UCF Researchers Make National List in DURIP Funding

The University of Central Florida has earned five research grants worth about $1.2 million from the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP), placing UCF among the top 10 award recipients in the country.

University of Michigan and the University of California San Diego also landed five awards. Only the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Maryland, University of Washington and Pennsylvania State University earned more grants.

DURIP awards totaling $54.7 million will help 190 researchers at 100 academic institutions purchase state-of-the-art research equipment, which will benefit science education, medical training and the preparation of soldiers before heading to war.

“Given the state cuts we have no state money for critical instrumentation for STEM research and education,” said M.J. Soileau vice president for research and commercialization at UCF. The university has seen a loss of $145 million in state funding over the past five years. “Our researchers are always tasked with competing for funding to pay for their research however this year we are especially pleased to have five faculty members who succeeded in competing with the best of the best.”

Among the five awards at UCF, Computer Vision lab received award for Equipment for Analysis of Crowd Data. Purchase of video cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles for carrying the cameras and a cluster of computers for processing data obtained from the footage to improve research into the areas of motion tracking, behavior recognition and human and anomaly detection, led by Mubarak Shah, Ager Chair professor of Computer Science and Brian Moore, assistant professor, Department of Mathematics.