I am currently recruiting graduate students (MS and PhD) for assistantships (full tuition and stipend support) for Fall 2024. I am specifically recruiting students for opportunities:
Precision-irrigation and nitrogen management for agricultural climate resilience: This USDA-funded project will design novel methods for monitoring, predicting, and modeling nitrogen transport in cropping systems under supplemental irrigation. It combines field experiments, machine learning, physical soil water and crop models, and irrigation management to reduce agricultural nitrogen losses in a changing climate.
Community Agricultural Resilience through Extension (CARE). This NOAA-funded project will develop educational resources and programming to help Extension personnel better support agricultural resilience in the communities they serve. We will assess the effectiveness and feasibility of different agronomic, economic, and community-based resilience strategies and develop recommendations and resources for Extension professionals, farmers, and their communities.
Ideal candidates will have a BS or MS in engineering or another quantitative field, mathematical programming experience (R or Python preferred), a strong background in math and statistics, and experience with modeling and/or geospatial analysis. Our role within Virginia Cooperative Extension provides a unique opportunity to maximize the real-world impact of our research, so the ability to communicate results to both scientific and planner/policy-maker audiences is especially valuable.
Interested students should contact Dr. Shortridge (jshortridge@vt.edu) and visit https://www.bse.vt.edu/graduate/apply.html to learn how to apply.
The Biological Systems Engineering Department at Virginia Tech includes roughly 30 faculty and 40 graduate students who apply engineering principles to solve problems related to sustainable utilization and management of natural resources. We use engineering science and design, along with biology, chemistry, and physics, to solve problems in biological systems ranging from watersheds to bioreactors. Virginia Tech is located in the vibrant college town of Blacksburg, Virginia, in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains.