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The ATLAS lab at NIAR

Aug. 18, 2021 — The Department of Defense (DoD) has designated South Kansas as a Defense Manufacturing Community (DCM), making the region eligible for $5 million through the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation’s Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program. The initiative is led by Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR).

The city of Wichita skyline

Aug. 13, 2021 — For the eighth consecutive year, Wichita State University will receive a $125,000 grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration for specialized training, mentoring, and technical assistance for research- and development-focused small businesses under the Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program.

3-D printed device

Aug. 12, 2021 — WSU’s Office of Tech Transfer and Commercialization has aligned with Innosphere Ventures, a Colorado-based incubator and commercialization program that accelerates business success of science and technology-based start-up companies, to commercialize faculty inventors.

Dr. Ajita Rattani, assistant professor in the College of Engineering's School of Computing, has been awarded $200,000 by the NSF to study fairness in facial recognition software.

Aug. 2, 2021 — The National Science Foundation has awarded a $200,000 grant to Dr. Ajita Rattani, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering’s School of Computing, that seeks to improve facial recognition technology, addressing civil liberties concerns that some demographic groups are more likely to be misidentified.

Students in a classroom

June 29, 2021 -- An opening reception for "From Lima to Wichita: Intercultural Dialogues in Clothing & Paint" will take place from 6–9 p.m. July 2, at ShiftSpace, WSU’s student-run gallery, as part of Wichita’s First Friday gallery crawl.

Office of Diversity and Inclusion

June 21, 2021 — Adding to its myriad points of pride, Wichita State University has been named the most affordable, LGBTQ-friendly college in the state. 

Members of the campus community attend 2019 Sculpture Glow even.

June 21, 2021 -- Wichita State is holding a community event, Shockers Under the Stars, beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 22, outside the Ulrich Museum of Art on the main campus.

Juneteenth Graphic. Juneteenth (a combination of the words “June” and “nineteenth”) is the day that federal troops came to Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865 and made sure that enslaved people in the area were set free. This was two-and-one-half years after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Media and the community are invited to attend the JunteenthICT Parade, sponsored by Wichita State University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

The parade celebrates the 156th anniversary of Juneteenth during the JuneteenthICT Parade at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 19. The parade route will begin at 17th Street and Hillside, going west, and eventually ending at McAdam’s Park, where the all-day Juneteenth ICT celebration will take place.

Courtney Calder

June 9, 2021 - Wichita State’s Esports director Courtney Calder played soccer more often than video games growing up in California. Those experiences, however, helped prepare her for running the Esports program, as did her time working in sales for Apple after graduating from Northwestern University. Wichita State’s varsity program, housed in the Heskett Center, offers four teams competing in Overwatch, League of Legends, Rocket League, and Valorant.

FirePoint

May 20, 2021 — The FirePoint Innovations Center at Wichita State University has welcomed the first class of students into its Future Innovators Program, a new engineering internship opportunity aimed at introducing historically underrepresented students into the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) technical talent pipeline.

Lydia Melles and Lucy Hoang, Wichita State University computer science major students, work on an autonomous robot that uses ultraviolet C-lights (UVC) to fight COVID-19 at the McConnell Air Force Base Innovation Lab.  The two senior students partnered with the McConnell Innovation Lab as part of their is part of their senior design class.

May 12, 2021 — Two Wichita State University seniors have partnered with the McConnell Air Force Base Innovation Lab to help fight COVID-19 – by using robotics. Computer science majors Lucy Hoang and Lydia Melles are creating an autonomous robot that uses ultraviolet C-lights (UVC) to clean grocery stores.

Kristi Parker

April 23, 2021 — Wichita State University’s first Belonging Plaza will take place at 2 p.m. Saturday, April 24, directly east of Weidemann Hall. Belonging Plaza is an outdoor pop-up commemorative gathering and programming tool designed to move to different locations on campus.

Campus aerial

April 2, 2021 -- While the future of this pandemic and its effect on our daily lives still remains somewhat unknown, we are pleased to be coming to you with a message of cautious optimism as we continue our transition to a pre-pandemic mode of operation. Sedgwick County Commissioners voted to rescind all local COVID health orders, effectively immediately. Since the beginning of this pandemic, we have followed all guidance and orders issued by state and local public health authorities. Accordingly, WSU has rescinded all guidance requiring masks, social distancing and mass gathering limitations on our campus. However, we continue to strongly encourage our entire campus community to engage in these practices whenever possible. We also encourage everyone to get the vaccine when they become eligible.

Brittany Wojciechowski

March 24, 2021 — Brittany Wojciechowski, a Wichita State University Ph.D. student in aerospace engineering, has been awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF), which is worth more than $120,000.

In 2014, John A. See donated $1 million to provide prizes to Wichita State faculty and students conducting outstanding research.

March 16, 2021 — Wichita State University faculty and student researchers have been awarded the 2021 John A. See Innovation Award.