News
This page contains our Semester newsletters. Click here to see our recent weekly newsletters.
Please join us for a networking opportunity for the USDA AFRI 2021 Foundational RFA networking event on Friday, Jan. 22 at 11:00 am. Hear lightning talks by researchers from colleges across campus, followed by open discussion. Register for the event here. A calendar invite will be sent to you prior to the event.
Iowa State received its first distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine in late December. The university is following the Iowa Department of Public Health vaccination strategy, and we have distributed all of the initial doses allocated as part of this plan. We ask for your patience as we await further information and direction about subsequent phases in vaccine distributions. Please understand it will likely be several months before the vaccine is widely available to the general public.
Wendong Zhang, assistant professor, made three recent presentations.
Peter Orazem, university professor, was interviewed for a Jan. 8 S&P Global story, "'A huge shock': December US job losses show a recovery on pause."
To celebrate effective teaching, advising, and mentoring, the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) partners with ISU Learning Communities, Multicultural Student Affairs, Student Government, and Graduate and Professional Student Senate for the annual recognition project #CyThx at Iowa State University.
Center for Retirement Research at Boston College
Sandell Grant Program
- Sandell Grants provide the opportunity for junior scholars or non-tenured scholars to pursue research on retirement or disability policy. The program is open to scholars in all disciplines.
- Up to three grants of $45,000 will be awarded for one-year projects.
- Proposal guidelines are available online.
Dissertation Fellowship Program
Department of Economics alumni Will Martin ('82 PhD economics) and Jutta Roosen ('99 PhD economics) were named 2021 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association (AAEA) Fellows.
Alejandro Plastina, associate professor, has been recognized with an Excellence in Remote Instruction Award as part of the COVID-19 Exceptional Effort Awards Program.
Wendong Zhang, assistant professor, has a new blog post, "Does Investing in the Intelligent Sprayer Make Economic Sense?" The blog is part of a USDA-funded project. PhD student Nieyan Cheng co-authored the post.
Chad Hart, professor, was interviewed for a Jan. 4 Gazette story, "Iowa farm bankruptcies continue to rise, despite aid."
“The government has provided a lot of short-term funding to help farmers get through the year,” Hart said, referring to market facilitation and coronavirus food assistance programs, which funneled two rounds of aid to farmers in 2020.
Ag business senior Danielle Youngblut, along with Iowa State alum Ray Schmidt, are two Story County finalists for the statewide second annual "Grow Your Future Award." The two both got their start as student entrepreneurs.
Wendong Zhang, assistant professor, has a new publication at Land Economics https://muse.jhu.edu/article/775584.
Best Management Practices and Nutrient Reduction: An Integrated Economic-Hydrologic Model of the Western Lake Erie Basin
Hongxing Liu, Wendong Zhang, Elena Irwin, Jeffrey Kast, Noel Aloysius, Jay Martin, and Margaret Kalcic.
Lee Schulz, associate professor, was interviewed for a Dec. 18 The Neighbor story, "COVID-19 pandemic teaches livestock producers: Be prepared."
David Swenson, research scientist, was interviewed for a Dec. 20 Des Moines Register story, "Iowa group aims to plant small farms around the state's cities, boosting sustainability efforts and 'food resiliency'."
2020 Fall UPDATE alumni newsletter is available online.
This position is now posted. It is open to all tenured associate or full professors at ISU.
Here is the link to the posting: https://www.myworkday.com/isu/d/inst/15$392530/9925$7764.htmld
This will create capacity to do really important work for the college and departments.
Seth Meyer ('95 MS economics) will be returning to the Department of Agriculture to assume the position of chief economist.
Meyer takes the place of Rob Johansson, who has held the position since 2015 and plans to depart USDA at the end of January and accept a position as the associate director of economics and policy analysis at the American Sugar Alliance.
According to the 2020 Iowa Land Values Survey, favorable interest rates, a strong demand for land, and substantial government payments helped stabilize Iowa’s farmland market in a year in which Iowa’s farmers faced the destructive onslaught of a derecho, significant uncertainties in US agricultural trade, and a pandemic that significantly altered market demand.
David Swenson, research scientist, was quoted in the Dec. 14 Quad-City Times story, "Climate change is making Iowa and Illinois hotter, wetter and more humid. Do you know what that means for your business?"
Iowa Community Capital (ICC) received a $500,000 grant award from the Open for Business CDFI Program funded by Wells Fargo with a portion of the $400 million in fees earned from processing Paycheck Protection Program loans related to COVID-19 pandemic emergency relief response last spring and summer.
PhD student Timothy "Jake" Smith, is the recipient of the Cathryn Jacobson Ahrenholz Scholarship. This award recognizes a graduate student in the Department of Economics who has a strong record of academic achievement, shows exceptional promise, and has a dissertation interest in agriculture.
Wendong Zhang, assistant professor, made a presentation at the Iowa Learning Farms Webinar titled "The Cost and Benefits of Agricultural Water Conservation: An Economist’s Perspective" on Dec. 9.
The recording can be found at https://vimeo.com/user42671352/review/489489898/dd9ee64af1
Iowa State University is participating in the National Alliance for Inclusive and Diverse STEM Faculty (ASPIRE), sponsored by the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). As part of our involvement, underrepresented faculty are invited to participate in the iThrive Collective.
New improved experience coming soon for Digital Repository users. Starting Jan. 19, 2021, Iowa State Digital Repository authors and users can look forward to enhanced searchability, streamlined submission forms for authors, and a seamless user interface for easy navigation. The new platform, DSpace, is freely available as open-source software.
After a one-year pandemic-related hiatus, Iowa State University’s annual Research Day event will return in spring 2021 as Research Days, a multi-day, multi-platform virtual program. Research Days 2021 will take place March 23-25, 2021.
Back for its fourth year, the event — hosted by the Office of the Vice President for Research — will once again invite university researchers and scholars to collaborate across disciplines and celebrate institution discoveries, but in a new, innovative online format.