Michael Bassett wants to use his UCF engineering and medical training to create better surgical instruments. Melissa Deinys is a graduating Knight who is helping save Florida’s mangroves.
The two are among 6,000 undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. students who will graduate from UCF Dec. 12-13.
Bassett and Deinys, both Florida natives, credit UCF with instilling in them a spirit of scientific discovery and a passion to use their love of science to help others.
Transforming Healthcare Through Tech
Bassett will graduate with a medicine-engineering double degree in molecular and cellular biology and mechanical engineering. The degree program, one of UCF’s most challenging, recognizes that the future of healthcare is in technology, and the workforce needs trained professionals who can understand both the biology of disease and the engineering principles to create new healthcare solutions.
The double major requires 163 credit hours and a lot of time management skills. With back-to-back engineering and biomedical sciences labs as part of his routine, Bassett jokes he could actually feel his mind transform as he walked from one classroom to the next to absorb and process two vastly different topics.
While at UCF Bassett completed multiple internships at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. A Burnett Honors College scholar, he served as a teaching assistant and a chemistry undergraduate lab researcher.
Bassett says UCF helped him understand the medical “whys” of the medical engineering he creates and wants to go into an industry that will allow him to design and test better medical tools that can make surgery less invasive, more efficient and safer.
“With my training, I know the what and the why,” he says. “I can use that knowledge to solve more medical problems. I hope I can help my colleagues understand why something is happening in the body.”
Making Florida’s Mangroves More Resilient
Born in Miami, Deinys knew science was her passion at an early age while attending a STEM-focused middle and high school. During an internship at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, she discovered a pathogen that was threatening to kill Florida mangroves.
Later, in collaboration with the Marine Resources Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring Florida’s Indian River Lagoon, they determined that 80% of the mangroves they had sampled tested positive for at least one of the pathogens.
Through her research at UCF, she helped create a nutrient of magnesium and sulfur nanoparticles called “Mag Sun” (MgSuN) that acts like an antimicrobial solution while helping nourish the plant. Mag Sun is also sustainable so it’s safe for the environment. The product, which reduced pathogens by 95%, has now been approved for use across Florida, and Deinys hopes it will soon receive EPA clearance for use nationwide.
“I grew up in South Florida and developed a deep love for the beach and coast,” she said. “And I knew something was happening to my mangroves. I’m committed to the community I’m from and I want to help people – that’s the goal.”
As an undergraduate, she was lead research assistant in an agricultural artificial intelligence effort between UCF and Cornell University and UCF’s Material Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture Lab. She also served as an Office of Undergraduate Research peer mentor and has presented her research at conferences across the state and nation.
An Order of Pegasus honoree, Deinys will stay at UCF to earn her Ph.D. in chemistry with a specialization in nanoscience. She said her goal is to be a “jack-of-all-trades,” in science because she’s excited by too many opportunities to use her inquisitive mind to solve real-world problems. As she speaks from her lab office filled with plants, she says she wants to use her love of agriculture to help find ways to link plant life and space travel.