University of Arkansas

Six students in the course Japanese Movie Subtitling (JAPN 39803/WLLC 5750V) presented their completed English subtitles during a free screening of April, Come She Will (2024) on Friday, April 24, at the Arkansas Union Theatre. The collaborative, semester-long project showcased their work as scriptwriters and translators.

U of A seniors Conrad Haslauer and Nadine Moustafa earned first place in the KPMG Cybersecurity Challenge in March, a national, industry-sponsored competition that puts students' cybersecurity and business skills to the test.

Springdale native Shae Threlfall graduated in May with a 4.0 in mechanical engineering. This fall, she will start a doctoral program in engineering at the University of Cambridge.

Several U of A students made presentations at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers while students with the Agricultural Robotics Club competed in the national contest.

The Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at the U of A earned two first-place undergraduate awards in July at the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers International Meeting in Indianapolis. Both winning projects were the work of students who walked across the graduation stage this May, proof that the ideas and effort they poured into their coursework continue to pay off after commencement.

The University of Arkansas Global Campus has chosen 39 students to receive the W.E. Manning Memorial Scholarship in the 2026-27 academic year. The Manning scholarship helps support U of A students studying in online undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Many of these students remain in their communities, work full time and take care of their families while earning a degree.

Jaden Hendrix, a third-year School of Law student, has been selected as the winner of the 2025-26 Arent Fox Schiff - Dale Bumpers Excellence in Writing Award. The award celebrates the life and work of former Arkansas governor and U.S. senator Dale Bumpers. Following his retirement from the Senate in 1999, Bumpers became of counsel to the law firm then known as Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin and Kahn. The firm has given the annual writing award, which includes a cash prize, since the Journal of Food Law & Policy's inception in 2005. Hendrix earned this year's award for her article, "From Culture Shaping Food to Food Shaping Culture: Foreign Investor Protections in the Food Economy as a Threat to Cultural Diversity." She wrote the article, which will appear in an upcoming Journal issue, as a second-year law student serving as a staff editor for the publication.

Instead of spending the summer rehearsing on campus, members of the U of A Razorback Marching Band performed before an international audience in London celebrating America's 250th anniversary.

When Matthew Findlay completed his Bachelor of Architecture at the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design in 2024, he knew he'd eventually become an architect. What he didn't know yet was what kind of architect he wanted to become.

Three U of A representatives recently attended the inaugural SEC Food Pantry and Basic Needs Summit hosted by the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina. The summit brought together student leaders, community partners and professional staff to share ideas and best practices for addressing food and basic needs insecurity on college campuses.

Bethany Cole, a doctoral candidate with the Graduate Program in English, has received a 2026 James J. Hudson Doctoral Fellowship in the Humanities through the office of the Graduate School and International Education. The Hudson award is given annually to exceptional doctoral students in comparative literature and cultural studies, English, history or philosophy.

With careful recipe and process design, non-alcoholic beer can be made more resistant to foodborne pathogens, according to a new study that provides practical guidance on pH, carbonation and hops.

Despite coming from halfway across the state, thanks to the U of A's Engineering Career Awareness Program, Montavius Eason already had "great friends" before arriving for his freshman year at the U of A. The program, also called ECAP, is designed to support students with financial need, particularly first-generation college students, as well as students from areas that are less well-represented at the U of A. ECAP offers financial assistance and a three-week summer bridge program to help students transition into university life. Throughout their time on campus, students receive continuous support and resources, including mentorship, professional development and career guidance.

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.

Competing alongside leading researchers from around the world, honors biomedical engineering student Connor Robinson earned third place for Best Overall Poster at the 2026 International Microphysiological Systems Society World Summit in Washington, D.C., in May.

Four University of Arkansas students have received English Teaching Assistant Awards through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, and one student has been named an alternate for the prestigious international exchange program.

Recent U of A graduate Maddie Gwinner is starting her career in Germany this fall, and she had the fortunate problem of choosing between two prestigious programs: the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange (CBYX) and the Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship. The CBYX Program is a year-long cultural immersion fellowship that provides 65 American and 65 German young professionals with the opportunity to spend one year in each other's countries, and the Fulbright program selects Americans to teach English in a variety of countries abroad.

The University of Arkansas honored its most recent graduating class with a series of spring commencement ceremonies. Recordings of ceremonies are available on the U of A YouTube channel, and printed program books are available online. For more information, please visit commencement.uark.edu.

Graduate business students from the Sam M. Walton College of Business are gaining national recognition for venture ideas developed in the classroom, earning top placements and prize funding across a series of high-profile pitch competitions this academic year.

The U of A's Italian Program proudly welcomed 17 outstanding students into its chapter of Gamma Kappa Alpha, the national Italian honor society, during its annual initiation ceremony in April. Gamma Kappa Alpha recognizes exceptional academic achievement in the study of Italian language, literature and culture at colleges and universities across the United States and Canada. The honor society promotes a deeper appreciation of Italy's rich cultural heritage while encouraging continued scholarly excellence among its members.

When Cameron Mercer started helping University of Arkansas students move out of their dorms during his freshman year, he was simply trying to make some extra spending money. Four years later, the business he built from those early move-in and move-out jobs has grown into Boss Hog Moving Co., a student-focused moving company serving Northwest Arkansas. Mercer says the Master of Science in Product Innovation (MSPI) program at the Sam M. Walton College of Business helped him think differently about how to scale it.

Emanuel Ferrari do Nascimento, a U of A master's degree student in crop, soil and environmental sciences, has been named a 2026 Borlaug Scholar by the National Association for Plant Breeding. Nascimento, who is from Brazil, is part of the Arkansas Soybean Breeding program, led by assistant professor Caio Canella Vieira in the Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences.

Students achieving academic excellence have been named to the University of Arkansas Spring 2026 Dean's List. The honor recognizes undergraduates with GPAs of 3.75-3.99 and law students with a GPA of 3.0 or higher. The Spring 2026 Dean's List is available online. Students on the Chancellor's List who achieve a 4.0 grade-point average for the semester while completing at least 12 credit hours of coursework, also automatically earn recognition on the university's Dean's List.

The U of A is recognizing students for earning a place on the Spring 2026 Chancellor's List. To qualify, undergraduate students must attain a 4.0 GPA for the semester while completing at least 12 credit hours of coursework. The Spring 2026 Chancellor's List is available online. All students on the Chancellor's List also automatically earn recognition on the university's Dean's List, which honors undergraduates who achieve a minimum grade-point average of 3.75 for the term while completing at least 12 credit hours.

Colton Godsey, a rising second-year student at the U of A School of Law, has been selected as a Civil Rights Fellow in the 2026 class of the Center for Equal Opportunity. This fifth annual class is the largest, most competitive class of fellows to date as the organization received a large volume of highly qualified applications from across the nation. In August, Godsey will join the seminar-style fellowship program in Washington, D.C., for in-depth instruction in civil rights case law, enforcement practices and public policy while engaging with notable law and policy experts, litigators, former government officials and other prominent thought leaders. He will also receive media training.

The American Oil Chemists' Society recently recognized two food science researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station for contributions to science in their field. Ali Ubeyitogullari, an assistant professor of food engineering, was presented with the society's Health and Nutrition Division New Investigator Research Award, and Sumanjot Kaur, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Food Science, received the Thomas H. Smouse Memorial Fellowship.

The Latino Alumni Society hosted its 2026 spring Meritos Latinos event on May 8. This annual event celebrates the achievements of our graduating student leaders and honors the society's 2026 award recipients. As a proud part of the Arkansas Alumni Association, Latino Alumni Society events are open to all U of A alumni and friends interested in coming together to celebrate community and achievement.

U of A graduating senior Anna Fielder has been awarded the highly competitive Critical Language Scholarship to study Russian in Kyrgyzstan this summer and Princeton in Asia to Kazakhstan in the 2026-27 academic year.

Nine students in five different majors in U of A's Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences received nine annual academic awards from the college at its annual student honors and awards reception.

RIOT Robotics, a robotics club from the U of A, earned the Design Award at the 2026 STORM robotics competition, held April 11 in Oklahoma. STORM, the Student Tele-Operated Robotics Mission, is an annual intercollegiate robotics competition hosted by the University of Oklahoma that challenges teams to build robots capable of completing real-world engineering tasks from a remote location.