Agricultural Honor Society Gamma Sigma Delta Recognizes Faculty and Students

The Penn State chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta, the agricultural honor society, recognized faculty, staff, postdoctoral scholars and students from the College of Agricultural Sciences during its annual meeting April 3.

“Our Gamma Sigma Delta chapter’s Celebration of Excellence is one of the most highly anticipated highlights of our college each year, as we take the time to recognize and acknowledge the accomplishments of our colleagues,” said Paul Esker, 2024-25 president of the Penn State chapter and professor of epidemiology and field crop pathology. “We thoroughly enjoy celebrating our colleagues’ research, teaching and extension efforts.”

This year, 24 undergraduates, nine graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, and one staff member were inducted into the honor society.

Gamma Sigma Delta honored three faculty members who were nominated by their department heads and peers. Helene Hopfer, associate professor of food science, received the 2024 Outstanding Teaching Award. Suzanna Windon, associate professor of youth and adult leadership, received the 2024 Outstanding Extension Award. Armen Kemanian, professor of production systems and modeling, received the 2024 Outstanding Research Award.

Undergraduate students were recognized with Outstanding Student Awards based on grade-point average and class rank. This year’s recipients were Michael Berger, sophomore class, Allison Marin, junior class, and Bridget Reheard, senior class.

The Annual Research Expo Award recognizes exceptional graduate and undergraduate research in 16 categories. Gamma Sigma Delta also recognized postdoctoral scholars for the first time with a single-category competition.

The Research Expo featured 110 posters, up from 94 in 2024, with 27 contributions from undergraduate students, 74 from graduate students and nine from postdoctoral scholars. Forty-seven volunteers from across the college served as judges, and $9,500 was awarded to the winners.

The winners were as follows:

Undergraduate Division:

— Animal Systems: first place, Cydney Suber; second place, Emily McGaffigan.

— Environmental-Related Systems: first place, Kirsten Smith; second place, Caitlin Grabowski.

— Human Behavioral and Social Sciences: first place, Anna Gerstner.

— Microbiology and Microbiome Sciences: first place, Quinn Burnett; second place, Miran Rezhan.

— Pathogen-Host Interactions: first place, Zachary Yenser; second place, Clara Vargas Fenili; third place, Nicolas Recinos-Baltodano.

Graduate Division:

— Animal Systems: first place, Alli Jobe; second place, Molly Friend; third place, Ingrid Lara Bordin Fernandes.

— Food Systems: first place, Yashmita Grover; second place, Rory Campagna; third place, Ishita Ghosh.

— Human Behavioral and Social Sciences: first place, Morgan Failla; second place, Kripa Neupane; third place, Rebecca Lim.

— Integrated Pest Management: first place, Ram Neupane; second place, Richard Gonzalez; third place, Malachi Brought.

— Method and Process Development: first place, Sujata Chatterjee; second place, Kelly Kosiarski; third place, Riley Brooke.

— Microbiology and Microbiome Sciences: first place, Tyler Chandross-Cohen; second place, Theo Newbold; third place, Auja Bywater.

— Modeling: first place, Camilla Valderrama; second place, Edward Anoah; third place, Kittiphum Pawikhum.

— Molecular Biology: first place, Morgan Clemens; second place, Jillian Hughes-Brown; third place, Santoshi Chaudhary.

— Pathogen-Host Interactions: first place, Anju Poudel; second place, Mahendra Pawar; third place, James Abendroth.

— Plant Sciences: first place, Caini Chen; second place, Aline Novaski Seffrin; third place, Navdeep Kaur.

Postdoctoral Division: first place, Santosh Sanjel; second place, Eric Larson; third place, Arun Regmi.