News

International Agriculture and Development alumna Ariel Rivers was recently elected to vice president of the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development.

Kelly Chege, a doctoral candidate in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, has been selected as a member of the inaugural class of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition’s Next Generation Global Leaders Network

Faculty and graduate students in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences will showcase their international research during the third annual Global Gallery, a symposium hosted by the international agriculture and development dual-title graduate program, known as INTAD, and its student association.

Isabel Gutierrez traveled to Java, Indonesia in December 2019 to learn about cloves and clove farming practices.

Depending on how it occurs, the development of cellular agriculture — food grown in factories from cells or yeast — has the potential to either accelerate socioeconomic inequality or provide beneficial alternatives to the status quo. That’s the conclusion of a new study led by Penn State researchers, who assessed the potential trajectories for a new technology that synergizes computer science, biopharma, tissue engineering and food science to grow cultured meat, dairy and egg products from animal cells and/or genetically modified yeast.

Fourth-year Soil Science and INTAD PhD candidate Nina Camillone is currently in Costa Rica conducting field research on soil health on coffee farms in Costa Rica in partnership with EARTH University.

The lead researcher in this study is Hannah Tiffin, a doctoral candidate in entomology and INTAD.

In rural Ghana, where most rely on farming for survival, families face many challenges, including scarcity of food, running water and electricity. Women carry a hefty workload because they are responsible not just for child-rearing and household tasks but also for farm chores. Though their contributions often leave women with less free time than men, their work is undervalued, and most women are not equal partners in financial decision-making, according to Kaitlin Fischer, a doctoral degree candidate in rural sociology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

In East Africa, beekeepers set up empty hives hoping that migrating swarms of honey bees will take up residence and provide them with honey. However, it is difficult for beekeepers to predict when migrating swarms will arrive and leave and when to harvest honey. Darcy Gray, a graduate student in Penn State's intercollege graduate degree program in ecology, has received a Fulbright Study/Research Award to help beekeepers by examining how habitat and weather patterns drive bee migration and honey production in Kenya.

Marjorie Jauregui, Nixon Meneses-Marentes, Jennifer Goza, and Laura Rolon, four graduate students from the Food Science department taking the INTAD dual-degree option had the chance to assist, participate, and coordinate the 130th edition of the Penn State Ice Cream Short Course (ICSC). ICSC is a week-long class directed by Dr. Bob Roberts, Professor and Head of the Department of Food Science, who has served for the ICSC for the last 24 years.

Ram Neupane, a graduate student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, will be one of 20 members of the inaugural Young Scientists Cohort at the World Food Forum. The World Food Forum is an independent, youth-led global network of partners facilitated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The goal is to encourage and empower young people to raise awareness about the global hunger crisis and shape sustainable development goals for agrifood systems.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Olanrewaju Shittu, a doctoral candidate in the Penn State Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology, has been named a Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Fellow for 2022-2025.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — When Penn State graduate student Divya Pant entered the Miss Nepal North America pageant, it wasn’t simply the crown she was after — it was the opportunity to promote her waste management organization, Carbon Away. Pant, a doctoral candidate in the BioRenewable Systems graduate program in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, participated in the contest this summer to help raise awareness about the project, which she founded in 2021 with the goal of converting waste generated during the agricultural process into energy and fertilizer.

Written by graduate students in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, the book is an in-depth examination of the ecological, economic, social, political and technological factors that influence whether a person, community or nation is considered food secure.

Penn State Global has announced the 2022-23 recipients of its annual awards that recognize the outstanding contributions of individuals and academic programs at Penn State who have helped to advance the University’s global engagement goals.

Seventy-six Penn State graduate students earned first-, second- or third-place prizes at the 2023 Graduate Exhibition, held March 20-24 on the University Park campus and online. More than 275 students from more than 65 graduate programs participated in one of five categories: research, design, performance, visual arts and video.

In a recent study, an international team of researchers led by Penn State University delved deep into the relationships between heat waves, solitary bees, and the protozoan pathogen, Crithidia mellificae.

A team of Penn State researchers recently held a workshop in Ghana, exploring how gender affects dynamics within the agriculture industry. The trip capped a multi-year effort to better understand time poverty among women peanut farmers.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Sarah Richards has big plans for her future — she wants to be a leader in finding new ways to help farmers grow food more sustainably, using tiny living things called microbes. To make that happen, the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences doctoral student knows it’s crucial to improve how scientists and farmers communicate and work together to create science and policy that meets real farming needs. She saw this practice firsthand as part of a team of faculty, students and early career professionals from Penn State, Michigan State University, Texas A&M University, Stockholm Environment Institute and African institutions hosted in July by Makerere University in Uganda.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For doctoral student and agricultural educator Mia Sullivan, traveling to Uganda this past summer with Penn State’s Global Teach Ag Network will be the foundation for her studies and future career.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — An often-overlooked water plant that can double its biomass in two days, capture nitrogen from the air — making it a valuable green fertilizer — and be fed to poultry and livestock could serve as life-saving food for humans in the event of a catastrophe or disaster, a new study led by Penn State researchers suggests.

Zilfa Irakoze, doctoral student in food science and INTAD, has been selected for the Ardeth and Norman Frisbey International Student Award in the graduate student category. These awards honor and recognize outstanding contributions to international understanding by graduate and undergraduate international students.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Eleven graduate students have been selected for the final round of the inaugural Penn State Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition including Auja Bywater, doctoral student in food science and INTAD, College of Agricultural Sciences, “Improving Food Safety: Exploring Bacterial Diversity in Hydroponic Farming”.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Three graduate students were honored on March 23 as award recipients in the final round of Penn State’s inaugural Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, held at the Penn Stater Hotel & Conference Center.

We are proud of Lanre Shittu and Sarah Richards, two INTAD students who have received awards from the Graduate School

During its annual meeting on April 3, the Penn State chapter of Gamma Sigma Delta, the agricultural honor society, honored faculty and students from the College of Agricultural Sciences - many of them affiliated with the INTAD dual-title degree program.

At the Global Gallery event in February 2024, INTAD students shared their thoughts and experiences about the INTAD dual-title. Hear firsthand how this program is shaping their academic and professional journeys.

The J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox Graduate School at Penn State and Penn State Global have announced the awardees for the Fall 2024 Graduate Student International Travel Grants. Of 39 applications, seven were selected for $1,500 grants to assist them in presenting their research at international conferences outside the United States.

Although aquaculture, fish farming, is believed to have been practiced for thousands of years in Asia, the approach is relatively new in Africa, which is facing a "fish deficit" that contributes to a lack of protein in the diets of the populace, according to the international nonprofit WorldFish. To help accelerate fish farming in northern Zambia, a team led by researchers at Penn State investigated local integrated agriculture-aquaculture practices — meaning their management of agricultural resources to supply essential inputs for feeding fish — adopted by farmers.

Auja Bywater, a doctoral student in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, has been awarded second prize in the Global Challenges University Alliance (GCUA) 2030 research competition for her work titled "Improving Food Safety in Controlled Environment Agriculture Systems."