A $641,951 NCInnovation grant awarded to App State’s Dr. Rahman Tashakkori and his research team will support the commercialization of four components of the team’s Beemon Hive Monitoring System — an innovative tool designed to decrease honeybee hive die-off and increase hive production.

App State’s Oral History Program conducts and curates oral history interviews, which are housed in the university’s Special Collections Research Center. The interviews range in date from the mid-1960s to the present day, with a focus on university and regional history.

App State will join six other UNC System institutions as a headquarters for NCInnovation’s applied research support. NCInnovation provides grant funding, mentorship and partnership development to university researchers to support innovative, real-world research at North Carolina’s public universities.

App State assistant professor Dr. Adam McKay has co-authored a new study, published in Nature Astronomy, that provides the first detection of carbon dioxide in the centaur known as 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1. According to McKay, studying centaurs — ice-rich bodies that orbit the sun — can yield important insights into the formation and evolution of Earth’s solar system.

Dr. Brooke Christian, App State associate professor of chemistry, has received a $306,783 Research in Undergraduate Institutions Award from the National Science Foundation to support her research on biomolecule stabilization, which has important applications in numerous areas — from pharmaceuticals to the food industry. These awards support faculty at predominantly undergraduate institutions in research that engages them in their professional field, builds capacity for research at their home institution and supports the integration of research and undergraduate education.

Dr. Maggie Sugg, associate professor and honors director in App State’s Department of Geography and Planning, has been awarded two grants totaling over $1.5 million to continue her research on how climate disasters impact youth mental health.

App State professors Dr. Baker Perry and Dr. Brian Raichle conducted weather station maintenance with a group of elite climbing Sherpas on Mount Everest as part of a National Geographic Society expedition, supported by Rolex and its Perpetual Planet Initiative.

Construction for App State’s Conservatory for Biodiversity Education and Research — the first academic building of the university’s Innovation District — is set to begin in July. The facility, offering classroom, office, laboratory and event space, will be built to the rigorous sustainability standards of the Living Building Challenge.