» The University of Central Florida has hired its first National Academy of Engineering member. Marwan Simaan, a specialist in control and signal processing, is from the University of Pittsburgh and will join the College of Engineering and Computer Science in the spring.

» For the third year in a row, the UCF College of Engineering and Computer Science has been ranked one of the top schools for graduate studies for Hispanic engineering students, according to Hispanic Business magazine. UCF came in seventh, just ahead of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

» Stetson University has won a $597,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to offer scholarships for students majoring in chemistry or physics. The grant comes as the university starts construction on an $8.5-million addition to its Sage Hall science center.