Alumni News

The Blood Bank of Hawaii and the CTAHR Ambassadors offer their heartfelt thanks to the donors and supporters who helped make the latest blood drive a success! It drew 71 registered donors, from whom 46 units of blood were collected. Since each unit of blood can be divided into three different components, CTAHR folks have potentially touched the lives of up to 138 patients!

The CTAHR ‘ohana on Kaua‘i is growing—they are currently hiring for multiple positions to join the team. There are openings for the county administrator, based in Līhu‘e; agricultural research technician (III) at the Kaua‘i Agricultural Research Center in the Wailua Homesteads; and an 89-day temporary hire Agricultural Research Tech, also based in Wailua.

You’ve probably heard about the importance of eating more locally grown foods. What are some ecological implications? Natural Resources and Environmental Management MS student Tanya Torres will discuss her findings during her defense of her thesis, “Quantifying the Environmental Footprint of Doubling Hawai‘i’s Local Food Supply.”

Chynna Chun, a freshman in the Tropical Agriculture & Environment major and treasurer for the Hawai‘i chapter of the Future Farmers of America, recently competed at the 92nd National FFA Convention in Indianapolis. Competing with the best-prepared public-speaking competitors in the nation, she triumphed with a bronze medal for her speech on the importance of advocating for Hawai‘i agricultural issues, including food insecurity, unused farmlands, and the lack of young farmers in the state.

Are consumers to blame for the rise in obesity across America? Or has Big Food confused our food choices and made the basic principles of healthy eating harder to follow? Award-winning author and New York University professor emerita Marion Nestle visited the UHM campus on November 7 to offer her research findings on the parallels between processed-food profits, big-budget marketing, and consumer behavior over the last 50 years.