USDA NIFA’s Sonny Ramaswamy to speak at NC State
Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, will speak Nov. 20 at North Carolina State University on the future of agriculture and meeting the needs of a growing world population. The title of his talk is, “Setting the table for a flatter, hotter, more crowded Earth.”
The campus community is invited to join Dean Richard Linton, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service at 10 a.m. Nov. 20 in the Piedmont-Mountains Ballroom at Talley Student Union. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation.
Ramaswamy’s visit in part marks Cooperative Extension’s centennial celebration. In 1914, the passage of the Smith-Lever Act marked the beginning of what were then known as agricultural extension programs across the country. In addition to his campus talk, Ramaswamy will participate in the N.C. Agriculture and Biotechnology Summit on Nov. 18 at NC State’s McKimmon Center.
As part of USDA’s Research, Education and Extension mission, Ramaswamy oversees NIFA, which provides funds for a wide range of research, education and extension projects that address the needs of farmers, ranchers and agricultural producers. Prior to joining NIFA, he was dean of Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences and director of the Oregon Agricultural Experiment Station.
Ramaswamy also has served as associate dean of the Purdue University College of Agriculture and directed the university’s agricultural research program and served as head of Kansas State University’s Department of Entomology, where was named the Presidential Outstanding Department Head in 2002. In addition, he has been a faculty member at Mississippi State University and a research associate at Michigan State University. As an insect physiologist, he studied the integrative reproductive biology of insects.
