Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service faculty and staff gathered from across the state to celebrate outstanding colleagues at the agency’s Superior Service Awards ceremony July 31 in Bryan-College Station.
Two Texas Water Resources Institute staff members received honors during the ceremony. Audrey McCrary, TWRI program specialist, was named a 2023 Extension Rising Star and Alexander Neal, TWRI program specialist was named a 2024 Extension Rising Star.
The Rising Star honor recognizes new employees for exemplary work within their first three years with AgriLife Extension.
“Service is the heart of AgriLife Extension and our land-grant mission,” said Rick Avery, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension director, Bryan-College Station. “We celebrate these individuals because they represent the best of our exceptional agency and exemplify the dedication to education and service.”
McCrary works to improve water quality through watershed protection programs and improvement initiatives, and she specializes in conducting research through surveys to better help stakeholders.
Collaborating with Texas A&M AgriLife specialists, government agencies, local conservation planners and producers, she works to help increase adoption of conservation practices on agricultural lands by addressing barriers to practice adoption and leverages technical and financial assistance programs to improve agricultural management systems for the overall benefit of water resource conservation. McCrary’s professional expertise includes multi-use land management strategies, conservation plan designs and practice adoption and applied research in the human and environmental factors of water resource conservation.
Neal leads the Texas Riparian and Stream Ecosystem Education Program and facilitates workshops around the state that help Texans manage and protect the environmentally important areas around rivers and creeks.
He works with other Texas A&M AgriLife Extension specialists, federal and state agencies, and local communities and governments to execute stream education programs, implement watershed protection plans and further water resources education opportunities for Texans. Neal has also been involved with water quality monitoring efforts in various parts of Texas since 2014 and has worked within environmental interpretation, watershed services, watershed protection plan implementation and citizen science.
