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Long after the final applause, the feeling of being welcomed and cared for is often what audiences remember most. At Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ's Oscar Larson Performing Arts Center, Anna Stemsrud has built her career around creating those exceptional experiences — and her efforts are now being recognized on an international stage.

Lined up against some big-name competition, a young group of Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ engineering students won its category in a prestigious NASA student competition. SDSU was one of three finalists selected to compete in the Lunar Sample Return Concept category. The students were tasked with developing a concept to extract and return to Earth lunar surface and subsurface samples. That was one of four categories in NASA’s Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) competition. A total of 14 teams were selected as finalists, with three of them coming from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which won the other three categories.

Eighteen undergraduate students will be able to take part in research projects they helped plan thanks to funding from the Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences.

SDSU is leading a multistate study on the power of swine manure in growing better crops.

The South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station’s long history of supporting the state’s producers and its future outlook.

One of Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ’s oldest co-curricular activities now is one of its newest success stories.

Yucheng Liu, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ, will be inducted as a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education at the group’s awards luncheon June 24 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Each year, up to one-tenth of 1% of the society’s members are selected for induction into the American Society for Engineering Education’s Academy of Fellows — the group’s highest honors.

Phuong Nguyen, an assistant professor in the construction and concrete industry management program at Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ, has been honored by his educational peers. On April 16, he received the Associated Schools of Construction Region 4 Teaching Award at the 62nd annual ASC International Conference in Shell Beach, California.

Brady Hatkin knows his way around a hockey arena. A roping arena? That’s a different story. But the fact that the electrical engineering major is more comfortable on ice skates than on a quarter horse didn’t keep Hatkin from being a major contributor to an award-winning project to create an autonomous team roping dummy. The Bullseye autonomous roping dummy is a three-wheeler using a 24V battery system. Standing at around 3 feet tall and 8 feet in length, Bullseye simulates a live steer, reaching up to 22 mph and performs complex turning paths determined by the user via a handheld remote controller, allowing practice without the use of live steers.

Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering at Ä¢¹½¶ÌÊÓƵ graduated a total of 260 undergraduate students May 9 with 71 of them also participating in ceremonies to honor the professionalism of their new career. (The spring graduates also included 19 with a doctorate and 78 with a master’s degree.) There were 62 graduates who participated in the Order of the Engineer ceremony, which is open to a senior or graduate of an ABET-accredited engineering program. It was noted that participation was more than double what it had been in previous years. A nationally recognized ceremony, its presence on the SDSU campus dates back to at least 1975. This year marked a special milestone as the Hard Hat ceremony was incorporated into the Order of the Engineer ceremony for the first time. The addition symbolized the connection between hands-on learning in a classroom and the ethical responsibilities of the constriction professions.