NDSU Department of Plant Sciences graduate student Ana Magallanes López was awarded the Phi Kappa Phi Love of Learning Award for 2021. The award recognizes academic achievement, campus and community service and career goals.
Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest and most selective multidisciplinary collegiate honor society. The Love of Learning Award is presented annually to 200 active members and comes with a monetary award to help fund post-baccalaureate activities including graduate studies, continuing education, travel for teaching and research, and professional development. Magallanes López was inducted into the organization in 2018.
Magallanes López is a doctoral candidate in the cereal science program and is advised by Senay Simsek, former NDSU professor and wheat quality project leader. Her doctoral dissertation, “Functional ingredients extracted from dry beans: chemical, structural, and functional characterization,” aims to characterize soluble dietary fiber extracted from dry beans as a functional ingredient to study how its composition interacts with the immune system during a chronic condition, such as obesity.
Magallanes López has presented papers and posters in domestic and international meetings, which resulted in several awards and recognitions. In addition, she has nine peer-reviewed publications and is the first author on eight of them. She also is a member of Gamma Sigma Delta agriculture honor society.
Magallanes López was part of an exhibition booth titled “Cereals in North Dakota,” in which the difference between wheat market classes and their products was explained to the public. She also participated in a local elementary school science night, where interactive experiments were used to explain the flavor perception mechanism to students. In addition, she has served on the NDSU Graduate Student Council as co-chair of public relations and outreach, and was the Cereals and Grains Association’s product development competition chair and secretary-treasurer.
“I want to be a proactive link between industry and customers,” she said. “This link would represent the development and implementation of the industry's product quality assurance and safety programs to enhance the customers' trust. Ultimately, I am interested in conducting high impact research projects that will benefit the involved actors in the production chain of grains.”
As a student-focused, land-grant, research university, we serve our citizens.
