UCF’s stellar students being honored on Wednesday for Founders’ Day have unleashed their potential and excelled in colleges and disciplines across the university.
Among the undergraduate and graduate students are groundbreaking national and global scholarship winners, researchers, athletes, teaching assistants, residence assistants and leaders in campus organizations such as Student Government, LEAD Scholars and the President’s Leadership Council. The honorees include students in the Burnett Honors College, transfers and those from first-generation and international backgrounds.
Aside from focusing on academics and campus causes, many of the student honorees volunteered at hospitals, schools, parks, food banks, shelters, clinics, youth clubs and with many community service organizations — at times as organizers and coordinators for support drives and campaigns.
“These recipients are some of UCF’s highest-achieving, dedicated and passionate students, and they are already making an impact on the world,” UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright says. “The UCF community is incredibly proud of them and all they have accomplished, and we look forward to the great things they will do in the future.”
The Student Honors Celebration is Wednesday from 6:15 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Student Union’s Pegasus Ballroom and can be watched online. For the first time, the annual event is part of a Founders’ Day celebration with separate staff, faculty and student ceremonies at the same place. The campus community is invited to all the celebrations.
Student award categories highlight new inductees of the Order of Pegasus, UCF’s highest student honor; graduate awards for outstanding master’s thesis and outstanding dissertation; undergraduate awards for honors undergraduate thesis; and individual college awardees as chosen by the respective college deans. All honorees earned financial awards.
The Order of Pegasus features 30 inductees with exceptional achievements as undergraduate or graduate students. With a collective GPA of 3.94, the group includes National Merit Scholars, Burnett Medical Scholars and earners of prestigious honors such as the Astronaut Scholarship, Goldwater Scholarship, National Science Foundation Scholarship and Gates Cambridge Scholarship.
They conducted, presented and published research on many subjects, including domestic violence; bleeding disorder; resistance training for older adults; emergency management and equity in services; suicide prevention; molecular oncology; natural hazards and their impacts; viral infections; and food insecurity on college campuses.
Here are the students being honored.
Order of Pegasus Inductees
Lauren Abbitt, College of Medicine
Javed Ali, College of Engineering and Computer Science
Francesca Allegrini, College of Medicine
Melinda Ammon, College of Business Administration
Nicole Boisson, College of Undergraduate Studies
Bethany Bradshaw, College of Health Professions and Sciences/Burnett Honors College
Brenden Brown, College of Community Innovation and Education
Allison Calvert, College of Sciences
Brendon Cavainolo, College of Engineering and Computer Science
Brandon Cohen, College of Medicine
Sebastián Delgado Suárez, College of Sciences/College of Arts and Humanities
Shannon Doherty, College of Sciences
Nefertari Elshiekh, College of Business Administration/College of Sciences
Kimberly Emery, College of Nursing
Rebecca Entress, College of Community Innovation and Education
Sanjeev Gurshaney, College of Medicine
Layton Hall, College of Optics and Photonics
Marie Hamel, College of Medicine
Rayniah Jones, College of Community Innovation and Education
BriDé Key, College of Sciences
Nathanael Lapierre, College of Arts and Humanities
Shea McLinden, College of Health Professions and Sciences
Christopher Ngo, College of Medicine
Sarah Noureddine, College of Medicine
Sampada Nyalapatla, College of Community Innovation and Education
Geela Margo Ramos, College of Engineering and Computer Science
Jordan Sammarco, College of Medicine/Burnett Honors College
Angela Shar, College of Medicine
Eric Switzer, College of Sciences
Alexis Wade, College of Nursing
Graduate Awards
Award for Outstanding Master’s Thesis
Jaynlynn Sosa, College of Graduate Studies, Atomic Layer Deposition for Personalized Drug Release Systems: 5-Aminosalicylic Acid as a Model Pharmaceutical
Aaron Wizenberg, College of Health Professions and Sciences, The Acute Effects of Continuous and Intermittent Blood Flow Restriction on Sprint Interval Performance and Muscle Oxygen Response
Award for Outstanding Dissertation
Terry Henley, College of Community Innovation and Education, Financial Sustainability of Florida Cities: Comparative, Retrospective Modeling for Prospective Municipal Financial Health
Olivia Newton, College of Graduate Studies, Modeling the Effects of Diversity and Corporations on Participation Dynamics in Free/Libre and Open Source Software Ecosystems
Sabin Regmi, College of Sciences, Observation of Novel Phases of Quantum Matter Beyond Topological Insulators
Undergraduate Awards
Founders’ Day College Awards
Nicole Boisson, College of Undergraduate Studies
Nathalia Castre, College of Arts and Humanities
Madeleine Hanewich, College of Business Administration
George Knecht, College of Sciences
Braedan Larson, College of Optics and Photonics
Sydney Martinez, College of Health Professions and Sciences
Flora Ngo, College of Community Innovation and Education
Geela Margo Ramos, College of Engineering and Computer Science
Briana Reed, Rosen College of Hospitality Management
Kadambari Vyas, College of Medicine
Kaitlyn Yu, College of Nursing
Award for Honors Undergraduate Thesis
Aïcha Camara ’22, College of Sciences, Shift or Stagnation: Analyzing Changing Japanese Attitudes Towards Various Minorities
Rowan Hassan ’22, College of Sciences, Structure of Unmodified and Pyroglutamylated Amyloid Beta Peptide in Lipid Membranes
Kasey Rigby ’22, College of Medicine, Novel Microbe-Resistant Clay Dressing for Healing Burn Wounds
Mel Turnage ’22, College of Sciences, Transcinematheque: Defining Cinematic Language in the Trans New Wave
