May 2019 Stories

My Purdue View

Friday, May 31st, 2019

In high school, I kept coming back to the question, “What can I do that will improve lives in a meaningful way?” The answer, for me, seemed to lie in food — everyone has to eat. I visited Purdue, where I found out about the Molecular Agriculture Summer Institute and the World Food Prize Youth Institute, which I attended while in high school. That was the first time I met other students with passions similar to mine.

Final View

Friday, May 31st, 2019

Q: What plant is Rachel Flynn, graduate student in Botany and Plant Pathology, working with — and why?

Alumni Spotlights

Friday, May 31st, 2019

Alumni Spotlights for Justin Couetil, Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, and George Sadler.

Then & Now

Friday, May 31st, 2019

What’s a celebration without ice cream? To honor Purdue’s 150th, two animal sciences alumni collaborated with Deklin Veenhuizen, Joel Mohring, Yiwen Bao, Luping Xu, Molly Powell and Cameron Wicks, alumni who were students in Assistant Professor Dharmendra Mishra’s spring 2018 food science class, to develop Boiler Tracks. The vanilla ice cream has chocolate pieces, toffee and caramel. By Kathleen Jacobs

Alumni Close-Up: Thinking Outside the Crayon Box

Friday, May 31st, 2019

The original soybean crayons Jocelyn Wong’s team invented at Purdue still sit on her bathroom vanity 25 years later. “I can look at them every single day to remind me of the moment in time that helped influence so much of who I am,” she says. Wong (BS ’96, agricultural and biological engineering), the eldest of three daughters, immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong when she was 3. When the time came to choose a college, Wong knew her choices. “I was going to be an engineer or I was going to be a doctor, and that was it.”

Making Giant Leaps

Friday, May 31st, 2019

George and Nancy Morton have attended many College of Agriculture scholarship dinners, but the remarks one recipient delivered have stayed with them. “The title of her speech was ‘Going Through College $2000 at a Time.’ And the idea was that she took the time and effort to fill out all the scholarship requests that she could find,” recalls George (BS ’58, agribusiness management).

The Science of Buying Local

Friday, May 31st, 2019

The Purdue Farmers Market — celebrating its 10th year this May — is one of 8,761 farmers markets in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) database, a testament to the surge in demand for local products over the last 10 to 15 years. Community-supported agriculture organizations, farm-to-table restaurants and even grocery chains are marketing local ingredients.

Taking the Land-Grant Model Global

Friday, May 31st, 2019

Were there challenges?” Haley Oliver, associate professor of food science, asks, reflecting on her experience establishing a food technology degree program at Herat University in Herat, Afghanistan. “The real question is: Where weren’t there challenges?”

An Inside Take on Agriculture

Friday, May 31st, 2019

Krishna Nemali, assistant professor of horticulture and landscape architecture and one of the leaders of the department’s controlled environment agriculture initiative, is working up a sweat tending a few small trays of seedlings — primarily lettuce and other green vegetables. Nemali and a team of researchers and Extension specialists are doing more than growing plants here; they’re nurturing an entire industry.

Purdue Hammers Down Hunger at home and in Haiti

Friday, May 31st, 2019

“Packing 150,000 meals is no small task, and the Ag Week team couldn’t be happier with the support of the Purdue community,” says Dane Chapman, co-chair of Hammer Down Hunger, part of the annual Purdue Ag Week. “We exceeded our goal of 1,000 volunteers thanks to the Purdue students, faculty and staff who embody the Boilermaker spirit of selflessly serving others.”