The Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future has announced its inaugural group of Agrarian and Rural Transformation Fellows.

Eight doctoral and postdoctoral researchers from across the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences were selected for the $4,000 award, which recognizes their "exceptional promise for scholarship on agrarian and rural transformation and eagerness to reach across disciplinary boundaries to inform their own emerging research program and to help shape others' scholarship."

They include: Olutayo Adeyemi and Andrew Jones, nutritional sciences; Jacqueline Benson, plant breeding and genetics; Jason Cons, Elisa Da Vià, Edmund Oh and Marygold Walsh-Dilley, development sociology; and Andrea Dávalos, natural resources.

The fellowships are meant to encourage students at a formative stage of their career to begin thinking beyond their dissertation, to turn their specific research projects into longstanding, impactful research programs that connect to broad concerns transcending disciplinary boundaries.

As part of the program, fellows will gather for a one-day retreat in January to discuss their dissertation projects. They will continue to meet for a biweekly seminar throughout spring semester, culminating in a spring workshop at which each fellow presents his or her postdoctoral research plan.