Obituary for Paul Wilkens

[Gerrit Hoogenboom]

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great sadness that I inform the DSSAT community that Dr. Paul Wilkens passed away on Monday, November 27, 2017. We owe much to Paul and his dedicated work on behalf of DSSAT. Many of the current programs in DSSAT, including the DSSAT shell, the Seasonal and Sequence application programs, ATCreate, and the Sensitivity Analysis tool, were originally developed by Paul. He participated in many DSSAT Training workshops and showed great patience in explaining DSSAT to others. Paul had a great sense of humor, which he sometimes included in the programs he developed. The words “Welcome” when you open the WeatherMan program in DSSAT will be a permanent reminder of Paul.

In his own words, Paul described himself as:

A scientist and computer programmer in the research and development division at IFDC, I have worked extensively on the development of several crop simulation models and related computer applications within the framework of environmental and sustainability issues. I have experience in linking geographic information systems (GIS) into data analysis information systems. I have organized and assisted on computer simulation training programs in the U.S. and internationally. Working closely as part of a multi-disciplinary team, I have has been involved in the development of models for the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer Models (DSSAT) including those for cereal (maize, wheat, sorghum, rice, barley and millet), cassava, potatoes and sunflowers. My research has focused on the development of decision support tools, integrating crop simulation models within a GIS framework, to generate site-specific crop management recommendations.

Scientist Programmer, International Fertilizer Development Center, Muscle Shoals, AL, 1993-2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1956-2017

Final arrangements are pending at this time.  Paul’s daughter, Emily, has said that donations to either the American Cancer Society or the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX, would be appreciated for those who are so inclined. 

 

There is place on the DSSAT web portal to share your favorite memory of Paul: https://dssat.net/2447

 

With deepest appreciation for Paul's service to the greater DSSAT community and his personal friendship,

 

Sincerely,

 

Gerrit

-- 

Gerrit Hoogenboom
Preeminent Scholar, Institute for Sustainable Food Systems
Professor, Agricultural and Biological Engineering

184 Frazier Rogers Hall
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University of Florida
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ger...@ufl.edu
www.GerritHoogenboom.com
isfs.institute.ufl.edu