Lana Koepke Johnson | Agronomy and Horticulture
Eight Department of Agronomy and Horticulture doctoral students were honored with fellowships by the Agricultural Research Division and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.
Those honored include Balpreet Kaur Dhatt, Osler Ortez, Anthony Amori, Christopher Anuo, Rituraj Khound, Chenyong Miao, Manny Saluja and Milos Zaric.
Dhatt and Ortez received the Hardin Trust Distinguished Graduate Fellowship. This fellowship is awarded to outstanding graduate students and supports research in plant physiology with particular emphasis on genetic mechanisms influencing plant responses to stress conditions.
Dhatt is specializing in plant breeding and genetics and is advised by Harkamal Walia, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture, Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute Faculty Fellow and Heuermann Chair of Agronomy. She completed her undergraduate degree at Punjab Agricultural University in India.
The focus of Dhatt's research is to understand the dynamic physiological and molecular mechanisms that contribute to resilience to high day-night temperature as well as high night temperature stress throughout the grain development in rice by integrating genomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics. Her project explores the existing phenotypic and genetic variation in rice germplasm to understand the effects of increasing temperatures on grain yield parameters and to functionally characterize genes that effect rice grain yield parameters under high temperatures.
Ortez is from Nicaragua and is specializing in crop production. He is advised by Roger Elmore, emeritus professor of agronomy and horticulture, and Justin McMechan, assistant professor of entomology.
Ortez’s research focuses on studying and isolating factors responsible for ear formation issues and its subsequent losses in corn. In recent years, corn ear malformation issues have affected crops in Nebraska and other areas in the U.S. Such malformations can result from unknown genetic, environmental and management conditions. He is actively engaged in research, Extension, teaching and leadership.
Amori, Anuo, Khound, Miao and Saluja received Widaman Distinguished Graduate Fellowship Awards. This award is for graduate students with high scholastic merit and research potential conducting basic research in agriculture.
Amori is from Nigeria and is specializing in soil and water science. He is advised by Haishun Yang, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture, and William Kranz, emeritus professor of Biological Systems Engineering. Amori's research focuses on the optimization of irrigation scheduling tools with a goal of achieving high yield and profit for irrigated crops while saving water and energy, and improving the environmental quality using real-time information derived from remote sensing and weather forecast as inputs to crop modeling to guide crop irrigation.
Anuo’s research involves investigating land use effect on soil organic carbon dynamics in the Great Plains. Specializing in soil and environmental chemistry Anuo is advised by Michael Kaiser, assistant professor of agronomy and horticulture. Anuo is from Lagos, Nigeria.
Khound is specializing in plant breeding and genetics and is advised by Dipak Santra, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture. His research focus is to develop tools for making genetic improvement of prosomillet (Panicum miliaceum L.) more precise, robust, and cost-effective. Khound is from Jorhat, Assam, situated in the north-eastern part of India.
Miao is from Xinxiang, China, and is advised by James Schnable, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture and the Dr. Charles O. Gardner Professor of Agronomy. Miao’s research focuses on both developing and applying phenomics-, quantitative genetics-, and artificial intelligence-based tools to link genotype to phenotype in agricultural crops including maize and sorghum. Miao receives his doctoral degree on December 19.
Saluja is from Punjab, India, and is specializing in plant breeding and genetics. She is advised by Walia and Scott Sattler, USDA research molecular biologist and adjunct associate professor of agronomy and horticulture. Her research focuses on understanding the physiological and molecular basis of root development and adaptation to drought stress in crop plants.
Zaric was awarded the Farmers National Company Fellowship in Agriculture. He is specializing in weed science and is advised by Greg Kruger, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture.
Zaric came to Nebraska from Serbia as an undergraduate student for an internship with Kruger. He returned to Nebraska to continue his education in weed science with a focus on pesticide application technology. His research focuses on conducting various experiments on specialty crops such as industrial hemp and hops, to better understand management practices to be used by growers and to provide growers with the necessary education.
This Farmers National Company Fellowship is awarded to full-time graduate students pursuing majors or specializations in Master of Business Administration with specialization in Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agronomy. Preference is given to students who have expressed a desire to pursue a career in the area of farm management following graduation.
For more information on these awards, visit https://ard.unl.edu/graduate-fellowships and https://casnr.unl.edu/casnr-fellowships.
