News

Jonathan V. Selinger, professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Kent State University’s Department of Physics and the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute in the College of Arts and Sciences, 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. 

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, MMPI, is a standardized psychometric test that was first published by the University of Minnesota Press in 1943 and quickly became the gold standard for assessing psychopathology. Kent State University has played a key role throughout the history of this test and a Kent State faculty member led the revision for the recently published and updated 2020 MMPI-3. 

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.

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.

Black lives and Black cultures have been underrepresented and discriminated against for many years. TEXTURES: The History and Art of Black Hair is an exhibition coming to the Kent State University Museum in 2021 with the help of significant sponsorship from corporate and federal funding that focuses on celebrating and empowering these lives and cultures.

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.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most universities across the United States transitioned from face-to-face classes to remote learning, closed campuses and sent students home this past spring. Recently, a group of Kent State University researchers sought to examine the impact of these pandemic-related changes upon physical activity and sedentary behavior, specifically sitting, across the university population. 

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.

Before leaving the house, you most likely check to ensure you have your ID, your shoes and most importantly your smartphone. In the past decade, American smartphone usage has grown more than 50% according to a Pew Research Center study. Smartphones have become as commonplace as a wallet or car keys and Kent State researchers are taking advantage of this new commodity by using cell phone data to study individuals’ behavioral patterns during the COVID-19 pandemic and link cell phone use behaviors to mental health. 

The National Institute of Health granted additional funding to Kent State University researcher Karin Coifman, Ph.D., bringing her total award amount to more than $3 million to support her research on mental well-being and coping after traumatic injuries in individuals aged 65 and older. 

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!)

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.

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.

Kent State University’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute soon will be home to a new X-ray scattering instrument capable of examining materials in scales from as small as a fraction of a nanometer to as large as several micrometers.

The Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recently awarded a $1.5 million, three-year grant to Kent State University College of Nursing research faculty member Jim Tudhope, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC (principal investigator) and his team.

Scientists have long recognized that biodiverse ecosystems are more stable and productive. What makes ecosystems diverse is having many species living together in the same place. But what factors allow for the success of the species in diverse communities? Are there some species that just can’t live together while others can?

A pair of Kent State University researchers will explore this question thanks to a new $580,000 award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

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.

There is a very good chance that technology, incubated at Kent State University, could play an integral role in improving NASA astronauts’ performance on the next space missions to the moon and Mars.

Scientists have long since established that the effects of stress on our bodies are largely negative. But understanding stress as a trigger for using calories and burning fat also could lead us to better mechanisms for healthier behaviors.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently funded a Kent State University researcher to continue her efforts toward that goal.

Just like the research that goes into understanding and applying a complicated concept like biodesign, holding an entire symposium devoted to it is no small undertaking.

So, when a world-renowned scholar on the subject agreed to come do some of the heavy lifting, Kent State University was elated to welcome her.


Andrea Case sits at a table in Kent State’s Center for the Visual Arts, carefully contemplating the silhouettes of leaves printed in bold contrasting colors on the paper in front of her.

The “C” in “college” might as well stand for “cramming.”
Studies show students are notoriously bad at adopting and adhering consistently to high-impact study habits that help them retain knowledge long-term.
Researchers and faculty at Kent State University, however, are collaborating on a new project to put a modern technological twist on a tried-and-true study tactic.

Ohio, like many states, suffers from a teacher shortage, especially in early childhood education and special education. The Buckeye State also is in need of more school psychologists, analysts say.

Traumatic injuries are the third leading cause of death nationally and the first in Americans age 44 and younger, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Level I trauma rooms are intended to stabilize and save the lives of patients with the most severe traumatic injuries. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has awarded a $2.47 million grant to Sara Bayramzadeh, a Kent State University researcher, to help create trauma rooms that support staff in saving patients’ lives.

A trio of Kent State University researchers has landed a large federal grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to apply a novel video technology to train future teachers.

Kent State University is pleased and proud to announce the return of “We the People,” a photography exhibition that shines a light on our common humanity.

Once it begins, Alzheimer’s Disease progresses systematically and aggressively, attacking victims on multiple fronts. But scientists studying the disease operate the same way — like Kent State University’s own Dr. Gemma Casadesus Smith.

A Kent State University researcher with a background in safety training models — and a very personal motivation — has devised a method to help some children with food allergies stay safe, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) just granted him the funding to test it.

One of Kent State University’s most prolific and renowned researchers has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences.

Quan Li, Ph.D., Senior Research Fellow in the Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute, joins the prestigious Brussels-based organization that includes about 660 members from 45 nations, including 65 Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners.

Science is complex, and it’s difficult to discuss it with children under the best circumstances; it’s even more difficult when they are hungry. Two Kent State University researchers may have cooked up a way to solve both of those problems, and the National Science Foundation just awarded them a three-year, $1.3 million grant to determine if their recipe works.

Trustees Research Professor Oleg Lavrentovich, Ph.D., a chemical physicist in Kent State University’s Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute (AMLCI), just received nearly $1 million between two grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for separate studies with potential applications in biomedical science, commercial electronics and beyond.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a three-year, $914,000 grant to Kent State University to lead a collaborative research project to study how and at what rate the geographically most widespread native conifer in the eastern United States, the Eastern Red Cedar tree species (Juniperus virginiana), spreads across the landscape.

According to the American Cancer Society, there will be an estimated 1,688,780 new cancer cases diagnosed and 600,920 cancer deaths in the U.S. in 2017.

These numbers are stark and sobering, and worse yet, we still do not know exactly why cancer develops in its victims or how to stop it.

An online publication in Nature Nanotechnology this week by Kent State University researchers and their colleagues at Kyoto University in Japan, however, may offer new understanding about what turns good cells bad.