Category Archives: Faculty
Dr. Searcy Retires After 40 Years of Service to Texas A&M
Dr. Stephen W. Searcy, head of the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, retired on Monday, August 31, 2020, after 40 years of service. Dr. Searcy began his road to academic success by earning a B.S. in Agricultural Engineering from the University of Missouri in 1974. He went on to earn a B.S. and an M.S. in Agricultural Mechanization also from the University of Missouri in 1976. He then went on to earn his Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1980. Dr. Searcy began his… Read More →
BAEN-NCTM Collaboration on COVID-19
Dr. Nikolov, Biological and Agricultural Engineering (BAEN) Professor and National Center for Therapeutics Manufacturing (NCTM) Director, and his graduate students, Emma Foster and Laura Soto, have been collaborating with NCTM scientists to develop an optimal production and purification process for making two recombinant versions of the COVID-19 spike protein. Laura and Emma have been working since April 2020 on the development of a reliable purification process for spike proteins. The preliminary data suggest that making 50 mg of purified protein per liter of cell culture is possible with… Read More →
NEW! Parnell Faculty Fellowship Created
An endowed fund to create the Dr. Calvin B. Parnell Faculty Fellowship in the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department has been established by the Wesson Family Foundation. David Wesson, AGEN ’82, wanted to honor Dr. Calvin Parnell, who was an important mentor to David as an undergraduate. The Wesson Family Foundation entered into an agreement with the Texas A&M Foundation to make gifts that establish the Parnell Faculty Fellowship as well as a Wesson Family Foundation Matching Fund. The Matching Fund was created to encourage others who value… Read More →
Professor Spotlight: Maria King
Dr. Maria King has been an assistant professor in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering for over a year now, but she has over 17 years of experience within Texas A&M including working with the industry and the United States Government. Before coming to the United States, Dr. King earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s in her native country of Hungary at the Budapest University of Technology. Dr. King earned her Ph.D. through a joint study with the Academic Institute of Biotechnology in Germany. Dr. King initially joined… Read More →
Aggies Honor Beloved Professor, the late Dr. Brock Faulkner
Dr. William “Brock” Faulkner was a great friend and mentor to many within the department [Biological and Agricultural Engineering] and to faculty and students across campus. After a long battle with leukemia, Dr. Faulkner passed away in the spring of 2016. While Dr. Faulkner has left those around him, he is kept alive in the loving memories of those whose lives he touched. To honor Dr. Faulkner in a long-lasting tangible way, a memorial rose garden was proposed by Dr. Maria King from the BAEN faculty. The garden… Read More →
Department Honored with Recent Awards
The Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering is pleased to announce that multiple faculty members were recognized for their outstanding contributions at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE). Dr. Sergio Capareda received the Superior Paper Award for his paper “Effective Use of Dairy Manure Mixed with Sand Bedding for Gasification which was published in the journal Transactions of the ASABE. Each year, several hundred papers are published in ASABE journals, and only 5% of those manuscripts are recognized… Read More →
Searcy Completes Term as ASABE President
Stephen W. Searcy, PE, served as the 2017-2018 President of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), an international scientific and educational organization dedicated to the advancement of engineering applicable to agricultural food, and biolgical systems. In his role as President, Dr. Searcy focused on enhancing the value of ASABE to its members. During his term, Searcy spearheaded major changes to the technical publishing process improving the length of time and impact of ASABE’s journals. He also facilitated planning for the Global Water Security for… Read More →
Ag Experts Discuss Handling Big Data at Conference
HOUSTON — Agricultural experts at a Houston conference praised the advancements in unmanned aerial vehicles, sensors and data-collecting technology used in precision crop production research, but said there are also challenges in how to process vast amounts of information and translate to the farmer. The conference, “Identifying Obstacles to Applying Big Data in Agriculture,” held Aug. 20-21 covered a broad spectrum of both unmanned aerial vehicles as well as automated ground vehicles equipped with sensor technology used to collect a variety of datasets in crop production. Texas A&M… Read More →
Texas A&M Hires New Leader of Agriculture College
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Board of Regents of The Texas A&M University System unanimously voted Thursday to hire a nationally recognized leader in nutritional science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences to lead Texas A&M University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the System’s agriculture agencies. As the incoming Vice Chancellor and Dean for Agriculture and Life Sciences, Dr. Patrick J. Stover, will be well positioned to better align research and extension efforts related to agriculture and human health. Dr. Stover, who comes… Read More →
New Faculty Bring New Ideas to Department
With an approach to science by using a holistic approach, Dr. Maria King has merged biological engineering and biotechnology with different fields and departments of Texas A&M including electrical engineering, chemical engineering, computer science, physics, mechanical and nuclear engineering as well as techniques that range from microbial analysis and pathogen detection to air sampling and computational fluid dynamics. Her work has been collaborated with outside organizations such as the United States Department of Defense, the United States Air Force, federal agencies like USDA, EPA, and industrial partners including… Read More →