Kansas State University - Research

Research

The university has had a long-standing interest in agriculture, particularly native Great Plains plant and animal life. The Kansas State University Gardens is an on-campus horticulture display garden that serves as an educational resource and learning laboratory for K-State students and the public. The Konza Prairie is a native tallgrass prairie preserve located south of Manhattan, which is co-owned by The Nature Conservancy and Kansas State University and operated as a field research station by the department of biology. The university also owns an additional 18,000 acres (73 km2) in cities across the state that it operates as Agricultural Experiment Stations in research centers in Hays, Garden City, Colby, and Parsons.

The university is home to several museums, including the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, the K-State Insect Zoo, the KSU Historic Costume and Textiles Museum, and the Chang, Chapman, and Kemper galleries which feature faculty and student artwork. The university also offers an annual cycle of performance art at McCain Auditorium, including concerts, plays and dance.

In 2006, K-State dedicated the Biosecurity Research Institute. The BRI, in Pat Roberts Hall, is a safe and secure location in which scientists and their collaborators can study high-consequence pathogens. It was designed and constructed for biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) and biosafety level 3 agriculture (BSL-3Ag) research.

The availability of the BRI was part of what attracted the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility to K-State and Manhattan. The NBAF will feature about 500,000 square feet (46,000 m2) of research and support space. Construction of the NBAF will cost an estimated $650 million and should be complete by 2016. It will stand just north of K-State's College of Veterinary Medicine and the BRI.

Following the NBAF decision, leaders at two additional federal facilities announced they are coming to K-State. The Arthropod-Borne Animal Disease Research Unit, or ABADRU, specializes in animal and plant diseases transmitted by insects. The lab relocated from Laramie, Wyo., to K-State in order to fully realize its research mandate. The Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases, or CEEZAD, will research foreign animal, zoonotic and newly discovered pathogens that can have a consequential economic impact on U.S. agriculture, homeland security and human and animal health. It will be led by K-State's Dr. Juergen Richt.

Kansas State University offers the Landon Lecture Series for students, faculty and the community. The lecture series' name honors former Kansas governor and presidential candidate Alfred Landon.

The series has featured many prominent speakers –– primarily current or former political or government leaders. For example, on Jan. 23, 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush delivered the university's 143rd Landon Lecture at Bramlage Coliseum. On March 2, 2007, his predecessor, Bill Clinton, delivered the 149th Landon Lecture. Also, on September 23, 2008, former Mexican president Vicente Fox gave the 152nd Landon Lecture. Overall, six U.S. presidents and three foreign presidents have given Landon Lectures at K-State. There are approximately four speakers per year. In January 2011, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke at the lecture.

The university's extensive list of research facilities includes the James R. Macdonald Laboratory for research in atomic, molecular and optical physics and the NASA Center for Gravitational Studies in Cellular and Developmental Biology. The excimer laser, which made LASIK eye surgery possible, is a technology developed by Kansas State researchers.

Other research facilities include:

• Center for Complex Fluid Flows
• Institute for Environmental Research
• The National Gas Machinery Laboratory
• TRIGA Mark II Nuclear Research Facility
• Semiconductor Materials and Radiological Technologies (S.M.A.R.T.) Laboratory
• Electronics Design Laboratory