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.
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.
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.
When Yolo County issued a shelter-in-place order on March 18, the College of Engineering’s graduate student teaching assistants (TAs) and faculty members had less than two weeks to transition their spring classes online. While spring 2020 will be remembered as anything but a normal quarter, innovation in teaching and community among students and TAs have helped keep the college running and make the best of the situation.
Dr. Jennifer Nill is this year’s recipient of the Zuhair A. Munir Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the College of Engineering. She received her Ph.D. in chemical engineering in December 2019 as part of associate professor Tina Jeoh's lab.
Congratulations to PhD candidate Kelley Drechsler, who won first place in the student poster competition at the 2019 Irrigation Association conference in Las Vegas! Kelley’s poster focused on a remote wireless valve control system for irrigating almond orchards by variety. Her work is currently funded by the almond board of California.
The 2019 Irrigation Association conference was co-located with the National Ground Water Association and the American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association.
The Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering (BAE) is pleased to host the inaugural American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) CA/NV Section Student Rally on January 17-20, 2020 at UC Davis.
The student rally is an annual gathering of students from ASABE student chapters and other related programs from across the region, held at different schools each year. Attendees explore the host school, network, attend technical presentations and tours on and off campus, socialize and gain leadership experience over four days.
During droughts, California’s nut farmers are often attacked for their water use, though the crops they produce are a cornerstone of the state’s economy. Third-year Ph.D. student Kelley Drechsler is taking on this problem by working to help these farmers irrigate using less water without affecting their product.
Congratulations to graduate student Kyle Cheung, who placed in the ASABE Oral/Poster Competition within the NRES technical community for his work entitled, “Identification of Drought Stress in Turfgrass Using Multispectral and Hyperspectral Remote Sensing”. Cheung presented this work during the ASABE Annual International Meeting in Boston, Massachusetts in July.
Cheung researches drought stress in Assistant Cooperative Extension Specialist Ali Pourezza's lab.
Congratulations to graduate student Ryan Kawakita of the Jeoh lab, who has won a fellowship from the USDA. Ryan recently learned of his award of the predoctoral fellowship from USDA NIFA, specifically for education and workforce development (EWD) with the intent to develop the next generation of professionals in the food and agricultural sciences.
