Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station supports student research

Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station supports student research

At a time when many public institutions are being forced to reduce funding for grant programs, Auburn University’s Agricultural Experiment Station (AAES) continues to make great strides forward by expanding eligibility and by finding new funding streams to further the university’s agricultural mission.

For the first time this year, post-doctoral and graduate students are eligible for internal grant funding, reflecting the AAES’s commitment to nurturing the next generation of agricultural researchers.

Also new this year, two new grant streams will further diversify funding opportunities by specifically targeting professional development for mid-career faculty and emerging scholars.

AAES’s Agricultural Enhancement & Seed Funding Program—a competitive internal initiative—is designed to foster innovation, enhance research capabilities, and support emerging and established scholars through targeted funding opportunities.

AAES consists of five colleges: the College of Agriculture; the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment; the College of Human Sciences; the College of Sciences and Mathematics; and the College of Veterinary Medicine.

“We have been very careful with managing our resources efficiently, but we also place a priority in investing in our faculty, post-docs and graduate students,” said Sushil Adhikari, interim associate dean for research, College of Agriculture, and interim associate director, AAES.

“Our interim dean, Art Appel, believes strongly that we need to invest in our researchers to be competitive at the national level, and, as a result, we continue to fund the AAES internal grant program,” he said.

The philosophy in the AAES and the College of Agriculture is that everyone needs to work together to increase research activities, and sometimes that requires offering support to mid-career and emerging researchers, Adhikari said.

“Mid-career faculty might need to redirect their research programs to align with national and regional priorities which requires new skill sets—this funding is very helpful for that,” he said. “Also, for the emerging researchers who are still trying to establish their programs, we want to help them as much as possible through our internal funding programs.”

The college wants to ensure that when emerging researchers leave Auburn University for the next step in their careers, they are fully prepared.

“Writing proposals and mentoring graduate and undergraduate students is very critical, especially if they end up in academia,” Adhikari said. “We want them to have all the tools to be successful.” 

The AAES-AERS program consists of grants awarded across five principal AAES programs: AgR-Seed, Production Agriculture Research (PAR), AAES Equipment Funding, Mid-Career Faculty Advancement and Support (FAST), and Professional Enhancement for Emerging Researchers (PEER).

AgR-Seed is a two-year grant with a maximum request of $50,000. It supports innovative research projects in agricultural science, providing funding for new exploration and development initiatives. PAR also is a two-year grant of $50,000, and it must include a field-based research component. The equipment grants range from $5,000 to $50,000 and require a one-to-one dollar match from applicants. It supports acquisition of new laboratory or field research equipment.

The FAST grant is for mid-career faculty who want to explore new research directions or add new skill sets to be competitive at the national level. Funding is $10,000 per award, and it provides advancement and support for faculty transitioning beyond their initial research startup phase. The PEER program has two streams of funding: post-doctoral at a $10,000 funding limit and Ph.D/master’s at a $5,000 funding limit. It provides initial training and experience in grant preparation and submission for graduate and post-doctoral researchers.

The following is a list of this year’s grant recipients, in alphabetical order, followed by their department, project title and award amount.

AgR-SEED

Matthew Catalano, School of Fisheries, Aquaculture & Aquatic Sciences. Responses of small impoundment fisheries to sustain largemouth bass harvest and threadfin shad stocking, $50,000.

Hao Chen, College of Forestry, Wildlife & Environment: Enhancing productivity and drought resilience in Alabama agroforest: Targeting lignin modifications in poplars, $50,000.

Tham Hoang, School of Fisheries, Aquaculture, & Aquatic Science: Influence of microplastics on bioaccumulation and fate of PFAS and effects on freshwater snails $49,913.

Wendy Hood, Department of Biological Sciences: Mechanisms and consequences of limited mitochondrial complex respiration in mammary tissue, $49,836.

Xiangwen Kong, Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology: The trade impacts of USMCA on U.S. organic dairy markets, $50,000.

Aaron Rashotte, Department of Biological Sciences: Determining cytokinin potential to counter heat wave stress in tomato, $50,000.

Nitin Singh, Department of Crop, Soil & Environmental Science: Beneath the surface: Tracing phosphorus pathways, Solutions, and trade-offs in agricultural watersheds of Alabama, $50,000.

Brandon Smith, Department of Animal Science, Comparative metabolic responses of Bos taurus and Bos indicus cattle to Southeastern U.S. forage systems, $50,000.

Di Tian, Department of Crop, Soil & Environmental Science: Improving soil moisture-based agriculture drought assessment in a changing climate, $50,000.

Rodey Tollerson, Department of Biological Sciences: Genetic understanding of rumen microbiome dynamics through a synthetic competitive co-culture, $50,000.

Geoffrey Williams, Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology: Developing a novel approach to managing honeybee parasitic mites, $48,528.

Sunjae Won, Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology: Irrigation and insurance in the Southeast: Advancing risk management to Alabama agriculture, $49,999.

Jacek Wower, Department of Animal Science: Discovery of an unexpected Nsp8 activity in bovine coronavirus infections, $20,000.

PAR

Paulo Gimenez Cremonez, Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology: Evaluation of UAAS-applied insecticides to mitigate thrips and tomato spotted wilt virus in Alabama tomato production, $50,000.

Jenny Koebernick, Department of Crop, Soil & Environmental Science: Determining the genetic mechanisms behind soybean resistance to Cercospora leaf blight, $50,000.

Neha Potnis, Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology: Optimizing disease resistance longevity for sustainable pepper production, $49,998.

Sushan Ru, Department of Horticulture: Identifying disease-tolerant strawberry cultivars to protect Alabama growers from Neopestalotiopsis, $50,000.

EQUIPMENT

Zachary Noel, Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology: Critical improvement for research capacity with the purchase of a new microbiological plate reader, $22,374.76.

Thorsten Knappenberger, Department of Crop, Soil & Environmental Science: LiDAR Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, $49,450.

Simerjeet Virk, Deptartment of Biosystems Engineering: Agricultural tractor autonomous system, $33,305.

Mid-Career Faculty Support (FAST)

Ruiqing Miao, Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology: Are all innovations created equal? Evaluating agriculture innovations by startup, large agribusinesses, and public research institutions in the United States, $10,000.

PEER (Group A: post-doctoral applicants)

Yagya Adhikari (Dianna Bourassa, faculty mentor), Department of Poultry Science: Identify possible sources of Salmonella during harvest and processing of grow-out broilers to reduce its contamination in final raw products in poultry processing facilities, $9,997.

Jihye An (Sungeun Cho, faculty mentor), Department of Poultry Science: A rapid quality assessment method for reheated chicken using instrumental evaluation, $10,000.

Syed Fuad, (Valentina Hartarska, faculty mentor), Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology: Mapping SNAP deserts in Alabama: A data-driven approach to monitoring and prediction, $10,000.

Farshad Feyzbar (Hossein Jahromi, faculty mentor), Department of Biosystems Engineering: ALEX monoliths: sustainable, low-cost, and electrically regenerable sorbent for scalable CO₂ capture across dilute to concentrated streams, $10,000.

Kaitlin Fischer (Alicia Powers, faculty mentor), Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology: Discerning small-scale farmers’ perspective on agrifood labor shortages and solutions in the Alabama Black Belt, $10,000.

Rakesh Kumar (Jasmeet Lamba, faculty mentor), Department of Biosystems Engineering: Influence of microplastic contamination on phosphorus availability in agricultural soil under varying soil chemistry, $10,000.

Gabriel Proano Pena (David Blersch, faculty mentor), Department of Biosystems Engineering: Fuzzy logic-based digital twin framework for Spirogyra monitoring in Alabama, $10,000.

Shijinaraj Manjankattil (Diana Bourassa, faculty mentor), Department of Poultry Science: Comparative efficacy of antimicrobials against salmonella biofilms isolated from poultry production, $10,000.

 PEER (Group B - AU graduate student applicants)

Bridget Bafowa (Adam Rabinowitz, faculty mentor), Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology: Understanding how U.S. farms use risk management strategies to mitigate financial stress and reduce farm exits, $5,000.

Nabin Bhandari (Ruiqing Miao, faculty mentor), Department of Agricultural Economics & Rural Sociology: Spatio-temporal variation of crop loss causes and determinants of participation in federal crop insurance program in Alabama and the Southeast, $5,000.

Greeshma Bharathan (S. Srikumar, faculty mentor), Department of Poultry Science: Unravelling the role of amino acid biosynthesis and metabolism in the persistence of salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium on food matrices, $5,000 award.

Dylan Brown (Nannan Liu, faculty mentor), Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology: Combating insecticide resistance in poultry litter beetles: Toward sustainable, scienced-based IPM solutions, $5,000.

Savannah Busby (Sushan Ru, facultry mentor), Department of Horticulture: Understanding the mechanisms of drought tolerance in blueberries through transcriptomic analysis, $5,000.

Clarisse Cochran-Chipura (Marlee Transel-Hayse, faculty mentor), Department of Horticulture: Trained panel Evaluation of Rabbiteye and Southern Highbush blueberries grown in Alabama, $5,000.

Savannah Douglas (Jason Sawyer, faculty mentor), Department of Animal Science: Leveraging nutrient-rich beef by-products to create sustainable ground beef alternatives, $5,000.

Peter Ephraim (Marlee Transel-Hayse, faculty mentor), Department of Horticulture: Cell wall microscopy to elucidate firmness variability in Rabbiteye and Southern Highbush Blueberries, $5,000.

Noor Fatima (Hossein Jahromi, faculty mentor), Department of Biosystems Engineering: Mannich base derivative of Epicatechin Gallate (ECG) for enhancing the oxide stability of bio-lubricants, $5,000.

Md Jahid Hasan (Sushil Adhikari, faculty mentor), Department of Biosystems Engineering: Bio-oil spray atomization and combustion analysis for renewable aviation fuel, $5,000.

Raziyeh Jokar (Hossein Jahromi, faculty mentor) Department of Biosystems Engineering: Toward a circular carbon economy: Life cycle and techno-economic assessment of waste-derived activated cardon from renewable-energy-driven biomass pyrolysis, $5,000.

Sagar Kafle (Sushil Adhikari, faculty mentor) Department of Biosystems Engineering: Thermochemical valorization of multilayer food packaging films to mitigate pollution, $5,000.

Harleen Kaur (Amit Morey, faculty mentor) Department of Poultry Science: A dual-action strategy to reduce cooking-induced carcinogens in poultry meat via synergistic effect of cold plasma and bioactive compounds, $5000.

Risheek Khanna (Aaron Rashotte, faculty mentor) COSAM, Department of Biological Science: An integrative approach towards improving tomato development by utilizing cytokinin as a tool for sugar reallocation, $5,000.

Rishav Kumar (Dianna Bourassa, faculty mentor), Department of Poultry Science: Metabolomics analysis for identification of the pathway associated with controlled atmosphere and electric stunning coupled with water immersion and air chilling on muscle-specific meat quality during retail display storage, $5,000.

Zoe Little (Neha Potnis, faculty mentor), Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology: Optimizing research methods into variability of seed-associated endophytes in tomato, $5,000.

Kaylan Martin (Ian Butts, faculty mentor), School of Fisheries, Aquaculture & Aquatic Sciences: Developing biomarkers for egg quality to increase hybrid catfish production, $5,000.

Arpan Parajuli (Jeff Coleman, faculty mentor), Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology: Assessing the role of putative dispensable chromosomes in pathogenicity of Fusarium solani species complex isolates on soybean, $5,000.

Sakshi Pathania (Sushan Ru, faculty mentor) Department of Horticulture: Improve the performance and genetic diversity of Rabbviteye blueberries for Alabama, $5,000.

Anyi Reyes (Alvaro Sanz-Saez, faculty mentor) Department of Crop, Soil, & Environmental Science: Evaluating the capacity of cover crops to remobilize deep soil nutrients in controlled greenhouse conditions, $5,000.

Somraj Shrestha (Jeff Coleman, faculty mentor), Department of Entomology & Plant Pathology: Exploring the endophytic colonization of a highly virulent Beauveria bassinana isolate, $5,000.

Hagos Sibhatu (Hossein Jahromi, faculty mentor), Department of Biosystems Engineering: Transforming forestry waste into battery-grade graphite: A circular approach to LIB anodes

Hamid Syed (Tanzeel Rehman, faculty mentor), Department of Biosystems Engineering: Hybrid aerial-ground robotic vision system for precision inventory and quality assessment in ornamental nurseries, $4,966.

Malsha Thennakoon (Aaron Rashotte, faculty mentor), Department of Biological Science: Spatio-temporal analysis of tissue-specific cytokinin function using pTCSn: GUS tomato lines, $5,000.

Vivian Usha (Hossein Jahromi), Department of Biosystems Engineering: Biochar-derived graphene oxide for green corrosion inhibitor applications, $5,000.

Tim Hooper, Proposal Development Specialist III and Certified Researcher with the College of Agriculture, contributed to this article.