IIPA Announces 2026 Retreat Student Competition Winners

traceyv on March 16, 2026

The Institute for Integrative Precision Agriculture annual retreat provided excellent opportunities for networking and sharing knowledge among the 35 faculty members and 45 graduate students who attended. The Integrative Precision Agriculture Club (IPAC) organized excellent student-focused sessions on innovation throughout the program including 3MT™ and poster competitions and a panel discussion on career pathways.  The winners of the competitions with their advisor’s name in parenthesis are listed below.

Poster Competition

  1. Shekhar Thapa, Electrical and Computer Engineering (Rains)
  2. Amrinder Jahkar, Crop and Soil Sciences (Bastos) and Binita Ghimire, Crop and Soil Sciences (Lacerda)

3MT Competition

  1. Sara Maktabi, Crop and Soil Sciences (Vellidis)
  2. Polycarpe Mizero, Crop and Soil Sciences (Bastos and Baxter)
  3. Aleena Rayamajhi, Plant Pathology (Mahmud) and Thevathayarajh Thayananthan, Environmental, Civil, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (Zhang)
Two people stand indoors smiling at the camera; one holds a certificate from the IIPA Retreat Student Poster Competition. A QR code and text are visible on a sign in the background.

Faculty member Lorena Lacerda presents a certificate to Shekhar Thapa at the Institute of Integrative Precision Ag Retreat.