The School of Natural Resources has a new division director in Shibu Jose. On May 3, it will also have a new event to highlight and bring awareness of the breadth and quality of research taking place within its walls.
That is when the inaugural SNR Research Day will take place at the Bond Life Sciences Center, located adjacent to SNR’s Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Building on the University of Missouri campus. All presentations will take place in Monsanto Auditorium, with the exception of the poser presentations in the building’s mezzanine area.
“This is an opportunity for us to share our research not only with other schools and colleges on the MU campus, but with members of our own community here in Columbia and beyond,” said Jose, who first joined SNR in 2009 as the director of The Center for Agroforestry as well as H.E. Garrett Professor of Agroforestry. “Going forward, we want to establish a direct line from our work to the people it impacts the most in our own community. We see this event as a first step toward establishing that connection and getting them more engaged in what we do.”
“Going forward, we want to establish a direct line from our work to the people it impacts the most in our own community. We see this event as a first step toward establishing that connection and getting them more engaged in what we do.”― Shibu Jose, SNR division director
The event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 8 a.m. with a check-in and poster set up, followed by a welcome at 8:30 a.m. by Marc Linit, the interim College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Vice Chancellor and Dean.
Dave McNear, an associate professor in plant and soil sciences from the University of Kentucky, will give the day’s first keynote speech at 8:45 a.m. on the biogeochemical processes that happen on the soil-water-plant interface. McNear, who won a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2008, will be the first of three speakers from other institutions to contribute to the narrative of the research taking place at SNR.
The event’s second speaker, Allison Miller, an associate professor of biology from St. Louis University and a research associate at Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, will explain the research she does on plant ecology as relating to restoration, agriculture and climate change during her presentation at 9:45 a.m.
Presentations from SNR’s new faculty members will take place at 10:30 a.m. inside the auditorium, followed by poster presentations and complimentary lunch on the mezzanine from 11:45 a.m. to 1:45 p.m.
“It is difficult to capture the impressive variety of research activities in SNR since our research encompasses the physical, biological, and social sciences in natural resources,” said Rose-Marie Muzika, associate director of SNR, who is overseeing the event.
After a break in the afternoon, the event will conclude with an evening presentation at 5:30 by John Organ, the chief of the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units and senior science advisor for cooperative research for the U.S. Geological Survey. His speech is titled, “Challenges of Integrating Science into Policy.” Organ’s primary interests center around understanding how to maintain mammal species while minimizing conflicts with humans and managing the long-term implications of changing human demographics to the future of wildlife conversation in North America.
A poster award presentation will follow at 6:30 p.m.
For more information on the event, directions to the Bond Life Sciences Center or parking, call (573) 882-6537 or email Cindy Greenwood at greenwoodci@missouri.edu.