CAHS’ researchers, faculty members, and their students presented 36 oral and poster presentations at the 18th Association of 1890 Research Directors, Inc. (ARD) Research Symposium 2017, which was held from April 1-4, 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia. The 36 presentations were given by 10 scientists/faculty/post-doctoral fellows, and 19 undergraduate and 7 graduate students. The presentations covered the following topic areas: i) Animal health and production and animal products (6 abstracts); ii) food safety, nutrition, and health (8 abstracts); iii) renewable energy, natural resources, and environment (12 abstracts); iv) plant health and production and plant products (7 abstracts), and v) family, youth, community and economic development (4 abstracts).
Five students won prizes for best poster and oral presentations: three undergraduate students: Jeremy Brent (1st place – poster), Jessica Watts (2nd place – poster), and Robert Douglas (1st place – poster); and two graduate students: Nakita Bowman (2nd place – oral) and Abayomi Adekanmbi (3rd place – poster) in respective presentation categories.
CARC Scientists Alfred Parks, Gary Newton, Paul M. Johnson and Aruna Weerasooriya, and Post-Doctoral Researcher Haimanote Bayabil served as moderators for different sessions of the symposium. In addition, Eric Risch, Shaye Lewis, Ripendra Awal, Yoonsung Jung, Subhani Bandara, Maryuri Nunez de Gonzalez, Sharon McWhinney, Adela Mora-Gutierrez, Haimanote Bayabil, Almoutaz Elhassan, Paul M. Johnson, and Rahmat Attaie served as judges for oral and poster presentations. Ali Fares, CARC’s Associate Director of Research, presided over the students and faculty oral presentation sessions for the Family, Youth, Community and Economic Development section of the symposium.
In addition, Water Team Members Ripendra Awal, Haimanote Bayabil, and Ali Fares contributed to a special session on “Smart Agriculture: Drones, Robotics and Other Technologies”. Participants in this session agreed to pursue joint integrated projects through different NIFA funding opportunities involving multiple 1890 institutions and potential collaboration with the USDA- Agricultural Research Service. Fares organized and moderated this session.
During the Awards Banquet Program, the CAHS’ Alfred L. Parks was honored for sustained exemplary leadership and strong dedication to the advancement of the 1890 Land-Grant Universities.
Before and during the ARD Research Symposium, faculty, research scientists and postdocs continued training PVAMU students on how to formulate a research question, conduct experimental work, analyze the data, and present the findings to a wider audience as part of their research activities in addressing the needs of limited resource communities that CAHS-PVAMU serves.
Ali Fares
Interim Associate Director, Cooperative Agricultural Research Center
alfares@pvamu.edu
(936) 261-5019