Institutes and Initiatives

Kent State University has announced the recipients of the 2020 Outstanding Research and Scholarship Awards (ORSA). Sponsored by the University Research Council and the Division of Research and Sponsored Programs, this award honors Kent State’s exceptional researchers and scholars.

Kent State University has announced the recipients of the New Faculty Outstanding Research and Scholarship Award. These awards recognize the hard work and dedication of faculty who have been at Kent State for 10 years or less and are sponsored by the University Research Council.

Jonathan V. Selinger, professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Kent State University’s Department of Physics, in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.

Since March, COVID-19 has become a widespread topic of conversation. Finding ways to explain what this virus is, how one can treat it and how to slow the spread of the virus are just a few commonly asked questions with few clear answers. Xiaozhen Mou, associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and her research team recently received funding for their hard work as part of Ohio’s statewide collective effort to discover traces of COVID-19 virus particles in wastewater.

While it's no secret that many college students drink alcohol, how COVID-19 affected these behaviors and patterns is the focus of recent research published in the journal Addictive Behaviors by the collaboration of William Lechner from the Department of Psychological Sciences and Deric Kenne from the College of Public Health. The pair sought to study the effects that a major stressor such as the pandemic could have on addictive behaviors and how vulnerabilities such as anxiety and depression played a part in the coping process of college students. 

Julia Huyck, Ph.D., assistant professor in the School of Health Sciences at Kent State University, was granted $431,000 over three years by the National Institute of Health (NIH) to delve into the unknown science concerning adolescent hearing and cognitive development.

It would not be surprising if you have a social media app open right now; however, you may not be getting the enjoyment out of it that you think you are. In a recent publication in Computers in Human Behavior, two Kent State professors examined the relationship between social media usage and boredom. Students may be surprised by the results and parents might be excited by them.

Two Kent State sociology researchers are moving toward gaining insight into how people’s brains react in a variety of threatening situations using innovative virtual reality (VR) technology funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Army. Josh Pollock and William Kalkhoff, both in the Department of Sociology & Criminology, are leading the research projects, which will benefit the Army, Kent State students and others.

Climate change can now be measured on a global scale using multiple weather variables, according to new research published by Cameron C. Lee, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Kent State.

Kent State’s David Costello is passionate about identifying what trace metals lie within Northeast Ohio’s streams and what the effects of these metals are on the surrounding environment. Costello, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, received a $718,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study these important trace metals. The grant is awarded as part of the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program.