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MAES Director Search Narrows to Four Finalists; Interview Dates Set

The search committee for the position of director of the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station and assistant vice president for research and graduate studies has announced the names of four finalists for the position.

The four finalists will visit the MSU campus this month for interviews and open forum presentations.

The candidates are:

  • Douglas Buhler, acting associate director of the MAES, acting associate dean for research in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, and professor of crop and soil sciences at MSU.
  • Keith Cooper, acting executive dean of agriculture and natural resources, executive director of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and dean of Cook College at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
  • Steven Pueppke, associate dean for research and director of ACES Global Connect in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, and director of the National Soybean Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois.
  • William Trumble, dean of the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, director of the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, and professor and acting chairperson of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of New Hampshire.

Each candidate will deliver a presentation and then take questions at an open forum at 105 South Kedzie Hall from 2:30 to 4 p.m. After each forum, all interested stakeholders will have an opportunity to meet with the candidate.

The MSU community and stakeholders also are invited to a reception for each finalist in the Agriculture Hall Atrium from 4:45 to 5:45 p.m. The dates for each candidate's seminar, stakeholder dialogue and reception are:

  • Trumble: Aug. 8.
  • Cooper: Aug. 11.
  • Buhler: Aug. 15.
  • Pueppke, Aug. 18.

For complete resumes of the candidates, visit the MAES director search Web site.

Douglas Buhler is professor and former chairperson of the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at MSU. He is currently acting associate director of the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station and acting associate dean for research for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Buhler was born and raised on a small dairy farm in southern Wisconsin. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Nebraska. He was a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1984 to 1989 and worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service from 1989 to 2000. He then joined Michigan State University as professor and chairperson of the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. From October 2003 to March 2005 he had a 25 percent appointment as state leader for agricultural programs for MSU Extension. Buhler's professional activities have generated more than 330 publications, including 125 refereed journal and review articles. Buhler is the author or editor of three books and has presented 90 invited seminars, symposia and workshops. He is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, the Weed Science Society of America and the North Central Weed Science Society.

Keith R. Cooper is professor of toxicology in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology and is currently dean of research and graduate programs at Rutgers-Cook College and senior associate director of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. He recently stepped down after serving for two years as the acting executive dean of Cook College and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. Cooper is also the associate director of the Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology NIEHS Training Grant (1986-present) and former chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at Rutgers University. Cooper has a bachelor's degree in biology from the College of William and Mary, a master's degree in marine biology from Texas A&M and a doctorate in animal pathology from the University of Rhode Island, and he did NIEHS postdoctoral training at Thomas Jefferson Medical School, where he received a master's degree in industrial toxicology. He is a member of the Institute for Marine and Coastal Research, the Environmental Science Graduate Program and the Joint Graduate Program in Toxicology. Since he joined Rutgers in 1981, his research has concentrated on xenobiotic metabolism and reproductive effects in aquatic animals, including endocrine-disrupting compounds, particularly dioxins, dibenzofurans and phthalates, on finfish and bivalve mollusks. He is also developing both food web and physiological based pharmacokinetic models to better predict chemical movement both in the environment and within the organism of concern. Cooper has more than 70 research publications and six book chapters in the area of comparative toxicology.

Steven G. Pueppke was born in Fargo, N.D., and was reared on a small grain farm in the Red River Valley. He enrolled at Michigan State University in 1968 and received his bachelor's degree in 1971. He then entered Cornell University and received his doctorate in plant pathology. After working during 1975-76 at the C. F. Kettering Research Laboratory in Yellow Springs, Ohio, he accepted a faculty position in biology at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. In 1979, Pueppke moved to the University of Florida, and in 1984, he was named chairperson of the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Missouri in Columbia. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and the University of Marburg, Germany, and was unit leader in plant sciences at the University of Missouri from 1990 to 1996. Pueppke has served as associate dean for research in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois since 1998 and also directs ACES Global Connect and the National Soybean Research Laboratory. A fellow of the American Phytopathological Society, he has published more than 125 refereed research papers.

William Trumble is dean of the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture at the University of New Hampshire and director of the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station, and for the past year he also has been the acting chairperson of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He considers his varied background -- as a U.S. Navy submarine veteran, project manager at a national laboratory, faculty member at the University of Idaho, president and CEO of Idaho Immunodiagnostics, Inc., and dean and director at a land-grant university -- to be excellent preparation in problem-solving skills rather than an indication that he did not know what he wanted to do when he grew up. He received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and a doctorate in physiology and took postdoctoral training in molecular biology. Trumble’s research has included investigations of mechanisms controlling muscle contraction (involving calcium-binding proteins), the invasion of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria into mammalian mammary cells (mastitis), specificity of antibody binding to Fc receptors and the production of edible vaccines.

Where China Goes, So Goes the Global Neighborhood

Globalization is making it a small world after all, and the costs of this newfound neighborliness are high.
Two internationally acclaimed scientists, one of them an MAES researcher, present sweeping evidence that China’s challenges – from polluted air and water to making and consuming goods to family life – already are making a big impact on the environment and human well-being in China and other parts of the world, including North America and Europe.

The developed nations must take a more active role – with policy, with aid and through business – to assist and support developing countries and recognize that the only real borders are drawn on paper, the scientists say.

 Nature Cover

“The world is increasingly connected,” said Jianguo “Jack” Liu, MAES fisheries and wildlife researcher, who holds the Rachel Carson chair in sustainability. “If we want to make the environment in China better – and there are many important reasons for us to – the whole world needs to do something about it.”

Liu, university distinguished professor and director of the MSU Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability, joined with Pulitzer-prize-winning author Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at UCLA, to write “China’s Environment in a Globalizing World – How China and the Rest of the World Affect Each Other” in the June 30 issue of the international science journal Nature.

In the cover-story feature article, Liu and Diamond outline the striking changes to China’s environment, including:

  • Much of China’s rapidly growing economy -- coal mining and cement, paper and chemical production -- still rests on outdated, inefficient or polluting technology. Industrial energy efficiency overall is much lower than that of the developed nations.
  • Almost all coastal seas are polluted.
  • Freshwater fisheries are being severely degraded by pollution and overfishing.
  • Environmental damage has caused severe economic losses, social conflicts and human health dangers.
  • Lifestyle changes have meant that the number of China’s households grew almost three times as fast as its population during 1985-2000 because average household size declined dramatically. Reduction in household size alone led to 80 million more households in China from 1985 to 2000, an increase exceeding the total number of households in Russia and Canada. Small households use resources less efficiently than larger ones.

“China’s environmental problems also spill over to other countries, which are increasingly affected through sharing the same planet, atmosphere and oceans with China,” Liu and Diamond noted. “In turn, other countries affect China’s environment through globalization as well as through their own environmental pollution and resource exploitation.”

Liu and Diamond itemize a litany of push and pull between China and the rest of the world. The hallmark is environmental damage, which creates economic, social and health burdens with which China is ill-equipped to cope.

Liu and Diamond maintain that developed nations carry a strong moral obligation to lead in helping the developing nations protect the environment and achieve economic sustainability. In the developed nations, the big picture is easier to see on a full stomach. Protections – such as laws, zoning rules and regulations – are possible thanks to the luxury of economic power. The developing nations’ first priority on the most basic needs makes big-picture concerns hard to address.

“When China produces something for export, they use natural resources and release pollutants to the environment,” Liu said. “You leave the pollution behind. Thus, importing countries contribute to China’s environmental problems.”

The developing nations offer lucrative markets, but these markets come with an environmental price. Diamond noted that Westerners must realize China’s benefits come at a cost.

“China increasingly affects the rest of the world because China’s huge population, combined with its high rate of economic growth, translates into large and growing resource consumption and impact on the world’s shared pool of finite resources,” Diamond said. “It’s impossible for the West to tell China that we in the West will maintain our high consumption rates but that China mustn’t try to catch up. Something will have to change.”
Among the authors’ recommendations:

  • Aggressive support of education in China. An educated population better understands global and environmental impacts – the first step toward affecting change.
    “Environmental education is important, but it’s not enough,” Liu said. “You have to enhance education in general. People who have more schooling have the ability to develop new technology and use technology to understand and solve some of these problems.”
  • Rigorous implementation and enforcement of environmental laws and regulations already on the books in China, an effort that will require greater funding.
  • Use of market tools to address environmental issues, such as eliminating subsidies for industries that severely harm the environment, such as coal.
  • Addressing lifestyle issues such as household size and even divorce, which have an environmental impact. Liu and Diamond even suggest examining the benefits of a mandatory waiting period for divorce, saying divorce ultimately has negative environmental impacts.

It’s time, Liu says, to realize that the other side of the world really is our backyard, and that good neighbors don’t just borrow but also return favors.

“This is not just a recommendation for China but for the whole world,” Liu said. “We focus on China, but that doesn’t mean only China needs to do this.“

The research was funded by a National Science Foundation Biocomplexity and the Environment grant, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation of China and the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.

MAES Researcher Awarded Nano Grant

Evangelyn “Vangie” Alocilja, MAES scientist in the Department of Biosystems and Agriculture Engineering, has been awarded a $160,000 grant for exploratory research as part of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NNI is a federal research and development program that coordinates the multiagency efforts in nanoscale science, engineering and technology.

Alocilja is working on a polymer carbon nanotube-based biosensor to detect threats to the U.S. water supply, livestock industries and food supply chains. She hopes her biosensors, roughly the dimensions of a small stick of chewing gum, might eventually enable real-time field-based diagnosis of pathogenic contamination. Even with the best current technology, today it takes up to one week to confirm the existence of biohazardous agents – a category that includes everything from Salmonella to anthrax.

Alocilja’s nano-collaborators are MAES researcher Amar K. Mohanty in the School of Packaging and Vladimir Tarabara, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

More information on the NNI is available at www.nano.gov/. Alocilja’s work is featured in the spring 2004 issue of Futures, the MAES research magazine.

Rogers Reserve Opens

On July 12, more than 200 people – from chestnut growers to county commissioners to MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources administrators – braved sticky weather and the threat of thunderstorms for the opening of the Ernest and Mable Rogers Reserve in Jackson.

The 114-acre reserve, which the Rogerses donated to MSU in the early 1990s, is home to research benefiting Michigan’s chestnut and Christmas tree industries. The Michigan Nut Growers Association, the Midwest Nut Producers Council, Chestnut Growers, Inc., and a group of MSU scientists known as the Chestnut Research Team all have active research projects consistent with the Rogerses’ vision – to develop a research farm and facility that enhances food production through the use of natural resources.

Dennis Fulbright, MAES plant pathology researcher, hopes to attract additional organizations and research projects to the Jackson facility.

“The goal is to provide new vision for agricultural research where agricultural product development occurs as new agricultural industries are formed,” Fulbright said.

Mitch Irwin Appointed Director of Agriculture

The Michigan Commission of Agriculture named Mitch Irwin director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA) July 13. Irwin replaces Dan Wyant, who resigned on July 29.

Irwin, of East Lansing, was the director of the Michigan Department of Management and Budget (DMB). Before joining the DMB, Irwin held positions with the Michigan State Senate, where he served the Upper Peninsula and northern Michigan from 1979 to 1990; the Economic Development Corporation of Chippewa County; and the Eastern U.P. Regional Planning and Development Commission.

"We are pleased to have a person of Mitch Irwin's background to lead the department, working with the diverse food and agriculture industry on behalf of the citizens of Michigan," said Jim Byrum, commission chairperson. "All of the candidates were very committed to improving the state's agriculture industry, but Mitch is an outstanding choice to take on the challenges and opportunities facing agriculture today."

The other candidates who interviewed were former state representative Gene DeRossett of Saline; James Lloyd of Okemos, currently the assistant to the dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University; and Michael Schrom of Bangor, currently in a management position at Honee Bear Canning.

Irwin commended Dan Wyant for the leadership he provided as MDA director for the past nine years.

"Director Wyant has developed strong partnerships with the multitude of public and private organizations that serve this vital industry. It is my goal to build on the administration's priorities of both protecting Michigan's consumers by ensuring a safe and healthy food and crop supply, and protecting and growing Michigan's agriculture industry," Irwin said.

Wyant plans to return to Cass County, where he will become president and chief operating officer of the Cassopolis-based Edward Lowe Foundation, a private operating foundation that assists entrepreneurs.

Orchard, Woodlot Owners May Profit from Mushrooms as Second Crop

Owners of apple orchards, hardwood lots and sugar bush operations may soon have another crop to produce during the non-growing season.

Frances Trail, MAES plant biology researcher, said she came up with the idea for growing mushrooms as an alternative crop while teaching one of her classes. Thinking that a class project involving mushrooms would enrich the curriculum, Trail created kits for her students to use to grow edible mushrooms at home.

Trail thought the concept could also succeed for orchard and woodlot owners.

“We’re trying to identify and develop other ways for folks who own orchards or woodlots to derive added profit from their land,” she said. “Mushrooms can be grown and harvested during times of the year when it’s not productive to grow other crops.”

Trail will collect samples of known edible mushroom varieties this fall from wooded areas throughout the state. Samples will be cultured and evaluated in the lab to identify which species show the most promise for reproduction in existing orchard and woodland areas.

“We will collect strains of fungus and test them to see which ones are sustainable enough to populate various woodland environments,” she said. “I hope orchard and woodlot owners will be able to benefit from our research by increasing their profitability.”

MAES Hort Scientists Shine at Lighting Symposium

MSU horticulture scientists are recognized as innovators in studying the relationship between lighting and plant growth -- and now they're telling the world about their work. Four researchers and three graduate students from the Department of Horticulture participated in the Fifth International Symposium on Artificial Lighting in Horticulture in Lillehammer, Norway, in June. Outside of host country Norway, MSU had the largest presence at the conference.

MAES horticulture researchers Erik Runkle and Art Cameron each made presentations. Runkle's was "Manipulating the light environment to control flowering and morphogenesis of herbaceous plants," and Cameron's was "Light responses of herbaceous perennial plants." Runkle also was an invited speaker. MAES researcher Ryan Warner and graduate students Matt Blanchard, Roberto Lopez and Sonali Padhye presented posters on their lighting research with floricultural crops. Blanchard won Best Poster Award for "Effects of daily light integral on growth and flowering of potted phalaenopsis orchids." Former MAES scientist Royal Heins, now a horticulture professor emeritus, was on the symposium's scientific committee and moderated an oral session.

Two Bees
Bee Research Leads to Extensive Photo Collection

Zachary Huang, MAES entomology researcher, has always been interested in bees, and it was while researching bees that Huang developed his interest in photography.

Huang’s 20-plus years of bee research and interest in how bees interact with one another led him to create a Web site that includes more than 700 captioned and catalogued photos about honeybee biology. The Web site is a place where people can go to learn more about bees by viewing lifelike, close-up photos of bees taken by Huang.

“Some photos are step-by-step instructions on practices such as catching a swarm and installing packaged bees [bees bought in packages], with each step illustrated by a photo,” Huang said. “I also have photos on research procedures, such as how to obtain blood from bees and how to measure juvenile hormone levels in honeybees.”

Visitors can navigate the Web site for information and images on a variety of topics, including bee anatomy, bees on flowers, bees in the hive, beekeeping, bee research, and bee diseases and pests. There are also photos of various types of bees -- Asian, giant and dwarf honeybees, and stingless bees and bumblebees -- where people can see for themselves the physical differences between the species. Each image includes a caption describing the picture’s content.

Huang decided to create his Web site because people were frequently asking him detailed questions about bees. He found it easier to explain the answers to these questions by using photographs.

Huang’s bee photographs have been used as cover photos in scientific journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Experimental Biology and Genome Research. His photos have also been included in Science, Nature Reviews-Genetics and Current Biology.

Several of Huang’s research projects focus on developing means for controlling the Varroa mite, a parasite that invaded the United States from the eastern hemisphere in 1987. It has since nearly wiped out all native bee colonies in the United States and continues to threaten the country’s remaining 2.7 million commercial colonies. Huang invented the Spartan Mite Zapper, a chemical-free method of controlling Varroa mite, and developed a Web site to link beekeepers with farmers seeking pollination services.

Nanotechnology Looks to Learn from Agricultural Biotechnology

What can scientists, engineers, technology developers, policy-makers and research administrators in the emerging field of nanotechnology learn from the international controversy over the use of biotechnology techniques in agriculture and the food system? Probably quite a bit.

A conference dedicated to answering this question will feature participants from industry, regulatory and non-governmental organizations, as well as scholars who have conducted research on the debate over transgenic crops, animal biotechnology and genetically modified organisms from a number of perspectives.

Sponsored by the MSU Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards, "What Can Nano Learn from Bio? Lessons from the Debate over Agrifood Biotechnology and GMOs" will take place Oct. 26-27 at the Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center on the Michigan State University campus.

For more information or online registration, visit the conference Web site.

Field Days and Special Events

Enhancing Beneficial Insects with Native Plants Field Day
August 10, 2005
MSU Entomology Research Farm Barn (on Collins Road between Jolly and Forest)
9 a.m.-noon: Field demonstrations.
Noon-1 p.m.: Lunch and conservation presentations.
1:30-3:30 p.m.: Wildtype native plant nursery.
Advance registration is required. The $15 fee includes lunch and educational materials.

Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association 2005 Summer Field Day
August 17, 2005
MSU Horticulture Teaching and Research Center
9 a.m.-3 p.m.

Northwest Michigan Horticulture Research Station
Open House and Equipment Show
August 25, 2005
Early afternoon: educational sessions and equipment demonstrations
Late afternoon: wine tasting and dinner.

Lake City Experiment Station
Forage & Livestock Field Day
August 27, 2005
9:30 a.m.: Research and demonstration tours.
Noon: Lunch.
1 p.m.: Afternoon program featuring MAES acting director John Baker and MSUE director Tom Coon, as well as research on storing hay bales.
For more information, view the flier on the day's events.

Saginaw Valley Bean and Beet Research Farm
Annual Field Day
August 30, 2005
Registration starts at 8:30 a.m.
The field day runs from 9 a.m. to noon. Lunch is included.

Trevor Nichols Research Complex
Research Field Day
September 27, 2005
1-5 p.m.
The focus will be on insect and disease research and efficacy trials carried out this season at the TNRC.
Last Updated: January 16, 2007
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