Two earn national junior faculty research awards
Assistant Professors Darren Drewry and Stephanie Stockar are 2020 recipients of the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU).
Drewry, from the Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, and Stockar, from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, are two of only 35 recipients of this year’s award. The Ohio State University and Mississippi State University are the only two institutions with two 2020 winners.
The award provides seed funding for research and professional growth of junior faculty members at ORAU institutions. Winners of the Powe award receive a one-year $5,000 research grant that is matched by the recipient’s member institution.
Drewry will use the funding to integrate prior work in vegetation biophysical simulation with the phenotypic information emerging from modern genomic selection approaches. This work will advance the emerging area of simulation-assisted breeding, which holds tremendous potential to rapidly advance crop improvement to help meet future food and energy security goals.
Stockar plans to start a research program combining physics-based modeling, data analytics and machine learning in order to optimize electric and thermal loads in interconnected commercial buildings. Her project aims to accelerate widespread deployment of energy saving technologies in commercial buildings.
ORAU provides innovative scientific and technical solutions to advance national priorities in science, education, security and health. Through specialized teams of experts, unique laboratory capabilities and access to a consortium of more than 100 major Ph.D.-granting institutions, ORAU works with federal, state, local and commercial customers to advance national priorities and serve the public interest.
