The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees approved renaming the UCF School of Data, Mathematical and Statistical Sciences on Thursday, Sept. 24. The school becomes the Dr. Yvette Kanouff School of Data, Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, honoring a gift Kanouff made to UCF. The naming establishes the school as one of the very few named mathematical schools in the United States.
The gift also establishes an endowed fund intended to advance UCF's mission of expanding student success and maximizing excellence. The fund will support outstanding graduate students, expand scholarships that increase access and achievement, and recognize excellence in teaching and research among students, faculty and postdoctoral fellows across the school, which is in the College of Sciences.
Kanouff earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics at UCF and worked to pay for her studies. Her master's thesis addressed wavelets and their application to digital signal processing and centroids, and her advisor was Ahmed Zayed, the former associate chair for graduate studies in UCF's College of Sciences, now at DePaul University. UCF awarded her an honorary Doctor of Science in 2025, and Zayed traveled from Chicago for the ceremony. She began her career as a mathematician in the defense industry, applying pattern-recognition algorithms she learned at UCF, and has occasionally returned to campus to teach a calculus class as a guest lecturer.
Press release issued by UCF Today:
https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-to-name-school-of-data-mathematical-and-statistical-sciences-in-honor-of-technology-pioneer-alumna-yvette-kanouff/
🤖 AI-assisted content notice: This item was written with AI assistance from the source document linked above. The underlying facts come from that public source, not from our own reporting. No quotes, interviews or original reporting are implied. Spotted something wrong? Email corrections@theorlandoconnect.com.
