PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas – Postdoctoral research scientists, research specialists, and research technicians at the Cooperative Agricultural Research Center (CARC) have been empowered through a community learning series led by Professor Ram Ray, Ph.D. The program encompasses sharing best practices in research success, presentation, and discussion of research articles through journal clubs, presentations and workshops by prominent researchers and mentors. In continuation of these activities, Research Specialist Selamawit Woldesenbet, Ph.D., who manages the Core Labs at CARC, provided training on how to use the Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) to CARC’s postdoctoral research scientists and research specialists.  

The ICP-OES is one of the multiuser instruments in the Core Labs that has been used for several applications, including in food safety, nutrient concentration analysis of food and feed, pollution monitoring of soil samples and wastewater, analysis of soils to monitor the land used for crop growth, application of the correct dosage of fertilizer and water supply safety analysis. Therefore, the knowledge and skills in these areas are important for scientists working in the College of Agriculture and Human Sciences. 

Dr. Woldesenbet provided training to 11 research specialists and postdocs on how to use the ICP-OES. The teaching and learning focused on the basic analytical principles of the ICP-OES as well as the hardware, software, sample preparation, and troubleshooting, followed by hands-on learning in the research laboratories at CARC. This training will help them in designing their experiments and preparing their samples to be analyzed by ICP-OES. She also plans to provide additional training in the other state-of-the-art instruments, including HPLC, GC-MS, and IC, that are housed in the Core Labs. 

“Furthering your knowledge is always good,” Dr. Woldesenbet said. “I enjoyed sharing my knowledge of the Core Lab instruments and this gave me the opportunity to do that.” 

More information on diverse research areas at CARC is available through the following web portal: https://www.pvamu.edu/cafnr/research/. 

Erdogan Memili, Ph.D.
Professor and Executive Associate Director
Cooperative Agricultural Research Center
ermemili@pvamu.edu