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KSU Water Institute credits state grant with hiring surge and $11 million in outside investment
Summary
Kansas State’s Water Institute told the Board of Regents it has used a $5 million state allocation to hire interdisciplinary faculty and staff, seed student research and attract roughly $11 million in external funding, while pursuing PFAS and groundwater partnerships across the state.
Doctor Susan Metzger of the Kansas Water Institute at Kansas State University gave the Board of Regents a two‑year progress report on the institute’s launch and statewide work. She said the institute has converted a 1963 federal research pass‑through into a university‑level, interdisciplinary program that has already led to new faculty hires and partnerships.
Metzger said the institute has filled four new faculty positions and is actively recruiting at least eight more interdisciplinary hires over the next six months, from remote‑sensing specialists to rural sociologists. “Within about a two‑and‑a‑half year time period, we will have added about 16 new positions,” she said. She described a cohort model that meets weekly to design joint research and training.
The institute has used a roughly $5,000,000 annual state allocation, Metzger said, and that funding has helped leverage federal grants, philanthropic gifts and industry partnerships. “Already in two years, we’ve been able to attract about $11,000,000 in external investment,” she told regents, naming federal grants, industry partners and an endowed undergraduate research gift from an alumni family.
Metzger highlighted partnerships with firms and agencies across Kansas: pilot projects with an irrigation technology firm to measure on‑farm water use, membrane recovery trials at feed yards with Western Kansas Irrigation, a data analytics collaboration with SAS, and a Burns & McDonnell study to evaluate treatment and recovery options for chloride contamination in the Equus Beds aquifer.
She described how the institute supports workforce development—seven to nine undergraduates regularly engage in applied research—and inter‑institutional training through programs with KU and Garden City Community College, the latter in a NASA Earth observations pilot the institute helped launch.
Regents asked how the institute coordinates with the Kansas Water Office and other state entities. Metzger said the institute and the water office are “very much intertwined,” with water‑office staff serving on the institute’s external advisory committee and the institute aligning projects to priorities in the state water plan.
On PFAS, Metzger said Kansas has so far seen hotspot patterns near certain manufacturing and military sites rather than statewide contamination; the institute is convening communities, KDHE and academic partners for a spring water‑quality and health summit to map gaps in knowledge and remediation needs.
The presentation concluded with an emphasis on the institute’s applied goals: recruiting interdisciplinary talent, translating state investment into research and businesses, and improving water‑management decisions for local communities. Metzger closed by inviting questions and follow‑up from regents.
The committee moved on after a brief Q&A; no formal action was taken at the meeting.
