By Flynn Espe

Twelve students from the Washington State University system have received the 2025-26 Power & Energy Society (PES) , making WSU the top institutional producer of PES scholars for this award year.

The PES Scholarship Plus is presented on behalf of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and can award students up to $10,000 over a three-year period. The scholarship is given to high-achieving undergraduate students majoring in an IEEE-designated field of study who are pursuing careers in power and energy.

The 12 WSU students, who hail from three system campuses, comprised almost a third of the 38 total PES scholars chosen from colleges and universities in IEEE’s Western U.S.A. region, a cluster that includes 12 states. The students are:

• Katelyn Albertin, ���سԹ�
• Gianni Avilan Losee, WSU Vancouver
• Gerrit Bruland, WSU Pullman
• Hugo Contreras, ���سԹ�
• Jacob Culligan, ���سԹ�
• Daniel Gapper, WSU Pullman
• David Hysjulien, ���سԹ�
• Jesus Miranda, ���سԹ�
• Miguel Palomino, ���سԹ�
• Jessica Pantoja-Garcia, WSU Vancouver
• Tarang Teredesai, WSU Pullman
• Manuella Tossa, ���سԹ�

Bruland and Tossa are both two-time recipients.

To qualify for the scholarship, students must be considering a career in electric power and energy engineering, having earned a minimum number of academic credits within those areas of study. Applicants are evaluated by way of grades, achievements, work experiences, and volunteer activities. Selection is also based on the quality of the institution’s academic programs and curriculum related to power and energy engineering.

Palomino, a first-time recipient majoring in electrical engineering with minors in computer science and mathematics, found out about the PES scholarship through his academic advisor. He says he’s currently interested in working on energy systems that are healthier for the environment, noting that emerging technologies like ChatGPT and other large language models have proven to be heavily energy dependent.

As a student intern at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) since 2023, Palomino has contributed to research projects involving high-voltage systems analysis for an experimental time projection chamber, the creation of an automatic cooling system, and more.

“My second project at PNNL, I created a standalone digital display system for a pressure transducer,” Palomino said. “For this, I had to integrate a microcontroller, analog-to-digital converter, and a digital display screen. This system required me to create a voltage divider to scale down the input signal to prevent any damage to the components.”

After earning his associate’s degree from Columbia Basin College, Palomino transferred to ���سԹ� as a part of the Bridges Program and expects to graduate with his bachelor’s in electrical engineering in the spring of 2027.

“I feel honored to be recognized by IEEE,” he said. “It is encouraging to know that others have faith in me and are willing to give me that support which I greatly need.”

Pantoja-Garcia, who transferred from Clark College to WSU Vancouver in 2023, said she became interested in the field thanks to power-related projects and classes, as well as her participation in the PNW Hydro Think Tank Competition. At WSU Vancouver, it was her Intro to Power and Energy Systems course and two key electives — Renewable Energy Conversion Systems and Introduction to Solar Cells — that further cemented her enthusiasm.

“Both of these electives stood out to me from other electrical engineering classes I have taken because they involved learning with a project-based approach,” Pantoja-Garcia said. “As a student, I have found that when I am tasked with projects instead of problem sets, I feel more involved and a sense of ownership over my education.”

Outside of the classroom, Pantoja-Garcia took part in two four-month electrical engineering internships with Burns & McDonnell — an architecture, engineering, and construction firm. She recently joined the company as a full-time assistant substation engineer after graduating in December with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering.

“I spent most of my time working on substation projects,” Pantoja-Garcia said. “In my application, I described how my internship allowed me to take on projects that directly affected our electric grid and that it taught me the importance of making safe and smart design choices.”

The PES Scholarship Plus program grew sharply over the past year, increasing from 84 PES scholars in 2024 to 244 in 2025. The jump was driven in part by expanded eligibility, which now includes majors such as computer science, technical communications, education, and more. WSU students outpaced that growth, rising from two scholars last year to 12 this year.

According to Noel Schulz, inaugural director of the ���سԹ� and Bob Ferguson endowed professor, who joined the IEEE board of directors in 2024, it’s a promising sign for the trajectory of WSU’s programs.

“This is a significant accomplishment for the entire WSU system,” Schulz said. “It’s encouraging to see that our students are excelling not only in the labs and classrooms on campus but also being recognized by professional societies like IEEE PES.  The WSU system continues to be a strong program in electrical power education and research. It’s a true testament to our incredible engineering faculty and curriculum that WSU is producing so many talented and committed students.”

By Flynn Espe

A new method for identifying types of plastics, built on advanced spectral imaging and machine learning, could make recycling more efficient and reduce landfill waste, according to a new study involving Washington State University researchers.

The method, in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling, offers the promise of a sorting system that is more accurate in distinguishing and separating different types of plastics on conveyer belts, which is crucial for producing high-quality recycled materials.

Maria Paula Garcia-Tovar, a Ph.D. materials science and engineering student at WSU Pullman, served as lead author. Macy Christianson (’22 BS Comp. Sci., ’24 MS Comp. Sci.), a ���سԹ� alumnae now working at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL); Luis de la Torre, associate professor of computer science at ���سԹ�; and John Miller, emeritus associate professor of computer science at ���سԹ�, were among the co-authors, alongside other colleagues from PNNL and the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez.

Spectral imaging builds upon the principles of spectroscopy — a technique for observing how light interacts with matter across different wavelengths. Using specialized cameras with spectroscopic sensors, spectral imaging machines detect and record spectral data for each pixel of an image. Analysis of that data can, in turn, identify the chemical composition or other properties of the materials. Hyperspectral imaging, which requires more sophisticated camera equipment than traditional spectral imaging, offers a higher level of resolution, providing a full spectrum at each pixel.

“It’s like a regular color image, which has red, green, and blue, but a hyperspectral image has a whole wavelength band — sometimes 3,000 wavelengths,” Miller said.

For this study, the research team sought to investigate the feasibility of plastic identification in a simulation using hyperspectral imaging technology and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), a deep-learning artificial intelligence model often lauded for its ability to process complex image data. By training their CNN model on image data sets derived from two types of vibrational spectroscopies, the researchers determined both to be highly accurate in identifying six chemically distinct plastic types — with one model achieving 100% accuracy.

Although some recycling facilities have begun implementing hyperspectral imaging for plastic classification, most still rely on older, less accurate technologies such as near‑infrared sensors and RGB cameras. These systems are used during the sorting stage, after plastic loads have been screened for metal or other non‑plastic contaminants. Sensors mounted over fast‑moving conveyor belts capture and identify the plastics as they move past, and precision‑targeting air jets separate individual items by type.

Accurate sorting is important because different plastics have distinct chemical compositions and require specific processing conditions, including different melting temperatures. When plastics are improperly sorted, the quality of recycled materials can suffer, sometimes resulting in discarded batches that end up in landfills or incinerators.

Garcia-Tovar said the plastic samples used in the study were recovered from a recycling center in Puerto Rico, which made successful identification of the materials more challenging but also more reflective of real-world conditions.

“These plastics are real plastics, so they had some environmental degradations,” Garcia-Tovar said, adding that some samples were even discolored from additives, making them harder to identify with older technologies. “But the model was successful.”

Garcia-Tovar, who is originally from Colombia and has a background in industrial engineering, was initially recruited to the project while pursuing her master’s degree at the University of Puerto Rico–Mayagüez, working under the guidance of co-author Samuel P. Hernández-Rivera. She collected the samples and provided infrared spectral imaging data using equipment at her university. She then brought the samples to PNNL, where she worked as a research intern during the summer of 2024, using the lab’s high-end imaging equipment to obtain the rest of the hyperspectral images for the machine learning experiment.

According to Miller, who worked on the machine learning framework, there were certain essential functions that had to be implemented for the experiment to work. One of the first tasks, he said, was getting the image analysis software to isolate and identify each plastic item within each spectral image.

“One of the weird things is that the conveyor belt is also plastic, so you have to distinguish the [recycled] plastic from the conveyor belt as well,” Miller said.

Another challenge Miller pointed to was optimizing the computational process so that it matched the speed of a fast-moving conveyer belt. A potential future step, he said, would be to test the imaging framework on a physical conveyor system.

Garcia-Tovar, for whom this is her first published paper as lead author, said she decided to further her education at WSU based on her positive PNNL internship experience. She says another paper from her PNNL internship is forthcoming — this one dealing with microplastics.

“I am very happy to continue studying at this university,” she said. “This experience has been really amazing.”

By Flynn Espe

Few environmental remediation projects have matched the scale and complexity of the Hanford Site cleanup effort. With a present-day workforce of over 13,000 people, it’s an undertaking that spans government and multiple private entities — each playing a distinct but interconnected role in moving the Hanford mission forward.

Whereas progress at the Hanford Site is often calculated in terms of tangible accomplishments — such as the number of buildings demolished, waste tanks processed, or gallons of groundwater decontaminated — Washington State University recently played a key role in helping the project reach a different sort of milestone. It happened last February with the successful conclusion of the One Hanford Leadership Academy, a 12-month management training series hosted by ���سԹ� Cougar Tracks, the university’s continuing education and professional development program, with teaching and curriculum support from the .

The academy brought together 15 high-level managers and executives from the U.S. Department of Energy Hanford Field Office and five of its prime contractors, all of whom took part in more than 200 hours of workshops and seminars led by Carson College faculty. The seminars focused on topics such as trust building, communication and persuasion, teamwork and collaboration, conflict and negotiation, culture and change management, and brand positioning. Together, these sessions sought to establish methods for strengthening coordination across the organizations and improving mission-aligned behavior and decision making. Participants also completed three capstone projects designed around the themes of nuclear safety, procurement, and workforce development.

More than a year in the making, the idea for the academy emerged from a series of conversations between a small group of Carson College faculty and Hanford Site leaders, who identified WSU as a potential third-party training consultant.

“I think one of the frustrations at Hanford was you have six contractors under DOE, which sometimes made coordination difficult,” said Tom Tripp, professor of management and Rom Markin Endowed Leadership chair, who led one of the seminars and was among the first to consult on the project. “We started sketching out exactly what their needs were and what sort of programming we might be able to provide.”

Through those conversations, a customized curriculum began to take shape, one focused on cultivating new leaders, mid-level management strategies, and better practices for working and communicating across the One Hanford team — particularly in areas of common or overlapping functionality. Cougar Tracks, meanwhile, oversaw the logistics and coordination needed to bring everyone together — bridging the gap between the industry clients and academic experts.

“The program was designed to blend academic theory with practical application through project work and executive coaching, all supporting the specific needs of this particular group,” Cougar Tracks Director Michelle Hrycauk Nassif said. “What we are essentially doing is responsive curriculum, because we are meeting our partners exactly where they’re at, and we are evolving and pivoting and aligning ourselves with them continuously.”

After kicking off the academy in November 2024, the academy faced an unexpected hurdle due to new federal expectations placed on DOE and many of the contractors, forcing a temporary pause in 2025. Instead of choosing to end the program early, however, the Hanford leaders committed to seeing it through.

“This program reinforced the importance of responsive program design — content and delivery that stays relevant and mission-aligned even when conditions shift,” Hrycauk Nassif said. “The academy operated through significant disruption, and our shared commitment allowed the program to continue and close strong. That experience will shape how we build future workforce programs across the region.”

During the final wrap-up event in February, participants reported that the three projects they had worked on over the course of the academy were already being implemented across the Hanford Site. Those projects included unified nuclear safety procedures and procurement processes, as well as a “One Hanford” for new Hanford employees and internal trainings.

“What you heard at the closeout was that relationships were built; meaningful projects were built and running,” Mark Schuster, ���سԹ�’ director of industry-connected programs, said. “There were tangible changes being implemented under this One Hanford philosophy, and it’s already building a stronger foundation for collaboration.”

The six participating groups were Bechtel National, Inc., Central Plateau Cleanup Company, Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, Hanford Tank Waste Operation & Closure, Navarro-ATL, and the DOE Hanford Field Office. Hrycauk Nassif said plans are already underway for the next One Hanford Leadership Academy cohort, projected to begin in 2027.

By Flynn Espe

Washington State University Tri-Cities student Roxie Bates remembers coming to New Coug Orientation last fall feeling somewhat anxious about starting her college career.

“What if I don’t do this one thing and then it ruins everything?” she recalls thinking. “I was very nervous.”

Though she’d been on campus at least once before, it was a much different environment than the one she’d recently graduated from at Chiawana High School in Pasco. More than that, as a first-year student in the ���سԹ� Teaching Bridge Program, Bates still had practical questions about how she would be balancing her time between taking classes and working part-time as a paraeducator — one of the main features of her elementary education program.

Fortunately, Bates says, most of her day-one jitters were quickly calmed when she went into a scheduled group meeting with Lisandra Farías, her assigned mentor in a brand-new Student Success Peer Mentors program aimed at helping new ���سԹ� students settle in during their first semester on campus. Farías introduced herself to the group as a senior elementary education major.

“She kind of explained everything, like, ‘I’ve been through it. This is what it’s going to look like, and if you have any questions, I’m here,” Bates says. “It was a lot more reassuring.”

From there, Bates stayed in frequent contact with Farías throughout the semester, using a special text messaging platform.

“I would say we talked about one to two times a week. And it would often just be a quick check-in, like, ‘Hey, how’s everything going? Do you have any questions?’” Bates says.

Bates and her fellow new Cougs weren’t the only ones going through the peer mentorship process for the first time. This being the pilot year for the program, it was a learning experience for everyone — students and staff included.

“The point is to help new students, both first-years and transfers, successfully transition to life at ���سԹ� by offering guidance, support, and a friendly connection to the campus community,” says Evelyn Martinez-Ostrom, ���سԹ�’ director of student engagement and leadership.

She says the program emerged from a series of director-level meetings the year prior in which campus leaders from the Office of Academic and Student Affairs looked closely at an industry study on student success in higher education. In evaluating the , which identified the “Big Six” college experiences linked to lifelong preparedness, the group latched on to two key indicators. One was a correlation between successful outcomes for students who were highly active in extracurricular activities and organizations. A second indicator was having a mentor to inspire and encourage the student.

“It was really broadly stated as somebody that has their back on campus, and an overwhelming number of examples cited a peer as that mentor,” Martinez-Ostrom says. “So the combination of those two things, having a peer mentor and having involvement in co-curricular activities, is what we centered this idea of a peer mentor program around.”

Getting the program up and running required a major effort from multiple ���سԹ� departments, including the Office of Admissions and Office of Academic Engagement. Funding for the first year of the program was provided by a generous outside sponsorship from Battelle, with additional contributions from the ���سԹ� College of Arts and Sciences and TRIO Student Support Services.

By the time fall 2025 orientation arrived, Martinez-Ostrom’s office had assembled and trained a team of 14 ���سԹ� upperclassmen as peer mentors — selecting candidates through a competitive hiring process that also sought to bring in a mixed representation of undergraduate majors.

Peer mentor Devin Simpson, who graduated last December as a digital technology and culture major, says he decided to apply to the campus position having previously worked as a student outreach ambassador for the ���سԹ� GEAR UP program.

“I was interested in it because I had experience interacting with students,” he says. “I thought, ‘Oh, that could translate well into the Student Success Peer Mentors position.’”

For his orientation meet-and-greet session, Simpson prepared a few simple games and ice-breaker activities to help people get to know one another.

“I had them talk about themselves and why they enrolled at WSU,” Simpson says. “They were meeting for the first time, so obviously nerves were going to be a little bit high. But the more I talked to them and the more activities and games we did, the more comfortable they got.”

Throughout the fall, Simpson and his fellow mentors regularly reached out to their assigned students via group and personalized texts, informing students about academic deadlines and resources while encouraging them to participate in upcoming social events. The new students, meanwhile, were also free to contact their mentors with questions and requests.

One peer mentor guided a new student through the process of starting a campus club for the education students, Martinez-Ostrom says. Sometimes the requests were more urgent.

“At one point we had a peer mentor who was off-campus, and one of their mentees had messaged them, ‘Hey, I have an exam today. I forgot my calculator. Can you help me with this?’” Martinez-Ostrom says. “The peer mentor contacted me, ‘I need to help my mentee. Are you on campus? Can you find a calculator for her?’ I said, ‘Yes, send her to our office.’ And we had a TI-89 waiting for her.”

To celebrate the completion of the first semester of the program, the Office of Student Engagement and Leadership hosted a special “Cheers for Peers” event in the Student Union Building last December. While there, each of the 14 mentors had a chance to stand up and share about their experience.

Peer mentor Alyssa Perez, a senior viticulture and enology major, said being in the program taught her valuable lessons about leadership.

“Real leadership often looks like stepping back. You have to listen first, ask questions, and create a space for someone else’s voice to be heard,” Perez told the group. “I also learned that small moments matter more than we think. A quick check-in, a high five in the hallway, or a ‘You’ve got this!’ at just the right time — those interactions can be the thing that keeps someone going.”

For questions about applying to the peer mentor program for fall 2026, email Martinez-Ostrom at evelynmtz@wsu.edu.

By Flynn Espe

Seven students from Washington State University Tri-Cities are bringing their collective passion for community service beyond the confines of the Richland campus. As members of the newly relaunched Mid-Columbia Rotaract Club, they’re on a mission to give back to the region through a range of charitable activities, including an upcoming bowling fundraiser event.

“We hope to better the community in any way possible,” says ���سԹ� sophomore Romeo Ross, currently serving as the Rotaract chapter president.

are official sub-organizations of Rotary International chapters, aimed at cultivating leadership and service-minded professionalism among young adults, ages 18–30. The Mid-Columbia Rotaract Club is sponsored by Columbia Center Rotary, based in Kennewick.

Ross says he became involved in getting the Rotaract chapter up and running in late 2025 when Rotary member and ���سԹ� donor Phil Ohl (’87 BS Mat. Sci. & Eng., ’92 MEM) pitched the idea to him. Although the Mid-Columbia Rotaract club had been active in years past, the group had effectively dissolved during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving no one left from the chapter’s former membership to carry the mission forward.

“(Phil) gave me a little bit of insight as to what they had done in the past,” Ross says. “The pitch was, ‘This is really big for our community, and we’re looking for someone to revitalize this and serve in this way.’”

Despite his already busy schedule, including serving as vice president for the Associate Students of ���سԹ�, Ross says he agreed immediately.

“I love humanitarian work. I love service projects,” Ross says. “So I said, ‘Of course, I would love to.’”

His first task was to recruit other new members for the chapter who would be just as committed to community service and engaging with people. Fortunately, he didn’t have to look far. As of now, ���سԹ� undergraduate students comprise more than three quarters of the group’s nine-person leadership team, which includes Diedre Cady, freshman; Xavier Cox, sophomore; Felix Galvan, junior; Harleen Kaur, freshman; Anas Mohamed, sophomore; and Nate Sibaja, sophomore.

Despite the heavy representation of ���سԹ� students, Ross says the makeup of the group is diverse in other ways, with three members hailing from other countries.

“Every individual on the team speaks at least another language,” Ross says, citing Italian, Japanese, and Twi as three languages currently represented. “The team is so multifaceted.”

Rotaract members are focusing their efforts on fundraising support for the Prescott School District, which serves approximately 225 children in rural Walla Walla County and has been facing potential dissolution due to financial distress.

Ross says the decision to focus on helping the district was made during the club’s inaugural meeting on Jan. 15, after each new member brought in three ideas for potential service projects and causes. Cox, who grew up in the town of Prescott, was the one who brought the issue to the group’s attention.

“We came to a consensus that this was the most time-sensitive project,” Ross says. “It was a unanimous vote.”

For Ohl, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from WSU and currently serves as managing director for the Tri-Cities Angel Alliance, getting young people involved in community service has been a driving passion. He praised the new Rotaract team for getting up and running so quickly.

“Romeo and the new members of Mid-Columbia Rotaract embody the Rotary motto, ‘Service above self,’” Ohl says. “All the members are passionate about our Tri-Cities and surrounding area communities, and I’m excited to get to work with them. The fact the group is Coug-centered is a great bonus.”

The group’s first planned outreach activity is a bowling night fundraiser event from 9:30-11:30 p.m. on March 19 at Atomic Bowl in Richland. All proceeds go to the Prescott School District.

For more information on upcoming events, you can follow Mid-Columbia Rotaract Club on . Ross says his team is still on the lookout for new members who exhibit ambition, compassion, and optimism.

“It’s an amazing opportunity, especially if individuals are interested in community service and leadership,” Ross says.

By Flynn Espe

Washington State University Tri-Cities Chancellor Sandra Haynes has been named a 2026 Leader of Distinction by the WSU President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

�ճ���� are presented annually to a select group of WSU faculty, administrators, staff, students, alumni, and university partners who have promoted gender equality�����Ի���championed positive social change. Award winners are selected through an open nomination process and considered based on their exemplary leadership, career achievements, public service,�����Ի���positive contributions to the growth and success of others, including women.

Haynes, who won in the administrator category, joined ���سԹ� in 2018 to serve as the campus’ seventh chancellor. She also currently serves as the interim chancellor for WSU Vancouver.

“Her work reflects a clear focus on student success, community engagement, and expanding opportunities for women and underrepresented groups,” one of the nominating WSU community members wrote to the award committee. “In conversations with industry leaders, donors, and community partners, I consistently hear appreciation for Chancellor Haynes’ leadership and presence in the Tri-Cities community. She has strengthened ���سԹ�’ role in the region and aligned the university’s mission with community priorities, creating lasting impact.”

The same nominator praised Haynes for steering campus growth in multiple areas such as ���Գ����𲹲��������԰��DZ�������Գ�, expanded academic programs, capital projects, and the creation of ���سԹ�’ Institute for Northwest Energy Futures in 2021.

“She also oversaw the design and construction of Collaboration Hall, a 40,000-square-foot interdisciplinary building that earned national recognition for excellence,” the nominator wrote. “Designed by an all-female architectural team, the project reflects her commitment to advancing women in STEM and leadership roles.”

Haynes earned her PhD in experimental neuropsychology from Colorado State University, where she later re-specialized in counseling psychology, and holds a professorship through WSU’s Department of Psychology. As a first-generation college student, Haynes has demonstrated a career-long commitment to increasing access to higher education through novel programs and community connections — including bridge�����Ի���teaching pathways programs made in partnership with regional schools and community colleges. Haynes previously received the TRIO First-Generation Champion Award in recognition of such efforts.

Her community leadership has extended beyond the ���سԹ� campus as well. Serving as a board member and immediate past chair of the Tri-City Development Council, Haynes has worked to foster economic growth within the Columbia Basin region. The Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business also selected Haynes as one of its 2025 Tri-City People of Influence awardees.

“In every conversation and decision, Chancellor Haynes centers people — students, colleagues, and the communities we serve. She consistently models respect, transparency, and accountability, creating an environment where others feel empowered to lead, innovate, and grow,” another nominator wrote. “Her contributions reach far beyond job responsibilities — they touch lives, open doors, and strengthen the future of both ���سԹ� and WSU Vancouver.”

Haynes will be honored alongside eight other 2026 Leader of Distinction winners at a formal awards ceremony on March 26 at the Elson S. Floyd Cultural Center in Pullman.

By Flynn Espe

�ճ����Washington State University Tri-Cities Institute for Northwest Energy Futures (INEF) hosted a packed-house event on Wednesday, as community leaders from education, energy, and other local industries gathered to celebrate the launch of an educational small modular reactor (SMR) control room simulator.

The simulator is housed at the INEF building and will be operated in partnership with  and Columbia Basin College (CBC). Developed with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Community Capacity Building Grant Program, the space is designed to advance workforce readiness in advanced nuclear energy and strengthen the pipeline of skilled talent needed to support the region’s growing energy sector. Students will gain hands-on experience with operational scenarios modeled on  Xe-100 advanced SMR technology.

“We are thrilled to be a partner in this effort to expand education and outreach within the rapidly growing field of advanced nuclear energy,” said Sandra Haynes, ���سԹ� chancellor. “This program is especially relevant to this region given the strong nuclear presence and planned future expansion. Preparing the workforce for these next-generation SMR facilities will require collaboration, commitment, and forward‑thinking initiatives like this one.”

Students from both WSU�����Ի���CBC will have access to the technology as part of their academic programs. The simulator is also expected to provide scenario training for Energy Northwest employees, while also serving as a site for community outreach visits aimed at educating the public on advanced nuclear energy.

“Collaboration with industry and higher education partners is critical to ensuring we develop a local workforce to support our community today and in the future,” said Rebekah S. Woods, CBC’s president. “We know that practical, hands-on experiences are key to helping students discover career pathways they may not have considered before.”

In 2024, Energy Northwest announced an agreement with Amazon and X‑energy to build up to 12 small modular reactors, called the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility, near Energy Northwest’s Columbia Generating Station — the Pacific Northwest’s only commercial nuclear power plant. The Cascade facility is expected to create up to 1,000 temporary construction jobs and at least 100 permanent positions once fully operational.

For WSU students, the SMR simulator will provide a powerful applied-learning component to existing coursework in mechanical engineering, energy dynamics, and . WSU Pullman has a 1-megawatt  and certificate programs in nuclear materials, science, and engineering that provide additional pathways into nuclear energy studies and careers. Going forward, Pullman students in those fields will have opportunities to visit the Tri-Cities to use the simulator,�����Ի���the reactor operations program will likewise be expanded to incorporate students from the Tri-Cities campus — providing hands-on education and exposure to traditional and advanced nuclear technologies alike.

By Flynn Espe

In downtown Pasco, just a few blocks from a 150-acre railroad yard that once marked the dividing line of a racially segregated community, a new exhibit seeks to preserve the fragmented memories of a time and place that history nearly forgot. Spanning art, archival research, and interpretive media, “Eastside Temporalities” tells the story of East Pasco from World War II to the early 1970s, when it existed as a predominantly African American neighborhood.

The exhibit, which runs through the end of March at Cafe con Arte in Pasco, came together under the guidance and direction of ���سԹ� faculty, working in collaboration with local artist Joel Nunn-Sparks and other partners. It represents the latest milestone in an ongoing grant-funded project aimed at documenting the history of African American contributions to the Manhattan Project at Hanford.

“By 1950, Pasco is about 20 percent Black, which per capita, is one of the largest Black populations in the West Coast,” said Robert Franklin, ���سԹ� assistant professor�����Ի���associate director of the Hanford History Project. “But it’s relegated to East Pasco.”

As the principal investigator for the project, Franklin has spent close to 10 years building the collection of historical artifacts — including photos, essays, oral histories, and more — that forms the foundation of the exhibit. He also co-authored the 2020 book , which documents the experiences of various nonwhite groups in the area, including African American government laborers who migrated from the South in the 1940s.

That migration was driven by the development of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, when DuPont — operating as a U.S. defense contractor — began hiring large numbers of workers to build and operate the massive facilities for plutonium production. The hiring effort followed President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 executive order establishing the Fair Employment Practices Commission, which effectively mandated an early form of affirmative action.

“It’s an investigative arm of an act of Congress that says, ‘If you’re a federal contractor, your workforce needs to resemble the American people.’ So if the American people are roughly 15 percent, 16 percent African American, guess what?” Franklin said. “Now, it didn’t say what jobs they had to be hired into, but it did say you have to hire them — and you have to pay your workers equally in the position.”

Although good-paying jobs drew Black families to the region, discriminatory housing practices left them few options for where to live. For many, East Pasco was it.

“And that was because when Pasco was formed as a railroad town, the railroad company platted East Pasco on the other side of the tracks as where its non-white workers would live — Chinese, Japanese, Black workers,” Franklin said.

The eastside neighborhood lacked basic infrastructure, including paved roads, streetlights, sewers, and home plumbing. Community members instead relied on a shared water tap. On top of that, the Black residents of East Pasco found themselves excluded from many business services outside of their designated enclave and subjected to other racist treatment.

“Kennewick was a notorious sundown town until 1965 when it passed an open housing ordinance — sundown town meaning that Blacks had to be out by sundown,” Franklin said.

Despite the squalid conditions, a flourishing and tight-knit East Pasco community emerged. Black-owned businesses sprouted up to serve local needs. Residents labored alongside one another to establish their own municipal park. And when the civil rights movement swelled across the nation in the 1960s, East Pasco residents organized�����Ի���took to the streets in protest — actions that resulted in local policy victories.

But as desegregation advanced, social change in the Tri-Cities region also ushered in an era of urban renewal. In an effort to finally fix the blighted conditions of East Pasco, sweeping redevelopment during the early 1970s brought rapid�����Ի���significant change — not all of it welcome. Old residential blocks were rezoned for industrial use, and many Black-owned businesses disappeared.

“It splintered the Black community. Some people left the Tri-Cities,” Franklin said.

In the decades that followed, much of old East Pasco’s history survived only through scattered memories and family photo albums. As Franklin’s team set out to document those memories, beginning with a National Park Service-funded oral history project in 2017, earning community trust took time.

“It was pretty awkward being like, ‘Hi, you don’t know me, but I’m at the university and I’d like to talk to you about civil rights and migration and segregation,” Franklin said. “A lot of the questions I got were, ‘What are you going to do with this?’”

As part of the grant deliverables, the team made plans to facilitate two public workshops. Instead of hosting just a passive show-and-tell event, Franklin said, the group sought to incorporate authentic community participation and involvement.

The first workshop was a community mapping event, held last August at Morning Star Baptist Church in East Pasco — the oldest Black church in the Tri-Cities, which once served as an important meeting and community organizing site during the civil rights era. Franklin’s team invited surviving residents of old East Pasco to come and document the locations of former homes and businesses.

“It was so much fun. We basically got an old map of Pasco and blew it up and put it on the wall. We gave people sticky notes and markers and just said, ‘Go nuts!’” Franklin said. “It was a get-together for a lot of folks. There were a couple of people that drove in from Seattle who hadn’t been to Pasco in a few decades.”

“Eastside Temporalities” represents the second public workshop. For this event, the team wanted to showcase the results of their work in a way that similarly honored community voices. Partnering with Cafe con Arte made sense for several reasons, including its proximity to the railroad tracks that once divided Pasco by race.

“The exhibit emerged gradually in conversation with Saul Martinez from Cafe con Arte,” said Kyley Canion-Brewer, a ���سԹ� PhD candidate�����Ի���Hanford History Project intern who helped organize both events. “Then we got in contact with Joel Nunn-Sparks, who’s an amazing artist. We looked at his art and realized there was an opportunity here.”

Nunn-Sparks, a photographer and mixed-media artist who has lived most of his life in East Pasco, said he was eager to join the project. Although he wasn’t alive to experience the neighborhood prior to urban renewal, he grew up steeped in the culture and traditions of the families who remained.

“There used to be a Juneteenth parade every year, and we would either be in the parade or standing outside my grandma’s house, catching candy from the floats,” he said. “That’s a big memory for me.”

Like many of his relatives, he even worked at Hanford after graduating from Pasco High School in 2008.

For the exhibit, Nunn-Sparks incorporated interpretive touches to the photos and artifacts on display, including overlaid fragments of painted plywood and other found materials — a partial nod to the makeshift structures once common in East Pasco.

“It’s really making something out of nothing,” he said.

In addition to the photos, essays, and original artwork adorning the cafe walls, a digital component lets visitors access audio and video stories via phone app. Taken as a whole, Canion-Brewer said, the exhibit represents the collective efforts of many contributors.

“We have students who have contributed essays. Those essays are foundational in what’s displayed on the wall. We have local business owners who have contributed interviews with us,” Canion-Brewer said. “This is a labor of love, but it’s very collaborative.”

Other partners who supported the “Eastside Temporalities” exhibit include the African American Community, Cultural, and Educational Society of Pasco, as well as the Eastern Washington Institute of Black Heritage and Culture.

Canion-Brewer says that if funding allows, the team would like to turn the results of the community mapping event into an interactive web application. For now, an artistic representation of that map is featured in the current exhibit.

By Flynn Espe

In the world of medicine, Washington State University Tri-Cities alumna Kristen Panthagani (’10 BS Chem.) is a rare breed of doctor. Having earned both an MD and PhD, she belongs to a select group of physician scientists who split their time between clinical work and research.

Now in her fourth year of an emergency medicine residency at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, she spends part of her schedule in focused scientific study and the rest providing hands-on care to emergency room patients alongside a team of fellow doctors and nurses. Her clinical workload averages about 12 shifts every four weeks, and if you’ve ever watched the HBO Max medical drama The Pitt, she says, it’s kind of like that — though not always as extreme.

“The shift they show is like the worst shift you can possibly think of in terms of how much craziness comes in,” Panthagani says with a laugh. “But the chaos, clinical cases, and healthcare system overload they show are real. The show does an amazing job capturing the reality of our healthcare system.”

But there’s another angle to Panthagani’s career that sets her apart among her peers and colleagues. In addition to being both a doctor and a researcher, she’s also a professional content creator, with a large following on multiple social media platforms. As the author of the online newsletter , she writes regularly about a wide range of health science topics.

With article headlines like “How do I find accurate health information online?” and “Why I stopped using the word ‘misinformation,’” much of her writing brings a critical perspective to the overarching question of how to discern fact from speculation. In doing so, she aims to help bridge the gap between health science institutions and the public.

“There unfortunately has not been a lot of investment from the academic world into this more informal style of public communication. But a lot of people get their health information on social media, so there’s this disconnect,” Panthagani says. “One of my goals is to help meet that need and be one of the people who can translate from academia into the social media space in a way that still is accurate.”

Her work has gained national attention. Since launching her website roughly six years ago, Panthagani has been interviewed by The New York Times, appeared on podcasts, written guest pieces for outlets such as Scientific American�����Ի���The Wall Street Journal, and more. In a recent , Panthagani discussed how poor public communication during the COVID 19 pandemic contributed to declining trust in vaccines.

“Communications isn’t the standard career path of people who have this degree training,” she says. “But for me, it’s worked out really well.”

It’s also not a path she intended to pursue — at least not at first. As an undergraduate student, Panthagani chose chemistry as her first major.

“I really liked math, but I wanted to be a pre-med,” she says. “So I picked the major that I thought would give me a good balance of the pre-med courses but still some math.”

As for selecting ���سԹ�, Panthagani says she initially based her decision on two practical considerations: affordability and location. Having grown up in West Richland, she says, the chance to be near family was a key factor. The education she received, on the other hand, proved even more valuable in terms of faculty mentorship and hands-on experience.

“The research opportunities really helped solidify what I wanted to do and opened a lot of doors,” Panthagani says.

For two years during her studies — and for an additional year after graduating in 2010 — Panthagani worked as a research assistant at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, studying the biochemistry of fungi for biofuels applications. Through that work, Panthagani became the first ���سԹ� student to receive the prestigious .

“It was basically doing genetics research on different types of fungi to figure out how to use them to break down leftover plant matter and convert them into useful chemicals,” she says. “It’s given me a strong foundation for the research I’ve done since then.”

When looking into medical schools, it was her faculty mentor, Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs Kate McAteer, who encouraged her to consider an MD/PhD program.

“It was very evident that Kristen had a passion for science. Even as an undergraduate, she had a gift for asking challenging questions and investigating them with rigor and determination,” McAteer says. “I also knew she had her heart set on medical school, which is why I suggested she look into becoming a physician scientist, because it seemed like that type of dual training might be a great fit for her.”

Panthagani ultimately enrolled at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, where she completed her doctoral thesis on the human gut microbiome. It was there, almost by accident, that she discovered her talent for public-facing communication.

As Panthagani recalls, it was the second week of March 2020. The World Health Organization had just declared COVID-19 a pandemic. As the earliest U.S. cases of the virus were beginning to emerge, a sense of worry and confusion was slowly building. Panthagani was sitting in her office and looking over data, trying to get a sense of what to expect next.

“There was a crowdsourced Google sheet of COVID cases across different countries, and I was plotting the U.S. versus Italy, which had spiked before us,” Panthagani says. “They were, by that time, in a state where their healthcare system was starting to feel the strain, and we were still kind of early. But I plotted it, and I could see that we were on the same trajectory as Italy.”

Her projections were grim.

“I was like, ‘Oh, well, that looks bad,’” she says. “And I remember feeling very conflicted about whether or not I should post it.”

Shouldn’t someone in government with more clout�����Ի���expertise be getting the word out through official channels, she wondered? Why should it be left to a graduate student on social media to do the job of health officials?

“I finally decided to post it, and it got a lot of attention,” Panthagani says. “People really appreciated it.”

A few months later, following another viral post, she launched You Can Know Things. Today, the newsletter has thousands of subscribers.

At first, Panthagani focused on debunking COVID-19 myths and rumors circulating online, addressing topics such as mask effectiveness and treatments like hydroxychloroquine. Her dual-degree background proved especially useful.

“In the communication space, that’s been really valuable because I can speak from both perspectives,” she says. “I work in a hospital and I see patients directly, and I have the scientific training to dig into a study really well.”

In the years since the height of the pandemic, both her writing and research have shifted toward how to effectively communicate health science to the public. For institutions, she says, that requires understanding how the media landscape has changed.

“I’m very much a proponent of physicians and scientists getting on social media, but I think it’s bigger than that,” she says. “People want to feel that you’re giving them your raw, unfiltered thoughts and that you’re being a real person, and that’s the exact opposite of what we’re taught to do in academia.”

For her non-academic readers, Panthagani hopes to provide tools for identifying trustworthy information.

“A lot of the inaccurate information is paired with somebody who’s trying to sell a product,” she says, highlighting one common red flag. “That’s not always true, but it’s often true — especially online.”

With one fellowship year left at Yale, Panthagani is unsure what comes next. For now, she enjoys balancing an independent academic career with the support and camaraderie of the emergency room.

“People who go into emergency medicine tend to be very chill, relaxed people, which maybe seems counterintuitive because we’re dealing with chaos, but they actually go very well together,” she says.

McAteer, meanwhile, says she’s enjoyed following her former student’s career, pointing to Panthagani’s success as an example of how the STEM fields and other academic disciplines can work hand-in-hand.

“One thing we strive to teach our students is to embrace that multidisciplinary mindset, regardless of what their major is,” McAteer says. “I’m so proud of Kristen for going on from ���سԹ� and becoming a trailblazer in this science communications space. She’s still doing what she’s always done — identifying a need and stepping up to the challenge.”

By Flynn Espe

In this third year as a Cougar, Eric Mayo-Gutierrez can already say that Washington State University has taken him places. For starters, he’s been a student at three different WSU campuses, spanning both sides of the Evergreen State.

But that’s just the beginning for this first-generation mechanical engineering major from Moses Lake, Washington, who now has his sights set on a scholarship-funded trip later this summer to Tokyo, Japan. That’s where he plans to take part in an engineering internship through the Council on International Educational Exchange’s Summer Global Internship program.

To make the trip possible, Mayo-Gutierrez applied to and recently received the Benjamin A. Gilman scholarship, a federal program that helps fund educational travel experiences for undergraduate students facing financial hardship.

“I’m a recipient of the Pell Grant, so thankfully I had the opportunity to receive this,” Mayo-Gutierrez says. “It helps students be able to explore opportunities that they might not have been able to due to financial circumstances.”

The Gilman scholarship program has to work and study overseas as they take part in all manner of travel experiences — learning about food and culture in Spain and Portugal, researching , and , to name a few. In 2025, there were 14 WSU students who received a Gilman scholarship, including one from ���سԹ�.

Although Mayo-Gutierrez has yet to be matched with an employer for his overseas internship, he looks forward to seeing and experiencing all that Tokyo has to offer when he gets there this summer.

“Not a lot of students have this opportunity,” Mayo-Guiterrez says. “I’m just thankful.”

Mayo-Gutierrez began his bachelor’s degree studies at WSU Vancouver in the fall of 2023 before transferring to WSU Pullman the next semester. He then made one final move, beginning his sophomore year at ���سԹ�, where he’s since taken part in several extracurricular jobs as a peer mentor, biology and chemistry lab prep assistant, undergraduate research assistant, and mechanical and electrical engineering intern at Grant County P.U.D. He previously earned his associate degree and welding certificate from Big Bend Community College.

He says his long-term career goal is to become a mechanical or robotics engineer working on biomedical devices — bonus points if he can live and work internationally. Through engineering innovation, he says, he hopes to advance new technologies and solutions that will increase access and lower costs for patients.

For current students interested in applying for a , WSU will be hosting a Gilman Scholarship Workshop Series on Zoom this February.