A Message from the President

Dear AOC Family and Friends:

It is my great pleasure to serve AOC as the president for the year of 2009-2010. As a first junior faculty member serving on this position, I take this opportunity with great honor, passion, sense of responsibility and commitment.

Under the strong leadership of seven past presidents and eight executive boards as well as the support from all of you, AOC has become a well-established and well-recognized professional society for promoting information exchange and networking among AOC members and worldwide professionals. To continue the success of AOC in the past eight years, I propose to focus our efforts primarily on, but not limited to, the following areas for this coming year:   

1. Membership and member services

As a developing organization, membership development remains to be a major task for AOC. We will continue to recruit new members in North America, China, Europe and other regions of the world. We will continue effort for establishment of AOC lifetime members and fellows to honor those who are members of unusual outstanding.

Meanwhile, we will also provide valuable professional services to all of our members through various activities. Sponsoring or co-sponsoring technical conferences is one of many ways to serve our members for networking and professional development. Efforts will be made to promote interaction between our student members and regular members. Awards for excellence in graduate leadership and service, graduate scholarly achievement will be given out to outstanding student members. Annual graduate student research paper competition will be continued to promote professional development for our pre-professionals. In addition, excellences and achievements of our regular members will also be recognized through two new awards, "Early Career Award" and "Distinguished Career Award".

2. Communications

The quarterly AOC newsletter, IMPACT, and the AOC website (http://www.aoc-web.org/) are the bridges to link AOC with the rest of the world. To continue the excellence of the newsletter and the website, the newsletter editorial team under the leadership of Dr. Zhuping Sheng, and the web manager, Dr. Juhua Liu, will strive to provide information of AOC activities in a timely manner to best serve the need for communication among our members around the world. I hereby also call for supports from all of you by contributing /sharing information, news, and suggestions.
3. Joint AOC and CSAE E-journal

In 2008, AOC and the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineers (CASE) successfully launched a joint English E-journal, the International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (IJABE). The IJABE is a peer-reviewed open access journal. It serves our AOC members and peers around the world to support mission of the AOC in terms of information exchange, collaboration in research, educational exchange, technology transfer, and professional development. Thanks to diligent work by the editorial team of the Journal, up to date, the journal has published four issues with 41 papers. It has been evaluated and covered by CA, CAB abstracts, CAB Full-Text Respository, Inspec, DOAJ and Open-Gate. However, as many other new born journals, the IJABE is facing some challenges in obtaining high quality submissions, and efficient review process. In this year, AOC needs to make every possible effort to support growth of the journal. I highly encourage your participation and contribution to nurture and promote our own journal. You may learn more about this journal at http://www.ijabe.org/index.php/ijabe/index.
4. Collaborations

Collaboration with our counterparts in our home country, China, has always been one of the most important activities for AOC. We will continue to strengthen the working relationship with the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineers (CASE), the Chinese Society for Agricultural Machineries (CSAM). To strengthen our partnership with American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), we will continue to bring large numbers of Chinese Agricultural, Biological, and Food Engineers into ASABE, and to bridge CSAE/CSAM with ASABE for their common interests and needs.
In the past several years, AOC has been working with Northwest A & F University (NWAFU) to establish a joint center to better assist our Chinese counterpart in developing specific education and research programs in areas of agricultural, biological and food engineering. Thanks to the diligent work by the AOC Yangling project committee and our Chinese partners, the Shaanxi provincial government has agreed to financially support the establishment of the center entitled "Yangling International Academy for Modern Agriculture." AOC will continue to work with NWAFU toward the establishment of the center so that it can provide an effective platform for our members to collaborate with our Chinese counterparts.
5. AOC foundation and fund raising

Last, but not least, we will continue to enhance our efforts for fund raising to support our AOC activities. All donations, small ones, or big ones are greatly appreciated and will be used for benefits of our members and the society.

With continuations of our passion for AOC, our commitment to AOC and our confidence in AOC, I believe we will be able to continue the success of AOC and to make significant impact on our societies. I welcome suggestions and advices for better serving this society and thank you for your supports and participations!

Look forward to working with you for a rewarding year.

Best Wishes,

Lingjuan Wang,

President of AOC for the year of 2009-2010