As a child, Aaron Sandoval was fascinated by his comic-book heroes’ superhuman power to regenerate parts of their bodies, just as the small lizards outside his window did. This curiosity compelled Sandoval into a life of inquiry, presently in UF’s biology department. Sandoval, a budding physician-scientist, says he’s enjoyed the flexibility of his degree program to prepare himself to harness this superpower in emerging therapies for burn, heart attack, and spinal-cord injury patients.

Before Andrea Dutton was a geologist, she was an amateur gymnast. So, when her field research on sea level rise requires her to free-climb granite cliffs in search of fossil corals, while carrying a surveyor’s tripod, a drill, and a jug of seawater, that ingrained nimbleness is a big help. On the beaches of the Seychelles Islands off the coast of Africa, Dutton and colleagues looked for intact corals that once grew just below the surface of the Indian Ocean some 125,000 years ago.

Trish Ring draws a distinction between “sorrow and suffering,” believing the first is part of life and the second is unnecessary. She’s a Certified Equus Coach who has her clients talk through their concerns in a round pen with horses, which are very sensitive to human emotions. Her program takes place at Blue Star Ranch, which she and her husband, Carl, created out of “several derelict plots of land” to create a refuge for people to enjoy nature and seek self-improvement.