Ronald Hanks, professor in Utah State University's department of plants, soils and biometeorology, recently received this year's Kansas State University Distinguished Service Award in Agriculture.
The award recognizes those who have made outstanding contributions to a professional field or in public service to agriculture.Hanks joined the USU faculty in 1968 and was previously a researcher with the USDA Division of Soil Physics at Kansas State.
He was head of his department at USU for four years and then accepted a one-year position at the Waite Institute in Adelaide, Australia. Hanks is a fellow of the American Society of Agronomy and a member of the Utah Advisory Council on Science and Technology.
He has done extensive consulting work in Israel, India, Italy and South Africa and a number of countries in South America. Hanks is involved in a joint proposal with the Polish Academy of Science to develop instruments for measuring water content in soils and has published 230 journal articles and other scientific papers.