UCF’s faculty are renowned thinkers, doers and creators delivering high-quality education and leading-industry research with purpose. They are the campus culture-setters — inspiring ingenuity while upholding our mission to change lives and livelihoods.
The most exceptional among them are recognized annually with the distinction of the university’s highest honor, the Pegasus Professor award. This year, Hassan Foroosh (College of Computer Science and Engineering); Carmen Giurgescu (College of Nursing); Annette Khaled (College of Medicine); and Matthew Morino (College of Community Innovation and Education) become the newest inductees of this esteemed group.
Their work and research have been motivated by a pursuit to positively impact society — redefining our capabilities with artificial intelligence (AI) systems; improving pre-term birth outcomes for mothers and their babies; curing cancer; and enhancing quality of life for people with disabilities.
Each will be recognized during Founders’ Day, which is April 1 this year and receive $5,000.
Meet our college’s newest Pegasus Professor:
Hassan Foroosh
CAE-Link Professor of computer science
Director of the Computational Imaging Laboratory
One day your research will solve:
My goal has always been not to solve one specific problem but build a machine that is the problem solver. I work with explainable AI and efficient or high-performance AI. My goal is to build general-purpose machines, whether in robotics or autonomous driving or data analytics, etc. I have always thought that there is a way to find a general solution to almost any problem. We just then have to specialize the machines and models to solve specific problems.
What motivates you to pursue this line of research?
I was fascinated by sci-fi movies as a kid. Not many people know this, but I’m a Trekkie. What always fascinated me were the technologies in that world — tele-transportation, warp speed, and others. I had not even seen a computer as a kid. Because back then, computers fit in rooms five times the size of my office. I was always interested in electronics and building things. In 1992, I moved back to France to do my Ph.D. and my advisor pushed me in the direction of AI and it’s been that ever since.
What makes UCF the right place to do what you do?
When I first came to UCF 24 years ago, I saw opportunity for growth, and I saw all the industries around here. I saw Kennedy Space Center next door. I like to build partnerships. I like to see my research used in practice. UCF has given me the ability to do that throughout my career.
What has been your favorite moment as a professor?
There are many I can think of. But, once I was vacationing with my family in North Carolina about 10 years ago or so. We were in a mall, and this young man ran toward me. I said, “What’s going on?” He shook my hand and said, “Dr. Foroosh! I wanted to thank you. You affected my life.” Back then I was teaching classes of 200 students every semester, so it wasn’t easy to build relationships with every student or remember everyone’s name. It felt humbling to know that he felt that way and that I impacted his life like that. It was a very good moment.
- Written by Jenna Marina Lee