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Karen Volle to Retire After 18 Years at the Institute on Disability

eb1591 — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 17:18:57 +0000

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UNH’s ECenter Inspires the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs

arq32 — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 15:14:40 +0000

Growing up with congenital heart defects, Kristina Logan ’28 knew how difficult it was for her family to find accurate, easy-to-understand medical information.

Born with a heart that has three chambers instead of four, Logan underwent multiple surgeries and lives with a compromised immune system — experiences that inspired her to create a medical literacy platform to help families better navigate chronic conditions.

“The platform gives parents access to resources like top hospitals, clinical trials, and research, while also breaking down complex topics for children through age-appropriate cartoons,” says Logan, who is

Kristina Logan

interested in computer science. “The cartoons would cover three areas: how their bodies work and how their condition affects them, the emotional challenges of living with a chronic illness, and helping them understand the medical system.”

With support from the UNH Entrepreneurship Center (ECenter), Logan’s idea is taking shape. An ECenter Summer Seed Grant enabled her to build an early prototype of her platform — a modular design adaptable to different medical conditions.

Through mentoring, networking, workshops, competitions, and grant and internship opportunities, the ECenter gives students numerous ways to turn their concepts into ventures.

“I came in with a fragmented idea of something I might be interested in, but once I joined my first competition and started meeting other students with the same drive to create and add value, I was hooked,” Logan says. “The ECenter has been instrumental in helping me connect with like-minded people and refine a fuzzy idea into something crystal clear.”

The UNH ECenter is giving Shaun Devan ‘28 an opportunity to explore his passion for entrepreneurship and internet privacy.

He pitched his first major venture, Obscura AI — a privacy tool that protects digital identity from hidden trackers and data profiling — at the 2025 Holloway Competition. While the pitch earned his team a runner-up prize of $1,000, Devan ultimately decided to pivot.

His newest venture, Averi, an age verification platform, recently took home the $10,000 first-place prize at the inaugural Nanda Family Startup Catalyst Competition.

Averi uses zero-knowledge proofs — a type of cryptography that confirms someone’s age without revealing any of their personal data. Devan says his idea is a response to frustration with existing online age-verification methods that include constant ID uploads, unreliable data security, and facial scans.

“People don’t want to hand over their personal information to every website they visit,” Devan says. “If you have a valid digital ID, such as a government ID or one created online, we can convert that into a secure, locally stored zero-knowledge proof, which we call an age token. Then any website partnered with Averi can accept that token instantly, so users don’t have to re-upload their ID, scan their face, or go through those online verification headaches.”

Devan says this allows for a faster, safer way for users to access age-restricted content on sites like gaming platforms, online alcohol retailers, gambling apps, and dating services. Devan, who is studying computer science, says the Nanda Competition prize will help him advance his idea and is good preparation for the Holloway Competition and, potentially, the Baylor New Venture Competition.

“My next goal is to get the technology patented. I haven’t found any existing patents for using zero-knowledge proofs in age verification,” Devan says. “I also want to use the momentum to grow my team. I'm getting limited in what I can do both on the development and business side.”

The Nanda Family Startup Catalyst Competition was established through a gift from ECenter Entrepreneur-in-Residence Shiva Nanda and awards $10,000 to an innovation-based, high-growth student startup each fall. Designed as a smaller, early-year counterpart to the Holloway Prize Competition, it gives students a runway to refine their ideas, pitch to judges, and build momentum.

“The ECenter has been invaluable with all the resources it provides. Whether it be mentorship from the various experienced entrepreneurs, funding through competitions like the Nanda Competition, or the connections and networking it provides,” Devan says. “I know so many students who are entrepreneurial and have great ideas, but are scared to take that first leap. Once you get past that initial fear, you realize how much you can do with your idea — and how willing people are to help.”

Anyone Can Be an Entrepreneur

The ECenter is a collaborative space open to all students, regardless of major or experience level.

“Students meet each other, start talking and exchanging perspectives, and before long they’re teaming up for the Holloway Competition or other ventures,” says DJ Beasley, ECenter marketing and program manager. “Just recently, we saw a student who entered Holloway with someone he had never met before. He came up with an idea, pulled people together through ECenter programs, and suddenly, he had a team. That kind of connection happens here all the time.”

Free, donor-supported resources include drop-in office hours with Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, who provide one-on-one guidance, access to a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office representative for questions about intellectual property, and a student-run makerspace workshop outfitted with fabrication tools and equipment. Through the UNH StartupTree platform, students can also connect directly with mentors eager to support UNH entrepreneurs and learn about national business plan competitions.

Students develop their ideas through multiple ECenter-led competitions during the fall semester, including the Digital Health Ideathon, Idea and Innovation Jam, the Maurice Price for Innovation, and the Nanda Family Startup Catalyst Pitch Competition.

A Network of Success

The ECenter’s influence extends well beyond campus, as many homegrown businesses remain successful, with alumni returning to support the next generation of innovators.

"We built our business at the ECenter," says Jason Plant ’23, former CEO of HydroPhos Solutions, which captures phosphorus from wastewater and resells it to fertilizer producers. “Every competition we entered, we’d bring our written submissions or pitch decks to the staff for feedback, and each time we got a little better. With every round, every mentor, and every piece of advice, our pitch improved, and so did our business.”

HydroPhos won the Holloway Competition and multiple national competitions, including a first-place finish at E-Fest, the largest undergraduate entrepreneurship competition in the country.

“Learning how to pitch a business at the ECenter turned out to be one of the most transferable skills I’ve ever gained,” Plant says. “When you’re raising money, investors are really looking for two things: impact potential — how big or meaningful the opportunity can be, and feasibility — whether you can pull it off. That’s something I learned through those early competitions, and now I use it every day in investor meetings.”

After graduating, Plant founded Green Lighting Energy, a B Corp-certified solar installation company, and now serves as CFO of Sensorium Technological Laboratories, a semiconductor startup led by UNH alum and ECenter Hall of Fame member David Ferran ’78.

Plant continues to mentor student teams preparing for pitch competitions, including the 2025 Holloway Competition-winning team of Granite State Systems. Team members Brett Schultz ’25, Shea Garland ’27, and Rowan Baptista ’27 developed an energy-efficiency solution that uses sensor technology and machine learning to help cold-storage warehouses cut energy costs.

“All that hard work happened here,” says Garland, a finance major. “You could work anywhere on campus, but this place is different because you’re surrounded by people who inspire you.”

Baptista, a mechanical engineering major, says the experience reshaped how he thinks about his own potential. “I’d never done anything like this before,” he says. “It was all new to me, and now I feel like I’ve unlocked a whole new part of my brain that I can use moving forward — whether with this venture or the next.”

After winning Holloway, the team has continued using ECenter resources to refine its concept, pivoting from a hardware device to a software solution that integrates with existing energy management systems.

Building for the Future

This year, the ECenter officially joined the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, further aligning it with UNH’s academic and entrepreneurial ecosystem.

“Having people with a business and entrepreneurial mindset helping to shape the vision for the center and the university has been really valuable,” says Belle Vukovich Kenoyer, ECenter associate director. “Before we joined Paul College, we already had a supportive ecosystem, but now we have people who can dedicate time to providing the structured visioning and strategic planning we’ve needed. I’m really excited about the possibilities ahead.”

For Logan, those possibilities are already taking shape. She plans to enter her medical literacy platform in upcoming competitions and eventually in Holloway.

“The whole reason I wanted to come to college was to learn skills I could apply to the startup world, or entrepreneurship in general,” Logan says. “Growing up with self-employed parents, I always knew I wanted to build something of my own. Being exposed to all the startup ventures at the ECenter has only strengthened that desire.”

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Students from every discipline can turn ideas into impact

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Business

Health

Peter T. Paul College of Business & Economics

Peter T. Paul Entrepreneurship Center

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Through competitions like the UNH Entrepreneurship Center’s Digital Health Ideathon, students gain experience pitching business ideas and making new connections.

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Can Open Software Keep Our Water Supplies Safe?

rag42 — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 14:39:35 +0000

As discussions swirl over the nation’s water usage from AI data centers to agriculture and everything in between, researchers at UNH are working to ensure the data about our ever-changing aquatic resources are easier to access without a supercomputer or a Ph.D. in the water cycle.

UNH is leading a $600,000 Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that supports the development an open computational system, called the OpenGHM platform. OpenGHM aims to accelerate innovation in water resources research, says Danielle Grogan , UNH research assistant professor in the Earth Systems Research Center and lead PI on the project. Grogan is leading a team of five scientists at UNH and two researchers at Purdue University over the next three years to build and test the new platform.

“To better protect water supplies, food and energy production, and infrastructure, it is in the national interest to provide reliable information so stakeholders can make informed decisions regarding the role of people in the water cycle,” Grogan says.

Global Hydrologic Models (GHMs) are computer models frequently used by those in the water resources research community that compile huge amounts of data — things like daily weather, soil type, vegetation, impervious surfaces, human populations, reservoirs and canals, crops and irrigation, and so forth, Grogan explains. Researchers use GHMs, designed to simulate both natural water flows along with a wide range of human interactions on water bodies, to study large-scale changes and impacts to water resources.

However, to operate GHMs, scientists must currently download incredibly large datasets, run the model simulations on a local high-powered computer, and then upload their results to public repositories. This can take many hours — or even days — to accomplish, even on the most capable computers. OpenGHM will remove this time bottleneck by leveraging existing NSF-supported computing resources to enable scientists to directly access data, models, and surrounding workflows on efficient, cloud-based storage systems, Grogan says.

The grant will provide more training and collaboration opportunities so that scientists, resource managers, and other decision makers can more rapidly develop and test hydrologic computer models that run simulations of changes to water sources and uses. In addition, it supports scientific transparency by allowing anyone to more easily and quickly reproduce the data, demonstrate the workflow, and ensure its accuracy. Ultimately, it’s all about enabling collaborative science to more effectively study the changes in hydrology.

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UNH researchers developing computer platform to improve access to water resources data

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Planting, Picking, Weeding, and Record-Keeping

adrapcho — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:46:02 +0000

Even with years of experience and degrees in environmental horticulture and economics, Becky and Phil Brand still found themselves unsure of their farm’s overall health. With some help from UNH Extension, they gained the insight needed to plan for a stronger future.

The Brands, who operate Brandmoore Farm in Rollinsford, are pretty typical of New Hampshire farmers, says Jesse Wright, a field specialist with UNH Extension. Farmers are drawn to the field by the lifestyle or by the desire to provide fresh products to their community, and less so by a desire to maximize profit.

Passion doesn’t pay the bills, though. When it comes to building a successful and resilient business, farmers can call in Wright, who focuses on agriculture business, sales, and marketing. Any farmer in the state can access her support, and those who do will often work with her, off and on, for years.

The farmers she’s worked with sometimes let their hearts lead them to irrational choices.

“You would never open a hardware store and sell a hammer for less than it costs you to bring it in, but it happens over and over again on farms,” Wright says. Many New Hampshire farmers grow a diversity of crops, and might sell to a wholesaler, direct to consumers, to restaurants, and use their produce to create value-added products such as pickles or jams. A single farm can contain multiple enterprises, yet few owners have a clear understanding of how those enterprises are performing from year to year.

“I work with farms on setting up and refining records keeping so they can make data-driven decisions about the management of their farms,” Wright says.

Often, the farmers who reach out for help in one instance end up re-engaging with Wright again and again, such as was the case with Brandmoore Farm.

The Brands had been farming for a while before they first reached out to Wright. Their farm, on about 200 acres, produces vegetables and berries, beef, pork, and eggs, as well as dairy products and hay. Becky said they were making ends meet but the complexity of their operation made it difficult to think about evolution.

“We were at the 10-year mark in our business, and we weren’t sure where to put our energy,” Becky says. Should they go all-in on dairy? Specialize in another product? “You have so many different enterprises, you’re trying to figure out how they all fit together.”

That was two years ago. By then, the Brands had added parenthood to their list of responsibilities, and they wanted to make solid financial decisions.

Wright taught them how to compile an “enterprise budget,” which enabled them to see the costs and revenue for individual products as if each were its own business. That budget guided them in the short-term by helping them to ensure their prices were set appropriately and in the long term by giving them the confidence to plan for their future, both as a business and as a family.

“Our margins are very small, and we were nervous about our future ,” Becky says. “Working with Jesse gave us confidence to move forward.”

The Brands farm on an historic, conserved property, and spent their first decade living in the small farmhouse on site. Thanks to their work with Wright, once they gained a more granular understanding of how their farm operates as a business, they felt empowered to take on a mortgage and purchase a home nearby, providing their children with more stability and privacy.

The Wheat From the Chaff

There can be so much information considered over the course of a farm’s operation that it can be challenging to separate the signal from the static. Wright helps farmers dial into their operation by meeting them where they are and taking it step by step.

“The short way to say it is I work with farms on setting up and refining farm record-keeping, so they can make data-driven decisions about the management of their farms. Which crops to plant, where to sell, if they can afford to hire someone, if they should take out a loan to pay buy equipment,” Wright says.

Depending on the farm, Wright might start with a basic accounting system and a goal that can be achieved within a year.

“After one year, we’ll do a different goal and get better. I see my relationships with farmers to be ongoing, which is wonderful,” Wright says. Along the way, she comes to understand the farmers as well as their farms. Accounting conversations can open the door to improved marketing, and Wright can refer her clients to colleagues that specialize in sustainability, pest management and many other topics.

“One of the most interesting aspects about Extension is our wrap-around services,” Wright says. “We’re connected to each other and all kinds of other services which adds significantly to how we’re able to help people in the state.”

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Extension's Wright helps farmers sharpen their business models

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Becky and Phil Brand have run Brandmoore Farm in Rollinsford for more than a decade. Still, they found it helpful to have a field specialist from UNH Extension to analyze their farm's business records.

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From Hospitality to Healthcare: How UNH Helped Shape a Different Kind of Dentist

arq32 — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 18:19:36 +0000

Lisa Hilpl ’98 wants her patients to feel so at ease when they walk into her growing dental practice that some forget they’re even at the dentist.

The check-in area is designed like a boutique hotel lobby: Friendly staff greet patients by name, diffused lighting softens the space, noise-dampening floors and panels create a calm atmosphere, and a 200-gallon saltwater fish tank immediately draws the eye. When she’s between appointments, Hilpl steps into the lobby to welcome patients and chat about their lives.

“I pulled a lot from my hospitality experience,” she says. “When someone walks in, I want it to feel like home — warm and welcoming — but also a little upscale without being intimidating.”

Hilpl grew up in Portland, Maine, and was drawn to hospitality at a young age because she enjoyed hosting, cooking, and consistently interacting with people. She says the University of New Hampshire business school, now the Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, was an easy choice because of the hospitality program’s strong reputation.

Once she arrived in Durham, Hilpl gained a firm grasp on the wide-ranging nature of hospitality. She enjoyed market research, analytics, and how businesses use physical space and branding to shape the customer experience.

“How you design an entrance, how you build an overall brand, how you bring branding and management into a company, and how that affects the customer experience, as well as how the staff feel when they’re there. It was all fascinating,” Hilpl says. “We looked at everything from fast-food restaurant layouts to major hotel chains and how they branded themselves within a region.”

During an internship at Canterbury Shaker Village, Hilpl conducted market research as the nonprofit explored converting one of its historic buildings into an inn. The work included talking with visitors, evaluating the building’s logistics, and developing recommendations.

“We found that an inn was not going to be as viable, but doing catering, catering services, weddings, and event management would be viable,” Hilpl says. “That experience pushed me down a road of consulting and looking at market research from a hospitality perspective and growth management strategy.”

After graduating, Hilpl joined the Convention & Visitors Bureau in Portland, where she worked with local businesses to boost tourism across Maine. Within a year, she transitioned into consulting, helping clients in hospitality and healthcare to develop and analyze marketing strategies and growth opportunities. Some of her most meaningful projects involved the American Cancer Society and breast cancer support groups, where she conducted research on screening and access to care.

During interviews and focus groups, she heard countless stories from women undergoing chemotherapy who struggled with oral health, including tooth loss, bone deterioration, dry mouth, and sores that made eating, talking, and sleeping difficult.

While Hilpl enjoyed consulting, those experiences inspired her to seek a more hands-on career where she could help people directly.

“This was the start of my career down the dental care path, and it was when I reached out to dental care facilities about how they managed patients undergoing cancer treatment,” Hilpl says.

The lobby at Comfort Care Dental reflects owner Lisa Hilpl's hospitality-inspired approach, with warm design
elements and a calming environment for patients.

She soon shadowed and later worked for a dentist in Hanover, New Hampshire — first at the front desk, then assisting chairside — and everything clicked.

“I didn’t realize how much dentistry blends engineering and art until I was in it,” she says. “And it turns out a lot of dentists are artists — painting, drawing — all of that carries over. I loved discovering that something from my personal life could become such a big part of my career.”

Lisa Hilpl

Hilpl returned to school to complete her science prerequisites at Colby-Sawyer College before being accepted to Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in 2010. At Tufts, Hilpl once again tapped into her hospitality experience to balance the demands of dental school.

“I was warned about the pace and rigor of dental school, and I learned a lot that first semester,” Hilpl says. “Luckily, I was used to long hours, especially in the hotel and restaurant business. That all prepared me.”

The last two years at Tufts were almost entirely clinical, with daily patient care as part of the school’s in-house practice. After graduating in 2015, she worked at practices in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Hilpl says it was always her dream to run her own business, but she wanted to gain experience working at other practices first. Finally, in August 2024, she realized her dream when she opened Comfort Care Dental in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

The practice is the perfect blend of her two careers, according to Hilpl. Its physical and sensory details draw from her UNH and hospitality experiences, while her clinical approach reflects her training at Tufts and in the field.

“Patients often tell me it feels like home here and that they feel at ease and are not as afraid of coming to the dentist,” Hilpl says. “I’m very education-focused because it’s their body. I explain what’s going on and talk them through procedures, letting them know what to expect before I do anything.”

That attention to all details is paying off as her practice continues to attract new patients.

“Some of my friends still say, ‘I can’t believe you went back to school for dentistry — where did that even come from?’ But my point is always the same: If you want to change careers, you can carry so many of your past experiences into what you do next,” Hilpl says. “The hospitality program at UNH set me up for success in my current role. I reflect on that experience quite a bit.”

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Lisa Hilpl ’98 brings business expertise into her dental career

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Business

Peter T. Paul College of Business & Economics

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Alumni

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Aaron Sanborn

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Tuesday, January 13, 2026 - 2:00pm

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A Path Forward for a New Hampshire Town

adrapcho — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 19:35:31 +0000

Just about every town in New Hampshire has at least one trail. Some towns have a few – and then there are towns like Barrington, where several footpaths stretch right into the town’s center.
Or, more accurately, where the town wants its center to be.

“Trails are a central part of Barrington,” says Conner MacIver ’11, ’13G, Barrington’s town administrator since 2019. The community has dozens of miles of trails, traversing thousands of acres of preserved land. “We’re a trail town,” he says.

That identity was not something Barrington was willing to take for granted, especially as residential development threatened to transform the town. In 2024, Jessica Tennis, the town’s parks and recreation director, learned about the Downtown & Trails Program offered by UNH Extension and convinced MacIver to apply; Barrington became the fifth town to go through the program.

The Downtown & Trails Program offered by UNH Extension is helping the town of Barrington leverage its trails to bring to fruition a new vision for the town center. Barrington is the fifth town to go through the program, which is designed to help towns leverage trails to shape their communities.

The Downtown & Trails Program, part of Extension’s Community and Economic Development work, is the brainchild of Shannon Rogers, an Extension state specialist and professor who found that trail systems can do more than provide opportunities for exercise and recreation. They can also act as drivers of economic development. She applied her research to create a program to help towns leverage trails to shape their communities.

Barrington applied to Downtown & Trails in late 2024 and spent much of the following year going through the process. Rogers, along with Extension colleagues, created the program to suit New Hampshire’s small towns, which typically are run by a few paid staff augmented by volunteer committees, and which intensely value their local control.

That months-long effort culminated in September as part of Barrington’s “Town Center Day” with a presentation and community engagement, as well as in a final report prepared by Extension and delivered to Barrington, recommending short-, medium- and long-term objectives that will help create the vision of the town that residents described in various feedback sessions.

For Barrington, that vision centers around the intersection of state routes 125 and 9. There, shoppers are already beckoned to a handful of destinations: Calef’s Country Store, the Christmas Dove, Village Barn, and Elf & Co. The town also recently took ownership of a 13-acre parcel of land there, now known as Barrington Common. With pathways leading to the common, the vision is for more businesses to establish and thrive nearby, bringing services closer to residents and drawing more visitors to shop and, perhaps, stroll along a trail.

Nate Bernitz, field specialist with Extension, helped guide Barrington through the process, along with program manager Trish Prescott. He says the town will next begin to tackle action items listed in the final report, such as creating seating at the Town Center property, adding signage and kiosks at trailheads, and installing crosswalks at points where the paths cross roadways.

Barrington has been planning to develop its town center for decades, and Bernitz says the trail program recommendations will catalyze that effort.

“Barrington is growing,” says Bernitz. “A lot of new residents have been coming into town. I think the town center can be a place that supports civic pride, helps Barrington transcend being a bedroom community that people leave to shop and dine, and become a destination.”

Economic development is an objective, according to Rogers, though the effort also strikes at something more fundamental.

“There may be, in five years, hopefully some more visitors to Barrington,” Rogers says, “but I also know with Barrington’s goals being multifaceted, they really care about the quality of life for the residents there.”
MacIver says the final report will give Barrington a road map it can use to reach its goals.

“Something that’s really important to our population in Barrington is preserving our rural character,” says MacIver. He says he feels fortunate to have experts like Rogers and Bernitz in the town’s corner. “These are the resources and the background that show our work here isn’t just community development, it’s economic development as well.”

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Extension is helping Barrington realize its dreams for a vibrant town center

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Friday, January 9, 2026 - 2:15pm

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College of Professional Studies Helps Couple Balance Family, Duty, and Degrees

ket1007 — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 19:09:28 +0000

When Dan and Cherish Dempsey enrolled in college in 2018, they were already living a life defined by service and sacrifice. Both were serving on active duty in the U.S. Air Force — Dan as a master sergeant and Cherish as a technical sergeant — while raising their daughter, Kayla, in Colorado Springs. By 2020, both transitioned into the U.S. Space Force.

Pursuing higher education during those times and amid those demands might have seemed a challenge, but for the Dempseys, the online programs at Granite State College (now the �鶹app College of Professional Studies) provided the right fit at the right time.

A Shared Educational Journey

Cherish was the first to take the leap back into education. She began her bachelor’s degree at 33 years old. Although she took a few courses at various community colleges to complete her A.A.S. Air & Space Technology from the Community College of the Air Force, her experience with higher education was minimal. Since military families often have little control over where they live or when they will be deployed, flexibility and mobility are essential.

"The research I did about the college and its degree programs led me to highly positive reviews from other people’s experiences, and it seemed like the perfect fit, especially when it was on the list of schools participating in the Air University Associate to-Baccalaureate Cooperative program," Cherish says.

Her motivations were deeply personal: achieving something no one in her family had done, pursuing professional growth, staying competitive for post-military employment, and most of all, inspiring her daughter, Kayla.

Dan followed one semester later. For years, he had been unsure about his academic goals, but Cherish’s leap motivated him to find an educational pathway that was compatible with his professional demands.

“When Cherish started in summer 2018, it made me realize that my uncertainty had become an excuse,” he reflects. “Seeing her pursue something she was passionate about made my path much clearer.”

Military Life

Both credit their military training for helping them complete their degrees, noting that it instilled in them a commitment to finishing what they start and doing so with quality, purpose, and a genuine desire for continual improvement. Around the time Dan enrolled in 2018, he was serving in key organizational leadership roles, and his schedule was frequently shaped by the needs of others. UNH supported his learning when he needed to take a semester off to attend the in-residence portion of the Joint Special Operations Forces Senior Enlisted Academy’s demanding eight-month curriculum.

"By the time I graduated with my master’s, I was responsible for a 400-member organization. The online programs offered significant compatibility with changing demands," Dan says.

Adds Cherish: “The flexibility within the online program enabled me to take a semester off to focus on studying for promotion to master sergeant in 2019. This was especially important for my professional growth and capability to serve those depending on my leadership.”

Family Commitment to Education

Their shared pursuit of higher education became a family endeavor, one that deeply influenced their daughter, Kayla.

While education had not been a defining part of their family identity in previous generations, Dan and Cherish approached their own academic journeys as true self-starters. Both entered college as first-generation students, navigating unfamiliar systems without a roadmap. There was no family playbook to guide them through applications, financial aid, or course selection. Instead, they relied on determination, military discipline, and one another to persist — often completing assignments in the late hours after long duty shifts or during significant organizational change as they served in key roles during the Space Force’s activation. For them, pursuing degrees was about more than earning credentials; it was about changing the trajectory of their family’s story.

That hard-earned perspective shaped Kayla's understanding about education. Unlike her parents, who had to blaze their own trail, Kayla saw higher education modeled as both possible and powerful. From an early age, she absorbed the message that college was not a distant dream but an attainable goal, something her parents were actively living out. Cherish explained that this steady exposure to education gave Kayla both confidence and ambition. By age 14, she was already enrolling in college-level courses through a dual enrollment program at a local college. Currently, as a junior in high school, she is among the top of her class with a 4.33 GPA.

For Dan and Cherish, Kayla's accomplishments represent more than academic talent. They are the culmination of sacrifices made, barriers overcome, and values intentionally passed on.

Reflecting on her own journey, Cherish shares: “I grew up in a household that certainly valued education; however, it wasn’t a central part of our family’s identity, nor was it a tradition passed down. We worked hard to model the value of higher education for Kayla from an early age."

Value of the Capstone Experience

Dan’s master’s in leadership culminated in a capstone project titled "Institutional Change and Employee Commitment in the United States Space Force." He views the capstone as a valuable learning tool, emphasizing the importance of staying true to oneself and remaining open to seeking and applying feedback throughout the process.

“The capstone enables a student to connect their passion for something with a body of scholarly work as a practitioner," Dan says. "Beyond any specific topic, the core experience provides students with a deep understanding of academic methodology. To this day, I recall more about the methodology than any details about my own research and paper. That is the biggest positive resulting from the capstone.”

Dan noted that his perspective evolved between undergraduate and graduate studies. As an undergraduate, his goal was to understand what corporations value, how they differ from military organizations, and how to adapt his military skills to civilian contexts. By the time he pursued his master’s, he saw the coursework less as a way to fill knowledge gaps and more as a means to equip himself with data-driven tools. Today, as a chief master sergeant, this has enabled Dan to solve real-world problems and increase his organization’s effectiveness.

Building a Foundation for the Future

As Cherish describes, graduating together in 2022 was a powerful milestone:

"For us both, the experience was perfect. Our family got to visit New Hampshire for the first time ever, and the feeling of accomplishing a lifelong goal was something we got to share together," she says.

The Dempseys now hope their story inspires others to take the leap into education.

“No matter how busy life feels, education is worth it," says Cherish. "It opens doors and gives you confidence in your future.”

Photographs by Ashley Valone Photography

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Dan and Cherish Dempsey's story highlights how CPS empowers service members to earn online degrees

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Can Birds Spread Harmful Bacteria on Dairy Farms?

mw1560 — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 16:45:39 +0000

New UNH research is seeking to address the levels of Campylobacter jejuni — a bacteria that can affect herd health as well as cause food-borne illness in humans — in dairy cows.

Andrea Ayala, assistant professor of natural resources and the environment in the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture (COLSA), is focusing on the role small birds play in transmitting the bacteria to cows at dairy farms in New Hampshire and across the U.S. While the final analyses are still underway, early observations indicate that house sparrows likely play a much larger role in the spread of Campylobacter and other bacteria harmful to animal health than previously thought.

If confirmed, the findings would reinforce the value of vaccinating cows against Campylobacter infection and installing netting to keep the birds away from barns and feed storage areas.

“Our research is revealing whether small birds such as house sparrows frequently carry Campylobacter and, because they’re highly mobile, whether they play a role in spreading it from farm to farm,” says Ayala. “If we can show clearly that sparrows are initiating Campylobacter infections in cows, it demonstrates to farmers that mitigation strategies are well worth it.”

A closer look at the birds

On farms, dairy cows are known to carry Campylobacter, and studies have shown that up to 50% of cows are colonized with them. When colonized in a steady state, however, the bacteria typically aren’t present in numbers that pose a health threat for either cows or humans. But sparrows could carry additional Campylobacter populations that tip the balance toward more bacterial growth and infection.

House Sparrows were captured in the immediate vicinity of Cows at UNH's Fairchild Dairy Teaching and Research Center and three other sites.

Campylobacter presence in birds has not been extensively studied, so Ayala and her team set up bird nets as close as possible to the cows and feed at UNH’s Organic Dairy Research Farm and Fairchild Dairy Teaching and Research Center as well as two private New Hampshire dairy farms. And while they caught a variety of species, the vast majority of the birds they caught next to the cows were house sparrows.

“A lot of other birds, such as pigeons, are found around dairy barns, but most of them don’t go right into where the feed and cows are like house sparrows do,” says Ayala. “Campylobacter is spread through feces, so the sparrows may be contaminating the cows’ feed and environment.”

For the study, Ayala is analyzing blood samples for antibodies, which will identify past infections, as well as a fecal sample that will reveal current infections. There are more than 20 species of Camplylobacter, but Ayala is focused on jejuni because of its impact on human, animal, and environmental health.

While the current data are being analyzed, Ayala and her team are working to set up a colored banding system to be able to identify individual birds via camera traps in collaboration with UNH Associate Professor Rem Moll and his lab. The project will provide more insight into which sparrows are interacting with the cows and feed and provide a more thorough determination of who is actually infecting who in the dairy setting.

An illness to avoid

Food-borne illness is at best a highly unpleasant experience, and at worst can cause serious health problems. Outbreaks caused by Escherichia coli and Salmonella capture headlines, but campylobacteriosis, which can be contracted by consuming contaminated chicken, milk, or water, is more common, afflicting about 1.5 million people annually in the U.S. While few cases become clinically severe, symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal pain, and fever that can last a week make campylobacteriosis disruptive and something to avoid.

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UNH researcher investigates whether sparrows increase dairy herd infection risks

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Strategies to keep house sparrows away from cows and feed may be important for reducing Campylobacter infections.

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Science Meets Shoreline

adrapcho — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 19:59:03 +0000

Lakes and ponds, as ecosystems, can exhibit age and maturity, and can grow ill in response to toxins.

In New Hampshire, the wellness of freshwater bodies is largely managed by watershed associations — organizations of residents who recognize that their own well-being is inextricably linked to that of their local waterways. While those associations are often rich with passion, where they come up short is in expertise. And that’s when they call UNH’s Lakes Lay Monitoring Program (LLMP).

UNH’s Lakes Lay Monitoring Program (LLMP) plays a key role in keeping the state's lakes healthy and safe for residents and offers students valuable hands-on experience in the field and in the lab.

“The more data you have, the better you can make informed decisions,” explains Lisa Hutchinson, chair of the water quality committee for the Lake Kanasatka Watershed Association. “They come out and collect data that we can’t with our regular volunteers,” Hutchinson says one August day, standing on the shore of Wakondah Pond in Moultonborough, which feeds Kanasatka, and watching as UNH faculty and students in two boats collected samples in the middle of the pond’s placid surface.

Though things can look fine on the surface, it can be a different picture beneath. This was a hard lesson to learn for the Kanasatka Association. It has struggled in recent years to manage a persistent cyanobacteria problem, which peaked in 2023 with toxic blooms that ruined much of the summer for lakeside residents and extended into the first days of 2024. Because Kanasatka flows into Lake Winnipesaukee, the problem had regional implications.

The association rose to the challenge, gaining unusual permission from the state to seed the lake with aluminum sulfate, a chemical that sequesters phosphorus in the lake bottom, preventing it from releasing into the water column as it had been doing at the height of summer, leading to unsightly and potentially harmful cyanobacteria blooms. Each treatment has its limitations, though, and the aluminum sulfate could only limit access to phosphorus already in the lake at the time of treatment. Wakondah, added to LLMP more recently, provides an opportunity to compare two water bodies in the same watershed.

“They really are connected,” says Amanda McQuaid, UNH Extension professor of water quality and ecotoxicology and director of the LLMP. Despite their similarities, there are observable distinctions in the zooplankton found in the neighboring waters. “We’re trying to get a sense of the connection between the two.”

That day in August, McQuaid and a handful of student interns were giving Wakondah what she calls its “annual check-up,” collecting samples to determine several water quality parameters such as clarity, nutrient load, and microorganisms.

The LLMP, managed by Bob Craycraft, gives students the opportunity to spend the summer studying the state’s lakes. That was too good for Jocelyn Brierley, Ingrid Siudzinski, Logan Tartsa, Owen Tucker, and Karina Mukavetz to pass up.

Tartsa ’26, a marine biology major, says he’s more at home in the field but is grateful for the chance to gain some comfort in a laboratory setting. “I think it’s very beneficial to be doing this,” Tartsa says. “I live in New Hampshire;, the quality of the water is important to me.”

Another marine bio major, Mukavetz ’27, was the flip side to Tartsa’s coin, as she was eager to gain more field experience. She’s gained that, as well as an appreciation for the value of programs that incorporate lay people into the practice of science.

“The volunteers are really cool,” Mukavetz says. “I’m a really big fan of citizen science. In New England, since it’s so rural and wild, [the volunteers] really care about their environment.”

For those who do really care, such as Hutchinson and the rest of the Kanasatka Watershed Association, it’s a powerful advantage to have a team of scientists on call.

“The lake is constantly changing,” Hutchinson says. “If we take all these data points that we collect, and see what changes occur, we can hear what the lake is telling us.”

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With help from the Lakes Lay Monitoring program, citizen scientists are learning to read the signs of freshwater distress — and take action to restore balance

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Local activists, UNH staff, and students collaborate to monitor the health of Wakondah Pond in Moultonborough.

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Powerful New Research Technology Comes to UNH

mw1560 — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:29:04 +0000

The right tool can make all the difference. That’s the case for a new instrument at UNH, an automated isothermal titration calorimeter (ITC), whose applications include optimizing drug development, improving chemical removal in the environment, and helping to create materials that accelerate wound healing.

“It greatly enhances our capacity for exciting research at UNH and beyond,” says Sean Edington, assistant professor in the department of molecular, cellular and biomedical sciences and the department of chemistry, who spearheaded the effort to secure funding for the ITC from the National Science Foundation. “It also provides our students with an important research skill, whether they continue with academic research or move into the biotech industry.”

The ITC, housed at UNH's University Instrumentation Center, is accessible for both UNH and external academic users, as well as non-academic users as capacity permits, expanding capabilities across organizations in different fields.

What is isothermal titration calorimetry?

Isothermal titration calorimetry is a fundamental technique for many research areas, providing vital information about what happens when two things — such as two chemicals, two solutions, or two biological molecules — are mixed together. The instrument measures whether heat is consumed or released by the interaction and the magnitude of the change over time.

The ITC is accessible for both UNH and external academic users, as well as non-academic users as capacity permits, expanding capabilities across organizations in different fields.

It sounds simple, but it has far-reaching applications. Biochemists can learn what happens to molecular signaling and binding properties when a mutation affects a cellular receptor, a key measurement for drug development and a reason why isothermal titration calorimetry is considered the gold standard for understanding critical drug-target interactions. Material scientists can test whether a material is able to bind to and sequester per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) — dangerous “forever” chemicals — effectively enough to remove them from the environment. Bioengineers can assess hydrogel materials to determine how well they bind with growth factors to accelerate wound healing in the body. And much more.

Edington emphasizes that acquiring the ITC was an interdisciplinary effort spanning three departments across two UNH colleges: the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture and the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. Also contributing were Aylin Aykanat and Nate Oldenhuis, both assistant professors of chemistry, Linqing Li, assistant professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering, Roy Planalp, professor of chemistry, and Patricia Stone, affiliate assistant professor of chemistry and analytical instrumentation scientist. Eva Rose Balog, associate professor of chemistry at the University of New England, is an important collaborator.

A different way to approach research

Edington is particularly interested in the roles of ions, such as calcium (Ca+) and potassium (K+), in biological signaling. Small changes, such as mutations in signaling proteins, can affect their binding properties. Ion binding sites are highly conserved in biology, which means that they are the same across many organisms. It also means that new discoveries about ion binding sites and signaling can have broad importance for both basic biology and disease research.

Now, the ITC will allow Edington to re-orient his research program, which uses infrared spectroscopy to investigate differences in the structural details of protein ion binding sites. The ITC will allow him to screen far more potential targets and focus detailed spectroscopy work on the most functionally interesting cases, greatly increasing efficiency.

“I’m very excited about using the ITC to screen large numbers of targets and focus on the most illuminating for spectroscopy,” says Edington. “If we isolate atomic level properties that are important to the function of bigger things, it can have huge implications, such as understanding exactly why certain genetic mutations lead to heart disease or cancer.”

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New instrument expands research capabilities, accelerates innovation, and gives students in-demand biotech skills

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