Future Docs, Aspiring Vet, Longtime Marine Among UCF Students Who Graduated

By UCF Staff Updated May 5, 2008

More than 5,900 University of Central Florida students expected to graduate last weekend.

Those graduates include students who landed coveted internships in pediatric respiratory care at Duke Medical Center and a native of Russia who wanted to become a veterinarian ever since she saw animals treated so poorly while she was growing up. Other success stories include a woman who will use her new master’s degree to help nonprofit agencies after a 31-year career in the U.S. Marines and a “fund-raising machine” who has collected more than $20,000 for charities while at UCF.

The university held four commencement ceremonies Friday, May 2, and Saturday, May 3. A variety of speakers from former lieutenant governor Toni Jennings to theme park executive James D. Atchison addressed the graduates during ceremonies at the UCF Arena.

For additional commencement information, visit the registrar’s Web site at http://www.registrar.sdes.ucf.edu/commencement/terms/2008/spring/.

Angela Gutierrez, Van Lewark, Christine Kearney: The Duke Interns

Gutierrez, of Deltona; Lewark, of Cocoa; and Kearney, of Vero Beach, all students in UCF’s cardiopulmonary sciences program, earned three of five coveted 24-month internships in pediatric respiratory care at the world-famous Duke Medical Center.

“We all applied together,” Gutierrez said. “We always had the mindset of we all get in or none of us. Then we all got it. It’s simply amazing. We are so excited.”

For Gutierrez, becoming a respiratory therapist is a way to pass on the life-saving comfort she received as a child. The Colombia native is asthmatic and she remembers respiratory therapists restoring her ability to breathe on more than one hospital visit.

“I was always around them when I was young,” she said. “I always looked up to them and had it in my mind I wanted to be one of them.” 

Gutierrez moved to Orlando with her family seven years ago.

The three will get intense postgraduate training leading to careers as pediatric respiratory care specialists. Duke cultivates its talent and often will hire its interns, said Jeff Ludy, director of the UCF cardiopulmonary sciences program and a Duke intern in 1977.

The team was selected based on their grade point averages, types of coursework, faculty and clinical recommendations and interviews. The three UCF students currently work at local hospitals as part of their clinical experiences.

Students with a degree in cardiopulmonary sciences work in intensive care units of hospitals, emergency and trauma centers, diagnostic laboratories, physician groups, flight medicine, pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation centers and home care. UCF graduates have gone on to work at places like the Mayo Clinic, Massachusetts General and Duke Medical Center, among others.

Alexandra Orlova: New U.S. Citizen Wants to Help Distressed Animals

Growing up in Russia, Alexandra Orlova saw horses that were overworked and dogs abandoned on the streets and shot to death by sanitation workers. Those sights – along with the care that her family’s veterinarian showed her tiny poodle, Jzuk (“bug” in Russian) -- made her want to become a veterinarian. 

Orlova’s teachers in Russia discouraged her from becoming a vet, but she stuck with her dreams and entered a pre-veterinary program at Ferris State University in Michigan in 1999. Realizing that she couldn’t get loans to pay for veterinary school, she reluctantly changed majors to Computer Information Systems and later went back to Russia, where she and her husband, Michael Ronco, developed a database still in use today that helps veterinary clinics schedule appointments, inventory medication and more.

Alexandra Orlova enrolled at UCF in 2006. She mentors younger students and volunteers as a technician at Shaffer Animal Hospital in Oviedo. She won a Founders’ Award as the most outstanding student in the UCF College of Sciences. Orlova will study veterinary medicine at the University of Florida beginning in the fall. She wants to work in an animal practice, help with disaster relief veterinary projects and someday return to Russia and volunteer as a veterinarian in Russian villages.

Alexandra, 26, lives in Orlando with her husband and their two dogs. She received her bachelor’s degree in Biology on May 2.

Maria-Elena Augustin: Longtime Military Officer Making Move to Public Service

After 31 years as a U.S. Marine, Augustin is switching gears to serve the public in a new way -- helping local nonprofits run their organizations. Augustin, 48, of Altamonte Springs is the program coordinator for UCF’s Capacity Building Institute, which assists community-based nonprofits with everything from grant writing to budgets to emergency preparedness. Currently a colonel, she continued to serve in the Marine Corps while pursuing her master’s degree in Public Administration and raising two teenagers with her husband, a retired U.S. Marine, of 27 years. Augustin received both her Master of Public Administration degree and a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Management on May 2. She plans to stay with the Capacity Building Institute, hoping to expand the program in coming months, and continue her extensive community volunteering.

Megan Policastro: Raised More Than $20,000 for Charities While at UCF

During her time at UCF, Policastro, of Deltona, was a “fund-raising machine.” Her philanthropic efforts have raised more than $20,000 for charities, including the Children’s Miracle Network, American Heart Association and American Cancer Society. Policastro says it’s because she is “really passionate about raising money and awareness for these organizations.” A Legal Studies major with a minor in Political Science, Policastro will go on to University of Florida Levin College of Law in the fall to pursue a career in environmental law and hopes to eventually land a job in Florida government. Policastro graduates UCF as a Burnett Honors College student and the President’s Leadership Council chair. She was one of 11 undergraduates named to the Order of Pegasus, the most prestigious student award given by the university. She plans to pursue a career in environmental law.

Cassandra A. Korsvik: Traveling to China With U.S. Medical Delegation

Korsvik, of Richmond, Texas, is a Molecular Biology and Microbiology major in the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Medicine. A National Merit Scholar, she received the Founders’ Award as the most outstanding student in the College of Medicine. She was a member of the International Scholar Laureate Program Australia Medical Delegation. After graduation, she will represent UCF with the International Scholar Laureate Program Medical Delegation to China where she will meet Chinese medical students. She also will visit the medical tents set up for the Olympics and a panda research station. She has been accepted into Princeton University where she hopes to earn a Ph.D. in Microbiology. Her professional goal is to become a medical researcher.

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