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Uriel Urbizo Reyes credits his parents with helping him achieve the ambitious goals he has set for himself, including an excellent education.
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“For the most part honey bees rely on humans to survive. We have been breeding them for many hundreds of years to express the traits we want, like honey production, resistance to disease and gentleness.”
— Maddie Carpenter, MS student, Department of Entomology
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“Even if it’s a hard conversation, it’s good to gain perspective on where other people are coming from and why they have the beliefs they do. It can be emotionally draining, but it’s also very worthwhile.”
— Rob Weiner, PhD student, Department of Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication
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“My community, friends and peers are the reason I am making it through graduate school,” Katherine Rivera-Zuluga said. “One hundred percent.”
Rivera-Zuluga is a Ph.D. student in botany and plant pathology. She is one of four Colombian students currently pursuing a doctorate in the plant sciences and one of many Colombian students in the college and university at large. This community of countrymen and women has been a key support system for Rivera-Zuluga and many others, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were all away from home in the middle of a pandemic where everyone is getting sick and is scared,” she continued. “It was hard and depressing, but we gathered together when we could, we tried to keep each other safe in many ways. Most of us didn’t travel home over Christmas, but we had each other.”
“I study the liver of dairy cattle because metabolic disease can lead to the loss of millions of dollars for the dairy industry,” explained Linda Beckett, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Animal Sciences.
Beckett studied animal sciences as an undergraduate at Virginia Tech. She had little experience with cattle before college but answered an ad to work on a farm while a student. There, Beckett came to enjoy caring for the calves and milking the cows.
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“When I started in Purdue Agriculture as a freshman I never imagined I’d be returning to this school, seven years later, as a student trustee,” Mark Gee said.
Gee, who is pursuing his master’s degree in agricultural and biological engineering (ABE), was appointed as student member to the Purdue University Board of Trustees in June. In this role, Gee speaks for concerns most pressing to the student body and has an equal vote on all actions taken by the board.
When a ship ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March, stranding more than 400 ships at one of the world’s busiest waterways, Manuel Jimenez stayed attuned to its impact.
Jimenez’s research at Purdue focuses on maritime shipping and international trade. The topics reflect his upbringing in Bogotá, Colombia, where his father operated a firm that exported flowers to the United States.
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Locating the rainbow scarab (Phanaeus vindex) beetle in Indiana can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, or, well, like an insect on a dung heap.
While dung beetles abound in the state, the rainbow scarab, a type of dung beetle named for its iridescent and colorful body, is quite rare.
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Led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Feed the Future is the U.S. Government’s initiative to end global hunger and enhance food security. More than 20 Feed the Future Innovation Labs are paired with experts from leading U.S. universities to help address grand challenges in agriculture and food security. Researchers at Purdue University power the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Processing and Post-Harvest Handling (FPIL). FPIL seeks to reduce post-harvest loss, promote economic growth, improve nutrition, and enhance food security in Feed the Future target countries.
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As a sixth-grader, Emma Lendy was the only girl in her class to choose the category, How Things Work, for her science project. In helping her build a telegraph, Lendy said her father, a mechanical engineer, “fostered my interest in delving into why things work, not just taking them for granted.”
Lendy’s inquisitiveness and Purdue’s reputation drew her to the university. While an undergraduate student, Lendy worked in the lab of Barbara Golden, a professor of biochemistry.
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Jixuan (Edie) Yao’s research addresses questions others may not think to associate with agricultural economics. And to answer them, Yao prefers to let the data speak for her.
“I don’t want to argue.” Instead, Yao said she would rather use solid research to convince people “in a silent, but powerful way.”
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“My research is at the intersection of food science and nutrition – creating new foods that impact health,” explained Sarah Corwin, a doctoral candidate in the department of food science. “We are translating science all the way to something that could impact lives.”
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Marian Rodriguez-Soto remembers visiting her aunt’s garden as a young girl and being puzzled by the cabbages. Some looked different, so she asked her aunt for an explanation. “She told me they were sick,” Rodriguez-Soto recalled. “I was little, so my mind was blown – I didn’t believe that plants got sick.”
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“I had heard about Purdue when I was in Africa; how it requires you to be smart and to work extra hard, but that the university is unique,” said Theoneste Nzaranyimana, “I was inspired that if I get into this university, my dream could come true.”
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The relationship between fungi and climate change is somewhat of a paradox, according to Cathie Aime, professor of botany and plant pathology, but that’s in keeping with these enigmatic and often misunderstood organisms.
As climate change radically alters global landscapes and ecosystems, fungi that are damaging to crops and threaten agricultural industries can become more prevalent. A recent example of this is the fungus that causes coffee rust (Hemileia vastarix), which has devastated coffee crops and the industry in Columbia and Central America and destroyed the livelihoods of millions throughout Latin America. An increase in temperatures, rainfall and extreme weather events, conditions favored by this fungus, accelerated the epidemic.
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By Emma Ea Ambrose According to Levon Esters, Agricultural Sciences Education and Communication (ASEC) professor, the main reasons students leave graduate school are lack of…
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By Emma Ea Ambrose Someplace between Bill Nye the Science Guy and Ms. Frizzle of “The Magic School Bus” lies Jessica Merzdorf’s career sweet…
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Chris Oakley joined the Purdue Center for Plant Biology (CPB) in January 2017 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology.…
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