Three top-flight graduate students from Texas Tech's College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources took high honors earlier this semester at the Texas Tech University Graduate School's 19th Annual Graduate Student Poster Competition.

Students get a chance to practice being able to tell someone what they do and why it's important, said CASNR Dean William Brown. "As you look through the research that's being done here in CASNR, you see some really innovative things," he said.

The recipient to win first place in the biological life sciences category was doctoral student Kathryn Radicke from the Department of Plant and Soil Science. The title of her poster was "Can alfalfa mixture with grass reduce enteric methane emissions from cattle on pasture?" Her advisor is Chuck West, Tech's Thornton Distinguished Chair in Plant and Soil Science.

Meanwhile, doctoral students Prakash Parajuli and Shaida Rumi from the Department of Plant and Soil Science, both received third place honors in the biological life sciences category. Parajuli's poster centered on "Inorganic salts mediated manipulation of physicochemical properties of cellulose-based monoliths," while Rumi's research effort focused on "Microwave plasma induced functionalization of cellulose-based films."

Parajuli and Rumi's advisor is Noureddine Abidi, Tech's Leidigh Professor in Plant and Soil Science, and managing director of the university's Fiber & Biopolymer Research Institute.

CONTACT: William Brown, Dean, College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Texas Tech University at (806) 742-2808 or william.f.brown@ttu.edu

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