Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering

Meet Dr. Alok Bhandari, Associate Professor of ABE

 

Dr. Alok Bhandari joined the faculty in the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering at Iowa State in 2007 as an associate professor. His research interests are in the broader areas of fate and transport of contaminants in soil and water environments particularly pesticide transport in soil and water, and how pesticides interact with soil particles. He has also done research on treatment of waste water and occurrence of antibiotics and hormones in municipal waste water.

Dr. Bhandari fills the faculty position left vacant by the retirement of Dr. Jim Baker, an internationally renowned expert in water quality and agriculture.

“We are very fortunate to attract Dr. Alok Bhandari to Iowa State University. He is uniquely qualified to take our soil and water quality engineering research and teaching programs to the next level and help us solve some of the most challenging water quality problems facing Iowa’s crop and livestock producers,” said Dr. Ramesh Kanwar, Professor and Chair of the ABE Department.

Dr. Bhandari is one of the top researchers in his field, and has received many honors. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 1999, the Kansas-STAR First Award in 1999, the Outstanding Young Alumni Achievement Award in 2003, and the Outstanding Paper Award from the ASEE Environmental Engineering Division in 2007.

“The focus of my research in the past has been soil and water quality, as well as soil and water treatment. What I would like to do here is to develop a research program that focuses on sustainable water management,” Dr. Bhandari said.

Dr. Bhandari says he enjoys interacting with the people in the ABE Department, and he is excited for the new ABE building to be built, so that all of the faculty, staff and students can be under one roof and work in one building. He thinks the department has a great reputation, both on campus and in the state of Iowa.

“There is a tremendous scope for leadership in our area, and that’s exciting,” he said.

While working on his undergraduate degree in civil engineering in India, Dr. Bhandari was given the opportunity to teach a lab. The lab was an environmental engineering lab, and he got really interested in this subject and decided to continue his MS and Ph.D. degree in this area of engineering.

“I got excited at that time both about environmental engineering and teaching. I think that was the point in time when I made the decision,” he said about his choice to continue on to higher education and become a professor in environmental engineering.

“I’m as passionate about working with students and teaching as I am about research,” he said.

A GOOD PLACE TO BE

Dr. Bhandari’s background is in civil and environmental engineering, but while working at Kansas State, he found that his research had him working a lot with agricultural engineering faculty.

“When I had this opportunity to come to ISU, it was bringing me to a program that did a lot of work on agrichemicals and animal waste, so in terms of research, it was a good fit,” he said.

At a time when the big global challenges are about food, fuel and water, Dr. Bhandari thinks Iowa is the perfect place to be doing his kind of research.

“I felt that this department was uniquely placed to lead research and outreach efforts that look at sustainable solutions to water quality challenges our society faces,” he said.

ROAD TO IOWA STATE

Born in Indonesia, Dr. Bhandari lived in several different countries during his youth, because his father was a diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. Moving around, Dr. Bhandari was able to experience different types of teaching. He studied at British, Indian, and U.S.-based schools. While attending a U.S.-based school in Tokyo, Japan, he decided that he would move to the U.S. to pursue higher education.

“I really liked the open-ended, very creative type of education, open thinking and discussion in the classroom,” he said about the U.S. style of teaching.

Dr. Bhandari applied to schools in the United States to work on his master’s degree after getting his undergraduate degree in civil engineering in India, and eventually settled on Virginia Tech. After receiving his master’s degree, he had to make a decision about where to get his Ph.D. He would either stay at Virginia Tech or attend a new school. His advisor and mentor at Virginia Tech convinced him to stay at Virginia Tech.

“It’s a validation when your advisor asks you to stay back,” he said. “I thought I must have done something right, because this person wanted to deal with me for another three years.”

After finishing his Ph.D., Dr. Bhandari went to Michigan for his post-doctoral research. He often worked with students in the lab environment there, supervising, assisting the students with writing proposals and more.

“It was like an internship to become a professor. It was a testing period for me, to see if this was what I really wanted to do,” he said.

It was what he really wanted to do, and in January 1998, Dr. Bhandari started his first teaching appointment at Kansas State.

THE FUTURE

Dr. Bhandari would like to see his research develop further over the next 10 to 15 years.

“I think my colleagues and I, in the water and environmental area, will continue to provide a service to stakeholders, here in Iowa and around the world,” he said. “Our stakeholders are involved in the production of fuel and food, and we’d like to help them solve their environmental issues.”

As for the ABE department at Iowa State, Dr. Bhandari sees the program excelling even more in the coming years, bringing in excellent students, producing good research and communicating that research.

“We have a great departmental history and legacy; we will continue to build on current department excellence and will continue to have a nationally and internationally recognized program,” he said. “I would like to see the agricultural industry in Iowa thrive, while we take good care of our precious natural resources – soil and water.”

Dr. Bhandari says the department will need to expand its constituency internationally in today’s global economy. He said that what happens somewhere else in the world really affects everyone at home, so the department will need to take its expertise and goodwill abroad and learn to work with global partners.

HOME LIFE

Dr. Bhandari enjoys spending his free time with his wife, Nidhi, and their daughter, Mira, who is 5 years old.  Nidhi got her degree in geology, and then went on to get an MBA. She worked half-time while the family was at Kansas State, and is now looking for opportunities in the Ames area.

Mira enjoys school, as she entered kindergarten this year. Her father sometimes will say to her, “You don’t have to go to school today,” but when she answers emphatically, “No! I have to go to school,” Dr. Bhandari knows that means Mira is having a good time at school with her friends.

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