Kyle Jackson
Major: Chemical engineering
GPA: 3.93
Hometown: Winterset, Iowa
Career goal: Emergency medicine physician or a surgeon after graduating from medical school.
Clubs/activities: Pre-Medical Club, Chemical engineering Peer Mentor, University Honors Program, SALT Company
Awards/honors: Dean’s List, Summa Cum Laude, Erwin and DeLoris Whitney Scholarship in Chemical Engineering, Tau Beta Pi Stabile No. 622 Scholarship, Hans Buehler Scholarship Fund for ISU College of Engineering, Program of Study Award at Iowa State University, Edward W. & Joyce C. Backhaus Scholarship, Manley R. Hoppe Scholarship, Roderick Seward, Flossie Ratcliffe & Helen M. Galloway Scholarship, Iowa State University Academic Grant, President’s Award for Competitive Excellence Scholarship, Cardinal Leadership Scholar Award, Doug Grundewald Peer Mentor Scholarship
Favorite place on campus: Parks Library or the Memorial Union
Most influential ISU mentor: Nigel Reuel, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering, Black and Veatch Building a World of Difference Faculty Fellow in Engineering
Why Iowa State: I was born and raised in Iowa and wanted to attend a well-recognized engineering school that was close to home. Iowa State offered so many great engineering programs, ample research opportunities, and a wide range of organizations to foster student involvement.
Kyle Jackson was nominated as a senior marshal, as a representative of the top students in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.
Completing a chemical engineering degree while also completing all the pre-medical requirements is not easy, but Kyle Jackson was not afraid of the task.
“I would say that my greatest accomplishment at Iowa State was succeeding as a chemical engineering student who desired to attend medical school after graduation,” Jackson said. “I spent the last four and a half years conducting undergraduate research on three separate projects, tutoring, serving as a peer mentor, volunteering at Mary Greeley Medical Center, and serving as the academic chair and the president in the pre-medical club all while working on my chemical engineering and pre-medical studies.”
Jackson conducted research with three faculty members: Donald Sakaguchi, Morrill Professor; Surya Mallapragada, Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering and Carol Vohd Johnson Chair; and Nigel Reuel, assistant professor in chemical and biological engineering and Black and Veatch Building a World of Difference Faculty Fellow in Engineering.
Jackson has also conducted research with Ryan Boudreau, assistant professor of internal medicine-cardiovascular medicine, at the University of Iowa as a participant in the Interdisciplinary Summer Undergraduate Research Program.
All of his research has been directed toward the medical field with topics ranging from the monitoring of wound healing to determining the function of microproteins to applications of stem cell differentiation. He has contributed to one journal publication and another manuscript that is under review. Jackson completed the University Honors Program, submitting a project called “Differentiation of Neural Stem Cells via Electrical Stimulation”.
Jackson has served in multiple leadership roles, including currently serving as president of the Pre-Medical Club, where he recruited a second pre-medical advisor to help serve the needs of all ISU pre-medical students. He has also coordinated CPR and emergency first aid courses for all students, and is helping to plan the first university-wide pre-medical conference for spring 2020, which will host four medical schools on our campus to interact with ISU pre-medical students.
As a chemical engineering learning community peer mentor, Jackson taught two semesters of CH E 104, while also volunteering to help his fellow students in other ways. This included industrial tours, resume workshops and programming help sessions, with learning community participants commenting that he has helped them find many opportunities that they would not have otherwise known about.
After graduation, Jackson has been accepted into medical school at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. He will begin in August of 2020.