Across the University of Florida, our 16 colleges, numerous institutes, and health care facilities embrace our shared mission of outreach and service to improve and enrich our community, nation, and the world. UF in the Community spotlights the impact of UF in our region.

Although UF has students and employees throughout the state, North Central Florida is home to much of our faculty and staff and to our 50,000+ students. Like all area residents, we want a vibrant, safe, healthy, and equitable place in which to live and thrive. Here are some of the ways in which we are enhancing our shared community.​

University of Florida neuroscientists have developed a new assay, or test, to detect minute amounts of a protein called tyrosine hydroxylase in blood immune cells of Parkinson’s disease patients, a key finding to aid in the development of a blood test to help diagnose and guide treatment for the neurodegenerative disorder. The findings were published today in the journal npj Parkinson’s Disease.

Graduate students in the University of Florida College of Education are teaching students as part of the SAIL (Summer Adventures in Literacy) program. A five-week program that enhances the reading skills of approximately 40 incoming second graders through fourth graders. 

The goal is to give the children the support they need to become strong readers and for the graduate students to continue to develop their teaching skills.

Career ruts look different for everyone. But when you’re stuck in the middle of one, it’s important to recognize it and decide on your path out of it. For some, that comes by changing jobs or their perspective about their current job. For others, it’s about changing industries altogether.

So how do you know if you’re in a career rut? Let’s talk about it.

UF College of Nursing faculty developed a population health course where students were challenged to apply this frame of thinking outside the walls of the classroom. Students were tasked with creating quality improvement projects that would benefit their communities.

Assigned one of 26 community providers ranging from local schools to the Florida Department of Health, students worked directly with each agency to identify a problem, create a solution based on the evidence and implement their innovation in a “real-world” quality improvement project.

When public interest is high and funding is limited, researchers can rely on citizens to help them measure wildlife populations, research finds. UF/IFAS and Florida Sea Grant scientists used the horseshoe crab citizen science project, Florida Horseshoe Crab Watch, as a model to show that data collected by the public is as reliable and accurate as that of researchers. Volunteers do more than collect and compile data; they help organizations understand how the public view their local ecosystems and wildlife. 

See how you can be involved.

The Alan and Cathy Hitchcock Field & Fork Food Pantry serves members of the UF community experiencing food insecurity. They are open to everyone in the UF community, regardless of income, class, race, gender, housing status, or ability. The pantry offers non-perishable food items, toiletries, and fresh seasonal produce donated by the UF Field & Fork Farm and Gardens. 

Swim over to the Florida Museum to see fish as you’ve never seen them before! Colorful, high-resolution images showcase the artistic wonders of modern preservation science while real specimens from the museum’s collections showcase their true size. Learn how techniques are changing in this remarkable, growing field and the ways in which natural history collections are becoming more accessible, with a video revealing two of these processes in action.