Keeler Professorship fuels KU collaboration on Mars simulant research
LAWRENCE — Steve Gurysh, associate professor of visual art, has been awarded the KU Keeler Family Intra-University Professorship for the 2026-2027 academic year. Established in the 1980s, the professorship supports faculty in their pursuit of collaboration across disciplines.
Gurysh’s most recent sculptural and research explorations incorporate Mars Global Simulant (MGS), an engineered material that replicates the mineral profile of samples collected and analyzed by NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover.
Through the Keeler Professorship, Gurysh plans to expand extraterrestrial simulant research through his partnership with Benjamin Sikes, professor and senior scientist of ecology & evolutionary biology. Sikes’ research examines MGS to better understand species survival in nutrient-deficient soils under extreme Earth conditions.
“This year’s recipient embodies the spirit behind the Keeler Family Intra-University Professorship by bridging two seemingly different fields and producing new discoveries and opportunities for the broader university community,” said Amy Mendenhall, vice provost for faculty affairs. “We are excited to see how this collaboration develops.”
Together, Gurysh and Sikes connect art and science through their research on planetary simulants. Through the Keeler Professorship, they plan to expand their work by organizing a cohort of interdisciplinary researchers, presenting their research findings and preparing a proposal for the University of Kansas General Research Fund in spring 2027.
Gurysh also plans to create a new body of sculptural work based on new biomes and cultural artifacts he will explore during two upcoming summer residencies. He will go on to pursue additional exhibition opportunities in the 2026-2027 academic year.
Gurysh will also explore the possibility of developing a new custom Mars simulant based on emerging research, which contributes to the Sikes Microbial Lab sample library and new sculpture projects.
Additionally, Gurysh and Sikes will co-develop a new cross-listed course in visual art and evolutionary biology at KU.
“While exploring the ontological complexity of planetary simulants from perspectives in the arts, sciences and humanities, our collaboration will conjure deep questions about future exchanges with other planets,” Gurysh said. “When asking how non-Earth environments may influence design, morphology and language, we also wonder what ideological blind spots and decolonial alternatives exist within a line of inquiry that is dominated by notions of extraction, human expansion and the centricity of biological life discovery amidst accelerating ecological crises on our home planet.”
Keeler Professorships provide tenured faculty with the opportunity to strengthen their knowledge of an academic specialty, broaden or achieve greater depth in a defined field of scholarship or gain competence in a new area of scholarly endeavor. As part of this award, Gurysh will present his work at a spring Red Hot Research event, a cross-disciplinary event series hosted by The Commons that highlights collaborative KU research partnerships.