Newest Trolinder Award Winners Named

Two North Carolina State University Ph.D. students pursuing research aimed at plant disease detection were recently named 2024-25 winners of the Norma L. Trolinder N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative Graduate Student Endowment Awards.

Adrian Percy, the N.C. PSI’s executive director, recently congratulated Mariana Prieto Torres, of the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology (DEPP), and Sina Jamalzadegan, of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (CBE), for winning this year’s Trolinder Awards.

Prieto uses ag tech to diagnose disease

Prieto, a fourth year Ph.D. candidate, conducts research with Lina Quesada-Ocampo, an N.C. PSI faculty affiliate and William Neal Reynolds Professor in DEPP.

Prieto’s research focuses on using agricultural technology – such as spore-trapping vehicles, robots and drones – to detect a devastating disease in cucurbit crops, like cucumber and squash. 

“The goal is to create a sampling system that allows us to detect the disease before we can see symptoms on the crop,” Prieto said. “Part of my research is to make sure that this system will be usable for large acreages.”

Prieto holds bachelor’s degrees from the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She served as a plant pathology research intern as part of the Kelman Scholars Program at NC State in 2019, before entering graduate school.

Jamalzadegan brings AI, chemical engineering to bear on plant disease

Jamalzadegan is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate studying with N.C. PSI faculty affiliate and Associate Professor Qingshan Wei of CBE. His research focuses on detecting human and plant diseases using artificial intelligence, chemical engineering and biology.  

“By integrating these interdisciplinary skills in Professor Wei’s research group, we aim to detect plant and human diseases earlier, more accurately and more affordably by fabricating point-of-care biosensors using CRISPR (gene editing), machine learning algorithms and wearable sensor technology,” Jamalzadegan said. “Recently, we pioneered the development of a multifunctional wearable sensor patch aimed at monitoring plant health, employing machine learning techniques for early disease detection.”

Jamalzadegan earned his master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Houston in 2021. 

About the Norma L. Trolinder Award

Each Trolinder Award winner receives $4,000 to cover graduate student fees and supplement the cost of tuition, research funding, conference fees, professional memberships, research and conference travel, or other enhancements to the graduate experience.

In March 2023, Linda Trolinder created the endowment in her mother’s name. Norma Trolinder, a pioneer in the plant sciences, built a career as a preeminent cotton breeder in Texas. Linda Trolinder is also a plant sciences leader, having retired recently as BASF’s senior vice president of research and development of field crops, seeds and traits.