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Graduate students make up about 10% of the student population across more than 100 master’s degree and Ph.D. programs and specializations and 23 graduate certificate programs offered at Ģ����ý. Each graduate student is immersed in research and scholarship with the support of their advisor and the Graduate School staff. April 6-10 is Graduate Student Appreciation Week, a great opportunity to highlight a few graduate students at SDSU and the work they are accomplishing.

The Drone Club at Ģ����ý is hosting its fourth annual Drone Day on April 17. The event is free and open to the public.

For the fourth year in a row, Ģ����ý has qualified a team to the finals of a prestigious NASA competition — and this year’s team is composed of only freshmen and sophomores. “This is an Aerospace Club team, so none of the students on the team are doing this for any class credit, and we have three sophomores and three freshman,” said faculty adviser Todd Letcher, who will lead the mechanical engineering students to the finals of the Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) competition in Cocoa Beach, Florida, June 2-4.

South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources Secretary Hunter Roberts was on campus March 27 to meet with Ģ����ý students participating in ECON 319: Seminar with Industry Leaders.

Industry and academic leaders, startup entrepreneurs, graduate students and researchers convened in Sioux Falls to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming critical sectors and industries. Artificial intelligence is transforming nearly every sector of society, and Ģ����ý's Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering is leading critical conversations on the role AI is playing in reshaping industries key to South Dakota, the region and the United States. Over 400 industry and academic leaders, startup entrepreneurs, graduate students and researchers congregated on March 27 in Sioux Falls' Sanford Event Barn for the university's first Innovate AI Symposium.

Mathematicians like Michael Puthawala are few and far between. Thanks to a National Science Foundation program, the SDSU assistant professor was able to get better acquainted with a similar mathematician 6,000 miles away. Through a joint program between the National Science Foundation, the primary U.S. agency for funding fundamental science research, and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, the counterpart agency in Japan, Puthawala was able to spend the first six weeks of this year in Japan. He spent extensive time with colleague Takashi Furuya of Doshisha University and was able to meet future potential collaborators as well as open doors for potential regular visits.

Claire Mooney’s journey from her Yankton home to her college home at Ģ����ý in Brookings has been filled with career-defining side trips. Today the civil engineering major is just weeks away from graduation, which will be followed by another adventure—studying coastal engineering at Oregon State University. The fact that she is even going to studying in the field is the result of one of her side trips. She came to Brookings with an intention of studying civil engineering, but she didn’t know which branch. Following her freshman year, she and a friend decided to follow the example of her friend’s parent a generation ago. They packed a suitcase and headed to Skagway, Alaska, to work at a restaurant at the cruise ship harbor city. Those three months provided her some good spending money, improved her people skills and showed her where she wanted to focus her civil engineering career.

“Eyes in the back of your head.” For moms, absolutely. For construction workers, not so much. But there could be a time when construction workers have them, too. John Akujobi, a senior computer science major, is working on a project to do just that. He is in his second year of an effort to create a wearable device that would alert construction workers to a hazard, such as a sudden drop-off, such as the edge of a roof, or an approaching vehicle. He is working on the project under the supervision of assistant professor Chulwoo Pack as a Future Innovator of America.

On the afternoon of March 13, just before spring break began, Todd Letcher, associate professor of mechanical engineering, was notified that all three of the SDSU teams he oversees had qualified for the finals of the Gateways to Blue Skies competition, which is managed by the National Institute of Aerospace on behalf of NASA.

From healthcare to agriculture to education, artificial intelligence is reshaping the modern world, and college graduates must have the skills, knowledge and tools to meet the challenges and demands AI presents across nearly every industry. To ensure its graduates are ready to thrive in an increasingly AI-driven world, Ģ����ý has announced the establishment of the Center for AI Innovation and Emergent Technologies.