Dirk Maier
Professor and head, department of grain science and industry
Dirk Maier, an award-winning researcher and educator, has secured more than $10 million in research, technology transfer and extension education grants. His research focus is on engineered technologies for the protection of stored products and the delivery of identity-preserved, traceable and biosecure quality grains to the foods, industrial, biofuels and feed processing industries.
As head of K-State's department of grain science and industry, Maier oversees a department that is known worldwide in the baking, milling, feed production and grain handling industries, and is the only place in the United States that offers college degrees in baking, feed, and milling science and management. Under Maier's leadership, the department intends to expand its reach into biorefinery and biofuels operations management, and expand its outreach through distance education. In addition, the department also has a strong international program focused on educating international consumers of U.S. cereal products from Kansas and the U.S. on their utilization and value.
Maier joined K-State in April 2008 from Purdue University, where he served as professor, associate head and extension engineer in the department of agricultural and biological engineering. While at Purdue, he co-founded the university's Grain Quality Team, which offers free grain composition analysis to Indiana producers, elevators and processors. He also was a key initiator of the Purdue Post-Harvest Education and Research Center and served as the director of the grain and biorefinery operations distance education program offered through the Grain Elevator and Processing Society and Purdue.
Maier has received numerous awards including the 2007 The Andersons/NC-213 Cereals and Oilseeds Award of Excellence in Research. He was Purdue University Faculty Scholar and a DAAD guest professor at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart-Hohenheim, Germany, in June 2004. He also was a guest professor at Italy's University of Torino in 2003, and a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata in Balcarce, Argentina, in 2000.
He earned his bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. degrees in agricultural engineering from Michigan State University.
Maier can be reached at 785-532-6161 or dmaier@k-state.edu.