Nall Moonilall, a first year Ph.D. student in the Environmental Science Graduate Program, has been selected to serve as a Social Media Ambassador for the upcoming Global Food Security Symposium in Washington, D.C. The annual, one day symposium is convened by the distinguished Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and provides a platform for discussion about the U.S. government and international community’s progress on addressing challenges to food security.
On April 26, 2016, Nall will join fifteen other accomplished undergraduate and graduate students from universities across the U.S. and the world to broaden the symposium’s food security conversations online and throughout social media.
“We will sit in during the symposium sessions and tweet about what is being presented and discussed,” says Nall, who says that he and his colleagues will also address questions to panel experts via Twitter and provide updated commentary about the sessions on the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ Facebook page.
Nall is excited to participate in this event with other social media ambassadors and other delegates selected to represent the 2016 Next Generation Delegation – a group of invited, emerging student leaders from land-grant and research universities who plan to enter the agriculture, development, or food sectors. It will allow him to engage with various academics, policy makers, and business leaders about the global food system, particularly on key areas needed to be addressed to achieve food security in the near future.
Some of those expected to speak at the symposium include Dan Glickman, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture; Joe Stone, Corporate Vice President and Chief Risk Officer at Cargill, Inc.; Dr. Kala Fleming, Water, Agriculture and Healthcare Research Manager, IBM.
Nall expects this event to be a valuable networking opportunity and yield long-term professional connections.
“I hope to broaden my horizons within this field, with the hope of contributing what I have learned to my own graduate research I am doing right here at Ohio State,” shares Nall, who is studying soil science under Dr. Rattan Lal, Professor in the School of Environment and Natural Resources and Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Center.