Student News

When Denys Kuratchenko began working at Northern Virginia Community College’s 3D printing lab in 2017, he didn’t anticipate that his projects would change lives. But the expression on a young girl’s face made him realize he could.

When Haider Semaisim works on the federally mandated database of global incidents of terrorism with George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, he does so with pride. It is not only an educational and professional endeavor, he said. “It’s personal.”

In response to COVID-19, a group of George Mason University students had planned to create 3D printed personal protective equipment (PPE), such as face shields and masks for health care professionals and their patients. When the announcement came on March 22 that Mason campuses were closing, they knew they had to move fast.

Crawford, an Honors College student from Georgia, said he has been captivated by politics and broadcast journalism since he was 10.

American ginseng has been nicknamed “green gold” for good reason. The root that grows wild across the Appalachian Mountains can fetch more than $500 per pound and has been used medicinally for generations to support everything from brain function to the immune system.

Dilafruz Khonikboyeva and her family won the Green Card Lottery while living through Tajikistan’s civil war, but they didn’t know about it until the years-long blockade was lifted in 1995. They crossed multiple battle lines to reach the U.S. consulate in Moscow. Luckily, even though their green cards had expired by the time they arrived, the U.S. government honored them, Khonikboyeva said.

Karen Escobar took a seat in Fenwick Library on George Mason University’s Fairfax Campus, cracked open a book and powered up her laptop.

How do you combat an overabundance of algae? Create a floating biological island. That’s what freshman Kennedy Ream did after attending the Washington Youth Summit on the Environment (WYSE) hosted by George Mason University, the National Geographic Society and the Smithsonian’s National Zoo as a high schooler in 2018.

What began as a vacation to the United States became a permanent stay for Amini Bonane and her family when war broke out in their home country of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There are multiple sides to every story. But when it comes to Eritrea, a country that’s been isolated due to 20 years of war and nine years of sanctions, much of their story hasn’t been told, said Carol Pineau, a former CNN journalist who reported live on the Eritrean-Ethiopian war and is a visiting scholar at George Mason University.

When Amanda Jarvis was a child and her school in rural Oklahoma lost its arts funding, it was an immediate disappointment, she said. But it also had ripple consequences.

School suspensions can triple the probability that a student will drop out of school or have later involvement with the criminal justice system, according to studies linked to the school-to-prison pipeline. These statistics are concerning, but Sarah Parshall has hope.