Illinois Crop Sciences

🌱 Alumni Spotlight: Delaney Kamradt

Growing up on a small corn and soybean farm in central Illinois sparked Delaney Kamradt’s passion for agriculture but she came to Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois wanting to deepen her understanding of the science behind the farm she loved.

After graduating in December 2026, Delaney began her career with Corteva Agriscience as a Field Testing Specialist in Ivesdale, where she focuses on soybean research at the station.

During her time at Illinois, Delaney took advantage of every opportunity to grow her knowledge, network, and experience. Through internships with United Prairie, Corteva Agriscience, and BASF, she gained hands-on experience in w**d management, field research, drone spraying, and chemical studies. She also found valuable connections and mentorship through organizations like Field & Furrow, AFA, SASES, and agriculture study abroad experiences.

Delaney credits these experiences outside the classroom as some of the most impactful parts of her journey, helping her build relationships, discover career opportunities, and grow as both a researcher and an agricultural professional.

Her advice to current students? Get involved, build relationships, and seek experiences that connect you with people and perspectives beyond campus. In agriculture, relationships are at the heart of success and the connections you make today can shape your future tomorrow. 🌽💙

Research in Crop Sciences doesn’t look the same for every student. One student might be soil sampling, another could be digging up corn roots, studying popcorn, growing pineapple, or using robots to advance plant research. No matter the project, our students are asking big questions, gaining hands-on experience, and helping shape the future of agriculture. We’re proud to showcase the incredible work happening in our labs, greenhouses, and fields every day. Here’s to the students whose curiosity is growing the future! 💙🧡🌱🌽🧪🔬

A-maize-ing 🌽 things are happening in Crop Sciences! With that said, before you start your weekend, here’s a Friday afternoon pop quiz!

True or False: Every ear of corn has an even number of kernels. Drop your guesses below!

🌱Graduate Student Spotlight: Peyton Sorensen. Peyton is a PhD candidate in Dr. Tiffany Jamann’s lab. Her work is focusing on detecting and characterizing host resistance to bacterial pathogens of maize. She focuses on understanding corn resistance to two bacterial diseases: Goss’s wilt (Clavibacter nebraskensis) and bacterial leaf streak (Xanthomonas vasicola pv. vasculorum).

In the summer, Peyton inoculates large populations with both bacterial pathogens to help with mapping resistance genes in the maize genome. She also collects leaf tissue and extracts DNA, with the help of her undergraduate technicians, to aid in determining which gene is providing resistance. During the rest of the year, she is in the greenhouse and lab running smaller experiments.

Peyton’s research focuses on understanding what genes are providing bacterial resistance to increase our knowledge of the plant immune system and ultimately lead to resistant corn that can be grown by our farmers.

🌱 Sustainability Academy at Crop Sciences!

This week, we welcomed eight high school students from across Illinois for our Sustainability Academy! Students had the opportunity to connect with Crop Sciences faculty, explore current research, tour our greenhouses, and learn more about sustainability in agriculture.

Participants also discovered the unique Crop Sciences + Computer Science (CS+CPSC) major and the Sustainability, Energy, and Environment minor, gaining insight into the many ways technology and agriculture work together to address real-world challenges.

Thank you to our faculty, staff, and student ambassadors for making this a great experience, we hope to see these future Illini back on campus soon! 💙🧡

Graduate Student Spotlight: Meet Vidhi Desai 🌱

Vidhi Desai is working on innovative strategies to strengthen soybean resistance against soybean cyst nematode (SCN), a pest responsible for an estimated $1.5 billion in annual yield losses.

Her research focuses on two key approaches:

🔬 Enhancing plant defense responses
Studying plant growth regulators—Actigard, Ethephon, and Methyl Jasmonate—to better understand and activate soybean defense pathways.

🧬 Reducing SCN reproduction
Exploring microinjection techniques to deliver genes and plasmids into male nematodes with the goal of inducing sterility and limiting the spread of SCN.

Together, her work aims to support more resilient soybean production and long-term pest management solutions.

🌱 Graduate Student Research Spotlight: Meet Samuel Mintah, whose research is helping advance our understanding of soybean genetics and support the future of sustainable agriculture.

Samuel’s project is developing a soybean pangenome that captures the genetic diversity found in both cultivated and wild soybean lines, creating a more comprehensive resource than a single reference genome.

His work spans every stage of the research process from greenhouse plant care and seed germination to tissue sampling, harvesting, tissue grinding, and DNA/RNA extraction for sequencing. The resulting genomic data are analyzed to identify genetic variation and improve genome annotation, providing valuable insights for soybean researchers.

By expanding our understanding of soybean genetics, Samuel’s research contributes to the development of more productive, resilient, and sustainable soybean varieties for the future. 🌱🧬

🌱 Student Ambassador Spotlight Monday!🌱
Crop Sciences Student Ambassadors help connect prospective students, families, and future Illini with the opportunities available in our department.
👋 Meet Avni Sabharwal! “Hello, I am Avni, a Crop Sciences major with a concentration in Horticultural Food Systems. I chose Crop Sciences at UIUC because of its unique combination of both scientific and applied courses, as well as the opportunity to dive deeper into specialty and ornamental crop production.”
We’re grateful to have Avni representing the Department of Crop Sciences and sharing her student story.

POV: You come to Illinois to study education… and somehow end up working in Crop Sciences learning more about corn than you ever expected 🌽😂

Now you’re out here teaching local students using popcorn lesson plans you helped create 🍿📚

Check out this fun story about how one Education at Illinois student is helping share Crop Sciences research in K–12 classrooms!

Popcorn Pedagogy Reaching New Ears Popcorn Pedagogy Reaching New Ears by Paige Walk, Office of Communications / May 19, 2026 Interdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is drawing on Education undergraduates to address societal grand challenges and putting them in unexpected places. "As an educatio...