Women in STEM

uc davis grad slam alice dien graduate student biological agricultural engineering

Alice Dien Hits it Out of the Park, Advances to UC Grad Slam Finals with Revolutionary Drying Research

  • by Noah Pflueger-Peters

Biological Systems Engineering Ph.D. student Alice Dien won first place at UC Davis Grad Slam on April 6. Her winning research presentation “Cooling Down with the New Hot Air: The Future of Drying in Agriculture” earned her a $2,500 prize, and she will be competing for the top prize at the University of California Grad Slam Finals against winners from the other nine UC campuses on Friday, May 6.

Alice Dien with Graduate Studies Dean Jean-Pierre Delplanque

A Dry Idea to Save Energy and Preserve Food

  • by Kat Kerlin
Have you ever stopped to think about how much energy it takes to dry the coffee beans in your coffee? Or the corn in the tortilla chip you’re crunching? Or the rice in your sushi roll? Probably not — you might lose your appetite. Biological Systems Engineering Ph.D. student Alice Dien has thought about it a lot and come up with an intriguing solution: Desiccation.
uc davis biological agricultural engineering kathryn tarver machining ghausi medal

Kathryn Tarver: Machining for a Better World

  • by Noah Pflueger-Peters
Growing up, Kathryn Tarver would have never believed she would one day be an engineer. Now, she is graduating with a B.S. in biological systems engineering, having become a dedicated machinist and problem-solver.
uc davis biological agricultural engineering atv youth safety khorsandi fathallah

Keeping Youth Safe on Agricultural ATVs

  • by Noah Pflueger-Peters

Researchers in the department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering (BAE) are working to make agriculture safer for children. With a new five-year project funded through the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety (NCCRAHS), assistant cooperative extension specialist Farzaneh Khorsandi and professor Fadi Fathallah will study all-terrain vehicle (ATV) safety to prevent childhood injury.

uc davis biological agricultural engineering algae fungi protein food

UC Davis engineers fight food insecurity through sustainable agriculture

As the world’s population is expected to reach 9–10 billion by 2050 according to the U.N., the world must double food production to meet demand while using and reusing the resources we have left in a sustainable manner. Ruihong Zhang and Isaya Kisekka at UC Davis are rising to meet the challenge by finding new ways to sustainably produce food, while conserving resources by using microbes to produce new sources of protein and managing and irrigating crops with pinpoint precision.
uc davis biological agricultural engineering graduate student vivian vuong phenotyping

Precision Agriculture: Genetic Research Aids in Food Production

  • by Ashley Han
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.
Jennifer Nill with her poster

BAE Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Nill wins SIMB poster competition

By Noah Pflueger-Peters

Chemical and Biological Engineering Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Nill won the 2019 student poster competition at the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB)’s Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals (SBFC) for her poster, “A multi-scale study to elucidate the role of cellulose physiochemical properties in productive binding of cellulases.”

Jennifer Payne-Strimaitis Seminar at UC Davis BAE

BAE Alumna Jennifer Payne‐Strimaitis Talks About Her Career Post Graduation

  • by Benjamin Bradford Dally

Transitioning from college life to a career is rarely the easiest move to make in life. After graduation there is a world of possibilities, but often times there are few roads to walk down and almost never any doors held open. It is something all graduates eventually have to go through and during the Winter Quarter Seminar Series’ first event, Jennifer Payne‐Strimaitis, discussed how she built the road to her career.

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