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Four Kentucky State University students took home top awards at a statewide scientific conference recently.

Megan McCoun, Tavin Marshall, Ariel Smith, and Tori Farrow all placed at the Kentucky Academy of Sciences annual meeting, held Saturday, Nov. 3 at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green.

Megan McCoun placed second in the agricultural sciences poster presentation category with her work titled “Effects of live yeast supplementation on rumen fluid metabolome of beef cattle.”

Tavin Marshall placed first in the agricultural sciences oral presentation category with his work titled “Evaluation of drug-resistant Enterobacteriaceae on produce from small farms.”

Ariel Smith placed first in the geography poster presentation category with her work titled “The spatial distribution of local and organic food availability in Kentucky.”

Tori Farrow placed second in the geography oral presentation category with her work titled “Urban heat and demographic change: A comparative analysis of the largest 100 cities of the temperate-forested ecoregion of the U.S. using machine learning.”

All are undergraduate students in the College of Agriculture, Communities, and the Environment.

Kentucky State University had 28 students and numerous faculty and staff submit research abstracts to the Kentucky Academy of Sciences meeting, an annual event that brings together more than 600 students, staff and faculty from across Kentucky for educational sessions and judged competitions. The organization works to foster scientific discovery and understanding across the state.