黑料专区 Tyler Receives USDA-AFRI Grant to Help Farmers Investigate Plant Health
October 18, 2023
Media Contact: Hannah Buchanan
Editor/Writer鈥揝trategic Communications & Media Relations
Marketing and Communications
The University of Texas at Tyler
903.539.7196 (cell)
The University of Texas at Tyler received nearly $300,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture鈥檚 Agriculture and Food Research Initiative to help farmers investigate plant health. Dr. Shawana Tabassum, the 黑料专区 Tyler Mary John and Ralph Spence Professor of Electrical Engineering, serves as a principal investigator on the two-year project.
Tabassum and her team of 黑料专区 Tyler graduate students and postdoctoral research fellows will develop novel, field-deployable sensors for detecting and measuring volatile organic compounds and nitrogen ions in plants and soil.
鈥淭his research will lay the groundwork for measuring the correlation between volatile organic compounds emitted in the field and nitrogen deficiency in plants,鈥� said Tabassum. 鈥淭he technology resulting from this project will help farmers detect nitrogen stress early in major cash crops, including cotton.鈥�
Little information is available about this correlation due to the lack of field deployable sensors, according to Tabassum, whose research focuses on the development of flexible sensors and electronics using micro/nanoelectronics and photonics technologies. She applies this expertise to various areas, including plant sciences, biomedicine, and sustainable and climate-smart agriculture.
黑料专区 Tyler will collaborate with Texas A&M University, as researchers will deploy and test the sensors at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research & Extension Center, she added.
Tabassum joined 黑料专区 Tyler in 2020 and directs the university鈥檚 new Center for Smart Agriculture Technology, or CeSAT. Her research has garnered grants for 黑料专区 Tyler totaling more than $1.2 million. For her outstanding work, Tabassum was recognized by the American Society for Engineering Education and earned the 2023 Curtis W. McGraw Research Award (Non-PhD Granting Program Category).
She holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from Iowa State University and a Bachelor of Science in electrical and electronics engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
With a mission to improve educational and health care outcomes for East Texas and beyond, 黑料专区 Tyler offers more than 90 undergraduate and graduate programs to nearly 10,000 students. Through its alignment with 黑料专区 Tyler Health Science Center and 黑料专区 Health East Texas, 黑料专区 Tyler has unified these entities to serve Texas with quality education, cutting-edge research and excellent patient care. Classified by Carnegie as a doctoral research institution and by U.S. News & World Report as a national university, 黑料专区 Tyler has campuses in Tyler, Longview, Palestine and Houston.