Beaudry, Watkins, And Davenport Named Fellows Of American Society for Horticultural Science

Randy Beaudry (Photo credit: Michigan State University)

Randolph Beaudry (Photo credit: Michigan State University)

Randolph Beaudry of Michigan State University (MSU), Joan Davenport of Washington State University (WSU), and Christopher Watkins of Cornell University were recently named fellows of the American Society of Horticultural Science (ASHS) during the organization’s annual conference held in New Orleans, LA.

Beaudry has been an ASHS member since 1984. He has published 34 articles in ASHS journals, roughly 30% of his 112 refereed publications. Beaudry ‘s research productivity also resulted in four patents, 10 book chapters, two reviews, 162 presentations, 56 invited national/international speaker engagements and more than $5 million in grant funds.

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Beaudry has served as an industry consultant regarding the storage of fruits and vegetables, legal opinions, and film and package design. He has served on eight review panels for 5 different organizations, as Associate/Consulting Editor of HortScience, and on the Editorial Board of Postharvest Biology and Technology. His impact in the field attracted 21 visiting scholars to his lab. Beaudry has advised numerous PhD and MS graduate students and served on graduate student committees in many departments and countries, including New Zealand, Holland, Canada, and Australia.

He currently serves as the MSU department of horticulture graduate program director. He also introduced students to science by engaging in the NSF-funded high school honors science program, minority summer research program, and undergraduate special projects.

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Beaudry received numerous awards including the USDA Group Honor Award for Excellence, an ASHS Fruit Publication Award, a Gold Award for an International Horticulture Congress poster, the Distinguished Service award from the Michigan State Horticultural Society, and Fruit Man of the Year from Michigan Pomesters.

Beaudry serves the fruit industry as a resource for apple and blueberry harvest maturity, disorders, and storage recommendations. He is the faculty coordinator for MSU Apple Maturity Program, an active member of the Michigan Fruit Team, the Great Lakes Fruit Workers’ Team and is coordinator of the bi-annual MSU Controlled Atmosphere and Storage Clinic, having developed 70 outreach articles, primarily for the Michigan apple industry.

Joan Davenport (Photo credit: Washington State Universtiy)

Joan Davenport (Photo credit: Washington State Universtiy)

Davenport is an internationally recognized soil and plant scientist, with an impressive 30-year career as an outstanding researcher, educator, and author of publications in the field of plant nutrient management for crop yield and quality. She works at WSU’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center (IAREC) in Prosser, WA.

Davenport’s research has focused on nutrient cycling through soil-plant systems in perennial fruit crops, with an emphasis on site-specific management of plant stress. Her research has been supported by more than 100 grants.

In her role at WSU, in addition to her innovative research programs in nutrient management, she mentored more than 20 graduate students, contributed to teaching more than 50 courses, and published more than 350 articles, proceedings, abstracts, and presentations.

Davenport has volunteered her time as an officer and committee member within numerous organizations, including ASHS, American Society for Viticulture and Enology, American Society of Agronomy, Potato Association of America, and Soil Science Society of America.

Within ASHS, Davenport’s service to the peer review of publications has been especially noteworthy. She has served as an Associate Editor (2001–2003) and Consulting Editor (2004–present) for more than 200 manuscripts, with continuous service for 14 years with ASHS’s outreach journal, HortTechnology. Despite this impressive workload, she has also accepted numerous requests to review submissions to other ASHS publications [HortScience (14 manuscripts), Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science (11 manuscripts)] and many other peer-reviewed journals.

Davenport’s record of unselfish commitment to the advancement of horticultural science through the scholarly publication process is especially important, as it is here that the work and careers of others are advanced, and the evolution of science is allowed to continue with enhanced clarity, accuracy, and merit. Davenport received her bachelor’s degree in plant science from Rutgers University, and her master’s and doctorate degrees in soil science from Iowa State University and the University of Guelph. She followed these with positions as Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Guelph and Postdoctoral Research Associate at Washington State University.

 

Chris Watkins (Photo credit: Cornell University)

Christopher Watkins (Photo credit: Cornell University)

Watkins is a postharvest horticultural scientist known for addressing harvest maturity management, postharvest handling, and storage technologies from both basic and applied aspects. He is responsible for developing and conducting those components of the New York multidisciplinary statewide fruit extension program.

Watkins has been at the forefront of research and extension related to developing the knowledge and practices required for commercialization of 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP), an ethylene-binding inhibitor that extends the storage life of apples and other specialty crops. He also conducts research on new cultivars of regional and national importance, investigating the effects of postharvest techniques on the nutritional quality of fruit, and to better understand the underlying mechanisms in fruit responses to storage conditions such as temperature, atmosphere, and 1-MCP, and the interaction of these factors with the development of storage disorders. He is currently focusing his efforts on key physiological disorders of apples such as internal browning, external carbon dioxide injury, and superficial scald.

While conducting very active academic and outreach programs, he has also taken on the administrative responsibility of serving as the director for Cornell Cooperative Extension, and associate dean in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and College of Human Ecology.

Watkins has published 143 peer-reviewed publications, including 33 in ASHS journals, written 14 book chapters and 44 conference proceeding papers, and 111 trade, newsletter, and technical bulletin articles. He has presented invited papers at 75 national and international conferences. He and his students have given more 53 presentations at ASHS meetings. He has directed or served on 10 masters of science and 22 doctorate of horticulture and food science student graduate committees at Cornell and has served as an external examiner for 12 doctoral dissertations at international universities.

Watkins is an international leader among postharvest researchers. He was elected secretary (1997–1998) and chair (1998–1999) of the ASHS Postharvest Working Group and vice chair (2002) and chair (2006) of the Gordon Research Conference on Postharvest Physiology. He is currently (as of 2014) chair of the ISHS Commission Quality and Postharvest Horticulture. He has served his profession through editorial responsibilities including associate editor of HortScience (1999–2004), editorial voard member of Postharvest Biology and Technology (1993–2011), associate editor of Horticulture Research (2013–present), and editorial advisory board member for Encyclopedia of Applied Plant Sciences.

 

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