Somali Chaterji and Caitlin Proctor, assistant professors of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University, share their experiences and how they became inspired to pursue their careers motivated by role models and early passions. They also explain why it is important for the field to be more representative and how they connect to this year’s theme, offering advice to early-career engineers.

On a given sol at the Hab, GreenHab Officer Madelyn Whitaker was often tending to the thriving microgreens.

ABE professors Carroll, Engelberth, Ni, and Simsek are collaborating on the team working to increase the production of seafood, known as "blue food," which is healthier and more sustainably produced than land-based foods.

"Having built and sustained a number-1-ranked department at Purdue for more than a dozen years, and then driving graduate student enrollment, scholarly impact and intellectual innovation across the college as senior associate dean, he has proved time and again his ability not only to impact the farms and fields of our state and world, but also to drive Purdue’s continuing excellence at scale."

Nate Mosier, department head and professor of agricultural and biological engineering, also credits his colleagues for this accomplishment. “We’re honored for the continued recognition of the excellence in research and graduate education in ABE at Purdue. It is through the outstanding work of our graduate students, mentoring of our faculty and support of our staff that we have stayed at the top for so long.”

“Agriculture needs to convert data into information for making decisions. In India, there is a lot of infusion of drone technology and sensors, a plethora of data that is generated by their use could transform farming practices of small and marginal farmers there.”

An agriculture-related project at Purdue University has created an open-source framework and community for sharing data and algorithms with the goal to improve sustainable food and agricultural systems to help feed the growing world population.

“Once we came to the idea of the Purdue CARES Hub, we really spent a lot of time solidifying what it would look like. We wanted a concrete space where students could come and get help,” said Stern, a senior in biological engineering from Saline, Michigan. "The wellbeing initiative is something that’s near and dear to my heart."

“We’ve shown that our nanocarriers, at least in another plant system, can get into the phloem and down to the roots. If we make our nanocarriers encapsulate an antibiotic that will kill this disease, then put them on the leaves of a tree. We think they’ll go inside the tree, down the phloem to the roots and they’ll release their antibiotic drug along the way. Maybe it can kill all the bacteria and maybe it can cure the disease,” Ristroph said.

The goal in agriculture is similar, says Kurt Ristroph, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering. “If you can improve the utilization efficiency of these agrochemicals, maybe you can apply less mass and get the same protective quality.”