Texas A&M Department of Soil and Crop Sciences research earns national honors

Five faculty members will be awarded the Fellow title in the different associations, while two administrators will be recognized for their outstanding scientific contributions and one faculty member will receive an early career award.

International Crop Science Award

The International Crop Science Award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to crop science on a global scale. The award honors creativity, innovation and leadership that have advanced crop production practices, programs, technologies or scientific understanding across international communities.

Amir Ibrahim, Ph.D.

Ibrahim is associate director and chief scientific officer of Texas A&M AgriLife Research and associate dean for research in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. A Regents Professor and AgriLife Research wheat breeder in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Ibrahim has released or co-released 33 wheat and oat cultivars grown on more than 1.2 million acres across 11 states. He has secured more than $59 million in competitive research funding and authored 185 refereed journal articles among more than 350 scholarly publications. Ibrahim is a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and AgriLife Research. He is a previous recipient of the International Agronomy Award.

American Society of Agronomy Presidential Award

The ASA Presidential Award recognizes individuals or teams whose achievements have advanced scientific understanding, improved agricultural practices, enhanced crop yield or quality, or increased the sustainability and efficiency of agricultural systems.

David Baltensperger, Ph.D.

Baltensperger is a professor and head of the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Bryan-College Station. As department head, Baltensperger has led a large, comprehensive program spanning research, teaching and extension recognized nationally for its quality and diversity of subject areas. The department includes faculty across disciplines such as plant breeding, crop physiology, forage management, cereal chemistry, soil science and weed science. It also operates one of the largest graduate training programs in the nation. Baltensperger is a Fellow of the CSSA, ASA and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

American Society of Agronomy Fellows

Fellow is the highest honor bestowed by the ASA. The designation recognizes members who have achieved excellence in agronomic science and demonstrated outstanding service to the profession and the Society throughout their careers.

Shuyu Liu, Ph.D.

Liu is an AgriLife Research wheat breeder in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Bryan-College Station. Liu has contributed to the AgriLife Research wheat program for more than a decade, leading genetic and genomic studies on traits critical to wheat performance across the U.S. Great Plains through more than $45 million in grant-funded wheat projects. He integrated genomic selection, wheat doubled-haploid, UAV data and AI techniques to improve the effectiveness of wheat germplasm and cultivar development. He published 105 peer-reviewed articles. He is a previous recipient of the Distinguished Career Award from The Association of Chinese Soil and Plant Scientists in North America and a Tri-Societies SEED Ambassador.

Calvin Trostle, Ph.D.

Trostle is a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service agronomist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Lubbock and professor in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. Trostle serves as the agency’s statewide expert across more than a dozen alternative crops, an approach he deliberately chose early in his career over specializing narrowly. He has led more than 1,700 AgriLife Extension programs, 1,000 radio broadcasts, and has served 13 years as an editor for Agronomy Journal. Trostle also leads the Tri-Societies’ Simpler Writing workshops and is helping relaunch the organizations’ Relatable Science program, extending his influence beyond direct producer education into the broader scientific communication field.

Muthu Bagavathiannan, Ph.D.

Bagavathiannan is the Billie Turner Professor of Production Agronomy and an AgriLife Research weed and agronomy scientist in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Bryan-College Station. He leads a globally recognized research program in weed science and systems agronomy, using computer vision and precision technologies to improve cropping system efficiency. Bagavathiannan has published more than 175 papers cited over 8,500 times and has earned numerous honors, including the CSSA Fellow Award, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and a Texas A&M AgriLife Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research.

Bill Rooney, Ph.D.

Rooney is an AgriLife Research sorghum breeder, Regents Professor and Borlaug-Bayer Chair in Crop Improvement in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Bryan-College Station. An internationally recognized sorghum breeder, Rooney has trained more than 40 students to graduate degrees in plant breeding and agronomy. His program conceived and developed the first commercialized bioenergy sorghum hybrids, along with the first specialty grain sorghum hybrid marketed for food use in the U.S. Rooney’s work in interspecific and intergeneric sorghum hybridization also produced new methods for breeding and for limiting gene flow to wild relatives. Rooney is also recognized as an AgriLife Research Faculty Fellow.

Soil Science Society of America Fellow

Fellow is the highest honor bestowed by the SSSA. Recipients are recognized for their significant contributions to research, education, industry, extension and leadership, as well as their lasting impact on soil science and the broader scientific community.

Katie Lewis, Ph.D.

Lewis is an AgriLife Research soil chemistry and fertility scientist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center at Lubbock and professor in the Texas A&M Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and at Texas Tech University. Lewis has built a nationally and internationally recognized research program focused on practical, science-based fertilization and management strategies that improve soil function and water-use efficiency. Her work addresses production and sustainability challenges in intensively managed farming systems and has strengthened the scientific foundation for soil fertility research. Lewis also provides leadership at the international, national, state and local levels within both the SSSA and the ASA. Lewis is a recipient of the Texas A&M Regents Fellow Service Award, the AgriLife Research Faculty Fellow and a Texas Water Resources Institute Faculty Fellow.

American Society of Agronomy Early Career Award

The ASA Early Career Award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to agronomy during the early stages of their professional careers. The award honors emerging leaders whose work is advancing agronomic science through research, education, extension, industry innovation and service to the profession.

Gurjinder Baath, Ph.D.

Baath is an assistant professor and digital agriculture specialist at the Texas A&M AgriLife Blackland Research and Extension Center at Temple, with a joint appointment in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences. Baath leads a data-driven research program combining precision agriculture technologies and advanced analytics to improve crop management decisions and reduce agriculture’s environmental footprint. He has authored 37 peer-reviewed publications and secured more than $2.5 million in external grants. Baath has served as elected chair of the ASA’s Climatology and Modeling Section and as an associate editor for Agronomy Journal since 2021.