LEXINGTON, KY (October 30th, 2012) - Three graduate students in the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences took home prizes awarded for best oral and poster presentations at the Soil Science Society of America annual meeting October 21-24 in Cincinnati, OH. First and second place in the graduate student poster presentation category in soil chemistry went toSewwandi Rathnayke and Jessique Ghezzi.  Sewwandi, a M.S. student with Paul Bertsch, won the competition with her poster entitled “Transformations of ZnO Nanoparticles in Waste Water Treatment, Biosolids, and Soil.  Jessi , a Ph.D. student with Tasios Karathanasis , took second place with her poster entitled “Soil Nanocolloid Properties and Metal Contaminant Transport Behavior”.  Jonathan Judy, a Ph.D. student with Paul Bertsch, took second place in the oral presentation category in soil chemistry with his presentation entitled “Bioavailability of Nanomaterials to Plants: Importance of Particle Size and Surface Coating”.  These outstanding  results are a testimony to the quality of our students and their research in our soil science program.