- Provost Hiring Initiative funding provided the College with 5 new faculty positions in addition to 7 new positions funded by AgSci to strengthen programs across the state. Among the new hires are:
- Leigh Torres, studying geospatial ecology of marine megafauna, directed toward improving conservation management of protected species.
- Sergio Arispe, studying rangeland plant communities, directed toward how grazing affects revegetation following wildfire.
- Valtcho Jeliazkov, the new Director of the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center, focusing on improving the sustainability of winter wheat production in the region.
- AgSci faculty secures $49.4 million in sponsored research grants and contracts in FY2015. A few examples:
- John Selker will use NSF funding to collect thermal data using drones in atmospheric zones that have been hard to study until now.
- Michael Behrenfeld will lead a NASA-funded research project investigating phytoplankton blooms—the foundation of the marine food web. He will test the idea that warming oceans will have previously-unforeseen impacts on marine ecosystems.
- Bruce Mate is leadinga new U.S. Navy-funded research project investigating the movements of whales and how marine life will be affected by current El Nino conditions.
- Robert Tanguay received an EPA grant to conduct the first-ever comprehensive in vivo toxicity studies of flame retardants.
- Hong Liu collaborated with Widmer Brewing to use fuel cells to clean wastewater and produce electricity. Her research, which began as a BEST award, is being extended with an NSF grant.
- Pankaj Jaiswal, with NSF funding and international co-investigators, is developing a common semantic framework for the ever-expanding array of sequenced plant genomes and phenotype data, called the Planteome Project.
- Jeff Chang and colleagues received funding from USDA-NIFA-SCRI to work on gall-forming bacterial diseases that cause nurseries up to $1 million in lost revenue annually.
- AgSci offers in-depth faculty orientations and trainings to increase faculty success The College sponsors ongoing research discussion groups and professional development workshops for new and mid-career faculty. Recent topics: grant-writing workshops and specific grant intensives; Paul Axtell trainings for new faculty and administrators; mentoring workshops; networking events to build collaborative research, including one integrating research on the topic of water.
