Featured Student Research

Five elite KSU students, from diverse backgrounds, are competing at the Biodesign Challenge international summit with their cutting-edge product.

Meet Sayoni Dutta, a doctoral student in Kent State’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Program in the Department of Biological Science.

What kind of research did you complete?

What was even more of a departure than taking classes remotely? Many summer research experiences were moved online this year as well. Fortunately, with creativity and an open mind, there are lots of opportunities to do important scientific research using online tools and data.

The words “biology” and “design” might not typically intertwine; however, Kent State University’s Biodesign Challenge course was created to challenge the idea that the two separate disciplines could not collaborate. During the fall of 2019, 24 students from seven different majors worked in teams to create a biodesign project. The collaborative nature of the course also excited the students.

Though she had an interest in science at an early age, Raissa Mendonca had no idea she would end up over 4,000 miles away from her hometown of Recife, Brazil, studying and doing award-winning ecological research in the College of Arts and Sciences at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. She probably did not expect to be wearing a bug net over her head in Manitoba, Canada, either.

Emmaleigh Given recently spent three summers and two winters in a remote biological reserve in the middle of the rainforest in the Alajuela Province of Costa Rica, where she has and will spend several months conducting research on community ecology, and she has one more trip planned. Being hunted by unseen predators isn’t the way most researchers conduct their work. But for some, it’s just part of the day.

What some call a sustainable answer to urban flaws, Anna Droz calls research. As a biological sciences doctoral student in Kent State University’s College of Arts and Sciences, Droz’s curiosity has developed into a passion, maybe even an obsession, to discover the best vegetative roof combinations with the optimal plants, soil, and micro-organism communities.

Devan Mathie, Junior, Environmental and Conservation Biology: