News and Photos

Dr. Shiying Tian, a Bio&Ag Postdoctoral Researcher in our department, is the lead author of a paper on a new computer model called DRAINMOD-FOREST.  The model forecasts the long-term impacts of forest land-use decisions and to date the model has provided very accurate predictions. Dr. Tian paper was just released in the Journal of Environmental Quality. The journal is a peer-reviewed, international journal of environmental quality in natural and agricultural ecosystems published by the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) (https://www.crops.org/news-media/releases/2012/0508/539/). NCSU News has also released an article about the new model (http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wms-youssef-forest/) .

Senior Design 2012

Thursday April 27th Senior Design Presentations were held at Weaver Labs. Students presented their year long projects to faculty, classmates, and avaliable BAE advisory board members. Ten groups presented and displayed their projects. PHOTOS

Student Awards Banquet

The Student Awards Banquet was April 26, 2012 following the Senior Design Presentations. It was held at the JC Raulston Arboretum in the Ruby McSwain Education Center. Attending were 85 students, faculty, staff, scholar donors and the department advisory board.

Social hour

Dinner

Award Presentations

Dr. Thomas Losordo retirement took place in the lobby of Weaver Labs Administration building April 23, 2012. There was a nice crowd including several university deans at the brunch to wish Dr. Losordo a happy retirement. Fish was served at brunch in honor of Dr. Losordos Aquaculture work.  SEE PHOTOS of the brunch.

Dr. Losordo has been a research and extension engineer at NCSU for a little over 24 years, with the last 10 years working in the BAE department. In this department, he held the position of extension leader for 4 years and additionally, worked for the University of North Carolina General Administration as a faculty advisor for military affairs for two years.

Losordo is internationally recognized for his work in aquaculture having made significant contributions in the area of indoor recirculating aquaculture technology.

He has been the main force behind NC States well known Lake Wheeler Road Fish Barn, a research and demonstration facility for recirculating fish tank farming. Losord also served as Principal Investigator of the Marine Aquaculture Reseach Center near Morehead City, and was also the Co-PI for the College of Ag. and Life Sciences at the LaPaz Sturgeon facility in Happy Valley, North Carolina. His research developments in this area have brought substantial improvements to operational methods and equipment design which are now used widely in the industry.

Dr. Losordo and his team have provided essential technical assistance to established indoor tank-based aquaculture farm businesses and assisted with many new startups helping to support the development of new businesses in North Carolina. His strong relationships with the aquaculture industry has been instrumental in bringing over $5 M in monetary and aquaculture facility bequeaths to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Bio & Ag Research

Dr. Sanjay Shah research was highlighted in a January NCSU News Release. The title of the release is New Technology Removes Air Pollutants, May Reduce Energy Use in Animal Ag. Facilities  Dr. Shah research and extension work takes him to regional animal farm facilities to understand the problem of air pollution and assist farmers with strategies to improve it.  What is exciting about this research is the potential energy savings the technology might bring to livestock farmers. Cost savings generally facilitates the adoption of new technologies and in this case both animals, farmers and the environment are the beneficiaries'.

January 31st. Eight pots of Chili were served to anyone interested in a hot hot hot lunch at Weaver Labs. The chili was made by faculty, staff ,and students to share. About 30 people enjoyed lunch and four crock pots were scraped to the bottom. The department served chips, drinks,salsa and toppings. See the Chili Cookoff photos

Stikeleather honored for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Dr. Larry Stikeleather, PE, was honored at the 22 annual Celebration of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The luncheon was held at the Dorothy and Roy Park Alumni Center November 22, 2011. The University celebrated 47 U.S. Patents issued in FY2011. Stikeleather along with Dr. Bill Roberts (Mechanical and Aerospace Engr.) and Dr. Henry Lamb (Chemical and Biomolecular Engr.) and Mr. Tim Turner (Permafuels Inc.) were recognized for U.S. Patent 7,816,570 Process for Conversion of Biomass to Fuel. This patent covers process for making “drop-in” transportations fuels (diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, etc.) from renewable lipid feedstocks such as vegetable oils, animal fats, and algal oil. The research was funded by the NC Biofuels Center.

The patent has been licensed to Avjet Biotech Inc. which has launched a new company called Red Wolf Refining.  Red Wolf Refining is one of four new startup companies growing out of NCSU Research in 2011. In addition to the U.S. Patent the team has numerous foreign patents pending. Dr. Stikeleather has received 12 US Patents during his career and has filed two new patent disclosures in 2011.

Some of Stikeleather's other accomplishments are that he pioneered and patented a concept for active seat suspension technology, along with an on-board computer control, which allowed the commercialization of active seats on agricultural tractors. His work has been in a wide range of topics, including active vibration control for seat suspensions for tractors and construction machinery, rapid extraction methods for bioactive compounds from plant material, and biofuels conversion processes.

For the past 26 years, Stikeleather has been training tomorrow’s innovative engineers though his outstanding teaching program.  He is currently teaching Analytical Methods in Mechanical Design and Introduction to BAE Methods. He has authored or coauthored more than 45 refereed journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings, and technical publications. 

A 41-year member of ASABE holding a class of Fellow, Stikeleather has contributed his leadership and expertise to various Society technical committees, including the Textbooks and Monographs and PE Exam review committees. He was an ASABE Distinguished Lecturer in the tractor design series entitled Operator Seats for Agricultural Equipment.

Stikeleather’s other awards and honors include the Society of Automotive Engineers Technical Board Certificate of Appreciation in Recognition of Outstanding Contributions to the ASAE Human Factors Committee, an Acoustical Society of America Certificate of Appreciation for Significant Contributions to ANSI Standards, and ASABE Wisconsin Section Engineer of the Year Award. He has been an active member of the Society of Automotive Engineers for more than 40 years.

BAE is also proud to have BAE Associate Faculty member Dr. Kenneth R. Swartzel as a recipient of the Innovators of the Year Award.

See BAE Faculty Achievers for more about Dr Swartzel and other awards that faculty have earned this year.

Visit The Office of Technology Transfer to learn more about NC State Innovation and Patents.

On September 30th a reception for this year’s 2011 Outstanding Alumnus was held in Weaver Labs Administration Building. A large crowd of faculty, alumni, graduate students, and staff were on hand to celebrate the event with Dr. Jones and his wife.  The Jones traveled from Florida for the event and they also attended the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences dinner honoring the entire college’s departmental award recipients.

Dr. Jones is very deserving of this award to learn why please read his biographical below.

Photos of the BAE Reception.

Dr James Jones Biographical

Dr. James Jones is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Florida and Director of the Florida Climate Institute.  Dr. Jones received the PhD in BAE from NCSU in 1975 under the direction of the late Dr. Henry Bowen and Dr. Robert Sowell.  Jim received the BS in Agricultural Engineering from Texas Tech in 1967 and MS in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from Mississippi State in 1971.  Jim spent 10 years with USDA-ARS as a Research Engineer concurrently with 2 years as an Affiliate Assistant Professor at Mississippi State before joining the Agricultural Engineering Department at the University of Florida as an Associate Professor in 1977.

Dr. Jones is internationally recognized as a leader in the development and application of biological models for agricultural systems. He is the principal architect of the Decision Support Systems for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT), which combines physical and biological models for 26 crops with data bases and software tools for application by scientists, engineers, climatologists, and economists to address problems critical to agricultural production, water usage, and environmental impact.  The DSSAT system of models has been used extensively in over 100 countries worldwide and provides the basis for approximately 75% of the national and international studies to assess impacts of climate and climate change on crops and soils.   Dr. Jones and colleagues have been innovative in applying these models to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative production systems for responding to changes in climate as well as other important issues such as sequestering soil carbon and incorporating genetics to optimize plant breeding for target climates and soil conditions.  Well over 1500 researchers and practitioners worldwide have been trained to use the DSSAT models. As an author or co-author of over 290 publications, a search of science direct for citations that refer to DSSAT and its component models returns over 34,000 journal citations and 1800 book citations, by far the most widely cited of all cropping system models. Dr. Jones and his team have made tremendous positive impacts on food production globally and on our ability to assess the impacts of climate change on agricultural sustainability.

The significance of Dr. Jones’ work has been acknowledged through his advanced rank at the University of Florida, through the careers of many scientists he has trained and 21 graduate students and 18 post docs he has mentored, and through numerous awards and honors. He is an elected Fellow of 3 Professional Societies - ASABE, SSSA, and ASA; has been recognized by 4 international awards; and received 3 superior paper awards.  Dr. Jones and his wife Jean married in 1966; have 3 daughters (Joanna, Janene, and Jennifer) and 7 grandchildren. Dr. Jones retired from the University of Florida Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department in February, 2011.

Dr. Jennings receives Outstanding Leadership Award at the biennial Southern Region Water Conference in Athens, Ga held September 13-16, 2011. It was given for his work with WECO. WECO works with communities to build capacity for collaborative water resource management within North Carolina. Dr. Jennings is an extension water quality coordinator for North Carolina.

The NCSU ASABE Club began the year with a cookout for all students interested in the club. Attending the cookout were about 50 to 60 students who enjoyed hamburgers with fix in’s and homemade desserts. Students also played volleyball, corn hole and some relays. This year’s officers were pleased with the turnout and hope to have an active year of events. Advisors for the club this year are Drs. Mike Burchell and Andrew Hale.See more photos of the cookout.

Why not consider attend Bio & Ag hosted conferences?  The conferences feature industry expert speakers in addition to Bio & Ag faculty and subject specific professionals. Some are held here in North Carolina and others are offered around the country.

See: Bio & Ag workshops and conferences

The department fall ice cream social held September 7th kicked off the 2011-12 school year. Students, faculty and staff greeted each other as they ate pecan crunch, strawberry, mint chocolate chip and butter almond ice cream. The ice cream comes from the Food Science Department but the crowd was all BAE.

The fall student activities should all begin as soon as the clubs get organized so keep a look out for more events. Check out the social photos and note that two of our students had some fun enjoying ice cream with everyone.

Dr. Mari Chinn, Bioprocessing Engineering has received a major award at the August 2011 ASABE Meeting in Louisville, Ky. Dr. Chinn was the 2011 recipient of the A.W. Farrall Young Educator Award. The award honors outstanding success in motivating others in the application of engineering principles to the problems of agricultural engineering. More about the ASABE Award can be found on the newly designed ASABE website.

Congratulations also goes out to two former students Dr. Michael Dukes, PE, PhD NCSU BAE 2000 received the 2011 Young Extension Worker Award and Dr. Roger M. Hoy, PhD NCSU BAE 1990 received the Evelyn E. Rosentreter Standards Award

See the Alumni Page to read the latest Bio & Ag Alumni News.

Highlites:

• Dr. Suggs Outstanding Alumni Recoginition
• Article on Agricultural Air Quality

See photos from the social

Anyone around Weaver Labs the afternoon of July 19th was invited to an impromptu melon social. Dr. Evans procured field fresh watermelon and cantaloupe which were chilled and served up under the Weaver pavilion. It was a hot day with high humidity making the cold melon’s even tastier than ever.