{"id":159177,"date":"2017-09-26T11:30:39","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T15:30:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/?p=159177"},"modified":"2017-09-26T11:34:06","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T15:34:06","slug":"faculty-focus-new-bae-department-head-strives-to-make-a-lasting-mark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/news\/faculty-focus-new-bae-department-head-strives-to-make-a-lasting-mark\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Focus: New BAE Department Head Strives to Make a Lasting Mark"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Hannah LaCava<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

When Garey Fox was asked to apply for a department head position at North Carolina State University, he knew that \u201cNC State was too good to turn down.\u201d Fox, a researcher in water resource engineering and hydrology, came to North Carolina from Oklahoma State University. He accepted the job of department head of Biological and Agricultural Engineering with the mind to make a difference and a lasting mark. One of his goals as department head is to improve student programs to better engage and assist students.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be in academia without the opportunity to interact with students,\u201d Fox explains.<\/p>\n

Fox is starting to build an undergraduate scholars program at NC State. This program offers students the opportunity to work with a distinguished company for a semester, receive a partial stipend to assist with financial responsibilities, and partner with a faculty member mentor. Fox participated in undergraduate research himself as a student and praises the opportunity and experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would not be here without undergraduate research,\u201d Fox notes.<\/p>\n

Fox\u2019s main areas of expertise include surface water and groundwater interaction with specific applications for stream restoration, streambank erosion and failure, and the design of riparian buffers and vegetative filter strips. His work with surface water and groundwater interaction addresses research that at times has \u201clargely been ignored until now.\u201d For example, pinpointing the role of soil moisture in soil erosion is important. No one wants to operate near a water\u2019s edge and wake up one morning to find that edge gone. He collaborates with researchers to study the jet erosion test, which uses a small device to quantify the erodibility of soils with varying water contents. The device will help model and predict streambank erosion and failure.<\/p>\n

Fox\u2019s research on vegetative filter strips — land and plants used to inhibit water runoff — and preferential flow in riparian buffers is another research project of importance at NC State. Preferential flow is the rapid movement of water through cracks in soil made by earthworms, plant roots and other causes. In the past, designing vegetative filter strips has been \u201can art form,\u201d Fox says, a hit-or-miss guessing game of where vegetative strips should go and how much pesticide they can effectively capture. Fox created a quantitative formula for pesticide trapping by filter strips and hopes to incorporate preferential flow into the design models to more accurately predict the rate at which they can limit runoff and transport to streams and rivers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe showed them that you can quantify the effectiveness of vegetative filters trips,\u201d he says \u201cif the equations are built around the processes. People are already using our foundation and our model and equations in practice today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support Undergraduate Research at NC State<\/a><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"Written by Hannah LaCava<\/a><\/em>\r\n\r\nWhen Garey Fox was asked to apply for a department head position at North Carolina State University, he knew that \u201cNC State was too good to turn down.\u201d Fox, a researcher in water resource engineering and hydrology, came to North Carolina from Oklahoma State University. He accepted the job of department head of Biological and Agricultural Engineering with the mind to make a difference and a lasting mark. One of his goals as department head is to improve student programs to better engage and assist students.\r\n\r\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t be in academia without the opportunity to interact with students,\u201d Fox explains.\r\n\r\nFox is starting to build an undergraduate scholars program at NC State. This program offers students the opportunity to work with a distinguished company for a semester, receive a partial stipend to assist with financial responsibilities, and partner with a faculty member mentor. Fox participated in undergraduate research himself as a student and praises the opportunity and experience.\r\n\r\n\u201cI would not be here without undergraduate research,\u201d Fox notes.\r\n\r\nFox\u2019s main areas of expertise include surface water and groundwater interaction with specific applications for stream restoration, streambank erosion and failure, and the design of riparian buffers and vegetative filter strips. His work with surface water and groundwater interaction addresses research that at times has \u201clargely been ignored until now.\u201d For example, pinpointing the role of soil moisture in soil erosion is important. No one wants to operate near a water\u2019s edge and wake up one morning to find that edge gone. He collaborates with researchers to study the jet erosion test, which uses a small device to quantify the erodibility of soils with varying water contents. The device will help model and predict streambank erosion and failure.\r\n\r\nFox\u2019s research on vegetative filter strips -- land and plants used to inhibit water runoff -- and preferential flow in riparian buffers is another research project of importance at NC State. Preferential flow is the rapid movement of water through cracks in soil made by earthworms, plant roots and other causes. In the past, designing vegetative filter strips has been \u201can art form,\u201d Fox says, a hit-or-miss guessing game of where vegetative strips should go and how much pesticide they can effectively capture. Fox created a quantitative formula for pesticide trapping by filter strips and hopes to incorporate preferential flow into the design models to more accurately predict the rate at which they can limit runoff and transport to streams and rivers.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe showed them that you can quantify the effectiveness of vegetative filters trips,\u201d he says \u201cif the equations are built around the processes. People are already using our foundation and our model and equations in practice today.\u201d\r\n

Support Undergraduate Research at NC State<\/a><\/h3>\r\n "},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Garey Fox was asked to apply for a department head position at North Carolina State University, he knew that \u201cNC State was too good to turn down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":150156,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1171],"tags":[261],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-159177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-and-staff","tag-department-of-biological-and-agricultural-engineering"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159177"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":159286,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159177\/revisions\/159286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159177"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=159177"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=159177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}