Colleagues say this forward thinking is characteristic of Kornegay, now a professor and director of graduate programs in NC State University\u2019s Department of Horticultural Science<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c[She] is very passionate and resolute when she sets her eyes on a goal that is close to her heart,\u201d said longtime colleague Robin Buruchara, director of the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance and the regional director of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n Kornegay is the 2016 recipient of the Outstanding International Horticulturist Award<\/a> from the American Society for Horticultural Science<\/a>. The award is given to practitioners who have made \u201coutstanding and valuable\u201d contributions to international horticultural science, education, research and outreach for at least a decade.<\/span><\/p>\n Kornegay\u2019s career<\/a> spans continents, criss-crossing from Colombia to Africa to Miami \u2013 and now, to her office in Kilgore Hall off Hillsborough Street.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShe has a long-term and deep understanding of agriculture around the world,\u201d said Irvin Widders, who works with Kornegay in his role as\u00a0director of the US Agency of International Development\u2019s Feed the Future Innovation Lab.<\/span><\/p>\n Kornegay\u2019s resume is stacked with awards and achievements. A short selection: She serves as a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Academy of Sciences. And she founded the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance, a consortium of regional bean research networks that address food security, income generation, health and empowerment of rural communities across the continent.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never been afraid to take a risk or contribute if I can,\u201d Kornegay said.<\/span><\/p>\n After earning her Ph.D. in plant breeding from Cornell University, Kornegay was hired by CIAT and quickly rose in the ranks: from post-doctoral fellow to leader of the Bean Program. There weren\u2019t many women in leadership roles at the time, but Kornegay never had a problem.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess I\u2019ve always been a take-charge person,\u201d Kornegay said.<\/p>\n Then, in 1994, the Rwandan civil war boiled over. Kornegay had traveled to the country not long before the massacres began; a pipe bomb had exploded in a bar by her hotel.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was a terrible, terrible time,\u201d Kornegay said.<\/span><\/p>\n Beans were a staple of the local diet, served three meals a day. Kornegay\u2019s breeding program was supplying the Rwandan national program with bean lines and crosses made with their local varieties. She knew that Rwanda\u2019s local crops were unique to their environment and that many bean varieties would not grow in Rwanda.<\/span><\/p>\n Kornegay and her colleagues at CIAT reached out to international funding agencies to create the nonprofit Seeds of Hope. As the conflict raged and farmers fled, they teamed with neighboring countries to help multiply Rwanda\u2019s crops. The goal was to have large quantities of seed available for distribution by international relief agencies when the farmers were able to return home.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was as successful as you can call something after a tragedy,\u201d Kornegay said. \u201cI think we helped stave off further hunger and got farmers back into their fields and producing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Kornegay, who smiles often, is solemn as she tells the story. Since Rwanda, the\u00a0program has\u00a0 been mirrored in other countries after major disasters. <\/span><\/p>\n Kornegay\u2019s career since has remained unpredictable. She and her husband turned a South American coffee plantation into a tropical flower farm. After leaving CIAT, she spent six years working at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami.<\/span><\/p>\n She returned to CALS first as<\/span>\u00a0head of the Department of Horticultural Science, then<\/span>\u00a0as professor and director of graduate programs in 2011. She has\u00a0developed her own research: breeding zinnias and examining\u00a0cut flower production practices. It\u2019s full circle to the floriculture she first studied as an NC State undergraduate, at the school where she now teaches.<\/p>\n Though Raleigh\u00a0is her home base, Kornegay still travels widely. She recently returned from a trip to Uganda and Mozambique to review bean trials, and earlier in the year she attended the Global Legume Conference in Zambia.<\/span><\/p>\n Her colleagues call her, first and foremost, a \u201ctrue horticulturist\u201d with a heart for the world.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s obvious that she loves plants,\u201d Widders said. \u201cBut she\u2019s also committed to seeking ways through agricultural research and training to improve the lives of people with challenges like food security and nutrition.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This post was originally published<\/a> in College of Agriculture and Life Sciences News.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false,"raw":"In its long list\u00a0of international accolades, Julia Kornegay\u2019s resume includes an unusual line: Her\u00a0quick action during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 catalyzed a collaboration that helped prevent famine and save lives.\r\n\r\nThe project, Seeds of Hope, warded off a second disaster by providing seeds from Rwanda\u2019s six most important crops to farmers who returned from the conflict to find their harvest gone and their seed stock decimated.<\/span>\r\n\r\nColleagues say this forward thinking is characteristic of Kornegay, now a professor and director of graduate programs in NC State University\u2019s Department of Horticultural Science<\/a>.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201c[She] is very passionate and resolute when she sets her eyes on a goal that is close to her heart,\u201d said longtime colleague Robin Buruchara, director of the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance and the regional director of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) Africa.<\/span>\r\n\r\nKornegay is the 2016 recipient of the Outstanding International Horticulturist Award<\/a> from the American Society for Horticultural Science<\/a>. The award is given to practitioners who have made \u201coutstanding and valuable\u201d contributions to international horticultural science, education, research and outreach for at least a decade.<\/span>\r\n Julia Kornegay’s resume includes an unusual line: Her quick action during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 catalyzed a collaboration that helped prevent famine and save lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"ncstate_wire","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10,11,1],"tags":[243,238],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-and-staff","category-faculty-focus","category-nc-state","tag-_from-newswire-collection-10","tag-_from-newswire-collection-21"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17068,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/17068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/horticultural-science\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}International Acclaim<\/h2>\n
Leadership During Crisis<\/h2>\n
\u201cSo I came back to my home department…\u201d<\/h2>\n
![\"Julia](\"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Julia-Kornegay-1024x576.jpg\")
<\/p>\nInternational Acclaim<\/h2>\r\nKornegay\u2019s career<\/a> spans continents, criss-crossing from Colombia to Africa to Miami \u2013 and now, to her office in Kilgore Hall off Hillsborough Street.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cShe has a long-term and deep understanding of agriculture around the world,\u201d said Irvin Widders, who works with Kornegay in his role as\u00a0director of the US Agency of International Development\u2019s Feed the Future Innovation Lab.<\/span>\r\n\r\nKornegay\u2019s resume is stacked with awards and achievements. A short selection: She serves as a member of the Board of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the National Academy of Sciences. And she founded the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance, a consortium of regional bean research networks that address food security, income generation, health and empowerment of rural communities across the continent.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cI\u2019ve never been afraid to take a risk or contribute if I can,\u201d Kornegay said.<\/span>\r\n
Leadership During Crisis<\/h2>\r\nAfter earning her Ph.D. in plant breeding from Cornell University, Kornegay was hired by CIAT and quickly rose in the ranks: from post-doctoral fellow to leader of the Bean Program. There weren\u2019t many women in leadership roles at the time, but Kornegay never had a problem.\r\n\r\n\u201cI guess I\u2019ve always been a take-charge person,\u201d Kornegay said.\r\n\r\nThen, in 1994, the Rwandan civil war boiled over. Kornegay had traveled to the country not long before the massacres began; a pipe bomb had exploded in a bar by her hotel.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was a terrible, terrible time,\u201d Kornegay said.<\/span>\r\n\r\nBeans were a staple of the local diet, served three meals a day. Kornegay\u2019s breeding program was supplying the Rwandan national program with bean lines and crosses made with their local varieties. She knew that Rwanda\u2019s local crops were unique to their environment and that many bean varieties would not grow in Rwanda.<\/span>\r\n\r\nKornegay and her colleagues at CIAT reached out to international funding agencies to create the nonprofit Seeds of Hope. As the conflict raged and farmers fled, they teamed with neighboring countries to help multiply Rwanda\u2019s crops. The goal was to have large quantities of seed available for distribution by international relief agencies when the farmers were able to return home.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was as successful as you can call something after a tragedy,\u201d Kornegay said. \u201cI think we helped stave off further hunger and got farmers back into their fields and producing.\u201d<\/span>\r\n\r\nKornegay, who smiles often, is solemn as she tells the story. Since Rwanda, the\u00a0program has\u00a0 been mirrored in other countries after major disasters. <\/span>\r\n
\u201cSo I came back to my home department...\u201d<\/h2>\r\nKornegay\u2019s career since has remained unpredictable. She and her husband turned a South American coffee plantation into a tropical flower farm. After leaving CIAT, she spent six years working at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami.<\/span>\r\n\r\nShe returned to CALS first as<\/span>\u00a0head of the Department of Horticultural Science, then<\/span>\u00a0as professor and director of graduate programs in 2011. She has\u00a0developed her own research: breeding zinnias and examining\u00a0cut flower production practices. It\u2019s full circle to the floriculture she first studied as an NC State undergraduate, at the school where she now teaches.\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\nThough Raleigh\u00a0is her home base, Kornegay still travels widely. She recently returned from a trip to Uganda and Mozambique to review bean trials, and earlier in the year she attended the Global Legume Conference in Zambia.<\/span>\r\n\r\nHer colleagues call her, first and foremost, a \u201ctrue horticulturist\u201d with a heart for the world.<\/span>\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s obvious that she loves plants,\u201d Widders said. \u201cBut she\u2019s also committed to seeking ways through agricultural research and training to improve the lives of people with challenges like food security and nutrition.\u201d<\/span>"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"