Site Archive
Kimber Nicoletti-Martinez, director of Multicultural Efforts to End Sexual Assault (MESA), recently received the 2021 Jefferson Award Presented by Multiplying Good.
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How do you make access to scientific knowledge more democratic for people around the world?
How can we be inclusive of diverse groups in the creation of that knowledge?
And, finally, how can we equitably transfer that information to those who speak different languages, may not read or write or live in hard-to-reach areas of the world?
These questions have guided the organization Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO) since its founding in 2011. Co-founded by newly hired agricultural sciences education and communication assistant professor Julia Bello-Bravo and Barry Pittendrigh, Purdue’s Osmun Endowed Chair of Urban Entomology and director of the Center for Urban and Industrial Pest Management, SAWBO has created a research and highly scalable outreach program that uses the power of animation to disseminate scientific knowledge around the world.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began and the technologies necessary to combat it came into focus, testing was immediately identified as being top on the list.
Mohit Verma, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering (ABE), had been working for years on developing a diagnostic tool to detect Bovine Respiratory Disease (BRD) in cattle using nasal swabs. Verma and his colleagues identified nucleic acids specific to different pathogens that cause the disease and developed a paper-based testing device that was cheap to manufacture, accessible and accurate.
For thousands of years, humans have altered — often negatively and inadvertently —microbial communities in a quest to improve agricultural crops. In recent years, knowledge…
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“Will you have a part in victory?”
During WWI propaganda posters across the country asked Americans this question. They weren’t recruiting enlistees or requesting donations for munitions manufacturing – they were urging Americans to garden.
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Technology doesn’t stand still, which means neither does Agriculture Information Technology (AgIT).
As a department that supports a technological operations throughout the College of Agriculture and Extension offices, AgIT is always innovating, always thinking at least a few steps ahead.
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Starting in a new position during the middle of a pandemic is challenging. For Caitlin Proctor, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering (ABE) and environmental and ecological engineering, it was also in keeping with an already tumultuous year.
Proctor began in her position this semester, after two years as the Lillian Gilbreth Postdoctoral Fellow in the College of Engineering. During her fellowship, Proctor researched drinking water and the ecological and biological interactions that affect its safety.
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“2020 was a year unlike any other, with numerous challenges, opportunities and accomplishments across our college,” said Karen Plaut, the Glenn W. Sample Dean of the College of Agriculture. “Through it all we were proud to share Purdue Agriculture’s stories with the incredible community of faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors and so many other supporters.”
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Thanksgiving, like most of 2020, is going to be different for families this year. Food prices mirror the uncertainty and volatility that the global pandemic introduced to general life.
“While many of the food prices have come back down off the spikes in late spring and early summer, it remains the case that retail food prices are significantly higher now than at the same time last year. In October (the last data available), prices of food at grocery were 4 percent higher than the same time last year,” Jayson Lusk, agricultural economics department head and professor, said. “It’s been almost a decade, since 2011, that we observed this rate of annual food price inflation.”
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With horticulture degrees from Purdue, assistant professor of weed science Stephen Meyers and his wife Jess were ahead of the curve – or ahead of the carve – when it came to growing pumpkins.
Meyers has always been interested in horticulture, professionally and personally. When the couple recently moved back to Indiana, they decided to use some of their land to grow and sell pumpkins, which afforded Meyers a deeper appreciation for some of the gourd’s temperamental tendencies.
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Want to cook like the ancient Egyptians? You don’t need a fancy cookbook or the ability to read hieroglyphics, all you really need is a sourdough starter.
Sourdough starters’ first recorded use harkens back to ancient Egypt, circa 1500 B.C., although many historians posit similar culinary devices were used as early as Neolithic times. The ability to bake bread with a complex flavor and soft interior revolutionized the Egyptian kitchen. Several thousand years later, sourdough is having another moment.
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Leaves are changing, the air is cooler and Hoosiers are still looking for fun and safe things to do while we follow pandemic health and safety standards. From picking apples and pumpkins to firing apple cannons and getting lost in a corn maze, Indiana’s orchards provide fun activities for all ages to enjoy, even if they do look slightly different than past years.
In addition to changes due to COVID-19 precautions, farm visitors will notice that there are fewer apples to pick this year. A late frost blanketed the state this past April and had a devastating effect on the apple crop.
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Maria Marshall, professor of agricultural economics, has an updated take on that old Tolstoy adage: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Unlike the Russian author, Marshall opts for brevity: “All families are somewhat dysfunctional.”
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