min

Workplace jargon hurts employee morale, collaboration, study finds

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Mar 15, 2026

4 min

With lasers, smoke and a wind tunnel, UF helps federal agency investigate deadly Hurricane Maria

As Floridians brace for hurricanes amid the wild weather of 2025, some University of Florida researchers have their eyes on 2017’s Hurricane Maria, the deadly Category 4 storm that pummeled Puerto Rico. Engineering professor and natural hazards researcher Brian Phillips, Ph.D., is leading UF’s efforts in a Hurricane Maria investigation conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, known as NIST. The goal is increased safety and resilience amid deadly conditions. Maria killed nearly 3,000 people and caused more than $90 billion in damage. Most of the island’s wind sensors and weather stations failed as the storm raged, leaving responders and investigators with few reliable weather measurements. What went wrong? Phillips and UF storm researchers are helping answer that question — and provide safety and structural recommendations — as part of NIST’s Hurricane Maria investigation. The full report will be released in 2026, but NIST recently published preliminary findings; some of the hazard and structural load data was derived from wind tunnel tests at UF's NHERI Experimental Facility in the Powell Family Structure and Materials Laboratory on UF’s East Campus in Gainesville. “Our wind tunnel has a strong reputation in the wind-engineering community for its unique flow control and measurement capabilities We worked with NIST to develop a test campaign to study the wind conditions Puerto Rico’s mountainous terrain and the resulting loads of critical infrastructure,” said Phillips, a civil and coastal engineering professor with UF’s Engineering School of Sustainable Infrastructure & Environment. “UF,” he added, “has one of the premier research wind tunnels in the country and it enables us to pursue impactful research like this.” As part of the NIST investigation, Phillips and his team created 1-to-3100 scale topographic models of regions in Puerto Rico — about 12 kilometers shrunk down to four meters, Phillips said. They set up those models in the wind tunnel and replicated wind flow over the topography. “These initial tests were designed to understand the influence of the complex topography had on the wind,” Phillips said. Flow was measured using velocity probes and particle image velocimetry (PIV). These topographic model tests were followed by 1-to-100 scale tests on models of two hospitals in Puerto Rico. In addition to surface pressure measurements, the team conducted qualitative flow visualization tests using smoke, lasers, and high-speed cameras. “The capabilities of the UF wind tunnel enabled us to investigate the hurricane winds at two different scales,” said NIST’s lead Hurricane Maria investigator, Joseph Main, “so we could measure how the winds were accelerated by Puerto Rico’s mountainous topography and then how those winds translated into loads on critical buildings.” Maria’s flooding blocked roads to hospitals and shelters. The hospitals themselves were heavily damaged by the storm, NIST reported. Reduced access to healthcare was a major factor in the death toll. “It's good to take a step back,” Phillips said about the overall investigation. “Researchers are approaching the disaster from multiple angles, including the better understanding of the hazard, the performance of critical infrastructure, public response and recovery. “This holistic approach is needed to capture the complete picture and maximize what we can learn from the event. UF's primary contribution was understanding the hurricane wind field and the resulting structural loads, which is a critical piece of that puzzle.” In finding infrastructure vulnerabilities, researchers contend the goal is integrating their findings into design standards for Puerto Rico’s unique topography and building codes. The findings also could be valuable to other storm-prone regions with complex topography. NIST launched the investigation in 2018, noting Hurricane Maria “set off a cascade of building and infrastructure failures across Puerto Rico that had lasting impacts on society, including health care, business and education.” “Our goal is to learn from that event to recommend improvements to building codes, standards and practices that will make communities more resilient to hurricanes and other hazards, not just in Puerto Rico but across the United States,” Main said. The complete report is scheduled to be released in 2026, and NIST noted some findings may change before its release. But in July, NIST released some preliminary findings. They include: Peak wind speeds over flat terrain reached 140 mph. They accelerated to over 200 mph in some areas due to the steep hills and mountains. The mountains also intensified the rainfall, which reached 30 inches in some areas. 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Mar 12, 2026

3 min

Reading for pleasure in free fall: New study finds 40% drop over two decades

A sweeping new study from the University of Florida and University College London has found that daily reading for pleasure in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last 20 years — raising urgent questions about the cultural, educational and health consequences of a nation reading less. Published today in the journal iScience, the study analyzed data from over 236,000 Americans who participated in the American Time Use Survey between 2003 and 2023. The findings suggest a fundamental cultural shift: fewer people are carving out time in their day to read for enjoyment. “This is not just a small dip — it’s a sustained, steady decline of about 3% per year,” said Jill Sonke, Ph.D., director of research initiatives at the UF Center for Arts in Medicine and co-director of the EpiArts Lab, a National Endowment for the Arts research lab at UF in partnership with University College London. “It’s significant, and it’s deeply concerning.” Who’s reading and who isn’t The decline wasn’t evenly spread across the population. Researchers found steeper drops among Black Americans than white Americans, people with lower income or educational attainment, and those in rural (versus metropolitan) areas — highlighting deepening disparities in reading access and habits. “While people with higher education levels and women are still more likely to read, even among these groups, we’re seeing shifts,” said Jessica Bone, Ph.D., senior research fellow in statistics and epidemiology at University College London. “And among those who do read, the time spent reading has increased slightly, which may suggest a polarization, where some people are reading more while many have stopped reading altogether.” The researchers also noted some more promising findings, including that reading with children did not change over the last 20 years. However, reading with children was a lot less common than reading for pleasure, which is concerning given that this activity is tied to early literacy development, academic success and family bonding, Bone said. Why it matters Reading for pleasure has long been recognized not just as a tool for education, but as a means of supporting mental health, empathy, creativity and lifelong learning. The EpiArts Lab, which uses large data sets to examine links between the arts and health, has previously identified clear associations between creative engagement and well-being. “Reading has historically been a low-barrier, high-impact way to engage creatively and improve quality of life,” Sonke said. “When we lose one of the simplest tools in our public health toolkit, it’s a serious loss.” The American Time Use Survey offers a unique window into these trends. “We’re working with incredibly detailed data about how people spend their days,” Bone said. “And because it’s a representative sample of U.S. residents in private households, we can look not just at the national trend, but at how it plays out across different communities.” Why are Americans reading less? While causes were not part of the study, the researchers point to multiple potential factors, including the rise of digital media, growing economic pressures, shrinking leisure time and uneven access to books and libraries. “Our digital culture is certainly part of the story,” Sonke said. “But there are also structural issues — limited access to reading materials, economic insecurity and a national decline in leisure time. If you’re working multiple jobs or dealing with transportation barriers in a rural area, a trip to the library may just not be feasible.” What can be done? The study’s authors say that interventions could help slow or reverse the trend, but they need to be strategic. “Reading with children is one of the most promising avenues,” said Daisy Fancourt, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and epidemiology at University College London and co-director of the EpiArts Lab. “It supports not only language and literacy, but empathy, social bonding, emotional development and school readiness.” Bone added that creating more community-centered reading opportunities could also help: “Ideally, we’d make local libraries more accessible and attractive, encourage book groups, and make reading a more social and supported activity — not just something done in isolation.” The study underscores the importance of valuing and protecting access to the arts — not only as a matter of culture, but as a matter of public health. “Reading has always been one of the more accessible ways to support well-being,” Fancourt said. “To see this kind of decline is concerning because the research is clear: reading is a vital health-enhancing behavior for every group within society, with benefits across the life-course.”