Plant Science Professor David Still has been appointed the new executive director for the California State University Agricultural Research Institute (ARI).
The ARI helps create university-industry partnerships to support research on high-priority issues facing California agriculture. The founding member campuses include the CSU’s four colleges of agriculture at Fresno State, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Chico State and Cal Poly Pomona. Cal State Monterey Bay and Humboldt State became associate members in 2015. The ARI works collaboratively with faculty and research scientists from other CSU and University of California campuses, the USDA, and other state regional and federal agencies.
The ARI allocates about $4.3 million in research funding annually from the CSU general budget that is matched at least one-to-one by external sources, including industry, commodity boards, national agricultural organizations and California commodity boards; animal, plant-soil and food and nutrition programs; and pest control, biotechnology and watershed organizations.
Research topics that ARI has supported include:
- food safety of packaged leafy greens
- Increasing irrigation efficiency in crops
- health effects of eating pistachios
- marketing of goats for meat and hair sheep
- economic analysis of the market for grape juice concentrate
- in the effect of air quality regulations on citrus and table grape producers.
Prior to his appointment, Still had served as the ARI campus coordinator and director of research and graduate programs at Cal Poly Pomona’s College of Agriculture for a decade. He earned his bachelor’s degree in wildlife science and master’s degree in horticultural science, both at New Mexico State University. Still gained his doctorate in horticultural science at Texas A&M University and went on to study seed biology in his postdoctoral work at UC Davis.
Cal Poly Pomona hosted the ARI’s 15th Annual Research Showcase on Thursday, Nov. 5. The showcase is a platform for projects on major issues facing the agricultural industry. ARI researchers and students held a poster session and oral presentations on selected ARI-sponsored research projects from each participating campus.