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Research doesn’t always land on the lab bench or in a test chamber. Sometimes it’s found in the library, inside the covers of seemingly dry volumes of codified law, peer-reviewed trade journals or stuffy legislative hearings. For Lydia Loken, a senior agricultural and biosystems engineering major at �ձ�av��Ƶ, her research had nothing to do with microscopes or spectrometers. She was poring over literature and news report to generate a 31-page report on balancing private ownership and public interest of nonmeandering waters overlaying private property in the South Dakota prairie pothole region. Loken completed the project as a part of the college’s research requirement for graduates and undertook the report as one of the college’s 12 Future Innovators of America.

When the speed of sound isn’t fast enough, there is hypersonic travel — speeds five times the speed of sound. Doing so is quite possible. Engines have been designed to do so for at least a decade. But for those engines to operate optimally, there’s a world of physics challenges. That’s where Jeffrey Doom, an associate professor in the mechanical engineering department at �ձ�av��Ƶ, comes in. This summer he will make his fourth trip to the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, to undertake simulations and observe physical experiments.

A heavy-duty cart designed to transport heavy loads in deep underground mine tunnels was the top project presented at the April 22 Engineering Expo at Raven Precision Agricultural Center. The transporter was built by �ձ�av��Ƶ mechanical engineering students Braden Hanson, Luke Degen, Haley Evenson, Alli Krantz, Phil Baker and Tyson Boeve on behalf of the Sanford Underground Research Facility, the former Homestake gold mine in Lead that now is a physics research facility.

Three student teams from �ձ�av��Ƶ have advanced to the finals of two different NASA contests in the coming weeks. All are mechanical engineering students. The Gateways to Blue Skies competition advanced eight teams to Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, May 20-21. Both of �ձ�av��Ƶ’s entries in the Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concept-Academic Linkage contest were selected for the finals of the small lunar servicing and maintenance robot division in Cocoa Beach, Florida, June 2-4. A total of 14 teams were selected in three divisions.

America’s newest concrete industry management academic program is continuing to turn heads as a result of student achievement. The latest feather in the cap for the program at �ձ�av��Ƶ is a $10,000 scholarship won by sophomore concrete industry management major Kate Connor of Winfred. She was notified April 7 that she was the recipient of the Advancing Organizational Excellence Fellowship, which is awarded through the Concrete Industry Management trade association. She is the fourth student in the program to win a national award this semester.

The Women in Aviation Club, as described by Madeline Davis, is a community and support system that promotes professional development within aviation, focused on women in �ձ�av��Ƶ’s aviation program. As its president, Davis hopes to take the Women in Aviation Club to the next level. There are about 50 women enrolled in the aviation program at �ձ�av��Ƶ, and she hopes to motivate as many of them as she can to join the club.

Fifty-four students, teachers and mentors participated in the South Dakota Space Design Competition at �ձ�av��Ƶ March 8-9 with the top students advancing to the world championship at Kennedy Space Center in July. Students came from high schools in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota. Participants were matched with other students they did not know in order to add to the communications challenge.

Jeremy Daniel, an associate professor at �ձ�av��Ƶ, is among the inaugural class of fellows for the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists. Daniel, who has been on the faculty of the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions for 10.5 years, received notice in February that he had been selected. He is among 47 fellows who will be recognized at the annual meeting of the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists in Salt Lake City, Utah, April 28.

Rebecca Bott-Knutson, dean of the Van D. and Barbara B. Fishback Honors College at �ձ�av��Ƶ, announced today that she will leave her position after the conclusion of the academic year.

“Thinking classrooms” was the topic for presentations made by �ձ�av��Ƶ graduate student Annamarie Dobbs and professor Christine Larson at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Spring Conference in Kansas City Feb. 5-7. A thinking classroom is a concept developed by math educator Peter Liljedahl to stimulate students to think more during classroom instruction.