Mandy Limiac and several ABE Ambassadors (Lina Trigg, Lauren Novak, Kasey Martineau, Garrett Illa, Kess Turner, Bridget Fitzgerald, and Emily Lintott) presented an Environmental & Natural Resources Engineering lab to some high school juniors and seniors this past weekend during the Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (IGED).

IGED is a part of the annual DiscoverE Week sponsored, in part, by the National Society of Professional Engineers. The purpose of the event is to celebrate women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) careers while inspiring girls to pursue an education in these fields. As a way of meeting the NSPE motto "Champion | Guide | Advance | Unite", our ABE Ambassadors, the outreach arm of our undergraduate programs, teamed up to represent us well! 

Professor Michael Ladisch ran in the Paradise Coast Half Marathon (& 5k) last month and continues to out-run most, if not all of us! Well done, Dr. Ladisch!

Mahmoud Nour has been selected to receive the CofA's Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship for PhD students preparing to graduate. Congratulations, Mahmoud!

ABE’s Samantha Neeno presented a Lightning Talk and a poster on her work in quantifying variability in hyperspectral data within soybean canopies at Phenome2020.  This conference fosters the development of cutting-edge plant phenomics technologies through facilitating collaboration between contemporary experts across U.S. federal agencies, prominent international institutions and organizations, as well as global industrial forces.

Purdue’s own Director of Digital Phenomics Dr. Yang Yang and Dr. Augusto Souza of the Controlled Environment Phenotyping Facility represented us at the North American & International Plant Phenotyping Networks (NAPPN and IPPN general assemblies, respectively) alongside prominent institutions across academia and industry.  Dr. Yang was elected as the new IPPN treasurer! 

Bayer supported the conference, which was organized in partnership with American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB), and offered tours of its new Crop Science Global Breeding Protected Culture Site.  This tour showcased the inspiring, large-scale application of high throughput phenomics technology on corn production.

The ABE GSA wants to extend a huge "Thank you!" to all of the participants in the 2020 Graduate Industrial Research Symposium last month. Congratulations to the winners as well:

Oral Sessions: Elizabeth Wachs, Casey Hooker, Diana Ramirez, and Belen Salazar

Three-Minute Thesis:Casey Hooker; People's Choice: Sonal Bhujbal

Poster Session Annalisa Sciancalepore, Maulik Patel, Enrico Federici, and Elizabeth Wachs

Agni Dhanabal and his research group have a new article published: "Nanosecond electric pulses rapidly enhance the inactivation of Gram-negative bacteria using Gram-positive antibiotics" in Methods and Protocols. Congratulations!

ALERT: New guidelines from the CDC that are recommending cancellation of foreign exchange programs make it more imperative that we know where our graduate students are currently carrying out their research. The Graduate School is requesting a list of all graduate students currently out of the country, even if they are not in a current level 2+ country.

Please complete the form at the link below for any on-campus graduate students you know who are currently out of the country or who have imminent travel plans. While this is targeting grad students on research and other university business, the form may also be used to record vacation and other international travel.

Submit information here: https://purdue.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a3RI1MNjGiVeY0l

Please share this request widely, and submit information as soon as possible. Information may be submitted by any faculty or staff, or the graduate students themselves.

The National AgrAbility Project along with Life Essentials, the Indiana AgVet Project, INPREPared, and the LIFE Project exhibited at the 2020 National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky, February 12 thru 15, 2020. Staff answered questions, distributed materials, and demonstrated the Life Essentials lift and Jiffy Hitch with the PTO hitch option.

Indiana AgrAbility hosted the project’s advisory board on February 24, 2020. The meeting was to obtain feedback on current activities and to receive feedback and suggestions for moving forward and funding opportunities. There were representatives from AgrAbility clients, Indiana FFA Foundation, Indiana FFA advisors, Farm Bureau, Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation Services, the INDATA Project, the AgVet Project, the LIFE Project, and the veteran’s administration representative from the lieutenant governor’s office. The discussion was lively and constructive.

Steve Swain, Indiana AgrAbility rural rehabilitation specialist, attended the quarterly meeting of the Indiana Vocational Rehabilitation Services home modification and farm modification workgroup. The workgroup is made up of home and farm assessors who work closely with vocational rehab (VR) to provide feedback and discuss current policies and procedures for our VR clients. This meeting was attended by assessors where some of the previous meeting included vendors and construction managers.

The Indiana Horticulture Conference was held in Indianapolis at the Marriott East Hotel and Conference Center. The conference provides producers, extension educators, and vendors an opportunity learn from each other and discuss relevant topics to the business. Steve Swain, Indiana AgrAbility rural rehabilitation specialist, presented a session topic of How Do I Work When My Bones Moan and Groan?