-Magdalen Lindeberg

Several awards are given out within the School of Integrative Plant Science at the end of each fall semester.  Among these are the MacDonald and Musgrave Awards, representing the desire of two crop science faculty members, Dr. Robert Musgrave and Dr. Harry MacDonald, to recognize outstanding accomplishments with the Section of Soil and Crop Sciences, at the time known as the Department of Agronomy. The awards were presented by SCS Chair Dan Buckley on December 12.

Phillip Lanza, graduate student with Louis Longchamps, was this year’s recipient of the MacDonald-Musgrave Outstanding Graduate Student Award. Among many other achievements, Phillip was cited for his“exceptional research contributions, technological innovation, entrepreneurial leadership, and service to the Section and the broader agronomy community”.  He has also been selected for the Green Technology Innovation Fellowship at Cornell’s SC Johnson College of Business.

Gene Sczepanski was this year’s recipient of the staff McDonald-Musgrave Award. Gene is currently the Manager for Campus Area Farm. Nominators cited his team’s role in the farm support needed by SCS research and teaching programs, and the assistance he has provided to SCS courses including several labs for the Introductory Agricultural Machinery course. Altogether, he was heralded as “the go-to person for anything related to on-campus field research needs and questions which he has done with little fanfare.”

Antonio DiTommaso received the McDonald-Musgrave Award in recognition of career long contributions to excellence in Soil and Crop Sciences. Toni’s important and enduring contributions to SCS over his 25 years at Cornell include his role in the creation of the Agricultural Sciences Major and his years as SCS Section Head during which six new faculty were recruited and hired. During this time he also made substantial contributions to weed science for which he was recently elected a Fellow of the Weed Science Society of America. Currently, Toni is serving as Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station.

Congratulations to all!