Auburn College of Ag, AAES Honor Top Faculty, Staff

AUBURN, Ala.—Twelve Auburn University College of Agriculture and Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station scientists who collectively brought in more than $6.2 million in research funding this year were among more than two dozen faculty and staff honored during a November college/AAES awards ceremony that recognized excellence in research, academics, Extension and international efforts.

The two top research accolades—the AAES Director’s Research Awards for Senior Faculty and Junior Faculty—were presented this year to environmental soil science professor Wes Wood in the Department of Agronomy and Soils and bioenergy and bioproducts assistant professor Sushil Adhikari in the Department of Biosystems Engineering, respectively. Wood has been on the faculty at Auburn for 21 years and in that time has secured 65 research grants totaling $6.7 million–plus. He is known nationally and internationally for his work, particularly in the areas of nutrient cycling processes and carbon sequestration. Adhikari, who came to Auburn in 2008, conducts research directed toward the ultimate goal of developing an economical process for converting biomass into fuels.

Adihikari also was among those 12 faculty members to receive Dean’s Grantsmanship Awards, which recognize scientists who have brought in grants of $250,000 or more in the course of a year. Other 2011 Grantsmanship Award recipients included associate professor Amy Wright and assistant professor Jay Spier, both from the Department of Horticulture; agronomy and soils assistant professor Brenda Ortiz; associate professor Henry Fadamiro from the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology; Department of Animal Sciences professor Jacek Wower; and, from the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures, professors Dennis Devries and Stephen Szedlmayer, associate professors Terry Hanson and Rusty Wright and assistant professors Ash Bullard and Bill Walton. Their grant awards ranged from $262,000 to almost $1.7 million.

Faculty members recognized for excellence in teaching, advising and Extension in 2011 all hail from the Department of Animal Sciences. Betsy Wagner, equine nutrition assistant professor, received the 2011 Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence; meat science assistant professor Christy Bratcher was presented the 2011 Dean’s Award for Advising Excellence; and ruminant nutrition professor Darrell Rankins was recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Extension and Outreach.

This year’s winner of the Richard L. Guthrie Award for Achievement in International Agriculture was urban entomology professor Xing Ping Hu from the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology. Hu has made distinguished achievements in teaching, research and outreach in her native China and has played a crucial role in establishing academic exchange relationships with four universities there.

Four faculty and staff members who work together to operate the National Poultry Technology Center at Auburn were recipients of the first-ever College of Agriculture Project Team Award, which was established to recognize an outstanding collaborative program in teaching, research and/or extension. Team members include Jim Donald, Extension ag engineer and biosystems engineering professor; Gene Simpson, Extension economist and professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology; Jesse Campbell, poultry housing specialist and ag program assistant in biosystems engineering; and Extension poultry house specialist Dennis Brothers.

Winners of the College of Ag/AAES 2011 Employee of the Year Awards were Hannah Dixon, art design specialist in the Office of Ag Communications and Marketing; Charles Ledbetter, agricultural technician at the E.V. Smith Research Center; Mitchell Pate, poultry science research and extension center director; and Donn Rodekohr, natural resources program adviser in agronomy and soils.

Sandy Pouncey, information technologist in the ag economics and rural sociology department, was presented the college’s 2011 Diversity Award.

Also cited during the ceremony were Wes Wood, winner of the Director’s Senior Research Award, and animal sciences professors Frank Owsley and Tom McCaskey, all of whom are involved in a regional project that has been named winner of the 2011 National Experiment Station Section Excellence in Multistate Research Award. The project, aimed at improving the sustainability of livestock and poultry production, was nominated by the Southern Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors and selected from a pool of nominees that consisted of one project each from the North Central, Northeast, Western and 1890 school experiment station directors associations.

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OFFICE OF AG COMMUNICATIONS & MARKETING
Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
3 COMER HALL, AUBURN UNIVERSITY
AUBURN, AL 36849
334-844-4877 (PHONE) 334-844-5892 (FAX)
AgComm@auburn.edu