Spring 2022 Department Head Message
Warm wishes to all–spring has finally arrived, just in time for the end of another academic year, bringing some long-awaited color to graduation season! This time of year is always a big transition for the department as another class of students take flight into their professional lives, and we turn to welcome an incoming class of new students. We had 33 students receive their Bachelor of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering (BBE) degrees through the College of Science and Engineering and 26 students receive their Bachelor of Science in Sustainable Systems Management (SSM) degrees through the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. Congratulations to all graduating students and congratulations to all students for the successful completion of another academic year!
For seniors, completing their final academic year meant participating in Senior Capstone for their respective majors. The BBE major fielded nine Capstone project teams and the SSM major fielded five project teams. Each team worked on a problem brought to us by an industry sponsor, and worked with the sponsor and a faculty advisor to come up with a solution to the problem. Final presentations were made in-person (finally!) and virtually during the last week of classes. We hope you were able to join us for the event but if not, please consider attending next year! We would also like to thank our industry partners for continuing to submit challenging problems for our students to solve. We are always looking for more industry participation in Capstone - please let us know if you would like to receive an invitation to submit a capstone project for consideration in future years!
This issue of BioBriEf is just chock-full of student and faculty activities and accomplishments, so we hope you’ll scroll all the way to the end! Among them, we are proud to announce several faculty promotions and awards this year. Many of our students were also recognized this year and we are proud to call them out in this issue. Not to be missed is the important work of our talented graduate students, several of whom are featured herein, including the prestigious Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship awardee, Chenxi Lin, an advisee of faculty member, Dr. Zhenong Jin. Congratulations to all of our award-winning faculty, staff, and students!
Exciting things are happening in our two department buildings, Kaufert Lab, and Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Building (BAE), or BBE-North and South, as we like to say. We have begun updates to each building’s study lounge, with an end goal of providing more comfortable, modern study spaces for our students. Both spaces will receive updated lighting, new paint, additional electrical outlets, carpet, and furniture that better fits the space. Construction in Kaufert Lab has finished, and work in BAE began this week. We are waiting on new furniture to arrive and are excited to show off our new spaces once the updates are complete. We also have tentative plans to update a small courtyard in Kaufert Lab, making it more accessible to students to use for breaks, group meetings, and to enjoy some nature in the middle of our labs. If you have an interest in donating to this cause, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Erik Joerres for details on the updates and how you can help. Thank you to all who help enrich the lives of our students through donations of your time and resources, and being engaged with the department!
Lastly, in light of the coming leadership transition for the department, I would like to wrap up my note with a special thank you. Thank you all, for your dedication to BBE’s mission, and thank you for the opportunity to serve as department head during these past five years. It’s been an incredible honor and privilege, and I am excited about the next chapter for BBE that a new department head will bring.
Gary R. Sands,
Professor and Department Head
