Student researchers from across campus filled Texas A&M University’s 12th Man Hall with research posters and science-based solutions to some of the world’s most pressing water problems April 23 during Texas A&M Water Day.
The annual event is hosted by the Texas Water Resources Institute, TWRI, and the Water Management and Hydrological Science Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M, and it includes a poster contest and a public water lecture.
Scholarships awarded
Faculty and staff volunteers served as research poster judges and scored the students’ research posters and science communication. Out of the 43 students who presented research posters, the top three received scholarship awards.
- 1st place and a $5,000 scholarship were awarded to Chinmay Chavan, doctoral student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M, for his research poster, “A Novel Flow Separator for Solar-thermal Desalination Applications.”
- 2nd place and a $3,500 scholarship were awarded to Harrison Coker, doctoral student in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M, for his research poster, “Aeroponic Technology for Accelerated Weathering of Extraterrestrial Regolith to Extract Plant Essential Nutrients and Generate Arable Soils.”
- 3rd place and a $1,500 scholarship were awarded to Dallas Williams, doctoral student in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, for her research poster, “Substituting Sand with Waste Material and Native Clay Soil in a Structural Soil Approach to Rain Garden Design.”
Poster contest brings together disciplines
Students from agricultural fields, sciences, engineering, and earth sciences participated in the competition and networked with faculty members.
Undergraduate and graduate students are all invited to present posters at Texas A&M Water Day, but only graduate students can receive a monetary prize, due to funding source requirements.
Poster competition students must: be a graduate student at Texas A&M University or TAMU Galveston, have at least one semester remaining in their current graduate program, and be enrolled in eligible study areas — including engineering hydrology, stochastic hydrology, coastal hydrology, water quality, watershed management, hydrogeology, and hydrologic techniques in water resources planning.
Contest-winning funds are applied directly to winners’ tuition and fees accounts.
The poster competition awards are funded by the W.G. Mills Memorial Fellowship in Hydrology, established to promote the development and conservation of water resources in Texas and develop leadership for tomorrow’s water resources managers. Since 2001, TWRI has awarded more than $560,200 in Mills scholarships to support 220 students involved in water-related studies.
Water Lecture
The poster session was followed by the public lecture, “Climate Change and Food Energy Water Nexus: An Exploration in Edwards Aquifer Region, Texas,” by Nobel Laureate Bruce McCarl, Ph.D., Regents Professor and University Distinguished Professor, and Chengcheng Fei, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University; and a lecture by Texas A&M Outstanding Early Career Alumni Matthew Berg, Ph.D., CEO and principal scientist at Simfero Consultants: Flowing Together: Texas Water Needs Everyone.
For more information about Texas A&M Water Day, contact WMHS-ProgramCoordinator@tamu.edu.
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