Q: This new lab is part of the World Food Forum Youth Lab Program. Tell us about the program.
Spencer: The program’s goal is to address climate change and food security by engaging youth innovators and providing them with a platform to leverage their business ideas into sustainable solutions. It is a key initiative of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization. Currently, there are labs in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Penn State is the only site in the U.S., with a lab now housed in the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Q: It’s great that Penn State was selected. How did that come about?
Spencer: When I joined the College of Agricultural Sciences, I launched a professional development program for our graduate students who want nonacademic careers. I ask students, “Where do you aspire to work after graduation?” and we look for Penn Staters in those organizations and work with them. That’s how I met Nina Coates ’21 MBA Bus, an economist at the FAO. In working together, we determined that Penn State was well positioned for a North America Youth Lab.
Q: How so?
Spencer: Many people with good ideas take them to boot camp–type programs where they get training in the early stages of starting a business. But then they often face a resource cliff in finding ways to manufacture and launch their products at scale. That’s where Penn State comes in. We have incredible resources here—a plastics innovation center, the College of Engineering’s Learning Factory. We have a materials characterization lab and MRI facilities, a bio-fermentation facility, and so many places that allow industry interaction.
Q: So, you’ll facilitate access to these resources for young innovators?
Spencer: As a part of the Youth Food Lab partnership, we have access to a network of some of the best youth innovators and the best new technologies from across the world. We can help them in the early stages of scaling their innovations with Penn State research, resources, and expertise.
Q: Are there any projects in the works?
Spencer: We’re working with EvoNatura, a mother-daughter team that has a proprietary enzyme to make biodegradable plastics more readily biodegradable. We’re also in the planning stage of a project with an off-grid milk pasteurization tool serving East Africa. The students who invented the technology did so without any formal training in engineering—working with Penn State engineering students and professionals will help with reengineering and design optimization of their machine.
Maria Spencer is an assistant clinical professor and the John and Patty Warehime Entrepreneur in Residence in the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences.
