* Several students in K-State's Army ROTC Wildcat Battalion have been recognized nationally for excellence through the recently released Army ROTC National Order of Merit List. Of the 23 K-State cadets commissioning this year, five were in the top 10 percent of the Order of Merit List and eight of the cadets were designated as distinguished military graduates. Distinguished military graduates rank in the top 20 percent of Army ROTC graduates nationwide. In addition, four K-State cadets were ranked among the top 100 in nation, including one K-State cadet ranked No. 7 nationally. K-State also had the top four rated cadets in Kansas. December 2007
* Derek Hillard, assistant of professor of German in the department of modern languages at K-State has won the German Academic Exchange Service Article Prize of the German Studies Association. The award is given to the author of the best article in the fields of German language and literature, cultural studies and humanities to be published in German Studies Review, an international journal, during the past two years. The prize carries and award of $500 and will be presented to Hillard by the director of the German Academic Exchange Service at the German Studies Association conference. December 2007
* K-State is a national leader in teaching quality. In 2007, two of K-State's university distinguished professors have won recognition for their outstanding teaching. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education named Chris Sorensen the national professor of the year for research/doctoral universities and David Littrell the Kansas professor of the year. Sorensen is a university distinguished professor of physics and Littrell is a university distinguished professor of music. K-State has had two national professors of the year. Dean Zollman, also a university distinguished professor of physics, was the national winner for research/doctoral universities in 1996. K-State holds the top spot in Kansas for the Carnegie/CASE awards, and is in the top 10 nationally among all universities, public and private. November 2007
* Chris Sorensen, a university distinguished professor of physics who has won every major teaching honor awarded by K-State, has been named the national 2007 Outstanding Doctoral and Research Universities Professor of the Year. The honor is awarded by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Sorenson is K-State's second national winner in the competition. Dean Zollman, university distinguished professor of physics, received the award in 1996. Nov. 2007
* David Littrell's teaching success with music students young and old earned him recognition as the 2007 Kansas Professor of the Year from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. Littrell, a distinguished professor of music, and other honorees from across the United States gathered Nov. 15, 2007, in Washington, D.C., for an awards luncheon and an evening reception. K-State holds the top spot in Kansas for the Carnegie/CASE awards, and is in the top 10 nationally among all universities, public and private. November 2007
* The College Board Advanced Placement Best Practices study has selected an introduction to French literature course offered at K-State as one of the top 10 courses in its subject area in the nation. The K-State course will be used to redesign the Advanced Placement equivalent course. The course is taught by Amy Hubbell, assistant professor of French and the French language coordinator in the department of modern languages. November 2007
* Sarah Trabert, a Manhattan senior in anthropology won the undergraduate paper competition at the 65th annual meeting of the Plains Anthropological Society in Rapid City, S.D. Her topic was prehistoric pottery found at the Scott site in Leavenworth County, the only fully excavated Steed-Kisker site in Kansas. Her work will be eventually published in the society's journal, Plains Anthropologist. November 2007
* K-State professor emeritus of biology Robert J. Robel is one of 22 individuals appointed to serve on a special national Wind Turbine Guidelines Advisory Committee by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne. Members will advise Kempthorne and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on measures to avoid or minimize impacts to wildlife and their habitats from land-based wind energy facilities. Robel is regarded as a world authority on the ecology and management of red deer in Scotland, where he travels frequently for research and consultation. He also is an authority on bobwhite quail, grassland birds and greater and lesser prairie chickens. November 2007
* Fort Riley soldiers trained by K-State instructors brought home accolades from the recent All-Army Combatives Championship in Fort Benning, Ga., including an all-Army champion in the 140-pound weight class: Pfc Matthew Bray of Virginia Beach, Va. The Fort Riley team finished second overall in competition with 35 other teams representing every major unit in the Army, according to Arthur DeGroat, director of military affairs at K-State. One Fort Riley soldier placed third in his weight class, and two others placed fourth. October 2007
* Subbaratnam Muthukrishnan, university distinguished professor of biochemistry, and Barbara Valent, university distinguished professor of plant pathology, have been named Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. K-State now has 15 faculty members who are fellows of the association, representing the fields of biology, chemical engineering, plant pathology, biochemistry, grain sciences and industry, geography, agronomy and physics. October 2007
* Chris Culbertson, associate professor of chemistry at K-State, has won a 2007 Masao Horiba Award for "Rapid Analysis of Individual T-Lymphocyte Cells on Microfluidic Devices." He received the award at Kyoto University in Japan, where he also presented a lecture describing his research. The award is named for the founder of Horiba Ltd., a company that manufactures, sells and markets measurement and analysis tools used in fields ranging from medical diagnostics and automotive emissions to the semiconductor industry. Established in 2004, the award promotes research activities in the field of analysis and measurement technology by researchers working at universities and public research institutes in Japan and abroad. Culbertson's project was one of three chosen from among 29 nominations. The winners were selected for the future potential of the researcher, originality of the research and the possibility of the research being developed into unique measurement instruments. The award is designed to support the commercialization of prizewinning research. October 2007
* Several geography students from K-State earned honors at the recent meeting of the Great Plains-Rocky Mountain Division of the Association of American Geographers. Brandon Haddock, doctoral student in geography, received $100 for the best doctoral paper, "Queer Camp: Economic Impact Analysis of an Alternative Tourism Destination in the Missouri Ozarks." Jeffrey Neel, doctoral student in geography, and Nichols Graf, master's student in geography, received the $100 prize for the best poster, "Channel Change on a Legally 'C'ontested Reach of the Big Blue River in Kansas." Based on their scores at the meeting's Geography Bowl competition, Alex Fredericksen, sophomore in geography, and Mitch Stimers, doctoral student in geography, both were selected to the Great Plains-Rocky Mountain Division Geography Bowl team that will compete at the national Geography Bowl in April 2008. Jim Wells, doctoral student in geography, was named as an alternate to the team. October 2007
* A K-State graduate student's paper that examines how social threat may influence individual criminal court outcomes has been honored as the best in a competition sponsored by the Midwestern Criminal Justice Association. "Enemies at the Gate: Toward a Theory of Court-Level Racial Threat" by Travis Linnemann, doctoral student in sociology, Manhattan, was selected the top paper in the association's 2007 Student Paper Competition. Linnemann was recognized at the annual conference of the Midwestern Criminal Justice Association, Sept. 27-29, in Chicago. His paper also will be considered for publication in the Journal of Crime and Justice. October 2007
* The National Science Foundation has awarded K-State's Michael Herman a grant of nearly $623,000 to continue his research on soil nematodes, a nearly microscopic type of worm, in the emerging field of ecological genomics. Also called EcoGen, ecological genomics investigates the connection between genomes and a changing environment. "Most genomic research these days focuses on medically relevant questions that help us understand human biology and what goes wrong when we get sick," Herman said. "We can think about the environment in the same way. Global change is making the environment sick, and we're using genomics to understand exactly what's going wrong." Past studies of nematodes in a laboratory setting have shown that the activated genes in lab nematodes are different than those living in the natural environment. Herman hopes to pinpoint which genes are activated or deactivated based on different environmental conditions. With the results, scientists will be able to answer many questions about soil ecology, such as soil quality or potential contamination that may affect the food web. September 2007
* Jeff Pickering, associate professor of political science, has been selected for the editorial team of the prestigious Foreign Policy Analysis, one of the journals of the International Studies Association, the largest multidisciplinary group that studies international issues. The journal has a wide base of circulation and the members of its editorial team are an exclusive group, representing the top scholars in this area. According to Joe Aistrup, head of the department of political science, Pickering is one of the leading scholars in the area of conflict studies and international security, and his selection to the journal's editorial team will cement his position as a leading scholar in these areas. September 2007
* K-State's sole recipient of a fall 2007 Gilman International Scholarship will use her $3,000 award to finance a three-country program of study. Jessica Ice, a junior in anthropology, Kansas City, Kan., will spend five weeks of the fall semester in Guanajuato, Mexico, studying Spanish. From there she'll proceed to Lima, Peru, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Gilman International Scholarship Program provides awards of up to $5,000 for undergraduates who are receiving federal Pell grant funding to participate in study abroad programs worldwide. The U.S. State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs sponsors the award. More than 400 were given out for study this fall. August 2007
* K-State's Matthew King will be heading to the United Kingdom this fall as a Fulbright Scholar. King, Wichita, has received a Fulbright Postgraduate Award and will work on a master's in environmental change and management at Oxford University. The award, one of only 10 presented for the 2007-2008 school year, was made by the U.S.-U.K. Fulbright Commission. A May 2007 summa cum laude graduate of K-State, King earned a bachelor's in political science, with a secondary major in natural resources and environmental sciences. A 2006 Morris K. Udall Scholarship recipient, King was named one of K-State's outstanding graduating seniors for his leadership and efforts in improving campus life, which included the K-State Proud student fundraising campaign. A K-State honors list student, he also was named to Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi academic honor societies and Blue Key senior honor society. He was active in K-State student government, serving as chair of the K-State Student Senate's Governmental Relations Committee and as a College of Arts and Sciences student senator for three years. July 2007
* The opportunity to conduct supramolecular chemistry research in the lab of a Nobel Prize winner will take a new K-State doctoral graduate to France. Nathan Schultheiss, who earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from K-State in May, has received a Fulbright Scholar award from the Alsace Regional Council in France. Schultheiss is going to the Universite Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France, where he will conduct postdoctoral research at the university's Institute de Science et d'Ingenierie Supramoleculaires. Founded in 2000, the institute is co-directed by Jean-Marie Lehn, who won a Nobel Prize in 1987 for his work in supramolecular chemistry. While at K-State, Schultheiss conducted supramolecular chemistry research in the lab of Christer Aakeroy, professor of chemistry. His work has produced about 10 articles for publication in international peer-reviewed journals. June 2007
* A recent grant will help students at the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at K-State take "participatory journalism" beyond the blog. K-State will share the $230,000 Knight Foundation award with six other journalism programs across the country. The goal is to establish national network of "innovation incubators" through which college students can develop and distribute new forms of participatory community journalism, which involves citizens contributing news content. Sam Mwangi, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communications, will administer the program for K-State. June 2007
* K-State's David Stone, professor of history, has been named a top young historian by the History News Network. The network selected Stone for the distinction based on his contribution to the discipline in his area of research through his commitment and achievement in scholarship and teaching. The network also chooses historians who are highly regarded outside academia, and many are consulted by the popular media. A profile of Stone will appear on the History News Network Web site at http://www.hnn.us/
Stone has taught at K-State since 1999, where he also is a faculty member of the Institute for Military Studies and 20th Century Studies. He specializes in Russia and the Soviet Union, South Asia and military history. He is the author of "A Military History of Russia: From Ivan the Terrible to the War in Chechnya" and "Hammer and Rifle: The Militarization of the Soviet Union, 1926–1933," which won the Historical Society's inaugural Best First Book Prize and was co-winner of the 2001 Shulman Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. June 2007
* K-State biochemist Michael Kanost's contributions to research on immune systems in mosquitoes are part of a journal article appearing in the June 22 Science magazine. Kanost is a distinguished professor of biochemistry, head of the department and a member of the K-State Arthropod Genomics Center. He was part of a group of international researchers whose work appears in Science magazine. The researchers are working to understand how the immune systems in two types of mosquitoes and the fruit fly evolved over time. This way, scientists will have a better idea of what genes to study in their efforts to halt the transmission of dangerous insect-spread diseases like malaria. June 2007
* An electronic thesis by international photojournalist, former White House photographer and recent K-State graduate Pete Souza is an award winner. Souza, a December 2006 master's graduate in journalism and mass communications, has received one of six 2007 Electronic Theses and Dissertations awards from the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. Souza is being honored for his thesis, "A Photojournalist on Assignment." The thesis, in a PDF document, includes 37 photographs and captions from Souza's career as a photojournalist. The photos cover such diverse subjects as two young boys at a K-State child care center, Princess Diana dancing with John Travolta at the White House, the War in Afghanistan and the death of former President Ronald Reagan. It's the third time in the last two years that a K-State graduate student has been honored in the Electronic Theses and Dissertations competition, which is sponsored by Adobe Systems Inc. K-State received two awards, for a thesis and a dissertation, in 2006.
The competition recognizes students whose electronic theses and dissertations make innovative use of software and serve to transform the genre of print dissertations and theses. According to the awards committee of the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, Souza's "exemplary work has created a unique model of digital media research that will encourage further endeavors in this area. Souza's efforts have improved graduate education and raised the standard of scholarship on a global scale." The award will be presented at the organization's 2007 symposium, June 13-16, in Uppsala, Sweden. June 2007
* A Kansas State University physicist has received a $3.75 million grant from the Department of Defense for research to improve attosecond sources and exploit the technology breakthrough for applications. Zenghu Chang, K-State professor of physics, said attosecond laser technology can potentially identify elements. This means a laser pulse could be beamed into a suspicious package, for example, to quickly determine if it in fact did contain dangerous chemicals. Chang is the principal investigator on the grant, which is for $1.25 million per year for three years with a possible two-year extension. Other team member institutions are Texas A&M University and the University of Ottawa. May 2007
* How do climate change and other global environmental changes affect the average Kansan? Researchers at Kansas State University are working to find out. K-State, along with the University of Kansas, recently received grants totaling $9.25 million from the National Science Foundation -- $6.75 million -- and the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation -- $2.5 million -- to study ecological change in the Kansas River Basin and establish a virtual ecological forecasting center in Kansas. Walter Dodds leads the research at K-State. May 2007
* Bimal Paul, K-State professor of geography, and two professors from other universities, have been awarded a $64,000 Fulbright-Hays grant for the project, "Natural Hazards and Related Health Issues in Bangladesh: Standards and Issues Based Geography Curricular Project for Grades K-16." As part of the project, 15 teachers from schools and universities across the United States will visit the People's Republic of Bangladesh in July to study flood-, cyclone-, tornado- and drought-affected areas. The team will then develop U.S. geography standards and issues-based curricular materials focusing on how humans living in Bangladesh cope with their many natural hazards and the influence such disasters have had on health issues in the area. May 2007
* Several students recently received awards for their performance in regional Chinese and Japanese language speech contests. Five K-State students participated and won awards at the third Midwest Chinese Speech Contest at Northwestern University in Chicago. The contest was sponsored by Northwestern University and the People's Republic of China Consulate General in Chicago and included about 60 students from 21 universities in the Midwest. In addition, one K-State student competed and placed in the 21st annual Japanese Language Speech Contest hosted by the Consulate General of Japan in Chicago. April 2007
* Frank Tracz, director of bands and professor of music at K-State, has been named a 2006 Lowell Mason Fellow by the Music Educators National Conference. Tracz is one of 10 music educators nationwide honored as a Mason Fellow at the organization's Centennial Congress and Celebration June 25 in Orlando, Fla. The award is named for Lowell Mason, who is credited with introducing music instruction to American public schools and establishing teacher training in music education. This honor and recognition is one of the highest awards the Music Educators National Conference can bestow on individuals who have made significant contributions to music education. Gary Mortenson, head of the music department, credits Tracz with moving the K-State Marching Band into an elite status among all major university groups. April 2007
* J.K. Rowling, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Wesch. These are just some of the 22 winners of this year's Rave Awards from Wired magazine, now on newsstands and the Web. Wesch, assistant professor of cultural anthropology at K-State, is being honored in the video category and is called "The Explainer" in the issue. He created a video explaining Web 2.0 that has been viewed more than 2.2 million times on YouTube, an online video-sharing community, since its release Jan. 31. Wired's Rave Awards, according to the magazine, salute the "people changing your mind." They honor innovators, instigators and inventors in a range of categories including technology, business, music, film, games, industrial design and blogs. This year's awards process looked at the most "intriguing breakthroughs in the world today" and then tracked down the "individuals who made them happen." Wired reports on how technology affects culture, the economy and politics. The winners of the Rave Awards will be honored April 27 in San Francisco. April 2007
* Nicole Wayant, Topeka, a junior in mathematics and geography, has been selected for a summer internship with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, headquartered in Washington, D.C. Wayant will work at the agency's facility in St. Louis, Mo., this summer. According to Max Lu, associate professor of geography at K-State, the agency's primary function is to collect, analyze and distribute geospatial intelligence for combat support. The agency's internship program is highly selective, Lu said, with only a few interns selected each year to work at the agency's facilities in St. Louis and in Virginia. Wayant wants to pursue a career in intelligence as an analyst. April 2007
* Army ROTC cadets from Kansas State University took first place in one category of the Bataan Memorial Death March, a marathon challenge at the White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, N.M. K-State cadets on the male military light team placed first in their category. K-State also had teams competing in the military heavy -- military uniform with a 30-pound backpack -- category, and co-ed military light category. April 2007
* For the fourth time in the last six years, K-State's Putnam Mathematical Competition team finished first in the Big 12 in the competition. The Putnam is the highest level mathematical competition for undergraduates in the U.S. and Canada. K-State placed 29th out of the 508 participating colleges and universities in the competition. K-State's Jeffrey Amos, senior in mathematics and statistics, Olathe, was the top student in the Big 12 Conference and ranked in the top 2 percent overall in the competition. Matthew Burkemper, senior in mathematics, Derby, tied for second place in the Big 12 Conference and ranked in the top 4 percent overall in the competition. April 2007
*Larry Takemoto, university distinguished professor of biology, will receive the Distinguished Service Award from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. The award recognizes Takemoto's many contributions to the organization, both as president and as a member of its board of trustees. Takemoto has been a member of the association since 1974 and served as 2005-2006 president. The award will be presented at the organization's annual meeting May 6-10 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. April 2007
*Amy Hubbell, assistant professor of modern languages, was awarded a $750 Northeast Modern Language Association summer research fellowship for "Reconstructing the Past: The Pieds-Noirs 45 Years after Algerian Independence." The fellowship is intended to defray travel costs incurred by researchers in pursuing their project over the summer. Hubbell was one of six recipients of the award. April 2007
* Jenna Kennedy, Hoxie, is K-State's 30th Harry S. Truman Scholarship winner. A senior in microbiology, natural resources and environmental science, and premedicine, Kennedy has been selected to receive the national scholarship, which provides up to $30,000 for college students preparing for a career in public service. With 30 winners and one alternate since the first scholarships were awarded in 1977, K-State remains first in the nation among public universities in producing Truman scholars. Kennedy is a K-State honors list student. She has been conducting undergraduate research in the immunology lab of Stephen Chapes, professor of biology, since November 2005. She is the advisory board co-chair to K-State PROUD: Students Changing Lives campaign; president of Chimes junior honorary; and recruitment information manager for Alpha Delta Pi sorority, where she also has served as finance vice president. She is a member of the University Committee on Religion and Rotaract. She was a member of Quest, the freshman honorary, and has served as vice president of Silver Key, the sophomore honorary. She also has been a Student Governing Association intern. March 2007
*Michael Verschelden, junior in English, Fairway, has been awarded a fellowship to attend the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets, May 31-June 21 at Bucknell University's Stadler Center for Poetry in Lewisburg, Pa. Students are invited to attend based on their submitted manuscript, personal statement and letters of recommendation. Verschelden was nominated by Jonathan Holden, university distinguished professor of English, and Elizabeth Dodd, professor of English. March 2007
* Two K-State students served as delegates at the recent 49th annual Air Force Academy Assembly, Feb. 6-9, in Colorado Springs, Colo. The assembly is a conference for highly qualified undergraduates that provides an opportunity to discuss a topic of contemporary significance. Greg Corbin, senior in philosophy and political science, Shawnee, and Chad McKown, senior in political science, Wichita, were among the more than 200 student delegates attending the assembly, which had a theme this year of "Continent at a Crossroads: Prosperity, Justice and Security in South America." February 2007
* The Kansas Association for Conservation and Environmental Education has selected K-State's Valerie Wright, Konza Prairie Biological Station environmental educator and naturalist, for the association's Award for Excellence in Conservation and Environmental Education, preK-16 educator category. Award recipients have been nominated by their peers and exhibit outstanding leadership and achievement, as well as collaboration and cooperation within the environmental education field. Nominees must have a minimum of five years involvement in the field of environmental education and continue to make significant contributions to environmental education in Kansas. Wright was hired in 1996 as the Konza Prairie's first environmental education coordinator. The Konza Prairie Environmental Education Program offers educational programming at the Konza Prairie Biological Station, a field research station owned by The Nature Conservancy and K-State, and managed by the K-State Division of Biology. More than 4,000 visitors -- half of which are school-age children -- experience the Konza Prairie through reservations each year. February 2007
* A video by a Kansas State University professor that he posted on the Web has not only become immensely popular online, but it also has given him and his students something to study. Michael Wesch, assistant professor of anthropology, created a video explaining Web 2.0, the "second wave" of Web-based services allowing people to network, share and collaborate online. The video, posted Jan. 31, was the most popular video on the Internet Feb. 5, according to Technorati.com; the No. 1 featured video on YouTube Feb. 9; and has been featured in more than 5,000 blogs. More than 1 million people have viewed the video on YouTube, an online video-sharing site. It is one of the top 100 favorites of all time on YouTube, recently surpassing Beyonce's latest pop music video.
Wesch, who also serves as the guest editor of a special issue of Visual Anthropology Review, "Beyond e-Text," was writing about what can be done with new technology, such as blogs, wikis, video editing, Web feeds and social networking sites. He found himself in a strange position. He was trying to describe how digital media has gone beyond simply imitating paper, but he himself was using paper to describe this phenomenon. He decided that using video was much more relevant and so he created "Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us" to describe his path through the Internet. His creation can be seen at http://youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE February 2007