Latest News

October 31, 2022

New research led by Penn State found that a lack of rainfall was associated with the highest risk of food insecurity in Tanzania. Heather Randell, assistant professor of rural sociology and demography in the College of Agricultural Sciences, said the findings could have important policy implications focused on helping agricultural households become more resilient against drought conditions.

October 31, 2022

Osama Awadelkarim, professor of engineering science and mechanics and the director of the Center for Nanotechnology Education and Utilization in the College of Engineering, and Mark Brennan, professor of leadership and community development and director of graduate studies for education, development and community engagement in the College of Agricultural Sciences — hold the prestigious title of UNESCO chair.

October 31, 2022

Inspired by his early days growing up in Bangladesh, Chowdhury — now a Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences alumnus — knew solutions were needed for the challenges faced by Bangladeshis, including the lack of access to safe drinking water.

September 16, 2022

Students in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences explored Greece’s rich culture — and its food — while studying abroad in Thessaloniki, Greece, this summer.

September 7, 2022

Flavonoids produced by sorghum leaves have shown promising results in combating fall armyworm larvae. When sprayed on the leaves of corn, sorghum flavonoids stunt the growth of fall armyworm and often kill the pest, Penn State researchers report in a new study.

August 29, 2022

WEF (Water-Energy-Food) Nexus Alliance has announced the first Colombia – USA WEF Nexus Seed Grant Program, supported with funds from the founding alliance partners. It will provide support for WEF Nexus transdisciplinary projects to build long‐term collaboration including with external organizations in Colombia.

August 29, 2022

A team of Penn State researchers has received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to lead a three-institution team developing the “SustainFood Network,” which will link scientists, communities and policymakers in addressing challenges at the nexus of water, energy and food security in Africa.

August 29, 2022

After a two-year pause due to the pandemic, students in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences once again are taking advantage of study abroad opportunities. In the spring semester, students visited countries around the world, including Spain, Ireland, Germany and Kenya.

August 19, 2022

Penn State's GEARE Initiative partner, CSIR-SARI, supports two farming communities in northern Ghana with time saving technologies for peanut production as part of the USAID Feed the Future Peanut Innovation Lab (at UGA)'s funded project, "Time Poverty Amongst Smallholder Farmers in Northern Ghana."

June 30, 2022

Penn State students will have the chance to explore this unique region of the world through a new embedded course, “Antarctica: Human Impacts on a Fragile Environment,” offered in the fall 2023 semester. Ag Sciences Global and the Environmental Resource Management program in the College of Agricultural Sciences are developing the course curriculum in partnership with the Center for Global Engineering Engagement.

May 5, 2022

Innovative research showing that populations of a small fish that live in both Iceland’s lakes and marine waters, respond more quickly and differently to predators after they invade new freshwater lakes, demonstrating how some animals can adapt rapidly to changes in their environments and may be able to adapt to climate change.

April 27, 2022

As a mushroom scientist and manager at the center, John Pecchia often shares his expertise in mushroom cultivation and disease management with industry professionals, mainly in Pennsylvania, the U.S. and Canada. The request from Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture presented challenges, the most significant being travel restrictions due to COVID-19. Nonetheless, Pecchia responded to the call.

April 26, 2022

An international team led by David Hughes, founder of Penn State’s PlantVillage project, has been named among 15 milestone winners of the latest round of the XPRIZE and Musk Foundation’s Carbon Removal Competition. The prize comes with a $1 million award funded by Elon Musk, which the PlantVillage team will use to demonstrate their capacity to draw down one billion tons of carbon per year in a sound and economically attractive way that benefits low-income farmers in Africa.

April 21, 2022

“Gender, Food, and COVID-19: Global Stories of Harm and Hope,” a new book co-edited by Paige Castellanos, Carolyn Sachs and Ann Tickamyer, gender scholars in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. The book details how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts gender, agriculture and food systems worldwide, told from the personal accounts of scholars, practitioners and community members.

April 8, 2022

Exploring the emergence, spread and control of animal infectious diseases such as avian influenza was the focus of the inaugural Emerging Animal Infectious Disease Conference held Nov. 29-Dec.1, 2021, at Penn State. It was hosted by the College of Agricultural Sciences, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and Penn State’s Center for Security Research and Education.

April 4, 2022

For 30 years, Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has been working with researchers and institutions in Ukraine, which had been in the process of reforming its farmland laws. WPSU's Anne Danahy talked with Suzanna Windon, a native of Ukraine and an assistant professor who became the director of the Ukrainian Rural and Agricultural Development Program last fall and Deanna Behring, assistant dean for Ag Sciences Global.

March 30, 2022

The research acknowledges what has been widely agreed upon for decades: In higher latitude countries — such as nuclear powers the U.S. and Russia — there would be no agricultural production and little food gathering possible in a nuclear winter after an all-out conflagration.

March 29, 2022

Christopher Scott’s career is as varied as the many places he has lived and worked, such as Nepal, Mexico, Argentina and India. His expertise is in water, and much like water, his work connects to many areas, including climate change, energy, policy, sustainability and agriculture.

March 29, 2022

Penn State Global has announced the 2021-22 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.

March 29, 2022

Developing solutions to address threats to plant health is the centerpiece of a partnership between Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences and the University of Pretoria in South Africa. “Penn State and the University of Pretoria both are working at world-class levels, so working together is mutually beneficial for research, education and outreach."

March 29, 2022

Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has recognized five faculty members for outstanding teaching in 2021. The recipients of the college’s Community of Teaching Excellence Award are Noel Habashy, assistant teaching professor of international agriculture; Siobhan Fathel, assistant teaching professor of agricultural and biological engineering; Kathleen Sexsmith, assistant professor of rural sociology; and Robert Van Saun, professor of veterinary science.

March 29, 2022

For 30 years, Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has had a strong and productive working relationship with agriculture and universities in Ukraine, said Dean Rick Roush. As the invasion of Ukraine by Russia continues, said Roush, “words fail to describe our reaction to the events of the last few weeks."

March 3, 2022

Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has partnered with the University of Nottingham’s School of Biosciences in the United Kingdom to offer a new international exchange program for the spring 2023 semester. This exchange program is unique because it was designed for College of Agricultural Sciences students, according to Ketja Lingenfelter, assistant director for student global engagement.

February 15, 2022

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.

January 26, 2022

Although tropical forest ecosystems around the world have been modified and fragmented by agroforests planted to produce commodities such as coffee, rubber and areca palm, amphibian communities can survive in those transformed landscapes — if the agroforests are managed to support biodiversity. That’s the conclusion of a new study led by Penn State wildlife ecologists who surveyed frog populations in the Western Ghats, a mountain range that covers an area of 62,000 square miles parallel to the southwestern coast of India.

January 10, 2022

During her senior capstone class in international agriculture, Penn State alumna Abigail Seeley worked on a grant proposal that has proved valuable as she works to become a veterinarian. She had several opportunities to experience international agriculture during her undergraduate years, which fueled her interest in completing the INTAG minor. Those experiences have served her interests at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

January 3, 2022

Penn State entomology and biology professor David Hughes aims to be a disruptor; to him, he said, it's the way things get done. Disturbed by the inequality, he turned his mind to food security. “The idea was to have an expert in a phone that a farmer could use to diagnose her problem,” said Hughes. That idea turned into PlantVillage, an AI (artificial intelligence)-enabled smartphone app and cloud-based knowledge system that would serve as a resource to farmers around the world to learn how to treat diseases.

December 4, 2021

In mid-October, a delegation from La Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano (UTadeo ) in Bogotá, Colombia visited Penn State to participate in a week-long WEF-Nexus Colombia Partnership Meeting. This meeting pushed forward the partnership between the two universities within Water, Energy and Food (WEF) Nexus activities.

December 3, 2021

A new program in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences is helping students reduce their carbon footprints while studying abroad. The Sustainable and Accessible Study Abroad initiative began last year to encourage students to incorporate sustainable practices into their study abroad experiences by supporting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

November 30, 2021

Penn State Global has been selected as the recipient of The Forum on Education Abroad’s first Award for Advancing the U.N. SDGs through Education Abroad. Penn State Global partners with the University's academic units and the Sustainability Institute to implement curricular integration, programmatic updates and operational changes to continue its mission of advancing the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs.