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Our Best and Brightest
TSUAg Celebrates 2024 Award Winners at Annual Luncheon
By Charlie Morrison
The Tennessee State University College of Agriculture (TSUAg) celebrated some of its best and brightest back in March at the 2024 College awards luncheon. The event highlighted some of the top students, faculty members, and staffers for their commitment over the previous year, and as such, it was a joyous affair.
At the event, held March 15 at the FarrellWestbrook auditorium on the campus of the College of Agriculture, a total of 15 from the College were singled out for their contributions to academic life at TSU over the past year. Five committee chairs took on the task of announcing the awards, but first TSU Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Erik Schmeller grasped the microphone to deliver opening remarks.
Administrative Awards
TSUAg Director of Marketing and Communications “Coach” Rod Reed was the next to don the microphone, announcing Jason Foster as the winner of the Outstanding Administrative Support Award. Foster, a Senior Office Assistant who works directly with TSUAg Department of Food and Animal Sciences Chair Dr. Samuel Nahashon, has called TSUAg home for the past three years. Given his outstanding work supporting not just Dr. Nahashon but all of the faculty, Foster’s impact on academic life at the College has been significant.
Beloved TSUAg staffer Donna Hinton won this year’s Beyond the Call of Duty Award. Hinton, a native Nashvillian and accomplished musician, serves as the Office Manager for the College, where she leads the team of staffers in the Dean’s Suite. Hinton long served as an educator herself, working at both the high school and collegiate levels, including a 10-year stint as a Certification Officer for Fisk University. Hinton joined the TSUAg family in 2019.
Extension Awards
The Associate Dean of TSU Extension, Dr. Latif Lighari, was next to the podium to announce the winners of two awards, for Outstanding Extension Agent and Outstanding Extension Faculty. Rutheford County 4-H Extension Agent Raquel Victor took home the prize for Outstanding Extension Agent and Dr. Kaushalya Amarasekare won as the Outstanding Extension Faculty member.
Victor is a 16-year veteran of TSU Extension who works primarily with Rutheford County youth on life skills, proper nutrition, leadership, and citizenship. Dr. Amarasekare is an associate professor at TSUAg and a state-wide Extension Specialist who brings her knowledge of entomology to growers and Extension offices throughout the Volunteer State.
Graduate Awards
Graduate Coordinator Dr. Bharat Pokharel next announced the graduate student awards. The winner of the Outstanding M.S. Student Award in Agribusiness and Leadership was Purshottam Dhungana. Dhungana’s research is centered on enhancing decisionmaking for small farms in the areas of marketing, diversification strategies, and financial decision-making.
Second-year M.S. student Aakash Sharma took home the Outstanding Student Award for Food and Animal Sciences. Sharma is currently working on a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and National Science Foundation-funded project to develop a UV irradiation for the disinfection of food contact services. Sharma serves as both the President of the Food Science Club and as the Secretary of the Agriculture Graduate Student Association.
Graduate research assistant Christina Jennings was named the winner of the 2024 Outstanding Doctoral Student Award. Jennings plies her trade out at the Otis L. Floyd Nursery Research Center, where she works under Dr. Fulya Baysal-Gurel and the USDA’s Dr. Lisa Alexander on the identification and functional verification of powdery mildew-resistant genes in bigleaf hydrangea plants.
The award for Outstanding Graduate Mentor in 2024 went to Dr. Jianwei Li. The climate change researcher and soil biogeochemistry Associate Professor was named the winner of this year’s award for his work mentoring a bevy of graduate and undergraduate students over the past year. The students advised by Dr. Li serve as a reflection on his leadership; they have been proficient in publishing, promoting their own research, and winning both academic and travel awards.
Undergraduate & Teaching Awards
TSUAg’s Associate Dean of Land-grant Programs Dr. De’Etra Young took over as the master of ceremonies for the undergraduate and faculty researcher awards. Dr. Young presented Kyla Hughes with the Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award for the Department of Agricultural Science and Engineering. The sophomore is pursing a degree in Agricultural Science with a concentration of Biotechnology.
Aaliyah Cotton was presented with the Undergraduate Student Award for the Department of Environmental Science. Cotton is a junior at TSUAg who sports a spiffy 3.9 grade point average. The Dean’s List regular and member of the Honors College is a regular at the Tiger Bay Wetland, where under the tutelage of particularly Dr. Tom Byl, she performs research on algal toxin accumulation, among other things.
The Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award for the Department of Food and Animal Science went this year to Grace Colvin. Colvin also touts a 3.9 G.P.A. and is a feature on both the President’s and Dean’s Lists. You can often find Colvin out at “the Farm,” the Agriculture Research and Education Center, where she serves as a Dean’s Scholar and plays a vital role in the management of the facility.
Tramaine Moore was named the Outstanding Undergraduate Student for the Department of Human Sciences. The junior Family and Consumer Sciences major and Dean’s Scholar serves on the leadership team for the newly established TSU Fashion Society, and also on the Public Relations Committee of the Chi Psi chapter of the Alpha Kappa Psi professional business fraternity. Moore is also a winner of a NextGen award that will support her upcoming travels to the United Kingdom.
This year’s Outstanding Teaching Faculty Award went to plant breeding and genetics professor Dr. Matthew Blair. The affable Dr. Blair brings a zest to his teaching that has seen him have impacts in the classroom teaching biotechnology and plant breeding. Dr. Blair has been proficient as both an advisor and as a researcher, mentoring over 100 students of various levels and authoring over 200 refereed publications on his focus area, the climate change tolerance and nutritional traits of amaranth, common beans, cowpeas, and mung beans.
Research Awards
It was TSUAg’s Associate Dean of Research, Dr. Fulya Baysal-Gurel who was the final awards committee chair to present a pair of awards for research. Dr. Brahmaiah Pendyala was named the 2024 Outstanding Young Researcher Award. The Food and Animal Science Assistant Professor focuses on natural products and their roles in promoting human and animal health. Dr. Pendyala’s research spans the disciplines of bioinformatics, food science, microalgal technology, and bioproducts and he has published extensively on these topics.
The final award of the 2024 Awards Luncheon, for Outstanding Research Faculty went this year to Dr. Anjit Patras. Dr. Patras is and Associate Professor of Food Science and Engineering at TSUAg, where he focuses his research on developing non-thermal technologies, process sustainability, scale-up engineering, process validation, and computational modeling. Dr. Patras has made significant contributions to scholarly publications and he has secured important grants for the College.
