Kira Blankenship

Between the wetlands and the woodlands of North Carolina, wildlife biologists like NC State alumna and master’s student Mila Lauck ’25 dedicate their lives to understanding how ecosystems breathe, bend and balance themselves hundreds of thousands of times a day. Their work ranges from field surveys under open skies to hours spent underwater collecting data to reveal health defects that can ricochet across the planet — making it a science rooted in both calculations and connections.


Wildlife b...

When it comes to unraveling the mysteries of life at its smallest scale, biochemists like NC State alumna and master’s student Katy Klein ’25 know that every molecule of the human body tells a story. Biochemistry bridges biology and chemistry to decode how cells grow, heal and sometimes turn against themselves — a field demanding equal parts curiosity, precision and persistence. 


What started as a knack for balancing equations quickly evolved into a passion for understanding the chemistry of...

At the end of December 2024, according to the North Carolina Department of Social Services, there were over 10,000 children and nearly a 1,000 young adults in the state’s foster care system. It has been reported by numerous news outlets that there is a critical shortage of foster families to provide these youth with loving and stable homes, something that NC State University alumna Lauren Clark ’20 had become painfully aware of during her college career.


“Starting off in college, I had no ide...

When Heather Palmateer graduated from NC State in the Spring of ‘21 with her MSW, she could have never anticipated that, three years later, she would be on the frontlines of Appalachian devastation. Face to face with the trauma inflicted on Western North Carolina by the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Katrina, tragically claiming over two hundred lives in a once-in-1,000-year flood.


Ms. Palmateer, along with three other crisis counselors in the Chapel Hill Police Department, was tasked wit...