Biologist Alison Power to discuss global crop diversity in farming communities

Alison Power

Purdue’s Honors College and Center for the Environment have announced that biologist Alison Power will be coming to campus Feb. 28 for the fifth annual Aronson Family Science and Society Honors Lecture. Power is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University and a central figure in the field of disease ecology in plant communities.

Power’s keynote presentation, “Global Crop Diversity in Farming Communities,” will address her recent work in Ethiopia, where smallholder farmers adapt to climate variability. Power will explore how Ethiopian farmers have developed diverse crop varieties and systems that enable adaptation to changing conditions. Her research on diverse cropping systems is in collaboration with both U.S. and Ethiopian universities.

The lecture will be held at 6 p.m. at Honors College and Residences North building, Honors Hall. A panel discussion, “Feeding the Planet 2050,” will precede the lecture at  3 p.m. in the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship, Room 121. The event will bring together Purdue faculty and Center for the Environment affiliates who, along with Power, will discuss the topic of food security, crop diversity and global food needs. A reception featuring “grab-and-go” locally sourced refreshments for attendees will be held at 5:30-6 p.m. at the Honors College and Residences North building, Innovation Forum.

All students, faculty and community members are welcome to attend. Registration for the panel discussion, reception and lecture is available online.

The Aronson Family Science and Society Honors Lecture, hosted by the Honors College in collaboration this year with the Center for the Environment, is possible thanks to the support of the Aronson family. Previous speakers for the series have included Capt. Scott Kelly, NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station; Moira Gunn, a former NASA scientist, Purdue alumna, and host of the NPR program “Tech Nation"; and Katie Bouman, who as a member of the Event Horizon Telescope team helped to capture the first image of a black hole.

Source: Leslie Valiant, lvaliant@purdue.edu