• Ecoinformatics Summer Institute provides career development to underserved student populations within the natural resources, partnered with resource management agencies throughout the region.
• Student entrepreneurs learn real-world career skills:
• Fermentation students win International Gold Award Food Science and Technology students collaborated with Bridgeport Brewing Co for a special 30^th anniversary release. Their resulting ale won the gold medal at the European Beer Star competition in Germany, beating over 1400 commercial entries.

• Student cheesemakers win national Blue Ribbon At last summer’s American Cheese Society competition, the mozzarella variety of Beaver Classic Cheese—made and marketed by AgSci students—won first place in its category, beating out commercial entries from all over the United States.

• Living laboratories offer hands-on experience in life sciences In 2014, the College completely revamped the OSU Dairy to reflect contemporary management and research relevant to Oregon’s 3^rd largest agricultural industry. AgSci maintains campus-based living laboratories for research in horticulture, crops, botany and plant pathology, and animal sciences.

Toxicologist Pioneers New Research Method

Robert Tanguay, in Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, has pioneered the use of zebrafish to test the effects of commerical chemicals on biological development, on account of the minnows’ rapid growth rate. He is part of one of the largest toxicology studies ever conducted on living organisms, screening 1,060 different compounds for 22 possible effects, using zebrafish.

Toxicologist Designs Wristband Sampling Device

OSU toxicologist Kim Anderson has designed a wristband sensor that passively abosrbs chemicals in air and water, which can late be analyzed in a lab for over 1200 chemicals. Her team of researchers has also been working in Ohio with larger-scale environmental monitors to measure the impact fracking  might have on air quality. Anderson has used these passive samplers with farmers in Africa and in the Gulf of Mexico where the effects of the 2010 oil spill continue to percolate through the environment.

Two years of IPM implementation and pesticide risk management in the Clackamas watershed have resulted in reduced pesticide residues in surface waters. Led by Dr. Paul Jepson, OSU forged unique partnerships in which regulatory agencies worked with farmers and other stakeholders who shared a common interest in both water quality and economic development. The establishment of these complex partnerships and their sophisticated participatory process characterizes the new face of Extension. This program represents one of a series of similar engagements in Oregon, all of which have ultimately been associated with reduced pesticide residues in surface waters. The weight of evidence that OSU programs contribute to these reductions is compelling, but everyone should note that these are not formal experiments that enable us to identify causal associations.