Progress 08/01/23 to 07/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Our recruitment efforts focused on students at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. We also actively recruited students from high schools and community colleges nearby. In our secondyear, we recruited and supported 12 students, including two (2) M.S. students (Environmental Engineering), three (3)undergraduate students (1 from Environmental Engineeringand 2 from Industrial Engineering), and seven (7) high school students. Of the 12 students, seven (7) were female and five (5)were male. Ten out of the 12students are Hispanic students. All of the 12 students received stipends from the HSI grant. We alsotrained one (1) undergraduate student, and three (3) M.S. students from our year-1 cohort, who were engaged in the second year in the team-based research projects. Two high school students joined our team voluntarily without receiving stipends from the HSI project. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We have provided different training and professional development opportunities to the students involved in our project, including teamwork training, intercultural communication, community and stakeholder engagement, and mixed research method training. High school students were introduced to a 3-week virtual summer research program to experience more research opportunities. Several undergraduate and graduate students were offered internship opportunities by leveraging support from other federal grants to gain valuable working experience. Several graduate students worked as graduate mentors in USDA-funded REEU and Professional Development for Agricultural Literacy(PADL) projects to mentor undergraduate students and K-12 teachers and gain critical mentoring experiences. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In the second year, we did not publish any conference and journal papers. However, several conference papers have been submitted and are waiting for the review results. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will focus on recruiting more undergraduate students to the project in our third year and publishing the research results from our team-based research projects.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In the second year, the following team-based research projects were conducted: 1)Chemical impregnation of crop-derived adsorbents for environmental applications, 2) Prediction of weather conditions using machine learning, 3) Design of Portable Agrivoltaics Systems, 4)Analysis of sediment input from coastal watersheds, 5)Analysis of microplastics in agricultural waters and soils, and 6)Circular Economy in Agrivoltaics Systems. Each reserach project involved students from different levels to form a teamwork environment and cohort experience. Although most of high school students impacted by the project have not graduated from high school yet, all of them have expressed strong interests in STEM majors, especially those related to agriculture disciplines. Three (3) undergraduate students from our year-1 cohort graduated with their B.S. degrees and are working as engineers in different companies and government offices. Two(2) undergraduate students from our year-1 cohort graduated with their B.S. degrees and continued their graduate studies at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, including one student who just started her Ph.D. studies in Summer 2024. One (1) graduate student from our year-1 cohort graduated with his M.S. degree and continued his Ph.D. studies at Texas A&M University-Kingsville in Summer 2023.
Publications
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Progress 08/01/22 to 07/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:In our first year, we recruited and supported 7 students, including 1 PhD student (Environmental Engineering), 1 MS student (Industrial Engineering), and 5 undergraduate students (1 from Environmental Engineering, 2 from Industrial Engineering, and 2 from Mechanical Engineering). There are 2 female students and 5 male students. Six out of the 7 students are Hispanic students. All of the seven students received stipends from the HSI grant. We also trained two high school students in the first year, who joined us as volunteers since they are not qualified to receive the HSI stipend. Changes/Problems:We were not able to recruit the proposed number of students in the first year since the first several months were dedicated to project initiation, website setup, IRB approval and survey development, and flyer and application form development. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In addition to the research experience, we also provide professional training opportunities to all the students. All the students were provided access to ExploreYourPotential website, which hosts different professional development training courses. We also supported two students to attend conferences and present their results, and one of the conference papers won the honorable mention in the best student paper award. Another student presented his research as a poster at a conference as well. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Yes. We have two conference papers published and two conference posters presented.We also have one Master of Science thesis completed and published. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are going to actively reach out to high school students to recruit qualified high school students to join our project. We plan to establish collaboration with at least one USDA research center.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
In the first year, we were able to recruit 9 students (including 2 high school volunteers) to conduct different team-based research projects. The research project topics include 1)Analysis of sediment input from coastal watersheds, 2) Design of Agrivoltaics Systems, and 3) Digital Agriculture and Circular Economy. Among the 7 students who received HSI stipends, 6 of them are Hispanic students. The current status of the seven students is listed below: 1) One Master student graduated in May 2023 and has continued his Ph.D. studies at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. 2) Two undergraduate students graduated with their B.S. degree in May 2023 and found jobs as engineers after graduation. 3) One undergraduate student graduated with her B.S. degree in May 2023 and has continued with her graduate studies at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. 4) Two undergraduate students are on the track to graduate in May 2024 with their B.S. degree. 5) one PhD student temporarily dropped from his PhD program in Fall 2023 due to his familiy issues. In addition, the project team has established collaboration with Texas A&M AgriLife Research Centers in both Corpus Christi and Weslaco.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Erick Martinez-Gomez, Hua Li, Kai Jin, Jorge da Silva, Technical Feasibility Analysis of Agrivoltaics Systems for Energy Cane Farms in Texas, 2023 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Annual Conference.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Juan Zambrano, Hua Li, Kyle Xu, A Study of Texas Wind Speed Profiles for Determining Optimal Wind Turbine Application by Regions, 2023 Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Annual Conference.
- Type:
Theses/Dissertations
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2023
Citation:
Erick Martinez-Gomez, DESIGN AND ASSESSMENT OF AGRIVOLTAICS SYSTEMS FOR ENERGY CANE FARMS IN TEXAS, Master of Science Thesis, Industrial Engineering, Texas A&M University-Kingsville, May 2023.
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