UMKC School of Science and Engineering

Happy National Aviation Day! Experience the thrill of flying on campus with UMKC’s Flight Simulator Lab, which provides hands-on aviation training using a range of simulators, including the Redbird MCX 3-axis motion simulator and a full‑motion advanced aviation training device approved for logging pilot training time. The lab also houses desktop simulators, aircraft models, components and unmanned aircraft systems.

More information on the UMKC Flight Simulator Lab: https://sse.umkc.edu/innovation-studio/our-spaces/flight-simulator.html

SSE students Isabel Holthouse and Dominic Colbert turned their summer internships into opportunities to explore their career goals and build real-world experience.

Isabel Holthouse was a mechanical engineering intern in the technical engineering department at HESStec in Valencia, Spain, where she contributed to the design of hybrid energy storage solutions connecting the electrical grid and electric vehicle charging stations. Through her work at HESStec, she gained invaluable international experience in hybrid energy storage and collaborated with engineers from across Europe and Latin America, broadening both her technical knowledge and global perspective.

Dominic Colbert is an application developer intern on Evergy's Power Marketing team, where he has automated CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions and self-hosted runners to streamline .NET application deployments. He also contributed to the modernization of the team's XML processor for Evergy's Energy Management Agreement Portal. Continuing with the team through the fall semester, he is currently leading a migration of application authentication from SAML to MSAL.

Sometimes support comes on four paws. Meet Holly, the service dog helping UMKC student Mollie Stark navigate life with Type 1 diabetes.

When Mollie needed her service dog by her side in organic chemistry lab, UMKC found a way to make it work. Through collaboration across campus, faculty and staff created a framework that supports both safety and accessibility for future students.

Meet Mollie and Holly: https://www.umkc.edu/news/posts/2026/august/how-a-service-dog-found-her-place-in-a-umkc-organic-chemistry-lab.html

Every internship tells a different story, but each one brings SSE students one step closer to their career goals.

Kramer Ennis is a fixtures design intern on the visual merchandising team at Hallmark HQ. He's learned a great deal, especially about how engineers impact the business and how the company manufactures over 9 million cards each week using custom Hallmark-designed machines.

Cameron Akhtar is currently a power trading intern at Evergy. He is gaining hands-on experience writing Python pipelines to ingest real-time grid data and build predictive machine learning models. Recently, he engineered a mid-frequency algorithmic trading strategy designed to capture short-term trends in wholesale electricity markets.

Our SSE students have been making the most of their summer by applying the skills they've learned in the classroom to real-world experiences!

Cat Lewin is a Data Engineer Intern at Principal Asset Management, where she has gained hands-on experience building and modernizing cloud data pipelines using AWS Glue, CDK and S3. She also joined a cross-functional team of six to develop a market sentiment analysis app during an internal code jam.

Devin Daniels is a Flight Test Engineer Intern with the United States Air Force. He recently confirmed his commitment to the Air Force's 412th Test Engineering Group through the Department of War SMART Scholarship-for-Service Program.

UMKC is leading a major national effort to strengthen the U.S. supply chain. The Critical Materials Crossroads Engine team, led by UMKC, has been selected as one of 12 winners of the $160 million National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines award.

Critical minerals such as nickel, cobalt and magnesium power everything from microchips and batteries to electric vehicles and energy infrastructure. Today, the United States imports more than two-thirds of these materials, creating risk across industries and national security.

Associate professor Mostafizur Rahman, Ph.D., serves as a co-principal investigator and chief technology officer on the project, and other SSE leadership and faculty members are also contributing their expertise to the effort.

The Critical Materials Crossroads was formed as UMKC recognized an opportunity to make an impact by bringing together the Kansas City ecosystem, leveraging regional strengths and building a more sustainable supply chain. This work includes processing, manufacturing, innovation, scaling and workforce development related to critical materials.

Learn more about Critical Materials Crossroads: https://www.umkc.edu/news/posts/2026/july/umkc-led-critical-materials-crossroads-engine-selected-for-160-million-nsf-award.html

Meet Miguel Mostafá, Ph.D., the new dean of the UMKC School of Science and Engineering! As he begins his first year at UMKC, Mostafá shares what drew him to the university and his vision for the School of Science and Engineering.

Five questions with Miguel Mostafá: https://www.umkc.edu/news/posts/2026/july/new-umkc-school-of-science-and-engineering-dean-talks-about-kansas-city-collaboration-and-ai.html

For Lyza Iamrache and Said Tabharit, both Algerian Ph.D. students studying statistics, the 2026 World Cup is more than a global sporting event. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime moment where their academic journeys and national pride intersect.

Tomorrow, that moment arrives. Team Algeria takes on Team Austria just miles from campus, and the whole community is invited to be part of it. UMKC Family Soccer Fest kicks off at 5 p.m. at Roo Plaza with food trucks, face painting, mascots and 3v3 soccer. Then, stay to watch the Algeria vs. Austria match at 9 p.m. on the new video screen at Durwood Soccer Stadium.

Meet Iamrache and Tabharit: https://www.umkc.edu/news/posts/2026/june/world-cup-brings-umkc-students-from-algeria-a-sense-of-home.html

More about UMKC Family Soccer Fest: https://www.umkc.edu/soccer-fest.html

Can we trust artificial intelligence? UMKC researchers Rui Duan, Ph.D.; Cheng Han, Ph.D.; Yugyung Lee, Ph.D.; and ZhiQiang Chen, Ph.D., are exploring that question and what it means for the future.

Read more about their work: https://umkc.foleon.com/sse/magazine/can-ai-be-trusted

Curious about AI? Our Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence launches this fall: https://sse.umkc.edu/academics/programs/computer-science-and-information-technology-graduate.html