New Partnership develops Sustainability Fellowships to build better landscapes for the future ​

 Global climate is changing, and population is on the rise. Understanding how to make our farms and landscapes more sustainable is a priority of researchers around the world. The need to create these landscapes of the future has led the University of Hawaii Office of Sustainability, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center to create graduate research fellowships that focus on all aspects of landscapes.

The fellowships were launched during the 2019 school year with four students working on projects on forestry, plant pathology, plant breeding, and molecular genetics. These students are in a range of departments across the University of Hawaii Botany, PEPS, and TPSS, but are available to any student. The students who received this award are Solomon Champion, Nathan Fumia, James Doherty, and Sayaka Aoki.  Not only does this fellowship focus on important issues of sustaining our landscapes, it focuses on developing partnerships across disciplines and across institutions. Science is a community endeavor, both in understanding what the goals are and how to achieve these goals. The HARC sustainability fellowship provides an opportunity for students and mentors to actively participate in all the activities of science and society.