During the 2014 Corn Utilization and Technology Conference the winners of the Gary Lamie Graduate Student Poster Competition were announced. The program is sponsored by the Indiana Corn Marketing Council. Pictured are National Corn Growers Association President Martin Barbre (left) and NCGA Research and Development Action Team Chair Tom Mueller (right) with the top three poster winners. I visited with Tom whose committee oversees the CUTC.
“The National Corn Growers Association is pleased to lend our support, encouragement and a cash stipend to young researchers,” said NCGA Research and Business Development Action Team Chair Tom Mueller during the awards presentation. “Clearly, corn offers a variety of solutions for many of today’s problems, and we are honored to play a small role in recognizing the scholarly efforts that will help expand corn utilization.”
This year’s contest attracted 22 student entries. A panel of industry and academic experts evaluated the posters on their relevance to the corn industry, scientific originality, viable and supportable conclusions and oral and visual presentation. The judges reviewed entries that detailed research well above average in their significance to the industry. Due to the impressive quality of the entries, multiple rounds of judging were necessary to select the winners.
Lei Fang, Iowa State University, took first place in the contest. The second-place award was presented to Iowa State University student Fengdan Chang. Third place was awarded to Arati Santhanakrishnan, who is a student at Michigan State University.
Listen in to my interview with Tom and also hear about corn crop conditions in his area: Interview with Tom Mueller
I also asked the student winners a few questions about their projects and what it means to them to have the opportunity to compete and attend the CUTC: Interview with Student Winners