Alumni News

If you’re not familiar with CTAHR’s Environment and Bioenergy Research Group, just ask the faculty and students of Can Tho University in Vietnam. Led by Samir Khanal of the Dept. of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering, the group will soon travel to the Mekong Delta in a new international effort “pairing some of the United States’ top research institutions and scientists with their counterparts from countries where agriculture is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change,” notes the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

Stop what you’re doing, open your calendar, and schedule a visit to the 3^rd floor of Gilmore Hall next Halloween 2023, because the jack-o-lanterns sculpted by CTAHR students will be nothing short of astonishing. Check out this year’s entries for the pumpkin carving contest sponsored by the Dept. of Plant and Environmental Sciences.

On December 2, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Michael Muszynski and his Genome Engineering to Sustain Crop Improvement team will be in the UHM Campus Center Courtyard to to showcase the latest research and tools to study maize (corn). 

Imagine a club where youths meet weekly, participate in hands-on activities that spark creativity and innovation, and learn business components such as customer service and marketing. Throw in a food safety course from the state Dept. of Health and ways to incorporate Hawaiian values, agriculture, and local value-added product innovations into their business strategy. Top it off with a capstone project, a Keiki Open Market, where the youths showcase their vegetables, value-added products, and other inventions.

Fashion Design & Merchandising’s costume display put the “muse” in museum. Professors Ju-Young Kang and Shu Hwa Lin from the Dept. of Family and Consumer Sciences highlighted a “hidden treasure” – as described by the Hawai’i State Legislature – and won this year’s Paper of Distinction award for the culture track. Their award-winning paper was titled, “3D Virtual Technology in Costume Museum Exhibition: Qing Dynasty.”