• Largest four-year institution in North Carolina
• Largest number of applications from NC students
• 34,376 students from all 100 NC counties, 54 states and territories and 117 foreign countries
  (23,636 undergraduates; 8,267 graduates and professional; 2,473 non-degree seeking)
• 4,797 undergraduate and 2,294 graduate degrees awarded in 2009-10
• Bachelor’s degrees in 106 fields; master’s in 104 fields; doctorates in 61 fields;
  Doctor of Veterinary Medicine
• 100+ national scholars and fellows in past five years

Faculty & Staff

• 2,073 teaching, research and extension faculty; 316 field faculty
• 20 members of the National Academies
• 7th among 16 peers in NSF CAREER faculty awards over last four years
• 5,341 administrative and support staff

Colleges

• Agriculture and Life Sciences
• Design
• Education
• Engineering
• Humanities and Social Sciences

• Management
• Natural Resources
• Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Textiles
• Veterinary Medicine

Rankings

• 6th in Best Overall Public University Value
  (U.S. News & World Report, 2011)
• 3rd among colleges of veterinary medicine
  (U.S. News & World Report, 2011)
• 7th among U.S. engineering colleges in B.S. degrees awarded
  (American Association of Engineering Profiles, 2008)
• 112th in the Top 500 World Ranking
  (Center for World-Class Universities, 2009)
• 15th in Best Value for In-State, 13th in Best Value for Out-of-State
  (Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, 2011)
• 9 graduate programs among top 30 public universities
• Among the top four doctoral/research universities for clarity of expectations for tenure
  (COACHE national survey of tenure-track faculty members, 2006-09)

Extension, Engagement & Economic Development

• Economic impact on the state of North Carolina of about $1.7 billion annually
• 1,200 employees stationed in all 100 counties and the Cherokee Reservation
• 13 off-campus regional research and extension centers, 9 field laboratories and 18 shared research stations

Financials & Private Support

• Total budget: $1.2 billion
  (38% from state appropriations and 15% from tuition)
• Total endowment: $501 million (as of June 30, 2010)

Research

• $380 million in total research expenditures
• 7th in industry research funding among universities without medical schools
  (National Science Foundation, 2008)
• More than 70% of faculty engaged in sponsored research
• More than 2,500 graduate students supported on research and teaching appointments
• 57 Multidisciplinary Centers and Institutes

Technology Transfer

• 110 products available to consumers
• 705 U.S. Patents held
• 80 start up companies representing more than $750 million in venture capital investment and more than 3,000 jobs in North Carolina
• 3rd in number of partnerships per $100 million in research expenditures
  (Association of University Technology Managers)
• 3rd in commercialization of micro- and nanotechnology inventions
  (Small Times Media)

Centennial Campus

• National model for government, business and university partnerships and mixed-used environments
• Includes 1,120-acre Centennial Campus and the 214-acre Centennial Biomedical Campus
• Houses Colleges of Textiles, Engineering and Veterinary Medicine, as well as the Graduate School
• Technology Incubator and Office of Technology Transfer help entrepreneurs and faculty commercialize products and processes
• More than 60 corporate, non-profit and government partners and 2,450 employees
• Home to the 600-student Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School and the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation

Athletics

• NCAA Division I University
• Member of Atlantic Coast Conference
• 23 sports represented at NC State

Alumni

• More than 170,000 living NC State alumni
• 109,900 alumni living in North Carolina
• Alumni account for $5.6 billion of income in North Carolina (2008)

Dr. Michael Steer, engineering professor, received the U.S. Army Commander’s Award for Public Service for research that has helped American forces remotely counter roadside bombs, saving hundreds of soldiers’ lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

NC State captured a national community engagement award for leading a partnership that transformed Wilson Bay, an environmentally and economically devastated section of Jacksonville, N.C. Dr. Jay Levine, professor of veterinary medicine, led the team that won the C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award from the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities.

Dr. Todd R. Klaenhammer (at left), distinguished university professor of food science, microbiology and genetics, was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. He also won a 2010 Elie Metchnikoff Prize for biotechnology from the International Dairy Foundation.

Dr. Sastry Pantula, professor and head of the statistics department, has been named director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Mathematical Sciences.

The NC State Board of Trustees awarded the Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal of Excellence, its highest honor, to Dr. Marie Davidian for significant contributions to statistical theory and practice in the health sciences. Economist Dr. Michael L. Walden received the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Public Service. Dr. Robert J. Beichner, an innovator in physics education, received an Award for Excellence in Teaching from the UNC Board of Governors.

The American Chemical Society honored Dr. Joseph DeSimone, William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, for outstanding contributions to chemistry research. Forty percent of Harrison Howe Award winners have gone on to receive a Nobel Prize in chemistry.

The National Science Teacher Association elected Dr. Patricia Simmons, head of the Department of Math Science and Technology Education, as its 2011–12 president.

Tuyen Tran, textbook manager for NC State Bookstores, received a Governor’s Award for Excellence as one of five winners in the Outstanding State Government Service category.

Dr. Louis A. Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering, was honored with the Institute of Industrial Engineers’ UPS Award for Minority Advancement.

Dr. A. Blanton Godfrey, dean of the College of Textiles, received the Distinguished Service Medal from the American Society for Quality.

The Linguistic Society of America honored Dr. Walt Wolfram, William C. Friday Distinguished Professor of English, with its prestigious Linguistics, Language and the Public Award.

Dr. Behnam Pourdeyhimi, executive director of the Nonwovens Institute, received an award for lifetime technical achievement from INDA, the association of the nonwoven fabrics industry.

Dr. Daniel L. Solomon, dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, won a 2010 Founders Award from the American Statistical Association.

To study ways of predicting drug toxicity to humans, researchers in NC State’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences examined mouse genes. They published a paper in Genome Research that found a genetic marker linked to the risk of acetaminophen-induced liver injury in mice. They then examined the mouse gene’s counterparts in humans, and found a specific human gene associated with possible liver injury.

Although the gene’s role in liver toxicity in humans is not yet known, the method of using corollaries of animal model genes represents a new way of predicting the side effects drugs will have on humans.

Combating Childhood Obesity

The Natural Learning Initiative, a program of NC State’s College of Design, will receive $750,000 over three years to create more outdoor learning environments at North Carolina child care centers, where studies show the risk of childhood obesity is greatest, and to set up an online resource center for child care centers to turn to when they develop outdoor experiences for children.

Nearly a third of all children in North Carolina between the ages of 2 and 4 are overweight or considered at risk of becoming so. The state has the fifth highest rate of childhood obesity in the nation.

Connecting Rural Schools

Thanks to a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation, NC State is delivering advanced mathematics software to rural, underserved high schools in North Carolina through an innovative cloud computing system. The program is designed to be replicated across the country.

Students and teachers can enter NC State’s Virtual Computing Lab from computers in their classrooms, libraries or even at home, and access expensive software packages that run remotely on powerful, centrally located servers. School systems don’t have to install the software program on individual computers.

Over the summer, algebra and geometry teachers from four districts in North Carolina participated in a series of professional development workshops to learn how to incorporate state-of-the-art math software into their classrooms.

The research is a collaboration between NC State’s College of Education and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Storing a Library on a Chip

A researcher in NC State’s College of Engineering has developed a computer chip that can store an unprecedented amount of data – enough to hold an entire library’s worth of information – on a single chip. The new chip stems from a breakthrough in the use of nanodots, or nanoscale magnets, and represents a significant advance in computer-memory technology.

The nanodots are made of single, defect-free crystals, creating magnetic sensors that are integrated directly into a silicon electronic chip. They can be made uniformly as small as six nanometers in diameter and are all precisely oriented in the same way, allowing programmers to reliably read and write data to the chips.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Finding National Debt Tipping Point

Researchers in NC State’s Poole College of Management have identified a “tipping point” for national debt – the point at which national debt levels begin to have an adverse effect on economic growth.

The findings could influence economic policy discussions globally, and were distributed at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group.

The tipping point – a debt level of 77 percent or more – was developed based on an analysis of the debt of 100 countries over 30 years. The tipping point could be higher or lower for any specific nation, based on the nation’s wealth.

The United States has not exceeded the tipping point yet, according to researchers. During the sample period of 1980-2008, U.S. debt was 61 percent of GDP.

A paper describing the study, “Finding the Tipping Point: When Sovereign Debt Turns Bad,” was published in October in a World Bank volume titled Sovereign Debt and the Financial Crisis.

Analyzing Bioenergy Processes

Around the world, scientists are working to convert renewable biomass into fuels as a substitute for petroleum-based fuels.  As new technologies and processes are developed in the lab, a pressing issue is how to evaluate them with respect to scale, economics and sustainability.

Researchers in NC State’s College of Natural Resources are developing engineering tools and methodologies to do these evaluations using advanced computer simulations and life cycle assessment.

The analysis involves modeling complex mass and energy flows for bioenergy processes using engineering process simulation software. Once the inputs and outputs of these processes are defined, the results are fed into economic models and life cycle assessment software to analyze economic and environmental sustainability issues.

The result is a robust set of tools that scientists, industry and policy makers can use to promote sustainable bioenergy technologies that are optimized for the feedstock or location.

Sustainability is a major focus of research in the college. In 2010 researchers also worked on a cost-effective system for rating the resiliency of housing, developed a model program to support micro-entrepreneurship among the rural poor, and worked with military bases in North Carolina to promote the sustainability of both military training and wildlife conservation.

Developing Genetic Off Switches

Researchers in NC State’s College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences have found a way to “cage” genetic off switches in such a way that they can be activated when exposed to UV light. This technology gives scientists a more precise way to control and study gene function in localized areas of developing organisms.

The off switches, called morpholino oligonucleotides, are like short snippets of DNA that, when introduced into cells, bind to target RNA molecules, effectively turning off specific genes.

Morpholinos have been used as genetic switches in many animal models, including the zebrafish embryo. However, morpholinos are distributed throughout dividing cells in a developing embryo, thereby turning off the specific gene everywhere. Moreover, they are active right after injection, silencing the targeted gene throughout development of the organism. Such uncontrolled genetic disruption makes studying tissue-specific and time-specific gene function difficult.

A team of NC State researchers developed a new methodology to turn off genes at a specific time and in a specific region of an organism. The researchers’ results appeared  online in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

Targeting Mosquitoes to Fight Malaria

A researcher in NC State’s College of Textiles has netted a new idea to fight malaria, a disease that causes at least a million deaths per year in third-world countries. Over the years, mosquitoes, which spread the infectious disease, have become resistant to the insecticides often applied to bed netting.

After getting seed funding from the university, the researcher worked with biomedical engineering students to find the best way to attack mosquitoes. The students anesthetized the insects and then disabled their legs or antennae, but they found that even hobbled mosquitoes were able to bite. They then tested ultra-smooth and particulate-laced surfaces for the netting to try to make it difficult for mosquitoes to land.

One of the particulates, diatomaceous earth – a naturally occurring, soft, sedimentary rock – was found to be particularly effective. Instead of hindering landing mosquitoes, the chalky, ground-up remains of fossilized algae proved to be insecticidal. The abrasive particles, which are safe for humans, disrupt the waxy layer that makes up a mosquito’s exoskeleton, causing the insect to dehydrate and die. The hope is that shortening a mosquito’s usual two-week lifespan by even a day or two could help reduce the transmission of malaria.

Speeding Recovery

Researchers in NC State’s College of Veterinary Medicine have uncovered a novel function for a protein called chloride channel protein 2 (ClC-2) that may prove to be beneficial for the recovery of injured gastrointestinal tracts in animals and people.

The research identified CIC-2 as the source of gastrointestinal recovery after discovering that intestinal chloride secretion occurred immediately prior to the recovery process after problems such as excessive stomach acid or low blood flow, which occur when the intestine twists.

The research, initially supported by the National Institutes of Health and the United States Department of Agriculture, was presented at Digestive Disease Week, the largest gastroenterology meeting in the world. Sucampo Pharmaceuticals became interested in the discovery, and the research team shared additional information on a newly developed group of compounds called prostones that can activate ClC-2 and speed up repair of the gastrointestinal tract. NC State patented this discovery in partnership with Sucampo and research continues with funding from the company.

Recent findings show that ClC-2 may be responsible for re-assembling the connections between injured cells from the gut. The ongoing investigation has been published in Gastroenterology and the American Journal of Physiology.

In 2010, the college also focused on combating food-borne pathogens. Research funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is seeking to understand the molecular epidemiology of drug-resistant pathogens by studying the occurrence of Salmonella in pigs.

Researchers working on Centennial Campus,  NC State’s 1,120-acre research park, routinely cut through scientific barriers that stand in the way of progress and innovation. In recent months they’ve doubled the efficiency of LED lights, boosted multi-core chip speeds by a factor of six and pioneered the development of stretchable electronic devices. Centennial Campus isn’t just a collection of labs. It’s an R&D neighborhood where 2,300 corporate and government professionals work alongside thousands of university faculty, staff and students, taking advantage opportunities to collaborate in biotechnology, nanotechnology, green energy, information technology and environmental health.

Major partners on Centennial Campus include Red Hat, Talecris Biotherapeutics and GlaxoSmithKline. A magnet middle school, residential housing, 18-hole championship golf course and recreational amenities weave the campus into a true community.

Centennial Biomedical Campus

The 214-acre Centennial Biomedical Campus, anchored by the College of Veterinary Medicine, focuses on biomedical applications that benefit both animals and humans. The $35 million, 100,000-square-foot College Research Building is the first new structure on the campus. The four-story facility includes 33 state-of-the-art laboratories plus two BioSafety Level 3 labs for infectious disease research. A 20-year master plan projects that another 24 buildings — totaling 1.6 million square feet of space — will be developed.

Technology Incubator

Innovative entrepreneurs call it a starter home. At the Technology Incubator entrepreneurs can access a collaborative blend of services and resources to help them convert ideas into marketable products and processes, whether it is specialized mold cultures, telecommunications applications or biotechnology breakthroughs.

The Garage

Tucked away in the basement of a research building on Centennial Campus, The Garage is NC State’s first facility with a focus on student entrepreneurship. The 2,000-square-foot center is sponsored by the university’s Entrepreneurship Initiative and Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions. Students across disciplines now have a place to brainstorm, plan, design and build new products, services and solutions for the real world.

Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center

North Carolina ranks among the top three biotechnology regions in the United States with nearly 18,000 workers employed at 181 biotech companies. As the industry continues to grow, so will the demand for trained employees. The Golden LEAF Biomanufacturing Training and Education Center is helping to meet that need with advanced, hands-on training and education in a pilot-scale environment. Using facilities and equipment that match those of the world’s leading biomanufacturing companies, the 90,000-square-foot center is one of the nation’s largest university-based facilities in support of the biomanufacturing and biopharmaceutical industries.

In her first year as women’s basketball coach, Kellie Harper guided the Wolfpack to the ACC Tournament championship game and the NCAA Tournament. Bryan Bunn began his tenure as volleyball coach with 14 wins in his first season. The university welcomed Kelly Findley as the new men’s soccer coach, replacing long-time coach George Tarantini, who won more games than any soccer coach in NC State’s history.

The Wolfpack added to its successes on the field as the baseball team and men’s and women’s basketball teams all qualified for postseason play in the spring. Both the gymnastics and co-ed rifle teams won conference titles. In the fall, head coach Tom O’Brien and the football team not only qualified for postseason play, but won more football games than any Wolfpack team since 2002. The Wolfpack beat West Virginia 23-7 in the 2010 Champs Sports Bowl in December and finished the season ranked 25th in the Associated Press Top 25 Poll.

Senior Taylor Seaman became the first gymnast in NC State history to win All-America honors. Distance runner Ryan Hill won NCAA All-America honors in track and field and in cross country, while true freshman Laura Hoer won four of the six cross country races she ran, including the ACC Championship and the NCAA Southeast Regional Championship. She was also named an All-America at the NCAA Cross Country championship. Freshman golfer Albin Choi won two individual titles in the fall, leading the Wolfpack to a pair of team titles and two runner-up finishes in its four fall tournaments.

Raised on a farm south of Raleigh, N.C., he earned enough money to attend college by selling produce. After graduating from NC State in 1959 with a degree in civil engineering, he went on to build one of the most successful and innovative waste haulers in the country, Waste Industries USA, Inc.

But it took more than long hours to overcome long odds. Poole excelled because he skillfully applied the knowledge he gained in the classroom and stayed true to the values he learned from his family and his faith: loyalty to his workers and customers, unwavering honesty and an endless search for improvement.

The Poole name – and values – are now a permanent part of NC State. Lonnie and Carol Poole and their family donated $40 million to the university in December – the largest gift in NC State’s history – to support the College of Management, now the Poole College of Management. The donation will underwrite the creation of a Center of Excellence in Sustainability, complementing and enhancing NC State’s focus on technology, innovation, entrepreneurship and globalization.

The gift includes $2.5 million to fund the Carol Johnson Poole Club House at the Lonnie Poole Golf Course and $500,000 to establish the Carol Johnson Poole Endowment for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Poole is proud of his decades-long relationship with NC State.

“If there hadn’t been an NC State at a very affordable rate, I would not have gotten a college education,” he says. “And I would not have been able to succeed in the business world as I have.”

And in ours.

Mackay was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 for research that examines how physical and behavioral traits are affected by genes and the environment. Since all organisms have similar genetic systems, her work with fruit flies could lead to advances in the treatment of human diseases. It could also help doctors develop treatments tailored to individual patients based on their genomic profile.

Mackay spent a year inbreeding 200 strains of fruit flies she captured at the farmers market near campus. Twenty generations later, the insects in each line are genetically identical to each other but different from members of other strains.

For the study on alcohol tolerance, she introduced ethanol vapor into several test tubes, then measured how long it took the flies to pass out. By comparing the flies’ gene sequences, Mackay soon isolated several genes that play a role in metabolizing alcohol. For the study on aggression, she forced a group of flies to compete for a small amount of food. The aggressive flies had slight genetic differences compared to the passive flies.

Mackay’s next challenge is to find the biological pathways that translate genetic differences into cellular changes.

“It’s a great unsolved puzzle,” she says. “But once we understand the genetics behind complex traits we will transform medicine. Treatment won’t have to be trial-and-error.”

They have the potential to improve the efficiency of solar panels, extend the life of oil filters and increase the absorbency of diapers.

“In five years this is going to be a $1.4 billion industry,” Geisen says. “Nanofibers are going to touch everybody’s lives.”

Like a lot of recent graduates with advanced degrees, Geisen feels lucky to have a well-paying job in high-growth field. But his MBA from NC State did more than help him land a job. The university’s focus on entrepreneurship gave him the tools to turn a four-unit course into a for-profit business.

At NC State, Geisen and a small team of students worked with Miles C. Wright and other executives-in-residence in the Technology and Entrepreneurship Commercialization program. The team evaluated the market potential of several patented innovations before focusing on nanofiber technology developed by Dr. Orlin Velev, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.

Today, Geisen is vice president of product development at Xanofi, a company that has licensed Velev’s technology and is marketing innovative custom nanofiber solutions across several industries. Wright, an experienced business executive, serves as CEO.

“Our company has gotten off to a quick start,” Geisen says. “We have those two contradictory characteristics that seem vital when starting a company. We’re very focused and we’re very nimble.”

The 20-year-old undergraduate was less than a month into a three-month odyssey that would take him across 10 Latin American countries spanning more than 5,000 miles.

“I wanted to give up,” he says. “I was filthy, hungry and exhausted.”

But Flores pressed on.

By the time he returned to campus in August, Flores had experienced many of the rigors facing immigrants traveling north to the United States. He was picked up and interrogated by border agents in Colombia, sidelined for several days with a paralyzed leg after encountering a poison dart frog in Panama and forced to beg for spoiled vegetables in a Honduran market when he ran low on money.

The day he arrived in Juarez, Mexico, on the U.S. border, gangs fighting for control of the region’s drug trade killed 52 people in the city.

Flores made most of the journey on foot, walking up to 12 hours a day when he couldn’t hitch a ride with a stranger or jump on the back of a bus. Throughout the journey, he took more than 20,000 photos, documenting both the beauty and the poverty of the region.

Flores hopes his photos and experiences will help educate Americans about Latin American culture and the difficulties facing people in the region, especially those who make the dangerous “walk of the immigrants” to reach the United States.

Flores, who is majoring in graphic design and business administration, is selling prints of the photos online and using the proceeds to support an impoverished elementary school in Mexico as part of the Caldwell Fellows program.

But if you have a hard time believing in miracles, meet Benny Best.

Best was over 40 when he got his first job, an entry-level position punching holes in the pockets of military uniforms at RLCB in Raleigh. It’s a fairly unremarkable job, except for the fact that Best is blind. Five years later, he runs some of the company’s most complex machinery.

“I never knew I could work,” he says. “When I lost my vision, that was basically the end of my life. I don’t know why they hired me. But it opened up a whole new world.”

RLCB has made a business out of opening doors, employing 150 blind and visually impaired adults who manufacture everything from pillows and mattresses to fleece jackets and tactical gear for the U.S. Army. The company also runs a full-service call center that provides technical support, market intelligence and Web chat for business clients.

The secret behind RLCB’s success isn’t just remarkable employees. For the past three years, the company has worked with the Industrial Extension Service at NC State to foster innovation, improve efficiencies and strengthen its market position.

The results speak for themselves. In the past 18 months RLCB has increased revenue by $4 million, added 40 jobs and opened up a research and development department to maintain its competitive edge. For longtime employees, like Best, RLCB now offers a greater measure of job security.

RLCB’s relationship with NC State may feel like magic, says CEO Janet Griffey, but it’s based on a practical concept: “Change is inevitable, growth is intentional.”