The Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics has announced the recipients of its annual Hayes Phillips and Distinguished Alumni awards. Hayes Phillips awardee Hannah Stoll and alumni awardees Roberto Tuberosa and Tabare Abadie will be honored during an awards ceremony on May 17.
This year’s annual awards program will be held over two days—Thursday and Friday, May 16 and 17— and will include an awards ceremony, as well as a tribute to Professor Ron Phillips, who died last year. All past recipients of the Hayes Phillips Award have been invited to attend.
The Hayes Phillips Award is named after two distinguished faculty members in the department: H. K. Hayes, a faculty member from 1915 to 1952, and Ronald L. Phillips, a faculty member from 1968 to 2010. Each year, the award is given to an APG graduate student who has excelled in academics, research, teaching, leadership, and service.
The event will begin with a tribute to Ron Phillips and lecture by University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Shawn Kaeppler at 3 p.m. May 16 in 335 Borlaug Hall. Kaeppler, who received his doctorate in Plant Genetics and Breeding from the University of Minnesota, was the 1992 Hayes Phillips awardee. A reception will follow in the Land O’ Lakes Collaboration Center in Borlaug Hall.
The May 17 activities will begin at 8 a.m. with a coffee and speed mentoring program with current students and alumni in the atrium of the Cargill Building. The awards ceremony will begin at 9:30 a.m. in 105 Cargill and the public is invited to attend.
About the awardees
Hannah Stoll will complete her Ph.D. in Applied Plant Sciences this year. She received her bachelor’s degree in Crop Sciences: Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her thesis work at the University of Minnesota is focused on understanding the genetic architecture of key domestication traits in Kernza and determining the genetic gain per breeding cycle. Stoll’s work at the U has included developing curricula centered around plant breeding and genetics. She has published classroom activities that allow high school and undergraduate educators to teach basic biological concepts in the context of the development of new, sustainable cropping systems. Stoll—who developed a love for biology and genetics in high school—says she’s passionate about education and hopes to be educating in some capacity in her future career.
Roberto Tuberosa is a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences at the University of Bologna. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Bologna and a master’s (1985) and doctorate (1997) from the University of Minnesota under the guidance of Ronald Phillips. For the past three decades, he has managed research projects to develop cereal crops more resilient to climate change. His major research interest is the genetic dissection of the adaptive response of cereals to drought. Tuberosa is currently chair of the Focus Group on Cereals of the AgriFood Cluster of the Regione Emilia-Romagna, Italy, a fellow of the Crop Science Society of America, and represents Europe on the Board of the International Crop Science Society.
Tabare Abadie is a Distinguished Research Laureate at Corteva Agriscience. Abadie received his B.S. in Agronomy at the Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay, in 1982, and his master’s (1992) and Ph.D. (1994) at the University of Minnesota. Over a 40-year career, Abadie’s extensive expertise in crop science includes plant breeding and quantitative genetics as well as technological change in large organizations, career development, education, and mentoring. Abadie is the developer and co-coordinator of the Plant Sciences Symposia Series, Worldwide, an international network of student-driven organized and hosted scientific events. The series began with the first Plant Sciences Symposium held at the University of Minnesota in 2008.