Still, ARI Receive $1M Federal Grant

The California State University Agricultural Research Institute has received a $1 million, four-year federal grant to help 100 underrepresented students develop professional and scientific skills.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hispanic Serving Institution program awarded ARI Executive Director David Still the grant for his project, “No More Silos: Multi-Disciplinary and Data Intensive Training for Careers in Agricultural and Natural Resource Industries and Agencies.”

The project will include four, five-day intensive workshops to teach students big-data analytic skills. The students also will receive fellowships in science, agricultural journalism, and public policy, and career mentoring through leadership and scientific communication workshops.

The goal is to give students greater discipline-specific knowledge and skills, improved critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and improved knowledge of multi-disciplinary team approaches to problem solving.

ARI supports applied research that benefits California agriculture, natural resources, and food systems, and develops the next generation of agricultural leaders. Still, the executive director, is also a plant science professor at Cal Poly Pomona.

Sandra Robinson, a professor at Cal State Monterey Bay, is a co-principal investigator on the grant. Youngsook You, a research scientist in Still’s lab, will run the week-long bioinformatics training workshops associated with the grant.