Summer 2019
The View Ahead – Summer 2019
When I’m asked what most distinguishes Purdue Agriculture,
the answer is obvious to me: innovation.
My Purdue View
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.
Read MoreFinal View
Q: What plant is Rachel Flynn, graduate student in Botany and Plant Pathology, working with — and why?
Read MoreAlumni Spotlights
Alumni Spotlights for Justin Couetil, Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, and George Sadler.
Read MoreThen & Now
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
Read MoreAlumni Close-Up: Thinking Outside the Crayon Box
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.”
Read MoreMaking Giant Leaps
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).
Read MoreThe Science of Buying Local
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.
Read MoreTaking the Land-Grant Model Global
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?”
Read MoreAn Inside Take on Agriculture
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.
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