CSES Outstanding Alumni Awards
2008
Craig Roberts, MS ’82 PhD ’85, professor of plant sciences and extension forage specialist at the University of Missouri, was presented the 2008 Outstanding Alumnus Award at the Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences awards banquet.
Roberts said some of his best mentors were agronomy professors from the World War II era’s “greatest generation,” including the late Don Brown and Art Spooner, who was Roberts’ major professor.
After two years in post-doctoral position at the University of Illinois, Roberts joined the Missouri faculty. He is well known for his research in forage quality and has established one of the leading state extension programs in dairy forage management. He is editor-in-chief of all Crop Science Society of America publications.
As banquet speaker, Roberts described the disciplines of agricultural, food and life sciences as “science with a cause,” and encouraged students to pursue careers that have a positive impact.
2007
Dr. Ali Sadeghi (PhD’84) was born in 1948 in Isfahan, Iran, which at the time was a city of less than 100,000 people.
Dr. Sadeghi says, “during the first couple of years of my undergraduate years in Iran, I was studying physics but later I changed my major to Irrigation & Drainage,” a branch of study related to hydrology within the Agricultural Engineering Department. Ali received his BS in 1972 and went on to work as an irrigation expert with Soil & Water Consulting Engineers on groundwater investigations and improvement of irrigation systems in northwest Iran before coming to the United States in 1976 to pursue his graduate studies at the University of Arkansas.
Dr. Sadeghi earned both of his graduate degrees from the University of Arkansas. He received the MS in Soil & Water Conservation from the Agricultural Engineering Department in 1979, under Dr. Richard Ferguson, followed by his PhD in Soil Physics in 1984 with the late Dr. Don Scott as his major advisor.
The Sadeghi family stayed in Kansas until 1988, when Dr. Sadeghi joined the USDA-ARS at Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland. Ali has now been with ARS at this location for nearly 20 years and is currently a senior scientist in the Hydrology & Remote Sensing Laboratory, where the mission of his laboratory is to conduct national oriented basic and applied research on water resources and remote sensing concerns related to the production of food and fiber and the conservation of natural resources.
Dr. Sadeghi’s research has led to significant contributions to soil and water quality sciences, including the fate of urea/ammonia volatilization, nitrate and phosphorus movement in agricultural ecosystems, and the environmental fate of pesticides and pathogens in soils, surface runoff, and groundwater under different agronomic environments. He has authored or coauthored 82 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals (65), book chapters, national and international proceedings, and popular publications.
In addition, he has presented over 70 papers at national and international meetings. His work and involvement in the areas of water quality and modeling research have been recognized both nationally and internationally. Dr. Sadeghi has recently developed a new process-based pathogen fate and transport model that has been incorporated, for the first time, into a much larger watershed model called “SWAT,” Soil & Water Assessment Tool, a well-known and widely used ARS watershed model, designed for water quality and other environmental evaluation scenarios. The model is currently been recommended by US EPA for use in the States Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) water quality assessment.
During his 20-year career with ARS, he was frequently asked by his agency to serve on short-term details with many other states and federal institutions such as the Office of Risk Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis (ORACBA) of the Department of Agriculture in Washington, DC, the ARS National Programs in Beltsville, Maryland, the US EPA Chesapeake Bay Program Office (CBPO) in Annapolis, MA.
2006
Dr. Jim Bidlack (MS’86), notorious for his animated and enthusiastic teaching style, has been named CSES Outstanding Graduate for 2006.
After graduating from Purdue University in 1984, Dr. Bidlack worked with Dr. Charles A. Stutte in our Department on a project to better understand metabolic events involved with nutrient ion uptake in soybean.
From here Dr. Bidlack ventured on to complete a PhD under the direction of Drs. Dwayne Buxton and Richard Shibles in Plant Physiology with the Agronomy Department at Iowa State University. After graduating in the summer of 1990, he took a teaching job as an Assistant Professor of Biology at UCO. The actual position was 50% teaching, 30% scholarly activities, and 20% service. Assuming that teaching was a pretty important part of the job, Bidlack maintained high teaching evaluations, a handful of teaching recognitions, and received the university’s prestigious “Presidential Partner’s Excellence in Teaching Award.”
Dr. Bidlack joined others in leading UCO in that direction and, with the endorsement of the former Governor and UCO President George Nigh, became an Associate Professor and joined the ranks of tenured faculty in the late 1990s. He was promoted to Full Professor of Biology in 2002.
2005
Dr. Surapong Sarkarung
Dr. Surapong Sarkarung retired in July 2002 from the International Rice Research Institute where he was Plant Breeder for the Rainfed Lowland Program in the Philippines. He received his Ph.D. in 1978 at the U of A in Plant Breeding and Genetics under the direction of Dr. Fred Collins. He is praised by friends and colleagues for his scientific and practical contributions, as well as his humanitarian contributions.
Dr. Sarkarung has made major contributions to breeding rice for difficult production environments on three contents. As a post-doctoral fellow in Ibadan, Nigeria, he collected and adapted land races of rice and crossed them into lines with higher yield potential. He then moved to South America where he further improved these materials by again crossing with African materials from Madagascar and locally adapted materials, seeking greater yield potential, disease resistance, and tolerance to highly aluminum-saturated acid soils common throughout the region. After a decade of work in South America, Surapong moved to Asia, taking the improved acid soil-tolerant and disease-resistant lines with him. Some products of his breeding efforts in Asia have been released in Laos and eastern India,
Scientists, farmers, and many others have long admired Surapong’s commitment to national agricultural research in developing countries. For weeks at a time over his career, he worked literally from dawn to dusk evaluating lines, not only in experimentation plots, but also in very remote farmers’ fields.
Dr. Sarkarung now resides in Bangkok, Thailand with his wife, Pratummas. They have one son, Nathaporn Patrick, who was born while they were living here in Fayetteville.
2004
Academic Career: Joyce Hardin
Hardin graduated with a Ph.D. from CSES in 1981. Her career has been a well-balanced combination of research, teaching and service. Hardin has held teaching positions at the University of Oklahoma, the University of Central Oklahoma and Hendrix College. She is currently serving as Dean of Students and Vice President of Student Affairs at Hendrix. Hardin is also involved with the Arkansas Academy of Science and projects such as the Arkansas Flora Project that is producing a new atlas of the flora of Arkansas.
Industry Career: Otis Howe
Howe earned a bachelor's degree in agribusiness and then a master's in weed science in 1985. He began his career as a sales representative in the Agricultural Products Department of E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company and changed to District Sales manager for Pioneer, A DuPont Company, when those companies combined. Howe has also contributed much to Arkansas agriculture though his board position with the Arkansas Crop Protection Association (ACPA) and has recently completed his tenth year serving as Secretary with the Arkansas State Plant Board.
2003
Michel Ransom
Ransom grew up in Pleasant Plains, Ark. He received a B.S.A. in Agronomy in 1974 and an M.S. in Soil Science in 1976 from the University of Arkansas. He completed the Ph.D. in Soil Genesis, Classification and Mineralogy at Ohio State University in 1984 and since that time has served with the agronomy faculty at Kansas State University where he is Professor and Assistant Head for Teaching. Ransom's work in soil genesis, soil survey and soil micromorphology is well known, not only in Kansas but nationally and internationally. His research program remains up-to-date with procedures he and his colleagues have developed in remote sensing, GIS and digitized soil survey information. He is currently Chair of Division S-5 of the Soil Science Society of America. He has served on numerous soil science, student contest and planning committees at the national level; as associate editor for the Soil Science Society of America Journal; and as reviewer for numerous other publications and proposals.
2002
Jerry N. Cash
Cash was born and grew up in Lonoke, Ark. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in biology from the University of Central Arkansas. His leadership along with his inquisitive, explorative nature yielded an outstanding scientist and teacher. His extensive publication list reveals work with a wide array of vegetables and fruit from squash to apples, with a concentration at times on grapes and potatoes. His disciplinary expertise ranges from basic plant physiology to food safety and applied process development. His interests have extended from production with plant nutrition and pest management to quality of the final consumer product after processing and storage.
Dr. Cash retired from his position as Professor of Food Science and Project Leader for all food Science Extension Specialists at Michigan State University in 2003.
2001
Charles Caviness
Caviness was born and reared on a small farm near Hazen, Ark. He served in the navy during WWII in the South Pacific and then enrolled at Arkansas A&M at Monticello for one year before coming to the University, where he graduated with a B.S. in agriculture in 1949. After graduation, Chuck began his career as a research assistant at the Cotton Branch Station and then served about four years as an agronomist with the Arkansas Agricultural Mission in Panama. He returned to the U of A to complete his M.S. degree in Crops in 1956. He then became an instructor in the newly established agronomy department. He took leave from this faculty to complete a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics at the University of Missouri in 1963, and for the next 30 years he conducted soybean research, taught plant breeding and production courses and advised graduate students.
Dr. Caviness has had numerous accomplishments during his long career. He introduced new rice varieties and improved production practices that increased rice yields in Panama, and he developed a synthetic corn variety. His major research accomplishments were in his development of nine high-yielding, disease-and nematode-resistant soybean varieties.
2000
Johnie N. Jenkins
Johnie Jenkins grew up on a small family farm in Phillips County, near Barton, Ark. He still runs that farm today along with all his other professional activities. He graduated with a B.S. degree from CSES in 1956. From here he went on to Purdue for an M.S. degree in 1958 and a Ph.D. in 1960. After a post-doc at University of Illinois, Jenkins began work as a research geneticist with USDA, ARS at Mississippi State. He is currently the Director and Research Leader at the Crop Science Research Laboratory with the USDA, ARS at Mississippi State University, and he is the Research Leader of the Genetics and Precision Agriculture Research Unit, as well as Location Coordinator for the Mississippi State Location of ARS.
Dr. Jenkins is recognized world wide as an authority on plant host resistance, especially in cotton. He is responsible for genetics and breeding investigations with emphasis on cotton genomics and cotton resistance to Heliothis, boll weevil and root-knot nematode. He designed the protocol for the world's first field test of Bt-transgenic cotton, and his method for pollen containment has become standard procedure in such tests. He has developed and released germplasms with resistance to boll weevil, Heliothis, plant bug and root-knot nematode, as well as those with other genetic traits.
1999
James V. Gramlich
Gramlich grew up on a small farm near Charleston, Ark. He received a B.S. degree in Crop Science and an M.S. in Weed Science from CSES before going on to Auburn for a Ph.D. in Botany and Plant Pathology. Dr. Gramlich was at the forefront in making correct decisions for Eli Lilly and American Cynamid where he spent most of his career. He was with Lilly for 16 years making decisions about research and development of products in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Then, he spent 15 years with American Cyanamid at Princeton, N.J., where he became President of the Agricultural Research Division. The success of these two industry giants rests with leaders who can make the right decision at the right time. Strategic discovery and development is the name of the game, and Gramlich was ever alert to what was good for the company and good for agriculture. His own research led to two new herbicides and four patents, but the focus of his career has been in management and leadership for global organizations with responsibility for discovery and development of new products.
Since his retirement in 1995, he continues to serve in this capacity as current President of Technology Leadership Associates, a consulting firm that assists companies with issues in agricultural and biotechnological research and development.