College of Arts and Sciences

Professor Awarded for Research on Flint’s Municipal Takeover
A policy of municipal takeover was implemented to help relieve Flint, Michigan, of financial and political hardships in response to the water crisis. Ashley Nickels, associate professor in the Department of Political Science, extensively researched Flint's municipal takeover for seven years, earning her three awards for her work.

Two Kent State Psychology Faculty Selected for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Leadership Program
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has selected two Kent State University College of Arts and Sciences faculty members, along with two community clinicians, for Clinical Scholars, an initiative that will provide funding and leadership training to the four team members. Their plan is to implement a project that will help veterinary professionals in Northeast Ohio address mental health stigmas they experience in their lives and provide usable techniques that can be incorporated into their veterinary practices.

Anthropology Team Brings Home the 2020 Ig Nobel Award for Materials Science
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!)

Biological Sciences Faculty to Lead H2Ohio Wetlands Monitoring Program
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.

Geology Professor and Science Historian Co-Author Article Exploring Eunice Foote’s Climate Experiments From 1856
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’s New Undergraduate Neuroscience Major Thrives
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.

NSF Funds Kent State Research Team’s Interdisciplinary Study of Plant Biodiversity

Kent State Mathematicians Win NSF Grant to Study Complex But Important Geometry Problems
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.

Department of Energy Selects Two Kent State Biology Ph.D. Students for Prestigious Research Program
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.