Two Texas A&M faculty members receive TTC Innovation Awards
Image: Technology Commercialization
Two Texas A&M University faculty members each received an Innovation Award from Texas A&M Technology Commercialization (TTC) during an awards luncheon on May 4. The annual award recognizes researchers whose work exemplifies the spirit of innovation within The Texas A&M University System.
TTC presented the awards during its 2017 Patent and Innovation Awards Luncheon at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center in the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M. The event also recognized 88 faculty members and other researchers from across the A&M System who secured U.S. patents or plant variety protection certificates for their innovations during the 2016 calendar year.
Texas A&M Provost and Executive Vice President Karan L Watson said, “Texas A&M faculty strive for excellence as comprehensive scholars, including excellent teaching, research, discovery and impact. These awards acknowledge their success in applying new knowledge to the issues of our day, through partnership with industry, commercialization of new ideas and transfer of knowledge to the people of our state, nation and world.”
TTC presented Innovation Awards to:
* Gregory A. Sword, a professor and holder of the Charles R. Parencia Chair in Cotton Entomology, Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Sword’s research led to collaboration with an industry partner, which has subsequently produced a commercially available seed treatment. The seed treatment allows cottonseed plagued by dwindling irrigation water and drought to produce more fiber.
* Shuhua “Joshua” Yuan, an associate professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has employed integrated and multidisciplinary approaches to address important issues in bioenergy and plant biology. He has led more than $9.8 million in major research initiatives from the U.S. Department of Energy, and his lab has pioneered lignin conversion and photosynthetic hydrocarbon production.
In addition, TTC presented 45 Patent Awards to 64 faculty members and other researchers from Texas A&M, the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and Texas A&M AgriLife Research, plus a faculty member from Texas A&M University-Kingsville and another from West Texas A&M University, whose inventions were granted patent protection by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during 2016.
TTC also gave six Plant Variety Protection Certificate Awards to 23 researchers from Texas A&M and Texas A&M AgriLife whose plant varieties were granted certificates by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Variety Protection Office during 2016.
