2018 Elaine Szymoniak Award Recipient and 2017 Borlaug-Ruan International Intern
There's a certain feeling I get during each World Food Prize event I attend, a sense of ignition. I go home inspired and excited by agricultural development and the people working towards it with me. I call it the Norm Effect. Dr. Norman Borlaug spent his life working towards change and inspiration in agricultural innovation. His legacy has lived on vividly through The World Food Prize, creating a culture of the Norm Effect. This feeling gives us hope that we can have an impact and truly foster change.
For me, as a junior in high school, this was life-changing. I remember my teacher handing me a flyer with the phrases "New York Youth Institute," "global food security," and the "Next Norm" on it. I didn't know what any of these words meant in relation to one another but I took the leap and attended the New York Youth Institute and then later the World Food Prize Symposium. Gradually I noticed that at each event, each panel, each keynote that I attended, there was a trend of collaboration and inspiration.
Isabella Culotta is a freshman at Cornell University and past student of Ithaca High School and the TST New Visions Life Sciences program. Her senior year, she was the co-president of the New Visions FFA chapter and worked as a research assistant within International Programs at Cornell. As a 2017 Borlaug-Ruan International intern, she evaluated the gender empowerment of solar-powered irrigation pumps in the eastern Terai region of Nepal with the International Centre of Integrated Mountain Development. She was accepted to Cornell University in 2017 but deferred admission for a year to travel further, working in Switzerland, France, and Madagascar.
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