Kansas State University

Record first quarter for research activity at Kansas State University

Submitted by David Rosowsky, vice president for research

K-State has set two new all-time records for research activity in the first quarter of the fiscal year — for both the total requested funds and the total awarded funds. In addition, proposal numbers and the number of researchers submitting proposals are also near all-time highs. The Q1 numbers are encouraging and exciting to see. We are on track for another record year in total research funding.

The following are among the largest — $1 million or more — federally funded research awards to K-State faculty this quarter:

• "Conservation of Natural and Sustainable Environmental Resources with Verified Engagement, or CONSERVE"; principal investigators: Peter Tomlinson, associate professor of agronomy; Augustine Obour, associate professor of agronomy; Dorivar Ruiz Diaz Suarez, professor of agronomy; and Lucas Haag, associate professor of agronomy. Funding from: U.S. Department of Agriculture — $1.6 million.
• "Quantifying Nutrient Budgets in the Farmer-to-Farmer Digital Conservation Network, or F2F_DCN"; principal investigators: Ignacio Ciampitti, professor of agronomy; Adrian Correndo, postdoctoral fellow; Ajay Sharda, professor of biological and agricultural engineering; and D. Suarez, professor of agronomy. Funding from: U.S. Department of Agriculture — $3 million.
• "PlantTransform: The Genetic Basis of Maize Regeneration and Applications to Plant Transformation, or RESEARCH-PGR"; principal investigators: Sanzhen Liu, associate professor of plant pathology; Doina Caragea, professor of computer science; and Sunghun Park, professor of horticulture and natural resources. Funding from: National Science Foundation — $1.9 million.
• "Highly Replicable, and Integrated System for Mitigating Methane Emissions from Natural Gas-fired Lean-Burn Engines, or NG-FLBEs"; principal investigator: Chuancheng Duan assistant professor of chemical engineering. Funding from: Department of Energy — $1 million.
• "Supporting rural livelihoods in the water-stressed Central High Plains: Microbial innovations for climate-resilient agriculture, or MICRA"; principal investigators: Melanie Derby, associate professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering; Gabriel Sampson, associate professor of agricultural economics; and Gaurav Jha, associate professor of agronomy. Funding from: National Science Foundation — $1.42 million.
• "Increasing Water Productivity, Soil Carbon and Sustainability of Integrated Multi-Crop Systems Using Field Scale Research"; primary investigators: D. Suarez, professor of agronomy; Augustine Obour, associate professor of agronomy; Brian Olson, professor of agricultural research; Charles Rice, distinguished professor of agronomy; Dan O'Brien, professor of agricultural economics; Gregory Ibendahl, associate professor of agricultural economics; John Holman, professor of agronomy; Jonathan Aguilar, associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering; Lydia Zeglin, associate professor of biology; and Vipan Kumar, assistant professor of agronomy. Funding from: Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research — $7.7 million.
• "Cognitive and Neurobiological Approaches to Plasticity, or CNAP, Center Phase 2"; principal investigators: Dave Thompson, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Alexandria Zakrzewski, research assistant professor of psychological sciences; Charles Pickens, associate professor of psychological sciences; Daniel Andresen, professor of computer science; Maria Diehl Faryna, assistant professor of psychological sciences; Matthew Wisniewski, assistant professor of psychological sciences; Michael Young, professor of psychological sciences; Stephanie Hall, assistant professor of anatomy and physiology; and Travis Smith, research assistant professor of psychological sciences. Funding from: National Institutes of Health — $2.3 million.
• "A Novel Fog-Assisted Smart Agriculture Framework for Multi-Layer Sensing and Real-Time Analytics of Water-Nitrogen Colimitations in Field Crops, or FogAg"; principal investigators: Arslan Munir, associate professor of computer science; Ignacio Ciampitti, professor of agronomy; Mitchell Neilsen, professor of computer science; Naiqian Zhang, professor of biological and agricultural engineering; and Paul Armstrong, adjunct assistant professor of biological and agricultural engineering. Funding from: U.S. Department of Agriculture — $1 million.
• "Innovation Lab on Sustainable Intensification, or SIIL"; principal investigators: Vara Prasad, professor of agronomy and director; Jan Middendorf, associate director; and Nina Lilja, professor of agricultural economics. Funding from: United States Agency for International Development — $4.8 million.

Congratulations to all faculty who have received new research award dollars — grants and contracts — this quarter. We expect another record-breaking year in research thanks to the great work of our growing number of faculty investigators.