AgriLife Research-Amarillo advances research capabilities with new scientists
Entomologist, ruminant nutritionist, soil scientist join research team
Texas A&M AgriLife Research at Amarillo has recently filled several faculty and senior scientist positions to round out a holistic research portfolio in sustainable agriculture in the High Plains.
“We’ve been down two research faculty for the past 12 to 18 months,” said Brent Auvermann, Ph.D., Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center director, Amarillo. “But the ongoing challenges didn’t wait around for us. So, I’m delighted that we have hired an entomologist and a ruminant nutritionist, and we are skating at full strength once again.”
Joining the research faculty are Vinicius Gouvêa, DVM, Ph.D., ruminant nutritionist; and Kiran Gadhave, Ph.D., entomologist. In addition, Carolina Brandani, Ph.D., an associate research scientist in soil health, has joined the team.
“Our mission is to solve production challenges holistically here at the Amarillo center,” Auvermann said. “These three talented scientists bring fresh energy, ideas and perspectives to our center’s research portfolio.”
Bridging gaps
Auvermann said both Gouvêa and Gadhave bring solid experience to the Amarillo research program and are hitting the ground running.
“Vinnie is a practical, creative problem solver,” Auvermann said. “He is bridging the gap between gut health and lung health. With bovine respiratory disease (BRD) being one of the most economically significant challenges for the feedlot cattle industry, we need to understand the extent to which nutrition influences BRD’s prevalence and severity, especially in receiving cattle.”
Gouvêa also has extensive experience with the nutritional management of finishing cattle, especially with the use of by-products and alternative feedstuffs that historically have been included in feedlot diets to decrease feeding costs, Auvermann said.
Gouvêa moved to Amarillo from New Mexico and is already deeply familiar with cattle feeding in the High Plains, Auvermann said.
Gadhave, who moved to Amarillo from Riverside, California, also bridges a gap – between insects and pathogens.
“Kiran brings an ecologist’s whole-system perspective to insects and the ways they transmit and increase plant susceptibility to microbial pathogens,” Auvermann said. “His experience with agriculture in the harsh climate of interior southern California also equips him to understand how the Panhandle’s drought-prone climate complicates our pest-management strategies.”
Healthy soils and sustainability
The addition of Brandani, a soil scientist, brings a new dimension to the AgriLife Research portfolio in High Plains agriculture through her expertise in the soil, water and air resources that support both cattle and crops, he said.
“It has been clear for some time that we needed to fill a major gap in our understanding of how healthier soils will sustain production agriculture into the Panhandle’s hotter, drier future, and that is why we hired Dr. Brandani,” Auvermann said.
“Carolina’s remarkable skill set is going to catalyze some exciting, interdisciplinary research with our partners at the USDA-ARS research laboratory at Bushland.”
Vinicius “Vinnie” Gouvêa
Gouvêa is an assistant professor in the Texas A&M Department of Animal Science and is the project leader for the AgriLife Research Animal Nutrition Laboratory. He also oversees the research feedlot jointly managed by AgriLife Research and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agriculture Research Service at Bushland.
He earned his veterinary medicine degree from the Federal University of Goiás in Brazil, his master’s degree in animal science and pastures from the University of São Paulo, Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture, and his doctorate in animal nutrition and production from the University of São Paulo, School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science.
Before joining AgriLife Research, he spent two years as an assistant professor at the New Mexico State University – Clayton Livestock Research Center at Clayton, New Mexico. He also spent three years working for a major global animal nutrition industry, providing technical leadership for feed yards in Latin America.
Gouvêa said his research interests focus on nutritional physiology and relationships between nutrition and animal health/immunology. Research activities also include feeding programs for finishing cattle, ingredient evaluation, nutrient utilization and metabolism, and feed additives for receiving and finishing feedlot cattle.
Kiran Gadhave
Gadhave is an assistant professor within Texas A&M’s Department of Entomology with a multidisciplinary background in conducting basic, applied and translational research in insect vector-plant virus and plant-microbe interactions.
He earned his doctorate in microbial ecology/entomology from the University of London, a master’s in plant breeding and genetics from Cornell University, and a master’s in entomology from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.
Prior to coming to Texas, Gadhave was a research scientist in the Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology at the University of California, Riverside. His previous work at multiple premier research institutes focused on developing and evaluating novel tools and strategies for managing insect pests, insect vectors and the diseases they transmit in multiple pathosystems.
His current research involves studying the transmission biology of economically important pathogens and their insect vectors in the Texas High Plains.
The overarching goal of his program with AgriLife Research is to develop novel, long-term and sustainable pest and disease management tools and strategies to increase agricultural productivity and enhance food security.
Carolina Brandani
Brandani, associate research scientist, said she is interested in how land use and land management practices impact carbon and nitrogen cycling in agricultural and grassland ecosystems.
“A major focus of my work involves developing climate-resilient agricultural systems through soil carbon sequestration, enhancing the use efficiency of agroecosystems, sustainable management of soils, and soil health,” she said.
With AgriLife Research, her projects focus on understanding soil carbon dynamics in semi-desert agroecosystems, and soil practice management, such as manure application in soils, on soil health variables, biomass production and greenhouse gas emissions.
Previously, Brandani was a senior research scientist at New Mexico State University, NMSU, in the Department of Animal and Range Sciences. Her research program there focused on evaluating soil attributes and vegetation composition in rangelands of the western U.S., comparing the environmental footprint of different cattle breeds.
Before joining NMSU, Brandani worked at the University of Florida as a postdoctoral fellow in the Long-term Agroecosystem Research network evaluating the effect of fire frequency and associating the use of chopping with fire on production and environmental responses in pine flatwood rangelands relative to unburnt areas.
She also has experience working with different soil-plant systems such as forest plantations, sugarcane and cultivated pastures, evaluating the effects of soil management on dynamics of soil organic matter, soil fertility, soil health indicators and greenhouse gas emissions.
