Agricultural Sciences

College of Agricultural Sciences student selected as Farm Foundation Cultivator

Raymond Yan, a student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, represented the University at the January 2025 Farm Foundation Round Table in North Carolina.     Credit: Contributed photo. All Rights Reserved.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Raymond Yan, a fourth-year agricultural and biorenewable systems management student in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, represented the University at the January 2025 Farm Foundation Round Table in North Carolina. Yan presented research covering various multidisciplinary projects focusing on food system innovation.

Yan, of Fremont, California, is a member of the class of 2026 and is completing a minor in entrepreneurship and innovation: food and bio-innovation.

Farm Foundation is a nonprofit organization that brings stakeholders in the food and agricultural industries together to advance agriculture and find accessible solutions for complex issues. The national organization hosts forums and conferences, publishes issue reports on current topics and supports the next generation of industry professionals through its Cultivator and Agricultural Scholars programs.

Students are nominated by their college dean or department head to participate in the cultivator program. Yan was one of six students selected from universities across the United States for the prestigious cultivators program. As cultivators, students are integrated into Farm Foundation Round Table meetings and paired with Farm Foundation Round Table fellows who provide mentorship during the events.

Suat Irmak, professor and head of the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, nominated Yan.

“Ray’s an excellent student,” Irmak said. “He is engaged in class, asks good questions and often talks with his instructors about various related topics after class. He’s very motivated to be a part of finding sustainable solutions within the bioeconomy space.”

The January 2025 Farm Foundation Round Table included tours with agricultural biotechnology companies in Research Triangle Park — the largest research park in the U.S. These companies included Syngenta and Pairwise, a startup applying a gene editing technique called CRISPR to consumer produce such as blackberries. The roundtable meetings consisted of speaker sessions and discussions on food and agricultural biotechnologies from the perspective of growers, regulatory affairs and private industry.

Yan explained that the sessions were designed to foster open discussion of ideas and solutions. Since the event occurred during an administration transition and U.S. Department of Agriculture undersecretary nomination announcements, many roundtable discussions focused on implications for the broader agricultural economy.

Cultivator program students also gave short speeches and presented posters about their study area. Yan’s presentation covered various projects he has been part of as an undergraduate, including work in water resources/conservation and emergent technology work with Penn State Extension and Nittany AI Alliance.

“I talked about general conclusions learned from working on multiple, very different projects because I felt it describes my general ethos on biorenewable systems and entrepreneurship — the importance of real-world application and technology-agnostic systems-thinking approach to food, fiber and the environment,” he said.

Yan said his passion for emerging sciences has been further nurtured by the support of the University’s conservation community.

“There is an awesome conservation community at Penn State,” he said. “Most of the initial opportunities I’ve found on campus were through the mentorship and help from members of that community, as well as the broader entrepreneurship and innovation community.”

Yan added that support from the college’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation program has been paramount to his success at Penn State. He believes related skills can be applied anywhere, from large organizations to nonprofits to small ventures.

“Ray joined agricultural and biological engineering to enact his entrepreneurial spirit using his passion for digital technology to help solve the challenges we face in agriculture,” said Mark Gagnon, Harbaugh Entrepreneur and Innovation Faculty Scholar at Penn State. “I’m thrilled to witness Ray jump in and engage with our community.”

Yan also has been active with several emerging technology initiatives at college, which he credited with cultivating his interests and skills while providing experiential learning opportunities for his peers.

He said this also has led to his participation in “fantastic experiences,” such as co-leading the Nittany AI Alliance’s first AI in agriculture research project — which uses precision imagery to quantify white-tailed deer damage to crops — and engaging with the college’s World Food Forum Youth Food Lab, an initiative of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Looking to the future, Yan said he hopes to combine his engineering, science and business skills to drive new initiatives within agribusinesses or early-stage ventures.

“The College of Agricultural Sciences is a big umbrella of opportunities,” Yan said. “Everything we put on our plates, wear on our backs, and fill our mugs and gas tanks with has something to do with the broader agricultural economy. Whether you want to be an operator, builder or marketer, there’s a place for you.”

Last Updated February 4, 2025

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