Schoenfeld Named Acting Associate Dean for College of Graduate Studies

CREOL Professor Winston Schoenfeld has been named acting Senior Associate Dean for the College of Graduate Studies.

Effective today, he will oversee the areas previously led by Professor John Weishampel, who this month started a two-year-appointment at the National Science Foundation in Washington D.C.

Schoenfeld is familiar with many aspects of administration and graduate studies. He has served as Director of the Solar Technologies Research Division at the Florida Solar Energy Center and is leading UCF’s university-wide Energy Initiative. He has also served on multiple University-level committees, including chairing the UCF Graduate Appeals Committee for many years, during which time he has become familiar with graduate studies operations.

Schoenfeld will continue to work on the UCF Energy Initiative in addition to taking on many of the areas that Professor Weishampel managed including the development of new academic degrees and the postdoctoral program. He will work with the rest of the graduate studies administrative team and program directors to enhance the graduate student experience at UCF.

Schoenfeld earned his doctorate degree in materials science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a master’s and bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering from the University of Florida. Before joining UCF in 2004, Schoenfeld worked in industry in the area of high brightness light emitting diodes (LEDs). He is a Fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) and recognized for his strong contributions in the fields of compound semiconductors and solar energy technologies.