Eleven Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences students have received predoctoral fellowships from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA). The students received a combined total of more than $1.6 million in funding.
The predoctoral fellowship program, part of USDA-NIFA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), helps new scientists and professionals enter food and agricultural sciences research, education and extension fields in the private sector, government or academia. The fellowships aim to support future leaders who are working to solve current agricultural challenges.
“This year, our college is No. 1 among its national peers in how many students received fellowships,” said Blair Siegfried, associate dean for research and graduate education in the College of Agricultural Sciences. “We’ve consistently had the most students selected over a five-year period. This speaks to the quality of the graduate students recruited by our faculty and their strong commitment to mentoring.”
AFRI is the nation’s chief competitive grant program for food and agricultural sciences. In 2023, USDA-NIFA invested $13.7 million to support the training of doctoral candidates and postdoctoral scholars.
The following are the Penn State recipients and their research projects:
Jennine Lection, animal science: “Investigation into effects of prepartum aspirin in modulating local inflammation and microbial populations in the bovine reproductive tract.”
Emma Rice, plant science: “Uncovering cover crop mixture root abundance and composition to maximize ecosystem service provisioning.”
Source: psu.edu
Photo Credit: Penn State
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