Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, through its Institute for Sustainable Agricultural, Food and Environmental Science, known as SAFES, announced funding awards to accelerate the advancement of its Critical Issues Initiatives. These initiatives serve as the college’s impact hubs, addressing urgent and high-impact challenges through targeted efforts and innovative projects.
Heather Preisendanz, director of SAFES and professor of agricultural and biological engineering, announced that seven projects received inaugural funding totaling more than $100,000 through the Seed2Sustain program.
“This initiative underscores Penn State’s commitment to addressing critical challenges in agriculture, food systems and environmental sustainability through interdisciplinary research,” she said. “By fostering the growth of the Critical Issues Initiatives, SAFES aims to position Penn State as a leader in driving meaningful advancements in addressing these challenges and building interdisciplinary teams that will compete successfully for external funding to support these advancements.”
The projects are at various stages along the pipeline from discovery research to translating knowledge in real-world settings, each with distinct research development needs. To support their progress, SAFES offers tiered funding at three levels tailored to each project’s current maturity.
Troy Ott, dean of the college, said the funding is “focused on greater impact for our stakeholders by putting critical seed funding in the hands of our outstanding faculty, staff and students. This will drive the discovery of new knowledge, leading to innovation and translating that knowledge into solutions.”
He added that the Seed2Sustain program enables scientists to form collaborative teams, explore new interdisciplinary research directions, refine their research objectives, strengthen emerging partnerships and advance small-scale research initiatives.
“SAFES and the Critical Issues Initiatives provide a unique platform for our college to identify priorities for investment and to build interdisciplinary teams that address these priorities,” Ott said. “Our recent investment in these projects provides an opportunity for these groups to solidify their direction, and we look forward to their future successes. It is inspired by Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi’s desire for greater impact in the commonwealth and building on our unique areas of strength. This initiative represents our renewed commitment to identify solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges in our broad mission areas.”
The projects that received funding are as follows:
— “Managing Earth’s Critical Zone,” Jason Kaye, distinguished professor of soil biogeochemistry and chair of the intercollege graduate degree program in ecology. The $5,000 grant will support technician time and sample analysis at the Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory to position the team for new collaborations emerging through the observatory network related to soil warming and the role of wood decomposition in nitrogen immobilization from soils.
— “Animal, Antimicrobial Resistance, Foodborne and Zoonotic Diseases,” Erika Ganda, assistant professor of food animal microbiomes. The $3,000 grant supports a graduate student working on research development. The scholar will help facilitate collaboration among researchers in veterinary medicine, microbiology, public health and agricultural sciences.
— “Regenerative and Climate-Smart Landscapes,” Guojie Wang, assistant professor of forage crop systems. The $15,000 grant will support lab and field work, enabling the team to better understand alternative forage species' nutritional benefits and methane reduction potential.
— “Precision Biodiversity,” Katie Bartling, watershed project coordinator. The $13,500 grant will be used for sample collection and analysis to enable the team to evaluate ecological recovery at sites where restoration activities have occurred and watershed scale decision support regarding site prioritization for restoration activities.
— “Bioeconomy Solutions,” Juliana Vasco-Correa, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering. The $12,000 grant will support the collection of preliminary data that would be used to demonstrate the feasibility of the biomass conversion process in developing biomaterials with net-negative carbon emissions.
— “Agricultural Sustainability in Urbanized Landscapes,” Cibin Raj, associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. The $27,000 grant will be put toward workshops with stakeholders, a research development project manager, and writing retreats for the proposal team that would leverage the success of a previous proposal funded by the USDA-NIFA Sustainable Agricultural Systems program area.
— “Contaminants of Emerging Concern,” Jon Sweetman, assistant research professor of aquatic science. The $37,300 grant will be used for collecting and analyzing groundwater samples for micro/nanoplastics related to understanding the occurrence of micro/nanoplastics in private wells and the impacts of wastewater irrigation on groundwater quality.
Source : psu.edu