In many academic circles, innovation is imagined as a lab-to-market pipeline that travels through patent filings, venture rounds, and coastal research hubs. But a growing movement inside U.S. universities is pushing students toward a different frontier: solving real engineering problems alongside rural communities whose challenges directly shape national food security. A compelling example of this shift can be found in the story of Kiyoko 'Kik' Hayano, a second-year mechanical engineering student at MIT, and her work through MIT D-Lab with Keo Fish Farms, a commercial aquaculture operation in the Arkansas Delta. Hayano's journey ' from a small, windswept town in rural Wyoming to MIT's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and on to a working Arkansas fish farm ' offers a tangible glimpse into how applied engineering, academic partnerships, and on-the-ground innovation can create new models for regenerative agriculture in the United States. Hayano grew up in Powell, Wyoming (population...
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