AORA Komptech Student Research Awards for Advancing Organics Recycling - 2019 winners announced

AORA announced the three winners of the inaugural AORA Komptech Student Research Awards for Advancing Organics Recycling at the 2019 National Conference. The awards process was managed with the support of the Centre for Recycling of Organic Waste and Nutrients (CROWN) at the University of Queensland.

PhDs

First Prize: Dr Daniele De Rosa - Optimizing the use of organic amendments in sub-tropical vegetable cropping systems for improved environmental and agronomic outcomes.

Dr Daniele De Rosa is a research associate at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane. His reseach concentrates on the development of a decision support tool for farmers that will provide sustainable organo-synthetic nitrogen management strategies. Daniele received his Master's in Agriculture from the University of Basilicata (Italy) and hs PhD in Environmental and Agricultural SCience from Queensland University of Technology.

Second Prize: Dr Shao Yap - Anaerobic reduction of solid manure residues.

Dr Shao Yap has 5 years of experience in engineering design and research & development of waste/wastewater process, specifically anaerobic digestion. He has completed his PhD in 2017 and is currently working as a process engineer with Aurecon.

Honours

Third Prize: Mr Aidan Chin  - Sorbents can tailor nitrogen release from organic wastes to match the uptake capacity of crops.

Aidan Chin is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. His work focuses on using in situ soil analysis techniques, chiefly microdialysis to measure diffuse nitrogen fluxes to better understand nitrogen release rates of conventional and enhanced efficiency fertilisers and how they influence early plant nitrogen status.