What Grows Together: U of A Student Earns German Fellowship to Research Sustainable Agriculture

Nicole McKellar had already said yes to something else.

Back in September, she accepted a summer internship with an Arkansas-founded engineering firm that recruits heavily from the U of A. She completed the background check. She started building relationships with the team. By February, she stopped expecting anything different.

Then the email arrived. Congratulations, you're invited to study in Germany this summer.

"I was like, guys, I think I have a problem," she told her friends, minutes before walking into her German class.

The problem was a good one. McKellar, a junior in the Honors College studying biological engineering and German at the U of A, had been selected for a research internship in science and engineering through the German Academic Exchange Service, known as DAAD RISE. The program places undergraduate students from North America and Great Britain in research positions at top German universities. It's highly selective. The acceptance rate for North American students is around 9%.

She called the firm that day. They asked if she could recommend someone to fill the position. McKellar suggested a friend who had applied to DAAD RISE and not been matched.

Then she booked her summer in Stuttgart, Germany.

Sustainable Growth

McKellar grew up in Rogers and arrived at the U of A already focused on sustainability. She recalled her first steps when a kindergarten teacher helped her whole family get into recycling. Later, Camp Invention, a national STEM program, had her building water-collection systems out of straws and tubing in fifth grade, rigging up little Rube Goldberg machines to move water from one container to the next. By high school, she was taking advanced environmental science and designing solar-powered desert homes through a Stanford University summer program.

She chose biological engineering after attending a presentation by Scott Osborn, a recently retired professor from the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering. She estimates that 60% of her cohort made the same choice that day.

Fishing for Solutions

But choosing a major and understanding it are different things. That came sophomore year, through the department's well-known fish tank project, taught by Osborn.

Teams had to build a system that could sustain 450 grams of goldfish, which meant catching them from a communal tank without knowing how much each fish weighed, then designing filtration, aeration and nutrient cycles to keep everything alive.

During the goldfish experiments, their professor expressed a truth about how biological systems work, compared to the inorganic nature of many other forms of engineering.

The system will adjust itself.

No goldfish on their team died.

"You have to understand why a biological system would do what it is doing," McKellar said. "It's not just cut and dry. You can't just do the math, and it works."

"When I taught her in class, I could immediately see how she combined her skills and interests to design and build an ecosystem for fish," said Osborn, who recruited McKellar into the department. "This fellowship is another building block for her career."

German Engineering

German came through the university's unique International Engineering Program, a dual-degree partnership between the College of Engineering and Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences that allows students to earn a B.S. in engineering and a B.A. in German in five years.

McKellar learned about it at a study abroad fair her freshman year from Kathleen Condray, professor of German and co-founder of the program. Condray encouraged her to apply for the fellowship.

"Nicole faced fierce competition for this position," Condray said. "Her excellent research skills put her on top, and her German will allow her to engage directly and meaningfully with colleagues."

"Nicole's work in soil science connects to themes from our German foodways course, including German immigrants' concerns about over-reliance on cotton as a monoculture in Arkansas and the ongoing importance of biodiversity and sustainability in German agriculture," Condray said.

Her professor also helped McKellar secure the 2026 Todd Hanlin Memorial Scholarship from the university's German section in support of her travel to Germany. She also received a travel grant from the Honors College to help with expenses.

"We are extremely proud of her," said Condray.

Building Better Plants

This summer, McKellar will spend eight to 12 weeks at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart, working in the Fertilization and Soil Matter Dynamics Department. Her project tests combinations of mineral fertilizers and bio-stimulants on wheat and soybeans to determine whether they can strengthen crops while reducing dependence on chemical plant protection.

Bio-stimulants are not fertilizers, she explained. Fertilizers supply nutrients. Bio-stimulants work at the molecular level, stimulating growth, water uptake or disease resistance within the plant itself.

McKellar wants to know if the right combination can make crops strong enough to need less chemical protection. It's a question with increasing urgency. As climate change intensifies drought, heat and soil stress, the plants that farmers depend on are becoming harder to keep healthy through conventional methods alone.

She secured the fellowship in part by doing something most applicants did not. Before submitting her application, she emailed five doctoral researchers offering RISE projects, asked questions about their work and offered to video call. Three accepted. The researcher who selected her was one she had spoken with directly.

Terry Howell Jr., head of the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, said that kind of focus on solutions reflects the best of what the program produces. "There are no two of our students alike, and Nicole is no exception," he said. "I am excited to see her put her passions together to build her unique educational pathway."

Bringing It Home

McKellar plans to use the data from Hohenheim as the foundation of her honors thesis, testing whether the fertilizer and bio-stimulant combinations that work in German greenhouses could apply to Arkansas soil and crops.

Arkansas is a crop-heavy state. McKellar wants to know whether these methods could work here at scale, for industrial farms and family operations alike. She sees potential beyond the commercial sector too. Farmers are regulated in how much fertilizer they can apply, but individual consumers gardening at home are not, and they often over-apply. A more effective, less chemically intensive product could change the equation at every level.

She is also thinking about what happens when those inputs leave the field. Excess nutrients from fertilizers can cause eutrophication in waterways, a process where algae growth depletes dissolved oxygen and collapses aquatic ecosystems. Once the cycle starts, it is difficult to reverse. If alternative approaches can reduce that runoff, the benefits reach well beyond the rows of wheat and soybeans where the research begins.

"There really is this big nexus of water, energy and agriculture, and they're not separate things," McKellar said. "They all intertwine and affect each other. So, if you can make progress on one, it will affect the others in some way."

About DAAD Research Internships in Science and Engineering: DAAD RISE is a summer program funded by the German Federal Foreign Office that places undergraduate students from North America and Great Britain in research positions at German universities and research institutions. Interns work alongside doctoral student mentors. The working language is English. DAAD provides a monthly stipend, insurance and travel support. Read about past U of A students who received the fellowship.

About the College of Engineering:  The University of Arkansas College of Engineering is the state's largest engineering school, offering graduate and undergraduate degrees, online studies and interdisciplinary programs. It enrolls more than 4,700 students and employs more than 150 faculty and researchers along with nearly 200 staff members. Its research enterprise generated $47 million in new research awards in Fiscal Year 2025. The college's strategic plan, Vision 2035, seeks to build the premier STEM workforce in accordance with three key objectives: Initiating lifelong student success, generating transformational and relevant knowledge, and becoming the destination of choice among educators, students, staff, industry, alumni and the community. As part of this, the college is increasing graduates and research productivity to expand its footprint as an entrepreneurial engineering platform serving Arkansas and the world. The college embraces its pivotal role in driving economic growth, fueling innovation and educating the next generation of engineers, computer scientists and data scientists to address current and future societal challenges.