Establishing Collaborations to Create Educational Opportunities for the Training of Future Agricultural Scientists
Jack Juvik, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract: A critical challenge for educational institutionsis to create opportunities for training the next generation of agricultural scientists to provide capacity to meet the future demand for food and avoid a world food crisis. This challenge to generate trained plant scientists is exacerbated by the increasing costs of undergraduate and graduate education and student accessibility to quality educational programs. The Lee Foundation Rice Scholarship program offers students in South and Southeast Asia a unique opportunity to gain an advanced education in key areas of rice science. This fellowship program has partnered the College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois with the International Rice Research Institute to train an initial cohort of nine students enrolled in the Department of Crop Sciences PhD program. The Department of Crop Sciences also houses the Illinois Plant Breeding Center (IPBC) which works with the commercial seed industry and other donors to generate fellowships to attract and provide support to superior graduate student applicants. The IPBC also serves to provide M.S. and Ph.D. students opportunities to connect with public institutions and private companies for potential career opportunities.
Bio: Juvik received his Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of California at Davis in 1980. From 1980-1982 he conducted post-doctoral research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Rehovot, Israel before accepting a faculty position in Horticulture at the University of Illinois. Juvik is the Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Crop Sciences and the Director of the Illinois Plant Breeding Center. His research program has focused on breeding vegetables for improved flavor, insect and disease resistance and for enhanced levels of phytochemicals associated with health promotion. His program has pioneered the use of DNA markers for the creation of linkage maps of tomatoes, sweet corn, broccoli and more recently for the bioenergy crop, Miscanthus. These maps have been used for the identification of favorable QTLs and for marker-assisted introgression of beneficial alleles for improved quality, yield, and other traits into elite germplasm for commercial release.
