From the College of Arts and Sciences
As the world’s population continues to grow, farmers across the globe are working hard to feed more than 8 billion humans. Agriculture at that scale requires interventions, including herbicides and pesticides to keep crops healthy and free from disease and insect infestations. Chemical herbicides and pesticides were, and are, a common solution to these problems, but people are becoming more concerned about the environmental and health impacts of these products.
To address some of these concerns, Venkat Gopalan and Dehua Pei, professors in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Guo-Liang Wang, associate chair and Endowed Professor of Plant Protection in the Department of Plant Pathology in the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences, are using funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to work together on a new generation of biocontrol agents that avoid some of the pitfalls of chemical products while still protecting food crops.
Along with team members Preeti Patel, Walter Zahurancik, Colton Jordan and Talia Collier, Wang and Gopalan visited multiple middle school science classes to present their research, introduce students to their research approach and to some commonly used personal protective equipment, and give them the opportunity to talk to professional scientists at a range of career stages and from a wide range of backgrounds.