AMES, Iowa – Amy Kaleita quickly counted the ways Iowa State University’s graduate program in agricultural and biosystems engineering is at the cutting edge – and therefore ranked as one of the country’s best.
“Our graduate students are engaged in innovative research on the cutting edge of the discipline – dynamics systems modeling for improving ag machinery design, advanced robotics for field scouting and big data collection, plot and field experiments to design and evaluate new conservation practices, and analytics to improve efficiency and safety in food systems and manufacturing processes, to name just a few areas,” said Kaleita, professor and chair of Iowa State’s program.
In rankings of graduate programs released today, U.S. News and World Report magazine has Iowa State agricultural and biosystems engineering at No. 2 in the country, scoring just one-tenth of a point behind top-ranked Purdue University in Indiana.
Three years ago, the two programs tied for first. Then Iowa State was first. And for two years it has been Purdue by a little.
“We’re excited that the excellence of our students and programs continues to be recognized by our peers in these rankings, but I’m most proud of the great work that our faculty and grad students are doing to serve Iowa and the world through their state-of-the-art research,” Kaleita said.
This year’s rankings
The magazine released its annual rankings of graduate programs today. Other highlights for Iowa State include top 15 rankings among public universities for programs in statistics and higher education administration and top 25 rankings among publics for eight engineering programs.
The magazine ranks programs in business, education, engineering, law, medicine and nursing every year. Those rankings are based on reputational surveys of academics and professionals and statistical measurements of faculty, research and students.
The magazine also periodically ranks programs in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, health and other fields. Those rankings are based solely on surveys of academic reputation.
Source: https://www.news.iastate.edu/
