Christian Gruber and Christopher Hardy—Outstanding Student Green Infrastructure Design Project
Gruber and Hardy, third-year landscape architecture graduate students, won third place in CitiesAlive International Student Design Challenge: Transforming the Face of Buildings, an international sustainable design competition sponsored by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities and the World Green Roof Infrastructure Network. The contest challenged entrants to “transform the face of entire city blocks using leafy green infrastructure.”

The CALS students, advised by Deni Ruggeri, assistant professor of landscape architecture, presented a plan for Hudson Yards, a project to transform the railyards in Upper West Side Manhattan. Judges cited the plan as “an outstanding example of multi-disciplinary design which enables us to build dense but more livable communities by utilizing green roofs and other green technologies.” Download a PDF with full details of the project at http://www.citiesalive.org/resources/education_challenge_files/Hudson_Yard.pdf

Michael Latham—Living Legend in Nutrition
Latham, CALS professor emeritus, was named a “Living Legend in Nutrition” at the 19th International Congress of Nutrition, held Oct. 4-9 in Bangkok, Thailand, and attended by more than 4,000 participants from some 120 countries.

Latham, a medical doctor, was one of 11 people from seven countries to be named as such, for their roles as “respected leaders in nutrition whose significant contribution is recognized at national, regional, and international levels.” The award was personally bestowed on Latham by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, daughter of the king of Thailand.

Latham was director of Cornell’s Program in International Nutrition for 25 years and remains active in the Division of Nutritional Sciences. He also serves as an international professor in CALS and as professor of nutritional sciences in the Graduate School. (Cornell Chronicle)

Per Pinstrup-Andersen—Most Important Dane in the World
Pinstrup-Andersen, the 2001 World Food Prize laureate, has been named “the most important Dane in the world” in combating poverty in developing countries by an independent panel for Udvikling (Development), Denmark’s leading development magazine.

Pinstrup-Andersen is the J. Thomas Clark Professor of Entrepreneurship@Cornell, the H.E. Babcock Professor of Food, Nutrition and Public Policy, and a professor of nutritional sciences and of applied economics and management in CALS.

He garnered the World Food Prize for initiating a research effort that enabled several governments to reform their food subsidy programs and dramatically increase food availability to severely impoverished people.

He is past chairman of the Science Council of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research and past president of the American Agricultural Economics Association. He served 10 years as the International Food Policy Research Institute’s director general and seven years as an economist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Colombia. (Cornell Chronicle)

Lawrence Van De Valk—Outstanding Leadership Program Director Award
The International Association of Programs for Agricultural Leadership honored Van De Valk, director of the Empire State Food and Agricultural Leadership Institute (LEAD NY), with its highest award on Oct. 16 at its annual meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyo. With more than 340 alumni, LEAD NY is a two-year leadership development program at Cornell for adult professionals in the food and agricultural industry.

Van De Valk, a senior extension associate in the department of education, is the 11th recipient of the award from the IAPAL, a consortium of agricultural and rural leadership development programs in nearly 40 U.S. states and Canadian provinces and several other countries. The award recognizes creativity, leadership, vision, integrity, and program quality.