Professor Emeritus Larry Wells is suffering from a protracted and serious illness as a result of botulism poisoning. Larry's wife Estie is providing Fred Payne with updates on his illness. Larry will be in a coma for at least three months, and then his paralysis will take at least a year to go away. He will face many challenges during the recovery period because of catheters, ventilator, feeding tube, etc. Estie will be sending updates to Fred, and also has provided her email if anyone wants to reach out.estiewells@twc.com Her home address is: Estie Wells, 457 White Oak Trace, Lexington, KY 40511.

Dr. Tiffany Messer joined the Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Department in October 2020. She holds degrees in Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering (University of Kentucky, B.S., 2008) and Biological and Agricultural Engineering (North Carolina State University, M.S. 2010, PhD, 2015). She completed a postdoctoral appointment in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University (2015-2016). She has received the USDA AFRI NIFA Postdoctoral Fellowship (2016) and EPA STAR Fellowship (2012-2015). During her previous time at the University of Kentucky, she served as an Engineering Ambassador (2005-2008), and on Ag Student Council (2005-2008) and Biosystems Engineering Student Branch (2004-2008). Her research and teaching interests reside at the intersection of engineering, ecology, and agriculture with an emphasis on environmental biogeochemistry and water resources in human impacted ecosystems. Her research team investigates fate and transport of emerging contaminants, nutrients, and E. coli, while exploring cost-effective development and placement of best managements practices to improve water quality and reduce human exposure. She currently mentors undergraduate, M.S., and Ph.D. research students in Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering and will be teaching the GIS modeling and treatment wetland design courses in the upcoming year. She is extremely excited about the opportunity to return her alma mater.

Stephanie Kesner has joined the department as the new facilities manager. Her background includes 5.5 years of biofuels research and lab management in the Biofuels and Environmental Catalysis group at the University of Kentucky’s Center for Applied Energy Research, 1.5 years managing an industrial R&D hemp processing lab, and two years as an EMT in an industrial setting. Her experience in lab settings with very high safety and operational standards, along with her OSHA and EMT certifications, will help her bring improvements to the overall culture of BAE. One of her main objectives is to develop overall standardized lab protocols for the department. In order to do that she will need to work closely with each group to balance everyone’s needs with OSHA compliance standards (which is not always easy). She looks forward to meeting with everyone (either in person or virtually) and discussing how to plan the best way forward.

Bode Adedeji is serving as a guest editor of the special issue of Foods, an open access journal by MDPI. MDPI is a leader in scholarly open-access publishing headquartered in Basel, Switzerland. The special issue is titled "Applications of Non-Destructive Technologies for Agricultural and Food Product Quality Determination."

Matt Dixon was quoted in an article about the recent bad weather's impact on cattle. Read more.

Al Fadhl Al Khaled won both second place and the people's choice awards in UK Graduate School's Postdoc Track of 3MT, the 3 Minute Thesis Competition. Learn more about 3MT here and watch his video here.

Morgan Hayes was a guest on the podcast, "Equine Innovators." She spoke about optimizing barn and arena ventilation. Listen here.

Jessie Hoagg, Mike Sama, and Josh Jackson's project to monitor cattle with drones was featured in First Bell, the American Society for Engineering Education's (ASEE) newsletter. The BBC, which featured this project in print last month, released a video on the project. Watch here.

BAE alum and Fulbrighter Zachary Tyler has been hired as Louisville's first Energy Manager. Zach was advised by Dr. Carmen Agouridis and Dr. Don Colliver. Read more.

BAE alum Eric Wooldridge's innovative teaching using 3D printing was featured in a blog post by Autodesk. Read here.

Joe and Tanya Dvorak have received a USFA-NIFA Higher Ed Challenge Grant. Their $147,986 award is in conjunction with Purdue University, which was awarded $739,050. The title of this project is "Computational Skills Development for Next Generation AgriScience Professionals for Sustaining Data."