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Turner Marr, a mechanical engineering senior from Buffalo, Minnesota, wanted to become a doctor when he enrolled at South Dakota State University in fall 2022. That lasted all of one semester. The switch from biochemistry premed to mechanical engineering had nothing to do with the sight of blood or the thought of working on a cadaver. He simply wanted a major that required more math while allowing hands-on learning. He found that in mechanical engineering and in December 2024 was selected by the college as a Future Innovator of America.

This summer, Delaney Baumberger, a mechanical engineering graduate student at South Dakota State University, spent ten weeks working among some of the nation’s top aerospace scientists at the Air Force Research Lab in Dayton, Ohio. Baumberger and her adviser, associate professor Jeffrey Doom, collaborated with Air Force Research Lab researchers to run advanced computational fluid dynamics simulations for hypersonic scramjet engines, experimental engines that burn fuel at speeds above Mach 5. Their work explored how engine geometry affects combustion stability and performance at extreme speeds. .

In the early 2000s, South Dakota State University used the tagline “You can go anywhere from here” in a number of ads to feature students and alumni who used SDSU as a launching pad to a variety of study abroad locations and high-profile careers. One of the featured students was Ryan Lefers, a farm kid from Corsica studying agricultural engineering, who had participated in a study abroad program in Egypt. The North African country would be just the start of Lefers’ Middle Eastern adventures.

Before South Dakota was a state, before the Dakota Agricultural College became South Dakota State University and even before the United States Weather Bureau, the precursor to the National Weather Service, was formed, there were people who recognized the value of collecting weather data. The first iteration of a weather station in Brookings began recording daily temperature and precipitation totals on July 1, 1888.

Four new faculty members have joined the Lohr College of Engineering this fall.

Wenfeng An, a professor and pharmaceutical science researcher at South Dakota State University, is engaged in research that has potential to lead to the development of vaccine for a variety of cancers.

James Kemeshi, a doctoral student in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, has built a low-cost agricultural drone.

The South Dakota State University Robotics Club came home with best design honors after competing at the Vex Robotics World Championship in Dallas May 9-11. VEX competitions make up the largest and fastest growing robotics engineering platform in the world with divisions for elementary and middle schools, middle and high schools and VEX U for colleges and universities. This year’s Vex U game involved placing rings onto various stakes — some stationary and others mounted on mobile goals that could be moved to corner zones to either double the team’s points or result in negative scoring. In addition to winning the design award, the South Dakota State University entry placed 13th out of 54 teams in the math division, one of two divisions in the Vex U competition.

How South Dakota State University's Animal Disease Research and Diagnostic Laboratory plays a critical role in keeping South Dakota's food supply safe.

AeroFly — a Brookings-based aerospace company bred from South Dakota State University research — is working to bring humanity closer to Mars.