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Majors & Degrees

Research Events

At Dakota State University, we nurture an environment that celebrates and rewards innovation. This includes numerous events that take place throughout the year aimed at fostering an environment that supports and propels our research forward. 

Research Rising

Join us for Research Rising, a series where speakers from outside of DSU join us to share their insights and experiences to inspire DSU's researchers to reach new heights.

Teaching Quantum Programming as an Engineering Discipline: Scalable Tools for Hands-
On Education and Research

Wednesday, September 24 at 3 pm-MadLabs® Briefing Room 112

Dr. Erik Garcell

Dr Erik GarcellMost student coding exercises in quantum computing revolve around rotating Bloch spheres or manipulating toy circuits with fewer than five qubits, which amounts to little more than a “Hello, World!” for quantum. While useful for introducing core concepts, this approach falls short of preparing students for the complexity and scale of real-world quantum computing.

In this talk, we explore how universities can integrate higher-level quantum programming languages and toolsets to provide students with practical, scalable experience. By focusing on application-level design rather than low-level circuit mechanics, educators can equip students with the skills needed to thrive in the growing quantum computing job market.

These same tools also streamline academic research by accelerating the development, benchmarking, and publication of novel quantum algorithms. We’ll share how our education program, extensive open-source GitHub library, and industry-proven workflows have supported both student training and workforce development projects at scale.

Other Research Events

Past Sessions

Wildcard Proposal Development Session - Cayuse focus

April 10 at 2:30 p.m. - Madlabs® Briefing Room 112

Associate VP for Research & Economic Development Pete Hoesing will facilitate a proposal development session specifically focused on the use of a new statewide research administration software platform called Cayuse, which faculty will encounter as they develop proposals with RED staff. Audience: basic

Poster Session – Feb. 11th at 12PM, MadLabs® Briefing Room (112) 

In this session, RED staff will introduce a new template for presenters of research posters to use as they prepare for DSU’s annual Research Symposium during Research Week in March and/or for other external research events. Student participation encouraged. Audience: Basic 

Fourth AI in Research Session – Feb. 25th at 12PM, MadLabs ® Briefing Room (112) 

Librarian Abbie Steuhm continues this series of sessions on how to effectively use AI in your research with our Integrating AI into Research Series! Session 4 will explain new journal submission requirements regarding AI and what to do when you have used AI in your research process. Audience: intermediate 

Wildcard Proposal Development Session – April 10th at 2:30PM, location TBA 

Associate VP for Research & Economic Development Pete Hoesing will facilitate a proposal development session on a topic crowdsourced from faculty in consultation with the VPR and the RED team. Audience: Intermediate 

Fall schedule coming soon!

Join us for Research Rising, a series where speakers from outside of DSU join us to share their insights and experiences to inspire DSU's researchers to reach new heights.


Permutation Matrix Representation Quantum Monte Carlo: A Universal Framework for Simulating Arbitrary Quantum Many-Body Systems

Itay HenTuesday, April 22 at 10 a.m. - Madlabs® Briefing Room 112

Dr. Itay Hen

Understanding the equilibrium properties of large-scale quantum systems is crucial for advancing physics, discovering new phenomena, and designing future technologies. Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods are often the only viable approach for studying these systems, but they require model-specific updates to maintain ergodicity and detailed balance. This talk will present a novel, universal, parameter-free QMC framework capable of simulating a wide range of physical models, including those with diverse particle types, interactions, and geometries.


Molecular Engineering and Three-Dimensional Mapping of Materials Interfaces at the Nanoscale

Shan ZhouThursday, April 25 at 10:00 a.m. - Madlabs® Briefing Room 112

Dr. Shan Zhou

This talk will cover strategies for modifying nanoparticle surfaces and material interfaces to enhance functionality. An "uphill" ligand exchange method will be introduced to replace toxic surface species with biocompatible ligands, reducing cytotoxicity. A regioselective approach for precise macromolecule decoration on gold nanoparticles will also be presented, enabling biomedical and self-assembly applications. Additionally, the large-scale self-assembly of chiral superlattices will be discussed, along with the development of electrochemical 3D atomic force microscopy for high-resolution imaging of soft interfacial structures. These advances provide new opportunities in plasmonic nanomaterials for energy, biomedical research, and quantum communications.

Quantum Entanglement Microscopy

Friday, February 28
3 p.m. - 4 p.m.
MadLabs® Briefing Room 112

Dr. Gerardo Ortiz

dr-gerardo-ortiz.png

In 2022, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences recognized groundbreaking experiments demonstrating quantum entanglement’s role in secure information transfer, quantum computing, and sensing. This talk explores “spooky action at a distance,” a phenomenon that intrigued Einstein and led to John Bell’s inequality. We will then delve into Quantum Entanglement Microscopy, a novel approach using entangled particles like neutrons to probe the entanglement of matter itself. By tuning the entanglement properties of these probes, we can access the quantum nature of materials, offering new opportunities to advance our understanding and manipulation of the physical world.

NSF LogoThis talk is open to all audiences who seek to learn more about Quantum Information Science and Technology. DSU is grateful for support for this guest lecture from NSF Award #2418937.


The Undergraduate Research Seminar is a forum for undergraduate students to present their research, gaining valuable presentation and professional communication experience in the process. Faculty who work with undergraduates on research projects, or who have research projects for undergraduate students to work on, will also present in the undergraduate research seminar.

The seminar is held on Mondays from 4 to 5 pm in Beacom 213 for the Fall 2025 semester.
Fall 2025 Seminar Dates and Speakers:

  • September 8th: Rich Avery – Discrete Shooting Method
  • September 15th: Andrew Sathoff - DSU Research Pathways for Undergraduate Students
  • September 22nd: Paul LeVan - Combinatorics and Partitions: aka How to Count
  • September 29th: Mark Spanier -
  • October 6th: Oluwajuwon Adedowole – Scripting and AI Image Recognition
  • October 20th:
  • October 27th:
  • November 3rd:
  • November 17th:
  • December 1st:

If you would like to speak on any of the dates without a speaker listed please contact Tom Halverson (Tom.Halverson@dsu.edu) or Rich Avery (rich.avery@dsu.edu).

If you cannot attend the seminar in person, you can attend virtually (the seminars will not be recorded).

View the Zoom presentation 

To ask questions at the end of the talk, please use the chat feature.

Graphic for Research Week with an illustration of Einstein and the text Dakota State University Research Week March 17-20
Dakota State University's annual Research Week will be March 17-21, 2025, leading into DakotaCon.

A campus-wide and community-wide celebration of DSU Research and Creative Activity, the week features a range of events detailed below, all concurrent with our annual Doctoral Residency. Come join the festivities and see how research is rising at DSU!

Data Analytics Competition

The Data Analytics Competition at DSU has returned for the third year, and is again sponsored by Sanford Health.

This free event allows collegiate teams to evaluate big data sets and make data forecasts for real-world business needs while helping students grow their critical thinking, collaboration, and presentation skills.

Participants in the Data Analytics competition

Teams will receive the data by Monday, Jan. 20 and results for the first round are due by 5 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 22. The top five scoring teams will travel to DSU to present their results during Dakota State’s annual research week on Monday, March 17.  Each team will have 15-20 minutes to present their results to the audience. Each finalist team will receive $500.

Learn More about the Data Analytics Competition

DSU Research Symposium

Thursday March 20

Dennis EgerBeacom Collaboration Center and Beacom Institute of Technology Classrooms
(Details forthcoming from Research and Economic Dev.)

Basic timeline:

  • 12:30 - 2:30 p.m. - Posters and presentations with hors d'oevres, concurrent with talks in classrooms around the building

Break/refreshments

  • 3 p.m. - Keynote speaker: Dennis Eger, U.S. Army Senior Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Advisor, Beacom Collaboration space

Download Research Week PDF

DakotaCon

Join us for three full days of talks and trainings from the finest peeps in the security world! Come enjoy the benefits of a small conference where you won't get lost in the crowd and you get time to interact directly with the speakers and your security peers.

Attending the talks on Friday is FREE!

Register for DakotaCon