DWFI Funds Research of 10 New Students in Food and Water Security

 

Each year, DWFI supports students doing research across the University of Nebraska related to water and food security. The grants program supports interdisciplinary faculty research while enriching the education of students who will one day be scientific leaders in the effort to feed the world’s growing population with limited natural resources. Students supported by DWFI study a wide variety of topics related to water and food security.
DWFI supported 10 new students advised by its Faculty Fellows in FY2021. They include:

Student: Tharius LeBeau, for a M.A. in Art, Art History & Design
Advisor: Katie Anania, Assistant Professor, UNL Art, Art History & Design
Project: Visualizing Food and Water Supplies in the U.S. and Latin America through Artists' Projects

Student: Nasrin Naderi Beni, for a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering, specialization in Env. Engineering
Advisor: Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, Professor and Dept. Chair, UNL Civil and Environmental Engineering
Project: The fate of microplastics in terrestrial systems: understudied sources and citizen science

Student: Fernanda Souza Krupek, for a Ph.D. in Agronomy
Advisor: Andrea Basche, Assistant Professor, and Daren Redfearn, Associate Professor, UNL Agronomy & Horticulture
Project: Assessing site-specific impacts of cover crops on water cycling using high-resolution imagery and ground based data 

Student: Daniel Gschwentner, for a Ph.D. Natural Resource Sciences with specialization in Applied Ecology, SNR
Advisor: Jessica Corman, Assistant Professor, UNL Agronomy & Horticulture
Project: Looking to the past to understand the future of freshwater in the Sandhills

Student: Matt Thompson, for a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (Year 2) with specialization in Environmental Engineering
Advisor: Bruce Dvorak, Professor, UNL Civil Engineering & Biological Systems Engineering
Project: Environmental sustainability assessment of small Nebraska water resource recovery facilities: water reuse opportunities 

Student: Wenqi Ou, for a Ph.D. Natural Resource Sciences, SNR (Year 2)
Advisor: Yi Qi, Assistant Professor, UNL School of Natural Resources
Project: Develop scalable methods for identifying Water Use Gap of Farmlands in Midwestern States

Student: Jiaming (Jamie) Duan, Ph.D. student in the UNL Biological Systems Engineering Department
Advisor: Daran Rudnick, Assistant Professor, and Derek Heeren, Associate Professor, UNL Biological Systems Engineering, (co-major advisors)
Project: Development of Research and Demonstration Sites in the BGMA for Groundwater Nitrate Reduction

Student: Qiao Hu, for a Ph.D. Natural Resource Sciences, SNR
Advisor: Zhenghong Tang, Professor, UNL College of Architecture
Project: Using small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) to promote precision conservation and sustainable agricultural practices in the Rainwater Basin, Nebraska

Student: Ben Ndayambaje, for a Ph.D. Natural Resource Sciences, SNR
Advisor: Elizabeth Van Wormer, Assistant Professor, UNL School of Natural Resources
Project: Linking child stunting, microbiome, livestock health and water quality: a One Health study in Rwanda

Student: Anthony Amori, for a Ph.D. in Agronomy 
Advisor: Haishun Yang, Associate Professor, UNL Agronomy & Horticulture
Project: WaterSmart: A cyberinfrastructure-based integrated agro-geoinformatic decision-support web service system to facilitate informed irrigation decision-making

View a summary of each current student's work and the impact it may have on achieving more food security with less pressure on scarce water resources.