4/23/99

Contacts:
Stuart Birrell, Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering, (515) 294-2874
Jenni Briggs, Agricultural & Biosystems Engineering, (515) 294-9244
Brian Meyer, Agriculture Information, (515) 294-0706

ISU HAS NEW EXPERTS IN PRECISION AGRICULTURE, FOOD ENGINEERING

AMES, Iowa -- Two new faculty members with expertise in precision agriculture and food engineering have joined Iowa State University's Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering.

Stuart Birrell, an assistant professor, will conduct studies in precision-agriculture technology, including sensors and other electronic instrumentation. He was previously a faculty member at the University of Missouri, where he was a member of a precision farming research group. He also has spent six months in Japan as a visiting scientist at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory, where he conducted research on technology for real-time soil sensing.

Birrell's current research includes the development of a real-time soil nutrient sensing system using electronic microsensors and a combine-mounted corn population sensor. He also will teach courses in power machinery design and management.

Birrell received his bachelor's degree in agricultural engineering from the University of Natal in South Africa and his master's and Ph.D. in agricultural engineering from the University of Illinois.

Jenni Briggs, an assistant professor, will conduct research in food and value-added processing. One of her research projects has been to evaluate the effects of ingredients and processing conditions on feed pellet quality. Briggs also will teach food-process engineering classes.

Briggs received her bachelor's and master's degrees in agricultural engineering from Michigan State University and her Ph.D. in agricultural and biological engineering from Purdue University. At Purdue, she managed a high-tech grain quality laboratory. She received an excellence in teaching award from Purdue's College of Engineering.

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