OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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Sponsored by bioMerieux, this award is presented to a young researcher who has demonstrated outstanding ability and professional promise in the early years of their career.
Dr. Park’s research emphasizes food and human microbiome supplemented with food additives (prebiotics/probiotics) to understand the interaction between the host and microbes related to the food safety and quality using metagenomics and bioinformatics approaches. (Read more...)
Dr. Yanyun Zhao is recognized for her contributions to advance the science and technology of edible coating for reducing food waste, promoting sustainability, and producing healthy consumer foods.
Unsung Hero Robin Frojen, OSU Creamery Manager, Department of Food Science and Technology
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) donated by research faculty at OSU, Department of Food Science and Technology, to area medical facilities facing critical PPE shortages in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Story courtesy of Life at OSU, Unsung Heroes
As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Robin Frojen, whose day job involves working with delicious cheeses at the OSU Creamery, was well positioned to assist some of Corvallis’ most vulnerable residents.
In early July 2019, a group of 23 homeless campers moved onto property owned by the First Congregational United Church of Christ, which Frojen attends. The campers had been expelled from another camp site and needed a place to stay. The church community came together and decided to support rather than expel them, but that put them at odds with neighbors living near the church.
Frojen found herself drawn to help the campers, and used her leadership skills to assist the camp manager, conduct weekly resident meetings, and help mediate conflict both within the camp and with outside groups.
“We are creating a transitional housing place of safety and support,” Frojen said. “I have done some help for the homeless like passing out holiday meals or clothes, but until this group showed up on our church property, I had no idea this is where I’m supposed to be.”
Frojen is inspired in her work by church pastor Jen Butler, who in response to neighborhood opposition placed a banner on the side of the church reading “How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore him on Monday?”
“That was pretty much it for me, I was in it to win it,” Frojen said.
But then things changed when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. It quickly moved beyond providing basic support for the campers at the church. Frojen became involved more broadly with homeless protection and support across the city. Because the men’s shelter was closed due to fear of the virus spreading in close quarters, more camps have sprung up at various locations. That led construction companies to donate labor to build microshelters. Frojen and others are identifying the most medically fragile homeless campers and are placing them in isolated shelters to help protect them from the virus as much as possible.
With remote teaching the new normal for the time being, Associate Professor Dr. Joy Waite-Cusic shares fun photos and insights from the first two weeks of her FST 599 Food Preservation course.
#BreastCancerAwareness #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth pic.twitter.com/w3XuuOi95D
— OSU Ag Sciences (@OSUAgSci) October 11, 2019
