{"id":3810,"date":"2022-07-29T06:05:24","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T06:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/?p=3810"},"modified":"2022-07-29T15:19:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T15:19:59","slug":"lucky-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/2022\/07\/29\/lucky-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucky 13"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introducing Our Inaugural NGRA Fellow<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m superstitious. Black cats, ladders, dropped dishtowels, the whole nine yards. I realize I probably shouldn\u2019t admit this to an audience of science-minded people, but it\u2019s relevant here\u2014stick with me. Another thing I probably shouldn\u2019t admit is, when we announced our new NGRA Fellowship,<\/a> <\/strong>we weren\u2019t sure what kind of response we\u2019d get. Privately, I thought maybe we\u2019d receive two or three applications\u2026five tops. So, when we ended up with 13 (!), I was both thrilled and unnerved!<\/p>\n

But let me tell you, the 13 Ph.D. students who applied are all rockstars. They\u2019re doing incredible, necessary grape science, each addressing one or more of NGRA\u2019s research priorities<\/strong><\/a> in a unique way: remote sensing and mapping; disease, pest and irrigation management; yield estimation; vineyard soil health; genetics and grapevine breeding and more. The applicants spanned the U.S., representing California, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Texas and Washington. And their advisors are a who\u2019s who of scientists working in grape today.<\/p>\n

Of those 13 heavy-hitters, I\u2019m pleased to announce that our inaugural NGRA Fellow is Abby Hammermeister. Abby is pursuing her Ph.D. in Biophysics at UC Davis, recently joining the McElrone USDA-ARS Plant Physiology Lab there. A version of her proposed research, \u201cFrom Leaves to Space: Linking Physiological Responses to Stress with Proximal Sensing Systems,\u201d appears as the Research Focus article below. In her application, Abby explained that, as an undergrad, she discovered the field of biophysics and its applications to plants and that her research \u201chelped me realize that I could apply my quantitative and computational skills to studying plants and sustainable agriculture,\u201d with a specific interest in water management and, lucky for us, grapes.<\/p>\n

As the NGRA Fellow, Abby will receive $30,000 per year for up to three years, along with mentorship, field tours and networking with our Board of Directors throughout her three-year term. It is our hope that, by providing support in the early stages of a promising grape scientist\u2019s career, we\u2019ll spark a relationship that will last a lifetime. Indeed, as her advisor, Andrew McElrone, said, \u201cThis funding helps to assure that Abby can work exclusively on grapes and vineyard systems.\u201d Music to our ears.<\/p>\n

Although the number of applications may have seemed inauspicious, their volume and quality made us realize just how much great science is going on at the graduate and early-career level. As these 13 students showed, the new generation of grape scientists are engaged and eager to apply their prodigious talent to solving real-world problems. As an industry, we\u2019re lucky to have them.<\/p>\n

Donnell Brown
\nPresident<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introducing Our Inaugural NGRA Fellow I\u2019m superstitious. Black cats, ladders, dropped dishtowels, the whole nine yards. I realize I probably shouldn\u2019t admit this to an audience of science-minded people, but it\u2019s relevant here\u2014stick with me. Another thing I probably shouldn\u2019t admit is, when we announced our new NGRA Fellowship, we weren\u2019t sure what kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ngwi-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3810"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3815,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3810\/revisions\/3815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}