Press Room

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville debuted its first drone show September 25, with 450 drones lighting up the sky above Lovejoy Library as part of Cougarfest. Coverage from The Edwardsville Intelligencer highlighted the Route 66-themed display, made possible by a Route 66 Centennial Commission Grant. The spectacular display was a new feature of this year's Homecoming & Family Weekend, held September 23-27 under t...

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville/ nursing student Camilla Thomas, seen here in Riverbender.com, visited her former kindergarten teacher, Jennifer Desse's classroom at Goshen Elementary School in Edwardsville to give a nutrition presentation. Thomas, now a registered nurse pursuing her bachelor's degree at SIUE, shared healthy eating lessons and snack packs with the students as part of her community health nursing coursework. 

Read more: RiverBender....

Kevin Tucker, PhD, associate professor of chemistry at SIUE, was featured in an AZoMaterials interview tied to this year's Pittcon conference, discussing how mass spectrometry can track pharmaceuticals and personal care products as they move through the environment. Tucker described using triple-quadrupole LC-MS and MALDI-TOF imaging to show how statins accumulate in earthworms — a model organism his lab uses to study biosolid contamination in agricultural soil — with dif...

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s enrollment success story was featured in a Forbes analysis of colleges defying a nationwide decline in high school graduates. The article points to SIUE's largest-ever first-year class this fall, 2,323 freshmen, as proof that a regional university in a shrinking state can still grow. 

Forbes credits the growth to SIUE's community college pathway programs, expanded online options, and in-high-school advising and r...

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville economist Ariel Belasen, chair of the Department of Economics and Finance, joined a KMOX business segment to discuss his research on NBA officiating in the final two minutes of games. Belasen spoke with host Megan Lynch about how legal sports wagering and social media scrutiny may be shaping referee decisions in these high-stakes moments.

Listen more: KMOX – Does sports betting and social media influence NBA officiati...

SIUE Graduate Named to St. Louis Business Journal's Inno Under 25 List 

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville graduate Aayush Gauba has been named to the St. Louis Business Journal's 2026 "Inno Under 25" list, recognizing young innovators in the region's technology and entrepreneurial community. Gauba founded AIWAF, an adaptive web application firewall downloaded more than 100,000 times by developers worldwide, and serves on the Board of Directors of th...