Latest News

September 12, 2019

A new way of measuring how relationships in a network change over time can reveal important details about the network, according to researchers at Penn State and the Korean Rural Economic Institute. For example, when applied to the world economy, the method detected the greatest amount of network change during 2008-09, the time of the global financial crisis.

September 11, 2019

A multi-institutional effort to document and digitize the historical population dynamics of arthropod parasites will draw on Penn State entomological expertise and collections.

September 11, 2019

A new study provides an updated picture of the prevalence of the sheep and goat plague virus (PPRV), a widespread and often fatal disease that threatens 80 percent of the world’s sheep and goats, in northern Tanzania.

September 3, 2019

Effie Smith recently spent two and a half months in a former sugar-cane laborer community in the Dominican Republic conducting in-depth interviews to uncover the sources of income of contemporary batey residents.

July 23, 2019

Sulav Paudel, a doctoral candidate in entomology and in international agriculture and development in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, traveled to Washington, D.C., in June to participate in two conferences aimed at advancing international agriculture and rural development.

July 2, 2019

A two-week training on foodborne pathogen detection methods, focused on dairy, will help educators and government agencies in Ethiopia ensure the safety of dairy products in that country.

June 11, 2019

Viruses, spread through mosquito bites, cause human illnesses such as dengue fever, Zika and yellow fever. A new control technique harnesses a naturally occurring bacterium called Wolbachia that blocks replication of viruses and breaks the cycle of mosquito-borne disease, according to an international team of researchers.

June 4, 2019

Tessa Sontheimer and Geoff Merz, graduates of Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, have been named recipients of Fulbright Study Awards

June 4, 2019

Erika Del Pilar, a veterinary and biomedical sciences major, has regularly been involved in the veterinarian field during her time at Penn State and recently pursued a study-abroad experience in Belize. In an interview with Taylor Graham, a Student Engagement Network intern, Del Pilar talks about how she was able to take what she learned in the classroom and practice it first-hand overseas.

May 28, 2019

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Nora Tietjens explored a different type of classroom when she and a group of fellow Penn State students traveled to the tropics over spring break as part of the embedded course “Environmental Resource Management 499: Costa Rica Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resources,” offered in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

May 10, 2019

Thanks to the generosity of Dr. Jose de La Torre, the College is able to make an award available to a graduate student from Latin America. In return, the student is asked to help the Office of International Programs with a project to advance College of Agricultural Sciences linkages in the hemisphere.

May 7, 2019

According to the 2017 U.S. Census of Agriculture, the number of Hispanic principal operators in the country now stands at 90,344, up from 67,000, the figure reported in the 2012 census. That increase, paired with the lack of understanding of English among many farmworkers, points to an unmet demand for bilingual agricultural education, according to Tara Baugher, a Penn State Extension educator in Adams County.

April 30, 2019

Penn State’s Matthew Thomas and an international team of researchers have developed an in-home solution aimed at preventing the spread of malaria.

April 25, 2019

Jacob Johnson, a doctoral candidate in forest resources and in international agriculture and development in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, has received a Fulbright Study/Research Award.

April 15, 2019

GreenBriq, a student venture aimed at turning the biomass of invasive water hyacinth plants into affordable fuel briquettes for Kenyan families, recently won the $7,500 first-place prize in the Ag Springboard pitch contest. The competition, the eighth held since 2011, is a signature event of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, which teaches and nurtures an entrepreneurial mindset for student success across majors and career paths. Each student team must have at least one member enrolled in the College of Agricultural Sciences.

April 4, 2019

Consuming unsafe food is a major public health threat globally, but the continent bearing the most burden is Africa, where more than 91 million people fall ill and 140,000 die each year from foodborne diseases, according to the World Health Organization.

April 3, 2019

Mark Guiltinan, professor of plant molecular biology, and Siela Maximova, research professor of plant biotechnology, both in the College of Agricultural Sciences, are the recipients of Penn State's 2019 W. LaMarr Kopp International Achievement Award.

March 27, 2019

An ideal world for Jayne Ulrich is one in which everyone -- from individuals to organizations to governments -- would take an active role in protecting, preserving and restoring the Earth’s natural resources. She’s doing her part not just personally, but also professionally as an environmental engineer with Mondelēz International, a multinational confectionery, food and beverage company known for making snacks such as Oreo and Chips Ahoy! cookies.

March 14, 2019

The link between gender and innovative energy use for food preparation is explored in a new book, “Recovering Bioenergy in Sub-Saharan Africa: Gender Dimensions, Lessons and Challenges,” co-edited by Ruth Mendum, assistant research professor for gender initiatives in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences, and Mary Njenga, research scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre.

March 4, 2019

Under the “Academic Mobility Program for Scientific Knowledge Transfer to Rural Communities for Peace,” students and faculty from Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina in Bogotá, Colombia (Areandina University), and La Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano (UTADEO), visited Penn State as part of a reciprocal exchange program through the College's Office of International Programs Ag2Americas initiative.

February 28, 2019

Pests and diseases are taking a substantial bite out of the world’s five major food crops — in some cases, up to 40 percent — according to a recently released publication, one of the first to inventory the impact on a global scale. “Declining crop health affects everyone — farmers, consumers and communities — by reducing food supplies, driving up costs, and sometimes even causing the misuse of pesticides and herbicides,” said Paul Esker, assistant professor of epidemiology and field crop pathology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

February 7, 2019

Because of significant labor shortages, Pennsylvania's dairy farms rely on Spanish-speaking immigrants as a key source of labor. However, cultural differences and language barriers can leave employers and workers lost in translation, affecting workers' well-being and community connection, and ultimately, farm viability.

January 27, 2019

Two students in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences are the recipients of the Guyton Award, a global learning scholarship established recently by Bill Guyton, an agricultural economist and internationally recognized expert in sustainable development.