Oklahoma State University’s Robert M. Kerr Food & Agricultural Products Center plays a vital role in educating and training undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources with hands-on, real-world experience to prepare them for career opportunities in the food industry.

“Although FAPC is not an university academic unit, the center employs approximately 70 graduate and undergraduate students,” said Roy Escoubas, FAPC director. “While working and conducting research at FAPC, these students work with center faculty and staff, and sometimes representatives from food companies, which prepare them for working in the food industry.”

Libby Farney, an animal science senior, started working in FAPC’s Food Microbiology Laboratory in fall 2014, assisting the graduate students in the microbiology laboratory.

“I help with projects and take environmental and carcass samples from the second floor facility,” Farney said. “The thing I love most about working at FAPC is the opportunity to work with so many wonderful people as well as the fact that I am always learning.”

Led by FAPC Food Microbiologist Peter Muriana, members of the food microbiology laboratory are involved in research, addressing the prevention of foodborne pathogens or spoilage, and evaluation of foods to contribute value-added products to the food industry.

“Libby has been a fantastic worker in our lab, especially being an undergraduate, but she has an edge already,” Muriana said. “Since last year, she has worked with each of my four graduate students and the post-doctorate that I had.”

Growing up in McPherson, Kansas, Farney showed horses competitively and was active in theatre. She attended South Dakota State University before transferring to OSU in January 2013.

Since being at OSU, Farney has received numerous awards and recognition.

The most recent accolades she received were the 2015 Wentz Semester Research Scholarship and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station Undergraduate Research Scholarship.

“The opportunity to receive funding while carrying out research at FAPC is absolutely invaluable to me in whatever route I take in life, as not many students are offered opportunities like this,” Farney said. “I have hopes of attending vet school in fall 2016 and hopefully one day carrying out research of my own.”

Farney’s future career aspiration is to become a mixed animal practitioner for a rural area in Kansas.

“Even though Libby is planning to apply to vet school,” Muriana said. “I have kept an open offer to her that if she wanted to pursue a Master of Science degree in food science, I would take her without hesitation.”

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Reporter: Brittany Gilbert, FAPC Communications Services Student

Oklahoma State University is a modern land-grant university that prepares students for success. OSU has more than 36,000 students across its five-campus system and more than 25,000 on its combined Stillwater and Tulsa campuses, with students from all 50 states and around 120 nations. Established in 1890, Oklahoma State has graduated more than 260,000 students who have been serving Oklahoma and the world for 125 years.