University of Arkansas

Over several weeks during the fall 2023 semester, Andrew Ruegsegger spent much of his free time exploring a small, undeveloped area on the south end of campus in search of plants. Ruegsegger, a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in anthropology and minoring in philosophy, biology and natural resources management at the U of A, was interested in learning more about botany, diverse native plant communities of the area and the process botanists use to document plants by collecting and preserving specimens in a herbarium.

Breannah Small, a student of African and African American studies and journalism/political science in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has been accepted into the American Political Science Association's Ralph Bunche Summer Institute at Duke University and a summer research program at the University of Pittsburgh.

Two legal communication students from the Department of Communication in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences won an award at the most recent meeting of the National Communication Association. Alondra Gilbrech and Reaves Robinson were named as the runners-up for the James L. Golden Outstanding Student Essay in Rhetoric Award. This highly competitive award honors the best student essay on the history, theory, or criticism of rhetoric.

Ten U of A graduate students competed at the annual 3 Minute Thesis competition earlier this month, a competition challenging graduate students to present a simple and compelling speech about their research and its significance in just three minutes. Mostafa Mahmoudi, a doctoral student in chemistry, placed first; Christina Barnes, a doctoral student psychology, placed second; and Kindler Norman, a doctoral student in physics, won the People Choice Award.

Ani-ya Beasley, a senior majoring in African and African American studies and history, has been awarded a Curtis H. Sykes Memorial Grant of $4,000 from the Black History Commission of Arkansas. Beasley competed alongside professional researchers and large community organizations to win this grant, her first, to support research in the Arkansas State Archives. Beasley's research focuses on the Black community in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in the 19th and early 20th century.

University of Arkansas Honors German and engineering student Roman Dowling recently completed a highly competitive international fellowship with Research Internships in Science and Engineering Germany, or RISE. Once accepted into the program, students are matched with German host universities and institutes that align with their technical interests. Dowling became a computational multiphase flow research intern at the Technical University of Darmstadt. The University of Arkansas has a rich history with RISE and has been a part of the program since it launched in 2005. The U of A was even represented in the first cohort of students accepted into the program.