World Food Prize selects local as USDA Wallace-Carver Fellow

Published 2:34 pm Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Nicholasville native Fabian Leon has been named the 2017 Wallace-Carver Fellow by the World Food Prize Foundation and The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The program — which was intended to inspire the next generation of American scientific, agricultural, and humanitarian leaders — was started by Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize, and Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture. Over the past six years, 185 students have gone through the program.

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This year, Leon, a rising junior at the University of Kentucky, and 28 other college students have the opportunity to collaborate with world-renowned scientists and policymakers through paid summer fellowships at leading USDA research centers and offices across the United States.

Fellows will analyze agricultural and economic policy; assist in the management of food, nutrition and rural development programs; and take part in field and laboratory-based research.

Leon is stationed in Ames, Iowa at the ARS, National Laboratory for Agriculture and The Environment.

The Wallace-Carver Fellowship culminates in a week-long, high-level leadership symposium at the USDA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., hosted by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture. During the week, the Fellows will participate in a series of briefings, tours and discussions with key government officials as well as congressional and humanitarian leaders engaged in the fight against hunger.