Chicago, Illinois, USA
December 10, 2019

For the second year in a row, Kevin Falk, Iowa State University, is the grand prize winner of the Better Seed, Better Life Student Video Contest. Falk was honored this morning during the Opening General Session of ASTA’s CSS & Seed Expo 2019 in Chicago.

The Better Seed, Better Life Student Video Contest is a collaboration between the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), National Association of Plant Breeders (NAPB) and the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of American and Soil Science Society of America (Tri-Societies). Open to both graduate and undergraduate university students, this year’s contest focused on the theme, “Our Planet, Our Health, Our Food – it all starts with the Seed.” 

Kevin is a recent PhD graduate of Iowa State University where he focused on soybean breeding. He holds a master’s in plant breeding from the University of Manitoba and worked in canola breeding and crop protection programs at Monsanto then Bayer for five years prior to pursuing his PhD. His PhD work focuses around harnessing technology to develop high throughput phenotyping platforms and machine learning approaches to advance plant breeding. Kevin is interested in science, agriculture and using media to connect and communicate with the public. He recently accepted a position with Corteva Agriscience as an Integrated Field Sciences Research Scientist with aspirations to cultivate innovation in plant science. 

Second place went to Matthew Wilson, University of Missouri; and third place went to Hannah Van Eendenburg, University of Colorado Boulder. Videos were judged by an expert panel of volunteers from ASTA, NAPB and Tri-Societies. Winning students received cash prizes. 

Website: http://www.betterseed.org/

Published: December 10, 2019