Meet the 2025 PSM Fellowship Awards
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Email"Fellowship opportunities like this play a crucial role in helping students gain exposure to conferences, courses, and workshops. “I am thankful for the opportunities that allow students to grow as scientists.”
This week we highlight two more 2025 PSM Graduate Student Award Spotlight
See All other PSM 2025 fellowship awardee profiles here:
- Maria Camila Buitrago Acosta: Winner of the Norman R. and Jessie A. Thompson Endowment in Crop and Soil Sciences.
- Connor Purvis: Winner of the 2025 Teidje award
- Ashlynn Morin: Winner of the PSM Graduate Assistantship and the Carter Harrison award for Long-Term Agricultural Microbiome Science
- PBGB grad student Marysia Zaleski-Cox wins Rossman and Thompson fellowship awards
- PBGB grad student Asmaa Morsi wins Rossman and Thompson fellowship awards
- Congratulations 2025 PBGB award winner and PSM PhD Candidate John Hawkins
- Tomas Lopes receives Carter Harrison Endowment and the Rossman Scholarship
- Qinyuan Cao receives Kirk & Marjorie Lawton fellowship award
- Mason Rutgers receives the Eugene P. Whiteside pedology award
-
Devendra Chalise winner of awards from the Beard, Rieke and the Olsen foundations
This week we introduce two student award recipients:
Turfgrass Fellowship award: RuiLin Miao
RuLin's research area is turfgrass physiology, specifically reducing winterkill. "My current experiments cover topics such as: the pros and cons of different turfgrass species against ice encasement; fall turfgrass management methods for winterkill prevention; spring turfgrass management strategies for activating and protecting fields; and the effects of ice encasement related factors (anoxia and light shock) on winterkill. These topics involve a lot of field trials and will be highly practical in future fields." RuLin --and the entire turfgrass research team-- present their results at the Turfgrass Research Field Day every August.
RuLin relies on diverse funding sources: "primarily from Project Green, and the Michigan Turfgrass Foundation, while also working as a teaching assistant," RuLin said. "The PSM Turfgrass Graduate Assistantship effectively reduced my financial pressure, motivated me to maintain and increase my experiment intensity, and encouraged me toward graduation."
Originally from Tianjin, China, which is a big city, RuLin has been interested in biology and agriculture since childhood, and studied agriculture at the University of Georgia as an undergrad. During my application to graduate school, I know that MSU is a top university of practical agriculture. Then, Dr. Holm opened the door to me with cold season turfgrass science, and I feel it is a good topic to work on."
RuLin says this award will help him to focus on research, as well as "It allow me to buy some personal equipment to optimize experimental procedure and save time. For example, previously we dig samples on a turfgrass field with 4-inch diameter, which is too heavy to transport and too large to preserve, so I bought a digger with a smaller diameter thus can proceed with extra numbers of samples by myself, that increase treatment numbers and make the experiment precise. Also, I bought pens, clips and scissors which are all highly consumable during experiments so I do not need to borrow from and arrange with lab members!"
and
Ryan Bearss: James B. & Harriet Beard Endowed Graduate Fellowship award
Originally from metro Detroit, Ryan was formerly in the music business when he made a drastic shift into Turfgrass Science around 2014. "I initially enrolled in the 2-year certificate program, eventually transferring into the 4-year program and, in 2018, the master’s program." Ryan then worked for a year as a Research Assistant at Purdue University,
Ryan was happy to accept an offer return to MSU in 2021 as the FIFA World Cup Project Research Assistant, and, ultimately, to pursue a PhD. "My dream is to become a professor so I can help bring light and enthusiasm to this field," Ryan said.
"Receiving the Beard Family Fellowship means the world to me. Dr. Beard was a legend, and I wish I could have met him. Ironically, The impact of Dr. Beard and his family on our industry is unmatched, and I am forever grateful. Being selected for this fellowship, based solely on the strength of my work and dedication to the discipline, is deeply meaningful and reinforces my commitment to continuing that standard of excellence."
A. Ryan presenting at the International Sports Engineering Association conference at Loughborough Uni. In England.
B. Ryan with Gianni Infantino, FIFA president!
C. Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.
D. Ryan donned a biohazard suit in Mexico City, where they established sod on plastic for their national stadium.
