Agricultural and Biological Engineering

Professor Richard Stroshine received The Andersons Cereals and Oilseeds Award of Excellence for research. The award is presented annually by the U.S. Quality Grains Research Consortium.

Grad student Ian Radtke was voted Puller of the Year by members of the Michigan Farm Stock Tractor Pullers Association. Radtke also was the overall winner in the 13,000-pound field-farm class, based on the points he earned at about 15 pulls throughout the season.

Agricultural Communication

Department Head Chris Sigurdson received the 2005 Award of Excellence in Leadership and Management from the Association for Communication Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences (ACE). Purdue Agriculture Connections earned an ACE gold award in the organization’s 2005 critique and awards program. Connections team members include Dan Annarino, Tom Campbell, Frank Koontz, Jennifer Pratt, Mike Atwell, Christine Roper and Lucy Whitehead Bossung. Other gold award winners include: Chip Morrison and Jane Brown, electronic publishing, Snakes of the Midwest CD; Morrison and Kevin Leigh Smith, technical publications, Corn and Soybean Field Guide; Russ Merzdorf, Becky Goetz and Alan Goecker, promotional publications, USDA-CSREES Living Science; and Merzdorf, illustration, Purdue AgriCultures Magazine. Silver awards went to: Steve Leer and Mike Atwell, Web sites, Ag Answers; Annarino and Brown, one- to three-color print, Distinguished Agricultural Alumni awards invitations and programs; and Campbell, writing within a specialized publication, Connections.

Agricultural Economics

Joe Balagtas has joined the department as an assistant professor, conducting research in the areas of farm policy and regulation, including domestic and international commodity policy, marketing orders, and commodity promotion.

Agronomy

Phillip Owens joined the department in January as an assistant professor specializing in soil geomorphology/pedology. Owens received his BS and MS degrees from the University of Texas and his PhD from Texas A&M. Previously, Owens was a research soil scientist with the USDA-ARS waste management and forage research unit at Mississippi State University. He will focus on teaching and conducting research that relates soils to landforms and landscape scale processes.

Three teams of agronomy students participated in the 11th annual collegiate turf bowl as part of the 2005 Golf Course Superintendents Association of America International Golf Course Conference and Show in Orlando, Fla. Students James Bergdoll, Chase Best, Nick Gressley, Jake Metz, Dan Midd, Jim Newman, Bandon Rux, David Shell, Joey Stevenson and Cory St. Clair finished fifth, eighth and ninth in the 83-team field, as Purdue became the first university to place all three teams in the top 10 of the competition. Assistant professor Cale Bigelow is the advisor.

The team of Joey Stevenson, James Bergdoll and Daniel Mudd took fourth place in the student competition at the Sports Turf Managers Association meetings. Fifteen teams participated in the inaugural Student Collegiate Challenge, won by a team from Penn State University. The two-hour competition featured identification of soils, grasses and weeds, and it also covered mathematics, plant physiology, and growth and development.

Assistant professor Brad Lee received the Indiana Environmental Health Association President’s Commendation for “outstanding contribution to the effective operation of the association and untiring effort to provide better and more efficient service to its members.”

Animal Sciences

Mike Schutz has been elected secretary for the Midwest Dairy Science Association. A faculty member since 1996, Schutz is also an editor for the Journal of Dairy Science.

Biochemistry

Professor Henry Weiner, PhD ’63, received a Distinguished Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. The new institute brings together outstanding scholars, individuals at the cutting edge of research, and leaders in their discipline to foster research activities that otherwise might not take place. Fellowships are open to senior researchers of exceptional distinction and junior postdoctoral researchers of high promise in disciplines represented at La Trobe University.

Botany and Plant Pathology

Professor Paul Pecknold received the Indiana Horticultural Society’s 2005 Career Recognition Award, honoring his 32 years of service to the fruit industry of Indiana and the Midwest. A faculty member since 1973, Pecknold is retiring in June. He was a major contributor to the Midwest Tree Fruit Handbook, the Midwest Small Fruit Handbook, and the annual spray guides for trees and fruits.

Greg Kruger, a PhD student, was awarded the Graduate Fellowship Study Award from the Indiana seed industry. The Indiana Seed Trade Association, Ag Alumni Seed Improvement Association, Indiana Crop Improvement Association, and Public Varieties of Indiana make this $2,000 cash award.

Fred Whitford, PhD ’89, coordinator of the Purdue Pesticide Programs, has been awarded the Mid-America Croplife Association Educator of the Year Award. Whitford is head of all commercial and private pesticide applicator training in Indiana. He has delivered more than 2,000 presentations; authored more than 200 research, Extension and regulatory publications; and written two books.

Professor Charles Woloshuk has been appointed to a three-year term to the American Phytopathological Society press editorial board. Woloshuk will help establish policies and procedures, oversee the organization’s financial management, and acquire appropriate titles to meet its stated goals. Woloshuk is associate editor for Mycologia and an editorial board member for the Journal of Food Protection.

Entomology

Christian H. Krupke has been appointed assistant professor in field crops entomology. Krupke completed his undergraduate degree in biological sciences at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada, in 1995 and received a master’s degree with an emphasis in pest management from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia in 1999. He completed his PhD at Washington State University in 2004.

Food Science

Mario G. Ferruzzi and David Nivens have been appointed assistant professors. Ferruzzi previously was an assistant professor at Ohio State University. His work focuses on botanicals and phytochemicals. Ferruzzi’s appointment is shared with the Department of Foods and Nutrition. For the past eight years, Nivens was a senior research specialist in bioanalytical chemistry at the University of Tennessee and president of Critical Point Technologies. His research interests involve the development of analytical technologies that can be implemented to monitor processes, improve testing, enhance safety, and solve new challenges in the food industry.

Professor Philip Nelson, PhD ’67, is the first Scholle Chair in Food Processing. Nelson came to Purdue in 1961 as an instructor. He created the first viable application for aseptic processing. His bulk aseptic storage process received the Institute of Food Technologists’ Industrial Achievement Award in 1976, the first time the award was given to a university researcher. In 1997, Nelson received the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture’s Award for Personal and Professional Excellence.

Forestry and Natural Resources

Harvey Holt received the International Award of Merit from the International Society of Arboriculture for Excellence in Arboriculture Education. The society cited Holt as “a tireless advocate for students, their education, and most importantly their careers.” A faculty member since 1975, Holt teaches arboriculture techniques and urban forestry topics and is adviser to the Purdue Student Society of Arboriculture.

Guofan Shao, a faculty member since 1997, has joined the editorial advisory board of the journal Forestry, published by Oxford University Press. Forestry is published on behalf of the Institute of Chartered Foresters, the professional body of foresters and arborists in the United Kingdom.

Horticulture and Landscape Architecture

The Plant Propagation CD produced by a team that included Mary Welch-Keesey, Rosie Lerner and Janie Nordstrom Griffiths, as well as Becky Goetz, Sharon Katz and Joan Crow (Agricultural Communication) earned three bronze awards from the Garden Writers Association as well as a gold award from the Association for Communication Excellence. Team members earned bronze awards in the electronic media category for writing, graphic design and overall product

Youth Development and Agricultural Education

Tristan Emery, a sophomore studying agricultural communication, was one of three Grassroots Spokesperson winners at the National Young Farmer Education Association’s National Institute in December in Orlando, Fla. Emery promoted the positive aspects of the United States Animal Identification Plan during her five-minute presentation. She qualified for the national competition after placing first in the Indiana Young Farmer Association’s spokesperson contest.

Mark Balschweid has received a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to further his studies and research in the area of life science education. Congress created the Fulbright Scholar Program in 1946 to increase understanding between the people of the United States and other countries, through the exchange of persons, knowledge and skills. Balschweid, an associate professor who has been a faculty member since 1998, will work with colleagues in Jamaica this fall and next spring.