Texas A&M AgriLife Research Director’s Awards will honor a collaborative project, nine faculty and staff awardees, two Faculty Fellows and a new Senior Faculty Fellow at a banquet on Jan. 6 at the Phillips Event Center, 1929 Country Club Drive, Bryan.
The AgriLife Research Director’s Awards recognize outstanding contributions by faculty and staff in their respective fields that exemplify support for AgriLife Research’s mission and vision.
“We are honored to recognize the exceptional faculty and staff in our organization who stand out even among their world-class peers,” said G. Cliff Lamb, Ph.D., director of AgriLife Research. “The contributions of these individuals exemplify our mission to pioneer knowledge about agriculture and the life sciences to improve the production of abundant, affordable and high-quality food and agricultural products.”
Administrative Support Staff Award
Rachel Whisenant
Rachel Whisenant, Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases, IIAD, associate director, will receive the Administrative Support Staff Award. Whisenant oversees day-to-day unit operations, ensuring programs run efficiently and remain aligned with the director’s strategic vision. She has been a key member of IIAD since 2009. Throughout her tenure, Whisenant has developed extensive expertise in program and organizational management, research administration and financial management. Her leadership supports the institute’s long-term growth, operational effectiveness and commitment to excellence.
Infrastructure/Information Technology Staff Award
Gabriel “Gabe” Saldana
The Infrastructure/Information Technology Staff Award will honor Gabe Saldana, senior communications manager with Texas A&M AgriLife Marketing and Communications. Saldana is tasked with building and improving the public presence of the agency. He has spent a tremendous amount of time sharing AgriLife Research’s mission, vision and impact message with people within the agency, across the state and internationally. In strengthening the public image of the agency, he serves an integral role in AgriLife Research’s overarching work in agriculture and the life sciences.
Ryan Lovingshimer
Also receiving the Infrastructure/Information Technology Staff Award is Ryan Lovingshimer, a key resource for maintaining and optimizing the research infrastructure in the Texas A&M Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Bryan-College Station. Lovingshimer began his career at Texas A&M in 2018 as a program aide. He was promoted to laboratory mechanic II in 2020 and to program coordinator II in 2025. He manages inventory systems, oversees common-use equipment, supervises shop operations and manages other day-to-day operations throughout the department’s numerous labs.
Technical Staff Support Award
Brian Bennett
Brian Bennett, senior research associate, will receive a Technical Staff Support Award. Bennett started working for AgriLife Research in 2001 as a college student. In 2003, he became a technician for Charles Simpson, Ph.D., AgriLife Research peanut breeder, in the wild species peanut greenhouses at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Stephenville. He worked for Simpson for 18 years before taking his current field research position.
Jason Baker
Also earning a Technical Staff Support Award will be Jason Baker, research specialist IV at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Amarillo. Baker has been a member of the Texas A&M Wheat Breeding program for close to 25 years. His primary responsibility is to manage wheat performance trials and selection nurseries. As trial manager, Baker assures that yield trials and selection nurseries provide accurate data needed for advancement decisions and cultivar release documentation. In the past five years, the program has licensed six hard red winter wheat cultivars and one triticale cultivar.
Collaboration Award
Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center in Lubbock and the Texas Water Resources Institute Partnership
The Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Lubbock and the Texas Water Resources Institute, TWRI, Partnership is an interdisciplinary team dedicated to addressing the most urgent agricultural challenges of the Southern Great Plains. The region suffers from water scarcity, climate variability and declining soil health, increasingly threatening production and rural livelihoods. By combining strengths in soil science, agronomy, water resources, social sciences and stakeholder engagement, the team develops practical, research-driven solutions that directly support producers in this high-risk region.
The team includes TWRI members Allen Berthold, Ph.D., associate director and assistant professor; Danielle Kalisek, assistant director and chief financial officer; and Lucas Gregory, Ph.D., associate director and chief science officer, all in Bryan-College Station. Members from Texas A&M AgriLife in Lubbock are Katie Lewis, Ph.D., AgriLife Research soil chemistry and fertility scientist and professor; Joseph Burke, Ph.D., AgriLife Research and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service cropping system agronomy and weed scientist and assistant professor; and Chris Cobos, Ph.D., senior research associate, all in the Texas A&M Department of Soil and Crop Sciences.
Research Scientist of the Year
Dmitry Kurouski, Ph.D.
Dmitry Kurouski, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, will be presented the Research Scientist of the Year Award. Kurouski’s strengths as an analytical chemist have secured his position as an authority in the physics of Raman spectroscopy. He has used the technology to develop real-time field tools for assessing comprehensive plant health and to dig deep into aggregates that underlie neurogenerative disease. His research interests focus on the role of nutrition in the onset and progression of neurodegenerative diseases.
William A. Dugas Early Career Awards for Research Excellence
Gurjinder Baath, Ph.D.
Gurjinder Baath, Ph.D., digital agriculture specialist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Temple and assistant professor, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, will receive the Early Career Award for Research Excellence. Since starting his position in 2022, Baath has led a data-driven research program emphasizing precision agriculture technologies, especially non-destructive remote sensing technologies, to enhance production efficiency and reduce the environmental footprints of agriculture. He has secured funding for 10 externally supported projects, with more than $2.3 million directly supporting his program.
Briana Wyatt, Ph.D.
Also earning an Early Career Award for Research Excellence is Briana Wyatt, Ph.D., soil scientist and associate professor, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. Wyatt’s research and teaching programs focus on soil and environmental physics and better stewardship of increasingly threatened soil and water resources. Her research has made local, state and national impacts in the field of soil physics, with projects focused on soil moisture monitoring, land-atmosphere interactions, impacts of land cover change on groundwater recharge and the development of seasonal streamflow forecasts.
Neville Clarke Award for International Agriculture
Amir Ibrahim, Ph.D.
The Neville Clarke Award for International Agriculture will be awarded to Amir Ibrahim, Ph.D., AgriLife Research associate director and chief scientific officer, associate dean for research in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and Regents Professor, Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. Ibrahim led the statewide wheat and oat research in collaboration with multidisciplinary experts across Texas, the U.S. and the world. Among his research projects were mapping genes and quantitative trait loci associated with biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, end-use quality characteristics, germplasm diversity, and hybrid and synthetic wheat.
Faculty Fellow
AgriLife Research established the Faculty Fellows Program in 1998 to acknowledge and reward exceptional research faculty within the agency. The Faculty Fellow designation is permanent and becomes a part of the recipient’s academic title.
Katie Lewis, Ph.D.
Lewis will earn the title of Faculty Fellow as a respected agricultural and environmental soil scientist committed to addressing critical challenges in agriculture with a focus on sustainable soil management. She joined AgriLife Research in 2014, and her research program focuses on three key areas: soil organic carbon, greenhouse gas emissions, soil health and regenerative agriculture; nutrient management; and water and soil conservation. Her work has resulted in $7.7 million in funding for her program, and a fourth of her doctoral students now hold faculty positions.
Sorin Popescu, Ph.D.
Also earning the title of Faculty Fellow is Sorin Popescu, Ph.D., professor, Texas A&M Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology. Popescu is an internationally recognized expert in lidar remote sensing, technoecology and environmental data science. His research advances the use of airborne, spaceborne and UAS-based lidar systems for characterizing vegetation structure, biomass, carbon and ecosystem change. He has contributed to multiple remote sensing books, developed widely used open-source software, mentored 23 graduate students and taught remote sensing and UAS courses for more than 22 years.
Senior Faculty Fellow
Chaodong Wu, M.D., Ph.D.
The advanced title of Senior Faculty Fellow will be awarded to Chaodong Wu, M.D., Ph.D., Presidential Impact Fellow, AgriLife Research Faculty Fellow and professor in the Texas A&M Department of Nutrition. Wu’s research focuses on elucidating the mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of obesity and overnutrition-associated metabolic diseases, including insulin resistance, diabetes and fatty liver disease. Since 2010, he has secured almost $12.5 million in funding. His research on obesity-related inflammation, metabolic changes and metabolic diseases has elevated Texas A&M’s reputation in nutrition obesity research.
