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Prasanta Bhowmik, emeritus professor in the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, died Nov. 2 following a two-year battle with cancer. A memorial service will be held Saturday, Nov. 23, from 10:30-11:30 a.m., at Old Chapel.

Bhowmik taught at UMass Amherst for 40 years, from 1981 until 2021. Holding full professor status since 1993, Bhowmik anchored the weed management focus of the Stockbridge turfgrass programs. Teaching advanced courses in weed physiology, ecology, management and control by organic means, he instructed over 2,300 students in the intricacies of weed management across all agricultural systems, including turfgrass systems. In addition to his undergraduate teaching, he served as a graduate advisor to 17 master’s and doctoral students during his tenure at the university and was also a frequent contributor to UMass Turf Research Center Field Day events.

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His research has been published in over 125 refereed journal articles and several book chapters, 450 abstracts and reports and 80 extension or popular articles. He also received numerous honors and awards, including the Outstanding Educator Award from the Northeastern Weed Science Society in 2007.

Bhowmik earned his first Master of Science in Agronomy in 1966 in his home country of India, and he earned a second Master of Science in Weed Physiology in 1970 from the University of Guelph in Canada. He was immediately hired to the graduate faculty at UMass upon the conferral of his doctorate in weed science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981.

A complete remembrance of Bhowmik by the Stockbridge School can be found here. His formal obituary, published by the Daily Hampshire Gazette on Nov. 9, can be found here.