College of Arts and Sciences
In 2019, a team of researchers in Kent State’s Department of Anthropology published its “prize-winning” research article titled “Experimental replication shows knives manufactured from frozen human feces do not work” in the Journal of Archaeological Science. (Yes, the jokes are seemingly endless, but seriously folks, there is an important underlying message here about evidence-based research and fact-checking!)
Lauren Kinsman-Costello, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, will serve as the H2Ohio Wetland Monitoring Program Lead for Lake Erie and Aquatic Research Network (LEARN). The group will assess the effectiveness and future role of implemented and planned wetland restoration projects in partnership with the Ohio Division of Natural Resources (ODNR). This project is part of Governor Mike DeWine’s H2Ohio Initiative, a comprehensive, data-driven approach to improving Ohio’s water quality.
Recently, Joseph Ortiz, Ph.D., professor and assistant chair in the Department of Geology in Kent State University’s College of Arts and Science, partnered with Sir Roland Jackson, Ph.D., a historian of science at the Royal Institution and the Department of Science and Technology Studies at University College London, to co-author a paper assessing the experiments described in Eunice Foote’s papers from a detailed quantitative perspective and to place them in historical context. They point out the differences between her hypothesis and that of the modern greenhouse effect.
Kent State University introduced a Bachelor of Science degree in Neuroscience in fall 2019, and since the launch, the major has had tremendous growth. Enrollment is projected to surpass majors that have been at Kent State for years.
The National Science Foundation believes Kent State University mathematicians Artem Zvavitch, Ph.D., and Dmitry Ryabogin, Ph.D., are having worthwhile conversations about some age-old unsolved problems, and it has provided support to keep the discussion going for another three years.
Two Kent State University students, in the College of Arts and Sciences, were among 62 students from 50 different U.S. universities recently selected for funding by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Program.
Yingfei Jiang, a College of Arts and Science graduate student in the Chemical Physics program and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University, and his advisor Deng-Ke Yang, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Physics, have invented the first ever dual-mode smart glass technology that can control both radiant energy flow (heat) and privacy through a tinted material.
Dr. Joseph D. Ortiz, a professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Geology at Kent State University, was part of an international team of researchers that co-authored an article about a deadly tsunami that occurred about 1,000 years ago in Tanzania. The study suggests that the tsunami risk in East Africa could be higher than previously thought.