Recent achievements for the campus community were earned by Isabel Cheesman, Nicole Dubas, Andrew Harker, Ritu Jadwani, Kyle Kelley, Kaylie Pieper, Nolan Schafer, Steve Sherman, Jenna Stevens, Samantha Worm, Jinliang Yang, Lajla Zornic and the university's Turfgrass Competition Team.
Honors
Andrew Harker and Nolan Schafer, both in the class of 2025, were second-place finishers in the national 2024-2025 Law Student Tax Challenge. The competition asks two-person teams of students to solve a complex business problem that might arise in everyday tax practice. Teams are initially evaluated on two criteria: a memorandum to a senior partner and a letter to a client explaining the result. Harker and Nolan's coach was Adam Thimmesch, Margaret R. Larson Professor of Law.
A University of Nebraska–Lincoln Turfgrass Competition Team finished in sixteenth place out of 76 teams from 29 universities at the 31st Annual Collegiate Turf Bowl competition Feb. 5. The competition, presented in partnership with John Deere, was held at the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America Conference and Trade Show in San Diego. The topics at the GCSAA Turf Bowl included a multiple-choice exam covering math, turfgrass growth and development, soils, fertility, pesticides, irrigation, mowing and water management.
Samantha Worm, Lajla Zornic, Kaylie Pieper and Nicole Dubas of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln equestrian hunt seat team qualified for the regional competition following a successful weekend in Fountain, Colorado, from Feb. 15-16. Worm qualified in the intermediate flat, Zornic and Pieper in the novice flat, and Dubas in the introductory flat. Regionals will be March 8-9, also in Fountain.
The Nebraska Law team of Steve Sherman and Jenna Stevens finished in first place during the ABA Regional Client Counseling Competition at Texas Southern Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston. The team of Isabel Cheesman and Kyle Kelley placed second. Sherman and Stevens will represent Nebraska Law at the National Competition at the University of Missouri-Columbia in March.
Ritu Jadwani, a doctoral student in the Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design, earned the Minority and Women in Entrepreneurship Practitioner of the Year Award at the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship annual conference Feb. 12-15 in Las Vegas. The award recognizes an exceptional practitioner who has demonstrated extraordinary work with minority and/or women's entrepreneurship programs or people in the past academic year.
Appointments
Jinliang Yang, associate professor of agronomy and horticulture, has been named the Charles O. Gardner Professor of Agronomy. The professorship honors Gardner, a native of Tecumseh. He was a trailblazer in agronomy and quantitative genetics, shaping agricultural science during his 39-year tenure at Nebraska. Yang’s research continues Gardner’s legacy by focusing on hybrid vigor, leveraging advanced genomics and phenomics tools to bridge foundational principles with modern innovation.
This column is a regular feature of Nebraska Today. Faculty, staff and students can submit achievements to be considered for this column via email to achievements@unl.edu. For more information, call 402-472-8515.
