College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Online
Feb. 2, 2015 – No. 834
Top Stories
College Presents Emerging Iowa Leader Award
CALS partnered with Iowa State Athletics at the women’s basketball game on Jan. 28 to celebrate the college’s role in growing leaders. Jake Thomsen (’06 agronomy) was honored as the inaugural CALS Emerging Iowa Leader Award. Thomsen is an agronomic consultant with Sinclair Tractor and was selected for taking on significant leadership roles in the college’s young alumni program – The Curtiss League. More
Attend CALS Spring Awards Program on Thursday: Quiz Answers will be Provided
Plan to attend the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Spring Awards Program, to be held Thursday, Feb. 5, at 4:10 p.m. in the Memorial Union Campanile Room. Answers will be provided to the following questions:
- Who has secured more than $13 million in funding for 46 research projects?
- Who, over the past 20 years, has directed the research of 5 postdocs, 25 graduate students, 80 undergraduates and 40 high school students?
- Who has made advances in the use of resistant starch to mitigate type I diabetes?
- Whose recruiting efforts alone have added 80 students to the major since 2012?
- Who manages a website that has received more than 89,000 views annually in the last four years?
- Who has been recruiting students since 1989?
- Who is widely recognized as the “ISU soil fertility expert” in multiple South American countries?
Research
Research to Help Identify how Crops Respond to Environmental Stress
A research team including Carolyn Lawrence and Drena Dobbs, genetics development and cell biology, has identified genetic structures in corn that may shed light on how crops respond to floods and other environmental stresses. More
Arbuckle’s Research Featured in Science Magazine
Sociology’s J. Gordon Arbuckle Jr.’s research on what farmers think about climate change was featured in the Jan. 28 issue of Scientific American. The article states that getting a better sense of farmers’ views on climate change will help researchers develop ways to protect food security over the long term.
Leopold Center Awards 2015 Research Grants
The Leopold Center has awarded grants to 17 research and demonstration projects that fall under all four of the center’s research initiatives – ecology, marketing and food systems, policy and cross-cutting.
Teaching and Students
Faculty Mentors Needed for George Washington Carver Internship Program
The application process is open for faculty interested in being mentors for the 2015 George Washington Carver Summer Research Internship program. High school and undergraduate students from across the U.S. have been participating in the program for more than 25 years. More
Horticulture Club to Sell Roses for Valentine’s Day
The Horticulture Club is selling roses for Valentine’s Day. Customers may fill out an order form and return it with payment by Feb. 8, and pick up flowers on Feb. 13, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in 45 Horticulture Hall. Also, individual roses, arrangements and cards will be available for purchase on Feb. 13, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at a booth on the first floor of the Memorial Union. More
CALS Students to Represent Pork Industry
The Iowa Pork Producers Association selected its 2015 Iowa Pork Youth Leadership Team at the 43rd annual Iowa Pork Congress banquet in Des Moines on Jan. 28. Christy Calderwood, sophomore in agricultural studies, will serve as Pork Queen; Emily Cook, junior in sociology, is the Pork Princess; and Alex Conover, sophomore in animal science, is the new Youth Ambassador. More
Horticulture Student Part of Super Bowl Field Crew
Kevin Hansen, graduate student in horticulture, was part of the field crew for Super Bowl XLIX at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona on Feb. 1. Hansen was featured in the Jan. 18 issue of Sports Field Management. His experience is vast: 2011 internship with the Green Bay Packers; member of the 2012 Super Bowl field crew as winner of Toro’s Super Bowl Sports Turf Training Program; and a member of the 2014 field crew for the NFL International series at Wembley Stadium in London.
Extension and Outreach
Iowa Beef Center’s New App Helps Make Cattle Buying Decisions
The Iowa Beef Center’s new “Cattle Bidder” app helps users make cattle buying decisions. It is available as a free download from the IBC website and on Google Play.
Calendar
Feb. 4: Spring Agriculture Career Day
The spring version of the Agriculture Career Day will bring 110 employers to campus Feb. 4 to recruit for full-time positions and summer internships. The event is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Memorial Union. More
Feb. 6: Opening Reception for Ellen Wagener Art Exhibition
An opening reception to meet the artist and view the newly installed exhibition, “Ever Changing Land: The Art of Ellen Wagener,” will be held Friday, Feb. 6, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Brunnier Art Museum in the Scheman Building. Four of the landscape paintings are on loan from the Dean’s Gallery in Curtiss Hall.
April 14-15: Registration Open for Spring Symposium
Registration is open for the Global Food Security Consortium and the Leroy and Barbara Everson Seed and Biosafety Symposium, to be held April 14-15 at the Gateway Hotel and Conference Center. This year’s theme is Interlocking the Pieces for Global Food Security.
Funding Opportunities
USAID BHEARD Opportunity to Train Ph.D. Candidates from Bangladesh, Ghana and Malawi
The Borlaugh Higher Education Agricultural Research and Development program at Michigan State University has issued a request for expressions of interest from U.S. universities for training of students for Ph.D. degrees. BHEARD is a USAID-funded initiative to train agricultural researchers from Feed the Future countries. The candidate students represent a variety of fields of study. Expressions of interest to train Ph.D. candidates from Bangladesh and Malawi are due Feb. 22. Expressions of interest to train Ph.D. candidates from Ghana are due Feb. 27. ISU Contact: Denise Bjelland (Bjelland@iastate.edu).
Funding Information, Opportunities and Deadline Reminders
Dates listed are application deadlines. Contact: Roxanne Clemens, rclemens@iastate.edu
Additional information is posted at CALS Funding Resources.
Feb. 24 (pre-proposal): USDA NRCS Conservation Innovation Grants FY 2015; $1 million over three years, match required, projects must involve EQIP-eligible producers. More
Mar. 15, Sept. 15: Fats and Proteins Research Foundation Research Grants; $45,000, aquaculture, swine and poultry nutrition. More
Mar. 19 (compulsory registration): Human Frontier Science Program 2016 Research Grants – Young Investigators’ Grants and Program Grants; $1.35 million over three years for international interdisciplinary teams.
March 20: L’Oréal USA for Women In Science Fellowship Program; $60,000, candidates must begin postdoc research position by July 1.
Apr. 5: NIH Development and Commercialization of Technologies to Create, Characterize or Improve Animal Models of Human Disease (SBIR/STTR) Phase I $150,000, Phase II $1 million. More: STTR (R41/R42), SBIR (R43/R44).
Apr. 27: NSF Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development; crops. More
May 1: 2015 IDALS Specialty Crop Block Grant Program; $24,000 for 30 months. More
June 1: NSF Hydrologic Sciences; up to $1 million over four years. More
June 9 (letter of intent): NIH Systems Biology and Antibacterial Resistance (U01). More
Communications Kiosk
Associated Press Releases Topical Guide on World Economic Forum
The Associated Press compiled a style guide of words, phrases and definitions for coverage of the World Economic Forum that took place Jan. 21-24 in Davos, Switzerland. Some terms are from the AP Stylebook. Others are from usage in AP news stories. For example: BRICS, acronym for the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa as emerging powerhouses; and Next 11, countries having a high potential of becoming, along with the BRICS, the world’s largest economies in the 21st century. More
Infograzing
The Power of Writing
In a study on the benefits of expressive writing, researchers gathered 40 college freshmen at Duke University who were struggling academically. Not only where they worried about grades, but they questioned whether they were intellectual equals to other students at their school. After writing their personal story, one group was given additional information about adjusting to college and encouraged to edit their own narratives. Short term results showed the intervention group earned better grades on a sample test. Long-term results showed the intervention group improved their grade-point averages and were less likely to drop out over the next year. More
Marginalia
Alumbaugh Reflects on Hogberg’s Career
Maynard Hogberg, retiring chair of the animal science department, was honored for his leadership at a campus reception on Jan. 16. JoAnn Alumbaugh, editor for PorkNetwork, provided an overview of the event, Hogberg’s career and her own personal reflections in a column on PorkNetwork.
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Online
Julie Stewart, Editor
jstewart@iastate.edu, (515) 294-5616
https://www.cals.iastate.edu/news/agonline
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Online, the newsletter for faculty and staff in Iowa State University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is published by email every Monday. The deadline for submitting content is 12 p.m. on Friday.
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