SDG 2. Zero Hunger - Faculty Activities and Centers

RUTGERS–CAMDEN

Daniel Hart
Professor, Department of Psychology

Daniel Hart serves as principal investigator of a three-year, $608,651 grant from the New Jersey Health Initiative project, “Preparing the Next Generation of Community Health Leaders.” Part of this project focuses on training teens in 11 New Jersey communities to spread the word about free breakfast and lunch meals offered by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Summer Food Service Program.

RUTGERS–NEW BRUNSWICK

Albert Ayeni
Leader and Coordinator, Entrepreneurship Agriculture Program
Coordinator, Controlled Environmental Agriculture and Africa Regional Programs
Associate Director, Global Institute for BioExploration-Africa (GIBEX-Africa)

Co-Director, International Science and Education
Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Plant Biology
School of Biological and Environmental Sciences

Albert Ayeni’s active research focus is sustainable crop production, international collaborations, and specialty crops.

Joachim Messing
Director, Waksman Institute of Microbiology

Joachim Messing is a biologist recognized for work in genomics and biotechnology. Messing made his innovations freely available, ensuring rapid advances in all life sciences. With contributions to plant genomics, he focuses on raising the nutritional quality of food. In 2003, Messing, scholars from the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, and a consortium of partners received NSF funding to complete sequencing of the genetic structure of rice chromosome 10 that could improve a crop that provides food for the world. The research was called a “major step in the direction of improved yield and productivity of the world’s most important food crop.”

Jim Simon
Professor,
Department of Plant Biology and Pathology
School of Environmental and Biological Sciences

Jim Simon’s area of expertise is in the development of new uses of traditional crops, new crop development, aromatic and medicinal plant domestication, and NonTimber Forest Species, with a specialization in natural products such as those containing extractable chemicals in interest for flavor, aroma, and medicinal activity. He has led programs in Tanzania teaching blind farmers how to raise and market food and has mentored Ph.D. student research in breeding and harvesting of amaranth, a leafy green plant indigenous to Tanzania.

Isaac Vellangany
Assistant Professor,
Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
School of Environmental and Biological Sciences

Isaac Vellangany’s research areas include food policy for developing countries, Integrated Child Development Schemes (ICDS), and nutritional outcome among children and pre and postnatal care microfinance and indebtedness. 

End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

Initiatives

Rutgers Against Hunger - A gloved hand pours soup from a ladle into a bowl

Rutgers Against Hunger (RAH) is a universitywide initiative working to address the issues of hunger across the state of New Jersey. By bringing together the resources of Rutgers, RAH works to increase awareness of hunger, encourage activism and service to tackle hunger, stimulate research to assist those in need, and provide immediate relief through food drives and other events to raise money and collect food.