The 2019 Water for Food Global Conference featured a juried poster competition for graduate students, along with a "people's choice" award based on votes from attendees at the conference. The poster competition also included an online competition held prior to the competition.
Winners received cash prizes in the amount of $1,000, $750, $500, and $300 for first place, second place, third place, and people's choice respectively. Winners of the online competition also received complimentary registration to the full conference. The monetary awards were sponsored by Distinguished Fellow and former Valmont executive Bob Meaney, in honor of DWFI International Advisory Panel member Peter Rogers, who passed away last year. Peter was a Harvard professor and author and highly respected throughout the global community for his leadership in water research.
Student poster competition award winners were:
Online Competition
- First Place - Ear Formation Issues in Corn: a Field Study. Osler Ortez.
- Second Place - Pesticide Application Practices and Knowledge Among Small-Scale Local Rice Growers and Communities in Rwanda. Ben Ndayambaje.
- Third Place - Effect of Chlorination on Treatment of Meat Processing Wastewater Using Immobilized Co-culture of Microalgae and Activated Sludge. Xinjuan Hu.
On-site Competition
- First Place - Improving Aquifer Characterization through Integration of Airborne Electromagnetics (AEM) and Well Hydrographs. Jacqueline Polashek.
- Second Place - Predicting Crop Yield Losses Due to Soil-Water Alinity: Comparison of Traditional and Alternative Approaches. Ansley Brown.
- Third Place - Sustainability of Safe Foods: An Integrated Life Cycle Assessment of Antimicrobial Systems during U.S. Beef Processing in the Food-Energy-Water Nexus. Shaobin Li.
- People's Choice - Soil Structure and Soil Texture Effects on Soil Water Content Measurement by a Capacitance Based Electromagnetic Sensor. Jasreman Singh.