An article in The New York Times in 1990 described how Purdue University was striving to “internationalize the outlook and training of its students.” Leading that effort was D. Woods Thomas, professor of agricultural economics, who arrived at Purdue in 1954, became the first director and associate dean for international programs in the College of Agriculture in 1965, and was later appointed Purdue’s first dean of international education and research.

When he passed away in 1993, Thomas’ friends, family and colleagues knew there was no better way to honor him than to create an endowment to support College of Agriculture graduate students’ research in developing counties.

Leslie Dale, the eldest of Thomas’ eight children, believes her father was initially drawn to international work because of his experience in the Navy. “He was a young farm boy from western Pennsylvania, one of many guys who went off to World War II and were exposed to amazing international stuff,” Dale says.

Gebisa Ejeta, distinguished professor of agronomy and Purdue University Presidential Fellow for Food Security and Sustainable Global Development, describes his friend and mentor as a member of the first generation of Purdue pioneers who focused on international programs and outreach. “He was among the many faculty who spent multiple years in Brazil over a decade,” Ejeta says. “When he returned, he was committed to Purdue having an international agenda and believed every student should have the opportunity to have an international experience.”

Dale remembers that her family immersed themselves in the culture in Viçosa, Brazil, where they lived for over two years. Dale says her father’s experience in Brazil “had an immense multiplier effect,” changing his life.

Brazil was just the beginning of Thomas’s international commitment, Ejeta notes, which also included actively pursuing funding for numerous research efforts in West Africa. Thomas, Lowell Hardin, professor and head of the Department of Agricultural Economics, and John Axtell, Lynn Distinguished Professor of Agronomy, were also responsible for Ejeta returning to Purdue, where he had earned his PhD, by creating a position that resonated with his commitment to research and addressing hunger in Africa.

His deep-seated commitment led Thomas to take a leave from Purdue to serve as the first executive director of the Board for International Food and Agriculture Development in Washington, D.C. He was instrumental in creating the United States Agency for International Development’s Collaborative Research Support Programs, the forerunner to the agency’s Feed the Future Innovation Labs.

Since its endowment, the D. Woods Thomas Memorial Fund has provided support to graduate students from the College of Agriculture toward its goal “to help increase the capacity of young American scientists to contribute to international agricultural development.”

“It is difficult to overstate how important scholarship support can be to graduate students as they begin their research careers. Woods Thomas was visionary, but he was also pragmatic, and recognized the important role the College of Agriculture could play in training graduate students and developing the next generation of researchers, leaders and development professionals,” says Gerald Shively, professor of agricultural economics and current associate dean and director of International Programs in Agriculture.

Katy Dix, a recent recipient of a D. Woods Thomas Memorial Fund award and a graduate student in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, used her award for a project in Guatemala.

“My research took place in community-managed forest concessions of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Petén, Guatemala,” Dix says. “There is a huge issue with cattle ranchers illegally buying land in the reserve and clearing it for pasture. Often, conservation or restoration projects exclude local communities, generating resentment and jeopardizing the sustainability of the projects. Instead, the government and NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] partnered to implement projects that aim to create economic benefits for local residents. Allowing community members to plant subsistence crops in between the rows of replanted trees simultaneously boosts food sovereignty and forest cover. The NGO I was working with is also paying community members to plant the trees, creating employment opportunities to compete with the economic incentive to illegally sell land to ranchers.”

Dix says the Thomas fund made it possible for her to tailor her research project to the NGO’s priorities and concerns by conducting a cost-benefit analysis of the programs’ impacts on participants. “This was incredibly important for me, because it allowed me to strengthen relationships with organizations in Guatemala, where I plan on working in the future, and to focus on skills that might be less valued in an academic setting but that are very valuable for the management of development and conservation programs.”

Dale has no doubt that supporting the work of students like Dix is exactly what her father would have wanted. “He would want to support students going out and doing research that would add to the sum total of knowledge and institutional development for the countries in most need. He was utterly dedicated to this.”