Category: Featured Stories

Wichita State University’s Environmental Finance Center is one of 17 locations selected to establish an Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (EJ TCTAC). This new center will promote environmental and energy justice in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and adjoining Indigenous nations.

Each of the EJ TCTACs will receive at least $10 million over the next five years from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy. 

Student innovators from across Wichita State will compete for up to $10,000 in start-up capital during the 2023 Shocker New Venture Competition (SNVC) Trade Show.

The competition started with 40 teams and judges narrowed the field down to 15 after the Business Model Video round. Teams were judged on their ability to identify a problem, clearly define a solution for that problem and market a fix through a three-minute video.

They were tasked with succinctly encapsulating their business concept through a market analysis, a clear value proposition, and a sustainable competitive advantage. The following teams will go on to the Trade Show round of the competition:

• Bauble Budger: Treavor McLeland, Jennifer Hoefler, Vindya Kumari Kariyawasam Ampegama Gamage and Abdulaziz Alsaihati
• Botanic Buddy: Ivan Weiss Van Der Pol
• Chiropractor Marketing Solutions: Gavin Dick
• Female Engineering Matters: Karen Duong, Jessica Gorton, Angelica Perez, Rahmah Alsukayr and Rosa Chicas
• MDESIGNS: Emily Caswell, Jose De Santiago, Marha Jean, Jett Mattison and Clarissa Rincon
• Optimum Wellness: Olivia Gallegos, Chase Anderson, Zachary Vanfossan and Faizan Ahmed
• Player Card: Jacob O’Connor and Jon Peterson
• Rise Mobility: Amogh Gokhale, Alana Cahill, Louie Tipton, Devin McConico and Alex Valdovinos
• Roomers: Ashton Jeter, Cole Krizek, Chamnau Chamnan and Ian Gaza
• Secret Squirrels: Bo Henry, Shannon Looney, Luke Schuessler and Javier Agudo
• Taram Inc.: Manoj Ram Thanthaloor Krishnamaraja, Vinoj Kumar Thanthaloor Krishnamaraja and Eliot Deschamps
• Testkey: Nicholas Vasilescu, Ben Gorman, Christian Kindel and Jared Goering
• Tracer: Kyle Dodson, Andrew McLeod, Joseph Boley, Guoyao Yue and Katelyn Tran
• Under Pressure: Julie Gonzalez-Morales, Ticie Dumas, Kami Bartholomew and Romina Fretes
• Vision-Vest: Grant Johnson, Jun Chang Teoh and Keenan Nguyen

The Trade Show will take place from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday, April 21 at Koch Arena. Teams will set up booths and pitch their concepts to business leaders who will be serving as judges.

Trade Show judges will be given 10,000 Shocker dollars to invest in the students’ ventures. At the close of the Trade Show, the six teams with the most investments by the judges will be announced. These teams will advance to the final round from 2 to 5 p.m. Friday, April 28 in Wichita State’s Devlin Hall.

The public is welcome and encouraged to attend and witness this next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.

Sponsors of this year’s competition include Erin Cummings, IMA Financial Group, INTRUST Bank, Moral Holdings and NetWork Kansas.

For the second consecutive year, Wichita State has been named a Voter Friendly Campus by the Fair Election Center’s Campus Vote Project and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

WSU is among 258 campuses in 38 states to earn the designation. The initiative recognizes institutions that have planned and implemented practices that encourage students to register and vote in the 2022 elections and in coming years.

With the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic behind us, Wichita State’s Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory will soon be expanding its focus to become a full microbiology laboratory.

The lab’s evolution will give students more opportunities for applied learning, boost research capabilities and help fill a gap for medical testing across the state.

Wichita State senior Alyssa Pfeifer took an elective film class in high school as a break from academics she considered more stressful. It didn’t take long for film to become her passion. She made short films, entered competitions, and experimented with cameras and lighting on music videos.

Now at WSU’s Shocker Studios, students like Pfeifer have even more opportunities to hone their skills with a state-of-the-art, 700-square-foot editing suite for their video projects. The studio features theater lighting and seating, a 4K digital cinema compliant projector and a 200-inch screen. Students work on PCs and Mac Studios. It is equipped with DaVinci Resolve Color Panels, and keyboards are hot-keyed for Adobe Premiere Pro and/or DaVinci Resolve.

A user experience (UX) Austin research firm has discovered a secret ingredient in its recipe for success: Wichita State students.

Human Interfaces is a boutique firm that specializes in user UX research and has an impressive client list that includes Fitbit, Amazon, HP and Dell, to name a few.

The partnership between Wichita State and Human Interfaces began about a decade ago when the founder of the company, Dr. Greg Liddell, was working with Dr. Barb Chaparro, former Wichita State professor of human factors and director of the Software Usability Research Lab.

The Great Plains has often been overlooked in the history books of North America, but recent discoveries made by a team of Wichita State University archaeologists are rewriting the history of where the beating heart of North American actually was in the pre-historic era before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

According to research findings by Dr. Don Blakeslee, professor of anthropology and archaeologist at Wichita State, it turns out that the Great Plains was much bigger and much more politically and economically influential in North America than previously thought.

Los Angeles-based indie pop band SAINT MOTEL will perform in concert at Wichita State at 8 p.m. Friday, April 14 in Charles Koch Arena. 

Ticket prices are $10 for WSU students, $25 for WSU faculty/staff and $35 for general public. This concert is for those 18 and older. Tickets can be purchased online. 

Formed while attending film school in Southern California, SAINT MOTEL’s kaleidoscopic sound and inventive live performances have earned the band a loyal fanbase that flock to its headlining shows and standout sets at festivals such as Coachella, Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo.  

Wichita State University’s chapter for Society of Professional Engineers will host Noche de Ciencias for Wichita Public School students and their families, from 4:30 to 6:45 p.m. Thursday, March 30 at Wichita North High School, 1437 N. Rochester St.

This is a free event to introduce Hispanic students to STEM education and career opportunities.

Paul Mills walked on the court at Charles Koch Arena as head coach of the Shockers for the first time on Thursday. He is well acquainted with the building, however, and how Wichita State fans can fill seats and affect games.

“Having been here a few times, I understand the decibel levels that it gets,” he said. “Because I was on the wrong side of those levels, and the people here, the passionate fanbase, the rich history, the winning tradition made this a no-brainer for my family.”