For WSU News and WSU Today content older than July 2018, search the WSU News Archive.

WSU News Archive   Return to WSU News Home

Forward Together graphic

March 10, 2022 — Wichita State University President Rick Muma has launched a new podcast, called “Forward Together,” where the president speaks with guests from throughout Shocker Nation to highlight the people and priorities that guide WSU. The podcast drops monthly, with the March edition releasing March 9. Some of the guests so far include Hollywood director Dean Hargrove, WSU basketball coach Isaac Brown and WSU research vice president Coleen Pugh.

A heat map from the study shows where the participants’ eyes tend to look with the red indicating more gazing in that area and the blue indicating less gazing.

March 8, 2022 — Ever wonder what other people are looking at during Zoom or WebEx meetings? Dr. Akmal Mirsadikov, who specializes in deception detection and eye tracking at Wichita State University’s W. Frank Barton School of Business, recently ran an exploratory study about how people interact on Zoom.

Tom Gentile

March 7, 2022 — Tom Gentile, president and CEO of Spirit AeroSystems, has been named as the newest member of the Dean’s Advisory Board for Wichita State’s W. Frank Barton School of Business.

Stephanie and Matt Clark

March 7, 2022 - Wichita State alums Matt and Stephanie Clark taught English to students from fifth grade to high school in Ukraine from 2006-08 as Peace Corps members. Their friends and their warm memories are in turmoil as the Russian invasion wears on in their adopted country. They rely on social media to hear from former students, host families and friends, as they try to sort good information from bad and bring attention to the crisis.

Nelsen Petersen

March 4, 2022 - Nelsen Petersen, a Wichita State alum, is a high school teacher, author, filmmaker and running enthusiast who developed strong connections with Ukraine during his travels. Later this month, he plans to go to Cluj-Napoca, a Romanian city near Ukraine to help in refugee camps. He wants to spend four or five days during his spring break in the region.

PIcture of seven members of HarveStars.

Feb. 21, 2022 — A proposal submitted by an interdisciplinary Wichita State University team of seven members was selected for the top 10 in the 2021-22 NASA Space Suit Interface Technologies for Students (SUITS) Design Challenge.

Picture of Nicolas Reyes

Feb. 11, 2022 — As a young boy growing up in Oklahoma City Nicolas Reyes loved to hear the hum of the fighter jets from the nearby Tinker Air Force Base. Nicolas Reyes — a junior studying electrical engineering in Wichita State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering — has always wanted to work in the aviation industry. He finally got his chance this past summer when he completed a virtual internship with Lockheed Martin. While there, Nicolas worked on the F-35 Lightning II for their location in Fort Worth.

GoCreate student

Jan. 26, 2022 - GoCreate is using its equipment and expertise to build form work for the center concrete pier of the Promise Bridge. GoCreate staff and Wichita State students will machine 30 blocks of foam, each 4 feet by 3 feet by 8 feet, that will be used by Dondlinger Construction.

A Wichita State student welds as part of a class project at GoCreate located at the Innovation Campus.

Jan. 24, 2022 — Further expanding its presence as a diverse creative workspace at WSU, GoCreate recently began offering free memberships to Wichita State students.

John Bardo Center

Jan. 24, 2022 — Six Wichita State University teams were selected as semi-finalists in the university’s sixth annual Koch Innovation Challenge Angel Round on December 3. Those six teams of Wichita State students advance to the Grand Champion competition in May.

Valeria Paunetto is standing in front of the brick laid Morrison Hall and there is a tree in the background. The sun is shining. Paunetto is wearing her shocker gear with some yellow earrings and she is smiling.

Jan. 24, 2022 — Valeria Paunetto, originally from Puerto Rico, won the Adelante Scholarship in 2021, which has helped her pursue a degree in social work at Wichita State.

Darren DeFrain holding up phone with Vizling app

Jan. 20, 2022 — The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded a grant of $243,922 to a Wichita State University researcher for his work on an app that will allow people who are visually impaired to read comic books, graphic novels and other digitized graphic materials on their devices.

Shirley LeFever and President Muma hand Khalid Raza an honorary degree at the WSU fall 2021 Commencement.

Dec. 9, 2021 -- Khalid Raza has never forgotten his Shocker roots. Now the chief executive officer of Graphiant, a next-generation networking technology company based in San Francisco, Raza’s first independent start-up began in 1992 when he was working as a graduate assistant at Wichita State University.

Lysel Bender is wearing a dark green jacket, some jeans, and brown high heel boots. She is sitting on the steps of the Barton School of Business where the purple, blue, yellow, and pink mural is.

Dec. 8, 2021 — Lysel Bender dreams of becoming a writer and a publisher after receiving a double major in English literature and creative writing. Bender is one of more than 1,100 students eligible for fall 2021 graduation.

nursing students work with simulation manikin

Dec. 7, 2021 – The College of Health Professions (CHP) has initiated a major expansion to the its clinical simulation capabilities. Students across the CHP’s clinical degree programs will have increased exposure to high-tech robotic simulated patients in preparation for treating humans.