Emily Cason
2023 - 2026 FFAR Fellow
Introduction
The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) is pleased to announce the sixth cohort of graduate students to be accepted to the FFAR Fellows Program.
Emily Cason is a doctoral student at the University of Georgia and was selected as a FFAR Fellow studying Population Health.
Keep reading to learn more about Emily's research and why she applied to be a FFAR Fellow.
About Me
Hometown: Ringgold, Georgia, USA
I have always had a passion for communicating agriculture and science to others. I grew up completely surrounded by and immersed in agriculture. As an active participant in 4-H and Future Farmers of America (FFA), I dedicated myself to raising goats and poultry, judging and showing competitions, and to a wide range of agricultural competitions, in addition to public speaking and agricultural extension. My mission was to learn as much as I could and to share my knowledge with others who don’t necessarily have a background in agriculture and don’t know how or where their food is produced.
Sharing my passion for agriculture through outreach, teaching, and research is what truly gets me excited. I have previously worked in environmental and agricultural education and additionally as an Avian Ambassador for the University of Georgia before beginning my graduate research with the intention of facilitating a wider public knowledge and understanding of food production and agricultural work. It amazed me to see how little people know about how their food is produced or where it comes from, and there is a great deal of mistrust and misinformation circulating that harms not only the poultry industry but also animal health and welfare. Now that I am a graduate student researcher, I take every opportunity to share my work which has heavily focused on applied research that seeks to improve food safety and production practices with the poultry industry, academia, and with the general public. I am driven to actively facilitate the building of an aura of trust and higher standards regarding poultry production and food safety through communicating research, outreach, and teaching.
Why the FFAR Fellowship?
When I was initially introduced to the FFAR Fellows program and began to review its mission, the first thing that attracted my attention was the program’s dedication to developing the future leaders and professionals within agriculture. This program is truly devoted to developing and enhancing leadership and communication skills, the dissemination of new science, and professional soft skills commonly highlighted by top employers as lacking among recent college graduates. Additionally, the program’s mission to provide mentorship opportunities is extremely appealing to me as a young scientist looking to find exactly where my place is within the professional world. I have always been committed to a career in the poultry industry, from the time I was a child and through all my undergraduate and graduate degree work. While I am not exactly sure what form my future career will take, whether it will be working for an integrator to lead their food safety efforts, within government to develop food safety regulations best aligned with public health and industry needs, or elsewhere, building a larger professional network and accessing diverse new mentors through the FFAR Fellows program will absolutely help me narrow my interests and identify a strong direction for my future career. I welcome the opportunities to learn from agricultural leaders outside my field and to translate what I learn to poultry production. Without a doubt, I want the work I undertake to be meaningful to both poultry and human health. I strive to build an impactful career with a strong scientific and professional network to support an outreach focus in which I am able to promote and establish a stable global supply of fresh, safe, and nutritious poultry meat commodities.
My Research
My PhD research focuses on Salmonella serovar diversity, prevalence, and temporal changes in poultry live production and processing. This research is critical to not only promote commercial poultry health and welfare but also to maintain a sustainable global supply of poultry meat and products that are safe for human consumption. Salmonella is a significant foodborne illness that presents a great financial and medical burden to public health each year, with contaminated poultry being the single greatest cause of salmonellosis infection in humans. My work is aimed at utilizing new, applied technologies to characterize this pathogen, particularly how different Salmonella serovars persist and are transmitted within vertically integrated poultry production systems, with the goal of ultimately providing the industry with guidance on how best to perform Salmonella surveillance testing. With a rapidly expanding global population comes the need for a stable food supply that can keep up with demand. Poultry offers a low-cost, low-input, nutrient-rich solution to the problem of food insecurity. To ensure that this food supply option is viable and safe for human consumption, we need to mitigate the burden of foodborne illness in poultry. The outcomes of my PhD work will establish improved Salmonella surveillance in pre-harvest poultry production, which will lead to a reduction in Salmonella loads on broilers arriving for processing. In turn, this will have a positive impact on reducing Salmonella contamination in broiler products and reduce human salmonellosis cases that are linked to chicken consumption.
Sponsor
My industry sponsor is Ancera, a company dedicated to developing and supporting pioneering technology and research to improve agricultural productivity and enhance risk analysis. By working with Ancera, an innovator of supply chain intelligence, I hope to further develop a knowledge of food safety that incorporates the perspectives of poultry integrators, growers, research scientists, and the allied industry. Ancera provides me and my project with financial and technical support that is absolutely critical to my research. Working with Ancera will allow me to produce research that can be utilized to increase not only food safety for consumers but also profitability within the poultry industry for growers and integrators alike.
More About Me
I have been afforded the hard skills and knowledge needed to succeed professionally by my strong agricultural background and academic portfolio, but I am interested in opportunities to further invest in my leadership, communication, teamwork, and soft skills. During my previous degrees, I spent five years on the University of Georgia crew team as a coxswain, sculler, member of the leadership board, and executive officer of the team. These experiences taught me the values of teamwork, cooperation, active listening, and planning to successfully coordinate with the collective effort of the boat. Coxing crafted me into a leader that is capable of assessing the field, anticipating upcoming challenges, and identifying the needs of my crew before responding to them quickly and decisively. As a member of the team’s leadership board and as the executive officer, I learned how to plan many steps ahead, how to lead by example, and how my actions and words affect my team and their ability to thrive. Beyond sport, during my two terms as an Avian Ambassador, I spent time working with people who are many generations removed from agriculture yet possess strong convictions regarding food animal agriculture that are more often based on emotion than fact. I learned how to make agriculture relatable and interesting, how to communicate effectively with diverse groups, and how to respond to questions and criticism. I strongly believe my experiences demonstrate my commitment to the FFAR Fellows’ mission to develop and promote leadership, teamwork, and communication, and I welcome opportunities for additional personal and professional growth.
Hobbies: I am an avid cycler and backpacker who loves hiking with my dog, I love to sew, I enjoy keeping plants, and I enjoy grilling and baking with friends.
