Celebrating our Scholars!
In this issue of converse with CONSERVE, we are celebrating just a few examples that indicate the many accomplishments of our CONSERVE scholars - the next generation of leaders engaged in sustainable water reuse on food crops. In our first year of CONSERVE, 61 CONSERVE scholars from 7 different institutions were supported by CONSERVE funds and worked toward CONSERVE goals: (20 Undergraduate students, 21 graduate students, 6 post-doctoral fellows, 14 technical staff). The CONSERVE Scholars have been "meeting" virtually each month, with presentations from individual scholars on their work so that the full team gets an overview of the work ongoing throughout the collaboration. Our CONSERVE scholars represent the full spectrum of our multidisciplinary team, including research, extension, and education. This summer, CONSERVE scholars from all activities will have the opportunity to participate in the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC)-sponsored CONSERVE Scholars Workshop, where they will use cyberinfrastructure tools for data discovery in food-water systems research, and get hands-on training in combining and analyzing existing data with primary data generated by the CONSERVE project. In addition, this June, we will have our first cohort of 7 CONSERVE undergraduate summer interns, who will be working with our co-Project Directors and their groups at the University of Arizona, University of Delaware, United States Department of Agriculture and the University of Maryland.
Keep reading below for some truly exciting and inspiring work of our CONSERVE Scholars.
• CONSERVE Scholars in Israel
In January of 2017, law students, business and economics graduate students, and public health post-doctoral fellows journeyed through Israel to study water reuse and learn about how the Arava Institute is working toward improving water access for communities in the West Bank. Funded in part by a grant from the University of Maryland Baltimore's Center for Global Education Initiatives and CONSERVE researchers, the participants drafted an informative report, "Greywater Feasibility in the West Bank: A proposal to commercialize greywater treatment systems with legal and health considerations". This report focused on the Arava Institute's efforts to incorporate sustainable water reuse technologies in the Palestinian territory and how strategies may be employed in off-grid communities in the region to improve water access and reuse.
• CONSERVE Scholars at Maryland Day
On April 29, CONSERVE Scholars at the University of Maryland engaged visitors to Maryland Day-the University's annual open house featuring family-friendly and interactive events. The CONSERVE booth included a do-it-yourself water filtration experiment, fantastic coloring book activities, a survey to identify consumer priorities of food and water choices, lots of CONSERVE swag, and "user-friendly" information about safe use of nontraditional irrigation water on food crops.
• CONSERVE Scholars at the United States Department of Agriculture, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center Poster Day
Congratulations to all of the University of Maryland and USDA Agricultural Research Service CONSERVE Scholars who presented their work at
the annual USDA BARC poster day. (Below: Sultana Solaiman from co-PD Shirley Micallef's lab presenting her first poster)
• CONSERVE Scholar invited to Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings
University of Delaware CONSERVE scholar Sean Ellis (co-PD Kent Messer's lab) was selected to talk about his research and the CONSERVE project at the upcoming Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings in Germany this August. Sean's work has been pivotal to examining consumer preferences for foods grown with traditional vs. nontraditional irrigation water sources.
• CONSERVE Scholars awarded 2017 International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) Student Travel Scholarships.
Congratulations to Hillary C. Kelbick and Rianna Murray for receiving 2017 IAFP Student Travel Scholarships. This competitive scholarship will support their travel to the IAFP meeting this summer in Tampa, Florida.