For decades, American farmers have been unable to keep up with the demand for organic products. This has forced billions of dollars to be spent on foreign organic imports instead of domestic ones — stymying nationwide goals of improving soil health and decreasing reliance on harmful synthetic pesticides. Arizona State University’s Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems is working to reverse this trend with the launch of a new organic mentorship program called Kernel. By equipping farmers, ranchers and handlers with the support they need to meaningfully transition their operations to organic, the project aims to drive some of the $5.7 billion routed to organic food imports as of 2024 back into U.S. pockets.

Manufacturing modern medicines is a multi-stage process, and each step introduces the opportunity for contamination, which can be both deadly and expensive. Penn State chemical engineering doctoral candidate Shreya Kapila is working to improve the sterilization process by surface-modifying the membranes used to sterile filter pharmaceutical products and remove bioburden. She conducts research in the laboratory of Andrew Zydney, Bayard D. Kunkle Chair and professor of chemical engineering at Penn State.