State Farm® Partners with Mines WiSE, Summer Camp Programs

The South Dakota School of Mines & Technology has received a $10,000 grant from State Farm to support its Women in Science & Engineering (WiSE) Center and programming along with Mines high school summer camps. The State Farm and WiSE relationship will also result in joint programming aimed at equipping women students with real-life skills, such as financial literacy. State Farm chose Mines because of the commitment State Farm has to supporting educational opportunity and providing students a greater chance to earn engineering and science degrees.

 WiSE has made demonstrated gains in this objective, beginning with a 6 percent increase in women over three years through a mentorship program in mechanical engineering—a success that prompted the program to launch campus-wide starting Fall 2014. Last year marked the new establishment of a WiSE Center on campus, the first of its kind among South Dakota universities.

 One year into the campus-wide mentorship program, first-time freshmen female students, which had been down in fall 2014, increased by over 8 percent for fall 2015. In addition, first-time female freshmen retention remained at 81 percent.

 Matching freshmen women students with upper-class mentors is just one WiSE offering. Other programming includes coffee talks with alumni and industry partners, an annual industry panel dinner, an outreach conference and other professional development and outreach events. The Center itself allows for increased student collaboration and serves as a gathering place where students can study, participate in team-based learning and network with faculty.

 “Partners like State Farm are so valuable to the WiSE program and SD Mines. The saying ‘it takes a village’ aptly describes the value in connecting our students with industry and community leaders, who will help shape these students’ values and culture of learning as they progress along their academic path. This financial and programming support will help fund our mentoring program, provide resources for our WiSE Center and build stronger connections,” said WiSE director Lisa Carlson.

 State Farm will also support STEM summer camps with need-based scholarships for high school students. During these weeklong residential camps, pre-college students are exposed to labs, faculty and programs in an authentic college setting. Approximately 9 percent of Mines incoming freshmen were first exposed to the university through a summer camp.

 State Farm agents in Rapid City have a long tradition of supporting athletic departments and scholar-athletes and have been active on university boards, in competitive judging and associated youth programs. This new involvement with WiSE and summer camps offers even more opportunities for local agents and national representatives to interact and collaborate. 

 “State Farm is pleased to support this science and engineering education opportunity provided by the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology,” said Rapid City State Farm Agent Scott Carlson. “Education is key to unlocking a bright future for tomorrow’s leaders.”

SPS Sheds Light on Dark Matter at SoDak Con

The Society of Physics Students presents the panel, “Shedding Light on Dark Matter and Dark Energy,” at SoDak Con to a packed crowd in the Civic Center.

Mines Cadets Train in Africa & Europe, at Fort Knox & Air Assault School

This summer, South Dakota Mines ROTC students join thousands of Army cadets from around the nation, Guam and Puerto Rico to undergo Cadet Summer Training (CST), which will take them from Kentucky and New Mexico to far-flung places like the Congo. Summer drills includes Cadet Initial Early Training, Cultural Understanding and Language Proficiency (CULP), Cadet Leadership Camp (CLC), Army Airborne and Air Assault schools and internships.

During Cadet Initial Early Training, freshmen mechanical engineer Taylor Topping will travel to Fort Knox, Ky., to learn water survival techniques; how to care for, maintain and fire various weapon systems; rappel off of a structure; and operate in a tactical environment with a team.

Other South Dakota School of Mines & Technology students will trek to two continents, alongside CULP participants traveling to 28 countries. Sophomore civil engineer Derek Merchen will travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo; freshman civil engineer Bradley Ware, to Germany; and junior mechanical engineer Justin Gelling, to Malawi, an inland country off Africa’s southeastern coast.

Cadets will also prep for Cadet Leadership Camp, training in tactics, adaptive leadership and ethical decision-making in the most grueling 30-day course the U.S. Army Cadet Command offers, designed to push cadets to their limits while placing them in leadership roles.

Following wilderness combat training, fresh from Malawi cadet Gelling will join junior mechanical engineers Carson Purtell and Samuel Wendte and Mines military science minor Brianna Barkley in traveling to Fort Knox for missions, ambushes, attacks and raids. The camp is a culmination of three years of on-campus training.

 Having earned enough merit to attend an Army school outside of Cadet Command, freshman civil engineer Matthew Greenfield will spend his summer at the U.S. Army Air Assault School at Fort Benning, Ga., learning how to sling load equipment and rappel various types of rotatory wing aircraft.

 As summer comes to a close, Mines cadets will finish their training in real-world internships. Wendte has earned one in Philadelphia, Pa., while senior mechanical engineer Bryan Lupton’s is in Albuquerque, N.M., both with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Barkley will undertake a medical internship at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.

By applying these skills to the future, Lieutenant Colonel Lynna Speier says Mines cadets will be ready to tackle the rigors they will face within their chosen professions.

Graduate Student Wins Best Paper at Midwest Computing Symposium

Mines graduate student Dan Nix received the Best Student Paper award at the Midwestern Instructional Computing Symposium held in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

The Sioux Falls native won for his paper entitled “Novel Feature Based Outlier Rejection and Motion Clustering.” Nix, who just completed his first year in graduate school, is enrolled in both the computational sciences and robotics program and the nanoscience and engineering program.

South Dakota Mines Mourns the Passing of Paul Lupkes

Faculty and staff members at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology are mourning the death of former longtime faculty member and campus United Ministries pastor Paul Lupkes.

Lupkes joined South Dakota Mines in 1977 as campus minister. He later was named associate professor and taught primarily “Introduction to the Bible” and “World Religions” before retiring in 2004.

He passed away Tuesday at the age of 89 at Bella Vista Nursing Home.

“His students knew him as a kind and generous man who always showed concern for them,” said Heather Wilson, president of the School of Mines. “Colleagues will remember his energy and great laugh. He always stopped to ask how others were doing.” 

His thoughtfulness for students was demonstrated in many ways, including the donation of a bench outside a suite of offices in the Classroom Building, home to the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, so students could have a place to sit while waiting to talk with him and other professors.

Kodzomoyo Selected Best Female Undergraduate Researcher at SDAS Symposium

Selected from among more than 100 presenters, Ellen Kodzomoyo, a chemical engineering senior, was selected as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) best female undergraduate for her research on “Sub-Critical Hydrothermal liquefaction of Lignocellulosic Biomass for Lactic Acid Production” at the South Dakota Academy of Science 2016 symposium. She was also awarded an AAAS annual subscription.

Kodzomoyo, from Harare, Zimbabwe, is doing undergraduate research under the supervision of Wei Nan, Ph.D., Anu Shende, Ph.D., and Rajesh Shende, Ph.D.

The AAAS is an international nonprofit dedicated to advancing science, engineering and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people.

Students Win Butterfield Cup for App That Helps Detect Counterfeit Drugs

A five-student team from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology has won the 2016 Butterfield Cup, awarded by local entrepreneurs to the best mobile app business plan, product and investor pitch. The cup comes with a trophy, a prized seat at a start-up boot camp and dinner with university President Heather Wilson and local venture capitalists.

This year, the client for the competition was the Center for Security Printing & Anti-Counterfeiting Technology, a research center established by the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota. The winning team designed an app that finds variations in isotope abundances to detect counterfeit drugs.

Team members included computer science junior Benjamin Kaiser, from Cheyenne, Wyo., math and computer science senior Bryon Glass, from Washington, D.C., computer science junior Akshay Singh, from India, math and computer science junior Cassidy Vollmer, from Hot Springs, and computer science junior Taylor Doell, from Elsie, Neb.

The culmination of a semester’s worth of work, the second-annual competition pitted seven Mines teams led by student CEOs against each other to develop the best product.

Last year’s winners were finalists in the Governor’s Giant Vision Student Business Competition for Bowtaps, a mobile app with features to track friends and fellow users at events and provide businesses a platform to showcase their venue.

See more photos of the competition and awards ceremony here.