Purdue Agriculture researchers are harnessing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to amplify their ability to solve agricultural and environmental problems.

"It works by using an oral or nasal swab from an animal or human and then transferring the sample to the paper-based devices", Verma said.

I interned with a company called SweetWater Technologies for two summers. After graduation, I’ll be their Indiana sales representative, working with farmers to be their trusted agronomic advisor and ensure they are getting the products and services that they deserve.

Kaur, a PhD student in Associate Professor Mohit Verma’s agricultural and biological engineering lab, recently published a paper about how propidium monoazide assays (PMA)—the solution many labs have used to differentiate between living and dead cells—are currently inaccurate but could be improved upon for the future.

Enzymes – proteins that speed chemical reactions – are commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry. But figuring out which enzymes might be useful can be a slow process. Assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering Karthik Sankaranarayanan has developed an algorithm for speeding up the process.

Nine U.S. grain dust explosions in 2024 caused two injuries and no fatalities, according to a nationwide annual summary.

Hinkle has recently enjoyed returning to campus to tour the new ABE building. Its renovation and expansion, dedicated in 2021, consolidated the department — by then scattered across numerous locations — into a single building on the site of the 1929 structure Hinkle knew as the Agricultural Engineering Building.

Grain handling and processing facilities in the U.S. have experienced a 10-year average of 8.4 incidents annually, said Kingsly Ambrose, professor of agricultural and biological engineering. During the last decade these incidents have led to dozens of injuries and fatalities, millions of dollars in damage, and operational downtime.

Raturi, an assistant professor in agricultural and biological engineering who runs the Agricultural Informatics Lab, specializes in an area that was once slightly obscure – the junction of open access technology and food systems. But in recent years the area has gained more attention, with Raturi as a community steward. Her current work includes development of open source support tools for farmers, toolkits for local food systems, and landscape assessment methods for biodiversity projects. The award will help her continue her upward trajectory.

Training graduate and undergraduate students how to safely operate equipment and tools in ABE’s shops and labs is a normal part of Tyler Finley’s job. But he recalls one unusual experience in which he shared the cab of a $600,000 tractor with a student who had never been behind the wheel of any vehicle. “I’ll remember that for a while,” he says. “They did great.”