Elia Scudiero, Associate Research Agronomist at UCR and the lead investigator for the grant that fuels the Digital Agriculture Fellowship (DAF) on campus, wishes the organization existed when he went to school.

“I grew up on a farm in Italy myself and am a first-generation college student, just like the kind of students we try to recruit into the DAF,” he says. “Back in Italy, I wasn’t aware of research opportunities because my parents didn’t have the experience to be able to guide me. But once I started doing research, I understood right away that it was something I liked. And it opened doors.”

 Scudiero adds that the DAF aligns with a principal tenet at UCR of trying to attract first-generation students from underserved communities. “We don’t just teach them how to do an ‘elevator pitch’ or write curriculum vitae,” he explains. “We also expose them to different career paths. At URC and through the DAF, they meet successful people that look like them!”

DAF was formed at UCR in 2020 as part of a collaborative effort between UCR, the College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences (CNAS) and the School of Public Policy. The program is currently funded by a federal grant through 2025, but will likely become an ongoing program at UCR. DAF also  works in concert with researchers at the University of Arizona, Duke University, the University of Georgia, and Kansas State University.

“A big part of our effort is trying to bring students that are unengaged with agriculture - students interested in science, mathematics and economics - and bring them into the fold,” Scudiero says. “Students that otherwise would have pursued other careers…we are telling them, ‘Hey, there’s a bright future in agriculture-related technologies.’ There is a future for people who are interested in data science, computer science and engineering.”

DAF is designed for undergraduate students to gain hands-on experience in agriculture and research, and has a current complement of nine Fellows, with plans to add another nine in the near future. Students selected for each cohort will complete approximately 15 months of hands-on research and networking experience, with an additional opportunity for externship participation.

The students selected for DAF will also participate in the UCR Research in Science and Engineering (RISE) summer research program along with student-led research opportunities. Established in 2010, RISE is a 10-week program that supports UCR continuing students and incoming transfer students in developing their research skills. During the RISE program, students will be mentored by faculty and participate in workshops focusing on research integrity, scientific communication, graduate school preparation, networking, and career exploration. Students will also have the opportunity to showcase their research findings at the RISE symposium.
Once the UCR RISE summer research program concludes in August, Fellows begin their 9-month long student-led research. DAF students are included in other activities, like field trips and virtual research progress meetings with scientists from partner campuses. Once the student-led research experience is completed, there are additional opportunities for externship experiences with industry partners, to which Fellows are encouraged to apply.

According to Noel Graciano Salunga, Assistant Director for CNAS Student Success Programs, the biggest benefit of becoming a DAF Fellow is the one-on-one faculty connection. “As a DAF fellow, you’re going to be working closely alongside a faculty member on an interdisciplinary agriculture project,” he says. Salunga adds that Fellows are funded via the grant for 15 months. “That’s a big concern for students,” he says. “They not only gain valuable research experience in the lab but they get paid research experience.”

The grant is valued at $15,000-$20,000 per DAF Fellow, which breaks down to $5,000 for the summer with $500 earmarked for research supplies. Starting in September, Fellows receive approximately $850 a month with funding for expenses to attend a national scientific conference in November.

“There are so many benefits to the program,” says DAF Fellow Jordan Anthony Guillory, a 4th year Mathematics major who is also president of the Digital Agronomy and Agriculture Club. “DAF provides an opportunity to pursue research without having to worry about balancing research and work. Let’s face it…crops and agriculture will always be things that people need. And it’s almost a straight pipeline from research into internships which can lead to jobs after graduation.”

To prove his point, Jordan says that he has a summer internship lined up with AquaSpy, a San Diego-based company dedicated to the global services of crop farmers who need better information about the dynamics of crop growth. “I’m a transfer student, so I was quite worried about making a living while making the most of the different opportunities on campus,” he says. “The funding from DAF let me do that. When I was in community college, I worked full-time.”

For DAF Fellow Andrea Barajas, a 3rd-year Environmental Science major at UCR, the program has enabled her to get her hands on data analysis. “I would spend hours in the lab conducting experiments, but I never got to see what it takes to analyze the data,” she says. “I also wanted to learn all about Geographic Information Systems (GIS) before I graduated. It’s a technical skill – a system that maps all types of data. As an environmental scientist, I wanted to learn about both, and DAF was my entry point to making that happen.”

Hovanness Dingilian, a 4th-year Environmental Engineering Student at UCR, first heard about DAF two years ago via a recruitment email sent to UCR students. He says he was always interested in agriculture, an outgrowth of a gardening hobby growing up. He applied to DAF and was accepted as a Fellow, which led to a project using drone technology to ascertain exactly where weed patches lay in cultivated fields - in Hovanness’s case, a .2 hectare test field that grows cantaloupes five minutes from campus.

“We use drone technology to be able to tell us where exactly weed patches exist in a particular field, and can separate the weeks from the cantaloupes,” he says. “We had to take pictures of the field before weeds sprouted and then gather more images afterwards. We can tell by looking at an image from a certain elevation if it’s a spot with a lot of weeds, and that affects how much herbicide should be dropped.”

According to Hovanness, current practice is to send a scout to certain portions of a field. The scout might look at only three distinct areas, and more herbicide than necessary may be dropped if those areas have weeds. “The whole point is to conserve the amount of herbicide used, which helps the farmer financially while reducing environmental pollution,” Hovanness says.

For Hovanness, one of the biggest benefits of DAF is not necessarily the one-on-one mentorship with faculty, but how long the fellowship lasts. “It’s one whole year and then you can choose to continue finishing up a project,” he says. “If you have a short amount of time, you still need to learn the material –  you are probably not going to go into a lab as an instant expert. When I joined Dr. Alexander I Putnam’s Plant Pathology lab, I knew how to build a drone, but I didn’t know how to fly one and obtain images.

“I think what prospective DAF Fellows would really value, especially those with an eye toward going to graduate school or some pursuing some kind of research position, is that you go through all of the steps of a research project,” Hovannes explains.  “It’s not just touching up something that’s already been worked on by others. You have time to learn and actually understand what you’re doing and produce a product.”

“Often people don’t think agriculture is sexy because, historically, the field has been seen as an extension of a family business, devoid of technology or data analysis,” Scudiero says, summing up. “The DAF is all about bridging that gap and changing that perception.”

Interested in DAF? Students must be enrolled as undergraduates (sophomores or juniors) at UCR or a partnering institution, have a minimum GPA of 3.0 and be majoring in Data Science, Environmental Science, Agricultural Sciences, and/or Engineering (focus on environmental, agricultural, and sustainability). UCR Majors may include: Computer Science, Data Science, Earth Science, Entomology, Environmental Science, Electrical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geophysics, Mathematics, Plant Biology and Statistics. In addition, DAF candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents per USDA guidelines and committed to the 15-month fellowship. Learn more online at https://stem.ucr.edu/digital-agriculture-fellowship.