Outstanding Internationals
Students, Faculty, and Scholars Recognized for Excellence
Many international students and scholars are playing vital roles in the fulfillment of the univerisity's aim to be excellent in scholarship and research.
Birgette Ahring - Denmark
An internationally recognized microbiologist to join Washington State University as the director of the Center for Bioproducts and Bioenergy and as the Battelle Distinguished Professor, based at WSU Tri-Cities. Birgitte Ahring, currently a professor at The Technical University of Denmark, will lead WSU’s interdisciplinary center that will focus research and academic programming on the use and conversion of biomass into bioproducts and biofuels.
Dr. Ahring will lead research conducted throughout the WSU system, but much of it will happen inside the Bioproducts, Sciences, and Engineering Laboratory, a 57,000-square-foot, $24.8 million facility opening this spring at WSU Tri-Cities.
Learn more >>
2008 President's Awardees
The President’s Award has been bestowed annually to less than 1% of the university’s undergraduate and graduate students who exemplify exceptional leadership and service to the University and the community. Students are selected based on their leadership and engagement consistent with the university’s values of inquiry and innovation, character, teamwork and diversity. This year's winners included five international students:
- Saad Alshahrani -Saudi Arabia
- Toru Onari- Japan
- Maauricio Cifuentes-Soto- Columbia
- Joni Howard - New Zealand
- Aika Nagamine- Japan
Learn more >>
Yevgeniya Solodovnikova - Ukraine
Recipient of the Student Outstanding Mentor Award. Yevgeniya is an International communications graduate student. She was nominated for her work as a leader and mentor to hundreds of students as an academic adviser and also as a volunteer overseer of a broadcasting club and program.
Learn more >>
Aron Baynes - Australia
Cougar basketball's starting center during the past two history making seasons. Named to the Pacific-10 All-Academic First Team on 06-07. Represented his native Australia at the World University Games in 2007 and garnered the junior national championship as a Queensland Under-20 in 2005.
Learn more >>
Svetlana Yurgel - Russia
Dr. Svetlana, a research assistant professor in IBC, colaborated with Michael Kahn, associate director of the Agricultural Research Center, to win a three-year $510,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Biosciences Program. The purpose of the grant was to continue fundamental research that may someday reduce farmers’ reliance on an increasingly expensive farm input: industrially produced nitrogen fertilizer.
Kahn says, “Nitrogen fertilizer is the single biggest expense that many farmers incur in raising their crops,” said Kahn. “It is made directly from natural gas, so when the price of natural gas rises, so do fertilizer prices. In addition, we don’t manufacture much of the fertilizer in the United States. Last year, we imported about 70 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer we used.”
Learn More >>
Michael Knoblauch - Germany
Dr. Knoblauch's work deals with the cell biology and the physiology of plant tissues, especially the phloem. The phloem represents one of the most specialized plant tissues and is, due to its high content of nutrients, a primary target for pests. Initially he developed methodologies for the observation of the phloem in the living, translocating state to elucidate fundamental questions of the mechanism of phloem transport and protection mechanisms. Thist pure research into basic mechanisms of cell function is likely to produce novel and innovative tools to solve problems in fields such as nanotechnology and smart material research.
Learn More >>
Doreen Main - Scotland
Collaborated with colleagues at Clemson University on an approved grant of $142,645 from USDA CREES NRI Plant Genome Program. This program focussed on research projects that will advance our knowledge of the genome of Rosaceous plants, such as pome fruits, stone fruits, strawberry, brambles and related ornamentals. She joined the faculty of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture as an associate professor in August, 2005. She will be working in plant bioinformatics and comparative genomics of the Rosaceae family (peach, rose, apple, etc.). Previously she was an assistant professor and Director of Bioinformatics at the Genomics Institute at Clemson University. Dorrie completed her PhD in Environmental Biology in 1995 and a master's degree in Information Management in 2000 at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland. She is originally from Dingwall, Scotland.
Learn more >>
Page Updated: July 14, 2008