Dr. Anand Kumar Pothula
Dr. Anand Kumar Pothula, (Anand for short) joined the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (ABEN), NDSU in the first week of April 2013 as a Research Associate in the “Energy Beet Research II” project. North Dakota Industrial Commission and Green Vision Group funded this research project. Anand will be performing research in the “Front End Processing” (FEP) aspect of the project under the supervision of Dr. Igathinathane Cannayen, Assistant Professor, ABEN. FEP research aims at extracting juice and pulp from the beets in an energy efficient manner utilizing a simplified mechanical processing. He will be based at Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory (NGPRL), USDA-ARS, Mandan, ND.

Dr. David Toledo
Dr. David Toledo, Research Rangeland Management Specialist, joined the staff at the Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory on March 4, 2013.  Dr. Toledo is a headquarters-funded postdoc responsible for improving ecological indicators of rangeland and pastureland health. His work will result in an integrated grazingland health assessment tool for use in management and conservation planning. David’s previous research includes working at the USDA-ARS Jornada Experimental Range under the supervision of Dr. Jeff Herrick, where he worked on the development and application of indicators for monitoring soil and vegetation attributes and assessment of rangeland health.