Biological systems engineering M.S. student Ismael Mayanja is a problem solver. Inspired by the need to help farmers in his home country of Uganda, Mayanja is refining his skills as a postharvest engineer at UC Davis to design machines that help reduce crop loss after harvest and improve food production systems around the world.
Though many restaurants and markets pride themselves on serving “farm to fork” food, what happens between those steps is one of the most important part of the food production process. With improper handling and storage, food can start to rot or grow mold, which makes it unusable and unsafe for consumers.
Vivian Vuong’s ’17, Ph.D. ’21, drive to study agricultural engineering stemmed from her undergraduate research with Biological and Agricultural Engineering Professor and Smart Farm Big Idea Champion David Slaughter. Today she’s working on gathering genetic data on plants to increase yield in the field – a method that can improve food access and the environment.
UC Davis graduate students made their presence known at this year’s Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Food Engineering Division graduate student poster competition, taking home all three top spots.
The University of California, Davis, has been awarded $20 million as part of a multi-institutional collaboration to establish an institute focused on enabling the next-generation food system through the integration of artificial intelligence, or AI, technologies. The award is part of a larger investment announced today (Aug. 26) by the National Science Foundation, or NSF, in partnership with several federal agencies — distributing a total of $140 million to fund seven complementary AI research institutes across the nation.
A new startup out of the UC Davis biological and agricultural engineering (BAE) department has developed an award-winning system that uses insect larvae to produce animal feed with less land and a smaller carbon footprint. Fresh off success in UC Berkeley’s 2020 Big Ideas competition and UC Davis’ 2019 Big Bang! Business Competition, BioMilitus is poised to use their lab-based research to make the planet more sustainable.
Associate professor Isaya Kisekka has received the 2020 Irrigation Association (IA) Excellence in Education Award. The annual award recognizes outstanding educators in irrigation, water management and water conservation. Kisekka was cited for being “instrumental in reviving the irrigation curriculum at UC Davis” by co-developing three new irrigation courses and helping create the Irrigation and Water Management minor.
Adjunct professor Zhongli Pan has received a Tanner Award for highest citations in the Journal of Food Science in 2017 for his paper, “Novel Umami Ingredients: Umami Peptides and Their Taste.” The paper, published in December 2016, is a literature review of research on umami peptides.
From creating fragile crop harvest-aiding mobile robots (FRAIL-bots) for strawberry harvesting to developing an automated robotic orchard platform designed to optimize fruit pickers’ performance, Stavros Vougioukas is addressing agricultural challenges and making an impact on California agriculture.
Ten teams of biological systems engineering seniors presented their senior design projects to the public in this year’s Engineering Design Showcase. Design Showcase is a capstone of the College of Engineering undergraduate experience and the culmination of three quarters of hard work on senior design projects, where they present the designs they built in teams for real-world clients.
