Mississippi State University assistant professor of drawing Ming Ying Hong will represent Mississippi in the 2021 Southern Prize and State Fellowships awards. Launched in 2017, the program acknowledges and supports the highest quality art created in the South, a release from MSU says. More than 850 artists applied for consideration for the 2021 State Fellowship.

Hong earned a bachelor of fine arts in studio art from the University of Kentucky in 2011 and a master of fine arts in studio art from Washington University in 2015. She began teaching drawing at Mississippi State University in 2018 and recently received a Robert Hearin Faculty Entrepreneur Fellowship.

The visual artists for the 2021 State Fellows represent each state in the South Arts region, which includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Each artist received a $5,000 award and will be included in an exhibition at the Bo Bartlett Center in Columbus, Ga., from Aug. 20 through Dec. 20, 2021.

Hong is also in consideration for two larger Southern Prize awards at a virtual ceremony on June 17. To view work by the 2021 State Fellowship recipients and register to attend the June 17 Southern Prize ceremony, visit southarts.org.

JSU Holding Three Weekend Commencement Ceremonies

Jackson State University will celebrate three commencement ceremonies over the upcoming weekend, honoring the 2021 graduate class and the Golden Diploma Class of 1971 at 9 a.m. on Friday, May 7, in the Lee E. Williams Athletics and Assembly Center; the 2021 undergraduate class at 9 a.m. on Saturday, May 8, in the Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium; and the 2020 graduate and undergraduate classes at 6 p.m. on Saturday, May 8, in Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Dr. Errick Greene, superintendent of Jackson Public Schools, will serve as speaker for the 2021 graduate class and Golden Diploma Class.

U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson, who represents Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District and is serving his 13th term in the U.S. House of Representatives, will serve as the speaker for the 2021 undergraduate class.

Jordan Jefferson, a 2020 graduate of Jackson State University who currently serves as staff assistant to U.S. Rep. Thompson, will serve as speaker for the 2020 graduate and undergraduate classes.

For more information, visit jsums.edu.

JSU Receives National Science Foundation Research Grant

The National Science Foundation recently awarded Jackson State University a $150,000 research grant to implement machine learning and artificial intelligence for potentially improving cancer treatment and survival.

Dr. Jian-Ge Zhou, an assistant professor in JSU’s Department of Chemistry, Physics and Atmospheric Sciences, is leading the project. Zhou studies light emissions and their relation to fields such as bioluminescence imaging technology and photodynamic therapy, which could potentially enhance the accuracy of tumor diagnosis and the survival rate in cancer treatment, a release from JSU says.

Zhou’s study is called “Chemiluminescence, Quantum Yield and High-Dimensional Data Analysis in Trajectory Surface Hopping Simulation.” Quantum yield is the efficiency of converting absorbed light into emitted light, which can be in the form of fluorescence. Zhou uses machines to explore bioluminescence, which refers to light resulting from a chemical reaction in animals, such as with fireflies.