The Impact of Women in Food and Agricultural Research

Today's Seeds for Tomorrow's Harvest is an exhibit from the Iowa State University Archives of Women in Science and Engineering that focuses on women who performed scientific research nutrition-related fields. Profiled scientists include Helen E. Clark (born 1912), Amy Daniels (born 1875), Jacqueline DuPont (born 1934), Ercel S. Eppright (born 1901), Pilar Garcia (born 1926), Allene Jeanes (born 1906), Belle Lowe (born 1886), Bernice Kunerth Watt (born 1910) and Evelyn Weber (born 1928).

These women aren't "nutritionists" in the popular sense of "people who give advice on nutrition". Instead they are chemists, biochemists, physiologists, and food scientists who work to understand how nutrients are used by the body and to improve the nutritional quality of our food supply. Their research accomplishments include determining dietary requirements for and metabolism of various nutrients, development of food additives such as xanthan gum, breeding special plants such as "high-oil" corn, and more.

In related out these video clips of Ruth Rogan Benerito, "pioneer in alfalfa breeding and genetics", and Janice M. Miller, who discovered the virus causing bovine leukemia, from their induction into the Agricultural Research Service Hall of Fame.