Ashleigh Montgomery is an MS student in our lab who recently received the Graduate Student Travel Grant to attend SSSA this coming fall! This award is given to a limited number of students and Ashleigh is incredibly grateful for the award. At the conference, she will be giving two oral presentations. First, she will be presenting research she conducted during her undergrad at Saint Louis University titled, “Road salt applications affect soil physiochemical characteristics across time and space.” Second, she will be presenting her MS research titled, “Manganese Source and Rate Response of Soil Geochemical Processes and Plant Growth.” Be sure to check out her presentations! Congratulations, Ashleigh!

Dr. Lazicki recently joined Jagadamma Lab as a post doctoral research associate. She recently finished her PhD from University of California, Davis. She is broadly interested in researching ways that farmers can optimize their management techniques to increase the benefits and reduce the risks associated with using organic fertility sources, with a special interest in exploring the best ways to improve and assess soil health. Here, she will be researching how crop management affects the health of Tennessee soils. She will be co-advised by Dr. Jaehoon Lee. Welcome, Dr. Lazicki!

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!!!