Jean Teller / EDITOR
Shelly Bryant / ART DIRECTOR
Leslie Clugston Andres / COPY EDITOR
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The start of a new semester at the University of Kansas brings together wide-eyed freshmen, ready-to-graduate seniors, and a host of students eager to continue their studies. It’s also time for the researchers at KU to shine.
KU Today & Tomorrow—along with our colleagues at the KU News Service—is proud to spotlight a few of those researchers. And we can’t forget KU sports! We have an interview with a member of the 1952 championship team, who, as a freshman, was a part of that run for the gold (page 26). The 1951–52 season was the only time freshmen could compete at the varsity level (just after the Korean War) until rules changed in 1974. Preliminary sports schedules for men’s and women’s basketball and KU football can be found on page 31.
This issue starts off with an update on a project that uses cellphones to help combat eating disorders on college campuses (page 6). The trial was so successful that the project has been given the go-ahead to expand.
A new digital tool that monitors crop health across the U.S. (welcome to the future!) helps farmers battling drought and other environmental challenges (page 8).
It may come as a surprise, or maybe not, that the University of Kansas drives an enormous amount of money into the state’s economy. A study shows KU’s economic impact is close to $8 billion (page 12).
Many of us are looking for ways to help the environment, and KU researchers are doing their part. One study offers an eco-friendly way to separate and recycle the chemicals found in discarded refrigerators (page 14). Another project supports a local startup developing green hydrogen energy (page 20) as a sustainable fuel source—two winning endeavors from KU’s work on the climate crisis.
A cutting-edge engineering project trains high-school students to write computer code for artificial intelligence and produce the microelectronics needed to run AI (page 18).
The KU Medical Center looks to facilitate pediatric clinical trials in rural and underserved areas (page 22) while the KU Cancer Center hopes to transform care and research in the region with a new complex (page 24).
These endeavors showcase the University of Kansas and its faculty, staff and students as they push forward in our constantly changing world, striving for excellence with every step. Their efforts put the university and the community front and center in research throughout the nation. Go Jayhawks!
Jean Teller Editor
Flexible curriculum tailored for students passionate about music production, technology, and entrepreneurship
Diverse range of commercial genres: from singer/songwriter to video game production
Designed as the ideal pathway for aspiring professionals in popular music
Culminates in a comprehensive portfolio: including original songs, business plans, mixes, and collaborations
Ideal for double majors in other music and creative fields, business, or professional performance
INDUSTRY OPERATIONS & INFRASTRUCTURE
Recording, Touring, Copyright, Publishing, Merchandising, Subscriptions, Budgets, & more!
ARTISTIC & CREATIVE ENDEAVORS
All genres from classical to punk rock to hip-hop
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The popular Late Night in the Phog kicks off the KU basketball season.
6 TREATMENT ACCESS
Successful mobile phone intervention for eating disorders on college campuses to expand.
8 REMOTE IMAGERY
New digital tool provides satellite monitoring of crop health across the U.S.
12 KANSAS GROWTH
University of Kansas drives $7.8 billion economic impact in Kansas, study shows.
14 RECYCLING REFRIGERANTS
18
CUTTING-EDGE ENGINEERING
Program to train high schoolers to write code and develop microelectronics for artificial intelligence.
20 CLEAN ENERGY
New $5 million DoE award supports KU startup’s green hydrogen energy research.
22
WORTH A STUDY
KU Medical Center awarded $31 million to facilitate pediatric clinical trials across network of 18 rural and underserved sites.
24
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
KU Cancer Center breaks ground for new complex that promises to transform both care and research in the region.
26
A RUN FOR THE GOLD
Member of KU’s 1952 championship team remembers the thrill of winning.
Research yields eco-friendly way to separate, recycle chemicals tied to climate crisis. on
ARTICLE BY Brendan M. Lynch, KU News Service
EATING DISORDERS are the most common mental health concern on college campuses, yet there is a serious shortage of treatment providers. A new program leveraging the phone to increase treatment access for college students experiencing eating disorders is expanding after a pilot program’s positive results at the University of Kansas, where most participants saw recovery.
The timing couldn’t be better. In the few years since the COVID-19 pandemic, eating disorder prevalence has increased by 62% in university women and 140% in university men, according to the KU researchers, citing a Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services study. But with a shortage of practical and affordable treatments for many of these students, the team behind BEST-U hopes to fill gaps in eating disorder treatment accessibility for universities across the country.
The BEST-U program, an 11-week treatment underpinned by guided self-help cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), has shown “most participants were fully recovered from their eating disorder” at KU, according to researcher Kelsie Forbush, professor of clinical child psychology at KU and the project’s co-principal investigator. With a new $715,516 grant from the National Institutes of Health, Forbush and co-principal investigator Kara Christensen-Pacella intend to expand the program to train non-mental health care professionals within student health settings to deliver the treatment. Christensen-Pacella, an assistant professor from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, was previously a researcher and therapist on the pilot trial. The expanded study will take place at both KU and UNLV.
“We were inspired to create BEST-U because we saw a high demand for eating disorder treatment but very few resources in our community,” says Forbush, who also serves as a senior scientist with KU’s Life Span Institute and director of its new Center for the Advancement of Research on Eating Behaviors (CARE). “In many cases, KU students had to drive to Kansas City for treatment, but some didn’t have a car. It was also very cost-prohibitive because most area providers did not take insurance.”
Forbush and her colleagues wanted to address the problem after seeing the obvious effect on students. First, they looked at the scope of the issue and found “incredibly” high rates of eating disorders on KU’s campus, matching national data. Then, they explored models that could expand access to intervention while remaining effective.
Forbush’s main collaborator was Sara Gould of Children’s Mercy Hospital-Kansas City, where she directs the eating disorder center and is a full-time clinician. Other key collaborators include KU faculty member Alesha Doan, who will lead qualitative aims and analyses to determine how best to scale the program to other colleges across the United States, and Angeline Bottera, associate director of CARE.
“Together, we created an 11-week intervention using a mobile health app,” Forbush says. “Students spend about
10 minutes per week on the app, which is highly interactive, and they also receive 25 to 30 minutes of telehealth coaching from a trained graduate student. By the end of the 11 weeks, most participants were recovered from their eating disorder.”
Besides pairing participants with a trained BEST-U coach, the BEST-U interface includes videos, interactive quizzes, short questions and surveys to track progress each week.
Forbush will partner closely with Watkins Health Services to train their providers to serve as coaches, which will help expand the reach of the intervention to colleges that lack trained mental health eating-disorder providers. Forbush is also conducting an additional clinical trial of BEST-U to identify if some clients can recover without receiving coaching sessions and who may need additional support.
“We were very excited about the results of our pilot trials and received great feedback,” Forbush says. “One of my favorite stories is about a new coordinator I hired to help run the study. She and her mom were shopping, and the cashier overheard their conversation. When the cashier realized our coordinator was working on the BEST-U study, the cashier said, ‘I participated in that study, and it changed my life.’”
Forbush’s other projects have included addressing eating disorders in the military and developing digital health tools for teens suffering from anorexia nervosa.
The CARE Center, formerly a lab, was established in recent months as a fully fledged research center under the Life Span Institute. CARE conducts research to better identify people with eating disorders for early screening, intervention and treatment-progress monitoring. The center’s mission is “to improve the way eating disorders are assessed, diagnosed and treated through cutting-edge methods and research.” CARE then applies findings to clinical settings with university students.
“The peak age of onset for eating disorders is usually late adolescence to early adulthood,” Forbush says. “So, we’re reaching people right in that peak window — when an eating disorder often starts or when they may have already had it for a few years before coming to college. That can be a good time to seek treatment. Sometimes people notice their eating disorder symptoms getting worse as they transition to college.”
It’s this work with university students Forbush cites as the most rewarding part of her research and clinical studies. Forbush says expanding the BEST-U program, which has succeeded so well at KU, makes her “very excited” because it means changing more lives for the better.
“It feels so rewarding to have identified a need — there’s a gap, and students need this service — and then to be able to help start filling that gap has felt amazing.”
–Kelsie Forbush
“It feels so rewarding to have identified a need — there’s a gap, and students need this service — and then to be able to help start filling that gap has felt amazing,” she says. “When you have an eating disorder in college, you really do miss out on a lot of the developmental experiences of becoming an adult — things like making friends and fully engaging in your classes — and you don’t get those years back. If we can help a student overcome an eating disorder and get back on track with the developmental trajectory of early adulthood, that’s extremely important. And that’s very rewarding.”
BEST-U is an 11-week intervention where students spend about 10 minutes per week using a mobile-health app and also receive 25 to 30 minutes of telehealth coaching.
New digital tool provides satellite monitoring of crop health across the U.S.
RESEARCHERS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, with support from the KansasView and AmericaView programs, have created Sentinel GreenReport Plus, a web-based app for the public that provides free satellite monitoring and analysis of vegetation and crop health across Kansas and the nation.
ARTICLE BY Brendan M. Lynch, KU News Service
The free digital tool integrates Google Earth Engine with high-resolution imagery from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission, consisting of two identical satellites that share the same orbit. Sentinel GreenReport Plus combines this satellite imagery with climate
Sentinel GreenReport Plus integrates Google Earth Engine with high-resolution imagery from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite mission, consisting of two identical satellites that share the same orbit. The Sentinel GreenReport Plus combines this satellite imagery with climate datasets from the PRISM group.
datasets from the PRISM group at Oregon State University. As a public-service resource, the tool provides users with up-to-the-day insights into vegetation greenness, changes in land cover over time and climate abnormalities.
According to its KU creators, Sentinel GreenReport Plus already has seen use in monitoring crops, assessing damage from drought, detecting changes in land use and tracking vegetation recovery following a disaster.
“Remote sensing and satellite imagery technology have been improving in terms of the spatial footprint that
it can represent in a pixel,” says Dana Peterson, director of KansasView and senior research associate with Kansas Applied Remote Sensing (KARS), a program of the Kansas Biological Survey & Center for Ecological Research at KU. “This allows us to do more detailed monitoring of vegetation condition — it could be vegetation in a forest community, a cropland community or on rangeland. We could create a tool that would allow access to these data easily and create an interface where people — whether educators, researchers, ranchers or cropland producers — could access the imagery easily and look at vegetation health.”
The KU team say the public-facing digital tool could be used also to assess vegetation destruction from natural hazards or even more routine damage like hail.
“We’ve also looked at some of the burn events and wildfires,” Peterson says. “You can look at how the vegetation has been damaged and to what extent and severity.”
Sentinel GreenReport Plus improves detail and insight over the classic GreenReport, introduced in 1996 by the KARS program with support from NASA. The new Sentinel GreenReport Plus uses Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite data, a much finer 10-meter resolution than the classic version relying on 1,000-meter resolution MODIS imagery.
Abinash Silwal, KU graduate student and tech lead in the project, says any agricultural producer could use the tools to assess the success of different crops, monitor crop health or compare crop conditions over time, which may indicate yield performance. The tool integrates USDA NASS Cropland Data Layers, which allows crop-specific stress analysis.
“We can look at vegetation health at the crop-type level,” Silwal says. “For example, if I want to monitor my field of corn, I can select ‘corn’ in the app and draw a rectangle or polygon around the area. The tool instantly displays multiple charts, including a time series and comparison charts showing current vegetation health relative to historical averages. This helps determine whether the crop’s current condition falls within the normal range or is showing signs of stress.”
The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index underpins Sentinel GreenReport PLUS and provides an array of data for several key features:
• Greenness Map: Uses the NDVI as a proxy for photosynthetically active plant biomass over a selected composite period.
• Difference Map 1: Compares NDVI to the previous composite period within the same year, illustrating recent vegetation changes.
• Difference Map 2: Compares NDVI to the same period from the previous year, highlighting year-over-year vegetation changes.
• Difference Map 3: Compares current NDVI to the average NDVI from previous years, showing changes relative to historical trends
“If I see that vegetation health is below normal and the precipitation curve is flat or shows significantly lower rainfall compared to the 30-year historical statistics, we can infer that drought may be contributing to the stress. When the vegetation line is declining and the accumulated precipitation trend remains flat or below average, it points to possible drought conditions affecting crop health.”
–Abinash Silwal
In addition to Peterson and Silwal, the team that produced the Sentinel GreenReport Plus is composed of Chen Liang, former doctoral student; Jude Kastens, research associate professor and director of KARS; and Xingong Li, professor of geography & atmospheric science.
The KU researchers know stakeholders have found many features to be valuable. For instance, Silwal says the ability to compare vegetation health with precipitation adds a powerful dimension to understanding vegetation stress.
“The addition of the precipitation curve is the coolest thing,” he says. “If I see that vegetation health is below normal and the precipitation curve is flat or shows significantly lower rainfall compared to the 30-year historical statistics, we can infer that drought may be contributing to the stress. When the vegetation line is declining and the accumulated precipitation trend remains flat or below average, it points to possible drought conditions affecting crop health.”
These breakthroughs should lead to better-informed agricultural producers, policymakers, insurers and research ecologists in Kansas and across the nation, Peterson says.
She adds Sentinel GreenReport Plus might represent “a better way to understand the interplay of climate and vegetation. Users can visualize trends, generate crop-specific charts and download outputs to support reports, presentations and further analysis.”
For more information, visit the program’s website at https:// kars.ku.edu/pages/sentinel-green-report.
University of Kansas drives $7.8 billion economic impact in Kansas, study shows.
ARTICLE BY Joe Monaco, KU Office of Public Affairs
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS is a powerful engine of economic growth and job creation for the state of Kansas, according to a new study detailing the university’s impact.
Conducted by global analytics firm Lightcast, the study quantifies KU’s annual statewide impact at $7.8 billion, which includes KU activity in operations, construction and research, as well as the expenditures of KU startup companies, visitors, students and alumni. This activity supports nearly 88,000 jobs — or 1 in every 23 jobs in Kansas. For context, if KU by itself were its own industry sector, it would be the 10th-largest sector in Kansas.
Additionally, the study finds that for every $1 invested in KU, taxpayers gain $2.90 in added tax revenue and public sector savings, illustrating the magnitude of the return on investment for Kansas residents and lawmakers.
The study encompasses the activities of all KU campuses — including the Lawrence and Edwards campuses, as well as KU Medical Center campuses in Kansas City, Wichita and Salina — and The University of Kansas Health System.
The full economic impact study is available at https://economicdevelopment.ku.edu/impact.
“As one of the nation’s leading research universities, KU strives to fulfill its mission of education, service and research while also driving economic growth and job creation in Kansas,” says Douglas A. Girod, KU chancellor. “The numbers in this study confirm we are doing exactly that in a way that benefits students, families, communities and companies across Kansas.”
Key categories comprising the $7.8 billion impact include the following:
• $4.7 billion in operations spending
• $52.4 million in construction spending
• $315 million in research spending
• $89.4 million in startup company impact
• $86.6 million in visitor spending
• $39 million in student spending
• $2.5 billion in alumni impact.
Additional highlights from the report include the following:
• KU helps fill Kansas’ most crucial jobs. KU alumni hold more jobs in Kansas than alumni of any other university. Of the 49 most common positions filled by Jayhawks in Kansas, 41 are designated “high-demand, high-wage” by the Kansas Department of Labor.
• A KU degree is a strong investment for students. Student benefit-to-cost ratio is 5.7, which means graduates receive $5.70 for every $1 they invested toward earning a degree. The average annual rate of return on the student investment is 22.3%.
• KU graduates are a great source of revenue for the state. In FY 2023, Kansas avoided $465.9 million in expenses because of KU graduates. When individuals attain a college degree, they create positive savings for health care, the justice system and state-sponsored income assistance programs.
• KU attracts more than 422,000 out-of-state visitors annually — the equivalent of more than eight fullcapacity NASCAR races at the Kansas Speedway — boosting revenue for the state.
• There are 54 active startup companies created from KU research or technology. More than half of these companies are based in Kansas.
• KU is home to KU Innovation Park, which currently houses 70 companies totaling 750 direct private-sector jobs and $49.8 million in annual payroll.
The economic impact study was performed by Lightcast using primary data from KU and partners and Lightcast’s modeling, analysis and data augmentation. Most of the work was performed in 2024 using FY 2023 data. Generally, the approach to calculating KU’s economic impact was conservative. In addition to the statewide impact report, Lightcast has produced a report specific to the Kansas City metropolitan area.
Research yields eco-friendly way to separate, recycle chemicals tied to climate crisis.
ARTICLE BY Brendan M. Lynch, KU News Service
A SCHOLARLY REPORT in the journal Science Advances from researchers at the University of Kansas shows a new eco-friendly method for separating chemicals found in common refrigerants to allow easier recycling at industrial scale.
“The motivation of this work is to enable separation of highly complex gaseous refrigerant mixtures,” says lead author Abby Harders, who performed the research as a KU doctoral student in the research group of co-author Mark Shiflett, Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. “This effort has been driven by climate legislation phasing out certain hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants.”
The paper’s key innovation uses membranes — amorphous fluorinated polymers, to be specific — that efficiently isolate complex refrigerant mixtures. Other separation methods, such as distillation, are less effective because of the complex composition of the mixtures. Harders says the membranes are fabricated to allow some gases to pass through while restricting others, resulting in effective purification.
“I feel like I’m doing work that not only will impact me or future kids I might have, but something that can hopefully impact a lot of people’s lives.” –Abby Harders
To demonstrate the technology could scale to industrial viability, the team, including many associated with KU’s Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering, developed a custom-coating process to create submicron coatings on the membrane’s porous supports, creating composite hollow fibers. The results show a functional prototype, proving the technology’s usefulness to firms engaged in refrigerant recovery and reuse.
Harders cites international agreements and legislation, such as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol and the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, that will phase out HFC production as the ultimate solution to atmospheric warming from refrigerants. In the meantime, however, solutions for dealing responsibly with complex gases in existing equipment destined for landfills around the world are badly needed, she says.
For example, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, HFC-134a, the most common refrigerant used in MVAC systems today, is a “potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential that is 1,430 times that of CO2.”
Harders says economically viable solutions for recycling the heat-trapping gases will keep more of them from being released into Earth’s atmosphere.
“A large percentage of refrigerant today is not recovered — it’s simply vented into the atmosphere,” she says. “Much of this occurs when equipment is decommissioned. In some
cases, recovering refrigerant may not seem worthwhile, or those responsible for recovery may not recognize its value. Additionally, if refrigerant is not fully evacuated, it can end up in landfills, where it eventually leaks into the atmosphere. Approximately 90% of refrigerant leakage occurs at the end of a system’s life.”
The KU researcher says she hopes the method she largely devised in her time at KU could help bridge the gap ahead of the next generation of refrigerants.
“To increase reusability and allow for the extraction and recycling of HFC refrigerants from end-of-life units, it’s essential to separate them effectively so they can be purified and reintroduced into the market,” she says. “However, no existing industrial technology can currently achieve this. These refrigerants form complex mixtures that cannot be separated using traditional heat-driven methods like distillation.”
Today, Harders works as a chemical engineer and head of research and development with Lawrence-based Icorium Engineering, a startup that emerged from the Shiflett Research Group situated in KU’s Innovation Park. While Icorium focuses on separation of refrigerants using ionic liquids, the new method demonstrated in Harders’ paper offers a new tool to the industry.
“Part of Abby’s Ph.D. research at KU is now being translated into the startup company,” says Shiflett, who cofounded Icorium and now serves as its chief science officer. “Abby also has a fascinating education journey. She earned her undergraduate degrees in chemistry and mathematics at Bethel College in central Kansas, participated in an NSFsponsored Research Experience for Undergraduates during 2019 in my lab and then came to KU for her Ph.D. in chemical engineering. She was an amazing student, receiving the Chancellor’s Doctoral Fellowship for her doctoral research and graduating with a 4.0 GPA at the top of her class. She’s published 10 papers and is a co-inventor on a patent application. Needless to say, I’m very proud of her and her research and journey.”
Harders and Shiflett’s co-authors on the paper are Luke Wallisch, Michael Lundin and Ed Atchison of the Wonderful Institute for Sustainable Engineering at KU, Chloe Le of California Polytechnic State University, Gabrielle Zaher of the University of Washington, and Whitney White of Warren, New Jersey-based Chromis Technologies.
For Harders, whose generation will face yet more severe challenges from a warming climate, the chance to bring her engineering expertise to fight the climate crisis has personal meaning.
“I feel like I’m doing work that not only will impact me or future kids I might have, but something that can hopefully impact a lot of people’s lives,” she says. “That’s something that really helps me stay motivated, not get burnt out, because what I’m doing will hopefully continue to be well-received by policymakers and have industrial value. Eventually, we’ll have full-scale commercial use so that it can actually do what it’s intended to do and make the impact that we want it to make.”
ARTICLE BY
Brendan M. Lynch, KU News Service
PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS in Kansas and two other states will receive training in the cutting-edge field of artificial intelligence, learning to create both code that underpins AI and the microelectronics to run it — as part of the United States’ push to keep the lead in microchip manufacturing and AI software development.
Researchers at the University of Kansas, along with the University of Florida and the University of North Texas, will partner with regional high schools to engage about 500 students and 25 teachers in real-world projects to build interest in AI technology as a career path. The work is enabled by a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Of that, about $350,000 will come to KU.
The research at KU is headed by Tamzidul Hoque, assistant professor of electrical engineering & computer science. His team in Lawrence will partner with Shawnee Mission West High School in Overland Park, where computer science teacher Mark Lange will implement the curriculum.
A vital part of the training will allow students to run their code on Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) devices — basic, lowpower machines that enable AI processing directly on hardware.
“This will be a small device performing AI tasks at the user end without connecting to the cloud,” Hoque says. “TinyML is one application that allows a
large AI model to be converted into a smaller one that can run on a small device.”
These so-called “edge devices” process data with their own microelectronics rather than relying on a centralized cloud or data center.
“We want to demonstrate to students the wide range of edge AI applications available,” Hoque says. “By working with edge AI, they’ll not only learn about AI but also gain knowledge of microelectronics because it involves low-level hardware. Our curriculum addresses both of these important areas — microelectronics and AI.”
Hoque’s team at KU is developing the edge devices to be used by students in classes nationwide, work informed by his earlier NSF-funded research into training students in computing-hardware fundamentals through gamified learning.
The design of the edge devices will consider strapped budgets faced by many high schools, particularly in lowincome communities, according to Hoque.
“We’re developing a hardware platform that includes microprocessors, various sensors and communication components,” he says. “We’ll collaborate with the University of Florida to develop the platform, with a key challenge being cost-effectiveness. While many existing platforms can be used for programming AI, they are not affordable. Our goal is to create a device costing less than $45, equipped with at least 10 different sensors, making it accessible even for high schools with limited resources.”
Part of the project involves measuring and honing the effectiveness of the instruction. Hoque and his colleagues will focus the training on altruistic, community-centered projects so students understand how engineering helps people.
“When we try to motivate students about engineering, we often highlight high-paying salaries or the lucrative aspects of the jobs — but engineering is not only about those things, and many students may not feel motivated solely by them,” the KU researcher says. “Integrating the concept of altruism — how engineering can help their community — can be a stronger motivator. For example, developing an AI application for fire detection or supporting
farmers through novel technologies gives students a sense of altruism and community support, inspiring them to pursue careers in those directions.”
Nonetheless, according to Hoque, the curriculum should provide students access to high-paying jobs in AI and microelectronics. By developing this workforce, Kansas and other states in the project could succeed in drawing more high-tech companies as students qualify to specialize in the sector. To ensure this, the researchers have teamed with AI-industry partners to match workforce needs of those employers with the training.
“Our goal is to ensure the curriculum we develop is well aligned with the industry,” Hoque says. “We have an advisory board made up of industry members who provide feedback on whether the topics we have chosen are suitable for the field and whether learning these technical skills will help students secure jobs in the long run.”
Along these lines, the researchers will hold conferences where high school teachers in the project and industry
partners will trade ideas on curriculum and teaching methods to ensure the training is industry focused.
The work at KU is enabled by the CHIPS and Science Act, passed by Congress in 2022, a law designed to support domestic production of semiconductors and strengthen national security.
“After COVID, we realized how dependent we are on external supply chains, prompting the government to provide significant incentives for developing domestic manufacturing facilities,” Hoque says. “This issue impacts not only consumers but also national security, as microelectronics used in mission-critical systems must be developed in secure facilities with no possibility of malicious alterations or security threats. For national security reasons, it’s essential to have domestic capabilities to design and fabricate our own microchips. But it’s not enough to develop these facilities — we also need people to work in them. Programs like this will motivate students to explore hardware and pursue careers in microelectronics.”
New $5 million DoE award supports KU startup’s green hydrogen energy research.
ARTICLE BY
Brendan M. Lynch, KU News Service
WITH $5 MILLION in support from the U.S. Department of Energy, the University of Kansas and Avium — a startup firm founded by researchers from KU’s School of Engineering — aim to make clean hydrogen more affordable.
According to the DoE, the work at KU is part of $750 million in funding for 52 projects across 24 states “to dramatically reduce the cost of clean hydrogen and reinforce American leadership in the growing hydrogen industry.”
Green hydrogen is a key tool in the worldwide push to slash carbon emissions, especially in the industrial, transport and agricultural sectors. However, conventional hydrogen production emits greenhouse gases. By contrast, green hydrogen is produced with renewable energy, making it crucial to achieving net-zero goals.
“The whole world is interested in green hydrogen,” says Kevin Leonard, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at KU, as
well as a member of KU’s Center for Environmental Beneficial Catalysis and chief science officer of Avium. “Hydrogen is a commodity chemical — nearly 100 million tons are produced annually worldwide. It’s used in fertilizers, cement production, metal processing and refining. Traditionally, it’s made from natural gas, but that process emits CO2. This results in hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions.”
Back in 2017, Leonard and KU graduate student Joseph Barforoush developed new catalysts that make green hydrogen production more efficient, which led to the founding of Avium, based in Lawrence.
“We’ve gone through the Small Business Innovation Research grants, receiving funding from both the National Science Foundation and the DoE,” Leonard says. “As part of the (2021) Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, $750 million was allocated to bolster green hydrogen efforts in the U.S., including the award to Avium and KU.”
The work at KU and Avium will develop new catalysts and technologies to improve the efficiency and reliability of green hydrogen production. According to Leonard, the benefits might well extend beyond sectors where hydrogen is already used.
“People are interested in green hydrogen for traditional applications like those I mentioned, but also for emerging ones,” he says. “One example is sustainable aviation fuels. Green hydrogen will be critical in creating sustainable, petroleum-free fuels, specifically for aviation.”
The KU researcher says clean hydrogen is also gaining interest for renewable energy storage.
“Take Arizona, for example,” he says. “During winter days, the solar panels on the grid can produce much more energy than is needed. However, in the summer, when it’s 110 degrees and air conditioners are running, solar energy alone
“The whole world is interested in green hydrogen. Hydrogen is a commodity chemical — nearly 100 million tons are produced annually worldwide. It’s used in fertilizers, cement production, metal processing and refining. Traditionally, it’s made from natural gas, but that process emits CO2. This results in hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions.”
–Kevin Leonard
cannot produce enough electricity, specifically in the evening. Storing excess energy from January and February to use in July and August is a challenge. However, using green hydrogen to store that energy, then converting it back to electricity later, may prove effective for grid energy balancing.”
KU students and postdoctoral researchers will receive training as part of the work. The award also will support technical training and career-building opportunities for students at the Dwayne Peaslee Technical Training Center in Lawrence and Urban Tec in Kansas City, Missouri.
“We’ll collaborate with Peaslee to provide technical training for students entering fields like electrical work and HVAC, ensuring they are familiar with the specialized skills required for green hydrogen processes, such as handling highvoltage lines or understanding the systems involved in hydrogen energy,” Leonard says. “We are also partnering with Urban Tec to launch the Avium Summer Experience, where students from Kansas City will visit KU to explore university life. They’ll also tour Avium and Peaslee Tech to learn about the different paths available to them — whether through apprenticeships or startup environments.”
Leonard says the transition to a clean-energy future, especially the DoE’s stated Hydrogen Shot goal, would depend in part on the development of technology like Avium’s catalysts.
“The U.S. is really pushing towards sustainability,” he says. “There’s a federal target to produce green hydrogen for just a dollar per kilogram by 2031. The point is that green hydrogen will become a key part of the transition to clean energy. Green hydrogen can help make the chemical industry more sustainable by enabling the more sustainable production of fuels and fertilizers.”
KU Medical Center awarded $31 million to facilitate pediatric clinical trials across network of 18 rural and underserved sites.
ARTICLE BY Kristi Birch, KU Medical Center
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS MEDICAL CENTER has been awarded a five-year, $31 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to coordinate clinical trials for infants and children in rural and underserved areas. The grant, awarded in early June, is the largest five-year award in the history of KU Medical Center and one of the largest such awards ever received at the University of Kansas.
In partnership with the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), KU Medical Center will serve as the Data Coordinating and Operations Center (DCOC) for the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Institutional Development Award (IDeA) States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network.
“KU Medical Center has been building the biostatistics and informatics infrastructure necessary for the DCOC for 20 years,” says Matthew Mayo, Ph.D., founding chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science at KU Medical Center and the lead investigator on the grant. “The ultimate goal is to support high-quality, multi-center trials that generate valuable knowledge and lead to improved health outcomes for a wider range of children across the country.”
The DCOC will provide data coordination and biostatistics support, facilitate multi-site study design and results dissemination, help coordinate with local health systems, and train researchers and clinicians to increase their capacity to conduct pediatric research.
The NIH created the IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network in 2016 to provide access to clinical trials for rural or underserved children living in IDeA states. These states have historically low levels of research funding and limited access to vital clinical trials. The IDeA program was created to broaden the geographic distribution of NIH funding for biomedical and behavioral research.
There are 18 clinical research sites in the IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network. The grant will enable the DCOC to serve as the centralized unit that will support clinical trials across it.
Both KU Medical Center and UNMC have been part of the IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network since its inception.
“We have maintained a close working relationship through the first two cycles (of the ECHO program),” says Russell McCulloh, M.D., associate vice chancellor for clinical research at UNMC and a principal investigator. “The big strength that Nebraska provides is the experience of our Clinical Research Center and our experienced pediatric clinical trialists who have longstanding engagement in the network. These strengths are an excellent complement to KU’s outstanding expertise in biostatistics and informatics, and both sides have strong track records in conducting multi-site clinical trials.”
The clinical trials in the ECHO program focus on environmental influences that may affect child health, such as air pollution, family support, stress, sleep habits and diet. Recently published research has shown that adverse birth outcomes may be associated with arsenic in public drinking water, and that obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure before and after the mothers’ pregnancy are associated with higher blood pressure in children. These trials also provide access to health care teams for children who would not have had access otherwise.
“It’s exciting to put our foundation to work through a network that is expanding access to pediatric trials and building longterm research capacity in communities that have historically been underrepresented in clinical research,” says Jo Wick, Ph.D., professor of biostatistics and data science at KU Medical Center and a principal investigator. “Growing up in the Missouri Bootheel, I saw firsthand the challenges families in rural and under-resourced communities face in accessing high-quality health care. That experience gives me a deep appreciation for what the network stands for and for the significance of the responsibility we’ve been entrusted with as its Data Coordinating and Operations Center.”
“KU Medical Center has been building the biostatistics and informatics infrastructure necessary for the DCOC for 20 years. The ultimate goal is to support highquality, multicenter trials that generate valuable knowledge and lead to improved health outcomes for a wider range of children across the country.”
–Matthew Mayo
KU Cancer Center breaks ground for new complex that promises to transform both care and research in the region.
ARTICLE BY Kristi Birch, KU Medical Center
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS CANCER CENTER recently broke ground on the future site of a new complex that will bring research and patient care together for the first time in the center’s history.
The new building realizes a long-held vision of KU Cancer Center’s leadership to bring together the entire cancer community — from physician-scientists to researchers to physicians and clinical staff — side by side in one complex.
“Today marks a pivotal moment in our efforts to address one of the greatest health challenges of our time: cancer,” says Roy Jensen, M.D., vice chancellor and director of KU Cancer Center. “This new center will unite researchers, clinicians and patients side-by-side in one facility, supporting the real-time collaborations that are essential for groundbreaking discoveries. We intend to create a global destination for patient care and research.”
The groundbreaking, which was followed by a celebratory event at KU Medical Center, was attended by U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly and a host of other dignitaries.
The new facility, which will be located on the 39th and Rainbow campus in Kansas City, will enable the whole patient experience — from nutrition and social work to pathology and imaging, and everything in between — to happen in one place. It also will give patients access to groundbreaking clinical trials and therapies developed on site. Physicians and researchers will be able to collaborate in real time on personalized treatment options and make them available to patients more quickly.
In 2022, The University of Kansas Cancer Center was designated as a “Comprehensive” cancer center by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). This is the highest level of
recognition awarded by the NCI and is the gold standard for cancer centers.
“We knew that (the Comprehensive designation) wasn’t the culmination of our work,” says Douglas A. Girod, M.D., chancellor of the University of Kansas. “Rather, it was an important milestone along the way to our next goal — which was to develop the facilities necessary to bring clinical and research capabilities together in the same place to provide better patient care and facilitate the development of new treatments and cures.”
The new complex will support cellular therapy, which uses a patient’s own cells to fight their cancer with fewer side effects than traditional treatments. It will also house a cellular therapeutics Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) laboratory that will expedite CAR T-cell therapy, a novel treatment that uses genetically re-engineered immune cells known as T-cells to find and destroy cancer. By bringing a cellular therapeutics GMP laboratory in-house, the costs and wait time for the creation of these specialized cells will be reduced. KU Cancer Center is the only cancer center in the region offering all seven FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapies.
The complex is funded by multiple sources, including a $100 million lead gift from the Sunderland Foundation, the largest ever received by the University of Kansas and The University of Kansas Health System. Sen. Moran helped secure federal funding, and Gov. Kelly supported the appropriation of state funds. Other funding came from private foundations and donors.
“All recovery from this dreaded disease starts with the power of hope,” Moran says. “Today we celebrate hope.”
“This new center will unite researchers, clinicians and patients side-by-side in one facility, supporting the real-time collaborations that are essential for groundbreaking discoveries. We intend to create a global destination for patient care and research.”
–Roy Jensen, M.D.
a run for the
by david garfield
Member of KU’s 1952 championship team remembers the thrill of winning.
BILL HEITHOLT closes his eyes and vividly remembers that magical opening game 74 years ago, when he was a Kansas basketball freshman, against Baylor on Dec. 3, 1951, at KU’s Hoch Auditorium.
Heitholt, along with Everett Dye are the surviving members of KU’s 1952 NCAA championship team, walked from Robinson Gym to Hoch and sat in the third row behind KU’s bench. After what Dr. Forrest C. “Phog” Allen thought was the Jayhawks’ “sluggish” start, Heitholt suddenly and surprisingly got the call.
As a freshman, Heitholt was one of three KU players to be eligible to play that year. Until then, freshmen sat out a year before becoming eligible to play at the varsity level. That changed after the Korean War, but only for the 1951–52 schedule. In January 1972, the NCAA granted freshmen full eligibility to play varsity football and basketball.
“Doc (an osteopath) got up and pointed back and said, ‘Bill, Bill, wild Bill, get in there,’” Heitholt recalls from his home in Commerce, Texas. “I got off my sweats, come down and made a move that Harp (Dick, assistant coach) taught me. I drove right and crossed over low, penetrated and hooked up a left-handed shot. I missed it, but got fouled. I shot two-handed, underhanded (free throws). I was oldfashioned, and Doc Allen liked that. My knees were shaking; I made two free throws.”
The 6-foot-4 Heitholt, who turned 92 “years young” in June, “made the same move again,” got fouled and hit two more charities before then driving and dishing an assist to Helms College Player of the Year Clyde Lovellette, when Baylor called a timeout.
“We were 10 points ahead when we were tied when I went in,” Heitholt says. “I earned my place the first game (KU won, 57-46). I think Doc said, ‘Wild Bill went in there and we got things done.’ I had my chance and made good. … It was miraculous.”
Lawrence Journal-World sports editor Bill Mayer wrote, “Heitholt opened a number of eyes.” Allen gushed that if a “few more” drove to the basket like Heitholt, “we’re going to be hard to handle.”
Heitholt, the first substitute for senior guard Bill Hougland, played 28 games that season (tying the team high) and averaged 1.4 points and 2.0 rebounds. His spirited presence, though, transcended statistics.
“I was always cheerleading on the bench,” says Heitholt. “Dean Smith (junior teammate and future Hall of Fame coach) always said, ‘Bill was one of the guys that got our team spirit up by being enthusiastic.’ It was a great year. I was a role player. I was good enough to bring the ball up without turning it over, a good enough defender, knew enough not to be a gunner and get the ball to Lovellette. I went along for the ride.”
Lovellette—still the only player to lead the nation in scoring (28.6 ppg) and win a national championship the same year—was unstoppable all season. After KU started 13-0 before losing two straight to Kansas State and Oklahoma A&M, Harp installed a pressing, smothering
defense, helping lead Kansas to 15 consecutive wins. The team captured the NCAA title with a record of 28-3 (Allen’s first title in 35 years at KU). Seven of KU’s top players— Lovellette, Bob Kenney (All-Big Seven), Hougland, Dean Kelley, Bill Lienhard, Charlie Hoag and John Keller—were all on the team and, after defeating NIT champion LaSalle in the U.S. Olympic Playoffs, went on to win the gold medal during the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.
Allen’s promise to the 1951–52 team members when he recruited them—that they would win the national championship and compete in the Olympics—became prophetic. Heitholt says Harp relayed Allen’s promise when recruiting Heitholt in his senior year after a great showing in the 1951 Illinois high school state tournament.
“(Harp) talked of a senior-laden team (at KU),” Heitholt says. “Doc Allen had promised him they were going to win the national championship and go to the Olympics. (Harp) said ‘that was far-fetched, but that’s what our goal is.’ That was impressive to be a part of something like that.”
Many Jayhawks stated decades later that they wouldn’t have been able to win the national championship without Dick Harp. “Amen,” Heitholt says. “Doc knew this, but you didn’t want to broadcast it at the time. (Harp) was ahead of his time. He was exceptional.”
KU, of course, needed Allen, the U.S. Olympic team’s assistant coach, one of the game’s best motivators and the winningest coach in college basketball history at the time.
“The University of Kansas is special to me. It gave me a chance at an education. I just can’t say enough accolades about KU.”
“He was amazing, a great man and pioneer in the development of the game,” says Heitholt. “(I was) fortunate to have been involved as the game evolved into what it is today. … Doc was elderly (age 66). He’d always want to motivate us and talk too long. Dick wanted to get to his time on the (practice) schedule.”
As the “Allenmen” entered the NCAA Western Regional in Kansas City at Municipal Auditorium, Heitholt always thought, “‘This will be the last night. It’s too good to be true.’ But we kept winning.”
Kansas beat TCU and St. Louis, advancing to the Final Four in Seattle. KU crushed Santa Clara before routing St. John’s, 80-63, the next evening on March 26 at Edmundson Pavilion, winning the championship before 11,750 fans. The
team, which arrived home past midnight on March 28, rode in fire engines down Massachusetts Street with 10,000 fans cheering their crimson-and-blue team and holding up signs, including “On to Helsinki” in a historic celebration.
“It’s the ultimate,” Heitholt says. “Just a tremendous experience.”
Heitholt, a U.S. Olympic team alternate (he didn’t go to Helsinki), is oddly not in the official NCAA title game box score.
“I sure did play. I got a picture right here,” says Heitholt, who married in the summer of 1952 and welcomed his first child, Kent, in 1953. “I kind of lost favor. Bill Mayer actually wrote I didn’t play. I was married my sophomore … year, and that may have influenced my situation. Bill Hougland and Lovellette were married, but they were seniors, so you never know. I got my good degree (physical education) and earned my way.”
Heitholt, born in 1933 during the Depression and raised on a farm in Payton, Illinois, “survived” with his family on 80 acres before moving 12 miles to Quincy in 1945. He helped put the city on the Illinois basketball map and was inducted into the Quincy High School Hall of Fame. “I can still brag that I was one of the team members that won a national championship,” he says.
Allen expressed his deep love to his “fellows” in a June 17, 1952, letter: “Your crowning glory is you never quit,” and “magnificent play down the stretch-drive caught the fancy, imagination and admiration of millions of Kansans … It has been wonderful to be so closely associated with such fine … upstanding Kansas men.”
Heitholt, who saw limited action after starting the first half of his sophomore season, graduated in 1955 and enjoyed a long coaching career at Rosedale High (winning a Kansas Class A title his first year), John Burroughs School and Washington University in St. Louis. He then coached and was the first athletic director at Maryville University, elevating that St. Louis program to Division III in 1978. He was inducted into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame in 1995.
Heitholt and his wife, Dorothy, eventually retired and moved to Commerce, Texas, in 2009 to be closer to their son, Jim. The couple was married for 63 years before Dorothy died in 2015. Heitholt still has season tickets to East Texas A&M sports events and proudly dons his KU hat when he attends those events.
“People know (my) history as an NCAA champion,” Heitholt says. “I get a lot of respect.”
Heitholt rarely misses a KU basketball reunion and cherishes the relationships he made with teammates and close friends at Kansas, such as famed photographer Rich Clarkson. He closely follows Kansas basketball and calls KU coach Bill Self “just outstanding.”
Wild Bill feels blessed and at peace with life as he recalls his dream experience at KU, when he made an indelible mark during his collegiate debut 74 years ago.
“The University of Kansas is special to me,” Heitholt says. “It gave me a chance at an education. I just can’t say enough accolades about KU. Being a member of Doc Allen’s team and knowing Dick Harp, it’s a picture-book story. You couldn’t write a better story. My life’s been wonderful. I have very few regrets.”
Bill Heitholt’s life intersected with two Kansas basketball pioneers—LaVannes Squires and Wilt Chamberlain.
Squires, the first Black basketball player at KU, made his debut the same night as Heitholt, December 3, 1951, against Baylor at KU’s Hoch Auditorium.
When Squires was a senior at Wichita East, KU reportedly wanted a package deal, recruiting Squires and his standout junior teammate Cleo Littleton, who was also Black. Both played for Phog Allen’s former star and future Hall of Fame coach Ralph Miller. Littleton, instead of going to KU, followed Miller when he became head coach at Wichita State, and Littleton remains that program’s all-time leading scorer.
Heitholt recalls some of the challenges Squires faced. “We’d go into Oklahoma; they wouldn’t take our whole team in restaurants, and we’d walk out,” he says. “We backed up LaVannes; we didn’t make him eat in the kitchen. We found someplace where we could eat. It was racism. There still is. It was really more cruel back then.”
About a decade ago, Heitholt received a prized “twopage yellow business sheet note” from Squires, who died in 2021 at age 90. The note expressed Squires’ appreciation and respect for Heitholt’s fairness and acceptance. The respect was mutual, according to Heitholt.
“I have good memories of LaVannes Squires,” he says. Heitholt “roomed some” with the 6-foot guard. “LaVannes and I were good friends. He was a real class guy, a good man. … He didn’t have good support (back then) … But he was a topflight person.”
Squires paved the way for KU’s next Black players, Maurice King, Bob Lockley and Chamberlain.
Chamberlain visited Lawrence on Kansas Relays weekend in April 1955 before choosing KU a few weeks later over Indiana and Pennsylvania. Heitholt, his teammates and others, including Allen and Harp, met the 7-foot phenom from Philadelphia and his Overbrook High coach Cecil Mosenson for lunch in the Sunflower Room at the Kansas Union.
“We wined and dined Wilt the Stilt,” Heitholt says. “It felt like I was looking at his belly button. He was a giant. I think (Mosenson) thought to get Wilt, they’d give him an assistant job, but they didn’t need to.”
On May 14, 1955, a writer for the Lawrence Journal-World reported, after Chamberlain announced he would attend KU, that “the chase for the lofty young star has been called one of the greatest ‘manhunts’ in the history of the cage sport.”
