Roger Kjelgren Selected as Leshner Fellow

UF Water Institute Affiliate Faculty member Roger Kjelgren has been selected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science as a Leshner Fellow. He is one of 15 Fellows selected for the 2018-2019 cohort focusing on Food & Water Security.

As part of the prestigious program, the experts selected for the Leshner Fellowship attend a week-long intensive training session, focusing on public engagement and science communication. They also create a public engagement plan to enact once they return from the meeting, focusing on connecting the public with their research and enacting institutional change to support public engagement in science.

“I’m passionate about communicating science to the public at all levels, so the Leshner Fellowship is an opportunity to leverage that passion with my expertise, water and plant production,” Kjelgren says. He is excited to receive this award and to bring everything he learns from his cohort’s training and collaboration back to his work at UF.

As director of the UF/IFAS Mid-Florida Research and Education Center, Kjelgren’s research focuses on water conservation in urban landscapes and irrigation, specifically on water use behaviors of plants. He hopes to use this as a way to leverage his water use and conservation research in order to serve the public, particularly those who are living in urban food deserts.

The 2018-2019 Leshner Fellow cohort will convene for their training and collaboration meeting in June of this year.

For more information on the Leshner Fellowship and other programs run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, please visit their website.