RIVER FALLS – The University of Wisconsin-River Falls College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES) recently awarded four faculty research fellowships to help increase dairy-related research capacity through the Dairy Innovation Hub initiative.

Those chosen for the fellowships are Assistant Professor of Animal and Food Science Grace Lewis of Hastings, Minn.; Associate Professor of Plant and Earth Science Jill Coleman Wasik of Cologne, Minn.; Assistant Professor of Environmental Science Susanne Wiesner of Hastings, Minn.; and Associate Professor of Agricultural Engineering Technology Youngmi Kim of Stillwater, Minn.

They will tackle research projects in the hub’s four priority areas: stewarding land and water resources, enriching human health and nutrition, ensuring animal health and welfare, and growing farm business and communities.

Funded through a $7.8 million annual investment by the state of Wisconsin, the hub combines research and development at UW-Madison, UW-Platteville, and UW-River Falls campuses to keep Wisconsin’s $45.6 billion dairy community at the global forefront in producing nutritious dairy foods in an economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable manner. Since its launch in 2019, the hub has funded more than 220 projects across the three campuses.

A faculty research fellowship is a temporary position for permanent faculty members. The goal is to provide support for a specific research project and any ancillary costs, including ensuring that faculty have time to conduct research and providing support for existing teaching responsibilities.

The four faculty research projects are:

• Lewis specializes in dairy processing. Her position is funded by the Dairy Innovation Hub. Her project, “Processing-induced alterations in casein protein digestibility and enzymatic interactions,” aims to evaluate how changes to casein protein structure could increase the digestion rate of dairy foods and make improvements to protein bioavailability for people such as athletes, infants, and others.

• Coleman Wasik’s work focuses on understanding how human activities benefit from natural processes while lessening their impacts on natural systems. Her project, “Growing a new UW collaboration to continuously measure groundwater nitrate in Western Wisconsin farm wells using a novel sensor technology,” leverages a unique partnership between UW-River Falls and UW-Madison, alongside the farmer-led Western Wisconsin Conservation Council (WWCC), to improve understanding of how nitrate concentrations fluctuate in wells in response to factors such as rain events and nutrient management practices.

• Wiesner’s research includes agricultural atmospheric science and climate resiliency, land-atmosphere interactions, remote sensing, and ecosystem management. Wiesner’s position is funded by the Dairy Innovation Hub. Her project, “Filling existing gaps in the monitoring of soil greenhouse gas emissions and environmental health at Mann Valley Farm,” aims to improve soil GHG emission and carbon uptake monitoring at the UW-River Falls Mann Valley Farm, and to detangle the complex interactions between land use management, vegetation type and physiology, and soil characteristics.

• Kim’s research studies food process engineering, renewable energy, and bioprocess engineering. Her project, “Development of whey protein-lignin based film/coating materials for dairy food packaging applications,” builds on previous research that developed a whey protein-lignin based packaging material but will explore additional chemical processes that will hopefully improve the film’s strength and water barrier properties.

Submitted by UW-River Falls