News at SDState

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 South Dakota State University. 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.

South Dakota State University’s College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions will hold its Medical Laboratory Science Day and Spring Convocation and Awards Ceremony on Wednesday, April 15.

The Drone Club at South Dakota State University 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, South Dakota State University 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.

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 South Dakota State University'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.

Navya Joy, a South Dakota State University doctoral student in electrical engineering, is working on a research project that could radically change how medical laboratory testing is done. She is working on a project with Sungyong Jung, head of the McComish Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, that could replace conventional, large-scale medical laboratory instrumentation with a computer board as small as a credit card. This miraculous device, called an all-in-one electroanalytical device, can also be modified for environmental monitoring, food safety assessment and agricultural analysis. “By enabling on-site testing at the point of need, it eliminates the reliance on centralized laboratory facilities for sample analysis,” said Joy, who joined Jung’s lab in January 2025. She is one of 17 Future Scholars of America, a program created in fiscal year 2025 by the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering

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.

Natalie Sturm first learned about the Dakota Lakes Research Farm as part of an undergraduate cropping systems class. She was so inspired she emailed the farm manager, Dwayne Beck, asking if he was hiring. Now, six years after the initial email and four years after completing her master’s degree by conducting research on the farm, Sturm is returning as the new manager of the Dakota Lakes Research Farm.

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, South Dakota State University has announced the establishment of the Center for AI Innovation and Emergent Technologies.

The 2026 Midwest American Society of Animal Science Annual Meeting was held March 8-11 in Omaha, Nebraska, bringing together researchers and students from 12 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. “Faculty and students from South Dakota State University were highly successful at the Midwest ASAS Annual Meeting, showcasing the strength of the university’s teaching, research and extension programs,” said John Jaeger, Calvin and Mary Hayenga Endowed Department Head of Animal Science.