WOOSTER, Ohio -- The Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) has announced the winners of its annual research poster competition, held yesterday (4/26) as part of the center’s 2012 Annual Research Conference in Wooster.
The competition honors outstanding posters -- displays detailing research projects -- by OARDC-supported Ph.D. and master’s degree students, postdoctoral researchers, and research assistants and associates.
Ph.D. Students
- First place: Ting Wang, Food Science and Technology, “Rapid Determination of Perceived Astringency from Whey Protein Powder Ingredients Using Infrared Spectroscopy”; Luis RodrIguez-Saona, advisor.
- Second place: Jinnan Hu, “Genomic Characterization of the Conditionally Dispensable Chromosome in Alternaria arborescens Provides Evidence for Horizontal Gene Transfer”; Thomas Mitchell, advisor.
- Third place: Kevin Rice, “Cascading Ecological Impacts of Emerald Ash Borer: Tritrophic Interactions Between Prickly Ash, Giant Swallowtail Butterfly Larvae and Larval Predators”; Dan Herms, advisor.
M.S. Students
- First place: Anand Kumar, “Functional Characterization of Exopolyphosphatase/ Guanosine Pentaphosphate Phosphohydrolase (PPX/GPPA) Enzymes of Campylobacter jejuni”; Gireesh Rajashekara, advisor.
- Second place: Kayla Perry, “Emerald Ash Borer Induced Tree Mortality Impacts Forest Floor Invertebrates”; Daniel Herms, advisor.
- Third place: Elizabeth Wilkerson, “Rapid Assessment of Quality Parameters in Processing Tomatoes Using Handheld FT-IR Systems and Multivariate Analysis”; Luis Rodriguez-Saona, advisor.
Postdoctoral Researchers
- First place: Sourav Chakraborty, “Evaluation of the Fluorometric Probes Dichlorofluorescein (DCFH) and Amplex Red for Quantitation of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) in Plants”; Pierluigi Bonello, advisor.
- Second place: Sunjeong Park, “Bacteria and Algal Cell Ratio Modification in Algae Based Biofertilizer and Enhanced Effect on Wheat Growth Promotion”; Brian McSpadden Gardener, advisor.
- Third place: Xiaolan Luo, “Production and Characterization of Biopolyols from Crude Glycerol”; Yebo Li, advisor.
Research Assistants/Associates
- First place: Jian Shi, “Biogas Production and Microbial Community Dynamics in ‘Healthy’ and ‘Sour’ Reactors During Solid-State Anaerobic Digestion of Corn Stover”; Yebo Li, advisor.
- Second place: Jesse Rossington, “Characterization of Inulin and Other Carbohydrates from the Rubber Producing Plant Taraxacum Kok Sogii (Russian Dandelion)”; Fred Michel, advisor.
- Third place: Sung-chur Sim, “High-Density SNP Genotyping of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) Reveals Patterns of Selection Due to Breeding”; David Francis, advisor.
The first-place winners received $500; the second-place winners, $300; the third-place winners, $150.
The members of the selection committee were OARDC faculty and staff members David Benfield, Luis Canas, Kristy Daniels, Mary Gardiner, Renukaradhya Gourapura, Omprakash Mittapalli, Randy Nemitz, Luis Rodriguez-Saona and Ramesh Selvaraj.
The speakers at the conference included OARDC Director Steve Slack; John Oliver, president of Maple Leaf Bio-Concepts, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada; Brian Cummings, Ohio State’s vice president for technology commercialization and knowledge transfer; and Bobby Moser, Ohio State’s executive vice president for agricultural administration and dean of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES).
OARDC is the research arm of CFAES and is the largest university agricultural bioscience research center in the U.S. The center works not just on food and farming but also, for example, on biofuels, bioproducts, health, nutrition, sustainability and the environment.
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