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South Dakota State University will serve as the host of a new National Science Foundation-backed Research Experiences for Undergraduates site aimed at disrupting the illicit economy.

Today Brock Aleshire is a field engineer with the heavy civil engineering contractor Kraemer North America drawing a salary his parents could only imagine. A year ago, he was a senior at South Dakota State majoring in construction management. The step from collegian to contractor is a big one, but not insurmountable, certainly not with the assistance of the SDSU Office of Career Development. Aleshire, now of Casselton, North Dakota, began using the free services of the Office of Career Development in his sophomore year and doesn’t regret the early start.

Some day the manual labor of harvesting chili peppers may be replaced by instructions in a computer manual. Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to teach robots how to perform traditionally manual tasks such as planting, weeding and harvesting of specialty crops like berries, peppers and other fruits and vegetables. A team within South Dakota State University’s Machine Vision and Optical Sensor Lab in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering is studying that technology for three varieties of chili peppers. Assistant professor Pappu Yadav leads the lab and directed the 2024 study “AI-Driven Computer Vision for Detection and Pose Estimation of Chili Peppers for Robotic Harvesting.”

Sungyong Jung, professor and head of South Dakota State University's McComish Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is developing a system that will enable real-time monitoring of water quality in South Dakota's lakes, rivers and streams.

First impressions weren’t misleading for Delaney Baumberger, a first-year graduate student in mechanical engineering at South Dakota State University. When she visited campus as a senior at Blair High School just north of Omaha, Nebraska, the school wasn’t as distant as the 216 miles would suggest. Her dad, Patrick Baumberger, and several uncles had graduated from the SDSU engineering program, “so I grew up hearing about its strong reputation. When it came time to tour colleges in the Midwest, SDSU was an obvious choice to check out.” One experience in particular helped her realize that attending Dad’s alma mater made sense.

Karma Choki, graduate research assistant in South Dakota State University's Department of Natural Resource Management, conducted research in her native country of Bhutan on a forgotten big cat: the common leopard.

Researchers in South Dakota State University's Department of Dairy and Food Science, led by associate professor Srinivas Janaswamy, have created a novel type of bread by pocketing healthy compounds inside of starch granules. Early findings show this "functional food" may help with blood sugar management and disease prevention.

Transitioning from high school to college can be challenging for anyone, but especially if the high school you went to was 8,000 miles away. Random Nisia, a sophomore mechanical engineering major from Papua New Guinea, freely admits that his first year at South Dakota State University was tough, not so much from an academic standpoint — he had a 3.5 GPA — but from an emotional standpoint. “Being far from home and having to do everything independently was challenging. … Living far away in a new country” brought some homesickness. “You just wanted to be next to the ones you love,” said Nisia, who left behind four siblings and his parents when he arrived in Brookings in August 2023 with 31 others from his tropical Pacific island country.

Selections for the third class of Future Innovators of America Fellowships have been announced by the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering.

Among the valuable lessons Luke Nichols has learned in college is the truth in the saying “A good night’s sleep lays a foundation for a good day ahead.” “Every single night I close my computer at 8 and read for a little while before I go to sleep a little bit before 9 p.m.,” the civil engineering major from North Liberty, Iowa, said. The senior gets a lot of productivity out of the other 15 to 16 hours in his day. “I seriously prioritize my sleep. Out of all the things I do, I think that provides me the most success. “My efficiency is extremely high. Providing that consistency has allowed me to know exactly what I can do the next day.”