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While living in his hometown in Nigeria, Africa, John Akujobi recalls a tragic construction accident in which a bricklayer backing up a wheelbarrow didn’t realize his proximity to the edge of a four story scaffold and fell to his death. The incident stuck with him. As he progressed in his computer science studies and through conversations with his friends at South Dakota State University, Akujobi discovered the power of sensors, algorithms and machine learning. He realized those things hold the potential for preventing such future tragedies. His solution, a wearable safety system named AMBER – Affordable Multimodal Sensor-Based Environmental Risk Detector designed to alert workers in real-time of environmental hazards in their blind spots.

When it comes to grain harvesting, time is money and mess equals stress. Raven Industries (now CNH Industrial) developed a product to address those concerns, and Travis Burgers, a research engineer at CNH and an adjunct assistant professor in mechanical engineering at South Dakota State University, and CNH colleague Matt Horne developed a concept to test the effectiveness of the product before it even went on the market. As a result, Burgers and Horne won the 2025 Rain Bird Engineering Concept of the Year Award by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. It will be presented at the group’s annual international meeting in Toronto July 16.

Fred Boehm set out to become a medical doctor, certainly the pathway to a fulfilling career. However, well into his medical school education, Boehm discovered something else with an even greater potential to impact lives — biomedical research, or in Boehm’s case biostatistical research. Boehm, who is in his first year as a faculty member at South Dakota State University, said the message that changed the direction of his life was a sign at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Protecting Health, Saving Lives — Millions at a Time” is the school’s vision. That and the work demands of a new physician convinced Boehm to chart a new direction.

Two doctoral students in the South Dakota State University College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences have received prestigious Certified Angus Beef awards. Becca (Grimes) Francis and Sydni (Borders) Lammers were among eight students to receive graduate awards for their leadership experiences, academic standing and work in the beef industry.

Researchers from South Dakota State University's Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics contributed to a global study that found cyanide — a highly poisonous chemical in large doses — plays a major role in the normal functioning of our bodies.

Innovative drone technology proposed by a quartet of South Dakota State University mechanical engineering students has lifted them to the finals of NASA contest. The team was one of eight schools chosen to compete in the finals of the NASA Gateways to Blue Skies Competition at Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, May 20-21.

In new research from South Dakota State University, a novel framework for accelerating the speed at which reinforcement learning algorithms are trained has been developed by researchers in the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering.

Two South Dakota State University graduate students from the Department of Natural Resource Management received recognition for their research and presentations at the 2025 annual meeting of the South Dakota Chapter of The Wildlife Society held recently in Brookings.

Xufei Yang, a South Dakota State University assistant professor and Extension environmental quality engineer, is developing a novel method for assessing surface water quality through drone imagery and smells.

Avian metapneumovirus is a highly contagious virus causing respiratory and reproductive disorders in poultry, leading to significant animal welfare concerns and economic losses. The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research is providing South Dakota State University a $150,000 Rapid Outcomes from Agricultural Research grant to develop a diagnostic tool and vaccine for the virus. SDSU is providing matching funds for a total investment of $300,000.