Ravi Teja Neelipally, PhD student in our lab, received a Student/Faculty Research Award for his project, “Culturing native and beneficial plant growth-promoting species from livestock-based biodynamic preparations.” Ravi ‘s proposal was one of only 13 to be funded. Congratulations to Ravi for this achievement!
Dr. Sutie Xu was a postdoc in Dr. Sindhu Jagadamma’s laboratory. Last December, she joined the Department of Agronomy, Horticulture, and Plant Science at South Dakota State University as an Assistant Professor. Sutie’s research interests mainly relied on interdisciplinary studies to understand the influence of anthropogenic, environmental, and biotic factors on physical, chemical, and biological processes in soils. Sutie’s future research will focus on soil health under sustainable natural and agroecosystem management and precision farming. She is stationed in Pierre, South Dakota where she has a room with a view as her office is right across the Missouri River! Congratulations Dr. Xu and please stay in touch!
Last November, Shikha Singh successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis: “Soil Moisture Sensitivity to Microbial Processing of Soil Organic Carbon.” Shikha received numerous awards for oral and poster presentations at the ASA-SSSA-CSSA meetings and recognitions at the university level. Her major advisor was Dr. Sindhu Jagadamma and committee members were Drs. Mark Radosevich, Melanie Mayes, and Stephanie Kivlin. Shikha’s research was funded by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She has recently accepted a postdoctoral position at the Oregon State University. Congratulations to Dr. Shikha Singh!
Surendra Singh has successfully defended his PhD. The title of his thesis is: Soil Health Assessment for the Agroecosystems of West Tennessee. His major advisor is Dr. Sindhu Jagadamma and members of his Committee are Dr. Daniel Yoder, Dr. Forbes Walker, and Dr. Frank Yin. Dr. Singh is moving to Oregon State University in Pendleton, Oregon where he will be a postdoctoral researcher.
Congratulations to Dr. Singh!
Biosystems Engineering & Soil Science faculty, Drs. Sindhu Jagadamma, Jaehoon Lee, Lori Duncan, Plant Sciences faculty Angela McClure and Tyson Raper, and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology faculty Stephanie Kivlin will work on USDA NIFA grant: “Optimizing Plant-Soil-Microbial Interactions through Crop Diversification to Enhance Sustainability in Southeastern Croplands.” This 4-yr project will be led by Dr. Jagadamma. For more information, please refer to: https://taes.tennessee.edu/news/show.asp?which=822
Shikha Singh, PhD student in our lab, recently received the Graduate Student Senate Excellence in Graduate Research Award. Congratulations to Shikha for this achievement! We are happy to see her profile on the University website.
Jagadamma lab has one MS and one PhD position to study the role of Manganese in organic carbon cycling in agricultural soils. This is a collaborative project with the Environmental Sciences Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Dr. Sindhu Jagadamma from University of Tennessee and Dr. Elizabeth Herndon from ORNL will jointly supervise the students. Preferred start date is Summer or Fall 2020. Strong fundamental knowledge and skills in geochemistry and microbial ecology are required for these positions. The selected applicants will also gain access to ORNL’s research capabilities. Interested applicants should direct their applications to Dr. Sindhu Jagadamma (sjagada1@utk.edu, 865-974-2690) or Dr. Elizabeth Herndon (herndonem@ornl.gov, 865-341-0330).
Our MS student, James Littrell, defended his MS thesis on November 4th, 2019. The title of his MS thesis is, “Soil carbon accumulation in organic cropping systems”. Congratulations to James and best wishes for his future endeavors!!!
Jagadamma lab attended the American Society of Agronomy-Crop Science Society of America-Soil Science Society of America annual meetings 2019 in San Antonio (Nov 10-13). Sutie Xu, our post-doctoral research associate gave an oral presentation. Surendra Singh, our PhD student, presented a poster in Soil Health community and got 1st place in the graduate student poster competition. Shikha Singh, PhD student, delivered both a poster and an oral presentation in Global Climate Change community and got 1st place in graduate student poster competition.
Dr. Avishesh Neupane recently joined Jagadamma Lab as a post doctoral associate. He recently finished his PhD from University of California, Los Angeles. He is broadly interested in finding how environmental changes influence plant-soil-microbial interactions. Here, he will be working on a new funded project by Tennessee Department of Agriculture to understand soil health benefits from cover crops integrated production systems in TN.