University of Arkansas

John Plavcan and Abigail Ross, two doctoral candidates with the Graduate Program in English, have received Dissertation Research Awards for 2026 from the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. The grants, each for $8,000, are annually presented to Ph.D. students who have been nominated by their departments and selected by the college. Plavcan and Ross will use their awards to travel for the purpose of researching their respective dissertation projects.

Two U of A students in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) were awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, supporting their continued study and research in STEM fields. Abhinav Komanduri and Aidan Donoho were selected for the fellowship, which provides funding for graduate education, including up to three years of support within a five-year period.

Nicole McKellar, a junior from Rogers studying biological engineering and German in the College of Engineering and the Honors College, has been selected for a DAAD RISE fellowship to research sustainable agriculture at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, Germany, this summer. The program, funded by the German government, places undergraduates at top German universities and is highly selective. McKellar's project will test whether combinations of mineral fertilizers and bio-stimulants can strengthen wheat and soybean crops while reducing chemical dependence. She plans to bring the research back to Arkansas for her honors thesis.

As summer approaches and the days get hotter, many people prefer to stay indoors to escape the heat. But what if you enjoy exercising or gardening outdoors? Or your job requires you to spend more time in the heat, like firefighters and construction workers? This month on Short Talks from the Hill, Rosie Perez, a Ph.D. student in the Heat and Hydration Optimization Lab at the U of A, discusses her research on tactical athletes like firefighters and police and shares what she knows about beating the heat. Perez, herself an EMT, is also conducting a study of cardiac disease in firefighters.

What started out as a response to labor shortages in poultry processing plants during the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a robotics system that can learn by imitating human movements to handle chickens. Using an advanced imitation learning algorithm and camera perceptions, researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station have developed ChicGrasp, a dual-jaw robotic gripper with pinchers that can grasp a chicken carcass by the legs, lift and hang it on a shackle conveyor to be moved on for further processing.

Students from the U of A presented their research and STEM Posters at the Arkansas Capitol, joining undergraduate researchers from 13 colleges and universities across the state. The annual event provides students an opportunity to discuss their work with peers, educators and elected officials while highlighting the impact of undergraduate research across Arkansas. Students from the College of Education and Health Professions, College of Engineering, the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences and the Honors College presented research on topics that included pain tolerance, wild turkey calling behavior, cardiac disease modeling and other areas of scientific study.

From the moment she peered at pond water under a microscope, Lillian Hutchinson was determined to "zoom in" on the invisible forces shaping life. Now a senior chemical engineering major in the Honors College at the University of Arkansas, she is engineering collagen scaffolds to help repair damaged nerves, collaborating with NASA on space habitat systems, and publishing cutting-edge research in regenerative medicine. A Goldwater Scholarship nominee and founder of The Lab Notebook Podcast, Hutchinson is equally committed to opening doors for other students-proving that curiosity, initiative and persistence can carry a young scientist from a high school classroom to the frontiers of discovery.

The University of Arkansas School of Art and the Windgate Foundation are enhancing how educational institutions support artists beyond graduation. Through continued investment from the Windgate Foundation, 12 graduating students and recent alumni from the School of Art in Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences have each been awarded $10,000 Windgate Accelerator Grants to launch or expand their professional studio practices, paired with ongoing faculty mentorship.

Dr. Daniela D'Eugenio, assistant professor of Italian, organized a two-day symposium dedicated to Medieval and Book Studies, focusing on the study of facsimiles and Giovanni Boccaccio, the renowned 14th century Italian author of the Decameron.

Faculty and students from the U of A's apparel merchandising and product development program attended the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA) Annual Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, with several delivering scholarly presentations. The 2025 conference, titled "Gateway to a Brighter Future," brought together students, educators and industry professionals to share research and pedagogical advancements focused on inclusivity, innovation and sustainability within the textile and apparel industry.

An experimental pain-relieving drug delivery method for farm animals using microneedle patches may not have delivered an effective dose, but it took a pivotal step that offers new leads for innovation. Jeremy Powell, veterinarian and professor of animal science for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, said the project originated from a simple question: could livestock receive longer-lasting pain management without repeated drug administration by farmers?

What if you could look into a cow's face and know if it had a fever? A new tool from the Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision Lab at the University of Arkansas uses artificial intelligence and thermal cameras to estimate the body temperature of cattle. The system, called CattleFever, is the first step toward automated tools that ranchers could use to monitor the health of their herd.

The shift from warm summer to cool fall conditions can be stressful for many animals. Surviving each season requires a multitude of different physiological and behavioral traits that scientists are still working to understand. An analysis of Buckeye butterflies finds that they aren't just changing colors with the seasons, but changing the way they see on a physiological level.

Breannah Small, a student of African and African American studies and journalism/political science in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas, 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.

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. A fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in anthropology and minoring in philosophy, biology and natural resources management at the University of Arkansas, 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.

Two legal communication students from the Department of Communication in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas 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 University of Arkansas graduate students competed at the annual 3 Minute Thesis competition earlier this month, where they were asked 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 at the University of Arkansas, 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.