On the road to graduation, NC State University students learn to trust their instincts and chart their own course.
On Dec. 13, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences will welcome its newest crop of alumni as more than 300 undergraduate and graduate students celebrate the completion of their degrees during fall commencement.
Three of those soon-to-be graduates, Catherine Merigliano, Gladys Njeri and Ethan Wood, say it’s been a journey filled with hard work, determination and moments of inspiration as they reflect on their time with CALS and what comes next.
Learn more about their paths to commencement. And congratulations to all graduating members of the CALS Pack!
Food (Science) for Thought
Catherine Merigliano decided to major in food science in a moment of inspiration when she connected her interest in science with her baking hobby.
“I was looking at a website list of majors when I saw ‘food science,’ and instantly it clicked in my head: That’s perfect. It’s the overlap of STEM and also food and baking.”
Merigliano, a native of Pittsburgh, visited Penn State and NC State before choosing Raleigh, where she’d enjoyed a warm reception during her campus tour.
At first, living away from home wasn’t easy, so Merigliano sought out connections. She helped restart the Food Science Club’s product development committee, which supports students in getting R & D experience through competitions. Merigliano herself entered two: a Treetop Company contest, where her team placed third, and the American Egg Board Challenge, where she and teammate Erin Pacifico placed second in the Eggcelerator Lab Student Innovation Competition.
Grab and Grow Custard, a high-protein egg custard in a squeeze tube, landed them at the Institute of Food Technologists annual conference in Chicago. “We got to take that product from ideation all the way to completed product,” Merigliano says. “I’m really interested in research and development in the food industry — it’s a hope and dream of mine to get there one day.”
Merigliano completed two internships for hands-on experience. She started at an NC State Extension office, helping evaluate food sanitation practices for a mobile processing unit that made cabbage wraps. Last summer, she worked as a food safety and quality intern at a General Mills plant in Hannibal, Missouri, that produces Nature Valley granola bars, Progresso soups, and Old El Paso tortillas, taco shells and seasonings.
She worked her way from lab tech to undergraduate researcher in the prestigious CRISPR lab in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences.
Despite initial doubts, she took on leadership responsibilities, starting with a small event and working up to co-chair of the Dairy Bar at the N.C. State Fair. The popular booth dishes up thousands of scoops of Howling Cow ice cream as the Food Science Club’s major fundraiser.
”Everything I did here was foundational to my character as a person beyond the classroom, growing into the person I’ve become,” Merigliano says.
What’s next after graduation? A six-month job with Disney, followed by a baking research and development internship with Lesaffre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, next summer.
Growing for Good
Watching an idea take root can open the door to a world of possibilities. For Gladys Njeri, a passion for small-scale farming and African Indigenous Vegetables has led to big ideas to help farmers in her native Kenya.
Poised to graduate with her master’s degree in horticultural science, Njeri plans to apply what she’s learned back home through Muklima Tips Seeds, a small-scale farm she hopes to grow into a demonstration farm and seed company. Her goal is to make African Indigenous Vegetables, which have high nutritional value, a staple in Kenya, where childhood malnutrition is prevalent.
“I am hoping through this project we can have many farmers grow these vegetables and we can have many mothers cook these vegetables for their children,” she says.
Njeri’s path to building her burgeoning business began after earning a bachelor’s degree in horticultural science from the University of Eldoret in Kenya, which led to a career in agronomy and quality standards for export crops such as French beans and chilies. After working in field sales for biological products on a flower farm, she started her own small-scale farm.
Then, while working for a seed company, a colleague told her about a project in the United States focusing on breeding African indigenous leaf vegetables.
“I was like, wow, that would be an exciting topic to research on because people have been eating these vegetables for many years, but literally very little is known about them,” Njeri recalls.
That conversation led to an introduction to Carlos Iglesias, director of NC State’s Plant Breeding Consortium, and ultimately to Njeri’s decision to pursue her master’s degree at NC State. Her research with Iglesias focused on breeding African Indigenous Vegetables for traits like drought resistance, creating opportunities to make these crops more viable.
“Dr. Carlos has taught me the importance of taking care of seeds and being interested in seeds because they are a basic necessity of human life,” Njeri says. “Without seeds, we have no food.”
The International Society of Horticultural Science recently recognized Njeri with a Young Minds Award for the best poster presentation at the IV International Underutilized Plant Species Symposium, highlighting her research.
The timing, says Njeri, “felt like a crown on all the hard work, dedication and growth I poured into my academic journey.”
Cultivating a Passion for Agriculture
We’ve all heard the old adage, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.”
That mindset guided Ethan Wood as he pursued his academic and professional goals. Although a career in agriculture was not a foregone conclusion, growing up on his family’s beef cattle farm in Franklin County, North Carolina, shaped his path.
Wanting to stay close to home to work on the farm after high school, Wood earned his associate’s degree in science from Nash Community College in 2023. Unsure of his next step, he discovered NC State University’s online bachelor’s program in agricultural science.
“I was looking for something I would really enjoy, and I thought agricultural science would be right up my alley,” he recalls.
The online program’s asynchronous classes allowed Wood to complete assignments after work and on weekends. Classes such as animal science, crop science and soil science, he says, offered skills he could apply to a variety of real-life scenarios on the farm.
“There are a lot of situations in agriculture where you take what you learn in the classroom to the field, such as how to read a soil triangle and how to take soil samples,” says Wood, who is minoring in agricultural business management.
He credits Academic Advisor Mary Kate Lanier with guiding him in the right direction. As an online student, he says that support was especially important in helping him reach graduation.
“Every time we had a meeting, she would help me plan out my classes and plan for the next semester and make sure I was on the right track,” Wood says. “She’s been great. I wouldn’t have gotten through it without her.”
And a connection with a Franklin County Extension agent who served as a test proctor for Wood led to him recently landing a job as the cost share program specialist and farmland preservation coordinator for the Franklin County Soil and Water Conservation District.
Helping farmers implement soil and water conservation practices while also preserving farmland complements his passion for agriculture.
“I knew that going into this job, I would be helping out local farmers, and I knew that that would be something I really enjoyed,” he says.
And now he won’t work a day in his life.
