Our Vision: Premier Engineering College in the Nation, Recognized for Academic Excellence, Accessibility, Industrial Partnerships and Community Engagement
Renewable Natural Gas
The 24 mechanical engineering majors got an opportunity to “see the working systems that we discuss in class,” Twedt said. That included monitoring equipment to ensure the methane that originates at area diaries has been processed to pipeline quality and odorizing equipment to give odorless gas its rotten egg smell.
The class got a look at the facility in fall 2023 when it was still under construction, and Twedt brought a new class back to see the finished product.
NorthWestern Energy constructed four renewable natural gas facilities in South Dakota in 2024 with a fifth site at Bryant to come online before the end of the year.. The others are at Milbank, Parker and Estelline
In the tough and gritty world of construction, paper dolls would seem to be as out of place as steel-toed boots at a ballet performance. However, when four construction management students attended a recent skills competition, paper doll construction was among the activities.
Of course, the South Dakota State University students weren’t putting dresses or bonnets on their dolls. In fact, their dolls weren’t even what Pinterest would call paper dolls.
Their paper dolls were cut-out, scaled pieces of paper that represented tilt-up concrete panels on cast-on-site projects. The students and 16 others from other Midwest universities were taking part in the Region 4 Skills Summit sponsored by the Associated Schools of Construction.
The competition was held Oct. 21-23 at Lied Lodge in Nebraska City in conjunction with the organization’s team-focused skills competition.
Statistics doctoral student Andrew Simpson has found great success in the complicated field of large-scale number crunching and data analysis.
He already holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and statistics (2021) and a master’s degrees in statistics (2022). In 2026, he should complete his third degree from South Dakota State University with a doctorate in computational science and statistics with a statistics specialization. He has presented at a national conference and had a paper printed in an academic journal.
However, when the East Bethel, Minnesota, native reflects on his time at SDSU, the strongest memories aren’t numbers, but people.
“In graduate school the difficulty of classes increases, but I ended up with a very good group of peers, four or five people who became very good friends. Two of them are also in a similar doctorate program. Not only do we share an interest in statistics, we’ve become good friends. I didn’t have that in my undergraduate experience,” Simpson said.
He said his relationship with the faculty in the math and statistics department has been equally as satisfying.
“The faculty has been so nice, and I don’t just have a relationship with just my adviser (Semhar Michael). There is a handful of faculty I have a relationship with. It’s a really good atmosphere, very much like a team, which is cool and, I think, kind of unique,” Simpson said.
Michael said, “The department's student-to-faculty ratio is well-balanced, ensuring that students have ample opportunities to engage and collaborate closely with faculty. This seems to reflect the overall culture at SDSU. In addition, Andrew’s strong work ethic and collaborative mindset make him an excellent student and a pleasure to work with.”
Yucheng Liu, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering, has become a Distinguished Member of the American Society for Engineering Education.
He is in the first cohort to receive the title as this is a new designation for the organization, which seeks to advance engineering education at all levels of the profession. Liu has been a member since 2011 and has held offices in the organization since 2019.
Pitch Day at SDSU, an opportunity for faculty members to share their entrepreneurial ideas, was revived Nov. 1 after being inactive for a number of years.
The current effort is the vision of the South Dakota State University Division of Research and Economic Development and the Research Office in the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering. It featured six presenters — four from engineering, one from the College of Natural Sciences and one from the School of Psychology, Sociology and Rural Studies. Rajesh Kavasseri, associate dean for research in the Lohr College of Engineering, served as moderator. He said the presentations at the Research Park at South Dakota State University are expected to continue on a quarterly basis.
Research Spotlight: Why is Federated Learning Important for 5G Networks?
The United States — and the rest of the world — is becoming increasingly reliant on wireless networks like 5G systems for countless aspects of modern life. Wireless networks are used for both complex things, like mapping software in cars, and "simple" things, like video streaming.
Another way to think about wireless networks' importance is this: if they disappeared tomorrow, modern life would become drastically less connected and less convenient.
With 5G networks, or fifth generation, seemingly everything can be, and is, connected. From cars to houses to coffee shops to entire cities — it’s a major improvement from the four previous generations of wireless networks.
But 5G networks are reliant on artificial intelligence — deep learning models, specifically — to create their web of individual networks on the same 5G network system. This concept is called 5G network slicing and requires each network owner to contribute data to feed the common dataset used to train the centralized deep-learning models needed for the networks to work effectively.
JacksBEST Robotics Games Day took place on Saturday, November 23rd at the University Student Union. Fifteen High Schools competed on the Robotics Field, Exhibits, Notebooks, and in Marketing. The top two teams, Northern Cass and Jackson County Christian, will get to advance and compete in all areas or for the Best Award in Colorado Springs, CO. Additionally, the top two Robots, Mitchell Christian and Freeman Public, will also get to advance and compete on the Robotics field only.
JacksBest completion is FREE for high schools and middle schools to participate! • It is an Eight-week program
• No registration fees
• All supplies supplied by Jackrabbit BEST through sponsors
• Only costs incurred are travel, lodging, and meals
• No limit on number of students participating on team
• Only one team per school
How the Program Works
• Teams have eight weeks to design, build, and test a robot
• The game theme and competition field change every year
• Teams are provided with identical kits of parts and software to take back to their school on Kick-Off Day
• On Game Day teams return with their robot to compete
• Two parallel competitions:
Robotics Game: Includes the Robotics Competition and the team Project Engineering Notebook. Teams compete in a series of three-minute matches.
BEST Award: Earned by the team that best embodies the concept of “Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology.” Includes the Robot Competition, Project Engineering Notebook, Marketing Presentation, Exhibit & Interview, and Spirit & Sportsmanship.
STEM Outreach
The Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering has been very active in community outreach activities and showing students the opportunities in STEM fields. Our faculty and students truly enjoy spending time and sharing their knowledge with community members and students of all ages.
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