This week is busy! A nice reprieve from trainings that made up much of last week and a good portion of this week was lunch with Landscape Architecture (LARC) faculty on Monday. That team is adding a few new members with one that started in January and two more for fall semester. I had a chance last fall to view final projects for a class led by Naomi Sachs and see firsthand the talent of these students. Last month, a couple of the LARC faculty provided support to UMD undergrads that participated in a PlaceHack, a 24-hour interdisciplinary design competition to reimagine a cramped campus lecture hall. That’s LARC faculty member Cris Ellis in the photo, demonstrating the partnership between the School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation and AGNR’s Landscape Architecture program and our commitment to student success. A couple weeks back I had the pleasure of meeting a LARC student who placed second in the PlaceHack. The student was very complimentary of the event and their experience in LARC.
The work of AGNR faculty is getting noticed elsewhere, too! On Thursday, March 5 Maryland Today shared the good news that Andrew Broadbent, assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences, and Lynda Coughlan, associate professor of microbiology and immunology at UMSOM were awarded $2M through USDA to develop and test a vaccine to protect chickens against avian influenza H5N1. This award expands AGNR’s reputation for impactful vaccine research across AGNR and makes a big difference for the state economy, via the poultry industry.
In other Maryland Today coverage, Entomology Chair Evan Economo and his team were recognized for capturing unprecedented 3-D images of ants with advanced imaging technologies and artificial intelligence, creating a gallery of 800 species. Their paper was published in Nature Methods. I can’t say that I had ever thought about the number of ant species and I can’t say that I wish to encounter more than 10 species of them, thank you. But we are very proud of Evan and team for their accomplishment!
It’s nice to see our faculty work shared across campus! Our external partners see the work, too, and support us. Thanks to everyone who helped make last week’s Giving Day a success for AGNR and UMD! AGNR beat our record of number of contributors and amount of giving. Let’s keep up the momentum. Our programs wouldn’t have the same without all of our supporters. THANK YOU for giving!