Career workshop on USDA Agricultural Research Service offered
The Modesto Junior College Counseling Department is offering a career workshop on the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Research Service on Wednesday, November 15, at 1 p.m. in Forum 110 on East Campus, 435 College Avenue, Modesto. The event is part of the USDA Enrichment Workshop series in partnership with the national Hispanic-Serving Institutions program, and it is open to the public and admission is free. Parking is available for $2 in campus lots.
The purpose of the USDA Enrichment Workshop Series is for students and interested community members to be exposed to careers with which they may not be familiar, learn from the USDA professionals about the roles and responsibilities of their jobs, and potentially spark an interest in a career opportunity. Each seminar features a professional from USDA as the guest presenter.
The featured speaker on Nov. 15 is Jim Throne, Ph.D., director of the USDA-Agricultural Research Service’s San Joaquin Valley Agricultural Sciences Center in Parlier, CA. Throne provides leadership for the Center whose mission is to conduct innovative research to increase productivity, quality, and marketability of crops by solving agricultural problems in an environmentally sustainable manner.
From 1997 to 2013, Throne was research leader of the USDA-ARS Stored-Product Insect Research Unit at the Center for Grain and Animal Health Research in Manhattan, Kansas, where he led a team of scientists working on both basic and applied aspects of stored-product entomology. He is internationally recognized for his research on ecology and management of stored-product insect pests, the application of simulation modeling to entomological research, and the development of statistical methods for life sciences research.
Throne joined ARS in 1985 as a research entomologist at the Stored-Product Insects Research and Development Laboratory in Savannah, Georgia and he was transferred to the CGAHR in 1994. Throne serves as president of the Permanent Committee of the International Working Conferences on Stored-Product Protection. He holds a Ph.D. in Entomology from Cornell University and was a postdoctoral research associate at North Carolina State University prior to joining ARS.
The next USDA career seminar offered at MJC is a business workshop on December 6, and three additional events are planned for the spring 2018 semester.
For more information on the career workshops contact Ariana Gonzalez, MJC counselor, at (209) 575-6607.