January 23, 2020
American households waste, on average, almost a third of the food they acquire, according to economists, who say this wasted food has an estimated aggregate value of $240 billion annually. Divided among the nearly 128.6 million U.S. households, this waste could be costing the average household about $1,866 per year.
December 13, 2019
Xavier Mack, a student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, spent his summer in the rolling hills of Nebraska. As part of his journey toward a future career in science communications, Mack, a sophomore majoring in agricultural science, participated in an internship program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
November 22, 2019
Justin Kurtz’s first encounter with the FFA transformed the way he thought about agriculture, the world and, most importantly, himself. Kurtz, an agricultural and extension education major in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, first began working on a farm at the age of 10 in Kent County, Maryland.
October 16, 2019
A unique thesis project in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences showcases the stories of women in urban agriculture through photographs captured by the participants themselves.
October 9, 2019
The 2019 National Symposium on Family Issues will provide an overview of the many interconnections between families and food on Oct. 21-22 at the Nittany Lion Inn.
August 30, 2019
The rural sociology program had a strong representation at the RSS annual meeting in Richmond. Thomas Mueller and Matt Brooks won both the Olaf Larson Graduate Student Paper Award and the student paper award of the Natural Resources Research Interest Group for their paper “Who Bears the Burden of Renewable Energy: A Multi-scalar Analysis of Distributional Injustice and Wind Energy.” Maria Vivanco Salazar won a doctoral dissertation award for "Neglected and Underutilized by Whom? Neo-colonialism in the Definition of Crops from the Andean Region" and Effie Smith won a master’s thesis award for "Livelihoods in the Balance: Haitians, Haitian-Dominicans, and Precarious Work in Rural Dominican Republic." Katrina Alford won the student paper award of the Population Research Interest Group. Altogether, 14 rural sociology graduate students and 13 faculty were on the program with presentations, and others as panelists. In addition, 13 rural sociology graduate program alumni were on the program, so in total Penn State had a 40-person contingent, the strongest of all universities.
August 28, 2019
For many students, there is a class or subject they are nervous to take. Sometimes, however, it is in those classes that a student finds an inspirational teacher — a teacher who makes learning what may be a difficult subject a joy to learn. For alumni Louis Swanson and Carol Gertsch, that subject was statistics, and the teacher was Fern “Bunny” Willits, professor emerita in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education.
August 20, 2019
Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences recently recognized recipients of the Outstanding Senior Award and Outstanding Student Awards for the 2018-19 academic year.
July 19, 2019
For a new food hub to succeed, it should be located in a community with a population sufficient to sustain it, according to a team of economists, who found that a county seeking to establish its first food hub needs roughly 182,000 residents for that food hub to break even.
July 10, 2019
Ted Alter, professor of agricultural, environmental and regional economics in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, is among an international group of community, industry, government and academic leaders who are being lauded for their work to help manage an invasive and destructive species in Australia.
June 24, 2019
A proposal that will support the development of a living laboratory for green stormwater infrastructure research, education and innovation at Penn State is among the latest initiatives to receive funding through the University’s Strategic Plan Seed Grant program.
June 18, 2019
Gillian Warner, a rising junior in community, environment, and development, is passionate about animals, food security and learning. She found a place for all these interests -- and more -- in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
June 13, 2019
With the U.S. economy on track for potentially the longest expansion on record after the Great Recession of 2008-09, employment in Pennsylvania overall is strong. But the rosy statewide job numbers can mask persistent decline in various industries and regions across the state, according to economists in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
June 4, 2019
The Interinstitutional Center for Indigenous Knowledge (ICIK) has selected the winners of its 2019 Whiting Indigenous Knowledge Student Research Awards, funded by the M. G. Whiting Endowment for the Advancement of Indigenous Knowledge. Applicants must be Penn State students planning to conduct research related to an approved topic for an undergraduate capstone course, honors thesis topic, master’s or doctoral thesis, or similar. The 2019 Whiting Award winners are: — Richard Caneba, a doctoral candidate in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, for “Power, Knowledge, and Indigenous Ways-of-Knowing in the Information Age: A Postcolonial Perspective on Indigenous IT and STEM Educational Outreach in Canada”; — Christian Kelly Scott, a doctoral candidate studying rural sociology and international agriculture and development, for “The Pasture, the Village, and the People: Food Security Endowments and Abatements in the Southern Kyrgyz Highlands”; and — Ryan Naylor, a master’s degree candidate studying recreation, park and tourism management, for “Tribes, Timber, and Tourism in the Nation's Largest National Forest: Emic Perspectives of Indigenous Alaskans on the Tourism Development unfolding in Tongass National Forest.”
June 4, 2019
Tessa Sontheimer and Geoff Merz, graduates of Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, have been named recipients of Fulbright Study Awards.
May 31, 2019
Tessa Sontheimer and Geoff Merz, graduates of Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, have been named recipients of Fulbright Study Awards.
May 21, 2019
The 2018–19 Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE) seed grant recipients have been awarded to 18 groups of interdisciplinary researchers at Penn State. IEE established a Seed Grant Program in 2013 to foster basic and applied research addressing IEE’s research themes. Over the previous rounds, IEE has awarded over $2.7 million to 104 interdisciplinary projects with investigators from at least 15 Penn State colleges and campuses. This year, seed grants were awarded to proposals focusing on three of IEE’s five strategic research themes — Climate and Ecosystem Change, Future Energy Supply, and Human Health and the Environment — as well as three strategic crosscutting topics -- Food-Energy-Water Systems, High-Performance Building Systems, and Energy and Environmental Resilience.
May 21, 2019
Penn State students and alumni will travel to all corners of the globe for the 2019-2020 school year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. Including: Tessa Sontheimer, undergraduate; Community, Environment, and Development, College of Agricultural Sciences, and Global and International Studies, College of the Liberal Arts; Indonesia
May 6, 2019
Penn State Extension recently celebrated 10 years of providing bilingual agricultural education at the Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Convention, held annually in Hershey.
May 1, 2019
The State College Friends School and Penn State's Intergenerational Leadership Institute are partnering to host the area's first community-wide intergenerational gathering, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 1, at the State College Friends School, 1900 University Drive.
April 22, 2019
Water for Agriculture, a Penn State-led interdisciplinary research project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Institute on Food and Agriculture, has announced the launching of its website. The project aims to address the water and agriculture issues that matter most to communities through effective stakeholder engagement. “Our purpose is to transform the way scientists, the cooperative extension system, technical services providers, agency officials, engagement practitioners, and communities can collaboratively approach critical water and agricultural issues,” said Kathy Brasier, professor of rural sociology in the College of Agricultural Sciences and the project’s principal investigator. “The website is one tool that we plan to use to share information and build our network of collaborators.” The website provides information and background on the project as well as an events calendar for each of the communities. It also houses a library of webinars, a news and update section and a community engagement toolbox, which provides a practical guide to the major concepts, tools and strategies for implementing effective community engagement processes. Water for Agriculture brings together social and biophysical researchers and practitioners. These interdisciplinary teams are working in five communities in Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Arizona. “The purpose of Water for Agriculture is to better understand the processes by which a broad range of stakeholders can come together to improve how water and agricultural issues are addressed in differing agricultural contexts,” said Walt Whitmer, a Penn State senior extension associate and project facilitator.
April 18, 2019
How do regional opinions on Twitter represent real-world attitudes toward climate change? A team of researchers will work to find out, thanks to a recent seed grant from the Social Science Research Institute at Penn State. Ting-Hao (Kenneth) Huang, principal investigator on the project is collaborating with Guangqing Chi, associate professor of rural sociology and demography and public health sciences in the College of Agricultural Sciences, and John Yen, professor of information sciences and technology, on the project. The seed grant funding was awarded by SSRI, in collaboration with the College of Information Sciences and Technology and the Institute for CyberScience. This is one of six University projects this spring to receive SSRI funding for developing innovative research programs using Twitter data. The team is pursuing external funding to further advance the project.
April 15, 2019
"GreenBriq, a student venture aimed at turning the biomass of invasive water hyacinth plants into affordable fuel briquettes for Kenyan families, recently won the $7,500 first-place prize in the Ag Springboard pitch contest... One of the other finalist teams, Team Nuglys developed fruit and vegetable-based cookies made with ugly fruits and vegetables — meaning misshapen and discolored — sourced locally. The team's vision is to provide local farmers with a fair price for difficult-to-sell produce and make a profit on a unique cookie. Team members are Laura Greaves and Jon Colwell, agribusiness management majors, and Navjit Singh, a finance major..."
April 2, 2019
Mark Brennan, professor and UNESCO Chair in Community, Leadership, and Youth Development in the College of Agricultural Sciences, and Ali Kara, professor of business administration at Penn State York, are the recipients of Penn State's 2019 Milton S. Eisenhower Award for Distinguished Teaching. The award recognizes excellence in teaching and student support among tenured faculty who have been employed full time for at least five years with undergraduate teaching as a major portion of their duties. Milton S. Eisenhower, brother of former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, served as president of Penn State from 1950 to 1956.
March 27, 2019
Two faculty members in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences have been named the recipients of the 2018 Roy C. Buck Faculty Award, which recognizes exceptional articles accepted or published by refereed scholarly journals in the social and human sciences within the past two years. Molly Hall, assistant professor of veterinary and biomedical sciences, will be recognized for her work in human sciences, while Daniel Brent, assistant professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education, will be recognized for his work in social sciences.
March 27, 2019
The Appalachian communities that enjoyed persistent economic growth following the 2008 Great Recession have a number of factors in common, according to researchers who analyzed all 420 counties in the Appalachian region. Their findings will help guide future economic development strategies across Appalachia. “Economically resilient communities, such as Pennsylvania’s McKean County, can teach us about strategies for promoting resilience elsewhere in the region,” said Stephan J. Goetz, professor of agricultural and regional economics in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences and director of the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development. “By identifying the resilience-promoting factors these communities share, our findings will help other communities select strategies and policies to enhance their own future economic prospects.” The results of the analysis recently were published by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) in a report titled “Strengthening Economic Resilience in Appalachia.”
March 8, 2019
Penn State’s Social Science Research Institute (SSRI), in collaboration with the Institute for CyberScience (ICS) and the College of Information Sciences and Technology, has awarded over $100,000 in funding to support six new interdisciplinary teams of Penn State researchers whose work is aimed at developing innovative research programs using Twitter data. “Twitter data provides significant opportunities to study social problems that cannot be easily addressed by traditional data, advancing the social and behavioral sciences,” said Guangqing Chi, associate professor of rural sociology and demography and public health sciences and director of the SSRI and PRI’s Computational and Spatial Analysis (CSA) Core.
March 5, 2019
Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences has named Jayson Harper, professor of agricultural economics, as interim director of the Fruit Research and Extension Center, effective March 1.
March 5, 2019
March 4, 2019
Tony Rice, a senior agribusiness management student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, studied “meat” made in the lab and not from animals, and grew increasingly committed to understanding its potential to enhance agricultural production.
