Missouri S&T Kummer College Newsletter

Dear alumni, students, faculty and staff:

I am pleased to report on several recent developments in Kummer College that may seem almost too auspicious to believe — but rest assured, this is not an April Fools’ Day joke.

The stories below highlighting Missouri S&T’s participation in the InvestMidwest conference and the Global Health Innovation Grand Challenge exemplify how the application of entrepreneurial thinking at S&T actively engages students, faculty and staff to make bold advances that create real value.

S&T is widely recognized for its strong return on investment, driven by our affordability and exceptional employment outcomes. We excel at creating value by supporting robust industry engagement opportunities, including the Kummer I&E Doctoral Fellows program hosted through Kummer College. As we roll out the Jaggi School of Business, we are intentionally designing novel pedagogies and new approaches to ensure that S&T continues to add value for both students and employers through innovative corporate partnerships.

I encourage you to explore the stories below for compelling examples of this work and to reflect on how S&T continues to deliver value.

The Jaggi School of Business is launching new scholarships, expanding library and database resources, hiring endowed faculty and introducing new finance and accounting programs, tentatively set to begin in Fall 2027. The business and information technology (BIT) department faculty, staff and programs provide the basis.

In April, three teams with ties to Missouri S&T will participate in InvestMidwest, the largest venture capital conference in the Midwest.

“These three teams represent the first-ever Missouri S&T-affiliated startups to pitch at InvestMidwest,” says Dr. Christine Karslake, associate vice chancellor for innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization at S&T, and InvestMidwest board member. “This is a tremendous opportunity for them to network, gain visibility and carry the S&T flag into the Midwest entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

Three teams of S&T students and alumni have advanced to the semi-finals of the Global Health Innovation Grand Challenge hosted by the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. The semi-final event will be held April 10-12 at the 2026 Global Summit in Taipei, Taiwan.

David Braswell, a retired attorney and longtime advisor to philanthropist Fred Kummer, will join the Kummer Missouri S&T Foundation Board in April.

Students in S&T's Kummer I&E Fellows Program are getting an inside look at industry with site visits to companies across Missouri.

When Logan Wilcox joined S&T’s first cohort of the Kummer I&E Fellows Program, he didn’t know exactly where he would end up. Now, he’s a lead engineer at GE Aerospace, using his skills to develop real-world solutions that impact air safety worldwide.

By the time Sam Steele graduates from S&T, the mining engineering junior who is also a Kummer Vanguard Scholar, will already have experience working in underground salt mines in New York, surface phosphate operations in Florida and a blasting company in Herman, Missouri.

When Radwa Eissa was growing up in Cairo, Egypt, conversations about building design were part of daily life. That interest led her halfway around the world to pursue a doctoral degree in civil engineering at S&T as part of the inaugural cohort of the Kummer I&E Fellows program. Now, she's an assistant professor at Clemson University in South Carolina.

Owen Fraser, a mechanical engineering major and Kummer Vanguard Scholar with a 4.0 GPA, is now the first national champion in the shot put and first indoor national champion in S&T program history.