New dean takes the reins

College of Agriculture Dean Karen Plaut with Shelby Cummings

New dean takes the reins Few children receive birthday gifts they remember as adults, much less ones that forecast their future life’s work. But Karen Plaut remembers her 11th birthday gift like it was yesterday, and it was certainly nothing short of prophetic. “I loved science so much as a kid that I wanted a…

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Student Close-Up: When a Golfer Studies the Green

Marta Martin hits a tee shot

Student Close-Up: When a Golfer Studies the Green Original photo courtesy of Purdue Athletics Communications. A Purdue golfer studying turf management and science must have an advantage on the course, right? Senior Marta Martin isn’t so sure. “I don’t think knowing how a plant grows or how they take care of it is going to…

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Alumni Spotlights

First row: David Hefty (BS ’99, Agricultural Economics); Stacy Hefty (BS ’99, Agricultural Economics); Jane Ade Stevens (BS ’76, Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication); Kay Lawton (PhD ’90, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture); and Shibu Jose (MS ’94, PhD ’97, Forestry and Natural Resources). Second row: Donya Lester, Agricultural Alumni Association executive director; Edwin Grote (MS ’92, PhD ’95, Agronomy); Eric Steiner (BS ’02, Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication); Rebecca Schroeder (BS ’96, Animal Sciences); Jerry Flint (BS ’83, Agronomy); and Karen Plaut, interim dean, College of Agriculture.

Alumni Spotlights 2018 Distinguished Agriculture Alumni Award Recipients The Distinguished Agriculture Alumni Awards recognize mid-career alumni of the college who have made significant contributions to their profession or society and exhibit high potential for future professional growth. The Agricultural Alumni Association honored nine alumni with the 2018 award, pictured left to right. First row: David…

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Helping Breweries Tap into Their Potential

a glass of beer in the 1869 Tap Room at Purdue

Helping Breweries Tap into Their Potential Brian Farkas, professor and head of the Department of Food Science, loves a good pint. But he thinks the department has valuable expertise to offer craft breweries in Indiana and the Midwest. “Many brewers are not scientists,” he points out. With the advent of a fermentation sciences program and the…

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The Big Idea: Epigenetics

The Big Idea: Epigenetics

“It’s in their DNA,” we say about qualities people appear to have inherited or that seem essential to who they are. But how we become who we are is not that simple, because genes are expressed or repressed. Epigenetics is like the performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner before a big game. The song is the same, but sounds different based on the expression of the performer, as these variations of the national anthem illustrate.

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Our Surprising Strength: Cancer Research

LNCaP cells

Our Surprising Strength: Cancer Research Andy Tao tempered his expectations when his lab started an experiment to see whether they could identify phosphorylated proteins in blood. Phosphorylation — the addition of a phosphate group to a protein — is often a precursor to cancer cell formation, but detecting the process would only be half the battle.…

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As our climate shifts, so do trees

Songlin Fei, associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources and researcher with Purdue’s Climate Change Research Center, at his computer

As our climate shifts, so do trees When we think of migratory species, trees are probably not the first things we picture. Perhaps that’s why the work of Songlin Fei has captured the imagination of the scientific community. Fei, associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources and researcher with Purdue’s Climate Change…

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We want to feed the world. But how?

We want to feed the world. But how? You may have read the prediction that by 2050, we’ll have 10 billion people to feed across the globe while facing increasing environmental change. It’s a daunting task but a solid wager that we have the tools and ability to address this challenge. To do so, we…

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$5 million Gates Foundation grant targets weed-resistant crops in Africa

field of sorghum set against blue skies

$5 million Gates Foundation grant targets weed-resistant crops in Africa Striga, a parasitic weed threatening African crops, robs maize, sorghum, rice, pearl millet and sugarcane of necessary nutrients. Its impact on production of these essential crops affects more than 100 million people across the continent. Over the last four years, Gebisa Ejeta has found the…

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Then and Now

Crow Indiana Reservation landscape

Then and Now Names are essential to our understanding of who we are, so it makes sense that the Department of Youth Development and Agricultural Education recently adopted a new name to better express its mission: Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication. The name reflects changes in the way the department empowers, educates and enhances future…

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