University Beat

Jeffrey Sargent enlisted in the U.S. Army shortly after graduating from high school in 1999. He ended up serving 12 years, including two tours of duty during Operation Iraqi Freedom. During that time, he received a Bronze Star, but also lost several members of his unit, including his platoon leader.

He was a decade into his military career, when during a promotion ceremony to Sgt. First Class, he suffered his first panic attack. It was the initial sign of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Forensic artists at a recent workshop hosted by the University of South Florida wrapped up their week of work by presenting their creations - fourteen clay busts of unidentified victims in cold cases - to local law enforcement.

But in the middle of their presentation, a woman looking at one of the works at the rear of a downtown Tampa conference room broke down sobbing, sure that the face staring back at her was that of her sister, some thirty-eight years after she went missing.

In 2003, Raj Chandarlapaty graduated with his PhD in English from the University of South Florida.

While the teaching career that followed took him all over Florida and Texas, he maintained a close relationship with his mentor at USF, Phillip Sipiora. That included writing a number of articles for The Mailer Review, an annual collection of works about author Norman Mailer that Sipiora edits.

While USF English professor Jay Hopler's new book is inspired by one of the most painful things a person can experience -- the death of a parent -- the work is nominated for one of literature's leading awards. 

There’s a storefront along Main Street in Lakewood Ranch, a planned community between Sarasota and Bradenton, where future restaurant and hospitality employees are learning their chops.

It’s the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee Culinary Innovation Lab, and beginning this semester, every few weeks, it transforms into the Bulls Bistro.

For the second time in four years, the University of South Florida Herd of Thunder Marching Band will ring in the New Year overseas – this time in Rome.

According to Matthew McCutchen, director of USF’s Athletic Bands, the Herd was invited to perform in the Rome New Year’s Parade by the same organization that invited them to perform in front of a half a million people in London’s New Year’s Day Parade in 2013.

According to NASA, the United States sees about 25 million lightning strikes per year.

The state that gets the largest number of those, by far, is Florida. The area between Tampa and Orlando is even called “Lightning Alley” because it receives as many as 50 strikes per square mile a year.

Milo Yiannopoulos is scheduled to speak at the University of South Florida in Tampa Monday night, and while student organizers are defending inviting the openly gay conservative firebrand, other students are preparing to protest his appearance.

(Originally aired August 9, 2016)

Bill Nagely was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2009, and for the past three years, he and his wife, Sheila, have made the hour-long drive from their home in St. Petersburg to the University of South Florida Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute in Tampa.

"It’s really improved our quality of life to be able to have the resources they have here at Byrd," Sheila Nagely said. "They have a wonderful support group, which really helps me, and they just are connected with all the resources that we need."

Florida is called the “Sunshine State,” but we don’t really live up to the name when it comes to solar power.

Research by the Solar Energy Industries Association shows that while we’re third in the nation for rooftop solar potential, we’re 14th when it comes to solar capacity that’s actually been installed.

The University of South Florida is trying to change that, with ground-breaking research and solar installations at both the Tampa and Saint Petersburg campuses.

The goal, according to school officials, is for USF St. Petersburg to have 10,000 students enrolled by 2025. But to turn the campus from a commuter school to one where students live and study is going to take the addition of residence hall beds - a lot of them.

The school is taking steps towards the addition of a new residence hall by seeking out a suitor who will finance and build a facility under a public-private partnership (P3).

A team of marine scientists, led by representatives of the University of South Florida, are about midway through a six-week expedition looking for evidence left over from the two largest accidental oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico.

University of South Florida senior Mariana Sánchez Ramírez received a political awakening in Cleveland in July.

The Mexican born 22-year-old was one of a hundred students invited to take part in the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars’ Republican National Convention event. The independent nonprofit group invites students from around the world to gain college credit through various political programs.

For USF graduate research assistant Robert Bair, work he normally does in the laboratory isn’t as easy when he’s out in the field. And in this case, we literally mean a field in India.

"So a lot of things happen that you wouldn’t expect in a lab - a few weeks ago we had a few coconuts from a tree fall onto our data logger, and of course, not a lot of damage was done, but it wasn’t something we expected," he said recently via Skype. "And we had to rearrange the site configuration just so that wouldn’t happen again so we could prevent further damage."

"The days of surprise about actual election outcomes in the big data world are likely to be fewer in the years ahead, at least to those who may have access to such data."

Those are the opening words of an article written by a University of South Florida Muma College of Business professor and his research assistant, who broke down nearly a half billion minutes of TV viewing in 2012 to determine that what people watch could show who they'll vote for president.

You would think after playing defensive end for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for nine years, and then 11 more as a Tampa firefighter, John Cannon might have back pain.

But the engineer-driver said he feels pretty good, thanks in part to a short exercise program TFR put together with researchers from USF Health - a program that, with the help of a $1.3 million federal grant, will soon be tested by firefighters in the Tampa Bay area's three largest departments.

Teddy Mullet has always liked building things by hand. While his cousin bought a kit to build a laser, Mullet decided to buy the parts separately and make his own. So when he was in his junior year at Sarasota Christian School, he was thinking of applying to University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee.

One problem – USFSM had no engineering program.