News

Two BAE students won top honors at the ASABE Annual International Meeting with undergraduate poster awards: Vivian Vuong won first place and Matthew Paddock won third place. Vuong was advised by Prof. David Slaughter and Paddock was advised by Professor Jean VanderGheynst and Dr. Brendan Higgins.

The posters present an engineering project useful to agriculture and related areas and the awards include a cash prize.  Congratulations to Vivian and Matthew for their outstanding achievements!

Congratulations to professors David Slaughter and Fadi Fatallah, whose paper “Co-robotic intra-row weed control system” has won the Biosystems Engineering Outstanding Paper Adward. This was presented at the EurAgEng Assembly yesterday in Aahrus University (Denmark).

The paper was co-authored by Manuel Pérez-Ruíza, David C. Slaughter, Fadi A. Fathallah, Chris J. Gliever and Brandon J. Miller.  It  appeared in Biosystems Engineering, Vllume 126, October 2014.

The Vice Provost and Associate Chancellor of Global Affairs, Joanna Regulsksa, announced that Dr. Fadi Fathallah has been appointed the Associate Vice Provost for Global Education and Services, Global Affairs as of July 1, 2016.  She writes:

Galen Tigan is a Staff Research Associate and the Safety Coordinator for the Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory (FCCL) in Byron, CA. The FCCL is a satellite research lab that is working to save the endangered Delta Smelt. Galen’s efforts to prepare the facility and staff for the Annual Comprehensive Lab Safety Review and the IACUC inspections have yielded outstanding results. He is a member of the BAE Safety Committee, and attends the monthly meetings via teleconference.

Congratulations to Bipin Kumar, a postdoc in Professor Ning Pan’s lab, who won the UCD Award for Postdoctoral Research Excellence 2015-2016!

Dr. Bipin Kumar (R), is a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow and started working in Dr. Pan’s group in September of 2014.  His research focuses on biomedical applications of memory polymers.

Members from the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering attended the 2016 ASABE Annual International Meeting in Orlando, Florida during July, making technical presentations on new research findings, participating in society committee meetings and other society functions, and engaging in collaborative activities with other ASABE members from around the world.

Congratulations to Sanliang Zhang, who’s project, Super Lithium Technology, placed in the top 5 of 42 entries.  In addition, the project won the Clean Tech Award!

Sanliang worked on the project with Colin Lewis, a Fiber and Polymer Science major.  Dr. Ning Pan was the faculty leader for the project.

Marianne Scokzek wrote the following about it for the UC Davis News website:

Thuy Tuong Nguyen, a postdoc in Professor David Slaughter’s lab, won the Award for Excellence in Postdoctoral Research, presented by the department of Graduate Studies. This award is offered to recognize the vital role that Postdoctoral Scholars play in maintaining the reputation of excellent research at the University of California, Davis.

Congratulations to Amanda Hildebrand, a PhD student in Biological Systems Engineering, who was named recipient of the 2016 Kinsella Memorial Prize by the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.

Dr. Gail Bornhorst was one of five 2015-16 Mentoring at Critical Transitions Fellowship awardees, which are presented by the School of Graduate Studies.  Her project, titled Enhancing teaching and presentation skills using microteaching principles, and her graduate student mentees, Yamile Mennah, Sarah O’Meara and Krista Drechsler, are featured on the graduate school webpage.

Congratulations to Dr. Borhorst!